Is the Quadriga/Fourfold Lens so bad?

[EmilyF]

I have been enjoying digging up some old threads about the ECFs. One I found mentioned the Quadriga, and then I went to a couple of related threads.

A friend from Spain mentioned this a while ago. He was studying the ECFs a lot at that time. I appreciated hearing about this hermeneutic because it made a lot of sense and appealed to my then-recent thoughts on the matter.

From the threads on here, it looks like people are not big fans of this method because of interpretation errors it caused among the ECFs. If it is taken to mean there are multiple interpretations of Scripture, then of course it is against the WCF. However, if it just means different applications or out-workings of one singular meaning, it is a viable and even recommendable method. Seeing how the Apostles speak, and how some Puritans wrote, I think this is very sensible.

It is clear that the Reformation's return to a singular, literal interpretation (where it is due) was a blessing and a proper reform from the wild views of some eras. But now we have overcorrected, and I see so many preachers so focused on giving only a literal sense that they are speaking of the Bible like a mere history book. Fleshed out too much, it is no longer preaching, but only exegesis and explaining. Those parts only get deep when it is about obscure passages. Maybe this is why so many are now focused so much on 'deep theology' as opposed to (not that they should be opposed) deep spirituality. I firmly believe preaching is not just speaking a commentary; it is a lot more than that.

I do not mean we should look deeply into every single word for a 'secret' meaning, like many have erred doing. We heard against this on Sabbath. I mean that in some people's eyes, the OT is just a history book with moral lessons. But Christ is on every page and typified in many places. A merely literal reading, albeit the necessary foundation and perhaps meat and potatoes of understanding, is not all that God intended for us to glean. I am unsatisfied when I see no hint of Christ in His Word. This requires some, though not in an over-the-top manner, other applications. The way in which we do not err is by not thinking Christ is literally there (apart from as God is present) when typified, or that any allegory in narrative is anything more than an application (like Origen perhaps), but an intended application by God. Maybe an example of how it could go wrong (and which I would be against) could be if someone thinks Christ is physically a lamb, that a lamb mentioned in Scripture (like the sacrificial lamb) is actually Christ, or, perhaps worse, that when you see a lamb in real life, it is actually Christ. Clear examples of intended application that make the Bible rich with Christ I can give are Joseph seeing his brothers and Isaac being almost sacrificed.

Am I making sense? Am I going too far anywhere? I just don't see why we should clamp down on allegory, as it completely destroys some Scriptural intentions and would basically make the Psalms David's diary and not something for the Church to sing and pray (some people think this, so it's all coming together...), yet I also see the horrific errors in over-allegorising and misattributing things to God's Word.

 

[CasualWestminsterEnjoyer]

The problem was not the four senses (literal, allegorical, moral, anagogical) in itself, but the claim in late medieval and early modern Roman Catholics that absolutely every text has all four senses, and that doctrine can be based solely on allegorical interpretations. Van Mastricht points that out, to give one example.

As late as Thomas Aquinas, the church held that only the literal sense was sufficient to establish the truth of a dogma.

The other abuse you mention, of never giving applications, never applying the word, never using allegories in preaching, and never giving moral applications, is of course very real, and perhaps as bad as anything that was going on in medieval preaching.

 

[EmilyF]

Very helpful, Charles. Thank you. I was just a bit worried I'd missed something and didn't want to mislead others.

If only the ECFs had Puritan Board! Then they could have cleared a lot up. But it was before the Puritans, so maybe Early Church Board. Or would they have even considered themselves early...?

 

[Frisian Gardener]

There's interpretation, and application. RC Sproul was fond of saying that even though a Biblical text has only one correct interpretation, it can have dozens of applications.

For example, my church has been going through Mark in the morning services, and we recently heard preached the judgment passages in chapters 11 and 12: the cleansing of the temple, the withered fig tree, and the parable of the vinedresser. If your main takeaway when you encounter these texts is "those wicked joos" and not something like "take heed lest you likewise fall", you're Doing It Wrong, and by "It", I mean life in general.

 

[Sam Jer]

I also think there is a question of original audience. Could the Holy Spirit have left things in there that can only be appreciated centuries later? Possibly. Is such an application the only use of a text? Almost certainly not. I do think the OT saints understood a lot more than we tend to give them credit for, including typology etc, but if we can't see how they would see it and it is the only lesson we are getting of the passage, we do need to consider that we are probably missing something important - either things in other passages that would lead the readers at the time to get the same lesson too, or a diffrent lesson that is the primary application of the text

 

[MW]

Besides what has been said, I would also include the fact that any other "sense" must be held as stemming from the literal sense, otherwise one is reading it into the text. So they are legitimate as subordinate and depending on the literal sense, not as alternatives to it. One should still be seeking to find the ONE divinely intended meaning, not dividing it up.

 

[RamistThomist]

In Song of Solomon he speaks of her breasts. On an allegorical reading, that obviously refers to the Old and New Testament. Or maybe Law and Gospel.

 

[MW]

In Song of Solomon he speaks of her breasts. On an allegorical reading, that obviously refers to the Old and New Testament. Or maybe Law and Gospel.

That might be an allegorical reading. But that is different to a literal reading of an allegorical book. One should still aim to literally understand the parables and the point they intend to teach through figurative language.

 

[EmilyF]

In Song of Solomon he speaks of her breasts. On an allegorical reading, that obviously refers to the Old and New Testament. Or maybe Law and Gospel.

His kisses are tokens of his love to us that he communicates through the means of grace. That's a pretty universal identification of that element. Yet that is not the literal meaning of course. The literal meaning is right there. Likely Solomon and a wife. But I think Solomon also knew what it represented.

 

[SeanPatrickCornell]

WCF 1.9
9. The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly.

Savoy 1.9
9. The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture, is the Scripture itself; and therefore when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one) it must be searched and known by other places, that speak more clearly.

2LBCF 1.9
9. The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself; and therefore when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched by other places that speak more clearly.

 

[EmilyF]

WCF 1.9
9. The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly.

I already addressed this in my OP. Reformed divines agree that there is only one sense, but many applications, divinely intended. We see this from how the Bible interprets itself. My main opener to the discussion was about 1) if I was erring by promoting this method, or 2) if the Quadriga was in essence about the full interpretation, which would make it problematic, and is how some ECFs erred. As far as I am aware at the moment, the main Puritans and my ministers are right – there is only one ultimate meaning to Scripture, but some applications are necessary, including typology, to make the most of Scripture. These are not deep and secret meanings, as Hebrews showing the meaning of Psalm 40 for example is an intended application as it is inspired. The ones who used multiple applications were the ones who wrote that statement in the Confession, and the ones who affirmed it. There is no way they meant there is only one way of reading it.

 

[paranymph]

"Whether the Scriptures have a fourfold sense: literal, allegorical, anagogical and tropological. We deny against the papists."
- Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 1.2.XIX.

 

[EmilyF]

"Whether the Scriptures have a fourfold sense: literal, allegorical, anagogical and tropological. We deny against the papists."
- Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 1.2.XIX.

Thanks for referring me to this. I found interestingly that Turretin is not against typology, etc. of course, but only the contrived confusion of the papists.

Part 2 of this section (1.2.XIX.II) says:

We thus think that only one true and genuine sense. And of the belongs to the Scriptures. That sense may be twofold: either simple or compound. Simple and historical is that which contains the declaration of one thing without any other signification; as the precepts, the doctrines and the histories. And this again is twofold, either proper and grammatical or figurative and tropical; proper,arising from the proper words; tropical, from figurative words. The composite or mixed sense is in prophecies as types, part of which is in the type, part in the antitype. This does not establish two senses, but two parts of one and the same sense intended by the Holy Spirit, who with the letter considers the mystery, as in that prophecy, “ye shall not break a bone thereof” (Ex. 12:46). The full sense is not obtained unless the truth of the type or paschal lamb is joined with the truth of the antitype or Christ (cf. Jn. 19:36).

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The last sentence is particularly telling.

 

[paranymph]

“We concede such things as allegory, anagoge, and tropology in scripture; but meanwhile we deny that there are many and various senses. We affirm that there is but one true, proper and genuine sense of scripture, arising from the words rightly understood, which we call the literal: and we contend that allegories, tropologies, and anagoges are not various senses, but various collections from one sense, or various applications and accommodations of that one meaning.”
- William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture against the Papists.

 

[RamistThomist]

Thanks for referring me to this. I found interestingly that Turretin is not against typology, etc. of course, but only the contrived confusion of the papists.

Typology is different than allegory. Allegory is rooted in Platonic-like ontology. That is why there is always a jump between a literal and the moral truth. Typology is anchored in history.

 

[Wilhelmus à Broccoli]

I think the Quadriga is good and helpful for reading and understanding difficult passages, so long as the literal sense retains its supremacy (it was popular in late medieval scholasticism, as it is in modern liberal theology, to jettison the literal in favor of the allegorical and tropological, which became increasingly fanciful apart from the literal).

Very generally, I think vols. 2 and 3 of Nick Needham's 2,000 Years of Christ's Power have helped me reconcile the good and useful elements of medieval Christendom with the Reformers' vitriolic blanket condemnations of what seem to modern eyes like those same elements. In the 200 or so years between Aquinas and Luther, medieval scholasticism took a sharp turn towards Pelagianism and popery, abusing the good in Aquinas and Bonaventure and blowing the errors way out of proportion. When Calvin and Turretin direct their pen against the Schoolmen, it is frequently these later, rightfully-forgotten thinkers they have in mind.

 

[clawrence9008]

Typology is different than allegory. Allegory is rooted in Platonic-like ontology. That is why there is always a jump between a literal and the moral truth. Typology is anchored in history.

Could you flesh out the connection between allegory and Platonic ontology for someone who doesn’t know much about Platonic philosophy?

 

[RamistThomist]

Could you flesh out the connection between allegory and Platonic ontology for someone who doesn’t know much about Platonic philosophy?

Platonism, at least in popular accounts, posits an unbridgeable divide between the sensible world and the intellectual world. The really important stuff is in the pure realm of truth, not history. Therefore, one needs to make a hermeneutical jump between the two. That is what allegory does. Typology, on the other hand, is anchored in historical and covenantal realities.

 

[MW]

Platonism, at least in popular accounts, posits an unbridgeable divide between the sensible world and the intellectual world. The really important stuff is in the pure realm of truth, not history. Therefore, one needs to make a hermeneutical jump between the two. That is what allegory does. Typology, on the other hand, is anchored in historical and covenantal realities.

Well put! That is not to say that there are no allegories to be drawn, just that we do not see that as the intention and meaning of Scripture itself. For example, there are "natural/spiritual" correspondences and "earth/heaven" parallels that are ripe material for allegorical thoughts. But we should not impose these on Scripture. It is more an extra-canonical observation. And particularly useful in the way of illustration.