From an Oriental Orthodox perspective:
Hello there,
Over in the Christianity & World Religions forum, I've often heard the expression that I can't understand scripture unless I "have the Holy Spirit", or that the "Holy Spirit must dwell within me" (or some variation of that). To be honest, I feel it's a cop out; a reason to dismiss alternative scriptural interpretations or arguments without having to expend any effort considering them.
You're absolutely right about that. If everything was to be understood in the same way, we probably would not have the four Gospels in the first place. Why not have one and be done with it, since they largely cover the same events? Because they're written to different audiences, by different authors, and hence have different emphases. The same can be said about the entire Bible, and our understandings of it: in the Egyptian Church to which I belong, there is a different hermeneutical tradition than there is in the Antiochian Church, which is itself somewhat different than what you find in the Latin/Western Church, etc. Yet up to a certain historical point (which was long after the codification of the Bible), all of these were in communion with one another, so it would not have made sense for any one to posit that their different approaches and hence different understandings pointed to others' loss of the Holy Spirit or whatever. (That would come later, after Chalcedon in 451 for the Egpytians, or after 1054 for the Greeks and Romans.)
1. If the Bible is meant to set God's expectations for everyone, provide a proper road map for life, and be the key to Jesus, and therefore, heaven, isn't this requirement of "having the Holy Spirit" self-defeating? With everyone's eternal soul on the line, shouldn't the Bible be readily understandable by anyone, and especially non-Christians?
We do not pick up a Bible in order to teach us how to be religious. The Egyptians especially were already
plenty religious before the arrival of Christianity with St. Mark in the AD 40s-50s. And when St. Mark came to Egypt, it was obviously not with the entire Bible under his arm to teach and preach out of it. The Greek translation of what would be known as the Old Testament was already present thanks to the work of the seventy translators at Alexandria (hence its name, the Septuagint), but the NT texts had yet to be written. What he did bring, though, was his experience with Jesus Christ and the apostles, and from that experience and his preexisting knowledge of the Greek OT (St. Mark himself being a Hellenized Jew from Libya), he began to preach, first among the Jews and Hellenes at Alexandria, then among the wider community.
We would certainly say that St. Mark was guided by the Holy Spirit, but it wouldn't really make sense to apply that to
the reading of the scriptures themselves in this context, as that wasn't really a feature of what he was doing. There was of course his background knowledge in what would've been the only scriptures anyone had in that area of the world at the time, but this idea of "Everyone crack open their Bible, which is a unitary, invariant book that they own or otherwise can read in private, and divine the meaning of it by asking it of the Holy Spirit (thereby setting up a situation wherein whatever meaning you do get out of it must be what 'the Holy Spirit' is teaching...)" is a modern approach to the scriptures and religion more generally. There is after all the practice in Judaism whereby men would gather to
debate the meaning of the Torah...I wonder if any of them ever pulled this "God told me it means this, so bug off!" trump card on each other? It reminds me of a Jewish joke I once heard: four Jews were arguing among each other about the meaning of the Torah when one of them became frustrated and began praying to God so that they might receive a sign as to which one of them was right. In response to the man's fervent prayer, the voice of God came down from heaven, showing approval to the one who had prayed: "I AM THE LORD, AND I DECLARE THIS ONE IS RIGHT. LISTEN TO HIM. HE IS RIGHT, AND THE REST OF YOU ARE WRONG." The remaining three Jews who had not prayed to God directly for an answer remained stunned for a second about what had just transpired, and then one of them turned to his very satisfied friend and said "Okay...so now it's two against three; so what?"
2. When I ask, "How do I get the Holy Spirit?", I'm often told I need to pray or accept/welcome/invite Jesus (or some variatoin of that). But why would I do that when I don't believe yet? It's almost like in order to truly believe in Christianity, I have to understand the Bible, but to understand the Bible, I have to already believe.
But you don't have to
first understand the Bible. Again, that makes no sense if you look back into history and consider those times and places and peoples who would have had no exposure to the Bible. The Bible itself tells us that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10). Interestingly, the same St. Paul who wrote that to the Romans had the following exchange with the Ephesians that ended with their receiving of the Holy Spirit: "
He said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" So they said to him, "We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit... When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied" (Acts 19:1-6).
So they did
not receive the Holy Spirit upon believing (as they themselves said, they had not even heard of such), but at baptism by the laying on of hands. The chronology here appears to be that they first believed, and through their belief came to be baptized, at which time they received the Holy Spirit. Granted, there are other verses wherein we are told that no one can say that Christ is Lord but by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3), and confessing Christ as Lord is essential belief, so I guess that might appear to be something of a contradiction, but I think that's kind of the point: That these people do not believe
of themselves (in other words, they are not rationally convinced or whatever; faith is not a matter of rational head knowledge, as any atheist will be happy to tell you
), but rather are brought to belief by the Holy Spirit working in them (Who they then receive at baptism, in Christianity). There is precedent for this, e.g., in the OT when Moses is told to take off his sandals because he standing upon holy ground (in Exodus 3, when he encounters the Lord in the burning bush). The situation here is that Moses has his own idea of how to approach this phenomenon ("I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn"), and God Himself calls out to Moses, telling him "Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground."
It is with this kind of thinking that we pray the following in the Coptic Agpeya (the book of hourly prayers for the day), under the title "The Faith of the Church":
One is God the Father of everyone.
One is His Son, Jesus Christ the Word, Who took flesh and died; and rose from the dead on the third day, and raised us with Him.
One is the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, one in His Hypostasis, proceeding from the Father, purifying the whole creation, and teaching us to worship the Holy Trinity, one in divinity and one in essence. We praise Him and bless Him forever. Amen.
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"Teaching us to worship the Holy Trinity" -- this is directly from God, in our belief, not a matter of who has asked for what, or how anyone understands things themselves. If someone were to ask to not worship the Holy Trinity (Lord have mercy), it would make no difference, as there are certain things established of God, not by our asking for them or being persuaded into them, but by His direct intervention in our community.
3. Again, if one must have the "Holy Spirit" to understand scripture, isn't it a waste of time for Christians to proselytize by citing lots of scripture? As a non-Christian without the "Holy Spirit", I can't understand it anyway, right?
Thanks in advance.
Depending on how it is introduced, I think it could be a waste, yes. I think just citing a bunch of scripture to someone who does not recognize it as anything is not likely to be effective. I've cited it above only because I know that if I'm going to say that there is precedent here or there, I should probably be able to show on what basis I'm claiming that (not because I think you
personally see the scriptures as having authority).
But on the general topic, again, St. Mark didn't come to Egypt with a bunch of scripture: he came with experience and a willingness to share that with others, so as to show how the Christ they followed back in the Holy Land was the Messiah and the risen Lord. I don't know how effective such a thing would be in our modern world, where people tend to have a much more "show me" kind of attitude, but is nevertheless still the primary way of doing things. Anyone can quote a book, and as no religious text is self-interpreting, you're bound to get into some kind of pointless 'Bible fights' with people who can quote scripture with the best of them, and yet still disagree with you. This is no new observation, either. The influential third-century Roman Christian apologist (and later convert to Montanism) Tertullian put it in the following way:
"Our appeal, therefore, must not be made to the Scriptures; nor must controversy be admitted on points in which victory will either be impossible, or uncertain, or not certain enough. But even if a discussion from the Scriptures should not turn out in such a way as to place both sides on a par, (yet) the natural order of things would require that this point should be first proposed, which is now the only one which we must discuss: “With whom lies that very faith to which the Scriptures belong. From what and through whom, and when, and to whom, has been handed down that rule, by which men become Christians?” For wherever it shall be manifest that the true Christian rule and faith shall be, there will likewise be the true Scriptures and expositions thereof, and all the Christian traditions." (
source)
