Thinking It Out & Thinking It Through

CENI (C=command, E=example, and NI=necessary inference) is an acronym that identifies the three ways the Bible teaches us its truths. The necessity of a necessary inference in this process can be derived from Jesus’ interaction with the Sadducees in Matthew 22:23-33. When the information found in this section is combined with Acts 23:8, which says the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, angels, or spirits, we better appreciate the nature of this interaction; namely, the Sadducees were not really seeking information but attempting to make Jesus look ridiculous. Nonetheless, Jesus takes the time to inform them that they had made a serious error “not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God (v. 29).

What Scriptures?

They had missed the necessary conclusion to be derived from the tense of the verb used in Exodus 3:6. Hundreds of years after the deaths of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God said, “I am” their God. Therefore, if these patriarchs were not in some sense still in existence when God said this to Moses, then it would not have been correct for Him to have used the present tense. Instead, it would have been necessary for Him to have said, “I was [past tense] the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

The necessary conclusion to be drawn from this, and the Lord makes it clear the Sadducees were in error for not doing so, was that the spirits of these patriarchs had survived the grave. Therefore, Jesus made it clear they had failed to conclude something that Exodus 3:6 had necessarily inferred.

Not only this, but Jesus made it clear to these Sadducees that they were expected (i.e., under obligation) to have rightly concluded there was life (albeit disembodied life) beyond the grave. Thus, “I am the God of…” teaches, and this by necessary inference, that there is disembodied existence beyond the grave, one of the very doctrines the Sadducees wrongly, and without any scriptural reason, rejected.

But hold on to your hermeneutical hats here, brethren, for in reference to the actual resurrection of the dead, you “ain’t seen nothing yet”!

So far, we’ve only dealt with the necessary conclusion that there is disembodied existence beyond the grave and not the resurrection itself. In other words, the necessary conclusion that there is disembodied existence beyond the grave says nothing explicitly about the resurrection of dead bodies from their graves.

Therefore, proof of the resurrection based on Exodus 3:6 requires another necessary conclusion, and this based on the necessary conclusion already reached, and all this dependent on the tense of the verb God used in this passage. I can hear some thinking this is entirely too complicated. Well, Jesus didn’t think so, and neither did those who heard Him (cf. Matthew 22:33-34). It is to this necessary conclusion of a necessary conclusion based on the tense of a verb that we now turn our attention.

A Necessary Conclusion Based On A Necessary Conclusion That Is Dependent On The Tense Of A Verb

The fact of creation teaches us that we are, as creatures, contingent beings. This means we are totally dependent on God for our very existence. As created human being, we have been made in the image of God and this means we are spirit (cf. Genesis 1:26-27). At the same time, we are body (cf. Gen 2:7). Thus, the complete or whole man (i.e., man in toto) is body and spirit. Thus, when we think scripturally about man, we should neither think of him primarily as a body that has a spirit nor a spirit that has a body. Instead, we should think of him as a whole consisting of both body and spirit. This means man, who is a unique combination of body and spirit, can no longer be fully man when his spirit is separated from his body. But when sin entered the picture, God subjected man to “death.” No matter what else this death is referring to (viz., spiritual death and eternal death), the death of the body (physical death) cannot be legitimately excluded as being part of the total package.

All of this is further explained in the New Testament. However, the Sadducees were not privy to this. Neither had they been confronted with the “proofs” of Jesus’ resurrection. But they did have available to them in Genesis all that has been mentioned here and this before ever encountering Exodus 3:6. They were aware, from Scripture and experience, that man dies physically and wrongly concluded that the spirit “died,” or ceased to exist along with the body.

Clearly, then, the Sadducees had not understood the first necessary inferences to be concluded from Exodus 3:6, and therefore had not come to understand the second necessary inference, which is the one that directly impinged the resurrection; namely: (1) although the patriarchs had died (i.e., their spirits had separated from their bodies which laid dead in the grave), they continued to live on as disembodied spirits and (2) because man was not intended to be anything other than a whole person (body and spirit), the necessary inference of a necessary inference was that I AM THAT I AM, who is an unlimited-in-His-power God as well as a personal God who very much wanted a relationship with His crowning creature, man, who was uniquely body and spirit, was going to reunite the disembodied spirits of these patriarchs with their resurrected bodies.

“Man,” as God made him, is an “embodied” being. If “man” is to survive as “man” he must be embodied. So plain is this to Jesus and his opponents that all he has to do is show that Abraham has survived death and lives unto God in order to establish the resurrection of the dead” (The Book of First Corinthians, p. 265).

What does all this mean? Simply this: The Bible does not just teach us truth by direct statements and approved examples but it also teaches us through necessary conclusions, even necessary conclusions drawn from necessary conclusions. So, even though the necessity of the NI in CENI continues to catch flack from some brethren, Jesus made it clear it was a legitimate means of understanding Scripture. Undeniably, necessary inferences are part and parcel of the whole counsel of God. Let us, then, “gird up the loins of [our] mind, be sober, and rest [our] hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to [us] at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:13).

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself (Philippians 3:20-21).

All of us—every last one of us—employ some system of interpretation (viz., a hermeneutic) when trying to understand the Bible. For clarity’s sake, let me set forth some pertinent aspects of my hermeneutic—a hermeneutic that’s no different than the one I use to interpret any historical document.

I believe it is possible to discover the true meaning of a given text by following the rules of grammar and syntax combined with the literary context and style of the passage and the historical, cultural context of the author. This is called, for obvious reasons, the grammatical-historical method.

I believe there can be only one correct interpretation of a text which faithfully expounds what the author was saying and that all other interpretations are, therefore, wrong.

I believe one discerns the facts of the Bible the same way an archeologist, for example, seeks to reconstruct a fossil, which is by piecing together the fossilized bones he has discovered. Thus, I believe any reasonable student of the Bible attempts to see (i.e., to connect and relate) any particular passage being examined in light of the rest of what the Bible teaches.

I do not believe the rules of hermeneutics supply the facts to be ascertained. If they did, and this specifically relates to charges that have been bantered about on Facebook concerning the use of CENI, then they are illegitimate. Nevertheless, legitimate rules of interpretation do provide an invaluable service if they lead the interpreter to seek and find the necessary facts and then guide him to the proper use of these facts.

So, is there something to be criticized here? Is there something that needs to be re-thought? Is there something that needs to be jettisoned? If so, enlighten me.

The Greeks (Aristotle, Plato et al.) and later the Scholastics (who were primarily Roman Catholic theologians) were thoroughly enamored with deductive reasoning. And why not? It had (and still has) a way of making the teacher, philosopher, or theologian the authority. In other words, resorting primarily to deduction puts the one doing the resorting, not necessarily the facts, in charge. And this is true whether one realizes it or not.

By saying this, I’m not trying to disparage deduction. Instead, I’m trying to explain why resorting to deductive reasoning first has such a susceptibility for getting one headed in the wrong direction right from the start. This is, no doubt, why those who speak and write disparagingly of medieval religion are fond of making jokes about deductive methodology degenerating into very heated discussions among the Scholastics about just how many angels (i.e., how many at one time) could dance on the point of a needle. For all I know, such may be an over-exaggeration. In fact, some say there is no history of this particular issue ever being debated among the Scholastics. But on the other hand, if you’ve ever tried to read Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica, then you would be more inclined to think debates like this really did happen.

Realizing the lack of practical results and, all too frequently, downright silliness that was the product of deductive reasoning, folks like Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), John Locke (1632-1704), Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727), Barton W. Stone (1772-1844), Alexander Campbell (1788-1866) and, yes, even Roy E. Cogdill (1907-1985) had the presence of mind, thankfully, to declare their preference for inductive, rather than deductive, reasoning. The rest, as they say, is history as it was undoubtedly the preference for the inductive method that was responsible for a theological and scientific awakening that has continued to be felt right up to the present moment. We can be sure that without such a “restoration” of the inductive method to its rightful place in human reasoning we would still be confined to the religious, philosophical, scientific, and intellectual quagmire still remembered by some of us as the Dark Ages.

But please don’t misunderstand me, for nothing I’ve said here suggests that deductive reasoning deserves to be thrown into the dustbin of history. Deduction (the method of reasoning from the general to the particular) is an indispensable part of any interpretive framework—but not the preeminent part. Such is reserved for induction (the method of reasoning from the particular to the general). Most often, this inductive-deductive process is called the “Scientific Method.” You can, of course, call it whatever you like, but the sketch below is what it looks like:

Alexander Campbell, who was well-versed in the works of Bacon and Locke et al., recognized the advantage of applying the kind of thinking described above to a study of the Bible. He became convinced that, if properly applied, such an interpretive framework would free one from the denominational mishmash (“colored glasses,” as he called it) that had resulted from centuries of “speculative” thinking as Campbell called it. This, he believed, would allow one to return to the religion of the first century—a religion which was uniquely the manifestation of the apostles’ doctrine contained in the Scriptures. Of this process, he said:

The doctrine of the Bible, on any given subject of inquiry, can be clearly and satisfactorily ascertained only by a full induction of all that is found in it upon that subject. When the induction is perfect and complete and fully comprehended on any one point, we can never have any more divine light upon the subject. This is our method of learning and of teaching what the Holy Spirit has taught on any given subject (Christian Baptism, with its Antecedents and Consequences, reprinted 1951, pp. 184-185).

Although there are those who speak disparagingly of Campbell as a “Baconite” (these are primarily those who are intent on dispensing with his methodology in favor of a “new” hermeneutic”), it was never really his desire to be anything, religiously, but a Christian and a Christian only. Even so, he freely admitted to employing an “eclectic” (that’s his term) methodology gleaned from Bacon, Locke, Newton et al. In the Owen-Campbell debate, he cited five of Bacon’s maxims, stating he would use “the principles of the inductive philosophy [as] my rule and guide in this investigation.” He shamelessly endorsed what he touted as “the improved principles of inductive philosophy.” In his lectures at Bethany College in 1860, he mentioned that the old style of deductive, Aristotelian reasoning (this is the kind the Scholastics used) had happily been replaced by the Baconian system. He went on to say, “Consequently, we now have to reason from facts, so that the logic of the present age is far superior to that of the Greeks and Romans….” He further emphasized that he was interested in the “facts,” which he described, as did Bacon, as either “something said” (commands and/or direct statements) or “something done” (examples). Clearly, then, Campbell thought that Bible beliefs were discerned by the “scientific,” ”Baconian,” “inductive-deductive” method. I do too, and I’m not hesitant to say so. After all, this was the means employed by Jesus, the apostles, the prophets, and those who wrote the New Testament.

But what does all this mean and how does it translate into what we do as Bible students? Simply this: In order to discern the New Testament doctrine of baptism, for example, one would inductively gather—some would disapprovingly say, “sleuth”—all the references to baptism and then generalize a conclusion from these passages, and isn’t this what we all try to do? If not, then those who push for a “better way” ought to make it clear just what they think is the right way to go about all of this. Frankly, I’m not much impressed by those who insist on critiquing what they think is an antiquated hermeneutic by asserting that the Bible isn’t a constitution, blueprint, law book, et cetera. For me, it’s all these things and this without ceasing to be everything else it is!

So, when one joins with Campbell and Cogdill in declaring he is, when it comes to science and philosophy, a Baconian and not an Aristotelian, as I and others do, it would behoove the critic, instead of pointing and saying, “Aha, a Baconite,” to actually spend some time trying to understand the distinct advantages of this interpretive framework. And, this is not just true for those trying to be good scientists, but for those of us trying our best to be good students of the Bible as well.

Now, I said all that to say this: all of us—every last one of us—employ some system of interpretation (hermeneutic) when trying to understand the Bible. It is most unfortunate that some feel only the obsession to deconstruct what they disparaging refer to as a “patternist” hermeneutic all the while telling us very little, if anything, about their “better way.” These make it clear that they believe those of us who teach there are binding examples to be found in the Bible are imposing an extra-biblical hermeneutic upon the Scriptures which, in turn, results in us binding where God hasn’t bound. This, then, is the question: “Does the inductive-deductive method many of us have used over the years cause us to bind where God hasn’t bound?” If so, it must be dispensed with and the sooner the better. However, and this contrary to the contentions of most of the new-hermeneutic advocates, binding examples do exist in the Scriptures along with necessary inferences, implications, or conclusions. As such, they are authoritative, and such authority derives not from man, as is being contended, but from God’s special revelation to man itself—viz., the Bible.