Biblicism can’t get you where you want to go

Update (29 Feb 2024): I’m not going to revise what I’ve written below, but Matt rightly brought to my attention an ambiguity in the post; namely, that while I don’t accuse Matt of himself being biblicist, I strongly imply it. For the record, he’s not a biblicist! The running argument between us—a friendly one, I should add—is more about what one can reasonably expect to persuade evangelical Protestants of, given their prior commitments about Scripture, tradition, reason, and ecclesial authority. Nor, I might add, am I necessarily endorsing either the bundle of sexual ethics I lay out or the Roman procedure for affirming them. I’m intending, instead, to note a fundamental difficulty in evangelical and biblicist treatment of issues, particularly neuralgic issues related to sexual ethics, that are not addressed directly and explicitly in the Bible. I hope that still comes through. Apologies for the confusion.

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I have a running argument with my friend Matt Anderson. My side in the argument is simple: You can’t get to Matt’s moral-theological positions via biblicism. You need more. In particular, you need three additional components.

But let me back up. Consider Catholic doctrine on sexual and procreative ethics. What Rome teaches is quite clear:

• No abortion.

• No cloning.

• No IVF.

• No artificial contraception of any kind.

• No self-abuse.

• No sexual activity whatsoever besides intercourse between one man and one woman who are married to each other, an action that (by definition, given the above) is intrinsically and necessarily open to new life.

Unless I’m mistaken, Matt affirms each of these six components of Catholic teaching, albeit on different grounds (partially shared with Rome, partially not). Further, he believes this teaching as a whole is simply and clearly biblical. It’s biblical teaching, not “Roman” or “magisterial” teaching.

I’m not going to argue with Matt about whether that’s true. What I’d like to share instead is an anecdote. Here it is:

I have never once, in my entire life, met a single person who believes (much less practices) the foregoing six propositions except (a) Roman Catholic Christians, (b) Christians with a theological graduate degree, and/or (c) Christian writers who cover sexual ethics and public policy.

In the case of (b) and (c), it’s worth adding that such persons, who are occasionally Protestant or Orthodox, have always and without exception been exposed in a direct and sustained manner to historic Roman magisterial teaching on sexual ethics.

What this tells me is that arriving at Catholic doctrine on these matters via “the Bible alone” may not be literally impossible (I suppose someone, somewhere, may have done it) but that it is, at the lived level of biblicist evangelical Christianity, so unlikely as to be impossible in practice.

What, then, is missing in biblicist attempts to arrive at these teachings? Three things.

First, a high view of the potential and power of natural human reason, however fallen, to draw accurate moral conclusions from the nature of created human existence regarding the essential character and divinely willed purposes of sexual activity.

Second, a living and authoritative sacred tradition developed and maintained in and by the church for the sake of instructing the faithful on new and pressing challenges to following Christ, including challenges unaddressed directly by the letter of Holy Scripture.

Third, a living and authoritative teaching office, or magisterium, governed and guided by the Holy Spirit and vested by him with the power to address, in real time, pressing challenges faced by the faithful in their daily commitment to following Christ.

It seems to me that all three are necessary and that together they are sufficient, alongside and in service to the supreme divine authority of Scripture, to do what needs doing in the moral life of the church. To do, that is, what Matt and other Protestant ethicists want to be done and see needs doing.

I should add why I believe the first two elements—which, one might argue, are found in certain Protestant communions, whether Anglican or Reformed or Wesleyan—are inadequate without the third. The reason is this. Biblicist Christians will never agree, for example, that the Bible forbids contraception, for the simple reason that there is no chapter or verse that clearly and explicitly does so. But even if some Christians were to argue that both tradition and reason likewise prohibit contraception, it remains the case that, in the absence of an ecclesial office with the authority to teach the faithful, other Christians would argue in turn (and in good faith) that their reading of Scripture, tradition, and reason differs in this respect, and that no church law, however venerable, has the power to bind their conscience on a disputed matter such as this one.

In short, Roman teaching requires Roman polity; catholic doctrine depends on and is inseparable from catholic tradition. It’s a feature, not a bug. You can’t get there otherwise, at least not in a definitive way, and not in a way that could ever command assent from other Protestants, evangelicals, or biblicists.