Inerrancy Again
As far as I know, MIchael Spencer and I are a part of a mutual admiration society and so I'll throw that out as a preface to this post which will take issue with his views on inerrancy. I do think he is one of the most provocative writers out there these days and everyone would do themselves a favor to read him and his friends at the Boars Head Tavern on a regular basis.
But, in a few posts recently on the Internet Monk and Boars Head Tavern he is taking the inerrantists and the doctrine of inerrancy to task. He accepts the Westminster Confession's statement on Scripture but doesn't like the term inerrancy. This poses a problem for some of us who believe that, though the Confession doesn't use the word "inerrant" it supports what we mean by inerrancy.
I've defended the doctrine of inerrancy a couple of times so I don't want to repeat myself - I'll simply point you to this post and this post if you want to read what I have said before.
Nor can I deal with all of the matters that Michael and the patrons of the Tavern have raised, but I'll try to address a few issues that they have raised.
One of the things that Michael is most troubled about is the fact that many folks assert that a belief in inerrancy necessarily implies a belief in a literal six-day creation. Put another way, this is the belief that the bible is not merely an inerrant and infallible rule of faith and life, but an inerrant and infallible textbook on science.
He's right in the sense that many inerrantists believe this. But those inerrantists who believe this confuse their doctrine of inerrancy with their hermeneutics. These folks believe that if you believe in inerrancy you will believe in a particular view of creation. Others have other pet doctrines they link to their doctrine of inerrancy, like women's ordination, eschatology and things like that. You can always tell when you are talking to someone like that because they will switch the terms of the debate when you bring up an objection to their view. If you say you don't believe in a literal six day creation they don't argue the merits of the view itself, they challenge your commitment to biblical inerrancy.
I don't have any concrete evidence I can point to on this, but I am told that things like this were a big issue in the deliberations leading up to the formation of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. Apparently the six day creationists showed up and wanted the statement to include an affirmation of six day creationism, there were others who wanted the statement to affirm that only men could be ordained, etc..
A few years ago I read a Christianity Today Symposium on the end times and John Walvoord made the comment that the problem with amillennialists is that you can never know what they believe about the Scripture.
These are all non-sequiturs that confuse one's view of inerrancy with one's practice of hermeneutics. It creates a straw man in assuming that, if you don't hold to my view on this particular subject then you deny inerrancy. It's akin to reasoning that if you don't like baseball or apple pie, you must be a communist. In such a way of thinking, even the earliest proponents and formulators of the doctrine of inerrancy like Hodge and Warfield would not be considered inerrantists because of their openness to non-literal views of creation. Or, take Roger Nicole from RTS-Orlando. He is one of the leading defenders of inerrancy in our day and he believes that women can be ordained. On all of these issues I take the more conservative position, but I would never question these folks view of inerrancy.
So, I think Michael can take a deep breath and relax on this one. The fact that he doesn't believe in a literal six day creation may bother some, but it's not a good reason to jettison the doctrine.
One of Michael's comments that most interests me is this one:
Inerrancy looks, smells and feels remarkably like a philosophical imposition on the Bible, going beyond what the Bibe CAN say about itself, and forcing those of us who believe in the authority and truthfulness of the Bible to take a "loyalty oath" that goes beyond what should be said.
I can agree with Michael that inerrancy goes beyond what the Bible can say about itself, but before you cast me into outer darkness along with Michael, and before we take what he has said at face value, let me point out that almost every theological statement goes beyond what the Bible says about itself or about the issue that is being discussed.
For instance the Chalcedonian Creed is one of the earliest and clearest statements on the two natures of Christ, yet the words it uses to describe the divinity and humanity of Christ go beyond the biblical statements. The Creed is based on the biblical data, but it says more than the Biblical data said, simply because it takes the Biblical data and formulates it into a creedal statement.
The same applies to statements on the trinity, justification by faith, the end times, and any subject that you can read about in a systematic theology textbook.
Yet, because the Chalcedonian Creed goes beyond the very words of Scripture do we jettison our belief in the divinity and humanity of Christ. I know that Michael and I agree pretty much in our adherence to Calvinism, but our Calvinistic beliefs clearly go beyond what the Scriptures say. Do we abandon our belief in Total Depravity because the Scripture never uses the words "Total Depravity." Of course not, you say, though the words are not used, the concept is there in Scripture and "Total Depravity" is an accurate summation of what the Scriptures teach about man's sinful nature. Similarly, I would argue that the concepts upon which the doctrine of inerrancy are built are there in Scripture.
This whole subject can bleed over into another debate which I won't go into right now. That would be a debate over whether or not there is any Scriptural justification for the practice of systematic theology. All theology, whether it is written in a sophisticated form like the Chalcedonian Creed, the Westminster Confession, and the Chicago Statement, or if it is expressed in more colloquial terms like a belief in "once saved always saved," or "no creed but Christ," goes beyond the words of Scripture. Most of us think that there is a biblical justification for systematic theology, whether it be becoming all things to all men, or as an application of fulfilling the great commission, or as an apologetic task of defending the faith.
My point is that, if MIchael's contention is true that the doctrine of inerrancy forces us to say something about Scripture that Scripture doesn't say about itself, then that would apply equally against any other doctrinal statement.
Michael is right that inerrancy, like all systematic theology, is a philosophical imposition on the Scripture. I think John Frame is right when he says that theology is the application of Scripture to all of life. Theology answers the questions that people are asking. When someone asks what prayer is all about, we enter into a theologizing process whereby we gather the biblical data on prayer and harmonize it and systematize it and crank out an answer to what the bible says prayer is all about.
In a similar vein, systematic theology has always had an apologetic aspect to it. In fact, I don't think we should make too big of a distinction between theology and apologetics. Throughout history it has been the philosophers who have posed the questions that have been answered by the theologians. This goes for the doctrine of the two natures of Christ, the trinity and myriads of other doctrines.
When Michael says this:
You had to get up to the modern era and get a group of people really concerned with inerrancy to write a special confession just for their view of the Bible to be able to say "Evangelicals must believe this."
He makes it sound like a bunch of theological mafiosos got together in the back of darkened smoke filled room and concocted a new protection scheme. That this is not the case at all. You could make a similar argument about the doctrine of the trinity, the hypostatic union, justification by faith, or any other doctrine.
The doctrine of inerrancy arose out of the fundamentalist/modernist debate. The modernists questioned the historical veracity of Scripture but they coupled their historical questioning with doctrinal questioning. Not only did they question whether there was really such a place as Jericho, but they questioned whether there was really such a thing as the resurrection of Christ. They asserted the errancy of Scripture not only in matters of history and science but in matters of faith and life. So, just as the church rose up in the past to respond to the errors of Arius, the church rose up to respond to the errors of the modernists. In doing so, they came up with a doctrine of inerrancy.
One may argue that the fundamentalist/modernist controversy is dead, so we can move beyond it. But Arius is also dead and none of us are abandoning our views on the person of Christ that arose out of that controversy. Actually, some are, but that's for another time.
If you read my prior posts, and especially if you can get a copy of Moises Silva's article in the Spring 1988 edition of the Westminster Theological Journal (50:1) you can see that the doctrine of inerrancy is very well nuanced in such a way as to deal with some of these knotty issues of history and science.
Michael also objects to the doctrine on the grounds that it takes a major document like the Chicago Statement to explain it. But the Chicago Statement is small compared to what has been written about the Trinity or the hypostatic union to explain them. I'll grant you that even this post and my others are murderously long and complicated, but all of these knotty issues don't nullify the doctrine of inerrancy any more than all of the issues surrounding the doctrine of the trinity nullify it.
I will agree with him on one matter and that is over how we prove inerrancy. He says that the attempt to make an "external case" for the inerrancy of Scripture is a never ending errand. I think he would lump my own defenses of inerrancy and things like the Chicago Statement under the heading of an "external case." I wouldn't agree with that exactly, but I think we would be in basic agreement that the "external case" includes all of those apologetic attempts to prove the bible's inerrancy. In contrast, Michael says:
Finally, human elements and all, the Bible is what it is and accepting it as God's inspired Word is 1) a concensus decision of human beings 2) based on faith assumptions 3) demonstrated to be true ONLY by a subjective experience.
Since Michael affirms his agreement with the Westminster position on Scripture I would point out that #1 is in disagreement with this statement from the Confession:
The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God.
Accepting the Bible as God's word does not depend on a consensus decision of human beings, but upon belief in the fact that its author is God. But having said, I wouldn't express points 2 and 3 the way he did, but I do think he is getting at something important. Ultimately, the "external" apologetic proofs for inerrancy won't prevail. This is not to say that they don't have value, they do. But they don't seal the case for inerrancy. Again, the confession states is wisely:
We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverend esteem of the Holy Scripture. (1 Tim. 3:15) And the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God: yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.
It is basically saying that the external, apologetic type proofs are nice, but not ultimately persuasive. Michael is right that our persuasion is based on faith assumptions, but we need to be careful to define what we mean by saying it is "demonstrated to be true ONLY by a subjective experience."
If by "subjective experience" we mean an experience which is wholly internal and self-contained with no external influence then this statement is in error. The confession states that there is an external influence that persuades us - it is the work of the Holy Spirit that persuades us. Granted, the confession states that this is an "inward work" and thus we could argue that it is wholly internal. I could go along with that with the caveat that the presence of the Holy Spirit is not native to us as human beings, rather He is an alien presence that takes up residence in our hearts when we come to Christ. My point is that our persuasion of the Bible's veracity is not of our own creation, it is a creation of God.
So, having nitpicked that last point to death, I think that Michael offers some wise counsel. The "external case" for inerrancy, built on apologetic proofs has some value, but it is a relative and limited value. A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, my friend The Dane wrote a post called "Apologetics as Hooey" ("Hooey," is a Greek word with Aramaic antecedants for you scholars) wherein he said that apologetics is, . . . well . . . "hooey."
The Christian faith is founded upon the things unseen (2 Corinthians 4:18). It's begun and finished in faith. There are two problems with garnering confidence from apologetic reason: it can only affect the earthly, reason-accessible portions of the Christian's belief system (a very small portion of the Christian experience) and there is always someone who will be better able to argue than yourself (if one's confidence is based on an argument, the moment his argument is contradicted, his confidence is shaken) and what does the poor non-philosopher Christian do for confidence in his faith.
By the way, that post would be a good one for all of the apologetic bloggers to take on, although I fear The Dane may no longer be my friend for bringing it up. But, he makes a good point. Whether you believe apologetics are hooey or not, they have limited usefulness and one ought not to put too much weight on them in trying to prove inerrancy.
But the fact that the external case for inerrancy is limited doesn't mean it can't be made. In our "modern" world we think that faith assumptions and subjective experiences (even when influenced by the Holy Spirit) are weaker than the external proofs. But this is not true. In fact, the case for inerrancy as based on faith assumptions and spirit driven subjective experiences is very strong.
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