On a certain major online retailer’s website, there’s a ‘review’ of a book on Jesus. In fact, it’s not a review of the book at all. Just an extended comment from someone trying to defend their belief system. But it piqued my interest because I’m sure there’s something wrong with it. My initial assumption is that it’s an instance of special pleading, i.e. that faith has some special evidential status, or that Jesus as an object of study has some special status, but I also wonder whether there’s a category error, suggesting that faith is a tool for study when it’s closer to an attitude. Either way, I’m trying to work out what’s wrong with it. Any thoughts?
I would like to make an observation in connection with the previous review.
The question, as to whether this book will ‘appeal’ more to ‘believers’ or ‘unbelievers’, ought not to be decided by their orientation but by the validity of the research and scholarship embodied in this significant book.
However, the truth is that perception and exposition of scripture is not and never can be a ‘neutral’ science - as with any science, it requires a method appropriate to the discipline: for the study of scripture, and in particular for an understanding of the meaning of Jesus Christ, faith is the essential ‘tool’ of this ‘science’.
As Hans Urs von Balthasar has observed:
Modernscientific' hermeneutics is in fact no science at all compared with traditional patristic methods -- for a science must have a method adequate to its object. A spiritually holistic response to Scripture considers that theexact’ science of exegesis must be subjected to the consideration that, `the human, earthly aspect of the object cannot, even in the smallest matter, be isolated and treated on its own and then later be incorporated into the theological vein.’A microscope is required to observe objects too small for the human eye; a telescope for those too distant - so too faith is required to perceive just who Christ truly is: faith is, therefore, the vital tool for a truly scientific method of interpretation.