Biblicism?! (Ouweneel’s response)

Originally posted on June 07, 2007 – by Andre Piet

In my weblogs of June 1, 2, and 4, I responded to an article by Ouweneel about what he considers to be the most difficult problems in the Bible. Yesterday, he reacted to this in his own weblog. He begins as follows:

Recently I wrote the article “Three Mysteries” (see this website, articles: Bode 2007). In it, I state that the relationship between the one God and the three persons in the Godhead, the relationship between the one person and the two natures of Christ, and the relationship between God’s sovereign grace and human responsibility are among the most difficult theological problems. Theologians have wrestled with them for centuries—and still do.
On a website, I found a commentary by someone (Mr. X) on this article.

“Mr. X” and “a website.”
Why not mention the link? Are readers not allowed to check Ouweneel’s commentary?

Now, I’m not at all concerned with defending my own article, but I was surprised that for X the three theological issues apparently didn’t EXIST at all. He merely quoted a few Bible passages, and behold: the three problems vanished like snow in the sun. The theologians who’ve been wrestling with these problems for centuries got a firm slap on the wrist. After all, they only needed to look at those Bible texts…

So far, I agree.
My point indeed was that Ouweneel’s “most difficult problems in the Bible” are in fact not Biblical problems at all, but theological ones. A claim like that, by its very nature, can only be substantiated—or refuted—by letting Scripture itself speak.

Now, I know this kind of arrogance in evangelical circles (to which I myself belong) all too well.

Excuse me?
Is it arrogant to test the claims of theologians against what is written in black and white?

It is commonly labeled as biblicism.

According to Van Dale (Dutch dictionary), biblicism is: “basing everything on the Bible, attaching value to its literal wording.”
According to that definition, biblicism is nothing less than one of the mottos of the Reformation: Sola Scriptura. A badge of honor, then! I’d like to point out what Ouweneel himself wrote about biblicism 32 years ago (in What is Sound Bible Study?, p. 37):

This slur is usually used by those safely tucked away in a rationally closed system of Bible interpretation, and who are suddenly confronted with orthodox Christians who poke holes in that safe system using biblical arguments. Especially when such arguments undermine the very foundations of their theological system, and they have no solid biblical response, the cry of ‘Biblicism!’ is quickly raised. This kind of labeling is usually a sign of weakness. We’d do better to stick to biblical arguments.

Ah yes—but that was back when Ouweneel himself was still a biblicist…Anyway, here’s another quote from his weblog yesterday:

Complicated questions, which arose centuries ago out of Scripture study itself and have been seriously examined by great men of God, are dismissed with a few Bible verses.

Ouweneel repeats what must precisely be proven. Those complicated questions are not the result of Scripture study, but of centuries of philosophizing and theologizing. I pointed out that in the doctrine of the Trinity, there is an abundance of terms that are demonstrably foreign to Scripture. Take a concordance and look up: Trinity, one essence, three persons, God the Son, etc. How often do we find these expressions? Indeed—not once!! Yet they are listed as number one in nearly all creeds, and one is labeled a heretic if one refuses to believe these “words of human wisdom”…

The biblicist, without fail, makes it clear that he hasn’t understood a thing about the problems, OR that he simply disagrees with (in this case) the doctrine of the Trinity or the doctrine of the two natures of Christ. By defending his own position simply by citing a few Bible verses, he declares the struggling theologians to be idiots or poor misguided souls. All the while those theologians have long been familiar with the cited Bible verses and engage with them professionally!

Yes, and?
Does being familiar with Bible verses and engaging with them professionally mean that one also understands those Bible verses? All the theologians in Jerusalem, in the days of Jesus’ birth, could flawlessly cite from Scripture where the Messiah would be born… but they didn’t go to Bethlehem to see for themselves (Matt. 2:4,5).

And what did Jesus say to all those scribes who “professionally” engaged with Scripture?
“…you invalidate the word of God BECAUSE OF YOUR TRADITION” (Matt. 15:6). That’s the heart of the matter! Tradition had blinded all those highly educated men! Would it be any different today?

But that doesn’t matter to the biblicist. He is totally unaware of the lens through which he reads those Bible texts, or of the mechanisms by which he selects his Bible texts. On the contrary, he considers himself the only one who looks and selects ‘objectively.’

Is Ouweneel trying to say here that we’re no longer allowed to simply say, “it is written”?
Once, Ouweneel wrote (in What is Atonement?, p. 9):

Let us flee the confusion and simply turn to Scripture. Not that we want to downplay the problems—on the contrary: we want to face the questions at hand fully, but on a biblical level, not on the level of theological study rooms. A part of the problems is precisely created by a rationalistic theologizing tendency, both among conservatives and modernists. Calvinism preached a Sola Scriptura (“Scripture alone”); if only this had never been replaced in practice by a Sola Confessio Reformata (“only the Reformed confession”). We must not return to “Dort,” but to Paul, John, and Peter.

Sharply and precisely, the Ouweneel-of-1975 exposes the very problem of Ouweneel-in-2007! I continue quoting from the weblog:

This biblicistic attitude consistently leads to serious heresies. The website in question is full of them. That’s what happens when you downplay the entire history of theology and assume that the light has broken through with you…

Just to be clear: Ouweneel is referring here to “serious heresies” according to mainstream, orthodox-Christian-theology-practise.
Well, such conclusions are inevitable when one downplays what is written and assumes that the light only broke through with the development of theology…

I wish evangelicals would take a less stubborn view of theological history and try to learn something from the theological generations before them, instead of sweeping it off the table by quoting a few Bible verses. The Bible should be the alpha and omega of all theology—but not like this.

What we can learn from the theological forefathers is that one goes off track (often under the banner of “mysteries”…) the moment one goes “beyond what is written.”
That is what’s truly stubborn.

Delen: