Figural Reading and the Christian Life: Providence and the Rule of Faith
Rare is the book which pervades cultures and societies for a century. One may think of Tolkien’s The Hobbit, a stellar novel nearing its eighty-fifth anniversary, and a prequel to an arguably grander work of fiction. A main reason for the pervasiveness of Tolkien’s work throughout the globe is that the fictional world of Middle Earth seems so real to readers in different contexts and facing unique challenges. This can’t be said of very many books from the last century. What about multiple centuries? Millenia? Students in grade school are familiarized with the “classics” of bygone eras from the anthologies of men such as Dante, Shakespeare, Homer, and Plato. There’s good reason for this. Their writings have permeated societies because, though written in the past, they seem to speak to masses of readers, even in the present.
Now consider Scripture. Any good historian will readily admit that no book has influenced the world more than the Bible. Believers—churches, properly speaking—throughout history believed and lived as if the Bible were real and speaking to them. However, to what degree does it speak today, to modern readers? Answering that question is a difficult task for most twenty-first century Christians, and understandably so. What should we make of the strange narratives, genealogies, theophanies, and wisdom sayings? Furthermore, how are we to balance the disciplines of dogmatics and exegesis? How does any of this relate to the actual lives of believers? Following the Enlightenment, biblical interpretation has become a convoluted mess, by and large—as if there weren’t already enough interpretive challenges before! The study of Scripture has been relegated to the level of “any other book.”¹ Because of this, it has been scrutinized as if a history textbook, questioned as to its authentic witness, and its “authorial intent” is put under the microscope as if it were a scientific experiment with one possible outcome. Because of this milieu of modern hermeneutical problems, believers seeking to hear and be shaped by the Scriptures are often left confused, discouraged, or dissatisfied to the point of rejection, and many churches are left in a sad state of affairs.
These concerns were rarely an issue for premodern believers, from the post-apostolic Fathers to the Reformers. This is precisely because they affirmed that Scripture discloses and reveals figural meanings which “God providentially constructs for the sake of speaking of himself,”² rather than merely referring to historical events or the minds of the human authors. Thus, saints from all times and places actually hear from God in his Word and are called to figurally participate in the realities disclosed providentially in Scripture. This “participation,” not to be confused with synergistic accounts of salvation, ushers those in union with Christ to spiritual transformation and a confirmation of the Word’s power.
What the church needs—contrary to modern interpretive agendas and hermeneutical obstacles—is a fides quaerens intellectum, a faith which seeks understanding, and not the other way around.³ Reading Scripture figurally is the means to attaining such a faith, and this faith is integral to the Christian life. The goal of these articles will be to defend this figural approach to understanding and reading Scripture, especially as it pertains to Christian life, both individual and corporate. This first article will define figural interpretation, beginning with a brief overview of the development of a “rule of faith” and the “senses” of Scripture, as well as defining how Scripture discloses figural realities in God’s providential ordering of time. The second article will be a consideration of the purpose and necessity of figural reading in the life of the people of God, with a major focus on the church’s worship through Word and sacrament. The second article will conclude the series by examining the role and orientation of the interpreter of Scripture, tying together all which will have been previously stated, and encouraging the reader to live a life of holiness and virtue.
Figural Reading of Scripture
In order to properly understand figural reading and its importance in the Christian life, we must first consider how the early Christians interpreted the Bible. Following the apostolic age, the early church faced a plethora of Christological errors with exegesis at the heart of doctrinal debates. There became a dire need for a standard by which one could determine an orthodox interpretation of Scripture.
The Rule of Faith
The second century was marked by fierce theological debates between various groups claiming to be followers of Christ. However, the meaning of what a “Christian” is, especially in regard to exegetical practices, became the central focus of said debates. A very clear example of this is found in the refutations of Gnostic exegesis by Irenaeus of Lyons in his work, Against the Heresies. Within this work, major Christian dogmas are considered in light of what Scripture— though not in our currently recognized canonical form⁴—really says about Christ. In 1.8.1 of Against the Heresies, Irenaeus claims that those who propose heretical interpretations of Scripture have distorted its overarching message. He vividly illustrates this point by comparing Scripture to a mosaic of a king. Heretical interpreters are like those who would rearrange or destroy the stones of the mosaic in order to make the king’s image into that of a fox or a dog. Thus, they “deceive the inexperienced who had no idea of what the king’s picture looked like, and would persuade them that this base picture of a fox is that beautiful image of a king,” and with Scripture, they “pluck words and sayings and parables from here and there and wish to adapt these words of God to their fables.”⁵ Irenaeus’ point here is that Scripture has an overarching message or hypothesis, and it is dangerous and deceptive to change it.⁶ So, what is the message of Scripture?
Two chapters later in Against the Heresies, Irenaeus gives a definition of what he calls the “rule of truth,” more popularly known as the “rule of faith.” This rule he defines as follows:
The Church, indeed, though disseminated throughout the world, even to the ends of the earth, received from the apostles and their disciples the faith in one God the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth and the seas and all things that are in them, and in the one Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was enfleshed for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit.⁷
Irenaeus goes into further detail about the Spirit, the last days, and more, but the above quotation encapsulates the rule of faith. Relating to Irenaeus’ mosaic illustration, the rule summarizes the overarching message of Scripture—the picture of the king. Those who depart from the rule depart from faithful, catholic interpretation of Scripture.⁸ This does not manifest itself merely in wrong interpretations, but in a lack of virtue, a topic which will be considered later. Perceptive readers will notice how similar Irenaeus’ rule of faith is to the structure of the ancient creeds. This is no coincidence. Rowan Greer notes, “The Rule of faith, as a kind of creed, outlines the theological story that finds its focus in the incarnate Lord.”⁹ While the rule should not be entirely equated with the creeds,¹⁰ it serves as a sort of benchmark or standard by which faithful interpretation ought to be regulated. To summarize, the rule is a spiritually disciplined guide, which flows from Scripture itself (a necessary emphasis which would become prominent during the Reformation) that leads faithful readers to the various theological and formative truths of Scripture.
The rule of faith and the creeds of later centuries serve as a summary of the economy (acts and works) of God.¹¹ In many ways, debates concerning God’s economy, while not absent from New Testament study, are magnified when examining the Old Testament. For Irenaeus and others, it became apparent in reading the self-attributions of Jesus Christ (e.g., Jn 8:56–59; Lk 24:27) and the teachings of the apostles that the Hebrew Scriptures¹² said more about the Triune God than was being understood by heretical groups. In this light, it makes sense that Old Testament texts were at the heart of Christological debates. Irenaeus and the orthodox, for their part, were convinced that the economy of God—as revealed even in the Hebrew Scriptures and summarized in the rule and the creeds—is a disclosure of the Triune God speaking in Christ by the Spirit.¹³ Christ must be recognized as the key to understanding Scripture, an especially important point for interpreting the Old Testament. Frances Young remarks, “For Jews, [the economy of God] is hidden; for Christians it is a treasure brought to light by the cross of Christ.”¹⁴ The rule of faith helps us to see how Irenaeus and his followers understood the Scriptures in light of God’s economy. An affirmation of this divine economy, as confessed in the rule and the creeds, is the starting place for figural interpretation.¹⁵ While modern readers may view the rule as a restrictive box in which to fit Scripture, the rule actually only serves as a negative principle. Thus, various meanings of a passage may be proposed—whether or not they actually hold water can be debated—so long as the rule is affirmed. This is an essential aspect of figural reading, especially when considering the “senses” of Scripture.¹⁶
Providential Ordering of History and Scripture
If the rule of faith is what guides faithful interpretation, how does faithful interpretation guide the Christian life? Under a figural account of history and the canon on Scripture, the doctrine of providence bridges the gap between the reader of the present and the original, historical context of Scripture of the past. In order for readers of Scripture to comprehend the figural, providential meaning of Scripture—and the meaning of all things for that matter—a proper doctrine of God is in order.¹⁷ For our purposes, we’ll consider the Creator-creature distinction with a focus on God’s eternality and simplicity in relationship to his decree. According to Samuel Renihan, God’s decree is the “act of God by which he determines, absolutely, the existence and infallible future (or futurition) of all that is outside of himself.”¹⁸ In other words, the decree encapsulates the creaturely realm—all things in time and space. Renihan goes on to argue that because God himself is an eternal and simple being, his decree must also be one eternal and simple act, having no temporal referent or complexity of parts. There is, therefore, a constancy to all things within the creaturely realm as the decree unfolds in time and space. So also argues Collett: even after the fall, there is a “repetitive or liturgical ordering of time, an ordering that is a figure not of futility but of constancy.”¹⁹ This informs the way Scripture is to be read. Unlike the modern tendency to read, for instance, biblical history in a strictly linear fashion, the providential nature of God’s decree challenges readers to consider biblical history in terms of a simultaneity construing the past as a “divine mode of the present.”²⁰
This providential rendering of time and history explains how God achieves the end or telos of creation—the glory of God through communion with him—even after the fracturing of creation at the fall! This is in fact why the rule of faith is so important. The rule recognizes that God reveals himself in Christ by the Spirit for the express purposes of redemption, salvation, and communion. Without a providential ordering of time, the telos of creation cannot be achieved.²¹ The incarnation of Christ the God-man is the convergence of the creaturely realm with the divine,²² and, therefore, is the only means of our communion with God. (In some sense, Christ is both the means and the end.) However, Greer comments that for Irenaeus’ understanding of God’s economy as expressed in the rule, “Christ is not confined, then, to the [bodily] incarnation, but, as the Word of God, is active throughout the whole history of creation.”²³ All the economies of God in creation are administered by his Word, finding “their focus and summation in the economy of the incarnation.”²⁴
With a providential view of history and the assumption of the rule of faith, the figural shape of Scripture can be comprehended. On one hand, Scripture is but a microcosm of human history, relaying specifically the history of a people and their beliefs. To restrict one’s view of Scripture to this angle alone leads to a merely historicist perspective. In modernity, this is the most common mode in which Scripture is analyzed. As Hans Frei notes, the Enlightenment spawned a separation of the doctrine of providence from the Bible, thus re-rendering the canon as a validation of external, historical realities.²⁵ On this view, Scripture offers little more than a reference of an event or character—whether true or not. For critical academics, this often means that the goal of interpretation is to “get into” the psyches of ancient writers in order to better understand the history of ancient Jewish and Christian religion. For Christians influenced by the modern view of scriptural history, interpretation often entails seeking the “original meaning” of a given passage. Interpretation as a practice becomes quite convoluted under this critical view.
On the other hand, Scripture isn’t merely a collection of historical or socio-religious referents. Rather, it is the prophetic, inspired, and authoritative Word of God. That is, it is a selfdisclosure of the Triune God “made manifest in his economic dealings or providential ways” with his people, and one which “takes place within an ordering of time that is at once both figural and liturgical, accessed and interpreted through Scripture’s literal sense.”²⁶ Scripture, then, is not simply a microcosm of history, but it also providentially encapsulates all of history. This belief allows readers to affirm the providential, figural ordering of all things—historical and scriptural—without invalidating or eclipsing the literal words of Scripture with which we are presented.
To return to the concept of God’s decree, all things which happen in time and space are one simple, eternal act in the mind of God. Consequently, it should come as no surprise that Scripture presents various types, shadows, and symbols through patterned motifs. It can thus be affirmed that history repeats itself. This is what Irenaeus and others meant when they emphasized the idea of “recapitulation” regarding God’s economic dealings as told in Scripture, as well as the conclusion—as the rule of faith implicates—that history is summed up in Christ. Reading Scripture, then, is not simply a window into some past time or event. Rather, Scripture is itself a type of incarnation of God’s Word, which is why it is the means of our salvation (inseparable from the Word’s bodily incarnation in the person of Jesus Christ) and apprehension of the Triune God.²⁷ So, while the Scriptures in their literal sense do present readers with historical facts, these facts are to be seen figurally as parts of a whole within a broader network of temporally-connected referents—and all the while are one simple, eternal decree of God. There is something incomprehensible about this fact, that we perceive all of God’s economy in parts and time, when it is essentially without parts or time.²⁸ The decree of God may be incomprehensible, but it is no more paradoxical than the scriptural analogies of parts and whole, body and head (e.g., Jn 15:4–5; 1 Cor 12:12–27; Mk 10:9; Mt 19:6).
Many of the above assertions naturally face various objections and questions about the “senses” of Scripture. What exactly is the literal sense? Do multiple senses of Scripture mean there is more than one meaning of a text? Don’t the other senses, like the allegorical sense, contradict the literal sense? These questions may be somewhat difficult to answer, but they are rightly raised. For that reason, we will move to consider the scriptural senses in relation to the figural character of the Bible.
Senses of Scripture
Concerns regarding the senses of Scripture often arise from a confusion surrounding the actual meaning of the “literal” sense, which in modernity is typically construed as totally distinct from theological meaning. Additionally, the vocabulary of biblical sense-making has gone through many evolutions over time, leading to greater confusion. Because of this, a brief historical overview of Scripture’s senses is in order.
As we’ve seen, the early formulation of a Christian rule of faith arose out of a need for determining the correct meaning of Scripture. However, the rule is clearly a theological one, so how does this relate to the literal text of Scripture? First, it may be helpful to define what the literal sense is. Summarizing the early church’s understanding, the literal sense refers to the historical context made evident in part by the text’s verbal signification and evident authorial intention. However, in light of the providential rendering of history, the literal sense “speaks of theological realities in and through those historical realities... It has a peculiar property of self-speaking and other-speaking at the same time. ²⁹ Thus, the various senses of Scripture are by no means entirely separate modes of scriptural meaning. Any biblical “other-speaking” by definition refers to the allegorical sense (or senses) of Scripture, creating a primarily two-fold categorization of the biblical senses—literal and allegorical—which may be broken down into more specific senses.³⁰ David Starling argues that allegory “could be used to refer to any interpretive strategy that finds figurative elements within a text, or, more commonly, to any mode of speech or writing which makes use of figurative expression.”³¹ In other words, the allegorical sense may be said to encapsulate all “nonliteral” senses (e.g., the medieval Quadriga’s threefold division of allegory into the allegorical, moral, and anagogical senses). It should be noted that the “figure” of figural interpretation is the theological reality which is providentially rendered in the allegorical senses. With this in mind, it becomes clearer as to how the rule of faith functions in figural interpretation.
This understanding of the senses was mostly maintained up until the late medieval period. Over time, it became more and more common to make too sharp of a distinction between the senses of Scripture, especially by those claiming to uphold the Quadriga’s senses. In fact, this was, in part, a major emphasis of the Reformation. While many historians would argue that men like Luther and Calvin paved the way for modern historical-critical readings of Scripture which separate the literal and allegorical,³² the Reformers actually sought to recover the intrinsic union of the senses, as originally intended in the patristic and scholastic eras.³³ While Luther and Calvin indeed disliked the Quadriga, it was not because they were opposed to any theological, figural meaning portrayed in the allegorical sense.³⁴ Ultimately, the Reformers wanted to maintain that there is a single, unified way of reading the Scriptures, whereas abuses of the Quadriga led to theories of hyper-distinct ways of reading. Rather than reading Scripture as Scripture, reading strategies developed which focused on the biblical text from strictly allegorical or moral modes of reading.
In speaking of the senses, where does the concept of providential history come to play? The Reformers believed that just as the decree of God is a simple act of God, so also the senses of Scripture should essentially be understood as one rather than many distinct senses, flowing from the literal sense with which we are presented. Thus, the distinctions between the various nonliteral senses are somewhat ambiguous.³⁵ The “figural” sense is preferred in order to avoid confusion, but specificity can be helpful. We may separate the senses logically, but it is important to mind the innate unity of them all.
The Reformers realized that the figural meaning present in the various nonliteral senses of Scripture cannot be untied from the literal sense. In many ways, they were recovering the insights of Thomas Aquinas and Augustine, who both emphasized Scripture’s literal sense but upheld that the other senses flowed out of the literal.³⁶ To put it simply, the literal sense should be understood as the controlling sense for determining biblical meaning, which “gives rise to, even demands logically, figural investigation of Scripture.”³⁷ Many Roman Catholics will not agree that the early Protestants interpreted Scripture in an Augustinian, Thomistic manner. However, Collett argues,
The Catholic tradition’s approach, which purports to follow Aquinas, describes the relation between scripture’s literal sense and its theological sense using analogical rather than univocal language (i.e., ‘the literal sense figures the theological sense’), while the Reformation preferred to say ‘the literal sense is the theological sense.’…[I]t is important to recognize, over against the standard Catholic reading, that the Reformation does not abolish the distinction between the literal sense and the figural-theological sense; instead, it sought to resist their dissolution by arguing that this distinction is internal rather than external to the literal sense.³⁸
Calvin preferred to speak of biblical meaning in terms of its “plain sense,” including the classically understood literal and allegorical senses which are unified by Christ,³⁹ the subject matter who is providentially figured—just as the rule of faith and the creeds had laid out. If Collett’s and Radner’s assessment of the Reformers is correct, then the Reformers viewed the literal or plain sense not as separate from the allegorical, figural senses (for instance, how it figures the incarnate Christ) but as transformed by them.⁴⁰
So then, if the nonliteral senses are controlled by the literal sense, what are the literal sense’s constraints? Again, in its simplest form, the literal sense refers to its historical context, but the inspired nature of Scripture, its disclosure of theological realities, and its affirmation of a providential ordering of time and history all play a factor in determining what exactly is meant by “historical.”⁴¹ There is an allegorical, figural “other” to which the literal text of Scripture testifies.⁴² Of course, it is entirely possible to misinterpret Scripture through failed attempts to transmit nonliteral meanings, which is why the Reformers and many of their predecessors so emphasized the literal, plain sense. For this reason, the figural meaning of Scripture is to be limited by the literal sense in conjunction with its theological subject matter, the rule of faith, and its history of reception.⁴³ These bounds are not so much constrictive as they are liberating when considering the range of possible meanings.
Benjamin Jowett, “On the Interpretation of Scripture,” in Essays and Reviews: The 1860 Text and Its Reading, ed. Victor Shea and William Whitla (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000), 477–594, here 481–82.
Don C. Collett, Figural Reading and the Old Testament: Theology and Practice (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2020), 46.
Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion, in The Major Works, ed. Brian Davies, trans. M. J. Charlesworth (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 82–104, here 83.
See James L. Kugel and Rowan A. Greer, Early Biblical Interpretation, LEC (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), 111. Greer argues that for early Christians, retaining the Hebrew Scriptures was a theological move based on Christological convictions about how God discloses himself in history and the biblical text.
Irenaeus of Lyons, Against the Heresies: Book 1, trans. Dominic J. Unger, Ancient Christian Writers 55 (Mahwah: Newman, 1992), 41.
See John J. O’Keefe and R. R. Reno, Sanctified Vision: An Introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible (Baltimore, and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), 36–37. “[The false teachers] take scriptural details out of the narrative sequence and reposition them in a new setting, defined by their own hypothesis about the nature of creation and salvation,” here 36.
Irenaeus, Against the Heresies, 48–49.
See Irenaeus, Against the Heresies, 81.
Kugel and Greer, Early Biblical Interpretation, 112. Cf. Christopher R. Seitz, Figured Out: Typology and Providence in Christian Scripture (Louisville, Westminster John Knox, 2001), 6. Also see Stephen E. Fowl, Theological Interpretation of Scripture, Cascade Companions (Eugene: Cascade, 2009), 29.
“[The] content of the rule that Irenaeus endorses cannot be assimilated to the creeds that were later formulated.” O’Keefe and Reno, Sanctified Vision, 119.
See Craig A. Carter, Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition: Recovering the Genius of Premodern Exegesis (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2018), 149–50.
The use of the term “Hebrew Scriptures” throughout this series is not a nod toward common critical renderings of the Bible. Rather, being interchangeable with “Old Testament,” it is simply a way of referring to the inspired Word which came before the time of Christ. The reason for choosing to speak of “Hebrew Scriptures” at times is to avoid too sharp of a testamental distinction, another common error of some scholars.
See Kugel and Greer, Early Biblical Interpretation, 163–168.
Frances Young, “Divine Discourse: Scripture in the Economy of Revelation,” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation, eds. Paul M. Blowers and Peter W. Martens (Oxford: Oxford University, 2019), 71–89, here 79.
“Confessional exegesis takes its bearings from the theological framework or rule of faith that finds its most well-known expression in the Nicene Creed.” Collett, Figural Reading, 161. Furthermore, contrary to the idea that the fathers used Scripture to “prove” the creeds, Athanasius believed the goal of exegesis is not to prove Nicene orthodoxy but to show its effectiveness—that it is the coherent, unified picture of Scripture. O’Keefe and Reno, Sanctified Vision, 61.
See Kugel and Greer, Early Biblical Interpretation, 197.
For a robust, yet concise, theology proper, see WCF Chapter 2. Cf. 2LCF Chapter 2.
Samuel D. Renihan, Deity and Decree (Seattle: Kindle Direct Publishing, 2020), 113–14. See also WCF 5.1–5.2 and 2LCF 5.1-5.2.
Collett, Figural Reading, 17. Cf. Ephraim Radner, Time and the Word: Figural Reading of the Christian Scriptures (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016), 85.
Radner, Time and the Word, 38. Also see Collett 18–21.
See Fowl, Theological Interpretation, 9.
See Radner, Time and the Word, 100–01. Also see Young, “Divine Discourse,” 78.
Kugel and Greer, Early Biblical Interpretation, 166.
Kugel and Greer, Early Biblical Interpretation, 167. Emphasis original. This was a common belief among early Christian interpreters. For example, Maximus the Confessor—who came several centuries after Irenaeus and whose theology was representative of both the East and the West—would hold to a similar view. For Maximus, Christ the Word was the center of history, and the mystery of his incarnation circumscribes all of history. See Torstein T. Tollefson, “Christocentric Cosmology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Maximus the Confessor, eds. Pauline Allen and Bronwen Neil (Oxford: Oxford University, 2015), 307–321, here 307–08.
Hans W. Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1974), 4–5.
Collett, Figural Reading, 22–23. Emphasis mine. Also see Radner, Time and the Word, 282: “The Word is always a providential Word; it is ‘providential’ in the sense of being a prophecy that inevitably comes to pass, that works its formative power upon events and people… [P]rophecies are always read or apprehended as ‘true’ only from behind, from the form of history as we see it already unfolded and unfolding retrospectively.”
Maximus, along similar lines as his predecessors, argues that Christ, the logos, has three incarnations or ‘embodiments’ in Amgigua 33. First is the cosmos, in which Christ is preeminent in the metaphysical principles of the world. Second is Scripture, in which Christ is present and the key to interpreting. Third is the man Jesus Christ, in whom the fullness of God dwelt and who was sent for our salvation. See Tollefsen, “Christocentric Cosmology,” 308.
There are a great number of metaphysical assumptions in what has been presented thus far. While the validity of these assumptions is up for debate, defending them is not the goal of this article. Rather, the goal is to defend figural exegesis (under a providentially-rendered reality) as giving life to the church. Regardless, the metaphysical assumptions are debated even among the scholars being referenced throughout this article. While many, if not most, prefer a Platonic metaphysic, broadly speaking, it is not agreed upon that this metaphysical framework is necessary for a figural reading.
Collett, Figural Reading, 29. Emphasis original.
See Andrew Louth, Discerning the Mystery: An Essay on the Nature of Theology (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), 117.
David I. Starling, “Justifying Allegory: Scripture, Rhetoric, and Reason in Galatians 4:21–5:1,” Journal of Theological Interpretation 9.2 (2015): 227–45, here 228. Emphasis mine. Also see Collett, Figural Reading, 30.
E.g., Gerald L. Bruns, Hermeneutics Ancient and Modern (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 139–40. Cf. O’Keefe and Reno, Sanctified Vision, 19–20.
E.g., Collett, Figural Reading, 36–38. Cf. Mitchell L. Chase, 40 Questions about Typology and Allegory, 40 Questions Series (Grand Rapids, Kregel, 2020), 225–26.
See Collett, Figural Reading, 37.
The various nonliteral senses include, but are not limited to, the allegorical, moral, eschatological, symbolic, and typological. For instance, even some of the earliest Christian exegetes, like Clement of Alexandria, were cautious to avoid severing the various senses of Sripture. See H. Clifton Ward, “Symbolic Interpretation is Most Useful: Clement of Alexandria’s Scriptural Imagination,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 25.4 (2017): 531–60, here 535–37.
On Aquinas, see Craig A. Carter, Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition: Recovering the Genius of Premodern Exegesis (Gran Rapids: Baker, 2018), 99. Cf. Fowl, Theological Interpretation, 50. On Augustine, see Radner, Time and the Word, 51–56. For Augustine, thinking literally about a scriptural text begs theological questions by nature.
Radner, Time and the Word, 55. Also see Collett, Figural Reading, 106–10.
Collett, Figural Reading, 40–41.
Carter, Interpreting Scripture, 176. Also see Collett, Figural Reading, 31: “Since both the literal and allegorical senses are rooted in the economy of Scripture, it follows that the allegorical sense is mediated through the same providential economy and historical realities disclosed in the literal sense.” This is also recognized by Roman Catholics. See O’Keefe and Reno, Sanctified Vision, 43.
It is believed that the assessment by Collett and Radner is correct. For instance, Luther—whose interpretation is often misrepresented—argued against the idea of a “twofold meaning.” This is not to say that a given text is limited to a single meaning, but that the words and meaning are one—not separate. See Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, 55 vols. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970), 39:179.
As Seitz points out, the historical nature of the literal sense is not the same as modern understandings of history. Seitz, Figured Out, 47.
See Collett, Figural Reading, 34.
See Collett, Figural Reading, 109. Cf. Carter, Interpreting Scripture, 253–54. In a similar fashion, Carter argues that the spiritual sense is limited by the Scripture’s canon, its thematic scope, the Apostles Creed, and the person of Christ.