What to do with "Common Sense"?

How does one use common sense in understanding scripture?

I absolutely love and affirm that one doctrine championed by the Reformers and yet largely ignored by today's Reformed.  It’s the Perspicuity (Clarity) of Scripture, succinctly expressed in the 1689 LBC 1:7:

All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all;  yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of ordinary means, may attain to a sufficient understanding of them.

Which says, among other things, that if you are teaching a doctrine that is not clear to unlearned people of ordinary means, then you may be teaching an important, valuable, and correct biblical doctrine (so by all means do it!) but you are not teaching a necessary doctrine.¹ 

The doctrine, as much as I love it, doesn’t say much about what to do with what isn’t in the bible. What isn’t in the bible, lest it be semi-infinitely long, is a comprehensive database of case law. Is speeding covered in the bible? Maybe, maybe not.  How about speeding under extenuating circumstances? It's probably a stretch to find a clear biblical argument for that particular case.

How does all this dovetail with common sense? Are we ever to employ common sense?

We have all seen common sense misused. It is common sense to most of us that a loving God would not command genocide. But He did, plain as day, during the conquest.  There is no way around it. Here our common sense is not a good guide. If you use common sense when it comes to Joshua's military, you will be making the classic liberal blunder of remaking god in man’s image.

And yet we see in scripture instances where people employ common sense and are divinely praised. Rahab lied. The Hebrew midwifes lied. They violated the plain reading of the commandment (whatever number you give it) prohibiting false witness. But they received praise, not condemnation.

Jesus himself violates the rigid view of the 4^th Commandment, and goes on to teach us to use, dare I say, our common sense.  For crying out loud (my words, not His) rescue the animal in the pit, or heal, or if necessary collect food on the Sabbath.

Probably the number one place where I’d like to see more common sense applied is in the tragedy (and shame) of the abuse of women in the church.  So many evangelicals adopt the rigid view that the only basis for divorce is infidelity and, maybe, abandonment ².  The bible never states, explicitly, that a husband abusing his wife emotionally, physically, and or sexually can be divorced.  Nor does it say that if he puts out his cigarettes on the backs of misbehaving children that divorce is acceptable. It gives us a general principle. To generalize we can try to deduce from other scripture—but that sometimes fails because the bible is a book of finite length. After that—all that is left to us is tradition and common sense.

I don’t think tradition trumps common sense.

Evangelical tradition says that if the husband displays remorse (in front of a group of men!) and seeks forgiveness (well, at least up to 49 times) then the victim is obligated to accept recociliation, or the victim is transmorgified into the guilty. 

Common sense says that if a man punches his wife in the face (just to take one example) the church should stand firmly behind the woman. She should not be pressured into a reconciliation, and she should be supported whether she chooses to reconcile or not.

Did I say it already? I don’t think tradition trumps common sense.

I guess I would have to say that using common sense as a blunt instrument and especially as the basis for your Doctrine of God must, at all costs, be avoided. Perspicuity tells us that the big picture is clear from scripture alone.  But using common sense in the weeds, on a case-by-case basis, even if it results in local violations of a global principal (like Rahab’s lying) is sometimes necessary. And not just necessary, but demanded. We have brains. We are supposed to use them. So use them. 

At least that’s what my common sense tells me.

  

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¹ And as a corollary, if you are not teaching a necessary doctrine there is a finite chance you are teaching an incorrect doctrine. So be careful.

² And  some who are well-meaning will simply expand the meaning of abandonment to mean “emotional abandonment” which then, like the Commerce Clause, becomes one stop shopping. While I appreciate (at least in some cases) what they are trying to do, I don’t think it is necessary and it doesn’t smell right.