Kevin DeYoung writes thoughtfully about a perceived resurgence of “that’s just your interpretation” as a defeater accusation toward disagreeable Christian doctrine. Whether it’s the uniqueness of Christ, the necessity of his salvation, the definition of marriage, or the distinction of male and female—some folks may think they’ve refuted the Christian position by simply observing that disagreement exists among Christian interpreters. So one interpretation cannot be any more valid than another.
DeYoung exposes the problem with such accusations:
The reality is that “interpretations” are what we have in every area of intellectual inquiry. The problem of pervasive interpretation pluralism is not an evangelical problem. It is a human problem. Do we really think historians, economists, sociologists, and scientists don’t disagree on how to interpret matters in their field? And do we think they aren’t confident that their conclusions are much more sure than mere “interpretations”? If we are going to give up on reading texts and reaching firm conclusions, we won’t just marginalize the Bible; we will render the entire exercise of human reason fruitless and irrelevant.
The objection cannot stand up under its own weight.
Leave a Reply