The Rise of Enlightenment Rationalism: How Simon’s Methods Foreshadow Modern Skepticism
Introduction
Richard Simon (1638–1712) is often described as “the father of modern textual criticism.” More than a century before Enlightenment thinkers openly questioned the reliability of biblical revelation, Simon’s Critical History of the Text of the New Testament employed a historical and philological style of investigation that prefigured many traits of modern rationalist critique. Although he himself was an Oratorian priest firmly embedded in Catholic theology, his move toward examining the text of Scripture with what he claimed to be “neutral” research methods effectively challenged long-standing Protestant convictions about the Bible’s purity and authority. By highlighting textual variations, scribal practices, and the complexities of biblical transmission, Simon’s project, in many respects, paved the way for future scholars of the Enlightenment era to conclude that the Bible, like any other text, could be subjected to critical human scrutiny and might ultimately be deemed less certain or divinely safeguarded than believers had supposed.
This article will examine the ways in which Richard Simon’s approach resonates with the Enlightenment’s confidence in autonomous human reason—a confidence that eventually morphed into full-blown skepticism toward the supernatural claims of Scripture. Notably, we will see that Simon’s Catholic context never entirely aligned him with Enlightenment rationalism on a philosophical level, but his contribution provided the raw material for later thinkers to cast doubt on biblical authority. In turn, this approach collided head-on with the confessional bibliology championed by Reformed believers, who argued that Scripture’s authority is both self-authenticating and providentially preserved. The underlying tension is between a posture of rational autonomy and the biblical doctrine that God’s Word underlies all true knowledge—two stances that cannot be reconciled without undermining one or the other.
I. Mapping Simon’s Methods
1. Simon’s “Historical-Critical” Leanings
In the seventeenth century, it was unusual, if not shocking, to treat the Bible as one might treat any other piece of ancient literature—scrutinizing manuscripts, listing variations, and suggesting that theological beliefs should be subordinated to these historical findings. The traditional Catholic and Protestant approach alike was primarily doctrinal and confessional, albeit from different vantage points. In Catholic circles, church tradition and the authority of the magisterium had pride of place; among Protestants, the text of Scripture, believed divinely preserved and self-consistent, was the final court of appeal.
Richard Simon took a more methodical tack. For him, the authenticity of biblical books, the reliability of textual readings, and the uniformity of tradition all became objects of detailed investigation. By cataloging scribal changes and variant readings, he offered up something akin to a “scientific” perspective on the text. Although the Reformation had accelerated efforts to compare ancient manuscripts (Erasmus, Stephanus, Beza, among others), few had ever pinned the entire question of biblical authority on the number or significance of textual variants. Simon, however, placed these variants in the spotlight, effectively calling for a major reevaluation of the text’s overall stability.
2. Challenging “Protestant” Simplicity
In addition to his general historical inquiry, Simon was quite explicit about contesting the Protestant assumption that Scripture was unambiguous and uniform in its transmission. Early Reformed theologians operated with the conviction that, yes, small scribal slips occurred in copying, but that God had overseen the process in such a way that no essential doctrine was ever jeopardized and no passage thoroughly lost. By showcasing the manifold differences among Greek manuscripts, quoting the Church Fathers at length, and sometimes arguing that significant words, phrases, or even entire passages were questionable, Simon contributed directly to the sense that the text was far less stable than Protestants claimed.
In so doing, he opened a conceptual door: if the text could not be established with a high degree of certainty, how then could it function as the ultimate authority for faith and practice? If so many manuscripts contained multiple readings, could untrained laymen or even specialized scholars truly say this reading was authentic, while that reading was spurious? Simon’s methodology suggested an answer that resonated well with Catholic theology: an infallible ecclesiastical authority (Rome) would be necessary to adjudicate such thorny textual problems.
3. The Sheen of “Neutral” Research
One of the noteworthy aspects of Simon’s work is that it bore the hallmarks of objectivity. Rather than piling up purely theological arguments, he grounded his claims in philology and historiography—disciplines that, by the late seventeenth century, were increasingly recognized as sophisticated and scholarly. His willingness to examine (at least selectively) what the manuscripts said, to compare variant readings, and to question the editorial choices of Protestants like Théodore de Beza, gave his writing an aura of impartial expertise.
However, the deeper one digs, the clearer it becomes that Simon was no mere impartial historian. He had a distinctly Catholic agenda, shaped by the Counter-Reformation desire to expose the vulnerability of Sola Scriptura. Despite that reality, the rhetorical move of positioning himself as a neutral critic foreshadowed a broader Enlightenment tendency: claiming that reason alone, unencumbered by church traditions, is the surest path to the truth.
II. Linking Simon to Later Skeptical Trends
1. The Enlightenment’s Core Attributes
To understand how Richard Simon’s methodology dovetailed with Enlightenment thinking, we need to recall the intellectual climate that emerged in Europe throughout the eighteenth century. Key traits included:
- Autonomous Reason: The belief that human intellect, unaided by divine revelation or the constraints of dogma, can ascertain truth about the world, history, and ethics.
- Suspicion of Traditional Authority: Whether papal or biblical, claims of absolute authority were increasingly called into question.
- Empiricism and Evidence: Philosophical frameworks championed careful observation and tangible proofs over inherited convictions or appeals to the supernatural.
- Progressive Understanding: Many Enlightenment figures assumed humanity was advancing in knowledge and capability, thus older viewpoints—especially those reliant on tradition—were seen as inferior.
Simon’s approach to the biblical text was not fully aligned with all these Enlightenment beliefs—indeed, his Catholic faith would not affirm raw “reason” as an ultimate standard—but his textual analysis lent itself remarkably well to Enlightenment arguments that the Bible was an historical artifact subject to error and in need of external verification.
2. Seeds of Skepticism
By claiming that the scriptural text had become corrupted over centuries, Simon effectively introduced the idea that external authorities (like the Church) or advanced scholarly methods were necessary to recover what might be the “best text.” While Simon intended to highlight that only Rome could fill this vacuum of certainty, later Enlightenment critics took the same observation in a different direction. If, after all, the Church was simply another human institution, then why not also scrutinize the Church’s pronouncements with the same skepticism applied to Scripture?
Before long, rationalist scholars—particularly in Germany, Britain, and France—adopted the posture that if the New Testament was so riddled with variations and if the original meaning was obscured, it might not be worth treating as a special, divinely inspired text. Instead, they approached it like any other ancient document, subject to the full brunt of critical questioning. Was it truly a supernatural revelation, or a product of purely natural human development? For many Enlightenment minds, the latter seemed more plausible, and the historical record of textual changes formed a powerful exhibit in that case.
3. Moving Beyond Simon’s Catholicism
One might wonder whether these later rationalists were truly indebted to a Catholic priest. The Enlightenment was notoriously anti-clerical in many places, and it is true that they did not follow Simon’s Roman Catholic conclusions. However, they saw in his scholarship a methodology that separated biblical claims from confessional acceptance. Once that separation was made, it became possible to question not only the text’s clarity but also its authenticity and divine character. With the illusions of textual uniformity dispelled, skeptics felt emboldened to treat Scripture as a wholly human artifact—open to the same doubts and dismissals as any other religious or philosophical writing from antiquity.
Thus, ironically, a Catholic apologist’s textual investigations became the impetus for a host of skeptical moves that were decidedly un-Catholic. Simon had intended to push Protestants toward Catholic tradition by rendering them uncertain about Scripture alone; but in the broader marketplace of ideas, many thinkers extended Simon’s logic to become uncertain about the entire Christian framework.
4. An Early Form of Higher Criticism
Furthermore, Simon’s emphasis on the historical circumstances of the text—who wrote it, under what conditions, and how the manuscripts circulated—helped sow the seeds for the discipline that would later be called “higher criticism.” This approach, which focuses on dates of composition, authorship, redaction history, and the social contexts that shaped biblical books, would flourish in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Even though Simon did not embrace all the radical conclusions of nineteenth-century higher critics, his critical approach to biblical sources was a direct precursor, prompting future generations to think similarly about Scripture in historically reductive terms.
III. Confessional Bibliology Responds
1. Presuppositions: Faith vs. Rational Autonomy
From the standpoint of confessional bibliology—a viewpoint strongly held by Reformed churches—Scripture is God-breathed and stands as the ultimate authority (2 Timothy 3:16). This teaching is wedded to the conviction that God has preserved His Word with a remarkable unity across manuscripts, even amid minor scribal variations, ensuring no essential doctrine has been lost or compromised. The Enlightenment, by contrast, championed the notion that human reason, unmoored from “dogmatic constraints,” has the final say in evaluating religious texts.
A presuppositional lens sees these two stances as fundamentally at odds. The rationalist supposes that human intellect can question God’s Word and even set aside the possibility of divine intervention in history or transmission. The confessional Christian presupposes that God’s Word is the measuring rod against which human reason must be tested (Romans 3:4: “Let God be true, but every man a liar…”). Richard Simon’s textual methodology, while not purely rationalist, was an important step in prioritizing human assessment of the data over the Reformation’s confidence in divine superintendence of Scripture.
2. Affirming the Clarity of Scripture
A key Reformed confession is that Scripture is “perspicuous,” meaning it is sufficiently clear in matters of salvation and ethics (Psalm 19:7–8). Critics who follow Simon’s line of reasoning to the extreme tend to paint Scripture as so riddled with uncertainties that even fundamental doctrines might be in doubt. Confessional bibliology counters that these variants, when inspected thoroughly, typically relate to secondary details—spellings, word orders, and the like—rather than the bedrock truths of the gospel.
This is not naive acceptance of a single printed edition without question. Faithful Protestant expositors from the Reformation onward engaged in textual comparison. But they operated on the premise that God, in His providence, would not allow the Church to be cast into utter darkness regarding the essential truths of Scripture. Simon’s method and subsequent Enlightenment skeptics seem to treat the matter of scribal transmission as almost haphazard, with no surety of a guiding divine hand.
3. Historical Evidence vs. Theological Certainty
Another critical distinction is the role of historical evidence within a presuppositional framework. Confessional bibliology does not deny the value of research. Believers can and do examine manuscripts, note variants, and apply careful scholarship to weigh the best readings. The difference is in how the results are interpreted. For the confessional viewpoint, all textual evidence is viewed through the lens of a broader biblical-theological conviction: God’s Word remains true, coherent, and authoritative despite human error or confusion.
Enlightenment rationalism, however, tends to view textual data in isolation. If a suspicious reading emerges, or if a contradictory variant is discovered, the rationalist might seize upon that as evidence that Scripture is merely one more ancient document with no inherent guarantee of truth. Simon’s approach, which fixated on the wide array of manuscript differences, fostered that rationalist conclusion even if he personally wanted to push readers toward reliance on the Catholic Church rather than toward skepticism. In effect, the rationale behind “there are so many variants” becomes unmoored from confessional concerns, ultimately fueling modern skepticism.
4. The Real Dividing Line
For Reformed Christians and other confessional believers, the real dividing line is not how many variants exist but what theological authority structures operate behind the scenes. Simon, ironically, stands with the Enlightenment in subjecting Scripture to historical analysis. But he parts ways by insisting that the Catholic Church has the final interpretive power. Later rationalists parted ways with both Catholic and Protestant orthodoxy by suggesting that no divine authority stands behind the text at all.
Presuppositional apologetics insists that if Scripture is indeed the Word of God, then human reason’s role is ministerial, not magisterial: we use reason to interpret, but we do not allow reason to become the judge of the text. By starting with the assumption that the text might be so corrupted as to necessitate constant external arbitration, Simon sets up a chain reaction that Enlightenment skeptics exploited further: if the text is that uncertain, why trust any confessional stance at all?
IV. Conclusion
Richard Simon was a man of two worlds. On the one hand, he was a Catholic apologist, deeply shaped by the Counter-Reformation impulse to undermine Sola Scriptura. On the other, he was a groundbreaking textual scholar who, despite being loyal to Rome, exhibited many traits that would eventually define Enlightenment rationalism. By emphasizing historical research, variant readings, and the complexities of biblical transmission, he provided a stepping stone for those who would later discard not only Protestant claims to Scriptural sufficiency but also Catholic assertions of infallible tradition.
That step from Catholic textual critique to modern rationalist skepticism was not inevitable, but it was facilitated by the posture Simon took. His meticulous documentation of manuscript variations served to weaken confidence in Scripture’s self-authenticating power—therefore ensuring that many who read his work or followed in his footsteps would look elsewhere for final authority. Catholics found that authority in the papacy and ecclesiastical tradition; Protestants insisted that Scripture, upheld by God’s providence, remained dependable; but Enlightenment scholars, losing patience with all appeals to supernatural involvement, concluded that Scripture was simply one more ancient source, subject to the same revision and doubt as any other historical text.
From a presuppositional vantage point, this divergence underscores the importance of worldview assumptions in shaping how one interprets data. The confessional bibliology position maintains that Scripture’s own claims about its divine origin (2 Timothy 3:16) and its lasting authority (Psalm 119:89) mean that the text cannot be evaluated merely as a human product. Even if scribal variations do appear, these do not negate God’s power to communicate truthfully and effectively to His people.
In effect, Richard Simon’s “modern” textual criticism is a cautionary tale. What began as a Catholic argument to weaken Protestant reliance on the Bible alone inadvertently offered ammunition for radical skeptics who would declare all Scripture questionable. By insisting upon what he saw as the “historical reality” of a corrupted text, Simon demonstrated how quickly the purely historical approach can overshadow faith-based convictions about divine preservation—unless we recognize and hold fast to the biblical presupposition that God’s Word endures forever (Isaiah 40:8) and the Holy Spirit leads believers into truth (John 16:13).
Despite Simon’s original intent to steer Protestants back to Rome, his critical methods reverberated far beyond the ecclesiastical battleground of his day, finding their final home among Enlightenment scholars who used them to sow far-reaching doubt about any claim to transcendent authority in Scripture. By looking back at his methods, we see a paradoxical convergence: a Catholic theologian setting the stage for skepticism that would challenge all Christian confessions. The lesson is clear: textual criticism is never purely neutral. Whose worldview we adopt—autonomous human reason versus God’s self-revelation—determines whether we see in scribal variations a catastrophic threat to biblical authority or simply the normal byproduct of history that God, in His providence, has controlled to ensure the faithful transmission of His Word.
Thus, the confessional bibliology position, anchored in Scripture’s own teaching about itself, offers a response that does not dismiss historical inquiry but interprets it through the conviction that God’s truth remains unshaken. Rather than rely on an Enlightenment ideal of human reason or upon an institutional authority alone, the Reformed tradition urges believers to see the text of Scripture as something God has sovereignly preserved—sufficient to lead men and women to salvation and to govern the church. If we keep that perspective in view, the variations that seemed so threatening in Simon’s era become part of the tapestry of God’s providence, not evidence that the tapestry is threadbare or undone.
