...as the Reformation began to spin out of control (from his point of view) with the spread of Anabaptist and other sectarian groups, Luther had to back away fromt he perspecuity of only one "correct" view and recognize the potential to prove a wide variety of doctrinal positions from scripture, admitting, "I learn now that it is enough to throw many passages together helter-skelter, whether they fit or not. If this be the way, then I can easily prove from Scripture that beer is better than wine." In another, more general sense, this problem of pervasive interpretive pluralism goes all the way back to teh recognition of the early church fathers Tertullian (155-230) and Vincent of Lerins (early fifth century) about the impossibility of using scripture to persuade heretics of the error of their ways. Vincent wrote, "Owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another, so that it seems capable of as many interpretations as there are interpreters." According to Tertullian, scriptural "ambiguity" and the possibility of reading the Bible in different ways means that a "controversy over the Scriptures can clearly produce no other effect than help to upset either the stomach or the brain." Tertullian observed: "Though most skilled in the Scriptures, you will made no progress, when everything which you maintain is denied on the other side, and whatever you deny is (by them) maintained. As for yourself, indeed, you will lose nothing but your breath, and gain nothing but vexation from their blasphemy...Our appeal, therefore, must not be made to the Scriptures."
In Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2011), 21.
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