Finding Objectivity (part 1)

Having established the fact of an Objective Truth and knowing that that Truth is found in God, and thus is communicated to us through God’s Word, we can rest assured that the Word of God is Truth. “The sum of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting” (Psalm 119:160). “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth” (John 17:17).

Now we look 1500 years into Church History, to the Protestant Reformation. Various generations dealt with various issues in Theology. For instance, the end of the fourth century concerned itself with the recognition of the canon of Scripture, the early fourth century established orthodox Trinitarian Theology, etc. In the same way, the years following the protestant reformation brought about developments in Hermeneutics, the science of interpretation.

In 1519 a German Augustinian monk by the name of Martin Luther set out to reform the Western/Roman Church. His hammering of 95 theses to the doors of the church in Wittenberg to declare a need for public debate and discussions of those things which Luther thought were discrepancies between the Faith of Scripture and the Church in Rome began a revolution in Christianity. A Reformation of Christianity. A return to the Christianity of Christ, of Paul, of the apostles, and of the Bible.

One cry of the Protestant reformation was to place the Scripture in every man’s hands, and a struggle in every man’s heart. At the time all Scripture was in Latin and only the priests, bishops, cardinal, and popes were trained in Latin, thus making the Word of God to men, only available to the theologically trained. This was a mockery of the intent of Scripture and so, Luther desperately wanted to translate from the originals a text in the common language of the people, in his case German.

His opponents, i.e. the Roman Church (who Calvin would call papists) warned Luther, “if everyone has the Scripture, people will go their own way inventing Sects, Cults, and Heresies.” And though Luther heeded this warning, his end response would be “Yes, but it is worth it!” (Praise God!)

Having abandoned the Church/Tradition as the governing authority for the translating of Scripture, which ensured unity in interpretation, Protestants needed to find another means of finding an OBJECTIVE INTERPRETATION, an objective hermeneutic.