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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2016
Adolf Schlatter (1852–1938) found himself time and again caught in the crossfire between the opposing camps of fundamentalist Pietism and liberal historical-criticism. This article suggests that Schlatter, by avoiding the pitfalls of both extremes, provides a unique way of uniting faith and scientific criticism through his creative reinterpretation of classic attributes of scripture, namely, (1) inspiration as organic and historic-pneumatic, (2) unity as Christocentric, (3) scriptural authority as evoking discipleship, (4) infallibility as relational-volitional, and finally, (5) perspicuity as catholic. In times where there still seems to exist a big gap between ‘evangelical’ and ‘scientific’ approaches to scripture, Schlatter's focus on scripture not only as a means to know God (Erkenntnismittel), but primarily as a means to receive God's grace (Gnadenmittel), remains valuable, helping us to do away with possible misunderstandings and stereotypes and enabling us to recalibrate our perspective on scripture.
1 Schlatter, , ‘Die Entstehung der Beiträge zur Förderung Christlicher Theologie und ihr Zusammenhang mit meiner theologischen Arbeit zum Beginn ihres fünfundzwanzigsten Bandes’, Beiträge zur Förderung Christlicher Theologie 25/1 (1920), p. 19Google Scholar. For Schlatter's rejection of the label ‘biblicist’, as understood by many of his colleagues, see ‘Briefe über das Christliche Dogma’, Beiträge zur Förderung Christlicher Theologie 5/5 (1912), pp. 56–8. For his own, positive definition of ‘biblicism’ see Rückblick auf meine [seine] Lebensarbeit, ed. Schlatter, Theodor, 2nd edn (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1977), p. 124Google Scholar.
2 Rückblick, p. 153. See also ‘Entstehung der Beiträge’, p. 80, and Neuer, Werner, Adolf Schlatter: Ein Leben für Theologie und Kirche (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1996), pp. 280–4Google Scholar.
3 In what follows I use the 2nd edn of Schlatter's dogmatics, Das Christliche Dogma (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1923).
4 Schlatter's decision with a view to the doctrine's locus is similar to that of Friedrich D. E. Schleiermacher. Schleiermacher also positions his doctrine of scripture relatively late in his Glaubenslehre and roots it directly in ecclesiology, namely under the heading ‘The Essential and Invariable Features of the Church’ (Die wesentlichen und unveränderlichen Grundzüge der Kirche). Der christliche Glaube nach den Grundsätzen der evangelischen Kirche im Zusammenhange dargestellt, 2. Auflage (1830/31), ed. Rolf Schäfer (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), vol. 2, §§127–147, pp. 309–426. For a fresh perspective on Schleiermacher's doctrine of scripture, see Nimmo, Paul T., ‘Schleiermacher on Scripture and the Work of Jesus Christ’, Modern Theology 31/1 (2015), pp. 60–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Schlatter, Dogma, 365. For an overview of Schlatter's view on scripture see, in addition to the Dogma, his collection of essays in Hülfe in Bibelnot: Neues und Altes zur Schriftfrage, 3rd edn (Gladbeck: Freizeiten-Verlag, 1953). See also Hägele, Clemens's monograph, Die Schrift als Gnadenmittel: Adolf Schlatters Lehre von der Schrift in ihren Grundzügen (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 2007)Google Scholar.
6 Schlatter, Dogma, p. 367.
7 Ibid., p. 364.
8 Ibid., p. 365. Schlatter speaks of the ‘passivity of the inspired individual’ (Passivität des Inspirierten).
9 Ibid., p. 368.
10 Ibid., p. 365.
11 Schlatter refers to Philo in his unpublished lecture, ‘Wesen und Quellen der Gotteserkenntniß’ (Bern, summer semester 1883) Adolf Schlatter Archive, Landeskirchliches Archiv Stuttgart (No. 191), 182.
12 Schlatter, Dogma, p. 348. Schlatter's approach reveals remarkable parallels to Herman Bavinck's ‘organic view’ of inspiration. See Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 1, Prolegomena, ed. Bolt, John, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), pp. 431–2Google Scholar.
13 Schlatter, Einleitung in die Bibel, 5th edn (Stuttgart: Calwer Vereinsbuchhandlung, 1933), p. 480. See also Der Glaube im Neuen Testament, 6th edn (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1982), p. 191.
14 Schlatter, Dogma, pp. 365–6.
15 Ibid., p. 366.
16 Ibid., p. 368.
17 Ibid. Again, Schlatter's agenda shows similarities with Herman Bavinck, who writes: ‘It [scripture] not only was inspired but is still “God-breathed” and “God-breathing” … The Holy Spirit does not, after the act of inspiration, withdraw from Holy Scripture and abandon it to its fate but sustains and animates it and in many ways brings its content to humanity, to its heart and conscience.’ Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 1, pp. 439–440 (emphasis original).
18 Schlatter, Dogma, p. 367.
19 Baird, History of New Testament Research, vol. 2, From Jonathan Edwards to Rudolf Bultmann (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2003), 375. On the same page Baird describes Schlatter's approach as a ‘synthesis between authoritative tradition recorded by inspired apostles and the present activity of the Spirit in the life of the believer’.
20 Schlatter, Dogma, pp. 369–72. Cf. Schlatter's emphasis on the unity of scripture in Einleitung in die Bibel, pp. 481–2. Unity as a theological ‘impetus towards the whole’ (Richtung auf das Ganze, see Dogma, p. 13) is in fact one of the central elements of Schlatter's theology. See Irmgardt Kindt's monograph, Der Gedanke der Einheit: Adolf Schlatters Theologie und ihre historischen Voraussetzungen (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1978); cf. Althaus, Paul, ‘Adolf Schlatters Wort an die heutige Theologie. Gedenkrede zur zehnten Wiederkehr seines Todestages gehalten in der Stiftskirche zu Tübingen am 9. Mai 1948’, Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie 21 (1950/52), p. 106Google Scholar, and von Lüpke, Johannes, ‘Wahrnehmung der Gotteswirklichkeit: Impulse der Theologie Adolf Schlatters’, in Hempelmann, Heinzpeter, von Lüpke, Johannes and Neuer, Werner (eds), Realistische Theologie: Eine Hinführung zu Adolf Schlatter (Gießen: Brunnen Verlag, 2006), pp. 43–7Google Scholar.
21 ‘As it was God's work that I was supposed to observe’, Schlatter writes, ‘I was assured that my thinking would arrive at unity.’ ‘Entstehung der Beiträge’, p. 63. Schlatter argues that as we are the creation of a God who works in unity, the drive for unity is therefore basically implanted in our consciousness. See Die christliche Ethik, 3rd edn (Stuttgart: Calwer Vereinsbuchhandlung, 1929), p. 251.
22 Schlatter, Dogma, p. 369. ‘The Scripture's unity is necessary,’ continues Schlatter, ‘so that we could recognise it as God's word and be served by it.’
23 Ibid., p. 370.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid., p. 371.
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid., p. 372.
31 Schleiermacher argues that our ‘regard (Ansehen) for Holy Scripture cannot establish faith in Jesus Christ, rather, faith must be presupposed in order to ascribe a peculiar regard (ein besonderes Ansehen) to Holy Scripture’. Schleiermacher, Glaubenslehre, vol. 2, §128, thesis, p. 316. For further parallels between Schlatter's and Schleiermacher's doctrine of scripture see Hägele, Die Schrift als Gnadenmittel, pp. 200–15.
32 Schlatter, Dogma, 373.
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid.
37 Schlatter was ‘an historian who laid a firm foundation for the study of the background of New Testament literature by acquiring a first-hand knowledge of contemporary Jewish life and thought’, remarks Paul P. Levertoff. ‘Translator's Note’, in Adolf Schlatter, The Church in the New Testament Period (London: SPCK, 1955), p. xii. See also Stuhlmacher, Peter's comments in ‘Zum Neudruck von Adolf Schlatters Der Glaube im Neuen Testament’, in Schlatter, Adolf, Der Glaube im Neuen Testament (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1982), p. xGoogle Scholar. Leonhard Goppelt claims to be strongly influenced by Schlatter in this respect, praising the Swiss theologian's ‘immense and superior history of religion/philological investigation of the New Testament’. Goppelt, , Theology of the New Testament, vol. 1, trans. John E. Alsup, ed. Roloff, Jürgen (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1981), p. 278Google Scholar.
38 Schlatter, Dogma, pp. 373–4; see also Rückblick, p. 82.
39 See Hägele, Die Schrift als Gnadenmittel, pp. 185–6.
40 Stuhlmacher, , ‘Adolf Schlatters Theologie des Neuen Testaments’, Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 100 (2003), p. 268Google Scholar.
41 Bockmuehl, , Seeing the Word: Refocusing New Testament Study (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), p. 145, n. 29Google Scholar.
42 Schlatter himself admits that he was a ‘follower of Beck’. See Rückblick, p. 46, cf. p. 200.
43 Schlatter, Dogma, p. 374.
44 Ibid., p. 591, n. 218. Schlatter calls this an ‘uncritical faithfulness to Scripture which loses the content of Scripture’ (kritiklose Schrifttreue, die den Schriftinhalt verliert). Ibid.
45 Ibid., pp. 372–3.
46 Ibid., p. 374.
47 Ibid.
48 Ibid., p. 375.
49 Ibid., p. 373.
50 Schlatter, , ‘Kritik und Glaube’, Der Kirchenfreund 15 (10 June 1881), p. 183Google Scholar.
51 Schlatter, Dogma, 375.
52 Ibid., p. 376.
53 Ibid.
54 Ibid., p. 375.
55 Ibid., p. 378; cf. p. 376.
56 Ibid., p. 376.
57 I have highlighted the intrinsic importance of ‘volition’ to Schlatter's theological agenda elsewhere, see my ‘Good Will Hunting: Adolf Schlatter on Organic Volitional Sanctification’, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 55/1 (2012), pp. 125–43.
58 Schlatter writes: ‘One has often considered that the authenticity (Glaubwürdigkeit) of Scripture implies that it is in every word completely correct, that there is nowhere an oversight (Versehen), nowhere any darkness, nowhere a discrepancy between the facts and the presentation. The Bible does not possess this [kind of] inerrancy (Fehllosigkeit), neither in its historiography nor in its prophecy . . . For as God speaks through human beings, he makes them as humans – with all their weaknesses – his messengers. The foundation of faith is thereby not harmed. If the error-free correctness of the Bible were a masterpiece of the divine power in our eyes, we would thereby not yet have been empowered and called to faith.’ Einleitung in die Bibel, p. 483. This statement is also to be found in ‘Was ist uns nun die Bibel?’, in Hülfe in Bibelnot: Neues und Altes zur Schriftfrage, 3rd edn (Gladbeck: Freizeiten-Verlag, 1953), p. 302. Andrew McGowan, likewise, prefers ‘authenticity’ over ‘infallibility’, see The Divine Spiration of Scripture (Nottingham: Apollos, 2007), p. 213.
59 Schlatter would thus probably agree with McGowan's definition of infallibility: ‘The Bible infallibly achieves the purposes for which God gave it and we can depend on the voice of God speaking by his Spirit through the Scriptures, which are his Word.’ Divine Spiration, p. 211.
60 Schlatter, Dogma, pp. 378–9.
61 Ibid., p. 379.
62 Muller, , Post Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2, Holy Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), p. 63Google Scholar.
63 Schlatter, Dogma, 379.
64 Ibid.
65 Ibid.
66 Ibid.
67 Ibid.
68 Ibid., p. 380.
69 Schlatter, ‘Der Weg zur Bibel,’ in Hülfe in Bibelnot, p. 206 (emphasis added).
70 Schlatter, Adolf, Erläuterungen zum Neuen Testament, vol. 8, Die Briefe an die Thessalonicher, Philipper, Timotheus und Titus, Ausgelegt für Bibelleser (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1953), p. 201Google Scholar. This statement is found in his commentary on 2 Tim 3:16 where one looks in vain for an elaborate discussion of the nature of theopneustos; instead, one finds this clear emphasis on the effects of theopneustos.
71 Work, Telford, Living and Active: Scripture in the Economy of Salvation (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), p. 9Google Scholar.
72 Webster, John, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch (Cambridge: CUP, 2003), p. 40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
73 Ward, Timothy, Words of Life: Scripture as the Living and Active Word of God (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), p. 17Google Scholar.
74 See Mathison, Keith A., The Shape of Sola Scriptura (Moscow, ID: Canon, 2001), p. 162Google Scholar.
75 Schlatter, Dogma, p. 346.
76 See Calvin's comments on 1 Cor 3:7; 2 Cor 3:6, 1 Pet 1:25, Institutes 4.1.6 (I owe these references to Ward, Words of Life, p. 160).
77 This article is a modified version of a paper presented at the 15th Edinburgh Dogmatics Conference, ‘The Doctrine of Scripture’, 3 Sept. 2013. I am very grateful to Paul T. Nimmo for his helpful suggestions on an earlier draft.