Journal: Global Journal of Classical Theology
Volume: GJCT 06:1 (May 2007)
Article: "Law & Culture:" Justice Antonin Scalia Vs. The Postmodern Biblical Critic And Why It Is Not “Just A Matter Of Your Interpretation”
Author: Craig A. Parton

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Law & Culture:
Justice Antonin Scalia Vs. The Postmodern Biblical Critic
And
Why It Is Not “Just A Matter Of Your Interpretation”

Craig A. Parton

Contrary to the prophetic–and marketing--impulses of many Christians, the critical issue that surfaced at the end of the 20th century was not eschatology and the precise weekend of Christ’s return. Nor did the defining issue end up being in the area of ethics, or church government, or ecumenicalism. In fact, the issue did not even end up being, in the final analysis, the crisis in Biblical inerrancy (though that surely was central for much of the century and a battle worth fighting and winning definitively). No, the issue that defined the end of last century and defines our current day is one that few Christians could have ever seen coming. It was, simply, the question of hermeneutics or interpretation. As powerful efforts were made by historical, legal and literary apologists (e.g. the likes of Lewis, Chesterton, and Montgomery) to establish the facticity of Christian revelation and its utter and complete trustworthiness, the enemy was forced to shift the field of battle. Instead of launching frontal assaults on the sufficiency of the evidence for the case for Christianity (a difficult chore indeed in light of the evidence for the resurrection alone and its fundamental legal and evidential adequacy), the questions surrounding interpretation sought to make the inquiry futile–or worse, just another viewpoint in the marketplace of relativistic worldviews. Within the wider Christian Church the result is a wavering in confidence that the concepts of “missions” or “evangelism” even make sense any more since they surely presuppose a cross-cultural objectivity not possible to achieve from the Biblical text.

We are very much convinced that there is help in this raging debate and it is help to be obtained from a very unlikely ally: The law and legal reasoning. More specifically, help can be found at the United States Supreme Court and its approach to the interpretation of the United States Constitution. Of great benefit in this regard is the hermeneutical approach of Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia has surfaced as the clearest expositor of a position toward the interpretation of the text of the Constitution that has direct and powerful implications for the hermeneutical quicksand we find ourselves stuck in today even within the domain of our own one, holy, apostolic, and catholic faith. Scalia has taken an approach to the interpretation of the Constitution that is directly in line with the traditional “historical grammatical” school of creedal Christianity, a method engaged in by serious Biblical interpreters for centuries prior to the Age of the Enlightenment.

There are valuable lessons to be learned from how Justice Scalia ...

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