Originalism vs Textualism

Here is Marc Ambler giving Originalism and Textualism:

Originalism is “a legal philosophy that the words in documents and especially the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted as they were understood at the time they were written”1 by those that framed and ratified the Constitution and its various amendments. Textualism is closely aligned to Originalism and holds that when applying the law, the words of the Constitution itself are to be the final authority.

Scriptural originalism
by Marc Ambler | Published: 20 November 2018
https://creation.com/originalism

Why versus? Mark Ambler considers the two closely aligned. Well, in Exegesis, the (self proclaimed) Textualists are Protestants. The Originalists are Catholics.

For instance, if Protestant textualism were taken to its conclusion, some people would very quickly lose an eye or a hand. Catholicism can however say that with Originalism, this is not so, tradition knows the original meaning of Christ's words in Matthew 5:29 and similar verses, as being a hyperbole and a metaphor for other types of very severe separations than an anatomical one.

Challoner comments on the verse:

By which we are taught to fly the immediate occasions of sin, though they be as dear to us, or as necessary as a hand or an eye.

Haydock comment on verse:

Ver. 29. Whatever is an immediate occasion of sin, however near or dear it may be, must be abandoned (M.), though it prove as dear to us, or as necessary as a hand, or an eye, and without delay or demur. A.

Most Protestants would of course agree, and I think only disagreement is from a non-Protestant, more Gnostic or Manichaean type sect, Skoptsy. But on a strictly textualist approach, why would a Protestant condemn the Skoptsy?

Here a Protestant can claim to be not strictly textualist, but originalist too. Now, there is a problem for Protestantism here.

According to the context Ambler was using as illustration, an originalist in US Constitution is applying the known original meaning of declaration of rights and of amendments. How so, "known"? Well, late 18th and all of 19th as well as 20th Century are very close to fully literate U. S. Citizens. We can know that

• "all men are created equal" to a Founding Father did not mean there could be no slavery;
• however, slavery is forbidden by an amendment after War of Secession,
• and that amendment does also not mean there can be no other types of servitude which one could broadly call "slavery" like "wage slavery" (which in Chicago has been a worse one than the slavery fought against in the war).
• but this does not change the fact that a sentence can find a new application to secure the happiness of the great number : a federal or state by state minimal wage would not be required by the Constitution, but also not go against it.

We can know this because we can know US History.

However, an Originalist in Biblical Exegesis needs to know Church History - from within, like a US Citizen knows US History.

That, Protestantism does not provide, since a Protestant Church starts at Reformation or even later at some "second" or "third" or perhaps even "fourth great awakening" and since each awakening and especially Reformation was claiming we don't have traditional access to original meaning, we are now stuck with text only.

Of course, both philosophies contrast with another approach:

Judges who are non-originalists believe that interpretation of the Constitution should evolve in line with changing cultural, moral and social mores. ...

That approach is per se neither Catholic nor Protestant. Among Protestants, those holding it go by the name "Liberal Theologian". Among Catholics, those holding it go by the name "Modernist". I have never been Modernist; I may have coincided by mistake with them or by initial ignorance for some time, but I have always detested this approach. So, while Originalism and Textualism, Catholicism and Protestantism, differ, they are closer to each other than to this outlandish approch one could call non-originalist, Modernist or Liberal Theologian. I went from Protestant to Catholic over finding out Catholicism gave a better basis for originalism.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Edmund, King and Martyr
20.XI.2018

PS, spelling of Marc Ambler's first name was corrected after signature./HGL

PPS, for OT, Catholicism is "originalism +" when it comes to affirmations, and "originalism -" when it comes to rules. So many things are clearer to Christians than they were before the Incarnation./HGL