Imagine you are a judge on a high court, hearing a case debating the meaning of a law. One plaintiff presents his case, citing the language of that law, as well as the language of various other laws. He reads the laws reverently, periodically inflecting his voice to emphasize certain passages, or pausing to note that the passage clearly proves that he is right. Then he sits down.
The other plaintiff rises and proceeds also to cite the law. Some of the passages he reads are the exact same ones read by the first party, and sometimes they are other passages from other laws. He also reads reverently, and sometimes with inflection. Like the first lawyer, he periodically pauses to note that the passages clearly prove he is right. Then he also sits down.
You sit there scratching your head, then take a deep breath. You address both lawyers, noting that neither side actually offered an argument. They both simply quoted from the law and asserted that it clearly proves that his side is the right one. But of course, they can’t both be right. After all, they hold different interpretations of the law. Both agree that the law is legitimate, but they disagree over its meaning. But how are you, the judge, supposed to go about determining which side has the stronger position if they don’t present an argument?
Although I’ve never actually heard of such a mind-numbingly asinine thing happening in a courtroom, it happens quite regularly in Protestant apologetics. Methodist apologist Joshua Pearsall in a recent YouTube critique of my book The Obscurity of Scripture spends most of the video quoting Scripture, at one point adding, “It is through the Scriptures; it is not through the Magisterium that we ‘need’ to interpret history and interpret the Scriptures.” Later, after more reading from the Bible, he asserts, “We only know the Lord through his divine revelation, which is only the Scriptures. It is not a supposedly infallible magisterium.” (For the record, pace Pearsall, the Catholic Church does not teach that the Magisterium is divine revelation—only Scripture and Tradition have that title. The magisterium is an infallible interpreter of divine revelation.)
Pearsall is not alone in this manner of rhetorical presentation. Presbyterian pastor Anthony Rogers in his own YouTube rebuke of my book accuses me of “attacking the Word of God” and “engaging in colossal criminality” for my critique of the Protestant doctrine of perspicuity, which, generally speaking, holds that Scripture is clear with regard to what is necessary for salvation. In support of his charges against me, Rogers cites Genesis 1 and notes: “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and no voice came back out of the void or out of the darkness saying, ‘Could you speak more clearly?’” (Again, pace Rogers, my argument is not that God is incapable of creating via his Word as he does in Genesis 1, but that his Word as manifested in Holy Scripture is not so clear that the self-identifying Christian is capable of certitude regarding what is necessary for salvation or the essentials of the Faith without recourse to an interpretive authority.)
Lest you think this is only the province of YouTube apologists, The Gospel Coalition’s website defends the Protestant doctrine of perspicuity by asserting that “the double grounding of the doctrine of the clarity of Scripture [is] in what the Bible says about God and what the Bible says about itself.” The article then cites a host of biblical verses in support of that thesis. The Westminster Confession of Faith, one of the most influential confessional documents in the Reformed tradition, also bases its defense of perspicuity exclusively on Bible verses: Psalms 129:105 and 130.
In a sense, this thinking is not so surprising. Many Protestants describe the Bible as “self-authenticating,” an idea traceable to the early Reformers. John Calvin argues in his Institutes of the Christian Religion that the ground for Scripture’s authenticity is not outside Scripture, but in Scripture itself (1.7.4-5). It is the Holy Spirit, Calvin believed, that would inwardly teach the Christian the authority and meaning of the Bible. This thinking is also a function of the doctrine of perspicuity: If Scripture is clear, what is interpretation but simply acknowledging what is obvious on the page? Do you “interpret” two plus two?
Yet, as I hope I have demonstrated via my courtroom analogy, interpretation is necessary. Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox, and all manner of other people who describe themselves as Christian believe in the authority of Scripture, even if they may disagree as to what exactly constitutes Scripture, what translation to use, and what exactly is meant by its “authority” (i.e., if the Bible is inspired, infallible, inerrant, none of the above, or all three).
But what happens when individuals or theological traditions disagree about the meaning of Bible passages? One could presume that every other interpretation but yours is de facto wrong, though there is then the question of what evidence, besides the sheer force of your will, supports this presumption. There would also be the nagging problem of other people deciding that your position is de facto wrong! (Amazingly, many never get beyond this. They simply presume they have the Holy Spirit and others don’t.)
This is one of the inherent problems with the perspicuity thesis: when it relies on Bible passages as its evidence, it necessarily presumes the very thing it is seeking to prove—namely, Scripture’s clarity (i.e., “Scripture clearly proves it’s clear”). That is the logical fallacy of begging the question. This is because Christian traditions (such as Catholicism) interpret those alleged perspicuity-supporting proof-texts differently (see my book if you want some examples). Pearsall can quote Psalm 19 or Psalm 119 in defense of perspicuity, but Catholics also believe those psalms to be divine revelation. If he wants to make an argument against the Catholic side, rather than just an assertion, he needs to address how Catholics interpret those verses. Rogers can say Genesis 1:3 proves perspicuity, but if he wants to convince anyone besides those already inclined to agree with him, he has to address the Catholic view of Genesis.
Once we start doing the more laborious work of evaluating competing interpretations of Scripture, we encounter a new dilemma: What criteria do we use to weigh various pieces of evidence, such as vernacular language, textual analysis, historical and archaeological data, Patristic sources, regarding which biblical interpretation is the stronger one? And in trying to answer that, we are effectively admitting that extra-biblical means are required to determine what Scripture says . . . which, unfortunately for Protestants, undermines the doctrine of perspicuity. And if they do try to use extra-biblical sources, such as the Church Fathers, they then have to make some account of what authority Patristic sources possess in their own Protestant paradigm, and why they accept some Patristic teachings (say, on the Trinity) and not others (say, on praying for the dead). Hence why many Protestants are hesitant to defend perspicuity by means other than simply citing Scripture.
There are differences between assertions and arguments, as debates over Scripture’s clarity demonstrate. Knowing the difference, and being able to identify it, is incredibly helpful in studying interreligious debates and in being able to contribute charitably to that conversation. And if we can do nothing more than assert our position, we’re not really having a debate at all. We’re just grandstanding.