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Why Must Our Hermeneutics Be Trinitarian?

by Vern Sheridan Poythress

[Published in The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 10/1 (spring 2006), 96-98. ]

Our hermeneutics must be Trinitarian because God, the Creator, Redeemer, and Consummat or, is Trinitarian. When we interpret either the words of God or the works of God, we need to take into account who he is. Everything we know about him, including his Trinitarian character, potentially influences our understanding of his words and his works. Moreover, when people introduce erroneous conceptions of God, whether deistic, pantheistic, unitarian, or modalistic, those errors will inevitably affect interpretation of the meaning of God’s words and works, because meaning is influenced by one’s conception of authorship. The effects may often be subtle, but may sometimes also be dramatic.

既然那做为创造者、救赎者和成全者的上帝是三位一体的，我们的圣经诠释学也必须合于三位一体。在诠释上帝的话语或者上帝的工作的时候我们需要考虑到这一位是谁。我们对上帝的任何了解，包括其三位一体的本性，都会潜在的影响到我们对上帝的话语及工作的理解。对作者身份的理解会影响对其作品含义的理解，当人持有错误的上帝观念的时候，不管是自然神论、泛神论、神格唯一论还是认为神有三个形态，这些错误必然会影响到对上帝的话语及工作的意义的解释。这种影响通常可能难以察觉，但有时也会很强烈。

Rationality
One of the more obvious effects arises through differences in people’s ideas of rationality. Typically people who reject the Trinity do so on account of its alleged irrationality, and substitute for it a rationalistic conception of God, tailored to the expectations of fallen man. Man’s fallen reason becomes the measure of what God can or cannot be. And then, of course, one can expect human reason to lord it over the interpretation of the words and works of God as well.

人们的“合理”观念就明显受此影响。典型的，拒绝三位一体的人往往是因为三位一体被认为“不合理性”，所以他们就用一些“合理性”的上帝观来替代，好迎合堕落人类的口味。人类堕落了的理性成为了判决上帝可以是什么和不可以是什么的标准。同样的，他们的理性也主宰了对上帝的话语及工作的诠释。

By contrast, in Trinitarian theology we confess both the incomprehensibility of God, due to his infinity, and his knowability due to his revelation of himself both in Scripture and in the world (Romans 1:18-23). This signals both the accessibility of truth and the incomprehensibility of the totality of truth, and prepares the way for approaching interpretation in a rational, but not rationalistic, way.

相对应的，在宣信三位一体的神学框架内，我们既承认上帝因其无限本质而来的不可理解性又同时承认上帝因其在圣经及创造界中的自我启示而来的可知性。这意味着真理是可知的，同时真理的整体又是一不可理解的奥秘，这给我们提供了一条既合理性又不同于理性主义的诠释途径。

Redemption
The significance of Trinity is particularly notable in redemption. God the Father sovereign ly controls the events of history and the events in individual lives that lead to individual and corporate salvation. God the Son accomplishes salvation, reconciliation, and cleansing from sin in the events of the crucifixion and the resurrection. God the Spirit applies the redemption to individuals and groups through his coming to indwell us. Of course all three Persons are involved in all three of these areas; but each Person has his own role.

三一神论在救恩论上意义尤为显著。父上帝至高掌管着历史走向以及个人生活中的事件，这些决定了个人及群体的救恩。子上帝通过受死、复活完成了救赎、神人和好、洗净罪恶的工作。圣灵上帝通过内住于我们而将此救恩施行在个人及群体。当然，每一个位格都参与到了其他位格的工作，但每一位格却都有其各自的职责。

These redemptive acts each have implications for hermeneutics. The control of the Father over history includes his control over the words that he gives to man, either by direct divine voice as at Mount Sinai, or through human prophets like Moses and Isaiah. God’s control needs to be kept in mind in our reception of the Bible, because otherwise we may come to treat the Bible in practice as a merely human product, or a product where God is “doing the best he can” with partially uncooperative human beings. Genuine human agency in writing Scripture does not imply independence from God or reduction of the control of God, any more than the genuine agency of the Son implies his independence from the Father.

这些救赎行动每一项都影响到了诠释学。圣父对历史的掌管包括了对他所赐给人类的话语的掌管——不管这些话语是如在西奈山一样直接通过声音赐下还是通过人类先知赐下。拿起圣经时，我们要时刻记得上帝的掌管，否则在实践中可能会把圣经当作仅仅是人类的作品，或者当作是上帝“竭尽全力”让这些不愿合作的人类作者所能写出的“尽可能好”的作品。正如同圣子作为中介并不意味着圣子独立于圣父，圣经通过人类中介而写成，这并不意味着作者独立于上帝，也不意味着上帝对其掌管的“削弱”。

Second, consider the role of the Son. Because of human sin, we are separated from God and would die if we stood in his presence (remember Exod. 33:20). But receiving the word of God involves receiving his presence. We would die reading Scripture except for the mediation of the Son. Through Son we receive knowledge of God without dying.

其次，圣子的职责对诠释学的影响。因为人类的罪，我们与神隔绝了，我们若与神相遇就会死亡（出33:20）。但是接受上帝之道本身就包括了与神相遇。若没有圣子为中保，我们阅读神的启示只能导致灭亡。正是通过圣子我们才能安然获得上帝的知识。

Third, consider the role of the Spirit. The Spirit “will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13). The promise in John 16 focuses on the special role of the Spirit after Pentecost, and perhaps also applies in a special way to the apostles. But the principle concerning the Spirit’s guidance generalizes to cover the whole work of the Spirit in illumination. Only the person whose heart is molded by the Spirit and attuned to the Spirit can understand the things of the Spirit (1 Cor. 2:6-16). Spirituality is necessary for understanding the teaching of the Bible, as saints throughout the ages have known. And this spirituality is not just some vague sensitivity to religious phenomena, but a spiritual knowledge of divine things such as only the Holy Spirit can give. Modern scholars under the pressure of rationalism are prone to forget this role of the Spirit.

第三，圣灵对诠释学的影响。圣灵“要引导你们明白一切的真理”（约16:13）。约16章的应许主要是指五旬节后圣灵的职事，也许同时特别适用于使徒，但“蒙圣灵引导”囊括了圣灵光照的全部工作。只有那些内心被圣灵塑造并顺服于圣灵的人才能明白圣灵的事（林前2:6-16）。古今历代圣徒为证，“灵性”对于明白圣经教导是必须的。这种“灵性”并非仅仅是某种模糊的对宗教现象的敏感，而是只有圣灵才能赐予的对属神事物的属灵知识。当代学者在理性主义的压力下往往倾向于忘记圣灵的职事。

Other implications
Space is too short to do more than touch on two other areas in hermeneutics.

First, the roles of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit in Trinitarian redemption suggest analogous roles in God’s verbal communication. God the Father is not only in control of history, but in control of his word that goes forth from his mouth. He is the author of Scripture. God the Son, as the Word of God (John 1:1), can be closely associated with the content spoken by the Father, which then leads to the meaning-content of the biblical text. And God the Spirit stands with the human reader in interpreting the textual message (“whatever he hears he will speak,” John 16:13).

篇幅所限，简要谈一下诠释学的另两个论点。

一，圣父、圣子、圣灵在救恩中的三位一体的分工提示了上帝言语交流中类似的分工。父上帝不但掌管着历史，也掌管着他口里所出的话。他是圣经的作者。子上帝，上帝之道，可以紧密的与圣父所说的话的内容相关联，这正是圣经文本内容的含义。而圣灵上帝引导人类读者解读这些文本信息（John 16:13）。

Accordingly, the Father can be associated with the role of the author, the Son with the role of the text or discourse, and the Spirit with the role of the reader. That does not make human readers infallible, but for those in union with Christ the Spirit comes as an infallible divine reader who guides the human reader.

相对应的，圣父与作者相关，圣子与文本相关，圣灵与读者相关。这并非是说人类读者是无误的，而是说圣灵这一无误的读者会引导那些与基督联合的人阅读圣经。

The pattern of author, discourse, and reader can be generalized even beyond the bounds of Scripture. While we affirm that Scripture, and not other writings, is the infallible word of God, we can also see that the Trinitarian being of God, as Father, Son, and Spirit, is the ultimate archetype behind all human communication as authors send discourses to readers. The unity and diversity within the Trinity are the archetype for understanding the ectypal unity-in-diversity in author, discourse, and reader. Accordingly, we are encouraged to avoid both the unitarian error, which would collapse all complexity in human communication into a single block of meaning, with no remaining differentiation; and to avoid the polytheistic error of multiplying meanings chaotically, such as what takes place when human readers are seen as lords (gods!) of meaning.

这一作者、文本、读者的模式可以扩展到圣经之外。首先我们要确认只有圣经才是无误的上帝的话，其它作品不是，但我们却可以看到上帝的父、子、圣灵三位一体的特性正是一切人类“作者-文本-读者”交流模式的最终原型。三位一体中统一性与多样性并存，而人类“作者-文本-读者”之间的统一性与多样性可以看做是其模仿。相对应的，我们应当避免神格唯一论的错误：抹杀掉人类交流中的复杂性，把含义唯一化，毫无差别的余地；也应当避免多神论错误而无理的增添含义，人类读者并不是文本含义的主宰之神。

（译者按：读者理解的多样性是由文本含义本身的复杂性和超越性而产生的，这种多样性当然是合理的，不但无损于统一性反而有益，但另一种多样性却是由罪人本身的败坏以及懒惰与愚昧而造成的，这种多样性应当消除。而多神论所导致的绝对多元性则是随己意增添、篡改文本的含义，美其名曰“领受”不同，其实是妄称主名，自立为神。）

Second, human language originates as a gift of God in creation, rather than being the product merely of a gradual naturalistic ascent of man from the slime. In fact, the description of the Second Person of the Trinity as the Word (John 1:1), as well as the conversation between the Father and the Son in a passage like John 17, indicate that human language is what it is against the background of divine language in the mystery of intra-Trinitarian communication. Reductionistic approaches to language must accordingly be critically evaluated. And we are invited to see that the obvious meanings that even a casual reader of Scripture can perceive open the door to the infinity of the mind of God, and the infinity of meaning in intra-Trinitarian communication. The category of mystery accordingly belongs to meaning and to hermeneutical reflections on meaning.

二，人类语言起源于上帝造物的恩典，而不是仅仅由人自然的逐渐演化出来的。事实上，神的第二位格被称为“道”，以及圣父与圣子之间的交流（比如约17），这些暗示着人类语言的本质其背景隐约对应于三一真神之间的奥秘交通。任何对语言本质的简单化解释都需要严格的批判。看来可以这样认为，圣经中有些含义如此明显，即便是一个偶然的读者都可能察觉到，而这些明显含义却通往上帝的无限心智以及三一真神位格之间的无限交通。“含义” 以及对 “含义” 的诠释学反思终究属于这一奥秘范畴。

Additional reading
John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1987).

Vern S. Poythress, “God’s Lordship in Interpretation,” Westminster Theological Journal 50/1 (1988) 27-64. Available at .

Vern S. Poythress, “Christ the Only Savior of Interpretation,” Westminster Theological Journal 50/2 (1988) 305-321. Available at .

Vern S. Poythress, God-Centered Biblical Interpretation (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1999).