Quoting Jesus?

A few of my thoughts on Sarah Young's mega-seller Jesus Calling have been posted at Ref21.

What ever happened to inspiration?

That is what I wonder when I read Karl Giberson and the other folks at Biologos. The mission of Biologos is to help the church embrace theistic evolution. Part of that project is to reject the historicity of Adam and Eve, the fall, the flood and a great many other events recorded in the Bible. Of course, this cannot be done apart from a diminished view of the Bible's inspiration. To help this along, last year Biologos ran a series of articles by Kent Sparks savaging the doctrine of the Bible's inerrancy. The message is clear: "We love the Bible, but only the true bits. Those parts of the Bible that are intellectually unsatisfying for us must be rejected."

Al Mohler comments on a recent article by Dr. Giberson published by CNN's Belief Blog and a new book coauthored by Francis Collins and Giberson entitled The Language of Science and Faith.

In his new book, The Language of Science and Faith, written with Francis S. Collins, readers will find this strange paragraph:

Biblical interpretation falls short without an understanding of biblical inspiration, of course, as we do not suggest that the Bible is simply another book to be interpreted. But we do a great disservice to the concept and power of inspiration when we reduce it to mere factual accuracy, as though God’s role were nothing more than a divine fact checker, preventing the biblical authors from making mistakes. A dead and lifeless text, like the phone book, can be factually accurate. The inspiration of the Bible is dynamic and emerges through engagement with readers.

That paragraph is, quite simply, one of the most ridiculous statements concerning the Bible one might ever imagine. Who has ever argued that the divine inspirationof the Bible is reduced to “mere factual accuracy”? Giberson’s dismissive language about God as “nothing more than a divine fact checker” is sheer nonsense. Who has ever made such a proposal?

The conclusion of the paragraph is an embarrassing non sequitur. It is patently untrue that only a “dead and lifeless text, like a phone book” can be factually accurate. Giberson and Collins reveal their true understanding of biblicalinspiration when they locate it, not in the authorship of the text at all, but in the modern act of reading the text.

As they make their argument for theistic evolution, Giberson and Collins embrace a form of Open Theism and argue, quite consistently with arguments common to BioLogos, against the historicity of Adam and Eve.

They end the book with their own version of “The Grand Narrative of Creation.” This is their climactic conclusion of the narrative:

Eventually, the most advanced of the life forms on the planet, human beings, become deeply religious. Throughout the history of our species belief in God or gods has been close to universal. Abstractions like right and wrong, the meaning of life, the where everything came from have become critically important questions. The religious impulse developed into one of the deepest aspects of our complicated understanding of ourselves.

They conclude: “And God saw that it was good.”

Here is their own rendering of what it looks like when the “Book of Nature” trumps the Bible. Just compare their “Grand Narrative of Creation” with Genesis.

Read the entire post HERE.

Inspiration and Inerrancy

Modern Reformation, my favorite journal, is focusing this year on the doctrine of Scripture. The White Horse Inn has also been focusing on Scripture. The latest program (like the March/April Modern Reformation) focuses specifically on inspiration and inerrancy. Listen HERE.

Some who believe that the Bible is an inspired book go on to reject the idea that it is inerrant. But what does it mean to believe in the inerrancy of Scripture? How can sinful men produce a holy text without errors? What are we to do with some of the alleged contradictions in Scripture? Joining the panel for this discussion is Dr. R.C. Sproul, one of the founding leaders of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. The White Horse Inn: know what you believe and why you believe it.

Inspiration, Incarnation, and Inerrancy

In the last issue (Spring '09) of the Westminster Theological Journal there is an excellent article by James Scott entitled "Inspiration and Interpretation." Scott's immediate concern is to address and critique Peter Enns' Inspiration and Incarnation. In the process however Scott provides a robust defense of the historic doctrine of the Bible's inerrancy with reference to its impact on biblical interpretation.

Scott writes:

Central to the Christian doctrine of Scripture and well articulated in traditional Reformed theology is the teaching that the Scriptures are the written word of God. This is repeatedly taught by Scripture itself, most commonly whenever the NT introduces an OT quotation with such words as "God said" (e.g.; 2 Cor 6:16) or "the Holy Spirit says" (e.g. Heb 3:7), especially when God is not the speaker in the OT passage (e.g. Acts 13:37, quoting Ps 16:10). "The word of God," to which Hebrews 4:12 refers, includes the Scriptures (along with God's spoken words), as is clear from the repeated statements in the previous verses that God has spoken the words of Scripture. Also, the NT's characterization of the OT as "the oracles of God" (e.g., Rom 3:2) "fairly shouts to us," concludes Warfield after thorough study of this expression, "that to its writers the Scriptures of the Old Testament were the very Word of God in the highest and strictest sense that term can bear - the express utterance, in all their parts and each and every of their words, of the Most High." The consistent witness of Scripture to itself is that it consists of verbal communication from God to man. That is, God is the originator, or author, of Scripture. What Scripture says, God says.

Scott also demonstrates effectively the limits of the incarnational model of biblical interpretation.

It would be unfair to accuse Enns of simply looking at the data of Scripture in Inspiration and Incarnation without any theological framework. He does have a framework for his analysis of the biblical evidence, and he lets readers know that up front. That framework is the incarnational analogy between inspiration and the incarnation. However, he makes no attempt to derive that analogy from Scripture. He simply asserts that it is true and will guide his discussion. He quotes no passage of Scripture that sets forth the incarnational analogy, for there is no such passage. One could perhaps build some sort of analogy from a combination of passages, much as the doctrine of the Trinity in constructed, but Enns has not attempted to do so in print. Furthermore, he presents no evidence that Scripture itself ever argues on the basis of the analogy. That is, no biblical writer ever explains some aspect of Scripture (or of any passage of Scripture) by comparing it with Christ. Enns's approach is essentially pragmatic: the analogy works, by answering difficult questions; therefore, we should accept and use it...

Enns asserts that Herman Bavinck's statement of the analogy, which he quotes in its entirety in defense of his own use of it, 'represents my own deep Reformed commitment.' But his view is not that of Bavinck. Bavinck says only that the word of God entered the creaturely world of humanity 'in all the human forms of dream and vision, of investigation and reflection,' that is, in the processes of revelation and human preparation for writing Scripture - which is a far cry from Enns's notion that God entered into and adopted the pagan worldviews and non-Christian views and methodologies of the ancient world, as vehicles to convey his message...

It is one thing to develop a doctrine of Christ and a doctrine of Scripture, both from the didactic passages of Scripture, and then to observe an analogy between them and consider how far it extends. It is something quite different to observe that certain characteristics of Scripture are analogous to certain characteristics of the incarnate Christ and then to argue that Scripture has certain other characteristics because analogous ones can be discerned in the incarnate Christ. Yet that is what Enns sets out to do in Inspiration and Incarnation: to 'build a doctrine of Scripture' by making 'an attempt to flesh out (as it were) the Incarnational Analogy.' There are two related problems with this approach. First, as Irving M. Copi observes, 'No argument by analogy is ever valid, in the sense of having its conclusion follow from its premises with logical necessity.' Such arguments can only be suggestive: the more points there are of established similarity, the greater the probability is that there will be similarities at other points - but it is still only a probability, never a demonstration. Hence, an analogy is inherently a precarious foundation upon which to build a doctrine of Scripture. Christ and Scripture may well correspond at points A and B, but it does not necessarily follow that they correspond at point C. Second, as Enns himself admits, the analogy does not always work. Indeed Warfield comments that 'between such diverse things there can exist only a remote analogy; and, in point of fact, the analogy...amounts to no more than that in both cases Divine and human factors are involved, though very differently.'

"Ancient Word, Changing Worlds" (2)

The opening words of the introduction of Ancient Word, Changing Worlds is a quote by Mark Twain that, sadly, would be voiced (perhaps more diplomatically) by many so-called evangelicals in our own day.

"It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upward of a thousand lies."

Twain was of course speaking of the Bible. The debate over the truthfulness and reliability of God's Word is once again heating up in evangelical circles. Nichols' and Brandt's book is therefore timely.

The book is structured around three key words that form a doctrine of Scripture: Inspiration, Inerrancy, and Interpretation. The first two chapters deal with the inspiration of Scripture. In chapter one the authors give what may be the clearest and most concise history of the development of the doctrine of inspiriation that I have ever read.

Appropriately Nichols and Brandt pay careful attention to the role that old Princeton, particularly A.A. Hodge, B.B. Warfield and J. Gresham Machen played in the development of a biblical doctrine of inspiration. In the process they address the importance of two words that help explain the nature of the Bible's inspiration: "verbal" and "plenary."

To say that the Bible's inspiration is verbal and plenary is to say that both the words and the ideas of Scripture are given by God. This is in contrast to the idea that only the ideas of Scripture are inspired while the words are fallable. Of course this makes one wonder how an idea can properly be communicated and then relied upon if the words communicating the idea err. In other words, how can we be sure of God's holiness and love, salvation in Christ, and the efficacy of atonement if the words used to describe those truths may and often times are in error?

Errantists object to verbal plenary inspiration because, they reason, words are human products and as such will necessarily err. Interestingly, one area of agreement between errantists and inerrantists is that the biblical writers were not mindless robots possessed by the Holy Spirit as mere means of dictation. Inerrantists however believe that the Holy Spirit was able to carry along fallable human beings in such a way that they were enabled to record accurately the very words God without supressing their own unique personality, gifts, and perspective. Indeed, those attributes were used by God purposefully to produce the Scriptures He intended.

Nichols and Brandt point to an important article by Hodge and Warfield that calls this guiding and guarding in the process of inspiration "superintendence."

"This superintendence attended the entire process of the genesis of Scripture, and particularly the process of the final composition of the record." This superintendence also includes "historic processes and the concurrence of natural and supernatural forces." They conclude that this superintendence results in "the absolute infallibility of the record...in the original autograph." (p. 31)

"Ancient Word, Changing Worlds" (1)

I have begun reading Stephen Nichols' latest offering: Ancient Word, Changing Worlds. So far it is outstanding. I have a deep appreciation for Dr. Nichols. He is perhaps the most readable church historian I have ever read. In the days ahead I am planning to blog my way through his newest book which is an examination of the doctrine of Scripture and its historical development. I would encourage you to pick up a copy and read along with me.

Phil Ryken offers this impressive endorsement:

The best, clearest, and most reliable historical overview of the doctrine of Scripture for a contemporary audience. As careful historians, Nichols and Brandt show what the church has always believed about the Bible as the Word of God, and also how our understanding of the inspiration, inerrancy, and interpretation of Scripture has grown through the centuries. The authors let scholars and theologians on all sides of the age-old battle for the Bible speak in their own words, giving us the historical context and theological framework we need to accept the Bible's own witness to its beauty, perfection, and divine authority.

Attacks against the reliability of Scripture are heating up again within the ever loosening boundaries of evangelicalism. It is important therefore for God's people to once again assert their confidence is the Bible as God's Word.

The perennially declining denominations (PCUSA, Disciples of Christ, UMC, etc) all have in common a weak doctrine of Scripture. It seems to be inevitable that as your doctrine of Scripture goes so goes your doctrine of God, of Christ, of the atonement, of divine judgment, and the gospel itself.

The Reformation's recovery of both Scripture and the apostolic teaching produced the Reformation solas of sola scriptura (Scripture alone), sola fide and sola gratia (salvation and justification by faith alone and by grace alone), solus Christus (Christ alone), and soli Deo gloria (for the glory of God alone). And so it is in the modern age. The challenge to supernatural revelation, the challenge to the Bible, has been met with deeper reflection on and clearer expression of the doctrines of Scripture. The doctrines orbit around three words, words that have received a great deal of attention in the nineteenth, twentieth, and now into the twenty-first century. These three words are inspiration, inerrancy, and interpretation. This book tells the story of how these words were developed in these last few centuries. It is the story of how the ancient word of God speaks to and in our changing world.

- From the Introduction

Inspiration and Intention

The latest edition of Themelios includes an article by Jared Compton concerning the dual authorship of Scripture. It is particularly interesting considering some of the recent discussions on this blog.

Compton writes:

It was not too long ago that Kevin Vanhoozer answered the question Is There a Meaning in This Text? by relocating meaning in authorial intention,1 doing so even more robustly (not to mention, evangelically) than E. D. Hirsch had done. The difficulty, however, with any general hermeneutical theory, including speech-act, is that on the surface Scripture’s dual authorship seems to fit uncomfortably within any set of interpretive rules, particularly since one of its authors is God. While the inherent complexity in and exceptionality of Scripture’s authorship are well noted by evangelicals, hermeneutical rules are nevertheless still proposed and, quite often, even mandated. In fact, two particular rules are prescribed with some frequency. On the one hand, some evangelicals (as we shall see) suggest that inspiration demands that what one author intends the other must as well. To suggest, therefore, that God could intend more in a text than the human author runs the risk of being labeled hermeneutical Docetism, for such a proposal denies the full humanity of the text. Moreover, many of these same interpreters also
suggest that interpretation demands that what one author intends so too must the other. Suggesting that God could intend more in this case runs the risk of being
labeled hermeneutical nihilism, for one has removed the only means for interpretive control and stability. Despite the risks, other evangelicals (as we shall also see) are uncomfortable with this line of argumentation and suggest that these rules are ill-fitting, not least because the apostles themselves, they claim, do not seem to be preoccupied with following them. These evangelicals insist that our assumptions about general hermeneutics and dual authorship must be open to revision if Scripture and God’s hermeneuticians consistently transgress our rules.

The following essay will seek to enter this debate, freshly sketching the issues involved and seeking to justify these latter assertions, though not absolutely and not by directly exploring the apostles’ use of the OT. Rather, the essay will proceed at a preliminary step to that discussion and will argue that (1) inspiration does not suggest that the divine and human authors must share intentions and (2) shared intentions are not the sole means of interpretive stability.

Read the entire article HERE.

Humble Epistomology

"We contend for the objectivity of truth, and we must insist that all persons do actually believe in the objectivity of Truth. The fact is that even the relativists objectivize their own positions. The difference for us is that we know that truth exists in God, who is Truth, and whose Word is truth. Our knowledge is true only in so far as it corresponds with God's revealed truth. We are dependent upon the Word, the Word is not dependent upon us. As Martin Luther stated so clearly, "The objectivity and certainty of the Word remain even if it isn't believed." We have no right to seek refuge in a halfway house of false epistemological humility. To deny the truthfulness of God's Word is not an act of humility, but of unspeakable arrogance.

"This is our proper epistemological humility - not that it is not possible for us to know, but that the truth is not our own. We are dependent upon the Word of God. Indeed, we submit ourselves to the Word of God, as believers, teachers, and preachers. And this is genuine knowledge, revealed knowledge. It is knowledge of which we are not ashamed. As Gordon Clark warned: "If man can know nothing truly, man can truly know nothing. We cannot know that the Bible is the Word of God, that Christ died for our sin, or that Christ is alive today at the right hand of the Father. Unless knowledge is possible, Christianity is non-sensical, for it claims to be knowledge. What is at stake in the twentieth century is not simply a single doctrine, such as the Virgin Birth, or the existence of Hell, as important as those doctrines may be, but the whole of Christianity itself. If knowledge is not possible to man, it is worse than silly to argue points of doctrine--it is insane."

"We confess that knowledge is possible, but knowledge of spiritual things is revealed. Without the Word of God we would know nothing of redemption, of Christ, of God's sovereign provision for us. We would have no true knowledge of ourselves, of our sin, of our hopelessness but for the mercy of Christ. As Professor R. B. Kuiper reminded his students, the most direct, the simplest, and most honest answer to the question, 'How do you know?' is this: 'The Bible tells us so.'"

- Dr. Albert Mohler

God's Word is Trustworthy (4)

J.I. Packer's classic work Fundamentalism and the Word of God is now 50 years old. I encourage you to read it. I believe you will find that it helps to bolster your faith in the Bible as God's Word.

The Bible excludes the idea of a frustrated Deity. ‘Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth’. He was well able to prepare, equip and overrule human writers so that they wrote nothing but what He intended; and the Scripture tells us that this is what in fact he did. We are to think of the Spirit’s inspiring activity, and, for that matter, of all His regular operations in and upon human personality, as (to use an old but valuable technical term) concursive; that is, as exercised in, through and by means of the writers’ own activity, in such a way that their thinking and writing was both free and spontaneous on their part and divinely elicited and controlled, and what they wrote was not only their own work but also God’s work. (80)

Not that the text of Scripture is made up entirely of formal doctrinal statements; of course, it is not…In fact Scripture is an organism, a complex, self-interpreting whole, its theology showing the meaning of the events and experiences which it records, and the events and experiences showing the outworking of the theology in actual life. All these items have their place in the total system of biblical truth. (94)

Scripture must interpret Scripture; the scope and significance of one passage is to be brought out by relating it to others….The Reformers termed this principle the analogy of Scripture; the Westminster Confession states it thus: ‘The infallible rule of interpretation of scripture is the scripture itself; and therefore, when there is a question about the truth and full sense of any scripture, it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly’. This is so in the nature of the case, since the various inspired books are dealing with complementary aspects of the same subject. The rule means that we must give ourselves in Bible study to following out the unities, cross-references and topical links which Scripture provides. (106)