GWIHW: Ch. 7 The Genres of Divine Discourse

So far Sparks has confessed his theological commitment to Scripture as God’s Word, but it is God’s Word written by fallen finite human beings. In this chapter he begins by noting that hearing  God’s voice in Scripture can be complicated by two problems:

1. The strangeness of Scripture’s worldview (and in this instance we can even say historical criticism has been of great assistance and proven a valuable theological tool for the church) (p 230)
2. Scripture’s diversity

Because of these two problems some have asked: “How can the Bible serve as the univocal and authoritative word of an inerrant God–as divine discourse–when this word has passed to us through the discourse of numerous finite and fallen human beings?” (p 230).

For Sparks, and in his opinion, throughout the history of the church there has been one recurrent explanation: Accommodation. “Accommodation is God’s adoption in inscripturation of the human audience’s finite and fallen perspective” (pp 230-31).

As an example of our sometimes overinflated sense of certainty concerning the Bible and interpretation Sparks offers the example of Copernicus, Galileo, Calvin, Melanchthon, and Luther and the Reformer’s geocentric response to the scientist’s heliocentric theories. Luther’s and Melanchthon’s “biblical” rebuttals of science are especially wrong, negative, and pointed, but what is interesting to Sparks is that Calvin’s theology already included room for accommodation as witnessed in his Genesis commentary but his Ptolemaic worldview was so harmonized with the church tradition it seems he was unable to grasp accommodation in this instance (pp 232-36).

In Sparks’ opinion not only does Calvin’s theological writings bear evidence of the theological importance of accommodation but it is to be found in many of the writings of the early church fathers

• Justin
• Origen
• Athanasius
• Gregory of Nyssa
• Basil the Great
• Gregory of Nazianzus
• Chrysostom
• Augustine: whose first articulated the metaphor of accommodation as God talking “baby-talk” to us so that we may understand his far superior awesomeness
• In contemporary theology Sparks points to the work of Nicholas Wolterstorff
• And most importantly, the fact that for many ancient interpreters the incarnation was not only the highest and best form of revelation but also the best example of accommodation

The above evidence (which obviously is fleshed out in much greater detail with actual references in Sparks’ work) supports the statement that accommodation is not a new invention of interpreters but actually an ancient interpretation for understanding God’s Word given to fallen finite human beings.

Sparks also feels it would be profitable to address any possible misunderstandings and say what accommodation isn’t:

1. Accommodation is not another word for “error”
2. Even in those instances where we may recognize accommodation this will not always mean that we can or should move beyond those words
3. There are subtle differences between the ancient and modern versions of accommodation

Evangelical Objections to Accommodation

Sparks also looks at the other side of the argument and discusses the objections of Carl F.H. Henry and Wayne Grudem to accommodation. First Grudem’s objections:

1. Accommodation challenges God’s sovereignty – Grudem would argue Scripture cannot accommodate human error because god is sovereign over human language. Sparks believes this formula may be incorrect and God is just as sovereign if He chooses to speak through fallen human language as if He spoke through perfect human language. Sparks writes, “To question his wisdom in doing so is to strike at the heart of God’s sovereignty. In essence, because he presupposes what God must do, Grudem fails to consider the possibility that God has spoken to us through the errant medium of human language because that is how finite human beings communicate” (p 249)
2. If we accept accommodation God has lied to humanity – Sparks replies, “None of the early church fathers, nor the later Reformers, considered accommodation to be a divine lie. They understood quite clearly that all speech from one with greater knowledge to one with less knowledge requires some sort of accommodation” (p 249). For those with children think of trying to explain the world to them when they are two years old.

Ultimately, the evangelical opposition to accommodation is more a hallmark of an insatiable Cartesian thirst for incorrigible and indubitable God like knowledge than from what can be proven from the biblical data.

On the other hand “Accommodation is simply an explicit theological rationale for what we already do” (p 257) when we read the Scriptures, and we subordinate certain Scriptures; e.g., the eventual abolition of slavery, that ended up in God’s Word.

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Chapter Quote for Thought:

One needs to recall only that among commited inerrantists we will find those who believe in “predestiantion” and “free will,” in “premillenial” and “postmillenial” eschatology, in “infant baptism” and “believer’s baptism,” and in “elder rule” and “congregational rule.” On almost every important imterpretive question in every biblical book, we find a wide variety of “inerrantist” readings. (p 257)