The Bible and the Hermeneutical Horizon: The Use of Scripture in Theology

Abstract

SOME YEARS ago I began work on a theological treatment of divine providence. I first published an article, The Eternal Plan of Divine Providence. This was programmatic for fully rethinking the Christian faith concerning God's action in the world. Such a rethinking required, first of all, a study of all that Scripture has to say about God as Lord of nature and of history. Previous studies, in so far as they dealt with biblical material, considered only a very limited selection of texts designed to support a particular thesis that really originated elsewhere. They did not present a view that resonated to the faith of the believing community; for while they asserted firmly the power of God to achieve His purposes, they did not satisfactorily deal either with human freedom or with the presence of evil, especially moral evil or sin, in the world. Further, considerations of God's power finally overshadowed the reality of His universal love. In working on this study of what Scripture has to say about the divine action, it has become clear to me that a somewhat different way of dealing with the biblical data is called for than those commonly employed. This way does not reject or discount in principle other theological uses of Scripture; in fact, it gives them a new ground and support through a fresh look at the meaning of faith and revelation. In the present article I wish first to sketch briefly some of the other ways of using Scripture, then to describe the method I have come to employ, and finally to illustrate this by a summary presentation of the teaching of the Psalms on the divine action in the world.