Last week I highlighted a book dealing with the idea that the Christian scriptures are essentially understandable documents. Here’s another way to think about the issue, from John Frame’s The Doctrine of the Word of God.
God is fully in control of his communications to human beings. When he intends to communicate with a human being, he is always able to do it successfully. But another name for successful communication is clarity. An unclear word is one that does not succeed, that fails to accomplish its purpose. But we know that God’s word always accomplishes its purpose (Isa. 55:10-11). Therefore, his word is always clear…
Scripture is always clear enough for us to carry out our present responsibilities before God. It is clear enough for a six-year-old to understand what God expects of him. It is also clear enough for a mature theologian to understand what God expects of him. But the clarity of Scripture, (as we saw under the lordship attribute of control) is person-relative, person-specific. Scripture is not exhaustively clear to anyone. It is not clear enough to satisfy anyone who merely wants to gain a speculative knowledge of divine things. It is, rather, morally sufficient, practically sufficient, sufficient for each person to know what God desires of him.