Mark Horne has written a couple of fine posts here and here regarding the new move by some conservative Presbyterians to become Romanists without acknowledging the Pope (you can see it with your own eyes here).
In case you haven’t been paying attention (or have been on vacation like me) we are now instructed by the non-Roman Romanists to read the Bible through the lens of the Westminster Confession of Faith. This, in spite of the direct, specific warning against doing such a thing in the Westminster Confession itself (see the chapters on the Holy Scriptures and that on Synods and Councils). This is what it means to be a “truly Reformed” Presbyterian nowadays. Forget about the supremacy of Scripture, read your Confession — that’s the only pope you need and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise (especially those stinking Papists who deny the full sufficiency of the Scriptures!).
THE AVENUE 
The man making the statement on the Green Baggins site frames the situation as an either or. You either use the Confessions or your own subjective lens. I don’t thing it is an either or situation. Yes we use the Confession as a guide, but we always need to be asking questions and studying Scripture (within the guidance of the Pastor and Elders and the Church).How else did the Westminster Divines come to their conclusions? Are we to stop doing what they started? Are they the final word? Wow.
So what is the appropriate lens for Protestantism to use as it seeks to interpret, understand, and apply Sacred Scripture to all of life, because Lane is right when he says that everyone, be they individual or sect, does read the Bible through an interpretive lens of some type. And this is obviously a rhetorical question, but where does the buck stop?
Blessings and peace.
KB
That is a good question for all denominations. In the PCA,(to my understanding),we have the Pastor and elders, then local General Assemblies and then the denominational General Assembly. In my opinion, our ultimate trust is the Holy Spirit working through Godly men.
Mark’s posts make the point that the Reformed believer reads, interprets, and understands Scripture through the lens of Scripture, i.e. Scripture interprets Scripture.
Toby appropriately brings up the Protestant hope that the Holy Spirit works through the leadership of the particular church or denomination to lead that church into understanding the truth of the Scriptures. However, Toby’s comment points to the fact that Scripture only interprets Scripture with the agency and involvement of Men, either individually or collectively.
Given the widely and wildly different “takes” on Scripture by these various ecclesial bodies, how does one know who is getting it right, or at least more right than the others.
Bryan Cross’s post on Ecclesial Deism is an excellent read relevant to this discussion.
http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/07/ecclesial-deism/
Blessings and peace.
KB
It is difficult if not impossible to recognize my own position in this post. For instance, no notice whatsoever seems to have been taken of my qualification regarding the difference between a “norming norm” and the “normed norm.” This is nothing less than the difference between the primary standards (the Bible), and the secondary standards (the confession and LC and SC). The second qualification not noticed by this post is the specific and explicit limitation of infallibility to Scripture alone, and the acknowledgment that the lenses can be faulty, in which case repair is necessary. That part of the post does not seem to have been read by the author of this post.
In short, this post is evidently biblicistic in saying that because Scripture has all authority, therefore the confessions cannot be used when an issue of faith and practice comes up. This drives a huge wedge between Scripture and the confession, which was meant to be a summary of Scripture’s teaching on the subjects on which it treats. The post also fails to account for words “good and necessary consequence” that the confession uses in its statements on Scripture.
All in all, a twisting of my position, and a convenient ignoring of the qualifications I have put on my statements precisely to answer ahead of time statements like these on this blog.
Fair enough, I confess that I’m reacting not so much to what you say here as to the way this view is being applied in the PCA and elsewhere. A “lens” is indeed unavoidable, my objection is not to that but to how men are understanding this and apply it. I’ve been told over and over that the Westminster Confession gives us the orthodox “interpretation” of the Scripture and to understand a text in a way that contradicts the confession is heresy. That ain’t using a lens, it’s making the confession a paper pope.
Pastor Wilkins, this post is disappointing. I think most of Pastor Lane’s post is undeniable. We cannot escape the subjective appropriation of Scripture, we always bring baggage into our reading. It’s very much worth our while to have that baggage be church baggage, at least as far as possible. We want to be in the flow of God’s children reading God’s word; we want to be in the midst of *that* conversation. I catechize my children for EXACTLY this reason. I want the standards in their mind to provide them with an theological rubric through which to see everything, including the Scripture. The reason I want that is because I believe the standards ARE biblical. It seems like this shouldn’t even have to be explained except to a brother new the confessional church!
One issue I think that Pastor Lane’s post has is the interesting, if misleading dichotomy between adopting either the church’s lens or our own. The misleading part is that we cannot but develop our own. There’s no way around it; that’s all we got. We can, however, labor to bring our lens into conformity with the church’s standards and ultimately to God’s word itself. That’s the goal.
Tim, your right. As I mention above, I was really reacting to how some men have understood Lane’s position in turning the WCF into an “infallible interpretation” of the Bible rather that a faithful summary of what the Bible teaches. The Confession is not an “inspired” commentary on Scripture. It is a confession of what we believe the Scriptures to teach.
I’m with ya. Yer a good man, Charlie “FV” Brown!
Thanks for the interaction, Steve. What puzzles me, however, is the assumption that because the PCA, for instance, has agreed that the confession is THE system of doctrine taught in Scripture, that therefore it is idolatry of the confession. I think people are rather quick to make this charge, when what it seems like is that they merely want to make room for a “big tent” loose subscription to the confession, which is NOT what good faith subscription is (which I agree with, by the way). Heresy cannot be defined by the bare words of the text of Scripture, even if truth IS directly dependent on Scripture alone. It is not symmetrical between truth and error. The reason for this is, as the Dutch theologian says, “Every heretic has his text.” Every heretic throughout history has been claiming to read the Scriptures, and even been claiming to be in accord with the church’s creeds and confessions. Hence the need not only for careful exegesis of Scripture, but also careful exposition of what the church has said. I certainly would not want to exclude Scripture from defining heresy. But defining and identifying heresy is not simply a matter of exegesis of Scripture.
Nobody calls the PCA’s acceptance of the WCF as THE system of doctrine taught in Scripture idolatry (at least I’ve never heard that). It’s fine to claim that the WCF summarizes the Bible’s teaching. BUT it is a different matter to interpret the Scripture “through the lens” of the Confession — THAT is setting a man-made system over the text and causes men to miss all that the Bible is saying. The Confession is always judged by the Bible and thus, always subject to correction and amendment to bring it into conformity to the Bible. The Bible’s teachings, however, can never be limited to the teachings of the Confession.
So, I don’t object to the statement that everyone reads the Scripture through a “lens” if by that you mean certain presuppositions we take to the text. I do object to reading the Scriptures *through the lens* of the WCF or any other confession.
[…] theology, a recurring theme from that quarter. Another declares the use of the Standards as a lens Romanism, Presbyterian Style. I had to chuckle reading those posts, wondering if these individuals slept through Seminary. These […]