Criticism of the Traditional Use by Rationalists

It is not unjust to trace the origins of biblical criticism in the modern sense back to the Renaissance. The liberation of men's minds from the dead weight of authority and tradition made it inevitable that, sooner or later, the Bible would cease to be treated, as it had been throughout the Middle Ages, as a supernaturally guaranteed revelation beyond the scope of rational inquiry. The Reformation, in the sense that it was a by-product of the Renaissance, assisted rather than hindered the process, for in their critical approach to the Bible, as in other matters, Luther and Calvin ranged themselves on the side of those who upheld the right of private judgment against an externally imposed authority. ‘The Protestant writers against Rome were forging the weapons which were soon to be used against themselves.’

The attempt of their successors to invest the Bible with the authority that the Church had lost was therefore bound to be little more than an ineffective effort to turn back the clock. A new spirit had come into western life and thought which was prepared to challenge every assumption and question every assertion. Men were no longer prepared to limit their inquiries to the narrow confines prescribed by traditional orthodoxy and ecclesiastical protocol. Whether they accepted Reason or the Spirit as their guide they acknowledged as their ultimate criterion nothing but the establishment of the truth.