Undermining Certainty: Analyzing Simon’s Critique of “Protestant” Scripture Preservation
Introduction
One of the hallmark convictions of the Protestant Reformation has been that the Scriptures, as God’s inspired Word, are divinely preserved through history, remaining fundamentally reliable and clear. This belief, often called the doctrine of “providential preservation,” plays a crucial part in sustaining Sola Scriptura: Scripture alone stands as the ultimate authority for faith and practice precisely because it is and has been kept by God’s power from essential corruption. Yet in the seventeenth century, Richard Simon—an Oratorian priest—aimed a pointed critique at Protestant assurance of biblical stability.
Simon’s Critical History of the Text of the New Testament systematically showcased variant readings and potential scribal mischief, implying that such textual variability undermined the Protestant insistence that God’s Word remains definitively accessible to every believer. In other words, if the biblical text were riddled with uncertainties, how could Protestants continue asserting that Scripture, rather than any ecclesial authority, is the final court of appeal?
This article explores Simon’s deliberate attempt to “undermine certainty,” focusing on how he challenged Protestant notions of providential preservation and reading each point through the lens of a confessional bibliology. The question boils down to whether these myriad variants truly compromise biblical authority—or whether, as Protestants contend, God has superintended the text such that the faithful can remain confident in its essential purity. We begin with a brief overview of the Protestant understanding of Scripture preservation, then analyze how Simon’s methodology and arguments posed a direct assault on that confidence.
I. The Protestant Doctrine of Providential Preservation
1. Key Reformation Teachings
From the earliest Reformers onward, a central claim has been that Scripture, while copied by human hands, did not thereby lose the authenticity and clarity that God provided in the original autographs. Verses like Matthew 5:18 and Isaiah 40:8 are commonly cited to show that Scripture is enduring and that God ensures its veracity. While the Reformers acknowledged that copyists might introduce minor slips or variations, the overarching stance was that divine providence prevents these variations from obscuring or destroying any doctrine vital to salvation.
- Sola Scriptura: Because Scripture is the “alone infallible rule,” it must be sufficiently available and understandable, ensuring no outside authority (like a pope or council) could override its pronouncements.
- Ordinary Means of Preservation: Reformed theologians understood God to use ordinary historical processes—like the wide distribution of manuscripts, the diligence of scribes and scholars, etc.—to uphold Scripture’s consistency across generations.
2. Assurance for the Believer
In practical terms, the doctrine of providential preservation offers assurance that the Bible a Christian reads is trustworthy, not in the sense that every copied letter is perfect, but in the sense that the message, substance, and key teachings are intact. This is vital for the Reformation emphasis on every believer’s direct engagement with Scripture. If that Scripture were drastically uncertain, the Reformation call for personal study would be rendered moot. The entire Protestant project depends, at some level, on the conviction that God’s Word has not dissolved into contradictory scribal traditions that require a central magisterium to unify them.
II. Simon’s Tactic of Undermining Certainty
1. Magnifying the Number of Variants
Richard Simon collated a large number of manuscript variations, presenting them systematically in a way that even many Protestants had not previously witnessed. His reasons were partly scholarly—he genuinely saw textual criticism as a valuable enterprise—but also polemical. By emphasizing the frequency of these variants, Simon implied that the biblical text was far from the stable, unified entity that Protestants portrayed.
- Innuendo of Chaos: While modern scholarship acknowledges that most variants are trivial (spelling differences, word-order changes, synonyms), Simon pointed to them as indicative of deeper confusion. He suggested that such wide-ranging discrepancies did not merely reflect scribal accidents but could reflect underlying doctrinal or sectarian biases.
- Explicit Anti-Protestant Aim: He singled out Reformed scholarship (e.g., Theodore Beza’s Greek New Testament) to argue that these editors might suppress, overlook, or distort variants that challenge their theological stances.
2. Questioning Protestant Confidence in the Text
Much of Simon’s writing explicitly or implicitly asked: “On what basis can you Protestants be so sure you have the genuine Scriptures?” He contended that if Sola Scriptura rests on an internally coherent text, subjecting that text to a thorough textual examination would presumably cause the entire edifice to crack.
- Latin vs. Greek Witnesses: In some instances, Simon argued that Catholic textual traditions were older or more faithful. If true, Protestants might be relying on an inferior text. This move further introduced the notion that only the Catholic Church, with its resources and ancient connections, could maintain an unbroken chain of authentic Scripture.
- Undermining the ‘Providential’ Argument: By citing centuries of scribal activity, Simon questioned whether God’s providential care was truly verifiable in history. Could not the presence of meaningful variants demonstrate that the text had indeed been tampered with or lost?
3. Driving People Toward Ecclesiastical Authority
Ultimately, Simon’s rhetorical strategy worked hand-in-hand with Catholic ecclesiology: If the text itself is precarious, believers require a final authority outside the text. For Simon, that authority was, of course, the Catholic Magisterium. If Protestants recognized that no single stream of manuscripts carried absolute certainty, perhaps they would see the necessity of a Church body endowed with infallible discernment.
This approach meshed with the broader Counter-Reformation message: Scripture alone is too unstable or ambiguous to unify believers; the institutional Church stands as the only bulwark against confusion. Simon’s textual critique thus served to “undermine certainty” in the Protestants’ Bibles so that “certainty” could be re-located in the Roman hierarchy.
III. The Role of Variation: Realities vs. Overstatements
1. Legitimate Observations
It would be incorrect to pretend Richard Simon fabricated all of his arguments. He was correct that variants exist and can sometimes be quite old. He was also correct that certain scribes in history, whether intentionally or inadvertently, introduced additions, omissions, or paraphrases. The work of textual criticism is indeed necessary for identifying the best readings in contested passages, a point recognized even by many early Reformers.
Moreover, Simon documented widely, appealing to Greek manuscripts, Latin traditions, and patristic citations. In purely scholarly terms, he contributed meaningfully to the field. The question, then, is not whether these variants exist but whether they fundamentally jeopardize Scripture’s clarity and reliability.
2. Inflating the Problem
From a confessional bibliology standpoint, the crux is that while Simon highlighted variants, he often failed to balance them with the broader textual consensus or to acknowledge that the vast majority of variations do not affect key doctrines or even the broad sense of a passage. Modern textual critics (even those with no confessional commitments) have recognized that serious doctrinal questions rarely turn on singular variant readings.
- Overemphasizing Uncertain Passages: Simon appeared eager to focus on those few places where variants might seem to touch upon important theological issues—like certain Christological or Trinitarian lines—while giving less attention to the many places where the text is unquestionably consistent.
- Sowing Doubt through Omission: By not underscoring that Christian scholars largely agree on the textual integrity of the majority of verses, Simon’s narrative made textual corruption seem more universally problematic than it truly was (and is).
IV. The Presuppositional Clash: God’s Providence vs. Human Frailty
1. Confessional Bibliology’s Core Commitment
At the heart of a presuppositional approach to Scripture stands an unwavering trust in God’s sovereignty: God, who inspired the Bible, continues to preserve it against any attempts (however widespread) to corrupt it fully. This conviction does not ignore historical realities. Rather, it interprets them through the lens of divine promise. Indeed, passages like 1 Peter 1:23–25 speak of God’s Word as incorruptible seed. The result is a belief that no act of scribal error or intentional tampering can negate the overall message that God intends His people to receive.
- Emphasis on “Essentially Preserved”: Confessional bibliology does not need or assert a word-for-word, letter-for-letter mechanical perfection in every surviving manuscript. Instead, it holds that across the manuscript tradition as a whole, the true text is discernible with high confidence, and no fundamental Christian doctrine rests on a precariously suspect reading.
- God’s Use of Ordinary Means: While miracles are recognized in Scripture, the Reformed tradition typically views God’s preservation of the text as being worked out through normal means like comparison of manuscripts, correction of errors by scribes, community recognition of spurious readings, and the general function of the priesthood of believers.
2. Simon’s Counter-Presupposition
Simon believed that centuries of textual uncertainty necessitated a controlling interpretive authority. His assumption—shared by many Roman Catholic theologians of the era—was that a purely historical process, left to itself, would devolve into confusion unless an ecclesial hierarchy stepped in to enforce orthodoxy and standardize the text.
- Skepticism about the Holy Spirit’s Direct Role: Implicitly, Simon’s critique downplayed or dismissed the idea that the Spirit ensures the fidelity of God’s Word in the universal Church. For him, ecclesiastical tradition was the tangible mechanism that overcame scribal chaos.
- Elevating Tradition Over Scripture’s Self-Claim: By default, if Scripture stands in need of the Church’s official sanction for textual clarity, the Church’s authority—rather than the intrinsic authority of God’s Word—becomes the determining factor in faith. This, to confessional Protestants, reverses the biblical model (cf. Acts 17:11, where the Bereans examine even apostolic teaching in light of Scripture).
3. The Tension in a Nutshell
Thus, the presuppositional clash can be stated succinctly:
- Protestant (Confessional Bibliology): Scripture is self-authenticating; the presence of variants does not undermine its overall divine preservation, as God providentially ensures the text’s reliability across history.
- Simon’s Catholic Perspective: Textual variance and alleged corruption are so significant that only a divinely guided institution can rectify and confirm the true readings. Protestants who reject that institution are left with an unstable text.
V. Consequences for Faith and Confidence in Scripture
1. Eroding the Believer’s Assurance
For many Protestants, the immediate pastoral danger in Simon’s critique lay in its potential to foment doubt within the ranks of ordinary believers. If they believed their Bibles were uncertain, they might question whether crucial doctrines—like justification by faith alone or the deity of Christ—depended on shaky textual evidence. Simon’s approach cleverly exploited the average person’s unfamiliarity with textual criticism, making it sound as though the entire Word of God was up for grabs.
- Crisis of Conscience: A devout reader who stumbles upon repeated claims of widespread textual corruption could be tempted to wonder if the fundamental anchor of Scripture remains intact.
- Re-Centering Faith on the Church: Some might respond to that doubt by seeking the institutional assurance Simon promoted, effectively returning to Catholic structures for a sense of stability and unity in doctrine.
2. Protestant Rebuttals and Continuing Apologetics
Historically, Protestant scholars did not remain silent. They responded by showing that while scribal variants exist, they do not invalidate the text’s essential message or the reliability of major doctrines. They pointed to the wide array of manuscript evidence, including early papyri and versions, that converge in establishing the broad shape and content of the New Testament.
- Scholarly Editions and Confessional Assurance: Over time, Protestants produced ever more rigorous textual editions (like those of Wettstein, Griesbach, and eventually modern textual critics) that documented variants but also affirmed the essential stability of the text.
- Presuppositional Apologetics: In direct answer to Simon’s logic, confessional thinkers underscored that the Holy Spirit guides not only individuals but the Christian community at large in recognizing and preserving Scripture. Therefore, no single institution can monopolize textual fidelity.
3. Modern Reflections
Even in the twenty-first century, we find traces of Simon’s argument in certain circles that emphasize textual uncertainties, sometimes to the extent of questioning core Christian claims. The same tension arises: does the reality of textual variation mean Scripture is fundamentally unreliable, or does it instead reveal a providential tapestry of manuscripts that, when studied collectively, provide an even stronger base for discerning the original readings? Confessional bibliology opts for the latter, seeing God’s guiding hand at work in the transmission of His Word.
VI. Conclusion
In challenging Protestant confidence in Scripture’s preservation, Richard Simon stood at the confluence of scholarship and polemics. His painstaking research into New Testament variants became a powerful rhetorical lever designed to unseat Sola Scriptura from its Reformation stronghold. By spotlighting the multiplicity of readings across manuscripts, he advanced the proposition that only a divinely authorized ecclesial authority—namely, Rome—could surmount the confusion and secure a stable text for the faithful.
At its core, Simon’s critique was an assault on the Reformed doctrine of providential preservation. That doctrine proclaims that while human scribes may err, God does not allow His Word to be fundamentally lost or irreparably twisted. From the vantage point of confessional bibliology, Scripture itself attests to God’s unwavering promise to sustain His revelation across time and culture, ensuring that His people have access to the truths needed for salvation and Christian living. Minor textual discrepancies do not threaten the essential message or undermine the believer’s confidence.
Thus, although Simon’s work was historically significant—indeed, it contributed to the development of textual criticism—its polemical weight never truly dismantled the Protestant assurance in Scripture’s clarity and reliability. The “undermining of certainty” that Simon intended has been largely answered by subsequent Protestant scholarship, which recognizes textual variations yet maintains their non-fatal impact on core doctrines. Moreover, a presuppositional perspective highlights the theological root of the matter: either one trusts Scripture’s self-claims about divine preservation, or one appeals to an external authority to remedy perceived textual defects.
The ongoing legacy of Simon’s critique teaches an important lesson: textual complexity need not equate to textual chaos. For believers convinced of God’s sovereignty, the historical reality of scribal variation fits well within a providential framework in which the overall substance of Scripture is faithfully retained. In that light, confessional Protestants continue to view the Word of God as “living and active” (Hebrews 4:12), fully authoritative and sufficiently preserved by the Spirit’s power—a position that Simon’s challenge, for all its scholarly depth, could not decisively overturn.
