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How far does The Chicago Statement on Hermeneutics (1982) represent a viable

Evangelical Christian proposal on biblical hermeneutics, and how far and in what

ways does it need to be improved upon?

The purpose of the Chicago Statement is to provide interpretive guidelines for Evangelical

Bible reading. Evangelicals have distinguished themselves by a commitment to the authority of

Scripture and to its ongoing relevance in the believer’s life.1 This insistence on both a text’s

authority and its applicability to the reader makes hermeneutics a crucial issue for

Evangelicalism. It is therefore surprising that there are so few Evangelical hermeneutical

statements on the market, and the authors of the Chicago Statement are first of all to be

commended for perceiving the need.

The term ‘hermeneutics’ can be problematic, and its meaning has varied over time. Article IX

helpfully provides a definition by which to apprehend the Statement’s purpose. Using this

definition I shall evaluate its viability to provide a framework by which Evangelicals may

perceive the meaning of Scripture.

But first we must ask why such a framework is necessary. If the Bible is authoritative, why

not just read it? Conventionally Evangelicals have not felt the need for explicit interpretive

principles, preferring simply to start reading. After all, it is the text that is authoritative, not any

statement concerning it. How can we justify the need for a set of principles delineating the right

way to read? The force of this question may help explain the lack of hermeneutical statements in

Evangelicalism.

However, it has become increasingly apparent to Evangelicals that the meaning one gets from

a text depends upon the assumptions one brings to it. Millard J. Erickson notes the “growing

awareness among evangelicals that logically prior to the understanding of Scripture and its

statements is a set of presuppositions affecting what is meant by any of those statements.”2 Two

people may get differing – even contradictory – meanings from the same text. How is one to

determine which is correct? Or are all possible meanings ‘correct’?

These questions are at the heart of hermeneutics. An array of scholarship over the past two

centuries has explored the concept of meaning in texts. Biblical texts have received particular

1 Cf. R. K. Johnston, “Biblical Authority and Hermeneutics : The Growing Evangelical Dialogue,” Southwestern

Journal of Theology 34, no. 2 (1992): 22.

2 Millard J. Erickson, “Biblical Inerrancy: The Last Twenty-Five Years,” Journal of the Evangelical

Theological Society 25 (1982): 389.

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attention, and numerous interpretations of Scripture are now available. Not all of them support

Evangelical ways of understanding the Bible. If hermeneutics is the interpretive bridge between

the world of the text and the world of the reader, then the Evangelical bridge has been under

threat from both sides: some methods undermine traditionally understood meanings of biblical

texts, others relativise or deny their applicability to the reader. The Chicago Statement is in many

ways a response to these threats, outlining how Scripture should be read by Evangelicals in a

way that preserves its authority.

Since we are evaluating the viability of the Statement for Evangelicals, we must also define

the term “Evangelical.” I see three distinctives as pertinent to the Statement: the above

mentioned commitments to the Bible’s authority and applicability, and also to its Christocentric

nature.3 The Statement firmly establishes these as an interpretive context for Bible reading.

Article I asserts Scripture’s authority against any who might relativise it; articles II-III link

scriptural authority with Christ’s authority, placing Christ at the centre of the interpretive

enterprise; articles IV-V insist on the Bible’s relevance and applicability today. Article XXV

neatly finishes the Statement with similar sentiment, constraining preaching to a biblical setting.

Although perhaps a little strongly worded, in general these articles represent Evangelicals well.

One truly moves away from Evangelicalism if one acquires an understanding of Scripture which

deviates from these foundational assumptions.

However, the Statement is weaker in its engagement with historical-critical methodologies.

Article X acknowledges the existence of ‘literary forms’ in Scripture; article XIII affirms genre-

criticism as “essential for proper exegesis” and denies that “generic categories which negate

historicity may rightly be imposed on biblical narratives which present themselves as factual.”

But the very task of form-criticism is to discover which biblical narratives “present themselves”

as factual. The article lacks direction because it offers no guidelines for determining which texts

are historical in genre.

The Statement does not deal much with source-criticism and redaction-criticism except

insofar as they touch on the historicity of biblical accounts. Its position is essentially a refusal to

allow these critical methodologies any voice at all concerning the text’s historicity. Article XIV

asserts that Scripture “corresponds to historical fact.” Article XV insists on the “literal sense” of

Scripture, which is “the grammatical-historical sense, that is, the meaning which the writer

3 See Johnston above, also the recommendation in John G. Stackhouse, Jr., “Defining ‘Evangelical’,” Church &

Faith Trends 1, no. 1 (October 2007): 3, and Stackhouse’s citation of Bebbington’s similar conclusions on p1.

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expressed.” But how do we know that the writer’s expressed meaning was historical? This is a

pre-judgement concerning the findings of these historical-critical methods, rather than a dialogue

with them as fruitful avenues of research. It is also highly restrictive of form-criticism, which we

noted above it claims to value. The Statement’s assertions about historicity are in fact

presuppositions about genre. But it rejects any results, form-critical or otherwise, that call

unhistorical texts that it believes to be historical, and does not appear open to continued

conversation which might revise this decision.

There is a further problem with the Statement’s view of history. Article VI sees Scripture as

“propositional statements” which “represent . . . matters as they actually are.” Article XXII

declares the entire Bible to be “factual.” The previously cited articles XIV and XV also show an

almost interchangeable use of the words ‘historical’ and ‘factual’. To thus conflate history with

fact is to deny the interpretive perspective inherent in any historical account. Historical facts by

themselves do not have any meaning. They are reliant upon narrative interpretations to provide

meaning for them. Narrative criticism has elucidated historiography’s interpretive nature.

‘When asking a historical question we want an account, a comment on the past, and

not a simulacrum of the past itself.’ That is, we want some explanation of the

significance of the past, not simply a mirror image of it. History ... may be

truthfully represented by more than one portrait-narrative from more than one

historian.4

There is an interpretive aspect at the deepest level of historiography. History writing is

inevitably the presentation of a particular perspective on the past, not an objective account. It is

worth mentioning here also the work of rhetorical criticism, which has highlighted the persuasive

element of much biblical material and its disinterest in ‘detached’ objective descriptions. An

over-emphasis on the historicity of biblical texts, where ‘historicity’ means nothing more than

objective fact, is a failure to recognise their nature and the nature of historiography in general.

This overly objectified historicism also has a tendency to flatten other levels of significance

in biblical texts by reducing all truth to the level of fact. As we saw above, to focus attention on

the factual veracity of an account is to ignore or minimise its interpretive element, but its

interpretive element is the very thing that gives it its meaning. For example, Israel’s exile to

Assyria as a historical event means little until it is interpreted as God’s judgement on his people

for their disobedience (rather than just another Assyrian raid on a weaker nation). Further, it is

4 Iain W Provan, V. Philips Long, and Tremper Longman, A Biblical History of Israel, 1st ed. (Louisville, Ky:

Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), 88.

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only when its significance for Israel is drawn out that its significance for us can also come into

view, if we see ourselves as connected to the same story. In sum, to discern the meaning of a

historical account, the historian’s subjective viewpoint must first be recognised, and only then

can it be interpreted into the reader’s context.

How, then, does the Statement guide us in finding meaning in the historical accounts of

Scripture? Article VIII partially recognises the above problem, distinguishing between

universally applicable and culturally contextual biblical teachings. Just because Scripture records

a divine command doesn’t mean the command applies to us. How are we to know which

commands are universal and which are particular? Article VIII says “the Bible itself shows”

some to be particular. But this is to deny the existence of any disagreement concerning which

commands are particular and which aren’t. Surely the Statement’s purpose is precisely to help us

understand what “the Bible itself” is showing us. Article XXIII sharpens this problem, asserting

the ‘clarity’ of Scripture, i.e. its meaning is obvious to any who read it. This is troubling because

it seems to undermine the reasons one might need a hermeneutical statement at all. To suggest

that anything from the text is ‘clear’ is either to deny the need for interpretation or to deny that

different interpretations might be equally ‘clear’ to different interpreters. It is only one’s

presuppositions, coming from one’s own context, that make one interpretation plausible and

another implausible. Ched Myers, a social scientific critic, makes this point.

Claims that the meaning of the text is ‘obvious,’ requiring no interpretation, or that

someone interprets without bias, are no longer credible... [I]nterpretation is a

conversation between text and reader... This conversation is often called the

‘hermeneutic circle.’ Our life situation will necessarily determine the questions we

bring to the text, and hence strongly influence what it says and means to us.5

The Statement does indeed engage with this insight by attempting to establish an ideal

“reading site” from which a reader should begin. Article XIX recognises that one brings

“preunderstandings” to the text, but asserts that the only legitimate preunderstandings are those

“in harmony with Scriptural teaching.” Articles XVII, XVIII and XIX posit an authoritative

adjudicator between differing biblical interpretations: the Bible itself. In other words, we should

not bring anything to the text which is not found in the text.

It is hard to see how the above solution amounts to a ‘hermeneutic circle’ rather than to

circular reasoning. How are we to know what preunderstandings are in harmony with biblical

5 Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus (Maryknoll, N.Y: Orbis

Books, 1988), 5.

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teaching? For example, calling a parable unhistorical (as Norman L. Geisler does in his

commentary on article XIII6) or Genesis 1-11 historical (cf. article XXII) is already to bring

presuppositions about genre to the text. Are these presuppositions biblical? They are biblical if

they are a right reading of the Bible. But a right reading of the Bible is precisely what we are

trying to establish.

A true hermeneutical circle begins with a hypothesis about a text’s meaning, then tests it for

coherence against alternative interpretations, which either confirm or correct it. Interpretations

compete with one another in community by means of publicly agreed interpretive rules. The

Statement refuses to go beyond the first stage of this circle, rejecting any readings of Scripture

which threaten its initial hypothesis on the basis that Scripture (according to its initial reading)

doesn’t support them. There is no conversation going on, because the Statement is uncritical of

its own assumptions about the text. It brings these assumptions to the text which it then thinks it

has found in the text and uses to support their own legitimacy.

It could be asked whether it is possible to do otherwise. Doesn’t everyone bring assumptions

to the text which affect their reading of it? Deconstructionism has explored the concept of the

subjectivity of the reader. Extreme versions deny any objectivity in texts, claiming that all a

reader ever does is find her own presuppositions reflected in a text. The Statement, aware of

these accusations, takes a strong position against deconstructionism and all reader-centred

approaches. Article VII restricts biblical texts to a “single, definite, and fixed” meaning. Article

IX denies the validity of interpretations “not ultimately controlled by the expressed meaning of

Scripture.”

But one can agree wholeheartedly with assertions of the text’s objectivity and still recognise

the inescapable subjectivity of the reader in shaping a text’s meaning. The Statement’s use of the

word “meaning” (e.g. in article VII) restricts it entirely to the author, leaving no space for the

reader’s interpretive lens. But, as deconstructionism has shown, what a text means intrinsically

involves the reader’s perspective. As J. Culler observes, “there is no rigorous way to distinguish

fact from interpretation, so nothing can be deemed to be definitively in the text prior to

interpretive conventions.”7 Feminist criticism serves as a powerful case study, demonstrating

how differently the same text can be read from a female perspective. Feminist criticism, social

6 Geisler, Norman L., “Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics”, n.d., http://www.bible-

researcher.com/chicago2.html (accessed December 2, 2011).

7 Jonathan D Culler, On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism After Structuralism (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell

University Press, 1982), 74.

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scientific criticism, and deconstructionism all show that every interpretation of a text comes from

its own subjective starting point: there is no such thing as a ‘neutral’ or objective reading. These

hermeneutical methods posit instead a dialectic between text and reader, where interpretation is

never from the text into an objective reality but always into a particular context.

To recognise the subjectivity in one’s own interpretation is not to capitulate to relativism, but

only to gain awareness of one’s own limited perspective. Although an ‘objective’ text does exist

that is not the reader’s construct, there is still subjectivity in every reading. The Statement seems

unaware of its own subjectivity, hence its ability to use language like “the expressed meaning of

Scripture” (IX) and what “the Bible itself shows” (VIII) to be true. An appeal to a meaning that

is ‘obvious’ when that meaning is not obvious to others is rather like claiming that the lamp-post

nearest you is the largest because it “obviously looks bigger,” or everyone else has an accent

when they speak except you. Indeed, it is more than analogous to saying that everyone else sees

an object from a point of view except you, who have no point of view but rather see the reality.

The Chicago Statement consequently fails to show awareness of the difference between “what

the Bible says” and “its own understanding of / perspective on the Bible.” A great lesson of

deconstructionism is the recognition of hermeneutical space that exists between text and reader.

The Statement does not seem to recognise this hermeneutical space between itself and the Bible,

seeing its own reading as objective.

To summarise, I suggest that the Statement’s positions on both authorial intent and reader’s

interpretation have something in common. Both assume the existence of an objective ‘neutral’

standpoint, one in the author’s writing and the other in the reader’s ability to apprehend it.

Neither of these philosophical positions is inherent in the text itself, but rather is assumed at the

outset. There is nothing wrong with extrabiblical assumptions per se, because, as I have argued,

everyone has them. But the Statement seems unaware that it has them, and consequently cannot

critically examine them in order to see the difference between its assumptions and the text itself.

The only way to acquire awareness of assumptions is to subject one’s reading to the critical

eye of the wider hermeneutic community. A good example of an approach that does this is

canonical criticism, which engages with historical-critical methodologies on their own ground,

rather than judging them from a precritical standpoint. Canonical criticism also remains open to

new interpretations of Scripture as long as they take Scripture seriously in its own context, which

it argues is the canonical context. This hermeneutic thus retains a high view of the Bible’s

authority while recognising its own limited perspective on what that might mean.

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In conclusion, I propose that while some aspects of the Statement successfully outline an

Evangelical position on Scripture (I-V, XVI, XXV), in general it seems unaware of its own

underlying philosophical position or of any hermeneutical distance between itself and the biblical

text. I suggest three improvements for a future statement. First, that it show awareness of its own

presuppositions which come from its particular reading site. Second, that it critically examine

these presuppositions within the wider hermeneutical community, judging interpretations by the

rules of that community. Third, that it express an openness to future interpretations that may

better apprehend the meaning of Scripture, either in the text’s context or its own. These three

modifications would greatly increase its viability as a statement that preserves the Bible’s

authority while guiding Evangelical readers in perceiving its meaning.

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Bibliography

Culler, Jonathan D. On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism After Structuralism. Ithaca, N.Y:

Cornell University Press, 1982.

Erickson, Millard J. “Biblical Inerrancy: The Last Twenty-Five Years.” Journal of the

Evangelical Theological Society 25 (1982): 387-394.

Geisler, Norman L. “Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics”, n.d. http://www.bible-

researcher.com/chicago2.html (accessed December 2, 2011).

John G. Stackhouse, Jr. “Defining ‘Evangelical’.” Church & Faith Trends 1, no. 1 (October

2007).

Johnston, R. K. “Biblical Authority and Hermeneutics : The Growing Evangelical Dialogue.”

Southwestern Journal of Theology 34, no. 2 (1992): 22-30.

Myers, Ched. Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus. Maryknoll,

N.Y: Orbis Books, 1988.

Provan, Iain W, V. Philips Long, and Tremper Longman. A Biblical History of Israel. 1st ed.

Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003.