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SCRIPTURE’S TESTIMONY ❘ REVISITING THE CHICAGO STATEMENT ❘ R. C. SPROUL INTERVIEW

MODERN REFORMATION

Inspiration and Inerrancy VOLUME

19, NUMBER 2, MARCH/APRIL 2010, $6.50

MODERN REFORMATION

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Editor-in-Chief Michael S. Horton Executive Editor Ryan Glomsrud Managing Editor Patricia Anders Marketing Director Michele Tedrick Department Editors Ryan Glomsrud, Reviews Michael Horton, Final Thoughts Staff | Editors Jason Ching, Digital Production Assistant Lori A. Cook, Layout and Design Elizabeth Isaac, Proofreader Alyson S. Platt, Copy Editor Contributing Scholars Michael Allen Peter D. Anders James Bachman J. Todd Billings John Bombaro Jerry Bridges John N. Day Adam S. Francisco David Gibson W. Robert Godfrey T. David Gordon Gillis Harp D. G. Hart Paul Helm John A. Huffman, Jr. Daniel R. Hyde Ken Jones Julius J. Kim Philip J. Lee Jonathan Leeman Richard Lints Korey Maas Keith Mathison R. Albert Mohler, Jr. John Warwick Montgomery Kenneth A. Myers Roger R. Nicole Robert Norris J. I. Packer Craig Parton Mark Pierson Lawrence R. Rast, Jr. Donald P. Richmond Kim Riddlebarger Rick Ritchie David Robertson Rod Rosenbladt Justin Taylor Kate Treick David VanDrunen Gene E. Veith David F. Wells Donald T. Williams William Willimon Todd Wilken Paul F. M. Zahl Modern Reformation © 2010 All rights reserved.

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Inspiration and Inerrancy 10 God’s Word in Human Words Like the gospel, a proper understanding of the inspiration of Scripture is never something we can take for granted.

by Michael Horton

17 Getting Inspiration from Inspiration Christians can renew their personal commitment to studying the Bible from the very doctrine of biblical inspiration.

by Michael Allen

21 “Where Can We Go?” What can we do when the Bible doesn’t seem to make sense?

by Rick Ritchie

26 The Truthfulness of Scripture As with inspiration, it is vital for us to understand why Scripture is inerrant.

by Michael Horton

32 The Aftermath: Looking Back at the Chicago Statement

by David F. Wells

33 A Roundtable Discussion on Inerrancy With Michael Horton, Donald P. Richmond, and Michael Spencer

41 Textual Criticism Today’s challenge is not how we know the words of Scripture are right, but how we know we have the right words.

by Michael J. Kruger

45 The Self-Attestation of Scripture Scripture’s capacity to testify to itself is at the center of the Christian faith.

by Paul Helm COVER: “THE INSPIRATION OF ST. MATTHEW” BY CARAVAGGIO /ARTRESOURCE , COMPOSITE BY LORI COOK

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In This Issue page 2 | Letters page 3 | Ex Auditu page 4 | Ad Extra page 6 Interview page 48 | Reformation Resources page 51 | Reviews page 52 | Final Thoughts page 56

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IN THIS ISSUE

Consciences Held Captive

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nless I consider myself convicted by the testimony of Holy Scripture, which is my basis, my conscience is captive to the Word of God.” With these famous words, Martin Luther publically recovered Scripture from relative obscurity in the medieval church. For Luther and the other Reformers, the recovery of justification by faith alone coincided with a conscience-bound need to affirm the full authority of the Bible. Christianity is, after all, a revealed religion, one in which the gospel is good news but also new news that is presented to us exclusively in the pages of Holy Scripture. As with salvation, Scripture’s author and perfecter is God who stoops down to us in both redemption and revelation; in neither case do we climb up self-made ladders to heaven.

While we constantly labor in these pages to explore the redemption that is made known in the Bible, we do not as frequently attend to revelation in a technical sense, that is, to the manner and mode of the production of Scripture along with the implications for its trustworthiness. It is always presupposed, but in this issue we take up the matter fully by turning to two substantive theological topics: the doctrines of inspiration and of inerrancy.

Editor-in-Chief Michael Horton begins with a precise discussion of divine inspiration. The Word of God is not something that wells up within us, but breaks in from the outside at the behest of God the Father himself who always works through the Son and by the perfecting agency of the Spirit. If we take seriously this divine whence of Scripture, Knox Seminary professor Michael Allen rightly supposes that our devotional lives will take on new meaning. A number of misunderstandings have arisen on this topic, however, and so we should note at the outset that the doctrine of verbal inspiration does not mean that Scripture was produced either by direct divine penmanship or immediate mechanical dictation. On the contrary, there is a proper appreciation of the human authorship of the Bible, even as their writings were set apart and sanctified by the Holy Spirit such that they can be said to be the very Word of God. Complexities abound, to be sure, and Rick Ritchie demonstrates for us how to deal with seemingly contradictory passages.

The second half of the issue is given over to the doctrine of inerrancy, or the conviction that divine inspiration guarantees that the Bible is without error in all that it affirms. Here again there is no little controversy, and for this reason Michael Horton contributes a second article in explanation of what the doctrine does and does not mean. We think that too many evangelicals have rejected inerrancy without ever having learned it properly, which is why we reproduce the articles of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy for your consideration (see page 30). One thing is sure, evangelical affirmations of inerrancy have not ruled out doctrinal divergences, a point well made by David Wells as he reflects upon the aftermath of the Chicago Statement. We do give our friendly critics a fair hearing in a roundtable discussion, where it will be left to readers to decide whether this conversation advances the debate or gets bogged down in misapplication. Next, New Testament scholar Michael Kruger offers a crucial apologetic resource by tackling some objections to inerrancy that arise from modern textual criticism. And finally, Paul Helm rounds out the issue by explaining that our full persuasion of the truth and authority of Scripture comes finally from the inward work of the Holy Spirit.

This issue is full of substantive articles because a genuine recovery of Scripture requires that we also come to terms with a positive confession of what we believe Scripture to be, namely, the divinely revealed Word of God written, a lamp unto our feet, and a light unto our path.

Ryan Glomsrud Executive Editor 2 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

NEXT ISSUES May/June 2010 Canon Formation July/August 2010 Interpreting Scripture

LETTERS y o u r

Thank you for printing the exchange between Donald Williams and D. G. Hart (November/December 2009) on the question of the necessity of conversion. Hart replies to Williams’ question, “Do good Presbyterians need to be born again?” with this statement: “I cannot fathom why a Presbyterian who needs to be regenerated would be called ‘good.’”

My reply to Dr. Hart’s question is: Because only God sees the heart. One may be exemplary in appearances, both in private devotion and attention to corporate worship, but have a prideful or self-righteous heart. Indeed, it is so easy to trust in one’s piety, not to mention knowledge of biblical doctrine. Hart sees the conversions of such baptized individuals as unnecessary, and he may be right. But on balance, I would rather see a possibly unnecessary conversion than an outwardly pious Presbyterian with an unregenerate heart because he has never had pressed upon him the need for a personal exchange—he has never come as a despairing sinner and cast himself entirely upon the mercy of God in Christ.

Lois Westerlund

I think the article “Getting Rid of Conversion?” (November/December 2009) by Donald T. Williams is right on the money. Like Williams, when I read Hart’s original article I was struck by what seemed to be an overemphasis of externals to the detriment of “internals.” One can be a member of a church, doing and saying all the right things without necessarily being internally converted. In reading Hart’s rebuttal of Williams, it struck me that he is not really addressing what Williams is saying. Rather, Hart sets up a straw man with only a limited connection to what Williams argued—the “good” versus the “bad” Presbyterian—without focusing on the example of Nicodemus who was by all appear-

ances a “good” Jew yet was unconverted. The example of Nicodemus is at the center of Williams’ critique. Hart’s difficulty with the whole notion of conversion, not just in appearance but internally when the heart is circumcised, is difficult to understand. It almost sounds Pelagian or more accurately Pelagian by proxy (that is, if our parental/church upbringing is reasonably effective and we appear to be good Christians we are saved, even if the unseen heart remains full of dead bones). Perhaps it was a lack of internal circumcision that theologian Charles Hodge turned from when he was converted and not his upbringing or his life as seen from the outside, as Hart rather glibly suggests. In fact, it is possible that Hodge, like Paul, viewed those as “rubbish” upon his conversion. Williams is right: both conversion and the church are what Scripture calls us to.

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I read Craig Parton’s article “Funerals from Hell” (January/February 2010) and just wanted to thank him for it. My husband died last May from cancer and the article made me weep bucketsful!

I am thankful for Modern Reformation to which my husband had been subscribed for several years—and am certainly not going to give up the subscription. It is food for the hungry here.

By the way, I come from an English evangelical Anglican background.

Keep up the good work! May the Lord bless you richly!

Jennifer Favre Aubonne, Switzerland

Richard Gentilli

Soli Deo gloria! Craig Parton’s article on fun-erals (January/February 2010) was “dead-on.” I have been grieved at funerals by the same things he mentioned more times than I wish to count. The gospel is no longer primary, the glory of God isn’t even secondary, and the foolish tunes and comments are a mockery. I add that the funerals of those who were in vocational ministry are often the worst. May those of us who have the glory of God and the gospel as our passion set an example and instruct people now that our funerals must be an opportunity to point people to the grace of Christ and to call them to repentance. If there is a “well done” to be said, let it be the voice of the Master himself as we enter his glorious presence.

Modern Reformation Letters to the Editor 1725 Bear Valley Parkway Escondido CA 92027 760.741.1045 fax Letters@modernreformation.org Letters under 200 words are more likely to be printed than longer letters. Letters may be edited for content and length.

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“The Law”

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his is All Saints’ Day and I want to ask the question of how sinners become saints.

does that make me?

Nothing but a sinner.

We have read Deuteronomy as the first lesson, we have the gospel from Mark, and Suppose you went to lunch with me afterwards, and we have in the opening Eucharist the statement of the Great Law: “Thou shalt love you had to sit and listen to someone whose very digthe Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and nity depended on the idea that he was better than some with all thy mind and with all thy strength, and thy neighother people. You wouldn’t accept the next invitation, would bor as thyself.” The law has brought us all under condemyou? You’d find some excuse not to listen to that drivel, nation. What does this commandment mean but that we are wouldn’t you? So we sort of do it very subtly, but still we do all sinners in need of salvation? it.

To deny that we are sinners is to be like the Pharisee. Most I was so moved that when I got home I went into the of us, I believe, judging by myself, handle this question basement and fished into my carpenter’s box and pulled out most of the time by gossip. We believe that gossip is a kind a plumb—Amos’s plumb tells us that none of us are of hope that God will grade on a curve. If you take an exam plumb—and I hung it from the second floor. It comes down in a history class where 70 is passing and your grade was 48, into the stairs so that when you open up our front door, you see the stairs and the plumb line. After two and a half years, you would flunk the exam. But if the professor grades on a my wife Martha said, “Fitz, don’t you think we can take it curve and other people did worse than you, you’ve got a down?” I said, “Yes, certainly, take it down any time there’s chance. Then you sidle up to your friend: “What did you no evidence of self-righteousness left in this house.” After make?” And they say, “Well, I made a 65.” And your heart five and a half years, it’s still up. It’s an occasion to get a free sinks. That’s not going to help you one bit. But then, when sermon. Don’t even have to pass the plate. Every time somebody else made a 32, you think: “Oh my goodness; that someone comes in my house and asks “What’s that?” I’ll tell helps me a lot. I might even pass now with this 48 grade.” them. It just costs them about five or ten minutes. I hope the So what do we do? Well, the media knows what we do, Lord will do something with our self-righteousness. and what we need, and how we need to be fed. They tell We are like alcoholics. A true AA person never says, “I you all the bad stories about all the bad people. And so many used to be an alcoholic.” What he says is, “I am a recoverof them are worse than you and I, aren’t they? Isn’t that comforting? The clergy of this country was never as blessed ing alcoholic, by God’s grace.” So we are Pharisees: “I’m so and happy as when Jimmy Baker fell. People had stayed glad I’m not like those Methodists. I’m so glad I’m not like home and not attended their church in order to listen to those other bishops. I’m so glad I’m not like that other Jimmy Baker, but now he’s gone down. We say, “I am sorry woman who can’t cook, and her house is a mess when you to hear that,” but underneath some of us were delighted. So go in, bless her heart.” the way we deal with the commandment of God—thou Let me tell you how one person became a saint. His shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and name was John Wesley. He had the best education available mind and strength—is a terrible way to rejoice in other at the time; he went to Christ Church at Oxford, the most peoples’ misbehavior. Gee, I’ve never dreamed of doing anyprestigious college, and he was a Methodist—a term that thing like that! And somehow that helps me. they used in reprobation for someone who took the Bible I was sitting comfortably, minding my own business, in seriously, and who visited the widows and the orphans and the pew in Prince George Church in Georgetown, South the people in prison. But people didn’t respond to his serCarolina, and the clergyman Paul Fuener was preaching on mons, and people didn’t respond when he went to visit them Amos. I must confess my mind wandered a little bit, because in the prisons, because they were made to come, and they I was headed toward a House of Bishops meeting, and I would be hostile. began to compare myself with my colleagues in the He got on a boat and went into the mission field. (I say Episcopal House of Bishops; and I was coming out very “boat” though I know I’m supposed to say “ship,” but when well. Then that preacher quit preaching and went to medyou get on an eighteenth-century vessel in the Atlantic dling and put Amos’s plumb line into my pew. And I wept, Ocean, it’s a boat.) There was a huge storm and the waves literally. were coming up all over the whole ship. The captain was What is Amos’s plumb line? It is God’s justice by which I frightened and the crew was frightened, and John and am judged. And no matter how bad anybody else is, what Charles Wesley were terrified, and all things were moaning 4 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

and screaming. There were some Moravians over there in the corner singing hymns, prayers, and spiritual songs, saying, “Lord, if you’re ready to take us, we’re ready to go; and if you will spare us, we’re certainly going to serve you. It’s up to you, Lord. We’ll do it either way you have, but we’re in your hands.” They had a serenity that John and Charles had never seen before, and they never forgot it.

John got to Savannah and he got sick, and he was nursed by an attractive young woman, Sophia Hopkey. And after he got well, he found that Sophia Hopkey had married William Williamson. When she came to the altar, he skipped her— he excommunicated her. You excommunicate someone because they are an evil, notorious sinner who has offended the congregation. And what did William Williamson think?

He didn’t like it one bit. He got a charge of slander against John Wesley, and John Wesley had to post bail. He jumped bail, got in a rowboat and came across the Savannah River, walked to Blufton, took a buggy into Charleston, and took a ship to Plymouth, where he met George Whitefield who was on his way to the colonies as a missionary. He tried to persuade George Whitefield not to go, because he would only be casting his pearls before Georgian swine—that’s still worth a quote sometimes. Fortunately, George went and did some wonderful work.

John returned to England depressed. His ministry was not going well. Then he remembered those Moravians in the storm. He crept into the back of a Moravian church, where Peter Baylor was expounding on The Epistle to the Romans by Martin Luther, and his heart was “strangely warmed.” He dropped and put down that great burden of his own selfrighteousness, because it is a burden—you’ve got to keep it up, and there’s no way to keep it up without cheating, and cheating hurts us. He put it down; and he allowed not on his own righteousness but on the righteousness that God has provided in Jesus the Christ. The text that really did turn him around was Romans 3:25–26: “Christ Jesus, whom the Lord put forward as an expiation by his blood to be received by trust [or faith].” And he then put his trust in what God had done through the blood of Jesus Christ.

Do you remember what Christ said in John 6:53, “If you do not drink the blood of the Son of Man, you will have no salvation”? It was a hard saying, and many of his disciples stopped following him and left him. It was a hard saying, especially for them, because they were nurtured as we are not in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. It says, “Thou shalt not drink the blood of an animal.” And why? Because blood was the life of an animal. You stick a lamb and it bleeds; it’s alive.

When it quits bleeding, the blood is gone, the life is gone. So blood is the life, and you do not drink the life of an animal because you were made in the image of God. But you have to drink the blood of Christ to be saved and to receive expiation—a big word that means “atonement.” It means “to fix it,” but fix what? To fix that situation about you and Almighty God: the unbearable discrepancy between our sin and God’s righteousness. It is demanded of us by the law that we love him with all our heart and mind and strength and soul. And we don’t do it, and it is an unbearable thing. We

try to patch it up with gossip and with delight in other peoples’ misfortune and by trying to carry that huge burden of our own righteousness that is worth nothing in the face of Almighty God’s righteousness. So expiation fixes it and makes it one: God’s righteousness and our sin.

There are three things we need to know about that. The first is that blood is life, life outpoured. We are talking about God’s love. When God’s love in the life of Christ was given up, was outpoured for you and for me—sinners that did not deserve it—then we see what kind of love is the Father, and we must drink that blood, that life outpoured. I was listening to a dear friend, a clergyman, who had gone to the recent diocesan convention in which the wonderful bishop gave a talk. This clergyman said, “I drank in every word he said.”

He ingested it; he appropriated it. It was the life of Christ. Not merely the life of Christ, but the life of Christ outpoured in the cross. It is the crucial issue. The very word “crucial” is taken from “cross.” Jesus didn’t say, “You’ve got to follow me and be like me” or “What would Jesus do?” He did not say that. What he said is, “You’ve got to drink my blood.” And it offended many of his disciples.

The second thing about blood we’ve got to understand is what the opposite of condemnation is and why it is so necessary. We are all under condemnation by the law. None is righteous, no not one. No one loves the Lord their God and their neighbor as himself as God has demanded of us to love.

We have not done it, we do not do it, we are not doing it— and the law brings us into condemnation. Then what is the opposite of condemnation? Most people would scarcely believe what the Scripture says is the opposite of condemnation. As 2 Corinthians 3:9 says, “For if the ministry of condemnation was glorious”—that’s the law, and the law is just and right and glorious. Psalm 119 says, “It is a marvelous thing, the law”; and it’s the strength of sin. The law is a ministry of condemnation. It is glorious, that law is God’s law; but it is also the strength of sin, and it is a ministry of condemnation. And if, St. Paul says, the ministry of condemnation was glorious, how much more is the ministry of righteousness! Who would have ever thought that! You wouldn’t have made that up. You got it out of the good book where it was revealed. Righteousness—my gosh, that just sounds like law all over again.

But the third thing we need to know about this righteousness is that it is not a passive righteousness. God’s righteousness is declared in the forgiveness of sins. He’s doing something with that righteousness; he’s not just sitting there fastidious: “I’m not having to do with you damned Southerners.” That’s not cursing, that’s a theological statement. That’s what sinners are. No, he sends his Son at great cost and love to pour out his life for us. So it’s an active righteousness, not a passive righteousness.

For instance, my wife is a clean housekeeper. She is so clean that she can spot a stain on my shirt in the dark. She can see dust on the other side of a brick wall. But does that mean that she is too fastidious to clean the house? No! What you mean by being a clean housekeeper is that she (continued on page 9) M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 0 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 5

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The Devil Hates Goose Quills: And Why it Matters to the Church

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artin Luther, who said “The Devil hates goose quills,” insisted that in a ref-

prose. “Poetry” thus conceived provides a pseudoormation “we need poets.” Most of us scratch our heads and wonder what form for saying private things about one’s self, on earth we need them for. Our postmodern, post-Christian, post-biblical things one would never utter in direct speech— culture has almost totally dismissed what used to be called until Whitman removed the veil. Such redefining of what poetry. Few deny it; ours is a post-poetry culture. But who poetry is has led to a proliferation of what one classics procares? “Poetry is a marginal art form,” wrote poet Campbell fessor termed, “therapeutic soul-baring by emotional exhiMcGrath, “in a culture that values neither literacy nor artisbitionist[s].” Or as John Stott quipped, “The trouble with tic expression in any vital way. America does not persecute you Americans is you’re constantly engaged in a spiritual poets, it does not seek to smash them like bugs—it just strip-tease.” Abandoning form for raw emotion is not doesn’t care a lot.” Martin Luther cared deeply about poetry, unique to poets. Most artists are quite pleased with themin the most vital way. But do most Christians today? Most selves for smashing outmoded forms in favor of new strucaccept the decline of poetry without a whimper, with barely tures, ones better suited to self-expression, the now primary a wafture of good riddance. But does it matter? sphere of art.

It’s no coincidence that poetry began its descent into Paul Johnson, decrying the decline in literacy, argues “gaseous emotionalizing” in egalitarian America. Alexis that students should “produce competent verse in a wide d’Tocqueville placed the blame squarely on the devoluvariety of strict meters, under examination conditions.” To tions of democracy: “Nothing is more repugnant to the what purpose should they be subjected to such literary torhuman mind, in an age of equality, than the idea of subtures? After all, what good is it? Won’t the machinations of jection to forms.” As he continues, one wonders if society carry on just fine without poetry? Won’t the church d’Tocqueville was thinking of his contemporary Walt do just fine without it? It’s not as if poetry contributes anyWhitman: “Democracy diverts the imagination from all thing vital. You can’t eat it. So thought Hanoverian King that is external to man, and fixes it on man alone. Each citGeorge II. “I hate all poets!” he declared. If you’ve ever been izen is habitually engaged in the contemplation of a very flummoxed at lines you were told were poetry—ones about puny object, namely, himself.” wheelbarrows and chickens—you may agree with George’s abhorrence of poets. But are Christians to stand deferentially Meanwhile, Whitman was working on his signature aside as culture pitches poetry—the highest form—into the poem, “Song of Myself,” the prototype of vacuous praise— lowest circle of hell? of the wrong object. With this, man-centered praise poetry was born. Instead of “turning us from ourselves to [God]” as What Happened to Poetry?

Whitman’s contemporary, John Greenleaf Whittier wrote, I’ve been accused of the pedagogical unpardonable sin of “Song of Myself” set the mortar of poetic self-referentialism. depriving my writing students of what has become poetry’s Much of Whitman’s poetry was disgusting material. “I sole consideration: individual self-expression. “Why don’t believe in the flesh and the appetites,” he crooned. “Divine you let them write in free verse?” I’m asked. “I do,” I reply. am I inside and out….The scent of these armpits aroma finer “We just call it brainstorming.” than prayer, This head more than churches, bibles, and all Arguably vers libre (free verse) achieved its foothold with the creeds…nothing, not God, is greater…more wonderful Walt Whitman, a man with new ideas simmering in his than myself.” One wishes Whitman would stop. But he bosom, new ideas that demanded a new form. “Through me does not. Nor have poets since. forbidden voices, voices of sexes and lust, voices veiled, and When Whittier received his advance copy of “Song of I removed the veil.” No doubt the devil rubs his hands in glee Myself,” he read a few lines and tossed it into the fire. at Whitman’s goose quill. Whitman-like free verse dictates Unfortunately, vers libre emotive self-expression survived against any conventional structure of meter or rhyme. the burning. One tragic result is that we’ve forfeited the abilThis throw-off-the-shackles impulse creates a blurring of ity to measure the quality of poetry, so free verse proliferates literary genre wherein poetic form is abandoned in favor of without censure as everyone and his cocker spaniel gets in irregular bursts of feeling. What often remains is fragmented touch with the poet within.

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Poetry in the Bible The devil likely applauds Christians who shrug indifferently as genuine poetry twitches into the abyss. Yet the Bible contains the finest poetry of the ancient world. Hebrew poetry, divinely inspired, not only adorned the highest object, it was the greatest lyric beauty ever penned. C. S. Lewis considered Psalm 19 the finest poem of all time.

People in the ancient world turned to poetry. It is the imago Dei in human beings that expresses their deepest longings, their highest joys, and their darkest griefs in poetry.

Contrary to today’s post-poetry world, if we had lived 3,000 years ago in the ancient Near East under the blessing of the Sovereign Lord, poetry would have played a daily role in our lives. We would have sung it, danced to it, memorized it, prayed it, written it, accompanied it on our lyre, hummed it as we herded sheep, shouted it charging into battle, and lifted our voice with inspired poetry in corporate worship with the grand assembly of Israel, the accelerating wonder of the presence of the Almighty thrilling our souls. At last, we would have parted this life with the Psalms on our lips in our final sigh.

Throughout every season of our existence, our lives would have revolved around grand poetic expressions of adoration, ones such as my father’s favorite (Psalm 34) as he was dying of cancer: This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.

The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!

Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

Line upon line, the Psalms are full of passionate expressions of hope and adoration, rich, exuberant poetry that appears throughout the historical and prophetic books as well.

The apostle Paul, Hebrew of the Hebrews, not only knew the Psalms, he understood pagan verse. Speaking before the Areopagus (Acts 17:28), he recited from the pagan Greek poet Epimenides of Crete, “In him we live and move and have our being,” and from Aratus’s Phainomena with the line, “For we are indeed his offspring.” Daniel was “competent to stand in the king’s palace” for his wisdom and to have it augmented by being taught “the literature and language of the Chaldeans” (Dan.1:4), literature that in the ancient world would have been exclusively poetry.

Poetry in Geneva While Luther searched for German poets, Psalms versified for singing became central to the progress of the gospel in the French Reformation. Calvin employed the fugitive court poet Clement Marot to create French psalm versifications for the Geneva Psalter (1551). Calvin himself may have inked his goose quill to craft the psalm-like hymn “I Greet Thee Who My Sure Redeemer Art.” Though not a strict versification of any psalm text, it was included in the psalter.

So central was psalm singing to the Reformation that

soon after Calvin’s death there were sixty illegal French psalters in circulation throughout Europe. Without a doubt, some of these versifications were of considerably better poetic quality than others. However faithful to the original psalm in theology, and however sincere the poet, many of these versifications were poetically crude material. Biblical Christians will always want to sing the Psalms, and there are fine existing psalm versifications to sing. But ought we to keep singing the ones that contort syntax to fit the meter, the ones that are clearly not words set in delightful proportion, as the inspired Psalms so clearly were?

Poet physician Elliot Emanuel observed that “poetry is what eludes translation.” Though original truths can be translated, the subtle nuances of poetic language are another matter. Unique cadences and conventions inevitably must give way to those of the new language. Though raw content remains, the words in the new language rarely can convey the soul of the poetry.

Poetry’s role is to adorn truth by creating pictures with words, figurative language, and by creating music with words, employing sound devices like alliteration, rhyming, and enjambment. Though parallelisms of idea translate from Hebrew to other languages, the mysterious and wonderful images and music created with words in the original poetry are often lost. Hence, when faithful men labored to make strict, metered English verse from Hebrew psalm poetry, complications arose. To their credit, these men intentionally paid much greater attention to the inspired content than to the lyric devices of English poetry. But must it be either/or?

Poetry the Devil Hates Though there are enduring versifications in English psalters, we’ve all stumbled along attempting to sing some versions. Let’s be honest. There are psalm versifications that are clumsy poetry. I hasten to add that this is no criticism of psalm singing—and certainly not of the inspired text.

Nothing could be further from my intention. It’s simply candor.

Consider an illustration. Determined to worship God biblically, the Massachusetts Bay Colony employed linguist and missionary John Elliot to versify Psalms directly from the Hebrew original. The resulting Bay Psalm Book (1640) was the first book published in the New World, a monument to the priority of psalm singing in Christian worship. But clearly poetic beauty in English was not a prominent objective: O Blessed man, that in th’advice of wicked men doeth not walk: Or stand in sinners’ way, or sit in chair of scornful folk.

Though the original psalm is divinely inspired poetry, the Bay Psalm Book version of Psalm 1 is indisputably not an example of “words set in delightful proportion,” as Sir Phillip Sidney defined poetry in his “Defense of Poesy.”

Herein is the great dilemma for educators: we rightly train our students to appreciate the grandeur of the canon of M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 0 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 7

bered for his sermons; like Luther, poet Watts is remempoets laboring to master that mysterious human expression bered for his hymns. One reason is that he vigorously combined his redemptive-histhat flows directly from our being God’s image bearers. torical interpretation with vital poetry adorning the English poetry, words and meaning set in delightful prohighest object. Watts’ versification of Psalm 72 provides a portion by John Donne and others, while we require them concise example. “Give the king your justice, O God” fashto sing sometimes awkward English poetry back to God in ioned by Watts’ redemptive-historical theology and his corporate worship—like teaching them to craft fine wine but poetic skill became “Jesus shall reign where e’er the sun / making them drink purple Kool-Aid. Doth his successive journeys run.” The devil abhors poets Certainly, the devil hates it when we get the theological like Luther and Watts, who used their goose quills to adorn content correct. But I’d wager he’s satisfied when we leave the loveliness of Jesus. Let’s give him more to hate. poetry to musty bookshelves. I suspect he beams with delight when a generation attempts to worship with halting Let’s Sharpen Those Goose Quills poetic efforts the God who made a universe of stupendous “We need poets,” said Luther, as does the church today, beauty. poets laboring to master that mysterious human expression Meanwhile, the Psalms call us to gaze upon the beauty of that flows directly from our being God’s image bearers. the Lord, to be dazzled at his loveliness—and they do so with Excellence in poetry is supremely a gift of God, but honing inspired poetry, the finest ever penned, adorning glorious poetic skill requires study, imitation, submission to form, practruths about God’s perfections and redemptive ways, set in tice, and experience, just like playing the cello or the banjo. the most surpassingly delightful proportion. Just as the Poetry, as with all gifts of God, ought to be used for its musicians chosen to accompany psalm singing in old highest purpose. “The highest form of poetry is the hymn,” covenant worship were to be men of unrivaled musical wrote Whittier, arch critic of Whitman—whose object was skill, so much more in new covenant worship, the content himself. If poetry adorns and delineates the ideal, what posand the form of the poetry ought to be the finest. Imagine sible higher ideal could there be than Christ himself? Even the diabolical handwringing when it is so.

French Catholic d’Tocqueville felt uneasy about American poets using their quills to gush about streams and mounChrist-Centered Preaching—and Singing tains—and themselves—instead of celebrating “the proviWe would rightly consider a preacher of the gospel to dential designs that rule the universe, [that] show the finger have missed the point if he preached through a book of the of the Supreme Governor, [that] reveal the thoughts of the law and concluded that finally what matters is our obediSupreme Mind”—notably themes appearing in the Psalms ence, as if Paul never wrote that the law was a schoolmasand the finest hymn poetry. ter to lead us to Christ, our righteousness, the fulfillment of I wonder how many of us have thought of the words we the law. Moreover, if he preached from an old covenant were singing in worship as the highest form of poetry. There poetic book but taught it as nothing more than ancient may be reasons for this. It may be because much of it is Near Eastern love poetry, devoid of redemptive typology, “gaseous emotionalism” with vague Bible words—so unlike devoid of Christ the lover of his bride the church, we would inspired psalm poetry. Or, though the words may be true, it rightly feel that Christ had been dishonored in such preachmay simply be mediocre poetry, uninspiring pedestrian verse. ing—and that we had been cheated.

We may be tempted to assume that we already have good Redemptive-historical preaching is not a hermeneutical enough hymns—and there are many fine ones—so how option, a matter of methodological taste that works for important can it be to produce poets and new hymns? some and not for others. In his book Christ-Centered Preaching, Maybe Luther got it wrong. I suspect the devil nods approvBrian Chappell wrote, “The redemptive-historical ingly at this reasoning. method…is a vital and foundational tool that expositors But aren’t there plenty of great sermons? Why not simneed to accurately and gracefully interpret texts in their full ply read from the vast wealth of existing sermons preached context.” No other method gets at the burden of the bibliby able expositors like Luther, Calvin, Edwards, and cal text—Jesus.

Spurgeon? Yet Christians understand that every healthy So when Paul writes that we are “in word or deed” to do age in the church will produce preachers—skillful men who all in the name of the Lord Jesus, in the immediate context preach God’s Word afresh and with Spirit-imbued power. of singing “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” (Col. 3:16– Without straining the comparison, won’t every age want 17), perhaps we ought to consider that what is true of to frustrate the devil by producing poets who honor Christ preaching in new covenant worship is equally true of singing anew in their poetry? The devil hates goose quills, includin new covenant worship. ing ones wielded by able poets who train their pens to the “The hymns of Luther,” a Jesuit critic said, “killed more highest use—crafting psalm-like hymns that lift the heart, souls than his sermons.” Preacher Isaac Watts is not rememmind, and imagination from our puny selves and enthrall us

“We need poets,” said Luther, as does the church today,

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with Christ alone. The devil probably enjoys what Whitman and his offspring spew, but he hates real poetry. Judging from the vast quantity of poetry in the inspired canon of the Bible—God loves poetry. And so must his bride, the church.

Imagine the devil’s despair when Christians train their children to know and love God’s Word and to render to their Redeemer the most stupendous words of gratitude and adoration—highest register words, worthy of the highest object.

Let’s sharpen those goose quills and discover the Cowper and Rossetti lying dormant in this generation.

We rise and worship you, our Lord, With grateful hearts for grace outpoured, For you are good—O taste and see— Great God of mercy rich and free.

A chosen son of God on high, I trembling bow and wonder why This Sovereign Lord—O taste and see— In love stooped down and rescued me.

Your Son obeyed the Law for me, Then died my death upon the tree.

O Jesus Christ, I taste and see And marvel that you purchased me.

In might, your Spirit drew me in, My quickened heart from death to win.

O Holy Spirit—taste and see— My comfort, hope, and surety.

With thankful praise our hearts we give; By grace alone we serve and live.

O Trinity, we taste and see Your sovereign goodness full and free.

Douglas Bond, PCA ruling elder and teacher, is author of fourteen books, including the Mr. Pipes series on Christian hymnody for young people. Read and hear more hymns for the modern reformation at www.douglasbond.webs.com.

April is National Poetry Month.

Ex Auditu (continued from page 5) cleans it up. After Hurricane Hugo, I learned two things: I learned that both a freezer and a refrigerator will float. We had forty-three inches of water on our first floor, and two huge things in the kitchen turned upside down and opened with eggs, shrimp, salad, mud, and bananas all mixed up in one great big mess on the floor. So we were in there cleaning it up. We had barely started when the phone rang, thank goodness, and I had to go to the hospital. When I came back, the whole house wasn’t clean, but the kitchen was clean because she was a clean housekeeper.

Like that, God’s righteousness is a righteousness of activity whereby he takes us miserable sinners without excuse and cleans us up. He tells us that when we drink of this blood, the blood cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7, Eph.1:7), that this blood we drink brings us near to him, that sinner and the righteousness of God—we are brought together by drinking the blood—the love outpoured on the cross. Hebrews 9:14 says, “The blood purifies us to serve,” and 1 Peter 1:18–19, “By his precious blood we are ransomed”—we are saved from our sins and our human nature. In Romans 5:9 we read, “We are justified by blood and therefore have peace with God.” Just as this clergyman said, “I drank in every word of the bishop’s address,” we are to look at that cross and to drink into our hearts what God at such expense has done for us undeserving people in pouring out his love in that blood outpoured, not just the life of Jesus but the life outpoured that is the very essence of his love.

Now some of those who had followed him, when they heard that they must drink the blood of the Son of Man or there will be no salvation, no longer went with him. You who are yet offended by the word “blood,” coming to the Eucharist, the blood of Christ, drink this in remembrance of what? That Christ poured out his life for you, sinner that you are, you who would not drink that blood. He asked the Twelve, “Will you also leave?” And Peter said, “Lord, to whom would we go?” To whom will you go? President Obama? The Republican Party? The stock market? Your own gossip? The bitterness we all are tempted by for the injustices of our lives? Would you return to those things?

Peter answers, for me, “We know that you are the One that has come. We will serve you.” And this is what I pray that you will do when you come to this Eucharistic offering of the blood of Christ outpoured for you. Amen.

Speaking Of… “But, Cheerful, in the light around me thrown, Walking as one to pleasant service led; Doing God’s will as if it were my own, Yet trusting not in mine, but in His strength alone!”

C. FitzSimons Allison is a retired Episcopal bishop of South Carolina and recently preached this sermon on All Saints’ Day.

—John Greenleaf Whittier, “First-Day Thoughts” (1852)

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God’s Word in Human Words The Inspiration of Scripture

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ike the gospel, a proper understanding of the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture is never something that we can take for granted. This is especially true when we live in a culture that is simultaneously naturalistic and mystical. As contradictory as these positions seem to be, they conspire against any ultimate claim to a revelation from God, given once and for all to a particular people in history and yet obliging universal acceptance. Naturalists don’t believe God speaks anywhere, if there is a deity at all. Mystics identify the voice of God (whoever he/she/it might be) with their inner light or pious experience that bubbles up from within. In either case, the self is sovereign. Nothing can judge, disrupt, or rescue from outside the cocoon in which one hides from the approaching footsteps of God.

The Controversy Today or Christians, as the Reformers and their heirs especially emphasized, the doctrine of Scripture (sola Scriptura) is inseparable from the gospel summarized in the other “solas”: solo Christo (Christ alone), sola gratia (by grace alone), sola fide (through faith alone), soli Deo gloria (to God alone be glory). We need an external revelation from God, entirely trustworthy, because we are sinners under God’s judgment who need to hear the good news of his rescue operation and the assurance of his favor toward us.

According to Luther, the voice of God does not call us away from created things (such as human language) “into the inner self,” but calls us out of our introspective existence through these creaturely means to embrace a surprising Word that we could never have told ourselves.1 In fact, the Westminster divines pointed out that God blesses the reading “but especially the preaching of the Word of God as a means of grace since it is by this means that the Spirit confronts sin-

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ners in their self-enclosed existence, driving them out of themselves, and drawing them unto Christ” (Westminster Larger Catechism, Answer 155). This Word calls us out of our subjectivity and renders us extrinsic, extroverted, and social creatures who hold fast to Christ in faith and to our neighbors in love. Stephen Webb goes so far as to suggest that the Reformation represents “an event within the history of sound,” an event of “revocalizing the Word.”2 For all of the announcements of having entered a postmodern era, our Western culture hasn’t moved terribly far from the basic dogmas of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. One of its chief priests, Immanuel Kant, denied any special revelation from God outside of the self. We do not need a miraculous revelation of the gospel, Kant argued as a thoroughgoing Pelagian, because we do not need to be saved by grace. We only need “the moral law within”—deeds, not creeds. Turning to a life of introspection, Kant found only the law, moral imperatives, or “what is incumbent upon me,” and explicitly rejected anything new imposed from the outside (the gospel). A religious person does “not found his morality on faith, but his faith on morality.” This is the “kind of faith that founds not a religion of supplication [invocation], but a religion of good life conduct.”3 The modern individual therefore realizes that once your need is no longer to hear a rescue report from God, but merely to have a little inspiration and direction for life, you hardly need the Bible. In fact, you do not need Christ, because you have “the moral law within.”

Taking their cue from Kant, Protestant liberalism is often charged with a naturalistic bias, but this is a halftruth. Actually, liberalism combines naturalism with mysticism. While working feverishly to undermine confidence in the external authority of God’s Word that announces the gospel, liberalism widens the concept of inspiration to include not simply the moral law within but just about any and every inner religious feeling that accompanies it.

“What is inspiration?” asked the father of theological liberalism, Friedrich Schleiermacher. “It is simply the general expression for the feeling of true morality and freedom.”4 The Protestant Reformers anticipated this development when they identified the tendency to equate God’s Word with inner experience and speculation as “enthusiasm” (from the Greek enthousiasmos—literally, God-within-ism).

Such statements as this one from Meister Eckhart were taken up by radical Anabaptists, Enlightenment rationalists, and Protestant liberals alike: “St. Paul said to Timothy, ‘Beloved, preach the word!’ Did he mean the audible word that beats the air? Certainly not! He referred to the inborn, secret word that lies hidden in the soul.”5 As Paul Tillich observed, it is this doctrine of the “inner light” that unites rationalists and mystics of all ages.6 So here we are today, with contrasts frequently drawn between being “spiritual” (i.e., morally sensitive to one’s own inner light) and “religious” (believing and doing certain things that come from an external authority), “deeds” over “creeds,” both of which empty into the wasteland of

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what sociologist Christian Smith calls “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.”

Even in evangelical circles today, there is a broad spectrum of views concerning Scripture, ranging from fundamentalism to so-called progressive positions that are pretty close to the old liberalism that evangelical scholarship once challenged with remarkable skill over the last century. As such, evangelicalism has always had its feet in two worlds: the Radical Reformation (led by the Anabaptists and mediated by pietism and revivalism) and the Magisterial Reformation (led by Luther, Calvin, and other Reformers, mediated by Protestant orthodoxy).

Nevertheless, the latter tradition had the greater influence in the Neo-Evangelical renaissance in the second half of the twentieth century. The giants of Old Princeton— Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield—helped to shape a new generation of conservative Protestantism, led by Carl Henry, John Stott, F. F. Bruce, Francis Schaeffer, David Wells, James Boice, R. C. Sproul, and many others.

The Radical Reformation, however, is making a comeback in popular evangelical theology. Because evangelicals are more closely related historically to Anabaptist and pietist traditions and therefore more experience based than doctrinal or sacramental, Stanley Grenz wonders why some evangelical theologians still hold to the scholastic-Calvinist “conviction that there is a deposit of cognitive revelation given once and for all in the Bible,” together with its “combination of a material and a formal principle [sola fide and sola Scriptura].”7 Perhaps even more bravely than Schleiermacher (and certainly more radically than Karl Barth), Grenz rejects a direct identification of revelation with Scripture.8 He argues that “spirituality is generated from within the individual.”9 Consequently, Scripture is not God’s Word but “the foundational record of how the ancient faith community responded” to God.10 Scripture discloses “the self-understanding of the community in which it developed.”11 Therefore, Scripture exists alongside experience and culture, and “these sources must be held in ‘creative tension as responding in their different ways to the revelation of God.’”12 In this way, inspiration is lowered to the level of illumination and therefore broadened to include the whole history of the people of God and their experience of this interplay of Scripture, tradition, and culture.

Another evangelical and Emergent spokesperson, John Franke, argues similarly that “the speaking of the Spirit through Scripture and through culture does not constitute two communicative acts but rather one unified speaking.”13 Here, it seems, the inspired Word of God is indistinguishable not only from the illumined church, but culture becomes a means of grace. Franke does add that Scripture “functions as theology’s norming norm” in its conversation with culture.14 However, the crucial qualifier is functions as. Scripture functions normatively because of the decision of the community to regulate itself by this norm.

More problematic is the view of inspiration that Grenz and Franke propose. Concerning 2 Timothy 3:16, they sugM A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 0 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 11

the way this is stated, the impression could be given that the church is sovereign in this matter: it comes from none other than the Father, its Scripture is authoritative canon because the church has decided to content is the Son, and its perfecting agent is treat it as such. They admit that this “leads to a broader concept of the Holy Spirit. inspiration.”20 On one hand, Scripture constitutes the church. “On the other hand, it is itself derived gest, “Through the rare use of theopneustos…Paul declared from that community and its authority.”21 that ‘God breathes into the Scripture’ thereby making it useThis approach, however, is tantamount to saying that ful.”15 However, this verse does not say that God breathes the servant rather than the Lord is the author of the into Scripture but that the Scriptures are “God-breathed” covenant. Reformation theology rightly insists, therefore, (theopneustos). It is not made useful whenever God breathes that the Bible is not “the church’s book” if by that one into it; it is useful because God exhaled it.16 means that the community created its own canon. To whatever extent “the people” create their constitution in What Is at Stake? modern states, the biblical canon must be defined by its own covenantal history in which God’s saving action and t stake is the question as to whether the authorrevelation create the community rather than vice versa. ity and inspiration of Scripture is ontological or The positions I have criticized above can only yield what functional. In other words, is inspiration an attribJohn Webster refers to as a “hermeneutical Pelagianism.”22 ute of the texts themselves, or is it something that happens in the individual or community through the use that the Spirit Against such views, he insists that we must see the Bible makes of them? In other words, is inspiration basically the neither as the individual’s book nor the church’s book, but same as illumination? The Bible’s authority seems thereby as God’s book. Without diminishing the human character to become merely instrumental rather than intrinsic. The of Scripture, Webster underscores the close connection Spirit uses these texts “with the goal of communicating to between sola gratia (grace alone) and sola Scriptura us in our situation, which, while perhaps paralleling in cer(Scripture alone). At issue in our doctrine of Scripture is tain respects that of the ancient community, is neverthethe question not of what use we make of it (either comless unique.”17 munally or individually), but the use God makes of it Whether individualistic or communal, however, this within the economy of grace.23 interpretation remains subjectivistic, treating Scripture merely as an inspiring record of Spirit-assisted ecclesial God’s Word in Human Words: The Bible’s Testimony reflection rather than an inspired record of Spirit-breathed to Itself revelation from God. In short, God’s agency is made subesus regarded the human words of Scripture as his ordinate to human agency, and this inevitably underFather’s speech (Matt. 4:4, 7, 10; 5:17–20; 19:4–6; mines sola gratia (grace alone).

26:31, 52–54; Luke 4:16–21; 16:17; 18:31–33; 22:37; Reacting against the practical anarchy of Protestant 24:25–27, 45–47; John 10:35). Peter insisted that the individualism in our day, the pendulum is swinging in the prophets did not speak from themselves but as they “were direction of the assimilation of Scripture to the church (or carried along by the Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:21) and in 3:15–16 the “faith community”). Yet, as Calvin noted long ago, in refers to Paul’s letters as “Scriptures” (graphas). Similarly, spite of their obvious differences, radical Protestant Paul refers to Luke’s Gospel as “Scripture” in 1 Timothy “enthusiasm” and Roman Catholic theories of the church 5:18 (cf. Luke 10:7). Paul calls Scripture “the sacred writas the mother of Scripture share surprising similarities.18 ings, which are able to make you wise for salvation They are simply two ways of reducing God’s speech to through faith in Christ Jesus,” and adds, “All Scripture is human speech, whether that of the pious believer or the breathed out by God [theopneustos] and profitable for holy church. “The description of the canon as a creation teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in of the church is not in the least a uniquely Roman Catholic righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, one,” John Webster has noted. equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:15–17). A docDespite its association with Counter-Reformation trine of inspiration must take into account the “many polemics, Grenz and Franke repeat the increasingly fashtimes” and “many ways” that God has spoken in the past ionable refrain among Protestants that the Bible is the (Heb. 1:1), which cannot be restricted to the prophetic church’s book. “The [faith] community precedes the promodel (“Thus says the Lord: ‘…’”). Nevertheless, “All duction of the scriptural texts and is responsible for their conScripture is breathed out by God.” As such, the Scriptures tent and for the identification of particular texts for are not only a record of redemption but are themselves the inclusion in an authoritative canon to which it has chosen primary means of grace, through which the Spirit applies redemption to sinners in the present. to make itself accountable” (emphasis added).19 At least

We embrace Scripture as authoritative because

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From the Father, About the Son, and By the Spirit n every external work of the Godhead, the Father speaks in the Son and by the perfecting agency of the Spirit. In salvation, the Father gives the Son, the Son gives the Spirit, and the Spirit gives the Son a bride. Not only because of its authoritative source (the Father’s speaking) but also because of its saving content (the speech concerning his Son), Scripture is God’s Word. Jesus himself taught that all of Scripture pointed to him. Its authority and its content are inextricably linked.24 The mature doctrine of inspiration and inerrancy in evangelical circles was forged by the theologians of seventeenth-century Lutheran and Reformed orthodoxy.

These writers argued that the nature of Scripture consists not in the authorization of the church but in the cooperation of the triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We embrace Scripture as authoritative because it comes from none other than the Father, its content is the Son, and its perfecting agent is the Holy Spirit.

So Scripture is the church’s authoritative canon because it comes from the Father. In Peter Martyr Vermigli’s words, “‘Thus says the Lord’ (Dominus dixit) ought to be held as a first principle (primum principium) into which all true theology is resolved.”25 Nevertheless, Scripture’s authority also derives from the Son as its content. In 2 Corinthians 1, the Father is the faithful promise-maker and “all the promises of God find their Yes in [Christ].” The Reformers and their heirs regarded the characteristics of Scripture (namely, inspiration, authority, and sufficiency) as inseparable from its scope and content (law and gospel, with the unfolding plan of redemption in Christ through the covenant of grace).26 Christ as mediator of the covenant of grace is the scope of all Scripture.

Yet our trinitarian coordinates are not set until we have included in our focus the Spirit’s perfecting work of inspiration and illumination. In every work of the Trinity, it is the Spirit who brings about within creation the effect of the Father’s speaking in the Son. The Spirit hovered over the waters in creation, turning a house into a home in which God could dwell with his people, and leading the Israelites through the Red Sea and the desert to the Promised Land.

It was the Spirit who “overshadowed” Mary, so that her offspring would be none other than God Incarnate, and who descended over the Jordan waters at Jesus’ baptism, who upheld Jesus during his earthly ministry, and who raised Jesus from the dead. We receive eternal life from the Father, in the Son, by the Spirit.

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Three Common Pitfalls irst, if our doctrine of inspiration is exclusively concerned with the authoritative source (the Father’s speaking), it will gravitate toward a mechanical view that sees Scripture as dictated by God. Evangelical defenses of inspiration emphasize that Scripture comes from God and therefore is authoritative and inerrant. This is true, but by itself is an inadequate basis for inspiration. A Christian view of the Bible is different from the Muslim view of the Qur’an.

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First, we believe that the triune God spoke through prophets and apostles, revealing himself and his purposes in Christ in an organic way. The Bible is not a collection of timeless truth that fell from heaven, but a collection of diverse books and genres that testify to historical events centering on promise and fulfillment in Jesus Christ. We also believe that the source of the Bible’s authority is inseparable from its content. It is inspired and authoritative because it delivers Christ to us. Lastly, it is inspired by the Spirit, who always works within creatures, through creaturely means, to guide and direct without coercion or obliteration of human agency.

Second, if our doctrine of inspiration is exclusively concerned with the saving content (Jesus Christ), it is likely to yield a canonwithin-a-canon approach, limiting inspiration to that which explicitly preaches Christ (leaving such determination to exegetes).

There is a big difference between reading the Scriptures expecting to find Christ as the central character in the unfolding plot and reading the Scriptures to pick out the explicit proclamation of Christ as genuinely inspired.

Protestant liberals took this second path until it led to a denial of the inspiration of even the most central biblical claims, reports, and doctrines. If the Scriptures are not wholly inspired, then there is no reason to believe that the gospel concerning Jesus Christ is from God and therefore trustworthy news.

Third, if we focus one-sidedly on the Spirit, our view of inspiration will succumb to mysticism and enthusiasm, separating the Spirit from the Word. This is my concern about some of the trends in evangelical theology today. As I pointed out above, Calvin observed that Rome and the Anabaptists collapsed the Word of God into the word of the church or the word of the individual. Both groups erased the line that separates the extraordinary ministry of the apostles from the ordinary ministry of pastors and teachers who followed. There are no prophets or apostles today, and the Spirit is not expanding the canon of revelation but is illumining the church to understand, embrace, and proclaim it faithfully. The foundation has been laid and now we are to build on it.

In 2 Timothy 3:15–17, this scope (content) and inspiration of Scripture converge. Timothy is reminded to digest “the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” Paul does not say “insofar as” they achieve this but simply states that they do.

It is not the parts of Scripture that we find “useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” that we regard as inspired. Rather, because all Scripture is breathed out by God, it is profitable for the purposes for which God intends it. This means that Scripture not only functions as the Word of God at various times, but it is the Word of God by virtue of its origin (from the Father), its content (in the Son), and its inspiration (by the Spirit).

“Let There Be” and “Let the Earth Bring Forth” n the creation account we encounter the fiat declaration, “Let there be…,” bringing a new state of affairs out of nothing (“And there was…”). In the same narrative,

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rized by the phrase “verbal-plenary inspiration.”27 The comture. He is, however, the original speaker, and his mon consensus of Christians is one reason why inspiration was not a special topic in theological Word always comes before our response. systems until the dawn of the Enlightenment. Not even the however, there are expressions that highlight God’s indirect confessions and catechisms of the Reformation offer a and mediated agency: “‘Let the earth bring forth….’ And the particular theory of inspiration, but they simply identify earth brought forth….” We often tend to identify God’s God’s Word with the words of Scripture. It is important to action exclusively with the former—perhaps due, at least note what is not meant by this formulation. in part, to a weak doctrine of the Holy Spirit. In Genesis 1, First, verbal-plenary inspiration does not mean that the creation is attributed not only to the Father’s fiat utterance prophets and apostles themselves were inspired in their persons, but to the Spirit’s brooding over the waters to make that as if everything they believed, said, or did was God’s Word. creative Word fruitful. God not only decrees things into Rather, it is their canonical writings that are inspired. In existence directly, ordinarily the Spirit works within crethe passages cited above, Peter refers inspiration to the ation to draw out its own natural operations with which he prophecies, and Paul attributes inspiration to the has endowed it so that it properly fulfills its created ends.

Scriptures. In fact, Paul says that “all Scripture is breathed Obviously, God is not the only speaker in Scripture. He out by God.” Strictly speaking, then, Scripture is exhaled, is, however, the original speaker, and his Word always not inspired. comes before our response. His work in inspiration Second, this view does not assume that the prophets and aposextends even to the praise offered by his creatures. The tles were merely passive in the process of inspiration. Of course, Psalms are the inspired hymnal, giving us our lines in the there are visions, especially in the prophetic literature, but covenantal script, because the Father not only speaks even dreams have to be interpreted, and it was the human directly in every case but the Spirit also brings about the agents who interpreted them. Yet it was the Spirit who intended response within creatures. Because the Spirit is ensured that their interpretations were from the Father at work in the process of inspiration, even the testimony and focused on the Son. “Concerning this salvation,” Peter of sinful creatures can be preserved from error, sanctified writes, “the prophets who prophesied about the grace

by God as the authorized paradigm for our own speech. that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquirIf we bear in mind our trinitarian coordinates and the ing what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was distinction between fiat (ex nihilo) utterances and indirect indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and guidance of creaturely speech to its appointed end, we no the subsequent glories” (1 Pet. 1:10–11, emphasis added). longer have to choose between a mechanical view of inspiFundamentalist views of inspiration often reflect this ration and a naturalistic denial of inspiration. It is not a contendency, downplaying the fact that God works by his tradiction to say that divine speech comes from God Spirit through creaturely reality. For example, W. A. through creaturely agency as it is made fruitful by the Criswell wrote, “Each sentence was dictated by God’s Holy Spirit. The triune God is the ultimate source of both types Spirit.…Everywhere in the Bible we find God speaking. It of declarations: “Let there be…” and “Let the earth bring is God’s voice, not man’s.”28 To appeal to the incarnation forth….” Even when the earth brings forth its fruit, it is as an analogy, this is a docetic view. This ancient heresy because the Spirit is bringing about within it the potenheld that Jesus Christ merely appeared to be human. tialities given to it by the Father’s Word.

Although Mary gave birth to him, the Son took his human In the incarnation, there is the fiat act (“Let there form from “celestial flesh.” (In the Reformation, Calvin be…!”), with the conception of the God-Man, but there is sharply criticized Menno Simons, founder of the also the Spirit’s gradual work of illumining and strengthMennonites, for teaching this view.)

Again, recall the comparison I made above to the two ening Jesus for his mission (“Let the earth bring forth…!”). ways in which God spoke creation into existence: his fiat Jesus grew in wisdom and understanding. We should not declaration, “Let there be…!” and his command, “Let the be surprised to see the same patterns in both the direct earth bring forth…!” The Spirit was at work in the ordispeech—“Thus says the Lord!”—and the indirect appronary lives of his prophets and apostles before they were priation of human speech that the Spirit directs and called to their high office, even though they were unaware inspires for his own ends. of his providential activity. Even in speaking God’s Word, they sometimes spoke directly, “Thus says the Lord…!”

Verbal-Plenary Inspiration he common teaching of the East and West, Roman and in other cases, the Spirit simply brought about the Catholics and classical Protestants, is that Scripture Father’s intended effect through ordinary, natural means. is not only in its content but also in its form the The christological analogy reminds us that the Word Word of God written. This consensus that Scripture is became flesh. The incarnation itself was a fiat declaration inspired in its words as well as its meaning is aptly summaof the “Let there be…” variety. Nevertheless, the Son’s ges-

Obviously, God is not the only speaker in Scrip-

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tation and birth were part of a natural (“Let the earth bring forth…”) process. Even his physical, intellectual, and spiritual maturation were gradual gains through ordinary means: “And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom” (Luke 2:40). His humanity was not charged with superhuman abilities but was like ours in all respects except for sin (Heb. 4:15). “Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered” (Heb. 5:8).

If God can assume our full humanity without sin, then he can speak through the fully human words of prophets and apostles without error. As Herman Bavinck expressed the point, “Like Christ, [Scripture] considers nothing that is human strange.”29 Third, this formulation also does not suggest that inspiration pertains to the intention of the human authors, who prophesied more than they themselves knew. An extreme example is Caiaphas the high priest, who, contrary to his intention, prophesied Christ’s atoning sacrifice (John 11:49–53). His office, not his person, authorized him for this role, and it was God’s intentions that were communicated. There is no reason to believe the apostles were aware that their letters would become part of the new covenant canon. Although they knew they were commissioned and authorized to speak for God, they could distinguish their own pastoral advice from divine command (1 Cor. 7:6).

Fourth, verbal-plenary inspiration does not collapse all events of inspiration into the prophetic mold. Far from “Thus says the Lord,” the speeches of Job’s friends are riddled with error, even if they are reliable reports of the dialogue. God even allows the sinful or erroneous responses of human beings to be included in his inspired canon. We must recall that the Bible was generated in the context of a covenantal drama. The script includes the speaking parts of unfaithful covenant servants, whose speech is nevertheless judged and corrected by the covenant Lord within the unfolding dialogue.

The prophetic “Thus says the LORD…” or “The word of the LORD came to me, saying…” corresponds to the fiat declaration, “Let there be….” In such instances, inspiration may even take the form of dictation. More characteristically, however, inspiration follows the “Let the earth bring forth…” pattern, with the obvious evidence of the text’s human authorship.

Although inspiration pertains exclusively to the original speech-acts that are included in the canon, God’s extraordinary providence ensured the integrity of the process that led to inscripturation. We have no reason to deny that later redactors (editors) committed orally transmitted revelation to textual form and collected them into what we now know as canonical books. In the words of the Reformed scholastic Johannes Wollebius, “God’s word at first was unwritten, before Moses’ time; but after Moses it was written, when God in his most wise counsel would have it to be sealed and confirmed by prophets and apostles.”30 In this interpretation of verbal-plenary inspiration, the original words of Scripture were given by the miracle of inspiration, and the process of compiling, edit-

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ing, and preserving the text was superintended by God’s providence. ■

Michael Horton is J. Gresham Machen Professor of Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido).

Oswald Bayer, Living by Faith: Justification and Sanctification (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 28.

2Stephen H. Webb, The Divine Voice: Christian Proclamation and the Theology of Sound (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), esp. chs. 4 and 5. See also Theo Hobson, The Rhetorical Word: Protestant Theology and the Rhetoric of Authority (Hampshire, England: Ashgate, 2002).

3Immanuel Kant, Religion and Rational Theology, in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, eds. Allen W. Wood and George di Giovanni (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 33.

4Friedrich Schleiermacher, On Religion, trans. John Oman (New York: Harper, 1958), 89.

5Meister Eckhart, “Sermon on the Eternal Rebirth,” in Late Medieval Mysticism, ed. Ray C. Petry (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1942), 179.

6Paul Tillich, A History of Christian Thought, ed. Carl E. Braaten (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), 286. Tillich adds, “The subjective view of Pietism, or the doctrine of the ‘inner light’ in Quakerism and other ecstatic movements, has the character of immediacy or autonomy against the authority of the church. To put it more sharply, modern rational autonomy is a child of the mystical autonomy of the doctrine of the inner light.”

7Stanley Grenz, Revisioning Evangelical Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1993), 62.

8Grenz, 76.

9Grenz, 46.

10Grenz, 77.

11Grenz, 121.

12Grenz, 91. In nineteenth-century christological debates, the Lutheran view that Christ’s divine attributes were communicated to his humanity was reversed in what was called the “kenotic Christology.” In this view, the Son emptied himself of his divine attributes in the incarnation. Something similar may be seen in recent debates over Scripture. On one hand, fundamentalism divinizes the human words, while on the other “kenotic” theories of Scripture empty Scripture of its divine character. As Donald Bloesch observes, referring especially to Ray Anderson, some evangelical theologians have also adopted this course. Aside from the dubious christological implications, Bloesch warns, “If the kenotic theory is carried too far, this means that the divine Word is transmuted into the human word of Scripture, and is thereby emptied of its divine content” (Donald G. Bloesch, “The Primacy of Scripture,” in The Authoritative Word: Essays on the Nature of Scripture, ed. Donald McKim [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983], 150).

13John Franke, The Character of Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 142.

14Franke, 142.

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Stanley Grenz and John Franke, Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context (Louisville: Westminster, 2001), 65.

16On the meaning of theopneustos, see the argument of A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield, Inspiration (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 5.

17Hodge and Warfield, 74–75.

18John Calvin, “Reply by Calvin to Cardinal Sadoleto’s Letter,” in Tracts and Treatises of the Reformation of the Church, ed.

Thomas F. Torrance (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1958), 1:36.

19Calvin, 115.

20Calvin, 116.

21Calvin, 117.

22John Webster, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 100.

23Webster, 2, 19, 45.

24Herman Ridderbos, Studies in Scripture and its Authority (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 9–11.

25Quoted in Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 2:323.

26Muller, 120. Against the charge that Protestant scholasticism separated the divine form of Scripture from its content (Christ), leading to an abstract theory of inspiration, Muller collects a host of citations affirming Christ as the scope of Scripture, which is intrinsic to its authority. Included are citations not only from Luther (preface to James and Jude in Luther’s Works 35, 396; Schmalkald Articles II.i) and Calvin (Institutes 2.6.2 and commentary on 1 Corinthians 3:11), but from Reformed colleagues and successors, including Peter Martyr Vermigli, Theodore Beza, Edward Leigh, Zacharius Ursinus, and William Perkins (98, 198, 224, 227, 342, 367).

27This doctrine holds that Scripture is “God-breathed” (2 Tim. 3:16) both in its words and its meaning. However, this in no way implies (much less requires) a “dictation theory” of inspiration.

According to the common interpretation of this view, inspiration occurred organically—that is, through the distinct personalities and conceptualities of the human authors in their social-historical context.

28W. A. Criswell, Why I Preach that the Bible is Literally True (Nashville: Broadman, 1969), 68.

29Quoted in G. C. Berkouwer, Studies in Dogmatics: Holy Scriptures (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 27.

30Johannes Wollebius, The Abridgement of Christian Divinitie, trans. Alexander Ross (London, 1656), 3.

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How Firm a Foundation How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, Is laid for your faith in His excellent word!

What more can He say than to you He hath said— To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

“Fear not, I am with thee, oh, be not dismayed, For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid; I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand, Upheld by My gracious, omnipotent hand.

“When through the deep waters I call thee to go, The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow; For I will be with thee thy trouble to bless, And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

“When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply; The flame shall not harm thee; I only design Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.

“The soul that on Jesus doth lean for repose, I will not, I will not, desert to his foes; That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.”

—Attributed to John Keith (1787)

Getting Inspiration

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from Inspiration

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n his Phaedrus, Plato claimed that the spoken word was more powerful than the written word. Presence and gravitas could be conveyed through speech. Print, on the other hand, muted one’s rhetoric. The great philosopher intended this as a blanket statement, true with respect to all persons. Plato’s observation was prophetic, with regard to the zest of many religious persons for direct and unmediated revelation from God. Indeed, there has not been a single century in which the church has not been assaulted by those who lay claim to or seek after a divine light or heavenly voice.1 Paul’s writings are secondhand, say these persons, and what we need is our own Damascus Road encounter.

This desire for unmediated spiritual experience has been exacerbated by a number of factors in our own day.

Chief among them, surely, would be the development of a visual culture, where previously the oral and textual dominated society. Such shifts would be only moderately important for Christians, except that our religion is coupled to a book. We are a people of the book. We are birthed by the Word. We must read. While it is sad that we are “amusing ourselves to death,” it is far worse that we are less capable to engage with the written Word of God. In this article, however, I want to focus on another challenge of our day. Many persons—even within the world

of conservative, evangelical Protestantism—have stumbled over the inspiration of Scripture. It seems that lack of clarity regarding how the Bible relates to God’s speech leads to lack of resolve regarding personal devotion to Bible reading and study. This makes perfect sense.

Inasmuch as the Bible contains something less than a word from God, it can be useful only in the same way that a self-help book may. Take it, leave it, pick it up when wanted. To the extent that the Bible is God’s own Word, though, it is something else entirely. And, in a culture less and less enamored with print media, we need to ask if there is a divine mandate for fixing our attention to these pages and placing our hope in its message.

By focusing on the inspiration of Scripture, we may lay the groundwork for a deeper commitment to meditation upon and interpretation of its treasures. The claim is simple: The nature of Scripture shapes the use of Scripture.

We will consider these in turn.

Human Words any suggest that a doctrine of Scripture must be shaped not by theological inferences or deductions, but by reflection upon the phenomena of

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the Bible itself. By observing the style and sources of the Bible, we may learn something of its nature. For example, knowledge of the place of koine Greek within the ancient world tells us something of the communicative intent of God, who chose to use this particular type of language to reveal his truth, aiming to reveal himself to the poor as well as the rich. Yet we must couple these observations with consideration of the Bible’s teaching regarding its own production. In other words, it would deny the Bible’s final authority if we did not ask what it teaches about itself. So we must look to the teaching as well as the phenomena of the Bible. We can note at least four signs of human involvement explicitly noted by the biblical authors.

First, there is human purpose in writing. The apostle Peter notes that the writing of the revealed Word serves to preserve divine revelation for later memory and future generations: Therefore I intend to keep on reminding you of these things, though you know them already and are established in the truth that has come to you. I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to refresh your memory, since I know that my death will come soon, as indeed our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things. (2 Pet. 1:12–15) Second, research goes into the production of some biblical texts. The evangelist Luke points to the historiographic task that he undertook to compose his Gospel: Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed. (Luke 1:1–4) Luke is clear that he searches out and proceeds to write only “after investigating everything carefully from the very first.”

Third, editors select some material for inclusion. John’s Gospel concludes by telling us, “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25). So a process of editorial selection must have taken place: discerning what to include and what to omit.

Fourth, writers structure the teachings in various forms.

Most obvious, the various Gospels place things in different order (e.g., the Temple cleansing). They are clearly shaping their account to make a case, to rhetorically and argumentatively drive home a point. And their points, 18 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

within their different contexts, are not entirely the same: whereas Matthew is dealing polemically with Jewish Christianity, Luke is clearly writing his Gospel in a way that shows its links with the ongoing mission of the early churches in Gentile territory (see its sequel: the Acts of the Apostles). Similar observations can be made about the relationship of 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles.

All told then, the Bible pressures us to say that humans have composed these writings. At least in certain occasions, they made use of all manner of normal writing practices: research, selecting, editing, and so forth. While there may be some texts within the canon that came without such extensive human preparation (e.g., certain prophetic visions do not involve research), the biblical accounts show no hesitation in admitting their human composition.

Divine Words ore must be said. Not only is the Bible a human book, but it comes to us from heaven. Indeed, it is right to call this “God’s Word.” The Bible not only pressures us to say that it is a human book, but it simultaneously mandates us to speak of it as inspired by God. Again, at least four observations are explicit in the Bible.

First, the prophets speak on God’s behalf and with God’s authority. Numerous episodes can be found in the Old Testament where a prophet is recognized as the bearer of God’s own words. Paradigmatic is Jeremiah’s calling:

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Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.” But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord.” Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” (Jer.1:4–10) Jeremiah’s calling is much like that of Moses, Joshua, and others (see, for example, Exod. 4:10–16; Num. 12:6–8; Deut. 18:17–20). God’s words are put in the prophet’s mouth.

Second, the written words of the prophets are treated as divinely authoritative: In the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Take a scroll and write on it all the words that

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I have spoken to you against Israel and Judah and all the nations, from the day I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah until today. It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the disaster that I intend to do to them, so that every one may turn from his evil way, and that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.” Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah, and Baruch wrote on a scroll at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord that he had spoken to him. (Jer. 36:1–4) Here the prophet is told to record the word of the Lord for posterity’s sake. The written word is treated like the prophetic sermon, for God’s wrath is poured out on Jehoiakim when he had the scroll burned bit by bit (see verses 27–31). God invests the written word with the quality and necessity of the spoken word. Scripture (writings) conveys proclamation beyond the life of the prophet.

Eventually, the apostle Peter will share the same reasoning with his readers, explaining why he recorded his apostolic teaching for the sake of those who would live beyond his lifetime (2 Pet. 1:12–15).

Third, the New Testament writers are considered peers of the Old Testament prophets: And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters.

There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. (2 Pet. 3:15–16) Peter observes that Paul writes difficult truths at times, which are twisted by some. What is important for our purposes is to note that Paul's teachings are mistaken by these ignorant persons just as, Peter adds, "they do with the other Scriptures," which shows that Peter views Paul's writings on par with the Hebrew Scriptures. Other texts could be adduced to show that the apostolic teaching, like that of the Israelite prophets before them, was “of God” (see Gal. 1:11–12; 1 Thess. 2:13; 1 Cor. 2:12–13).

Fourth, the doctrine of inspiration is unveiled in Paul’s second letter to Timothy as a way to explain how God’s words flow through human instruments: the Scriptures.2 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim. 3:16–17) The Greek word theopneustos has been studied up and down, left and right. The image is that of God breathing out, a notion surely informed by the creation account when God breathed life into the dust and made man

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(Gen. 2:7). Just as God created by his word in Genesis, so God brings about the new creation by the proclamation of his gospel. To that end, God inspires or breathes out life into and through the writing of the apostles. The picture is not of texts, already written, now receiving blessing; rather, the notion is of texts produced by God’s very breath.3 As John Webster says, “Talk of inspiration indicates that the generative impulse of the biblical text is not human spontaneity...it is not a voluntary, self-originating movement, but a ‘being moved.’”4 The doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture honors the biblical pressure to speak of the Bible as coming from God. A Biblical “Compatibilism” f the Bible is both human and divine, as the Bible forces us to say, then we are pressured to say that something can be done by both creatures and the Creator. To say this, and to maintain that this is not a logical contradiction, can be explained with the help of a term called “compatibilism.” God wrote the Bible. Humans wrote the Bible.

These two statements are compatible.

The biblical compatibilist affirms that we must hold together two truths without offering a philosophical or theoretical resolution of the apparent tension between them on the surface. Compatibilism does not remove mystery; rather, it locates mystery where the Bible does: affirming all that the Scriptures affirm and confessing that a higher coherence is possible. These discussions typically arise in debates regarding divine sovereignty and human responsibility. How can God foreordain horrendous evils and yet hold the agents of these events responsible for such actions? For example, how can the crucifixion of Jesus be predetermined by the counsel of God while Judas and others are nevertheless held responsible for his death?

While some texts are difficult to understand, the Bible unequivocally affirms both, such as in Acts 2:23: “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” Biblical compatibilism as an explanation may also be applied to the Bible itself. In other words, the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture is one instance in the wider panoply of human history, where God superintends and guides historical processes in such a way that the result is from God yet humans are genuinely active. So the text is guaranteed by divine authorship even while it is delivered through the hands of men.

That the production of these Scriptures is ensured by God’s providential governance in no way undermines, negates, reduces, offsets, or eliminates the many layers of human involvement: researching, selecting, editing, polishing, and so on.5 In short, the divine and human authors do not compete, they cooperate.

Too often we fail to note that the Arminian-Calvinist debate has connections to other doctrines. The Augustinian approach should be maintained, not only so that God may be given all glory but also so that other cherished doctrines can be coherently explained, such as Christology and the

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Eucharist that are also clarified by Augustinian compatibilism.6 The key point here is to note that the same Bible can only be construed as “the word of the Lord” and “the word according to human authors” if God is working through the creaturely writers. Whereas Augustinianism lets both biblical truths stand (divine sovereignty and human agency), Arminian notions modify one aspect in order to alleviate tension and remove mystery.

Inspiration is therefore a subset of providence. God’s guidance of human history to suit his redemptive purposes involves his superintending care of the whole process of Scripture’s production. Just as providence does not negate human history, neither does inspiration negate the human authorship of the Bible. Herman Bavinck explained that “God’s Spirit in divine inspiration will confirm and strengthen, not destroy, the self-activity of human beings.”

He continued, “The Spirit of the Lord entered into the prophets and apostles themselves and so employed and led them that they themselves examined and reflected, spoke and wrote as they did. It is God who speaks through them; at the same time it is they themselves who speak and write.”7 In the end, therefore, a compatibilist explanation of the inspiration of the Bible avoids a doctrine of divine dictation of the Word of God to the human authors.

Receiving Inspiration from Inspiration: The Use of a Doctrine y theology students delight in reading Thomas Watson’s A Body of Divinity for many reasons, chief of which is that Watson exemplifies the Puritan tradition of highlighting the various “uses” of a doctrine. In our own day, Ellen Charry has spoken of the “aretegenic” function of Christian doctrine; that is, the way belief shapes virtue and encourages human flourishing.8 Kevin Vanhoozer has been more specific, suggesting that doctrine provides the stage notes by which performers fill their roles in the script—in this case the ongoing drama of redemption.9 If such ways of thinking about doctrine are correct, what use might the doctrine of Scripture’s inspiration have?

Surely the value of Bible reading increases exponentially inasmuch as one believes this book is distinguished from others. Here, the nature of the Bible determines the use of the Scriptures.

Thomas Watson offers wisdom regarding the practical implications of biblical inspiration:

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If the Scripture be of divine inspiration, then be exhorted to, Study the Scripture.

Prize the written Word.

Believe it.

Love the written Word.

Conform to it.

Contend for it.

Be thankful to God for it.

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Adore God’s distinguishing grace, if you have felt the power and authority of the Word upon your conscience.10 Each exhortation is worthy of an article, if space would permit. In conclusion, note that each of these refrains is based on, fueled even, by the reality of God’s inspiring production of the Bible. The Bible must be treated as Watson here describes: studied, prized, believed, loved, and more, because it is from God and presents Christ and the gospel.

If many of us fail to fulfill these exhortations, perhaps some of our failure can be attributed to our less than thorough grasp of the truly inspired nature of Scripture.

Perhaps we need to get some inspiration for a renewed commitment to study of the Bible from this very doctrine of biblical inspiration. ■

Michael Allen is assistant professor of systematic theology at Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and is the author most recently of The Christ’s Faith: A Dogmatic Account (T & T Clark, 2009).

R. Scott Clark, Recovering the Reformed Confession (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2008), ch. 3.

2In its immediate historical context, 2 Timothy 3:16 surely means by “all Scripture” the writings we know as the Old Testament writings. Yet, if point three (above) is also true, then what 2 Timothy 3:16 says about the writings of the prophets would also be true of the writings of the apostles. So, by extension, “all Scriptures” applies to the New Testament.

3B. B. Warfield’s study of this text and the whole idea of inspiration remain peerless. See essays collected in The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, vol. 1: Revelation and Inspiration (New York: Oxford University Press, 1932; repr. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000).

4John Webster, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 37.

5The idea of dictation has been rightly criticized because it suggests that the human authors were mindless conduits, a notion that is flatly contradicted by the authorial reflections on offer in Luke and 2 Peter.

6On compatibilism and two-natures Christology, see Michael Allen, The Christ’s Faith: A Dogmatic Account (T & T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology; London: T & T Clark, 2009), ch. 4.

7Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 1: Prolegomena, ed.

John Bolt; trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 432.

8Ellen T. Charry, By the Renewing of Your Minds: The Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).

9Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Doctrine (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005).

10Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1958), 34–38.

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“Where Can We Go?” What to do when the Bible doesn’t make sense

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hen Jesus was on the earth, he said some difficult things. When he said these things, the crowd stopped following him. His disciples still hung on, despite the fact that they probably did not understand either (see John 6). Looking back, we can see why.

Although much of what Jesus was talking about would make sense only in light of events that had not yet taken place, the disciples knew they could trust their master. We should always remember this scene as we approach Bible difficulties. It reminds us that our trust is not founded on everything fitting together neatly. Our trust may improve when some difficulty is resolved. When this happens over and over again, it may be greater still. But this is not how anyone first began to trust the Bible.

A couple of mistakes are often made in how we approach such matters. The first is to decide that none of this matters: the Bible will tell us how to get to heaven, even if what it says of earth sounds like nonsense. Many like this approach because they never have to study or sweat over it. Their faith is in one compartment and their street smarts are in another. The trouble is that this does not fit the Bible’s conception of itself: “I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?” Jesus asks (John 3:12). The second mistake is made by those who set the bar too high. They imagine that they have almost no right to continue believing until they reconcile all difficulties. But we didn’t begin trusting because of our individual abilities to resolve such questions. And as with any belief system of any complexity, we believe because the central case is compelling to us, not because we comprehend how everything works.

If someone presents you with a Bible difficulty, before you spend even a minute of time wrestling with it, determine how important it really is. “Would a satisfying answer to this question lead you to adopt the Christian faith?” is a good question to ask. If the answer is no, then

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move on. Why go researching if you know the answer will not help? You can also try to guide the person in thinking through which questions should be crucial. If your questioner is convinced that Jesus was raised from the dead, would he or she not be willing to live with some unanswered questions in obscure sections of the Old Testament? If not, the questioner is not thinking straight.

A certain number of difficulties are inevitable when dealing with material this ancient.

Too Early and Too Late riting in the 1920s, G. K. Chesterton noted that Christianity often got attacked for contradictory reasons. One person would attack it for producing the pacifism of the Quakers and another for producing the warlike ferocity of the Crusades. Whatever was true, he figured, the Christian faith must be a very interesting matter indeed to warrant this. I have found the same thing in my reading, even in the same author. For example, John Shelby Spong, a radical Episcopalian bishop who made a publishing splash some years back by attacking conservative views of the Bible, takes issue with when the biblical revelation was given. He says, “If Abraham is

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ventions in nature cease to be impossible. Yet logical problems are another thing—if the accounts might actually be better over the long accounts blatantly contradict each other, we might be more haul than some other ideal that I might at one inclined to believe this is just a poorly concocted tale. time imagine would solve the problems.

Bishop Spong tries to argue this. We think we know the story of Jesus’ birth because of the starting point for our faith story, human beings were what we’ve seen in the Christmas pageant. As he says: on this earth 496,000 years before our faith story was born. Can one realize this and still claim that ultimate savThe traditional Christmas pageant normally follows ing truth resides only in our understanding of God? Luke’s story line of annunciation, journey to Would it not be a strange God who would leave human Bethlehem, birth, angels, shepherds, and concludes beings with no saving revelation of the Divine One for all with the shepherds kneeling before the creche but .8 percent of human history?”1 So, according to within the stable. If Matthew is used at all, the story Bishop Spong, God spoke too late. Only that’s not all. He of the wise men is simply tacked on as the final spoke too soon as well: “Can modern men and women scene. This produces the visual fallacy of the wise continue to pretend that timeless, eternal, and unchangmen presenting their gifts to the baby in the manger, ing truth has been captured in the words of a book that which may be romantic, but it is biblical nonsense.2 achieved its final written form midway into the second century of this common era?” So God is cruel if he fails to He explains that this is nonsense because Matthew does reveal himself before the race has any ability to rememnot have Jesus in a manger but in “a house in Bethlehem ber or record what was said, but his message is not to be over which a star could stop.”3 He lists some other diffitrusted if he doesn’t wait until our own time—the apex of culties and then moves on to show this to be even worse: human knowledge when we have finally achieved true understanding without him. It is clear that none of this Luke tells us that on the eighth day of his life Jesus really presents the biblical story in its own terms. was circumcised (Luke 2:21) and that on the fortieth In its own terms, the story begins at the beginning of day of his life Jesus was presented in the temple in humanity. The gospel is spoken as far back as the third Jerusalem. Only then, when this family group in chapter of Genesis, right after the Fall (Gen. 3:16). Those faithful Jewish obedience had accomplished in a who did not hear this message must blame those who rather leisurely fashion all of these things required by failed to repeat what they heard. Yet even here, it appears the Law, did they return unto Galilee, “to their own that God makes some allowances for ignorance (Acts city Nazareth” (Luke 2:39). While these liturgical 17:30). On the other hand, had God waited longer to acts were being performed in Jerusalem and while reveal himself, what advantage would that give? Let’s say they were returning peacefully to their home in he revealed himself in the middle of the twentieth century Nazareth, according to Luke, Matthew said that when the resurrection could be televised and taped.

Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were fleeing for their lives Would that not have been better? It is tempting to think into Egypt, and only after the death of Herod were it would. But even in our current era, doubts are raised they able to risk returning to their Bethlehem home about the images captured by our cameras. Could someand even felt that to be too dangerous, so they jourone have faked the footage? What were the conditions of neyed on into Galilee to settle in Nazareth. One canthe taping? Have they been digitally edited? The older I not be in Jerusalem and in Galilee and in Egypt at get, the more I see that our written accounts might actuthe same time. Someone is wrong. Maybe both ally be better over the long haul than some other ideal that Evangelists are wrong, but certainly both of them cannot be right.4 I might at one time imagine would solve the problems.

One generation is almost never in a position to see what What is interesting here is how persuasive this can look at would have been best for all time. first glance, but how terribly argued it looks upon investigation. I initially read this passage while grazing the The Birth Narratives Cannot be Reconciled— shelves of the religion section at a local Barnes and Noble to the Christmas Pageant urely for the story of Jesus to be believed, the bookstore. As I read, my stomach became upset. Not Gospels must present us with some kind of believbecause Bishop Spong was impious, but because his arguable account of the events of Jesus’ birth. It is one ment appeared, on the face of it, to be irrefutable—perthing for accounts to tell of supernatural events—most haps in large part because he claimed it was. (My upset Christians know that when they believe in God, interstomach reminded me of a previous time a difficulty both-

The older I get, the more I see that our written

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ered me, and I remembered how it was resolved, and remembered to trust. Things were probably not as bad as they seemed.) I asked a pastor how this could be resolved.

“I heard that this is solved if you see Mary and Joseph being visited in a house in Nazareth,” he said. “It makes sense of a lot of things, including Herod’s slaughter of infants under two years of age. It would have taken the magi some time to travel, so if we assume they traveled after Jesus was born, the couple could have moved back from Bethlehem to Nazareth, and then fled to Egypt after the magi visited.” The pieces really did seem to fall into place, as quickly as they had fallen out of place when Spong was telling the story. In fact, they made more sense than they had before I had read Spong.

Now looking at Spong’s actual text, I can see how he distorted the question. He mentioned the Christmas pageant so that the chronology would be framed a certain way. He also left out details that would help frame the story another way. As Matthew tells us, it was after Jesus had been born that wise men arrived from the East (verse 2). Then we find that Herod asked “the exact time the star appeared” (verse 7) and used that information to decide to kill all the male children “from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the magi” (verse 16). Only after this did the family flee to Egypt.

With the timeframe actually given in Scripture, it is clear we have a different sequence of events than Spong lists. We have something more like annunciation, journey to Bethlehem, birth, angels, shepherds, circumcision, presentation in the Temple, return to Nazareth, arrival of magi, flight to Egypt.

Some time after I ran into this question with its solution, I saw the correct chronology portrayed. Franco Zeffirelli’s television miniseries Jesus of Nazareth shows the events happening as I have described above. I happened to catch a broadcast of the series in which a scholarly discussion was featured before and after a given episode. The scholars mentioned that most filmed portrayals of the life of Christ focused on one Gospel rather than the others. This one was different in that it harmonized all of the Gospels.

The real trouble is not that Matthew and Luke contradict each other but that they cannot be harmonized with the Christmas pageant. I suppose for an Episcopal bishop, in a church where everything has to be pretty, this has become a higher priority than providing a coherent reading of the Bible. Ironically, to find that coherent reading of Scripture’s narrative we must turn from the bishop to a film producer.

She Was There: Go and Ask Her hen we approach the resurrection, we are at the heart of our faith. If this event did not happen, our faith is vain, as St. Paul tells us. So arguments that would undermine the truth of the resurrection cut very deep. Bishop Spong would have us

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believe that there is a spiritual truth of resurrection that cannot be affected by the facts, one way or the other.

Further, the resurrection accounts are clearly not factual, since like the birth narratives they supposedly contain irreconcilable contradictions. We find again that some of these are in the eye of the beholder. Yet here we do have a case where there are some aspects of the telling that are puzzling even to those who offer them a more sympathetic reading.

Spong questions many elements of the accounts. I wish to look at one element that might not only turn out to have a reconciliation, but may perhaps even show there is a class of textual difficulty that in the long run turns out to be a strength. That is, sometimes we find that our reading of the Gospels raises a question; but if we allow the question to simmer for some time, we might find an answer that makes the accounts more coherent than they would have been had they possessed the uniformity of form we imagined they ought to possess.

The element I wish to examine is the women at the tomb of Jesus on resurrection morning. Spong states the problem thus: Who went to the tomb at dawn on the first day of the week? Paul said nothing about anyone going.

Mark said that Mary Magdalene, Mary the Mother of James, and Salome went (chap. 16). Luke said that Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Joanna, and some other women went (24:10).

Matthew said Magdalene and the other Mary only went (1:28). John said that Mary Magdalene alone went (20:11). This is not an important detail unless you claim inerrancy for every word of Scripture. If that claim is made, even minor disagreements become catastrophic.

As with the birth narratives, Spong has unnecessarily framed differences as disagreements or contradictions.

Rather than list all of Spong’s violations of the rules of evaluating evidence, it is probably better to show how easily the differences between the accounts could and do add to the coherency of our picture of the times: Who went to the tomb at dawn on the first day of the week? Paul, writing to Christians in Asia Minor (none of whom would be unlikely to have an opportunity to meet an eyewitness), has no names to offer. Mark, writing early to a community with good access, lists the living eyewitnesses as Mary Magdalene, Mary the Mother of James, and Salome (chap.

16). Luke, perhaps writing after the death or infirmity of Salome, includes the perhaps less prominent Joanna with Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and some other women (24:10). Matthew, perhaps not having investigated as carefully as Luke did (Luke 1:3), only lists Magdalene and the other Mary (1:28). Finally, John, writing later still, only lists Mary Magdalene (20:11), a younger woman who likely outlived the other women who were already mothers of adult men when the events happened.

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Before we get upset over them, however, we must first remember that some difficulties

much attention to his own son and the woman who bore him.7

Miss Stanton’s explanation for why we hold to a standard different come not because the Bible is faulty but from Sarah is that “our moral standard differs from that of the period because we are limited. in which she lived, as our ideas of right and wrong are not innate, but Now this rendering of the differences is speculative, to be depend on education.” Miss Stanton misses a key point sure. But it is a speculation that puts weight on the idea of here. A key reason that we have a standard different from eyewitnesses and offers some explanation for why the writer what Sarah seems to have is that we have more divine included some people and not others, which fits into a revelation offering us a higher standard to live up to. larger explanation for the naming or not naming of characWhen God became incarnate, in addition to redeeming us, ters in the Gospels.5 Eyewitnesses were named so that peohe provided a standard of selflessness beyond the level of ple who were able could find them and talk to them. When anything we find in the best of the other Bible characters. the eyewitnesses had passed from the scene, their names Our education is different from Sarah’s, but for reasons ceased to be so important. We’re used to thinking of comthat the very Bible Stanton is attacking is in large part mon people as important enough to write about. But in the responsible for. ancient world, it was rare to do so except in farce.6 Bishop The difficulty here is that we want to be clear that Spong assumes the curiosity of a culture surrounded by gosnobody could be a better moral teacher than God himself. sipy talk shows where this kind of detail is all anyone wants On the other hand, it is not the case that the entire Bible to know. He talks enough about cultural distance that he is written to convey moral lessons. Our condition is worse cannot be ignorant of these things. He knows better, but than this. No revelation of morality will save us from our takes advantage of the fact his readers do not. plight. For our plight is that we wish to be just fine apart from God. A moral code will be twisted into an instrument God in the Dock of independence. In fact, it will become the instrument of ust as logical problems pertaining to the story of Jesus sin. This is one of the ironies that comes out in the trial of strike at the heart of the credibility of the key Bible Jesus. God gave to one nation a legal code, and when he narrative, so also do moral difficulties in the Bible takes on flesh, he is subjected to a corrupt trial that uses strike at the heart of its claim to be redemptive. The atonehis own laws. If this is the case when God teaches princiment of Christ is a necessary doctrine if God is holy and ples clearly, then perhaps looking back we might wish to man is sinful. If man, however, is improving while the old find another way of reading the narrative sections than as accounts show God to be of questionable character, that is moral lessons embedded in story. We are bad enough at another thing altogether. This is the situation many since learning this stuff when it is stated baldly. God won’t hide the Enlightenment have asserted is the case. A little over it in subtle form. When he uses another genre, he is teacha century ago, a committee of women produced a work ing us something of another sort altogether. Since these called The Woman’s Bible. The main editor was Elizabeth are not moral lessons, they are not to be faulted for disCady Stanton. Rather than being a new Bible translation, playing immorality. To display immorality is just to display as the name might suggest, this was commentary on key human beings in the disappointing reality. passages that affected the status of women. This was a But even another colleague of Stanton sees that her period of social change, when radical ideas were popular reading is not a good one. As Clara Bewick Colby responds among the educated, and some imagined that the main in her own notes on the passage immediately following obstacle holding society back from progressive goals was Stanton’s, this episode looks very different when we take belief in the authority of the Bible. One of the best ways it as part of a larger whole. This is not the kind of literato undermine this was to show that the morality on disture where it makes sense to gage what is going on chapplay in Scripture, rather than being exemplary, was infeter by chapter, or where we can read the actions as if the rior to the morality that most readers already held. characters could be held responsible for acting according to the mores of our own time. As she wisely says, “If we In this scene Abraham does not appear in a very take any part of the story we must take it all.”8 (This is one attractive light, rising early in the morning, and sendof the most widely ignored principles of reading—to vioing his child and its mother forth into the wilderness, late it leads to the straw man fallacy, where one attacks a with a breakfast of bread and water, to care for themposition nobody holds to.) Otherwise we end up fulfilling selves. Why did he not provide them with a servant, Dorothy L. Sayers’ definition of a Bible critic as someone an ass laden with provisions, and a tent to shelter who, in the place of supernatural stories for which there them from the elements, or better still, some abiding, is evidence, substitutes naturalistic stories for which there is no evidence. resting place? Common humanity demanded this

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Conclusion y few examples are meant to show that some difficulties do appear that impinge upon central questions. We are in real trouble if the narratives of Jesus’ birth or resurrection prove incoherent. We would be in trouble as well if the overall teaching of the Bible could be shown as a whole to portray God—in whom there is no darkness at all—to be cruel. Either this would prove the Bible false or the world an inescapable darkness. Many who attack our faith will assert they have found such problems. They often add that these problems are insurmountable. Questions at such central points are worthy of our study. Before we get upset over them, however, we must first remember that some difficulties come not because the Bible is faulty but because we are limited.

This limitation is just part of the human condition. We need not overcome this limitation in order to trust the Bible—but chances are that if we hold to our faith, answers will arise. ■

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Rick Ritchie is a long-time contributor to Modern Reformation.

He is a graduate of Christ College in Irvine, California, and GordonConwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts.

John Shelby Spong, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), 39–40.

2Spong, 212.

3Spong, 212.

4Spong, 213.

5This connection between naming of characters and their being eyewitnesses known within the early church is argued convincingly by Richard Bauckham in Jesus and the Eyewitnesses.

I have adopted his overall theory here, though this application may or may not fit his own presentation of that theory. If there are problems with my approach here, they should not be attributed to problems in Bauckham’s thesis.

6See Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1953), 44–45.

7The Woman’s Bible, ed. Elizabeth Cady Stanton (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1993), 40.

8The Woman’s Bible, 41.

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The Truthfulness of Scripture: Inerrancy

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gainst the repeated claim that the doctrine of inerrancy, unknown to the church, arose first with Protestant orthodoxy, we could cite numerous examples from the ancient and medieval church.1 It was Augustine who first coined the term “inerrant,” and Luther and Calvin can speak of Scripture as free from error.2 Down to the Second Vatican Council, Rome has attributed inerrancy to Scripture as the common view of the church throughout its history. According to the First Vatican Council (1869–70), the Old and New Testaments, “whole and entire,” are “sacred and canonical.” In fact, contrary to the tendency of some Protestants (including some evangelicals) to lodge the nature of inspiration in the church’s authority, this council added, And the church holds them as sacred and canonical not because, having been composed by human industry, they were afterwards approved by her

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authority; nor only because they contain revelation without errors, but because, having been written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God for their Author.3 Successive popes during the twentieth century condemned the view that limited inerrancy to that which is necessary for salvation, and Pope Leo XIII went even further than the inerrancy position by espousing the dictation theory of inspiration. Undoubtedly, this mechanical theory of inspiration is what most critics have in mind when they encounter the term “inerrancy.” Nevertheless, it does demonstrate that inerrancy is not an invention of Protestant fundamentalists. Quoting the Second Vatican Council, the most recent Catholic catechism states, “Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly,

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faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures.”4 The Princeton Formulation of Inerrancy lthough inerrancy was taken for granted in church history until the Enlightenment, it was especially at Princeton Seminary in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that it became a full-blown formulation. This view is articulated most completely in Inspiration, a book coauthored by A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield and published by the Presbyterian Church in 1881.

Their argument deserves an extended summary especially because it remains, in my view, the best formulation of inerrancy just as it anticipates and challenges caricatures.

First, they point out that a sound doctrine of inspiration requires a specifically Christian ontology or view of reality: “The only really dangerous opposition to the church doctrine of inspiration comes either directly or indirectly, but always ultimately, from some false view of God’s relation to the world, of his methods of working, and of the possibility of a supernatural agency penetrating and altering the course of a natural process.”5 Just as the divine element pervades the whole of Scripture, so too does the human aspect. Not only “the untrammeled play of all [the author’s] faculties, but the very substance of what they write is evidently for the most part the product of their own mental and spiritual activities.”6 Even more than the Reformers, the Protestant orthodox were sensitive to the diverse means used by God to produce the Bible’s diverse literature. This awareness has only grown, Hodge and Warfield observe, and should be fully appreciated. God’s “superintendence” did not compromise creaturely freedom. In fact, “It interfered with no spontaneous natural agencies, which were, in themselves, producing results conformable to the mind of the Holy Spirit.”7 Just as the divine element pervades the whole of Scripture, so too does the human aspect.

Far from reducing all instances of biblical revelation to the prophetic paradigm, as critics often allege, Hodge and Warfield recognize that the prophetic form, “Thus says the Lord,” is a “comparatively small element of the whole body of sacred writing.” In the majority of cases, the writers drew from their own existing knowledge, including general revelation, and each “gave evidence of his own special limitations of knowledge and mental power, and of his personal defects as well as of his powers....The Scriptures have been generated, as the plan of redemption has been evolved, through an historic process,” which is divine in its origin and intent, but “largely natural in its method.”8 “The Scriptures were generated through sixteen centuries of this divinely regulated concurrence of God and man, of the natural and the supernatural, of reason and revelation, of providence and grace.”9 Second, Warfield and Hodge underscore the redemptive-historical unfolding of biblical revelation, defending an organic view of inspiration over a mechanical theory. They note that many reject verbal inspiration because of its association

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with the erroneous theory of verbal dictation, which is an “extremely mechanical” view.10 Therefore, theories concerning “authors, dates, sources and modes of composition” that “are not plainly inconsistent with the testimony of Christ or his apostles as to the Old Testament or with the apostolic origin of the books of the New Testament…cannot in the least invalidate” the Bible’s inspiration and inerrancy.11 While higher criticism proceeds on the basis of anti-supernatural and rationalistic presuppositions, historical criticism is a valid and crucial discipline.

Third, the Princeton theologians faced squarely the question of contradictions and errors, noting problems in great detail. Some discrepancies are due to imperfect copies, which textual criticism properly considers. In other cases, an original reading may be lost, or we may simply fail to have adequate data or be blinded by our presuppositions from understanding a given text. Sometimes we are “destitute of the circumstantial knowledge which would fill up and harmonize the record,” as is true in any historical record. We must also remember that our own methods of testing the accuracy of Scripture “are themselves subject to error.”12 Fourth, because it is the communication that is inspired rather than the persons themselves, we should not imagine that the authors were omniscient or infallible. In fact, the authors themselves seem conscious enough of their limitations.

“The record itself furnishes evidence that the writers were in large measure dependent for their knowledge upon sources and methods in themselves fallible, and that their personal knowledge and judgments were in many matters hesitating and defective, or even wrong.”13 Yet Scripture is seen to be inerrant “when the ipsissima verba of the original autographs are ascertained and interpreted in their natural and intended sense.”14 Inerrancy is not attributed to copies, much less to our vernacular translations, but to “the original autographic text.”15 Fifth, the claim of inerrancy is that “in all their real affirmations these books are without error.”16 The qualification “real affirmations” is important and deserves some elaboration.

The scientific and cultural assumptions of the prophets and apostles were not suspended by the Spirit, and in these they were not necessarily elevated beyond their contemporaries. Nevertheless, that which they proclaim and affirm in God’s name is preserved from error. For example, critics often point to Matthew 13:32, where Jesus refers to the mustard seed as “the smallest of all seeds.”

From the context it is clear that Jesus was not making a botanical claim but drawing on the familiar experience of his hearers, for whom the analogy would have worked perfectly well. If every statement in Scripture is a propositional truth-claim, then there are obvious errors. A reductionistic view of language is implied at this point both in many of the criticisms and defenses of scriptural accuracy. It is unlikely that in his state of humiliation, in which by his own admission he did not know the day or hour of his return, Jesus had exhaustive knowledge about the world’s plant life. Whatever contemporary botanists might identify as the smallest seed, if it were unknown to Jesus’ M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 0 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 27

that the Bible is not a book as much as it is a library. We have to resist the long-held assumpspeaks is—simply by virtue of having come from tion in our intellectual culture him—holy, unerring, and faithful. In addition, the that plurality reflects a falling away from the oneness of being.

God is three persons in one content of God's speech is none other than the essence. Analogously, this triune God reveals the one truth of gift of the eternal Son who became flesh for us the gospel in a plurality of testimonies.

Furthermore, God spoke and for our salvation. through prophets and apostles in hearers, the analogy would have been pointless. We have many times and places, each of whom was shaped by to ask what the biblical writers are affirming, not what they various circumstances of God’s providence, and the variare assuming as part of the background of their own culations even between the four Gospels enrich our underture and the limitations of their time and place. standing of the different nuances and facets of Christ’s If we do not hold ourselves and each other to modern person and work. standards of specialized discourse in ordinary conversation, On the other hand, we must beware of equally facile we can hardly impose such standards on ancient writers. conclusions that depend on naturalistic presuppositions or As Calvin observed, “Moses wrote in the manner of those our own incomplete knowledge. Like the biblical authors, to whom he wrote.” If one wants to learn astronomy, we are not omniscient and must with patient reserve Calvin adds, one must ask the astronomers rather than anticipate fuller research and explanations. This does not Moses, since his purpose was not to deliver supernatural require a dualistic conception between “religious truth” information about the movement of planets.17 Inerrancy (faith and practice) and “secular truth” (history and scirequires our confidence not in the reliability of Moses and ence), as theories of limited inerrancy hold.19 If we cannot his knowledge of the cosmos but in the reliability of the histrust God as Creator, then we cannot trust God as torical narratives, laws, and promises disclosed in the Redeemer. Instead of this sort of a priori division, we Pentateuch. Even then, it is truthfulness, not exactness, must recall the purpose or intent of a biblical passage. that we expect when we come to the biblical text.18 Once again, it is a question of scope—what is being claimed To supplement their account, one could add that there rather than assumed. As Warfield explains, “It is true that are obvious discrepancies in biblical reports concerning the Scriptures were not designed to teach philosophy, scinumbers. However, these can be explained by recognizing ence, or ethnology, or human history as such, and therethe different methods of accounting, which are better fore they are not to be studied primarily as sources of known now than in the past. For example, on the basis of information on these subjects.”20 calculating the generations in Genesis, Archbishop Ussher Sixth, these theologians also denied that inerrancy was the concluded that the world was created on Sunday, October foundation of our doctrine of Scripture, much less of the Christian 23, 4004 B.C. However, we know more now about ancient faith.21 We must first begin with the content and claims of Near Eastern genealogies, which were not exhaustive but Scripture, centering on Christ. Christianity is not true singled out significant and transitional figures. Similarly, because it rests on an inspired and inerrant text, but vice Matthew’s list is selective, highlighting the crucial (and versa. In fact, the redemption to which Scripture testifies sometimes surprising) links in the genealogy that led to and that it communicates would “be true and divine…even Jesus Christ (Matt. 1:1–17). Their goal (or scope) is to if God had not been pleased to give us, in addition to his highlight the progress of redemption, not to provide genrevelation of saving truth, an infallible record of that reveral historical or scientific data. It is impossible to know elation absolutely errorless, by means of inspiration.”22 how many generations are missing from such genealogies, The Original Autographs and therefore efforts at calculating human history from he appeal to the inerrancy of the original autographs has them are always bound to fail. The fact that evenhanded historical research has resolved apparent discrepancies been a bone of contention in this debate. After all, such as this one cautions us against hasty conclusions. what does it matter if inerrancy is attributed only to Many of the alleged conflicts between Scripture and scithe original autographs if we no longer have access to ence have turned out to be founded on flawed biblical exethem? But this is not as abstract or speculative a point as gesis. In every science, anomalies are frankly it might first appear. We have to distinguish between the acknowledged without causing an overthrow of an entire original autographs and their copies in any case, since the paradigm or settled theory that enjoys widespread convalid enterprise of historical-textual criticism presupposes sensus on the basis of weightier confirmations. it. The very attempt to compare textual variants assumes On the one hand, we must beware of facile harmothat there is an original body of documents that some nizations of apparent contradictions. It is sometimes said copies and families of copies more or less faithfully repre-

Whatever the holy, unerring, and faithful Father

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sent. Errors in these myriad copies are a matter of fact, but they can only be counted as errors because we have ways of comparing copies in a manner that gives us a reasonable approximation of the original autographs.

Even if we do not have direct access to these original autographs, we do have criteria widely employed in all fields of textual criticism that give us a good idea of what was originally written.23 However, the methodological assumptions of textual criticism are quite different from those of higher criticism, which as an apparatus of theological liberalism follows naturalistic presuppositions.

Where real discrepancies and doubts remain as to the authenticity of certain sayings, on the basis of textual-critical rather than higher-critical analysis, they do not affect any point of the church’s faith and practice.24 The very fact that textual criticism is an ongoing field yielding ongoing results demonstrates that reconstructing or approximating the content of the original autographs is a viable goal and that, for the most part, it has already achieved this goal.

The Faithful Inspirer n evangelical circles generally, inerrancy was assumed more than explicitly formulated until it was challenged. Warfield and Hodge helped to articulate this position, which is more formally summarized in the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (see page 30).25 Like any formulation developed in response to a particular error or area of concern for faith and practice, the inerrancy doctrine invites legitimate questions and critiques. However, its alternatives are less satisfying.

Whatever the holy, unerring, and faithful Father speaks is—simply by virtue of having come from him—holy, unerring, and faithful. In addition, the content of God’s speech is none other than the gift of the eternal Son who became flesh for us and for our salvation. Revelation therefore is not merely an ever-new event that occurs through the witness of the Bible, it is a written canon—an abiding, Spirit-breathed deposit and constitution for the covenant community in every generation. Thus, the Christian faith is truly “a pattern of the sound words” and “the good deposit entrusted to you” that we are to “guard” by means of “the Holy Spirit who dwells within us” (2 Tim. 1:13–14; cf. 1 Tim. 6:20). It is an event of revelation that not only creates our faith—fides qua creditor, the faith by which we believe—but, according to Jude 3, contains in canonical form “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints”—fides quae creditor, the faith that is believed. ■

I

Michael Horton is J. Gresham Machen Professor of Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido).

See Robert D. Preus, “The View of the Bible Held by the Church: The Early Church through Luther,” and John H. Gerstner, “The View of the Bible Held by the Church: Calvin and the Westminster Divines,” in Inerrancy, ed. Norman Geisler (Grand 1

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Rapids: Zondervan, 1980); John A. Woodbridge, Biblical Authority: A Critique of the Rogers/McKim Proposal (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982); G. W. Bromiley, “The Church Fathers and Holy Scripture,” in Scripture and Truth, eds. D. A. Carson and John A. Woodbridge (Leicester: IVP, 1983).

2Klaas Runia, “The Hermeneutics of the Reformers,” Calvin Theological Journal 19 (1984), 129–32.

3See Alfred Duran, “Inspiration of the Bible,” in Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 8 (New York: Robert Appleton, 1910).

4Dei Verbum (Constitution on Divine Revelation), Art. 11, quoted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (Liguori, MO: Liguori, 1994), 31.

5A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield, Inspiration (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 9.

6Hodge and Warfield, 12.

7Hodge and Warfield, 6.

8Hodge and Warfield, 12–13.

9Hodge and Warfield, 14.

10Hodge and Warfield, 19.

11Hodge and Warfield, 25.

12Hodge and Warfield, 27.

13Hodge and Warfield, 27–28.

14Hodge and Warfield, 27–28.

15Hodge and Warfield, 42.

16Hodge and Warfield, 42.

17John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis, trans. John King (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981), 1:86.

18Hodge and Warfield, 28–29. The Princeton theologians pointed out, “There is a vast difference between exactness of statement, which includes an exhaustive rendering of details, an absolute literalness, which the Scriptures never profess, and accuracy, on the other hand, which secures a correct statement of facts or principles intended to be affirmed….It is this accuracy, and this alone, as distinct from exactness, which the church doctrine maintains of every affirmation in the original text of Scripture without exception.”

19Advocates of this position include G. C. Berkouwer, Studies in Dogmatics: Holy Scriptures (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975); Dewey Beegle, The Inspiration of Scripture (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963); Jack Rogers and Donald McKim, The Authority and Interpretation of the Bible: An Historical Approach (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979). Although somewhat dated, the arguments offered in Vern Poythress, “Problems for Limited Inerrancy,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 18:2 (Spring 1975), 93–102, remain relevant.

20Hodge and Warfield, 30.

21Hodge and Warfield, 6–7.

22Hodge and Warfield, 8–9.

23For a careful analysis of this process, see esp. Bruce Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987); F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1988).

24One example is the ending of the Lord’s Prayer: “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.”

25Among other places, the full Chicago Statement may be found in R. C. Sproul, Scripture Alone: The Evangelical Doctrine (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2005), 177–93.

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The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy Articles of Affirmation and Denial Article I.

Article VI.

WE AFFIRM that the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the authoritative Word of God.

WE AFFIRM that the whole of Scripture and all its parts, down to the very words of the original, were given by divine inspiration.

WE DENY that the Scriptures receive their authority from the Church, tradition, or any other human source.

WE DENY that the inspiration of Scripture can rightly be affirmed of the whole without the parts, or of some parts but not the whole.

Article II. Article VII. WE AFFIRM that the Scriptures are the supreme written norm by which God binds the conscience, and that the authority of the Church is subordinate to that of Scripture.

WE DENY that Church creeds, councils, or declarations have authority greater than or equal to the authority of the Bible.

WE AFFIRM that inspiration was the work in which God by His Spirit, through human writers, gave us His Word. The origin of Scripture is divine. The mode of divine inspiration remains largely a mystery to us.

WE DENY that inspiration can be reduced to human insight, or to heightened states of consciousness of any kind.

Article III. Article VIII. WE AFFIRM that the written Word in its entirety is revelation given by God. WE DENY that the Bible is merely a witness to revelation, or only becomes revelation in encounter, or depends on the responses of men for its validity.

Article IV. WE AFFIRM that God who made mankind in His image has used language as a means of revelation.

WE DENY that human language is so limited by our creatureliness that it is rendered inadequate as a vehicle for divine revelation. We further deny that the corruption of human culture and language through sin has thwarted God’s work of inspiration.

Article V. WE AFFIRM that God’s revelation within the Holy Scriptures was progressive.

WE DENY that later revelation, which may fulfill earlier revelation, ever corrects or contradicts it. We further deny that any normative revelation has been given since the completion of the New Testament writings.

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WE AFFIRM that God in His work of inspiration utilized the distinctive personalities and literary styles of the writers whom He had chosen and prepared.

WE DENY that God, in causing these writers to use the very words that He chose, overrode their personalities.

Article IX. WE AFFIRM that inspiration, though not conferring omniscience, guaranteed true and trustworthy utterance on all matters of which the Biblical authors were moved to speak and write.

WE DENY that the finitude or fallenness of these writers, by necessity or otherwise, introduced distortion or falsehood into God’s Word.

Article X. WE AFFIRM that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original.

WE DENY that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.

Article XV. WE AFFIRM that the doctrine of inerrancy is grounded in the teaching of the Bible about inspiration.

Article XI. WE AFFIRM that Scripture, having been given by divine inspiration, is infallible, so that, far from misleading us, it is true and reliable in all the matters it addresses.

WE DENY that it is possible for the Bible to be at the same time infallible and errant in its assertions.

Infallibility and inerrancy may be distinguished, but not separated.

Article XII. WE AFFIRM that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from all falsehood, fraud, or deceit.

WE DENY that Biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields of history and science. We further deny that scientific hypotheses about earth history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture on creation and the flood.

WE DENY that Jesus’ teaching about Scripture may be dismissed by appeals to accommodation or to any natural limitation of His humanity.

Article XVI. WE AFFIRM that the doctrine of inerrancy has been integral to the Church’s faith throughout its history.

WE DENY that inerrancy is a doctrine invented by scholastic Protestantism, or is a reactionary position postulated in response to negative higher criticism.

Article XVII. WE AFFIRM that the Holy Spirit bears witness to the Scriptures, assuring believers of the truthfulness of God’s written Word.

WE DENY that this witness of the Holy Spirit operates in isolation from or against Scripture.

Article XVIII. Article XIII. WE AFFIRM the propriety of using inerrancy as a theological term with reference to the complete truthfulness of Scripture.

WE DENY that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according to standards of truth and error that are alien to its usage or purpose. We further deny that inerrancy is negated by Biblical phenomena such as a lack of modern technical precision, irregularities of grammar or spelling, observational descriptions of nature, the reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyperbole and round numbers, the topical arrangement of material, variant selections of material in parallel accounts, or the use of free citations.

Article XIV. WE AFFIRM the unity and internal consistency of Scripture.

WE DENY that alleged errors and discrepancies that have not yet been resolved vitiate the truth claims of the Bible.

WE AFFIRM that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico-historical exegesis, taking account of its literary forms and devices, and that Scripture is to interpret Scripture.

WE DENY the legitimacy of any treatment of the text or quest for sources lying behind it that leads to relativizing, dehistoricizing, or discounting its teaching, or rejecting its claims to authorship.

Article XIX. WE AFFIRM that a confession of the full authority, infallibility, and inerrancy of Scripture is vital to a sound understanding of the whole of the Christian faith. We further affirm that such confession should lead to increasing conformity to the image of Christ.

WE DENY that such confession is necessary for salvation. However, we further deny that inerrancy can be rejected without grave consequences, both to the individual and to the Church.

Chicago, 1978

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The Aftermath

Looking Back at the Chicago Statement

By David F. Wells he intense debates over biblical inerrancy of an earlier time have now subsided. Sides have been taken.

The church has moved on and is now occupied with other issues. It is a good moment, then, to look back and think about what was accomplished in the earlier warfare.

Let me begin by laying out a couple of clarifications.

Inerrancy has to do with the nature of Scripture and infallibility with its function. That, at least, is the best way to consider the relation between these two terms, though it is certainly true that some—like Berkouwer, Rogers, and Barth—have seen them as alternatives. Infallibility has been the softer term. Those who have favored it in place of inerrancy have done so because it secures the overall truthfulness of Scripture while allowing for flaws in its text that, they argue, do not affect the overall and infallible message. Scripture can be errant while simultaneously being infallible.

However, I think it is wiser to see these two terms as being complementary rather than as alternatives to each other. If Scripture is inerrant in its nature, it will have the capacity to be infallible in its function. Only if it is completely true by nature, even in its small details, will it never mislead, misinform, or misdirect us.

It was, however, the first of these terms—inerrancy— that was at the heart of the debate in the evangelical world a generation ago. This debate forced a clear choice on people: Is Scripture the Word of God or is it not? If it is the Word of God, inspired by the Spirit of God, then it must be as truthful as the God who inspired it. And if it is inspired, then it must also be inerrant. That was the argument a majority in the evangelical world embraced, and the Chicago Statement had a large role in shaping this conclusion.

Critics, then and subsequently, have derided the term “inerrancy,” especially in Britain, often arguing that it involves a double negative and, besides, it is unnecessary.

This is, though, a relatively new view, and it is no disgrace for us to stand alongside some of the church’s greatest thinkers who believed it necessary to use inerrancy or its equivalent in speaking of Scripture: Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Owen, and Hodge, to name just a few.

What transpired a generation ago, nevertheless, has turned out to be a hollow victory despite the excellence of the Chicago Statement, which I endorsed and whose truths I continue to maintain. There are, I believe, two principal reasons for this.

First, the evangelical world has long had a penchant for minimalist doctrinal formulations. This was part of the “big tent” strategy of the early postwar years. The wider the portal through which people could enter, the larger the number that could come. Confessing biblical inerrancy was often the shortest way into the evangelical fraternity.

Indeed, for many years, this was the sole belief necessary for

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membership in the Evangelical Theological Society.

However, what must have seemed inconceivable in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s became distressing reality in the 1990s. It was then that a cadre of scholars emerged, among whom were Pinnock and Sanders, who consented to inerrancy but then coupled that with a view of open theism that radically eviscerated the traditional doctrine of God. And this they held as inerrant truth! In the 2000s, it may have gotten worse. Now inerrantists can be heard disputing the penal substitution of Christ as they follow N. T. Wright and the New Perspective into altogether different pastures. This, too, is held as truth delivered by God inerrantly!

As we look back, it has become painfully clear that the ringing affirmations about inerrancy a generation ago were often coupled with a stunning naïveté that anyone who affirmed such a belief would inevitably go on to affirm the full body of orthodox belief of which inerrancy is a part. That plainly has proved to be a disastrous fallacy.

Second, while it was important to define and secure inerrancy, what was actually secured has now been largely lost on the evangelical world. Inerrancy is important, not simply as a doctrine in and of itself but as a protection for the full body of truth, in all of its range and profundity, which God has given to the church. And if there is one thing that became increasingly clear of the evangelicalism of the 1980s and 1990s, it was that evangelical churches, organizations, and personal ministries could be abundantly successful with very little reference to truth. What Barna is now finding is that knowledge of Scripture has sunk to abysmal levels in our churches. It is a small comfort that some of these people do realize this as a weakness, but there are also many who do not. So, we have ended up with an inerrant Bible but that Bible has very little to do with how our churches do their business and how their attendees are fashioning their lives.

Inerrancy is, indeed, the portal through which we enter; but what we enter is the world where God is sovereign and holy, where we are to love and serve him with all of our being, where knowing him is to mark us in every interaction we have with the world around us. It is about making us people of truth in a world where there is only private opinion and people of authenticity in a world of rampant fakery, and people of integrity in a world filled with deceit and double-dealing.

How could the evangelical church have been so insistent on inerrancy and then lost sight so completely about its consequences?

Dr. David F. Wells is Distinguished Research Professor at GordonConwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts.

I N S P I R AT I O N A N D I N E R R A N C Y

A Roundtable Discussion on

Inerrancy Michael Horton recently had an engaging e-mail conversation on inerrancy with Michael Spencer, the “Internet Monk,” and Donald Richmond, a presbyter and examining chaplain with the Reformed Episcopal Church. Here is what they had to say about this controversial topic.

Horton: “The Bible, in its original autographs, is without error in all that it affirms.” Shaped especially by B. B. Warfield and fleshed out in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978), this particular formulation was forged in response to a growing reticence to identify the Word of God directly with the words of Scripture. It also was intended to clarify the position and to distinguish it from fundamentalist views that downplay the human aspect of Scripture, such as the belief that each word was dictated by the Holy Spirit. With Warfield, I would argue that while inerrancy is not a foundational Christian doctrine, it expresses faithfully the teaching of the Scriptures themselves and the historic teaching of the church—and its denial puts us in the position of determining for ourselves the parts of Scripture we regard as canonical. What are your major objections or qualms about this formulation?

Richmond: I unreservedly affirm Holy Scripture as the written Word of God. However, while affirming the full sufficiency of Holy Scripture regarding all matters related to belief and behavior, I refuse to use the word “inerrancy.” There are several reasons for my resistance to both the word and its current meaning. First, it is not a foundational doctrine. As such, to focus upon this word places us in a position of majoring on minors. Second, the word “inerrancy,” at least as it is popularly understood, is entirely foreign to the apostles, Fathers, and Reformers.

Third, the concept of inerrancy places a template upon

the biblical text that forces the contemporary reader into a position of evaluating and applying the text anachronistically. Fourth, when we embrace inerrancy, we are invariably brought to a position of embracing plenary verbal inspiration and an unwholesome literalism. Fifth, the doctrine of inerrancy reflects a fear-based, not a faith-based, response to contemporary criticism. Finally, although it is a dangerous position in which to place ourselves, it is inescapable that we do “determine for ourselves the parts of Scripture that we regard as canonical.” I welcome Scripture’s authoritative rule over my life. Nevertheless, while accepting this rule, I do not think I must accept inerrancy in order to arrive at authority.

Spencer: I do not so much believe that the concept of inerrancy is untrue as that it is inefficient, unnecessary, and divisive. It is inefficient because the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy itself is a syllabus on the special definition of “error” at the heart of inerrancy, a special definition that allows literary genre, imprecision and approximation to exist alongside the curious idea of “no errors,” thus necessitating a special definition of error.

Further, the church has long used perfectly adequate language about the Bible, such as can be found in the Westminster Confession’s article on Scripture, without the use of inerrancy and its required special definitions. Finally, the enthusiasts for the use of this term have managed to treat all kinds of brothers and sisters who accept the truthfulness and authority of Scripture as deniers of the orthodox place of Scripture in the church. Inerrancy may repair some breaches in the theological hull of evangelicalism, but I am unconvinced that strict enforcement of the term itself was necessary or the fruits beneficial. In response, why is the technical definition of Chicago-style inerrancy M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 0 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 33

necessary when the Reformed confessions have a good and workable statement on Scripture?

Horton: What would be the main reason (or maybe two) you would offer for inerrancy being “untrue”?

Richmond: While I very much agree with Michael Spencer’s observations, I do not believe he has gone quite far enough. Inerrancy is both “untrue” and “inefficient.”

The reason that inerrancy is “untrue” is primarily because it is a concept foreign to the Bible, and as such foreign to God. I do not in any way mean to suggest that God is untrue (quite to the contrary!), but rather in regard to inerrancy, the doctrine is so entirely foreign to the biblical narrative that God cannot endorse it.

Spencer: The problem for me isn’t the untruthfulness of the term on some level; it’s clearing out all the baggage that comes with it. We have to define “error,” which apparently takes several pages of the Chicago Statement and excludes several kinds of information ordinary people call errors. Then we have to understand why “inerrancy” is a required term, when the church operated just fine without it for centuries. Finally, the use of “inerrancy” will pick an immediate fight with certain literalistic views of the Bible as a science textbook, and we will have to work through the entire young earth creationist presentation in order to preserve our definition of “inerrant” without pre-committing all of us to be creationists. My contention is not that the Bible has errors in what it teaches, but that the material in the Bible that operates in a broader sense of truth—rather than the narrow, technical sense—deserves better treatment than having to conform to this modernistic and confusing term.

Richmond: The word “inerrancy” did not fall from heaven, laden with divine patronage. Instead, when we use the word, it is infected with philosophical ideas that were a knee-jerk response to what was happening theologically and philosophically between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. If you ask me if I believe in a literal Adam and Eve, a historic Abraham, or in the physical death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord, I would heartily and happily agree. However, I oppose the concept of inerrancy because the word itself moves the argument, intentionally or not, into the arena of a philosophical system foreign to the apostles, Fathers, and Reformers. In short, if we are going to use the word, we will need to submit ourselves to the system from which it arose. On these terms, inerrancy is indefensible.

Horton: Let me respond to both of your answers—first, on the question of whether inerrancy requires investment in a whole philosophical system (modernist epistemology).

Surely words such as “hypostatic,” “Trinity,” and, for that matter, biblical terms such as “Logos” (Word) and even “Theos” (God) don’t have to be used exactly the same way 34 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

that most people used them in antiquity. I’m not sure why the claim that the Bible doesn’t err is wrapped up in Enlightenment philosophy, especially when the term itself was used by Augustine and many others since. Furthermore, I sympathize with your point about the qualifications that the formal statements of inerrancy often make: only the original autographs, not the copies; the distinction between discrepancies and actual errors; and so forth. However, the closer I study these qualifications, the more valid they seem. We do have access to the “original autographs” indirectly by comparing the best-attested families of manuscripts. The whole enterprise of textual criticism assumes we can reconstruct the original autographs to such an extent that the only remaining questions concern verses that do not affect any article of faith and practice. And doesn’t it make sense to discriminate between discrepancies (apparent conflicts)—for which in many cases good explanations have been offered—and errors or contradictions.

Second, when we look at issues such as young earth creationism, that’s a question of interpretation, not the character of the text as such. I’m as worried about the way the young earth argument handles the Scriptures as I am about the science. If they misinterpret the Scriptures, expecting it to answer questions beyond its scope and intention, then I fail to see how the inerrancy of Scripture itself is jeopardized.

Third, when Michael says that the Bible operates with a broader understanding of “truth” than modernistic assumptions (technical accuracy, like mathematics), I cannot only concur but could cite Warfield and the Chicago Statement to support that point. Fundamentalists and modernists have defended and rejected biblical truthfulness by demanding modern standards of exactitude. For example, clearly the mustard seed is not the smallest seed, but Jesus wasn’t giving a lecture on botany—and since he did not know the time or hour of his return, we shouldn’t assume that Jesus knew what the smallest seed was in any case during his earthly humiliation. That’s why the Chicago Statement says the Bible is “without error in all that it affirms.” As a fully human book, the Bible exhibits the weaknesses, limitations, and cultural locations of each writer. All of this is affirmed in such formal statements. Are you sure you’re taking issue with this formulation, or is it a more fundamentalist version to which you are responding?

Richmond: Regarding Dr. Horton’s comment, “As a fully human book, the Bible exhibits the weaknesses, limitations, and cultural locations of each writer,” when we use the word “inerrancy,” I am not sure we can enjoy the luxury of such discriminating thinking. As for his reference to St. Augustine and others, I concede their use of the word; but when they used it, they did not have between 500 and 1,500 years of baggage (such as the Enlightenment and Scientific Rationalism) with which to contend.

Spencer: Dr. Horton’s answer on young earth creationism assumes that the use of the term “inerrancy” does not

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necessarily create the problem. I would say that my expeture), and there are inerrantists who think of the Bible as rience teaching Bible survey leads to the opposite conclua catalog of propositional descriptions of astronomy, geolsion. When the concept of “no errors” is the presiding ogy, and math. But, again, those are interpretative flaws concept, then it is the hearer who determines the definition that lead people either to deny inerrancy or to develop of error that is at work. Copies of the Chicago Statement are extreme views of literal accuracy. Calvin spoke of Scripnot issued to all who hear the term. If I say “Genesis is withture as without error. Yet he also reminded us that Moses out error” to an audience of sharp, science-minded students, spoke not as an astronomer but that God condescended to they will read Genesis and say, “Then there is water above accommodate his revelation to the finite capacity of his the firmament and the earth is the unmovable center of the covenant people. It seems to me that critics of inerrancy universe.” The fact that you and I have interpretative moves sometimes share with fundamentalists a naive and modto make at that point doesn’t deter someone taking the ernistic set of assumptions about the way to read a series shortest route from seeing inerrancy in the same way they of covenantal documents. see the concept of “without error” operating in their own Regarding your other point, would you also say, “There view of truth. It is Christians—and especially the engineers is no Bible itself because we cannot in any way escape the of the broad use of the term “inerrant”—who have develneed for interpretation”? Now, this sounds very modernist oped a special definition to relieve the interpretative tento me. If that is what you’re saying, I’d wonder if we have sion. When we use the term, no asterisk is necessary. When differences larger than inerrancy. Of course, texts are the ordinary person hears it, a whole seminar on “errors interpreted, but are you sure you want to collapse text into that aren’t really errors” is needed. interpretation without remainder?

When Dr. Horton says, “As a fully It seems to me that critics of Would this also mean that there is human book, the Bible exhibits the no qualitative difference between weaknesses, limitations, and cultural inerrancy sometimes share Scripture and tradition? locations of each writer,” I am wonwith fundamentalists a dering where it becomes apparent to Richmond: My response about inthe layperson that these things are terpretation is tied specifically to the naive and modernistic set comment, “Chicago Statement itself” true. The popular notion of inerrancy is used by literalists and young earth (my emphasis). That is, although of assumptions about the the statement comes from and exists creationists every day to question the orthodoxy of people who believe the within a certain context, interpretaway to read a series of Bible. Inerrancy was the cry of the tion (which can be misinterpretatakeover of the Southern Baptist tion) is always required. covenantal documents.

Convention by conservatives, primaAs for the Bible, of course it is rily because the term immediately raised the question of “do objective truth as spoken by God through his apostles you really believe the Bible?” Baptist moderates may have and prophets. Tradition, based upon councils (for examhad a neo-orthodox view of Scripture, but they believed the ple), and specifically addressed in our Anglican ThirtyBible was true. It was the inerrancy debate that deternine Articles of Religion, can be and have been wrong. We mined exactly how that answer would and wouldn’t hold base our beliefs and behaviors upon the revealed text—not water, and it was along the lines I discussed above: literaloutside of it. Nevertheless, there is a critical role that interism. pretation plays in this process and, as you know better than I, this is a weighty issue. Quite frankly, our interpreHorton: It sounds again to me as if inerrancy is being contation of the text can make the determination between life fused with literalism, which is a category mistake. Inand death. And, although the written Word of God, Holy errancy is a claim about the truth of the text and literalism Scriptures also come to us as interpreted texts—unless one is a way of misreading the Bible or any other text, inerrant subscribes to the dictation theory of how we received our or not. An audience of sharp, science-minded students Bible. You stated earlier that God’s Word carries with it a should hopefully have had enough literature courses to certain amount of the cultural baggage. Hermeneutics be able to interpret genres other than science textbooks. and homiletics are therefore interpretational exercises.

Warfield labored the point that the Bible isn’t a science textbook. In fact, he favored theistic evolution! Scope, Horton: Both of your responses seem to confuse inpurpose, and genre have to be considered. Then you have errancy with interpretation. Nevertheless, you helpfully to distinguish views that finite and fallen people might point out that this is also what a lot of preachers are have assumed in their worldview from what they actudoing. So are we stuck with having to jettison inerrancy ally teach. To be sure, these are complicated issues, but simply because some misuse it? I just don’t see the logithey aren’t about inerrancy; they’re about interpretation— cal connection between “God’s Word is entirely trustworand with or without inerrancy, everyone has to do that. thy” and “the earth is about 6,000 years old.” Why don’t Yes, there are extreme views of inspiration (such as dictawe spend our time showing people that an inerrant Bible tion, which is basically denying the humanity of Scripdoesn’t teach a young earth—in fact, doesn’t address the M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 0 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 35

age of the earth at all? Also, unless we follow Karl Barth in maintaining that error is intrinsic to humanness, is there a contradiction in your view between affirming the full involvement of the human authors (with their diverse cultural backgrounds, assumptions, and interpretations) along with the Spirit’s preservation of the prophets and apostles from errors in all that they actually affirm?

Richmond: Your point is well taken. The emphasis on covenant might be a useful tool for clarifying the boundaries and purposes of inerrancy. Second Timothy 3:16–17, a text familiar to us all, highlights the scope of inerrancy— if we must use the word at all. Scripture is inspired, and I might add inerrant, to accomplish the covenantal purposes of God: teaching, reproving, correcting, training, and equipping of the people of God. I think, however, that you may give far too much credit to the general population if you think they are aware of the practical implications of genre. I have two good friends, well educated and decidedly Christian, who recently told me that if I was not a biblical literalist, I was not a real Christian. Most people, both friends and enemies of the faith, have a similar perspective about inerrancy. As such, would we not be better served if we were to abandon this word altogether? I would far prefer proclaiming God’s good news than having to educate others on the hair-splitting minutia of inerrancy.

Spencer: You give too much credit in the area of interpreting genre. Do you really believe that the popular cry for inerrancy—which is heard in thousands of sermons in churches, youth groups, and conferences—is interpreted to mean, “You can even believe in evolution and be an inerrantist”? The problem may be fundamentalist literalism, but 90 percent of the people who use the term “inerrancy” in my denomination mean exactly that: literalism in every way possible. This is my complaint about its inefficiency and misuse. I agree with you completely about genre and interpretation, and I agree with you completely about all the diverse interpretation possible in the Chicago Statement.

There may be room for a broad and safe use of the word in the academy; but here where evangelicalism rules the landscape, “inerrancy” is a test for “Do you believe the Bible literally, oppose evolution, oppose women in ministry?” and so on. The word is a lot of trouble. More trouble than it’s worth, in my view.

Richmond: I do apologize if I confuse inerrancy with interpretation. However, even if we assume the viability of inerrancy, we must also assume that the apostles and prophets, fully inspired by the Holy Spirit, engaged in some form of interpretational actions in their choice of words.

Inerrancy does not necessarily assume dictation. We do not jettison inerrancy simply because of the possibility of misinterpretation. If that were the case, we might as well dispense with the word “Trinity” as well. We must discard the word “inerrancy” for a number of reasons, all of which 36 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

were stated in my initial argument. You are, of course, correct: there is no logical connection between inerrancy and a 6,000-year-old earth. This, however, is how the general and even fairly educated population views it.

I find absolutely no contradiction in affirming human authorship and divine inspiration. When we use the term “inerrant,” however, many evangelicals play up the divine elements and play down the human elements. If we are to use the word “inerrancy,” we must at all costs avoid overemphasizing or underemphasizing either the human or the divine nature of God’s revealed Word. God did not superintend error; rather, by our insistence upon using the word “inerrant,” we set the text up for misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and (within the context of the word “inerrant” itself) charges of being inaccurate.

Horton: You both have helped to frame up some of the complications involved with maintaining inerrancy in the present situation. However, I’m still left wondering how there’s any real connection between the claim that the Bible is without error in all that it affirms and the commitment to post-Enlightenment epistemology and particular interpretations of the age of the earth. I don’t find Arminianism a plausible interpretation of the relevant passages. Nevertheless, it would be ridiculous to say that an Arminian brother or sister denies inerrancy because we interpret the passages differently. So what if a lot of folks out there are confusing inerrancy with disputed interpretations of the text? Aren’t you rejecting inerrancy for the same reasons? I haven’t yet heard an argument (exegetical, theological, or historical) for why you think inerrancy is a flawed formula.

Spencer: Of course, the assumption here is that I would have something to prove beyond the language of the Westminster Confession’s chapter on Scripture. It was the Chicago Statement creators who took upon themselves the burden of mounting an exegetical, theological, and historical argument that previous confessions regarding Scripture were inadequate without this additional confessional document—a document that functions in a very different way from any church-sanctioned confession such as the WCF. So you are correct: I have no desire to be the two-millionth person to undertake an examination of passages discussing inspiration and authority, knowing those discussions have yielded nothing new. No, it is those who have run up the flag of inerrancy who owe the rest of the body of Christ an explanation for why previous formulations of Scripture’s authority were not adequate and why an insistence on inerrancy reflects the meaning of Scripture’s own teaching and the church’s own confession better than the language of those upon whose shoulders we stand.

Horton: I’m sure you would agree that confessions are historically conditioned. From the earliest days, the church was implicitly trinitarian in its baptism, prayers, liturgies, and hymns. The heretics pushed the church to

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formulate the dogma of the Trinity in clearer terms. Same with the christological debates, the Pelagian heresy, and on we could go. Yet even heretics either quoted Scripture as authoritative or (as in the case of the Gnostics) appealed to their own secret texts.

Only with the advent of Socinianism and the Enlightenment did professing Christians begin to question whether divine inspiration preserved the scriptural canon from error. Clement of Rome, who died toward the end of the first century, wrote that in “the Holy Scriptures which are given through the Holy Spirit nothing iniquitous or falsified is written.” Augustine added, “The evangelists are free from all falsehood, both from that which proceeds from deliberate deceit and that which is the result of forgetfulness.” Luther declared, “I am profoundly convinced that none of the writers have erred.” Same with Calvin, although he noted in detail apparent discrepancies, difficulties, and open questions concerning textual criticism. In modern times, papal encyclicals have insisted upon inerrancy, sometimes even falling into the exaggerated position of a dictation theory (which evangelical statements like the Chicago Statement reject), and both Vatican I and Vatican II affirm that the Bible is inerrant. So, further reflection on the nature of Scripture was precipitated by modernist criticism—and by a concern to distinguish the view from fundamentalism. To say, however, that inerrancy arose Phoenix-like from the ooze of modern epistemology is wide of the mark.

While I affirm the Westminster Confession’s statement on Scripture (viz., that it is “the only infallible rule for faith and life”), I also affirm inerrancy as a tragically necessary “further report.” Infallible used to mean not only inerrant but incapable of erring. It was a stronger word than inerrancy. As we know, however, in the 1970s “infallible” became a weaker alternative to “inerrant.” Sadly, we need to clarify what would in other centuries have been a perfectly obvious confession for believers. I wish we didn’t need inerrancy, but we do. I wish we didn’t need to qualify what we mean and don’t mean by affirming the trustworthiness of Scripture, but we do. Things are a lot more complicated now, but it is not because inerrantists have too much time on their hands. It is because we are more aware than ever both of the challenges to scriptural authority and the necessity of defending it. With Warfield, I don’t believe that denying inerrancy is a heresy, but I don’t see how we can adjudicate truth and error at all when it is up to us to determine what in Scripture we will receive as divinely revealed canon.

Richmond: You are correct that “confessions are historically conditioned.” And yet it seems to me that you have a bit of difficulty acknowledging—in practice—that the word “inerrancy” is a minefield of historic conditioning. I fully embrace the three catholic creeds as far as they correspond with Holy Scripture. But, in spite of your historic quotes, I cannot afford the doctrine of inerrancy the same latitude. Socinianism and the Enlightenment have forever

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changed how we understand and discuss inspiration and inerrancy. I am pleased you listed Clement of Rome, St. Augustine, Luther, and Calvin. They communicate historically important information relevant to this discussion—although both Luther and Calvin, as you pointed out regarding Calvin, “noted in detail apparent discrepancies, difficulties, and open questions.” There are “discrepancies, difficulties, and open questions”—and all of the books on how to reconcile these apparent difficulties do very little to resolve the conflicts arising from the great philosophical shifts to which you make mention, or our evangelical response to them. Inerrancy in no way “arose Phoenix-like from the ooze of modern epistemology,” as you have pointed out. This has been my point throughout this discussion. My concern is, in part, that in our seeking to mount a defense against the critics, we are appealing to the very system of thought we seek to combat. That is, as stated earlier, we have abandoned proclamation for proofs. The classic creeds sought to prove nothing, only to state what God has revealed in his written Word and to assert our belief in what God said: “I believe...we believe.”

You have written, “But I don’t see how we can adjudicate truth and error at all when it is up to us to determine what in Scripture we will receive as divinely revealed canon.” How very unfortunate that the apostles, prophets, Fathers, and Reformers did not have the doctrine of inerrancy to bolster their wavering faith in what God has said in Holy Scripture. You quote Clement, Augustine, and others, but fail to demonstrate how they understood their words regarding Scripture correlates with how we understand and apply the word “inerrancy.” To say that, according to Luther, “none of the writers have erred” is not to say the same thing as the text is “inerrant.” Five hundred years divide us from such a luxury.

Along with your Westminster Confession, our Thirty-nine Articles of Religion assert, “Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation.” This statement is found in Article VI, “Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation.” I affirm, embrace, and seek to conduct my life according to the full sufficiency of Holy Scripture. Holy Scripture is true, trustworthy, and authoritative—and I do not need inerrancy to help me arrive at these positions.

What is my “answer”? Pray, preach, and teach the good news of Jesus Christ. If we do these things and use the creeds as interpretational arbiters, we will be far better off than if we use the word “inerrant.”

In summary, biblically, the word “inerrant” (or related terms) is not found in Holy Scripture. We find the word “inspired,” and I am more than willing to embrace this. We also find phrases such as “the word of the Lord” and “Scripture,” both of which I have no hesitation about using. I assume you abide by, or seek to abide by, the “regulative principle.” Those of us who are orthodox Anglicans also seek to abide by such a guideline when we read in the Sixth Article of Religion, “Nobody should be required to believe as an article of the Christian faith...anything that is not found in Scripture or cannot be proved from Scripture” M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 0 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 37

(An Anglican Prayer Book, Anglican Mission in America; Note Baxter’s wisdom: “In essentials, unity; in nonessenemphasis mine). While I concede that you can extrapolate tials, liberty; in all things, charity.” from Scripture the doctrine of inerrancy, it is not central to it.

Horton: Once again I fail to see why the claim that “the Philosophically, inerrancy is tainted by the doctrines of Bible in its original autographs is without error in all that the world. When we use the word “inerrant,” we shift the it affirms” is inextricably bound up with weird science and balance of discussion and debate from proclamation to Descartes. Inerrancy isn’t a proof; it’s a claim. Yet why are proof. When we examine, as two examples, the sermons proofs inherently a bad business? Do you mean a certain of Peter or of Steven, we find no kind of Cartesian proof that hint of trying to prove (as we use dreams the impossible dream of It isn't "proofs" over the term) what God has said. finite and sinful creatures having They proclaimed what they knew invincible, incorrigible certainty? "proclamation" simply to give The idea that there is absolute and had experienced. The proof, so to speak, was in the proclamatruth (in God) Christians can afreasons for the hope that we firm, but on theological grounds tion—lived in and among the community of God. Although the we cannot say that we have abhave, answering objections Fathers and Reformers used solute truth. Our knowledge is terms such as “without error,” the ectypal, accommodated to our fiand opponents, and reasoning nite capacity as creatures, while term or statement cannot be the same as when we use the term God’s is archetypal. with people in the “inerrant.” One could say that Of course, “Jesus is Lord” is a when it is communicated that claim, not a proof. Regardless of “St. George slew the dragon,” how Christians of different apolosynagogues and markets. both we and the ancients clearly getic persuasions have gone on to understand what this means. Not so! We know there argue (or not argue) for that claim, we shouldn’t give up never were dragons. We understand the word, but the the claim because it’s a historically conditioned minefield. content has changed. The philosophical shifts you identiI’m not equating inerrancy with “Jesus is Lord,” just using fied have forever limited how we can use the term (if we it to make a point. use it at all) “inerrant.” Did St. George slay a dinosaur?

I don’t question at all that inerrancy is a minefield of Maybe. Was there ever a St. George? historic conditioning, like any term in our Christian gramLiterarily, the story of St. George is not lessened in its mar such as the more central words: Trinity, hypostatic impact by appreciating that it may not be historic. union, Word, and so forth. “This present age,” whether Inerrancy, in spite of what anyone says, lends itself to a litpre-modern, modern, or postmodern, is a minefield eral understanding of the text, especially in its general laythrough which Christians must always navigate, trying in level use. their limited and fallen (but hopefully faithful) way to Psychologically, the use of the term sets up a certain articulate clearly that to which (and to whom) they are game plan in many minds. “Inerrant” is a word that the giving testimony. It isn’t “proofs” over “proclamation” world—and many in the church—understand literally as simply to give reasons for the hope that we have (1 Pet. “without error.” The word “literally” is crucial here. As you 3:15), answering objections and opponents (2 Tim. 2:24– pointed out and cited Calvin in this regard, the Bible is full 25), and reasoning with people in the synagogues and of difficulties and inconsistencies, but they could easily be markets (Acts 17:1–34). In fact, the refusal to stand over navigated if we abandoned the term “inerrant.” the Scriptures in judgment was the very thing that Emotionally, the tension between our insistence upon Enlightenment rationalists scorned. the word “inerrant” and the obvious inconsistencies found I am not saying that you stand over the Scriptures in in the sacred text create a cognitive dissonance that in judgment. At the same time, I don’t know how you or I some cases leads to both criticisms from the world and or anybody else can justify submission to Scripture while crises of faith among our weaker brothers and sisters. I am having to pick out the bits that one does find useful for sure you are aware that to some degree “post-evangelifaith and practice and therefore inspired. I have frecalism” arose from the inerrancy debate. On the other side quently lamented the fact that some conservative evanof this are my well-educated friends whose militancy gelical approaches share with their liberal nemeses a deep about inerrancy makes me wonder whether this doctrine commitment to modern foundationalism. However, it’s is for them little more than a crutch for a wavering faith anachronistic to saddle pre-modern Christians such as in a fearful world. Those who shout the loudest are usuClement and Augustine with all of this baggage simply ally those who are most fearful. Inerrancy is a fear-based, because they said the Bible is inerrant. not a faith-based, doctrine.

May I say something in agreement though? Inerrancy Socially, the doctrine is divisive. As a “nonessential,” we in theory doesn’t secure a high view of Scripture in pracare majoring in a minor that divides faithful believers. tice. One should lead to the other, but often it does not.

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There is a lot of “hot air” preaching out there. Preachers say what they want to say and, waving their Bible, find a few verses to adorn their opinions and exhortations. The way the Bible is handled today by conservatives is often appalling. It’s no wonder that especially younger generations are cynical about the power of Scripture and preaching when too often they encounter only the dogmatic assertions or moralism of their pastors rather than clear proclamation of the law and the gospel.

I’ve been impressed with the way the Reformers and their successors argued that the inspiration and authority of Scripture depended not only on its form (as inspired) but also on its content. They thought about this in very trinitarian terms: Scripture is authoritative because it comes from the Father, with the Son as its content, and the Spirit as the one who not only inspires the text but illumines our hearts and minds to understand and receive it. Fundamentalists too easily reduce inspiration to the Father’s act of speaking; progressives too easily reduce it to the Son as its content (a canon-within-a-canon), and enthusiasts too easily reduce inspiration to illumination or raise illumination to inspiration (separating the Spirit from the Word).

Having said all of this, I don’t think the answer is to put up with the inconsistency of fundamentalists, progressives, or enthusiasts, but to submit ourselves to the inerrant canon of our Covenant Lord. Inerrancy invites challenges, qualifications, and further explanation. But so does every other view on the spectrum. There’s no way of evading this question simply because it is abused and misunderstood.

Jesus regarded the words of Scripture as his Father’s own Word (Matt. 4:4, 7, 10; 5:17–20; 19:4–6; 26:31, 52– 54; Luke 4:16–21; 16:17; 18:31–33; 22:37; 24:25–27, 45– 47; John 10:35). Peter insisted that the prophets did not speak from themselves but as they “were carried along by the Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:21) and in 3:15–16 refers to Paul’s letters as “Scriptures” (graphas). Similarly, Paul refers to Luke’s Gospel as “Scripture” in 1 Timothy 5:18 (cf. Luke 10:7). Paul calls Scripture “the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus,” and adds, “All Scripture is breathed out by God [theopneustos] and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:15–17). The Scriptures accomplish what they do (making you wise for salvation/equipping ministers) not only insofar as they speak of Christ or insofar as the Spirit speaks through them, but because of what they are: namely, the Word of God. As early as his temptation in the desert, Jesus was quoting Scripture against Satan and the religious rulers, answering not with his own words but with the Scriptures, “It is written” (Matt. 4:1–11). Throughout his ministry, as John’s Gospel especially emphasizes, Jesus claimed the Father as the source of his teaching. He was not bringing his own words. The Father always speaks in the Son and

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by the Spirit. It is the Father’s word and work that he was bringing to the world. It’s no wonder, then, that Jesus spoke as one having authority, unlike the scribes and Pharisees. He not only spoke the Father’s words, he is the Father’s Word. And yet, even he refused to turn inward and evaluate truth and error by his own lights. Even Jesus refused the path of autonomy—knowing good and evil apart from the Father’s authority. He submitted to the Scriptures.

This same Jesus spoke of the words of the prophets as the very word of God. He believed there was a historical Adam whose son Abel was slain by his brother Cain (Matt.

23:35). Jesus affirmed the historical events of Noah and the flood (Luke 17:26), the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, including Lot’s wife being turned into a pillar of salt (vv. 28–32), and Jonah’s having been swallowed by a whale (Matt. 12:40–41). Let fundamentalists and liberals fight over whether the mustard seed is the smallest seed; Jesus wasn’t giving a lecture on botany but a sermon on his kingdom for people who were familiar with mustard trees. If indeed all authority in heaven and on earth is given to Jesus Christ, demonstrated by his resurrection from the dead, then it seems hardly appropriate for us to stand over the authoritative Word to which he, though God incarnate, so joyfully submitted.

I don’t doubt that much of what I have said here can be affirmed without endorsing inerrancy, but not without contradiction. Inerrancy is a lot of trouble, but given the alternatives, it’s worth it.

Richmond: Dr. Horton suggests that “inerrancy is not a proof; it is a claim.” This may be true, but inevitably and invariably the assertion of inerrancy leads to proofs. If this is not the case, why are all of the books by inerrantists trying to reconcile texts? Proofs are, indeed, not bad business; it is entirely a matter of what platform we seek to establish and communicate those proofs upon. Inerrancy is the wrong platform in our current context. I fully endorse 1 Peter 3: 15, 2 Timothy 2: 24–25, and Acts 17: 1– 34. I have an active coffeehouse ministry where I am able to share Christ’s good news—and oddly with very little, if any, from the inerrantist position.

I understand the reasoning from your perspective, about how abandoning inerrancy may appear to be picking out the “bits and pieces” of “faith and practice.” It is a danger to us all, even for those who do embrace the inerrantist position. But again, it is a pitfall for every one of us. Are you willing to concede the full authority and inerrancy of Holy Scripture when our Lord said, “This is my body, this is my blood” as the real and viable presence of Christ in the Sacrament?

In no way do I “saddle” Clement and Augustine and others with the baggage of foundationalism or any other modern or postmodern philosophy. What I do assert is that, although they used words similar to inerrant, they did not nor could not use the word in the same way we do. This is because they were entirely unfamiliar with M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 0 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 39

such philosophical systems. My position is that inerrantists must interpret the Fathers and Reformers anachronistically if they are going to correlate the statements of the Fathers and Reformers with how we understand and use and apply the word “inerrant.”

Yes, a high view of Scripture is worth upholding. We are agreed. “Scripture is authoritative because it comes from [God.]” Well said. I’m good with this.

Spencer: My initial observation upon the invitation to address this subject was that my grievance with inerrancy is relatively small and I am not in any way qualified to put forward a third position in the debate. I do represent, in my own theological training and in my ministry among Southern Baptists, an observer and a practitioner of the concept of biblical authority as it works out in teaching, in preaching, and most importantly in the development of disciples.

The authority of the Bible does not reside in the words we use about it. All of us who are teachers and communicators are aware that any term or concept will be illustrated and tried in the real world of Christian practice and spiritual formation. How does the Bible affect, shape, and

Speaking Of…

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he Bible’s own understanding of truth stresses reliability. God’s Word is true be-

influence those who read and believe it? How does its proclamation communicate its relationship to God? How do individual Christians experience the authority, inerrancy, and divine nature of Scripture?

Much of my current ministry is with international students. I learned long ago that a single concept, such as inspiration, could not be trusted to communicate completely across the cultural divide. Practice, reverence, and application spoke much more deeply to my students about the inspiration of the Bible than simply the acquisition of a word they hear in English classes and even in motivational talks. Understanding inspiration ultimately depends on connecting the Bible as we read it with the God we are reverencing, worshiping, and seeking to know. The concept of inspiration required me to relate more than a theological or historical sense of how the Bible is viewed. It required me to demonstrate, in practice, what it meant to hear Holy Scripture as the words of men carried along by the Holy Spirit so that they wrote the words of God. Again, it is my own practice in using the Bible that will speak to these internationals most clearly about the truthfulness of Scripture. Many of them come from cultures where the prosperity gospel uses biblical literalism and poor interpretation to distort the gospel. Others will see the Scriptures as a manual for spiritual warfare based upon their view of the truthfulness of texts. I do not wish to discourage their confidence in the truth of the Bible, but I do wish to center their concepts of the Bible’s inspiration and authority in Jesus, in good interpretative practices, in listening to the wisdom of the larger church, and in avoiding extremes that “prove” the Bible’s truthfulness at the expense of its gospel. ■

Michael Horton is co-host of the White Horse Inn and editor-inchief of Modern Reformation.

cause it can be relied upon—relied upon to make good its claim and to accomplish its purpose. We may there-

Michael Spencer is a writer (www.InternetMonk.com) living in southeastern Kentucky. His first book is scheduled for publication in late 2010 by Waterbrook Press.

fore speak of the Bible’s promises, commands, warnings, etc. as being ‘true,’ inasmuch as they too can be relied upon. Together, the terms inerrancy and infallibility remind us that the Word of God is wholly reliable not only when it speaks, but also when it does the truth.”

—Kevin Vanhoozer

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The Very Rev. Dr. Donald P. Richmond, a presbyter and examining chaplain with the Reformed Episcopal Church, is author of multiple books, articles, poetry, and art. His most recent book is A Short Season in Hell: Meditations on Dante (Episcopal Recorder Publications, 2010).

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Textual Criticism: The Achilles Heel of Inerrancy?

By Michael J. Kruger

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ver the years, challenges to biblical authority have taken a lot of different forms. People have offered historical challenges: Do we really know where these books come from? Are we sure about their date and authorship? Others have offered hermeneutical challenges: Can we really understand what the Bible says?

What about all the different interpretations? And, most fundamentally, people have offered truth challenges: Is the Bible correct in what it teaches? Does it contradict itself?

In recent years, however, a new sort of challenge has become more common (though it is not really new at all).

It is not a challenge about the authorship of books, or the interpretation of them, or even about whether they contradict themselves. Instead, it is a challenge about whether we really have the words of Scripture in the first place.

Given that the Scriptures have been passed down to us through the centuries in handwritten manuscripts, and we possess only copies of the original autographs (most likely copies of copies of copies), how can we be sure that this transmission process has been accurate? How can we be sure the words have not been changed, altered, or lost?

This is the challenge of textual criticism. The challenge is not about how we know these words are right, but about how we know we have the right words.

Bart Ehrman in his book Misquoting Jesus offers this very challenge. He suggests that the New Testament manuscripts are so riddled with scribal errors and mistakes (some even intentional) that there is no way to have any

certainty about the words of the original authors. In essence, he argues that the New Testament text has been changed—irreparably and substantially changed in the battles over heresy and orthodoxy—so that it is no longer meaningful to discuss what Paul wrote or what Matthew, Mark, or Luke wrote. We simply do not know. All we have are manuscripts. And these manuscripts date hundreds of years after the time of the apostles and vary widely from one another. So, what does the “New Testament” say? It depends, argues Ehrman, on which manuscript you read.

He declares, “What good is it to say that the autographs (i.e., the originals) were inspired? We don’t have the originals! We have only error-ridden copies, and the vast majority of these are centuries removed from the originals and different from them…in thousands of ways.”1 Thus Ehrman uses textual criticism to argue that doctrines of inspiration and inerrancy are meaningless—the doctrines only pertain to the original text and we cannot know what the original text said. But there are substantial doubts about this hyper-skeptical approach to textual criticism. In response, this article will focus upon the New Testament text and offer four theses that embody an approach more consistent with the kind traditionally taken in the field of textual criticism. If these four theses are valid, then we have good reasons to think we are able to recover the New Testament text in a manner so very close to the original that there is no material difference between what, say, Mark and Matthew wrote, and what we have today.

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Thesis 1

Thesis 2

We have good reasons to think the original text is preserved (somewhere) in the overall textual tradition.

The first step in answering these questions about the transmission of the New Testament text is to gain a better understanding of the manuscript resources at our disposal. Discussions about whether a text has been “changed” always involve the comparison of manuscripts.

As scholars seek to know how much any writing of antiquity has been changed and, more importantly, as they seek to establish what that writing would have originally said (by tracing those changes through the manuscript tradition), the more manuscripts that can be compared the better. The higher the number of manuscripts, the more assurance we have that the original text was preserved somewhere in the manuscript tradition.

When it comes to the quantity of manuscripts, the New Testament is in a class all its own. Although the exact count is always changing, currently we possess over 5,700 manuscripts of the New Testament in Greek alone.2 No other document of antiquity even comes close. Moreover, we possess thousands more manuscripts in other languages. The total for just our Latin manuscripts of the New Testament exceeds 10,000 copies, and we possess thousands more in Coptic, Syriac, Gothic, Ethiopic, Armenian, and other languages. In addition to all these manuscripts, there are also a countless number of citations of the New Testament preserved in the early church fathers. So many, in fact, that Bruce Metzger has famously declared: “So extensive are these citations that if all other sources for our knowledge of the text of the New Testament were destroyed, they would be sufficient alone for the reconstruction of practically the entire New Testament.”3 Such a scenario, from a historical perspective, is truly remarkable. As Eldon Epp has said, “We have, therefore, a genuine embarrassment of riches in the quantity of manuscripts we possess….The writings of no Greek classical author are preserved on this scale.”4 Thus, if there were ever an ancient writing that had enough extant manuscripts that we could be reasonably assured that the original text was preserved for us in the multiplicity of copies, then the New Testament would be it. Epp notes, “The point is that we have so many manuscripts of the NT…that surely the original reading in every case is somewhere present in our vast store of material.”5 Gordon Fee concurs: “The immense amount of material available to NT textual critics…is their good fortune because with such an abundance of material one can be reasonably certain that the original text is to be found somewhere in it.”6 In other words, due to the vast number of manuscripts, the challenge of textual criticism is different from what we might expect—it is not that we are lacking in material (as if the original words were lost) but rather we have too much material (the original words, plus some variations).

The vast majority of scribal changes are minor and insignificant.

Having seen that we have good reasons to think that we possess the original text within our manuscript tradition (along with some scribal variations), we now turn our attention directly to these scribal variations. Do these variations present a considerable problem? How different are the manuscripts we possess? One might think we could just add up all the textual variations and we would have our answer. As we shall see, however, the answer to these questions is not as simple as providing a numerical figure. All scholars agree that there are thousands of textual variants throughout our many manuscripts— maybe as many as 200,000—though no one knows the exact number. Ehrman seems eager to suggest even higher numbers: “Some say there are 200,000 variants known, some say 300,000, some say 400,000 or more!”7 Indeed, numbers matter very much to Ehrman. For him, the sheer volume of variants is the deciding factor and sufficient, in and of itself, to conclude that the New Testament cannot be trusted. He even offers the dramatic statement, “There are more variations among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament.”8 Ehrman’s statistical enthusiasm aside, mere numbers do not tell the whole story.

What is overlooked in the numbers-only approach to assessing textual variation is the kind of textual variation we are talking about. It is a question not simply of quantity but of quality. The vast majority of textual variations in the New Testament are ones that can be legitimately regarded as “insignificant.”9 This means that these textual variants have no bearing or no impact on “the ultimate goal of establishing the original text.”10 These are typically minor, run-of-the-mill scribal slips that would exist in any document of antiquity (New Testament or otherwise), and thus occasion no real concern for the textual scholar—and certainly are not relevant for assessing whether a document has been reliably passed down to us.

Examples include spelling differences, nonsense readings, meaningless word order changes, and the like. Even though these types of changes are quite abundant (Ehrman is correct about that), they are also quite irrelevant. Thus, simply adding up the total textual variations is not a meaningful exercise in determining the reliability of textual transmission.

The numbers-only approach to evaluating textual variants also fails to take into account the very thing we noted above: the impressive quantity of manuscripts we possess.

Obviously, if we possessed only five Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, then we would have very few textual variations to account for. But since we have over 5,000 Greek manuscripts (not to mention those in other languages), then the overall quantity of textual variants will dramatically increase because the overall number of manuscripts has dramatically increased. The more manuscripts that can be compared, the more variations can be discovered. Thus the overall quantity of variations is not

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an indication of scribal infidelity (as Ehrman suggests) but is simply the natural consequence of having more manuscripts than any other historical text.

Thesis 3 Of the small portion of variations that are significant, our methodology can determine, with a reasonable degree of certainty, which is the original text.

Even if the vast majority of textual variations are insignificant and irrelevant to determining the original text of the New Testament, there still remains a small portion of textual variants that can be deemed “significant”—that is, they change the meaning of the text in some fashion.

Thus one might conclude that these sorts of changes present a real challenge to the textual integrity of the New Testament (and thus a challenge to inerrancy and inspiration). However, such a conclusion would be built upon an assumption that we have no way to determine which of these significant variants were original and which were not. Put differently, significant variants would be a problem if we could assume that every one of them was as equally viable as every other. The problem with such an assumption is that it stands in direct contradiction to the entire history of textual criticism—indeed, to the very existence of the field itself—which has consistently maintained that not all textual variants are equally viable and that our methodology can determine (with a reasonable degree of certainty) which is the original text. If that is the case, then these few “significant” textual variants do not materially affect the integrity of the New Testament because, put simply, we can usually spot them when they occur.

For example, one of the most commonly mentioned “significant” variants is found in 1 John 5:7–8, known as the Comma Johanneum. The italicized portion of the following verses is found in only a handful of manuscripts: “For there are three that testify: in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. And there are three that testify on earth: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.” Out of thousands of Greek manuscripts, only eight contain this variant reading—and four of those have the variants added by the scribe into the margin—and the earliest of these is tenth century.

Moreover, the variant is attested by none of the Greek Fathers and is absent from almost all our early versions. In the end, despite the fact that this variant found its way into the Textus Receptus (and thereby the King James translation), the text-critical evidence is decidedly against it being original to John’s Epistle. What then do we make of this variant (and ones like it)? No one can doubt it is “significant” in that it affects the theological understanding of this verse. However, it simply has no claim to originality and therefore does not impact our ability to recover the original text of the New Testament.

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Thesis 4 The remaining number of truly unresolved variants is very few and not material to the story/teaching of the New Testament.

We have argued that even “significant” variants do not present a problem for the integrity of the New Testament because our text-critical methodology allows us to determine, with a reasonable degree of certainty, which is the original text. However, a very small number of significant variants remain where our methodology is not always able to reach a certain conclusion in either direction. In such a case, we may have two (or more) different readings and not know for sure which one is the original. For example, in Mark 1:41 Jesus sees a leper and is “filled with compassion.” Some other manuscripts declare that when Jesus saw the leper he was “filled with anger.” Although the external evidence is in favor of “filled with compassion,” a number of internal considerations (e.g., which reading would the scribe have likely changed?) suggests that the original may have been “filled with anger.” In short, it is difficult to know which reading is original.

It is here, then, that we come to the rare instances where a particular reading of the New Testament text is unclear. Do these instances suggest we should abandon doctrines such as inspiration or inerrancy? Do we need to have absolute 100 percent certainty about every single textual variant for God to speak authoritatively in the Scriptures? Not at all. In these rare instances, such as Mark 1:41, it is clear that either reading is consistent with the teachings of Scripture. Although “filled with anger” certainly changes our understanding of the passage— Jesus was likely expressing “righteous indignation at the ravages of sin”11 on the world, particularly the leper—this perspective on Jesus fits quite well with the rest of the book of Mark where he shows his anger in 3:5 in a confrontation with the Pharisees and in 10:14 as he is indignant with his disciples. But it is also consistent with the Jesus of the other Gospels. Particularly noteworthy is John 11:33 when Jesus is faced with the plight of Lazarus, and the text tells us he was “deeply moved,” a term that can be better understood to mean Jesus felt “anger, outrage or indignation.”12 Was Jesus angry at Lazarus? No, the context suggests he was angered over the ravages of sin on the world, particularly as it affected Lazarus. In the end, whichever reading in Mark 1:41 is original, neither is out of step with the Jesus of the New Testament.

Moreover, given how rare these remaining unresolved variants are, it would be nothing short of irrational to conclude, on the basis of these instances, that we “don’t even know what the original words of the Bible actually were.”13 That is a grand overstatement that does not follow from the evidence we have seen. Even with these remaining unresolved variants, the message of the New Testament is very much intact. It is not at all in doubt. All the central teachings of the New Testament—whether regarding the person of Jesus (divinity and humanity), the work of Jesus (his life, death, and resurrection), the application of his work to M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 0 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 43

of human history? Or is God prohibited by Ehrman from giving revelation until Guttenberg certainty about every single textual variant and the printing press? (But there are errors there, too.) It for God to speak authoritatively in the seems clear that Ehrman has the New Testament investigated Scriptures? Not at all. documents with an a priori conviction that inspiration requires the believer (justification, sanctification, glorification), or zero scribal variations—a standard that could never be met other doctrines—are left unaffected by the remaining unrein the real historical world of the first century. solved textual variations. Thus there is nothing problemIn contrast, we must remember that God has chosen to atic or inconsistent about saying we believe in the give the Bible in real history. Although we do not have inspiration or inerrancy of those teachings. absolute certainty about the original text in every single In the end, we must beware of falling into the false instance, we have sufficient certainty about the original text dichotomy inherent to Ehrman’s approach. For him, the that enables us to be confident that we possess the authenquest for the original text is somewhat of an “all or nothtic teaching of Jesus and his apostles. And since we posing” endeavor. Either we know the wording of the origsess that authentic teaching, there is nothing to suggest we inal text with absolute certainty in every single instance cannot affirm its inspiration and inerrancy. ■ without exception (meaning we have the autographs, or perfect copies of the autographs), or we can have no conMichael J. Kruger is associate professor of New Testament at Refidence at all in the wording of the original text. It is one formed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina, and or the other. What is driving this sharp dichotomy? At the author of The Gospel of the Savior (E. J. Brill, 2005), and coauend of Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman reveals the core theologthor of Gospel Fragments (Oxford University Press, 2009). ical premise behind his thinking: “If [God] really wanted people to have his actual words, surely he would have miraculously preserved those words, just as he miracu1Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus (San Francisco: Harper lously inspired them in the first place.”14 In other words, Collins, 2005), 7 (emphasis his). if God really inspired the New Testament there would be no 2Manuscripts vary in size—some are fragmentary and conscribal variations at all. But does inspiration really require tain only small portions of the New Testament, and others are that once the books of the Bible were written that God more complete and contain most (if not all) of the New Testawould miraculously guarantee that no one would ever ment. write it down incorrectly? Are we really to believe that 3Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmisinspiration demands that no adult, no child, no scribe, no sion, Corruption, and Restoration (New York: Oxford University scholar, no one would ever write down a passage of Press, 1992), 86.

Scripture where a word was left out—for the entire course

Do we need to have absolute 100 percent

Eldon Jay Epp, “Textual Criticism,” in The New Testament and Its Modern Interpreters, eds. Eldon Jay Epp and George W. MacRae (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), 91.

5Epp, “Textual Criticism,” 91 (emphasis mine).

6Gordon D. Fee, “Textual Criticism of the New Testament,” in Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism, eds. Eldon Jay Epp and Gordon D. Fee (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 6.

7Ehrman, 89.

8Ehrman, 90.

9Eldon Jay Epp, “Toward the Clarification of the Term ‘Textual Variant,’” in Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism, eds. Eldon Jay Epp and Gordon D. Fee (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 57.

10Epp, “Toward the Clarification of the Term ‘Textual Variant,’” 57.

11William L. Lane, The Gospel According to St. Mark (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 86.

12D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 415.

13Ehrman, 14.

14Ehrman, 211.

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Speaking Of…

“H

e said to them, ‘This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be ful-

filled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.’ Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, ‘This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.”

—The Gospel of Luke (24:44–47) 44 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M A T I O N . O R G

I N S P I R AT I O N A N D I N E R R A N C Y

The Self-Attestation of Scripture

By Paul Helm

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cripture’s capacity to testify to itself is at the center of the Christian faith. An emphasis on this capacity and a clear expression of it is one of John Calvin’s great gifts to the church. For example, Calvin said: Let this point therefore stand: that those whom the Holy Spirit has inwardly taught truly rest upon Scripture, and that Scripture indeed is self-authenticated (autopiston); hence, it is not right to subject it to proof and reasoning. And the certainty it deserves with us, it attains by the testimony of the Spirit....Therefore, illumined by his power, we believe neither by our own nor by any one else’s judgment that Scripture is from God; but above all human judgment we affirm with utter certainty (just as if we were gazing upon the very majesty of God himself) that it has flowed to us from the very mouth of God by the ministry of men. We seek no proofs, no marks of genuineness upon which our judgment may lean; but we subject our judgment and wit to it as to a thing far beyond any guesswork! This we do, not as persons accustomed to seize upon some unknown thing, which, under closer scrutiny, displeases them, but fully conscious that we hold the unassailable truth! Nor do we do this as those miserable men who habitually bind over their minds to the thralldom of superstition; but we feel that the undoubted power of his divine majesty lives and breathes there. By this power we are drawn and inflamed, knowingly and willingly, to obey him, yet

also more vitally and more effectively than by mere human willing or knowing!

Some Possible Misunderstandings espite Calvin’s clarity and eloquence, the idea of self-attestation is frequently misunderstood, and on the basis of these misunderstandings it is criticized and set to one side. So we shall take a moment or two to clarify the idea of self-attestation.

First, Calvin is not stating that Christians ought to base their confidence in Scripture on a mere leap of faith, and Scripture does not function by prompting us to make such a leap. Christianity is not a fideistic religion in which men and women seek to be convinced about certain matters by an act of the will, closing their eyes and ears to any evidence there may be for or against the issue. Calvin is emphatic that self-attestation has to do with evidence, the evidence that Scripture itself presents to us, and with a true appreciation of that evidence. As a consequence, the Scripture’s attestation to itself involves the senses and the understanding. It is through this involvement that “we are drawn and inflamed, knowingly and willingly.” The will is engaged as we come to appreciate that Scripture is itself the Word of God. But what exactly is this evidence through which Scripture authenticates itself? Here it is possible to make another mistake. Self-attestation does not take the form of hearing an inner voice convincing us that what we are reading in the Bible is God speaking, nor is it a vision of a page of Scripture glowing as a halo whenever we begin to

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read it. It is not that when we begin to read the book of Job, we hear an inner voice whispering to us, “This is indeed the Word of God” or “The writer of this book was indeed inspired by the Spirit” or (as we read Matthew) “Matthew did indeed write the Gospel of Matthew.” When you think about it, such a voice would not be the selfattestation of Scripture; it would be an attestation of Scripture by something other than Scripture, namely, by the whispering voice. If we listened to the voice, we would be placing our confidence primarily in it and only secondarily in Scripture.

Word and Spirit elf-attestation has to do with the Bible’s own testimony to itself. (In Calvin’s day, the crucial question was whether the Scripture was subordinate to the councils of the church or the church governed by Scripture. It is clear, I hope, what Calvin’s answer was.)

The conviction that Scripture is the Word of God does not come in a mystical or magical way, but that conviction is formed (by the Holy Spirit, according to Calvin) as we read (or hear) and understand (in a measure) what we are reading. As we read and understand, if Scripture attests itself to us, we get something like the gut conviction that what we are reading is indeed God’s Word to us and to the world. What Calvin is actually referring to is not the selfattestation of Scripture in some purely formal way, but the self-attestation of the gospel that for us comes in the form of Holy Scripture. This gut reaction may be suddenly formed, but it is much more likely to be formed over time. For it is as we appreciate the message of Scripture, the bearer of the good news of a Savior for a sinful race, that we come to recognize that this is God given and is nothing other than the saving truth of God. The Spirit does his work by shining like a torch, lighting up the Bible’s own message.

The best way of having that conviction formed then is to start at the heart of the Bible, its account of the person and work of Jesus the Messiah, and the saving effects of that work. This is the center, the heart of the matter. As we fan out from this center and appreciate the coherence of the overall character of Scripture, the conviction that it is nothing other than the Word of God begins to cover the entire library of sixty-six books. As we cover that ground, we will undoubtedly read things that are difficult to understand, and even parts that puzzle us and even deeply offend us. What do we do in such cases? If we are wise, at such points we show patience, hoping and believing there is a way in which what puzzles us does in fact cohere with the heart of the matter. We may become convinced that some of what we read is the Word of God without altogether understanding what it means or what its full implications are. We may have our puzzlement lessened by taking advice, from reading a commentary or from hearing a sermon or lecture, or by talking to other Christians.

But even if not, this need not be too upsetting, because it is part of the Bible’s teaching that we sometimes have to

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hold on to what we cannot fully grasp. The willingness to do this is part of the childlikeness of Christian faith.

Calvin saw this attitude to Scripture as the paradigm case of the way in which Christian faith always operates.

For in Scripture, faith is reliance upon the word or promise of God. Think of Abraham and the whole team of the faithful summarized for us in Hebrews 11. They believed God. That is, they believed his word of promise, even though as they believed there were many things these faithful men and women did not understand. (The Bible routinely contrasts faith—and hope—with sight. It never contrasts faith and reason.) So believing that the Bible is the Word of God, resting on it, taking what we read to be God’s word of promise, is to treat it as a grand narrative of God’s promises and the as-yet partial fulfillment of them.

This is the Word of God to us that will find final fulfillment in the life to come. We walk by faith, not by sight.

The self-attestation of Scripture is the classic expression of the way in which the Reformers linked together Word and Spirit. For forming the conviction that the Bible is the Word of God through reading it and becoming familiar with its content is not like reading Jane Eyre or an engineering manual. It is not simply an exercise of common sense, intelligence, and sympathy with a text. The appreciation that the Bible is God’s Word, the forming of that conviction, comes as a result of the illuminating work of the Spirit. It is “spiritual” and supernatural in the best sense. But as we have noted, the Spirit is not a separate, extra-biblical source of light. The Spirit’s torch-like work is a light focused not on itself, such as the light and color of fireworks, which may entertain us but draws our attention away from itself to whatever it is the torchlight reveals. The Spirit is the self-effacing Spirit of Christ, revealing the things of Christ to our spirits as no one else can. In fact, we might even think of the Spirit-torch as oscillating between ourselves and the text. For his work is intensely personal. As we read Scripture with Spirit-given illumination, we not only come to have an understanding and appreciation of Christ but also (at the same time) a new understanding of our need of him. So the Word and Spirit together produce in us (as Calvin also famously said) the true knowledge of God and of ourselves.

Paying Attention oes this emphasis on Word and Spirit, and the forming of the conviction that the Bible is indeed the very Word of God as we have been describing, mean that we do not need to pay any attention to biblical languages or biblical background, or to the objections that skeptics and liberal Christians may make to the authority and God-givenness of Scripture? Not at all! Understanding some of the details of the original languages of Scripture will also fine-tune our understanding of the text of Scripture, while knowledge of the biblical background—the cultural settings of the various epochs of revelation—helps us develop a more coherent understanding of the whole and may clear up puzzles over aspects of the text. But the

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results of interrogating such sources ought never to supplant the main spine of Scripture that gives it its authority in the first place, “the great things of the gospel” (as both Jonathan Edwards and Alvin Plantinga have put it).

These other sources are not separate authorities, not even subordinate authorities, but subordinate helps that must give way when their alleged “findings” clash with the self-attesting Scripture. In a different vein, our understanding of Scripture and its application to life should be enhanced by commentaries on Scripture and the ministry of faithful pastors. (The test is: Do these helps take us back to the text, seeing new aspects in it and new applications of it, or do they direct us somewhere else, to our own feeling or self-image, or to some other extra-biblical source of authority? Do they enhance the authority of the gospel and the authority of Scripture that conveys this authority to us, or do they detract from that authority?)

This underlines something else, which even strong defenders of the Bible’s authority and its “inerrancy” sometimes (so it seems to me) forget. Biblical inspiration or inerrancy or infallibility is not a formal property of the Bible, in virtue of which we trust the Bible in whatever it might teach. Holding a high view of Scripture does not mean we are to hold to the Bible in whatever it might be made to mean. Such an attitude would certainly be bibliolatrous or something close to it. Rather we esteem and revere the Bible because of what it in fact teaches. It cannot be stressed too strongly that what the Bible attests to is not first and foremost its own inspiration or inerrancy, but to the way of salvation through Jesus Christ. Being convinced of this (if we are) leads us to recognize that the Bible is all the other things—an inspired, infallible guide.

Our basic attitude to Scripture should therefore echo Peter’s attitude to the incarnate Word: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68).

The evidence we may have of the settings of the various books of the Bible, the geographical, historical, and cultural contexts of the various epochs of the divine revelation, may also have an apologetic use. The defense of the Bible in this way has a real though limited value, what is nowadays sometimes referred to as “negative apologetics.” The data provided by such contexts do not support the gospel directly but indirectly by meeting some of the objections to it that arise from the culture. If the Bible is God’s truth then we can expect it, over time, to cohere with the data of geography and cultural history in which its message is situated. But the facts of geography and cultural history do not prove that the Bible is the Word of God. The Bible, by the help of Christ’s Spirit, presents its teaching to the believing mind and comes to exercise supreme authority in all matters of faith and practice in the lives of those who come to rely on it. That authority ought not to be subordinated to other sources of data.

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Foundationalism ne currently fashionable objection to the self-attestation of Scripture is to accuse such an approach to the Bible and its supreme authority of foundationalism. This term, “foundationalism,” is an academic codeword and slur for “a product of the Enlightenment” or “rationalistic.” It is widely held to have been discredited as a way of thinking about how our knowledge is formed. It is currently claimed, by “post-foundationalists” and others, that knowledge does not and cannot have foundations, but is more like a story or a narrative set within a particular context. And so the charge is that any account of the Bible’s supreme authority, which rests upon its self-certifying or self-authenticating character, cannot be the authentically Christian way to go because it is mere “Enlightenment” philosophy. Such an approach to our faith, it is alleged, cannot be held in the postmodern world in which we currently live. Rather, that approach derives instead from the rationalism of eighteenth-century modernity.

There are several problems with this reductive criticism.

First, such a charge is anachronistic, as we have already seen. The sixteenth-century Reformation, during which the doctrine of Scripture’s self-authentication was recrafted and developed, occurred a hundred years or more before the onset of the Enlightenment. Second, these socalled “postmodern” critics set up a false antithesis between foundations (or propositions) and stories (or narratives), when the two cannot be mutually excluded.

Finally, and most importantly, Christianity is necessarily foundationalistic, although not in the sense of modern Cartesian “foundationalism.” We should not fail to appreciate the significance of the fact that Scripture portrays our faith as being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone (Eph. 2:20). And the apostolic writings, as well as the Old Testament Scriptures, testify of him. If Christian thought is not securely rooted in such a foundation, then it is highly likely to become the plaything of the latest cultural fad, one approach to religion among many equally valid approaches.

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Maintaining Our Confidence in Scripture o how do we gain and maintain our confidence in Scripture as God’s Word? We have already noted some of the helps available to us. But the chief answer to that question is simple, though often not so simple to carry out. It is by allowing Scripture (not some vague impression of Scripture, but Scripture in all its detail) to present itself to us by continually giving ourselves to its pages, reading, marking, and inwardly digesting them and responding to them. And in this way, in Luther’s phrase, we make our consciences captive to the Word of God. ■

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Paul Helm is a teaching fellow at Regent College in Vancouver, Canada. His most recent book is Calvin at the Centre (Oxford University Press, 2009).

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INTERVIEW f o r

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An Interview with R. C. Sproul

Revisiting the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy Michael Horton, White Horse Inn co-host, recently interviewed R. C. Sproul, president of Ligonier Ministries and author of numerous books, including Knowing Scripture and The Holiness of God. Our series this year is “Recovering Scripture.” Besides recommending your book, we are looking at various aspects of the Bible in terms of its major themes and how it should be read. Since you were deeply involved in the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI) in the 1970s, we thought we’d ask you a number of questions along those lines.

First of all, what was the state of inerrancy within evangelicalism before ICBI and the Chicago Statement that came out of this movement?

At the end of the 1960s and the early 1970s, a crisis began moving throughout the evangelical world where this particular point of inerrancy—which had kept evangelicals together for centuries— started to unravel. One of these critical moments was when Fuller Theological Seminary changed its doctrinal statement from a commitment to inerrancy to a commitment to infallibility, which was a strange change of words.

At that time, Harold Lindsell was the editor of Christianity Today and he wrote the book The Battle for the Bible in which he documented these different issues. At about the same time, Ligonier Ministries sponsored a conference in western Pennsylvania, gathering together an international group of scholars to address the issue of inerrancy,

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and we produced what was then called the Ligonier Statement on Inerrancy. I contacted Harold Lindsell and suggested to him that Christianity Today call a much larger conference and convention among evangelicals to try to get a consensus on the doctrine. He thought that in light of the fact that he had just written a book on it, he would not be the appropriate one to do this.

At the same time, by the providence of God, I was invited to speak at an apologetics conference in San Jose, which was put together by Jay Grimstead and included Greg Bahnsen, John Gerstner, and Norman Geisler.

During one of the breaks, we were discussing inerrancy and decided we needed to have a major conference. And that’s where the idea was born. So I talked to James Montgomery Boice and some others, and we put together a council that included J. I. Packer, Francis Schaeffer, Paige Patterson, Harold Honer from Dallas, Wetherell Johnson, and the other fellows who were out there. We elected Jim Boice the chairman, and then they asked me to be president of the organization. We did a lot of planning and preparation for the summit meeting in Chicago, where we had 200 or so delegates from around the world representing virtually every denomination imagi-

nable to try to come up with a statement on inerrancy. We made a general statement at the beginning that Jim Packer wrote, and then I was commissioned to write the articles of affirmation and denials in rough draft—and I did this around 3:00 in the morning. Then the next day, we presented that document to the 200 delegates, and we had a drafting committee that included Roger Nicole, J. I. Packer, Jim Boice, Robert Preus, and me.

We gave the working draft to the whole 200 and invited everybody to submit any changes they wanted. We then worked over that and came up with the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. So that’s how it all came together.

The Chicago Statement was signed by an extraordinary cross-section of denominational and confessional representatives. What accounted for this unanimity within a movement that is so often fractured and fragmented as much by personality as by theology?

As I said earlier, the two doctrines that have been the cement for evangelical unity, crossing denominations for centuries, have been the doctrine of Scripture on the one hand and the doctrine of justification by faith on the other. At that time in the early 1980s, I was witnessing the unraveling of the unity over Scripture. I never dreamed in a million years that I would see a similar unraveling with respect to sola fide, which came shortly thereafter. But people

from various denominations and seminaries were very concerned about the advances being made by higher criticism against the classical doctrine of Scripture. It created a crisis in the Southern Baptist Convention, and so the Chicago Statement was very important to the deliberations going on in the Southern Baptist Convention, as well as in the battles in the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church back in the 1970s. This crossed all the denominational lines of the mainline churches—Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and so on.

In hindsight, how effective do you think were IBCI and the Chicago Statement, and where do you see things now?

At the time, one of the things we did that was extremely unusual was that when we founded ICBI we made a decision at the beginning that we were not going to be a perpetual organization, such as pork barrel earmark projects are in the federal government—once they get in, they never get out. We committed to a ten-year program and said we would disband at the end of those ten years, which is what we did. We produced books and had seminars and conferences around the country, promoting the doctrine of inerrancy, trying to clarify a lot of the misconceptions that critics of inerrancy had made. I was pleased with the results, because some schools adopted the statement for their statement of faith, and in fact, even denominations responded to it and made inerrancy part of the requirements for ordination within them, such as the PCA, for example. And so we were pleased with how things worked out for ten years. I think it did, in a lot of ways, recover academic respectability for the doctrine that had been ridiculed in liberal communities as a backwoods fundamentalist obscurantist position that no serious scholar could defend.

The work of the ICBI didn’t ulti-

mately stop those kinds of charges, but it certainly retarded them in great measure, and a new respectability was given to the serious academic work that had been done to defend the classical view of Scripture.

I’m concerned today that a lot of younger evangelical Christians— pastors and leaders who didn’t go through that period—haven’t actually read the Chicago Statement. They are rejecting inerrancy because they were raised in fundamentalist churches. For example, a well-known pastor in Dallas says that every word in Scripture, every syllable, is the utterance of God, not man, that there is no human element at all in Scripture. The Chicago Statement, however, addresses all of this and it’s clearly different from fundamentalism. How do you respond to younger evangelicals today who say that inerrancy is an unnecessarily divisive issue that ties us down to positions we don’t need to be tied down to in the church?

People have been saying that for years. Packer wrote an interesting article on this point where he said that inerrancy really is a shibboleth in a positive sense. This is a doctrine that unbelievers of the authority of the Word of God choke on. They have a hard time signing confessions of faith that include that language. They’ll say they believe in the relevance, or the trustworthiness, or the organic inspiration, and so on like that; but when you push it to the point of whether God inspires error, they get really nervous. So it has been a watershed test for a lot of people.

We’re living in a time now where these younger people have been deluged by a cultural approach to truth that is relativistic and pluralistic, and the strong stand that an inerrantist takes about the objectivity of the truthfulness of the Word of God is something that goes against the grain of that whole cultural view of truth.

What’s lost if we deny inerrancy? Is it the article by which the church stands or falls?

I was appointed by the council to discuss this issue—in fact, to debate it with several members of the faculty and the president of Fuller Seminary back in those days. I was walking out to the parking lot after that discussion, and one of the professors looked at me, who was very concerned and nice, said, “R. C., why is this so important to you?

What’s the big deal?” And I looked at him and said, “Hey, you take away the authority of Scripture and the trustworthiness of Scripture from me, you take away my life. This is the Word of God we’re talking about; this is where we get our source of truth for everything we believe at the very core of Christianity.”

But can’t you say the Scriptures are trustworthy but not inerrant?

No, because they claim to be more than trustworthy. If all they did was claim to be generally trustworthy, we wouldn’t have these disputes. But the fact is that the Bible claims to be inspired by God, to which Jesus gives such a high view.

When we had the Ligonier conference in the early 1970s, every scholar who approached this question did it christologically.

Do you think some Christians make the mistake of trying to convince others of the inerrancy of the Bible before they’ve established its basic historicity? In other words, in terms of an apologetic tactic, are they biting off more than they can chew?

When we were in the middle of this debate, one very prominent pastor said he didn’t treat the question theologically but pastorally. I asked, “What does that mean?” and started to push him on it.

Finally, he said, “R. C., I believe in inerrancy, but I don’t feel equipped to defend it.” Ah ha! I think that’s true with a lot of people, and that’s one of the reasons we published

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that commentary—which we still have at Ligonier—explaining the article of affirmation and denial, which has helped a lot of people understand what’s at stake and how to articulate the issues. But we have a whole generation of young pastors coming up, and this is still a perennial issue. Maybe it’s time to have a new initiative of ICBI? I would concur heartily with that and would like to see you guys put together something like that.

Our friend Mark Dever has often said that even in Southern Baptist circles, where you would have a pastor who is a card-carrying inerrantist, there seems to be little respect for the authority and sufficiency of Scripture when he waves the Bible but doesn’t really preach it. Don’t you think that is a critical issue?

It certainly is. There are all kinds of people who have a right view of the nature of Scripture, but they ignore Scripture. They don’t preach from the Bible. They don’t even read it. They say that this is the Word of God, but then they treat it as if it had no authority whatsoever.

You wrote a book we’re promoting this year titled Knowing Scripture. Can you summarize that book and why you thought it was important to write?

I wrote that book to help laypeople understand the basic principles of biblical interpretation and to help communicate at a popular level, where the laypeople wouldn’t need to have a Ph.D. in theology to understand it—the basic principles that came out of the Reformation on the proper way to handle the Word of God: how not to interpret it and how to interpret it.

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REFORMATION RESOURCES tools for

re for mation pa ce se tter s

Rediscovering Scripture Inspiration

Can I Trust the Bible?

By Archibald A. Hodge and Benjamin B. Warfield Wipf & Stock, 2008 There is no need to get your doctrine secondhand, because this little book is the classic statement on inspiration and inerrancy. It is accessible and timeless, a must-read!

By R. C. Sproul Reformation Trust, 2009 The author played a leading role in writing the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, and he goes on record here with a short commentary that explains why the Bible is inspired of God and therefore inerrant and infallible.

The Shape of Sola Scriptura

Scripture and Truth Edited by D. A. Carson and John Woodbridge Baker Academic, 1992 This is a collection of insightful essays on biblical, historical, and theological topics by highly regarded evangelical scholars, such as D. A. Carson, W. Robert Godfrey, Roger Nicole, and J. I. Packer.

By Keith Mathison Canon Press, 2001 This book lays out the biblical and historical case for sola Scriptura against the claims of Rome, Eastern Orthodoxy, and modern-day evangelicalism.

SEE ALSO: Scripture Alone by R. C. Sproul (P&R Publishing) Knowing Scripture by R. C. Sproul (InterVarsity Press)

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REVIEWS w h a t ’ s

b e i n g

r e a d

Shaping Citizens of the Kingdom

T

he relationship of Christianity and culture and its implications for education

training students how to think.

Most fundamental to the human continue to be fascinating topics. In Desiring the Kingdom, James K. A. person is not how we think but what we love and desire. Chapter Smith, philosophy professor at Calvin College, has written one of the most 2 explores how “material, embodied practices” shape our loves and interesting and thoughtdesires, and Smith identifies our “thickest” or most weighty provoking studies of practices as “liturgies.” In chapter 3, Smith explores and criChristianity and culture tiques many of the “secular liturgies” that constantly in recent years and prothreaten to direct our desires in anti-Christian directions. In vides, by his own admislight of his American context, he focuses upon the mall and sion, some fairly radical consumer capitalism, the “military-entertainment complex,” ideas for making Christand the university as cultural institutions that seek to impart ian education more their own vision of the good life. integrally Christian.

Smith turns in chapter 4 to the relationship of worldview Smith intends this book and worship. He argues against the common assumption for the general reader that our ideas and doctrines come first and then our worship (not the scholar), and practices follow from them. Instead, people are shaped by it should certainly be worship before they develop worldviews. This formative of interest to all sorts Christian worship, he claims, is a physical experience of people concerned grounded in a broadly sacramental view of reality. In chapabout culture and ter 5, Smith takes his readers through the various elements Christian education. of Christian worship and reflects upon how these practices Smith’s big claim is ought to form our loves and desires in a genuinely Christian that Christian educadirection, thereby correcting the influence of the secular tion needs to be more liturgies.

Desiring the Kingdom: Smith concludes his study in Chapter 6 by unpacking Worship, Worldview, and intimately connected to Cultural Formation Christian worship and some implications for Christian higher education. Because

by James K. A. Smith liturgy, which ultiworship/liturgy is so crucial for Christian education (underBaker Academic, 2009 mately means that stood as the formation of proper desires), Christian univer238 pages (paperback), $21.99 Christian schools (he sities must be “extensions of the mission of the church.” focuses on colleges and Instead of Christian colleges we need ecclesial colleges. This universities) should be ecclesial schools—extensions of the involves, Smith suggests, a thorough rethinking of curricuchurch and its worship. He argues that education is not prilum and pedagogy, which we would expect to look quite difmarily about imparting information but about the formation ferent from those of non-Christian institutions. It also means of hearts and desires. Our characters are being formed (that that chapel and classroom must be more thoroughly inteis, educated) all the time in anti-Christian directions by the grated and dorms should become worshiping Christian com“secular liturgies” of this world, and Christians should be munities. Christian universities should represent a kind of much more intentional about educating their youth in ways monastic experience, albeit without the anti-cultural conthat counteract these secular liturgies and impart Christian notations often associated with monasticism. character.

Though not particularly lengthy, Smith’s book is rich and In chapter 1, Smith challenges the Platonic, Cartesian, deserves more thorough interaction than a review of this size and modern assumption that human beings are primarily can provide. Positively, Smith’s writing is clear and winsome, thinking creatures, which in turn encourages a view of eduand he lays out a case both theoretically substantive and cation focused upon the intellect. He believes that much practically engaging. He is compelling in calling attention to contemporary Christian education, which focuses upon how the heart determines who a person is. As Augustine recimparting a “Christian worldview,” has been insufficiently ognized long ago, what we love and desire is central to our critical of this perspective and is overly concerned about identity. Smith is also very insightful in unveiling the severe

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threats to proper Christian loves posed by the practices of mainstream cultural institutions. Though my own views on proper worship differ in some respects from Smith’s, his exploration of how Christian worship should shape us in all sorts of distinctive ways is stimulating and profitable.

Whatever one concludes about his proposal for rethinking Christian education, there is much to gain by wrestling with his sympathetic critiques of worldview-focused Christian schools in the light of the centrality of worship and character formation for authentic Christian living.

Despite the stimulating insights throughout this book, in my judgment Smith’s proposal for Christian (higher) education is ultimately not the direction in which we should go.

A key difficulty pervading the book is the loss of the uniqueness of the church and its means of grace. In Smith’s analysis, the church offers a formative liturgy in a world filled with formative liturgies, it gathers for worship in a world filled with various Christian worshiping communities, and it celebrates sacraments in a world filled with God’s sacramental presence. It is difficult to see, from this perspective, how the church is truly a unique institution and community. To his considerable credit, Smith acknowledges the danger of relativizing the church’s importance. But his attempts to ward off this danger—for example, by seeing the church’s sacraments as “hot spots” where God’s presence is particularly “intense”—seem only to make the church quantitatively, not qualitatively, different from any number of other “Christian” institutions. This blurring of the boundaries between the church and other Christian institutions, in fact, is essential for his advocacy of “ecclesial” universities. When we grasp the power of worldly practices and institutions, which Smith so well describes, it may indeed be tempting to respond by extending the work of the church into the college chapel, classroom, and dorm; but I fear this may subtly reflect a lack of confidence in Christ’s amazing decision to establish the church alone as the institutional community of the new covenant and to entrust the keys of the kingdom only to it.

A powerful foe demands a powerful counterattack, but the church with its unique word and unique sacraments is precisely that.

Smith warns that his educational proposal may not make our children successful participants in the broader culture, since Christian education aims to shape citizens of a different kingdom (Christ’s). Undoubtedly Christian parents, teachers, and professors should take opportunities to inoculate youth from the harmful practices of the world, but do we need to be embarrassed to say that general education is largely about preparing people to be productive contributors to mainstream cultures? God has called us, after all, to live as citizens not only of the kingdom of Christ but also of the kingdoms of this world. Smith’s book should be read carefully and pondered long, but I wonder if, in the end, we need to be more modest about what general education can and should accomplish and much more confident in the ability of the church—if it will but shepherd God’s people faithfully through Christ’s powerful means of grace—to shape citizens of the everlasting kingdom of Christ.

David VanDrunen is the Robert B. Strimple Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics at Westminster Seminary California and the author most recently of Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms (Eerdmans) and Bioethics and the Christian Life (Crossway).

Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch

by John Webster Cambridge University Press, 2003 152 pages (paperback), $24.99 This is a very helpful little treatise that accomplishes its goal of providing a clear and orderly theological account of Holy Scripture.

There are, in my opinion, too few of these kinds of serious and yet generally accessible books, and the author, John Webster, is a significant voice in contemporary theology. Webster is well aware that “dogmatics,” or a systematically organized treatment of a controversial topic such as the nature and function of the Bible, is out of step with the majority of Anglo-American Protestant divinity. This is because what we believe about Scripture is a function of what we believe about God (a point Webster makes throughout)—neglect in one area will lead necessarily to poverty in the other. In stark contrast, Webster has a highly potent doctrine of God and God’s divine initiative in revelation and so follows through with an engaging treatment of Scripture.

Evangelical readers should not prematurely dismiss Webster on Scripture because of his considerable expertise and extensive work on Karl Barth, a theologian whom confessional Protestant types are right to be wary of when it comes to affirming not just that the Bible becomes a special revelation from God but that it is the revelation of God. Rather, Webster calls Barth’s theology of Scripture the “textual equivalent of adoptionism” (24) and offers in turn a careful and qualified treatment of the status of the Bible as revelation that is to be preferred over many liberal and even a host of evangelical formulations. In fact, Modern Reformation readers will be pleased to find that Webster (because of his doctrine of God and Augustinian theological anthropology) takes some so-called evangelical views of Scripture to task for being sub-Christian and the equivalent of “hermeneutical Pelagianism.”

Several points come to mind in terms of the book’s strengths. First, much can be learned from Webster’s choice of terms and theological vocabulary in relation to divine inspiration. He makes all the right distinctions between M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 1 0 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 5 3

divine inspiration (which concerns the Spirit-led authorship of Scripture) and illumination (which concerns the Spirit-led ongoing task of interpreting Scripture). Further, he wisely chooses “sanctification” as a more appropriate theological category for understanding the nature and character of the human authorship of the Bible. This is offered as an alternative to “incarnational” approaches that are common in evangelicalism and sometimes jeopardize the uniqueness of Christ. There is much food for thought here, and one can immediately recognize the explanatory power of this category. In my view, sanctification may be applied far more effectively than incarnation for explaining the divine-human co-authorship of Scripture in order to shore up the evangelical doctrine of inerrancy, although Webster stops short of making this argument himself. Second, unlike progressive evangelicals who frequently deliberate and come down on the wrong side of the question about the Bible’s relationship to the church, Webster is rock solid on the fact that the Word always creates the church (42ff.). Finally, he provides a moving account of the reading and illumination of Scripture as the sovereign work of God in the economy of redemptive grace.

But the book is not without its weaknesses. Despite Webster’s valuable criticism of Barth, there is still too much overlap on a number of points. For example, there are some telltale collapsed or at least blurred doctrinal distinctions, such as between revelation and soteriology (14–16). I would have to disagree when Webster states with little qualification that “revelation…is reconciliation, salvation, and therefore fellowship.” A more sophisticated approach will want to be sensitive to the way in which revelation (a rather general concept) includes both law and gospel (the specific contents of what is revealed). These two things function differently so that “revelation” itself should not be exclusively linked to one or the other. In the case of the various uses of the law that are revealed both in nature and in Scripture, it is not the case that this revelation “is” reconciliation. But one suspects here that Webster is uneasy with the classic pan-Protestant law/gospel distinction. In sum, this correlation of revelation to salvation is also bound up with a deeper conviction of Webster’s that revelation is not just the activity and effect of God’s revealing agency in the world, but is always the “selfrevelation” or the presentation of “God himself” in his revelation (14). This is a difficult position to critique in a short space, which means that it will have to suffice to waive a red flag on this point and indicate that the classical Protestant tradition has a somewhat different understanding of the relationship between the immanent and economic Trinity, or the being of God and the work of God in creation.

One other frustration is with the vague references without citation to what one assumes must be older Protestant doctrines of inspiration. We occupy a time in Protestant history when defenders of orthodoxy are few and far between, which has yielded a tendency to caricature or ignore older formulations of the doctrine of Scripture without having actually done one’s homework. This may or may not be the case with Webster—one suspects it isn’t—but 5 4 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

nonetheless therein lies the problem. True, there are a number of fundamentalist doctrines of Scripture, but there are also several highly sophisticated approaches that draw on older formulations by Herman Bavinck, B. B. Warfield, and Charles Hodge, to cite just a few more recent examples.

Webster worries that older conservative doctrines separated the form and content of revelation, or turned to a “strident supernaturalism” and an “increasingly formalized” doctrine of inspiration. But the question is begged precisely as to whom he is criticizing. While we might agree if one cited certain evangelical fundamentalists, one would have to regard this as unfair if it was directed at Protestant orthodoxy of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As such, it is difficult to evaluate the historical reflections in the book with so few named references.

Ryan Glomsrud is executive editor and reviews editor of Modern Reformation.

POINT OF CONTACT: BOOKS YOUR NEIGHBORS ARE READING Snow

By Orhan Pamuk Vintage, 2005 425 pages (paperback), $14.95 In 2008 during the annual book fair in Frankfurt, Germany, novelist Orhan Pamuk criticized how the Turkish government treats writers and artists. He was well aware that Turkey’s president, Abdullah Gul, was in the audience that day: “A century of banning and burning books, of throwing writers into prison or killing them or branding them as traitors and sending them into exile, and continuously denigrating them in the press—none of this has enriched Turkish literature.”

Against this backdrop of oppression, Pamuk has written passionately about the beauty and horrors of his homeland, Turkey. His country inspires his art and has become the canvas for displaying his great literary gifts. And like two of his predecessors, Pearl Buck in China and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in the former Soviet Union, who have also won the Nobel Prize for fiction, he has lifted the veil on an obscure corner of the world.

His ironic vision of his homeland is on full display in his novel Snow, published in 2004. Set primarily in the remote

Turkish city of Kars, on the northeastern border of Armenia and Georgia, the book tells the story of Ka, a 42-year-old poet who is a political exile in Germany. After twelve years abroad, Ka is drawn to return to his country for two disparate reasons. First, a newspaperman has asked him to pose as a journalist to cover the mayoral race and to find out why so many Turkish teenage girls are committing suicide. This sobering assignment is set against his desire to reestablish a relationship with an old college classmate, a beautiful woman named Ipek, who he has learned is now divorced. The realist and the romantic in him are both drawn to this journey.

After a two-day bus trip from Istanbul, Ka arrives in Kars in the midst of a snow storm. Oversized posters, produced by the Department of Religious Affairs, read: “Human Beings are God’s Masterpieces, and Suicide is Blasphemy.” The secular-minded Ka comes face to face with politicized Islam.

“Ka had grown up in a secular republican family that had no teaching outside of school,” we are told. And throughout the book, Ka is asked whether he is a believer or an atheist. While he hedges in his answers to Kars’ city dwellers, he struggles to resolve this question within himself. He longs for companionship, authenticity, and beauty: “At most he would feel happy that the world was such a beautiful thing to behold.”

This romantic sentiment isn’t good enough for the teenage boys from a religious high school whom Ka meets.

They are incensed that he questions whether women need to wear head scarves; and they warn him, in a hauntingly foreboding way, that his views could cause great harm.

The ever-falling snow then proves highly symbolic for the political, social, and cultural climate Ka comes to experience.

On his arrival to the city, Ka had appreciated the snow for its innocence and purity. But this feeling changes quickly.

“Indeed, the snow spoke to him of hopelessness and misery.”

The author paints a vivid picture of this snow-covered town with its “Russian buildings with stove piping sticking out of every window, the thousand year old Armenian church tower.” He writes, “After endless wars, rebellions, massacres, and atrocities, the city was occupied by Armenian and Russian armies at different times and even, briefly, the British.” In sum, this city becomes the second character with whom we become intimately acquainted after meeting our protagonist Ka on this multifaceted journey of religion, politics, culture, philosophy, and love.

With Ka, we are drawn into a rich unfolding plot filled with young religious zealots, corrupt political officials, affable sheiks, terrorists, protective fathers, and love-struck daughters. Like Ka, we are not always sure what is true and what is not. And this almost Shakespearean plot thread of what is authentic literally unfolds on stage where two plays are being performed at the Kars National Theatre—and televised for the snowbound city. The dramatic tensions in these scenes are almost palpable.

Yet the dizzying twists and turns of this plot do more than just display Pamuk’s abundant novelistic skills. He is bringing to life universal longings and fears. What is the pain and hopelessness for the Turkish girls who choose suicide? Is

there a God? Can one find ultimate happiness? Can the great divide of East and West ever be forged?

One admirer has written that Orhan Pamuk has narrated the history of Turkey for the world. In his acceptance speech on winning the Nobel Prize, Pamuk said, “What literature needs most to tell and investigate today are humanity’s basic fears: the fear of being left outside, and the fear of counting for nothing, and the feelings of worthlessness that come from such fears.”

In his novel Snow, Pamuk explores the individual’s fears and boasts but also the collective ones of Turkey. His love/hate relationship with his country of origin is on full display in this book. But as a citizen of the East who is comfortable in the West, he has also challenged Westerners to view themselves as others see them. “I also know that in the West—a world with which I can identify with ease—nations and people taking an excessive pride in their wealth, and in their having brought us the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and Modernism, have, from time to time, succumbed to a self-satisfaction.”

In more than thirty years of writing about his homeland, Pamuk has built an impressive body of novels and plays and a growing international reputation. Yet many Americans have never cracked one of his books. Amidst the competing demands for our leisure time, I recommend reading an Orhan Pamuk novel. After all, Pamuk questions whether we, as Westerners, are self-satisfied. How bitterly ironic it must be for this novelist if we don’t even rouse ourselves to engage his concerns.

Ann Henderson Hart lives in Philadelphia and is a regular contributor to Modern Reformation.

Modern Reformation invites you to submit a book review for publication in an upcoming issue. Thoughtful Christians should examine the most important books of the day, and we want you to evaluate books both good and bad from your reformational perspective.

Submit your review of 1,000 words or less in an e-mail to reviews@modernreformation.org.

Please reference the guidelines at www.modernreformation.org/submissions.

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FINAL THOUGHTS f r o m

t h e

d e s k

o f

t h e

e d i t o r - i n - c h i e f

Limited Inerrancy and Pietism

A

s we have seen in this issue, many critics of inerrancy display the same “fun-

tion” is to be reduced to the experience of individual damentalist” hermeneutic as their nemeses. For example, mainline Presbyterian conversion. There is a correlation between restrictJames Ayers says in “What Presbyterians Don’t Believe” that David’s statement ing the scope of inerrancy and restricting the scope of in Psalm 103:3 that God is the one who “heals all your dissaving blessings. If the gospel is merely the salvation of my eases” cannot be factually true, since it is obvious God does soul so that I can go to heaven when I die, then there is not heal all diseases. Besides the fact that this is poetry, this indeed a lot of Scripture that need not be inerrant. However, interpretation fails to take into consideration the breadth of if salvation is a cosmic re-creation, including in its sweep the God’s eschatological vision for the renewal of all things in resurrection of the body and the restoration of the creation, Christ. The same God who strikes down also raises up. The then we need equally reliable communication from God God who judges also saves. about creation, providence, history, nature, and God’s future Ayers misses the context: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and purposes. forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who Because salvation’s blessings are as extensive as the Fall’s heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, curse (“far as the curse is found,” as we sing in “Joy to the World”), Scripture’s inerrancy must be as extensive as the who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satiswhole sweep of creation, nature, and history. There is an fies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the almost Gnostic presupposition that separates the Bible’s eagle’s” (vv. 2–5). David adds, “He does not deal with us “spiritual” content from its interpretation of creation and hisaccording to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquitory. The Bible is inerrant in its laws and wisdom, as well as ties,” hiding our transgressions as far as the east is from the in its promulgation of the good news of salvation in Christ. west (vv. 10, 12). Although our days are like grass, God’s And it is as inerrant in its interpretation of the Creation, the covenant love “is from everlasting to everlasting on those Fall, history, and the consummation as it is in its promises who fear him….The Lord has established his throne in the of personal salvation. Restricting inerrancy to that which heavens, and his kingdom rules over all” (v. 19). pertains to individual salvation reflects a truncated view of Believers can take comfort in David’s assurance that God the gospel itself. does heal all of their diseases and wipes away every tear when he raises them in immortal glory. Precisely because he has cancelled their debts, their lives have been redeemed from the pit. God heals us from all of our diseases at the last Michael Horton is editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation. because “his kingdom rules over all.” Did David actually believe that every sickness of every person is already healed?

Of course not. David also lamented his temporal suffering in numerous other psalms. Only in a woodenly literalistic reading, where a verse is abstracted from its context and the whole sweep of redemptive history, can Psalm 103:3 be regarded as a false statement.

Some theologians have found “limited inerrancy” to be a more suitable mediating position. In this view, inerrancy is restricted to those points that touch on our personal salvation. In 1974, evangelical theologian Richard J. Coleman in “Reconsidering Limited Inerrancy” (The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 17, No. 4) defended this view based on 2 Timothy 3:15 where Paul reminds Timothy that the Scriptures “are able to make people wise unto salvation.”

Of course, the Scriptures are “able to make people wise unto salvation,” but that is their effect, not their nature. A deeper question facing limited inerrancy is whether “salva5 6 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G