◉ The Method-Selection Problem: Hermeneutical Buffets, Doctrinal Retrofitting, and the Search for a Stable Rule

Christian interpretive disputes often appear to concern the meaning of a passage while a prior choice does more of the work: which interpretive method should control when plain sense, historical context, authorial intention, canonical synthesis, theological coherence, moral trajectory, tradition, and pastoral judgment pull in different directions? Each tool can be legitimate. The public problem arises when a community offers no rule for selecting among them until its preferred doctrinal result is already in view. This paper develops a method-selection test and applies it to Christian debates over marriage, divorce, and remarriage. The case includes a stable textual field, high practical stakes, and rival scholarly conclusions that give different weights to Gospel formulations, Matthean exceptions, Pauline counsel, historical context, and early Christian reception. The contrast does not show that all readings are equally good. It shows why naming interpretive tools is insufficient when their priority remains adjustable. The main result is that a disputed reading acquires public warrant only to the extent that its governing rules are stated independently enough to constrain the desired conclusion and are applied symmetrically to comparison cases. A disciplined account should specify scope, priority, defeaters, burden of proof, cross-case consistency, and a visible revision trail. Interpretation will remain judgment-laden, and communities may properly appeal to tradition or theological commitments. The limit is decisive: those commitments must be disclosed as premises rather than presented as conclusions delivered by Scripture alone.