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Stump and Swinburne on Revelation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

John Lamont
John Lamont
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47 Harvard Ave. Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada R3M 0J6
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Extract

In his important book Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy, Richard Swinburne has proposed a comprehensive account of the nature of Christian revelation. This account has been criticized by Eleonore Stump. Stump has raised objections to Swinburne's views on biblical interpretation, and to his deistic view of revelation. I will argue that her objections to his views on biblical interpretation are ill-founded. Her criticism of a deistic conception of revelation is justified, but the alternative that she offers to such a conception is unsatisfactory. I will suggest a different alternative, and argue that Swinburne's general account would be improved if he incorported it.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , September 1996, pp. 395 - 411
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 Swinburne, Richard, Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 101.Google Scholar

2 Revelation, p. 103.

3 Revelation, p. 103.

4 Revelation, pp. 112–13.

5 Eleonore Stump, review of Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy, in The Philosophical Review, Oct. 1994, p. 739.

6 Revelation, p. 103.

7 Stump, review of Revelation, p. 739.

8 Stump, Eleonore, ‘Revelation and Biblical Exegesis’, in Reason and the Christian Religion: Essays in Honour of Richard Swinburne, Padgett, Alan G. ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), p. 165.Google Scholar

9 See Revelation, p. 184.

10 Stump, review of Revelation, p. 742.

11 Stump, review of Revelation, p. 742.

12 It is worth noting that Swinburne rightly does not conceive of the role of the Church in interpreting the Bible as consisting in the making of pronouncements about the meaning of particular texts. No Christian body that could be identified as being the Church has ever made more than three or four such pronouncements. It is the Church's tradition and doctrine, not statements about the meaning of particular texts, that provide us with the tools we need to interpret the Scriptures.

13 Stump, ‘Revelation and Biblical Exegesis’, p. 167.

14 Stump, ‘Revelation and Biblical Exegesis’, p. 166.

15 Stump, ‘Revelation and Biblical Exegesis’, pp. 166, 167.

16 Stump, ‘Revelation and Biblical Exegesis’, p. 178.

17 Stump, ‘Revelation and Biblical Exegesis’, p. 182.

18 Stump, ‘Revelation and Biblical Exegesis’, p. 183.

19 If we accept Swinburne's conception of the nature of the Church, these persons would presumably be the bishops of the Church. Whether we would say that God speaks in them when they teach as individuals, or only when they teach as a collective body, is a theological question that need not be decided here.

20 I do not include Christ in the category of ‘human instrument or intermediary’, since the deistic position will allow that people who had propositions communicated to them by the man Christ had propositions communicated to them by God himself.

21 Luke 10: 16: ⋯κο⋯ωυ ὐμ⋯υ ⋯μο⋯ ⋯κοὐει.

22 Augustine, St, The Harmony of the GospelsGoogle Scholar, book 1, ch. 54, trans. Salmond, S. D. F., in Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. VI (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 1956), p. 101.Google Scholar

23 One might try to accommodate this need for certainty with a deistic picture of revelation by postulating that the Church is an infallible guide to the content of revelation, as Swinburne suggests. Stump points out the difficulties in such a position, which would be a rather unstable compromise between a deistic and a direct conception of revelation. If the Church is an infallible guide to the content of revelation, it is because God makes her an infallible guide. What is the difference between God's causing the church to be infallibly correct in her description, and God's speaking directly in the teachings of the Church? And, given the advantages of holding that God speaks directly in the teachings of the Church, what is the point of supposing that there is such a difference?

24 Revelation, p. 102.

25 The Harmony of the Gospels, p. 79.

26 See his Summa theologiae, 2a2ae, qqs. 171, 172, 173.

27 See Justin Martyr, Hortatory Address to the Greeks, ch. 8; Athenagoras, A Plea for the Christians, chs. 7, 9; Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus, bk. 2; Hippolytus, On Christ and Antichrist, ch. 2 (quoted in The Teachings of the Church Fathers, Willis, John R. S.J. ed. (New York: Herder and Herder, 1966), pp. 108–10).Google Scholar

28 Burtchaell, Fr. James, Catholic Theories of Biblical Inspiration Since 1810; A Review and Critique (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 1.Google Scholar