Evangelicalism and Inerrancy

Donald Crankshaw at Back of the Envelope has been running a series of posts on Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism. There is one in particular that I wanted to comment on called Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism: The Inerrancy of Scripture. This post was a good look at many of the issues involved and he also interacted with some comments from Jeremy Pierce at Parablemania, which added to the depth of the post. He also got linked by Instapundit on one of his posts, so he has officially earned the title of "You-da-Man!!" Congrats Donald - I'm happy for you, and not the least bit jealous, really, I mean that sincerely, don't you believe me? Quit looking at me that way.

Anyway, I started to post some comments on his site and my normal long windedness got the better of me so I decided to do my own post and discuss some of the issues on this topic.

First of all, definitions are notoriously difficult in this discussion. How do you define an evangelical? How do you define inerrancy?

In another post Donald defines an evangelical as one who emphasizes evangelism. He also cites an Inter-Varsity statement of faith that defines evangelicals in more specific terms - encompassing their views on things like the Trinity, person and work of each member of the Trinity, man, justification and a few other items. My understanding has been that, historically, an evangelical is one who believes in the "evangel," the gospel. This is another way of affirming one's belief in justification by faith against Roman Catholocism. Either way, all of these definitions are exceedingly broad and doctrinally minimalist.

The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals says the following regarding definitions of evangelicalism:

Some think that Evangelicalism is a lineal descendent of the Reformation, and has simply fallen on hard times in the last two or three decades. For these folks, the answer is to call Evangelicalism back to its Reformation heritage.

For others, Evangelicalism is chiefly an outgrowth of the early nineteenth century's "Second Great Awakening" -- which means that the movement has been, from its very emergence, an attack on the regulated preaching of the Word, a serious attention to the Sacraments, and churchly discipline. To this group, the evangelical movement has no healthy founding constitution to which it can be recalled. Instead, the end of interacting with Evangelicalism is simply to call individual evan-gelicals out of that anti-churchly tradition, and into a particular churchly tradition.

In other words, the Alliance folks say that many identify evangelicalism with the whole Reformed tradition. Thus, to call oneself an evangelical would imply adherence to a much broader set of beliefs than just justification by faith. It would encompass what one believes about the Bible, the church, the decrees of God, the sacraments and other things. Basically, if this definition were correct an evangelical would be someone who subscribes to one or more of the great Reformation creeds like the Westminster Confession of Faith, the London Baptist Confession, the Belgic Confession or the Heidelberg Catechism.

Those who define evangelicalism as an outgrowth of the "Second Great Awakening" would define it more in terms of pietistic practices, evangelistic fervor, activism and any of a number of other ideas. What is important here is that adherence to doctrinal distinctions would be minimized and the emphasis would be on "practices." It would be defined more in terms of orthopraxy than orthodoxy.

I think Doc Rampage comes closest to the modern definition of evangelicalism when he says that it emphasizes the Scripture as the ultimate authority and the need to be born again. To me this seems to be very consistent with the whole Billy Graham/Carl Henry/Christianity Today/Fuller Seminary movement of the last century.

My point in raising these issues is not to answer any questions, but just to show the difficulties involved in answering them. Does an evangelical fall into one of these categories, or do we define them by membership in the National Association of Evangelicals? Are evangelicals those who read Christianity Today, admire Carl Henry and think Billy Graham is the greatest modern evangelist?

The answer to the question of defining evangelicalism may also depend on who is asking it. If a confessing "Born-Again" believer asks the question he may be looking in one direction for answers, but others may be looking for some kind of nefarious political agenda at the heart of evangelicalism Can Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan both be considered evangelicals? This issue is at the heart of Alan Jacobs article in the Boston Globe about the President's faith. Josh Davey and Jeremy Frank at Letters from Babylon weigh in on some of the political aspects of evangelicalism in this post and this post.

My interest in this whole thing is far more narrow. I am mostly interested in the issue raised by Back of the Envelope regarding inerrancy and evangelicalism. The inerrancy of Scripture will carry different weight and meaning according to different definitions of evangelicalism. A more doctrinairre evangelical will have a more involved definition of inerrancy than a more "activistic" or "pietistic" evangelical. The "doctrinairre" evangelical may wish to set forth a more encompassing definition of inerrancy which includes commitment to the Scripture's accuracy in scientific and historical matters. The "pietistic" evangelical, who is mainly concerned with his or her "personal relationship with Jesus" may be satisfied with a definition of inerrancy which affirms its accuracy in matters related to faith and practice, while being agnostic or ambivalent about its accuracy in historical and scientific matters.

I'm in the Reformed tradition and have always thought of myself as an evangelical, although I acknowledge that many in my tradition would disavow our association with evangelicalism, at least as it is expressed in modern times. If I had to locate myself on a continuum of evangelicalism between the historic reformed evangelicals and the second great awakening evangelicals I would be way to the side of the Reformed. However, I have to admit that I am not all that excited about getting into a fight about the meaning of an evangelical. I accept as my brother many who do not hold my own doctrinal convictions - if someone understands the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone, I accept them as a brother even though they may not agree with my other Reformed beliefs. And, if I can accept them as a brother I don't see why I shouldn't call them an evangelical.

I said all of that mainly so the reader could know where to pigeonhole me and understand the presuppositions I bring to the discussion of inerrancy. It seems to me that the doctrine of inerrancy is a far more nuanced doctrine than we usually give it credit for. In the Westminster Theological Journal 50:1 (Spring 1988) Moises Silva says:

The contemporary debate regarding inerrancy appears hopelessly vitiated by the failure—in both conservative and nonconservative camps—to mark how carefully nuanced were Warfield’s formulations. The heat generated by today’s controversies has not always been accompanied by the expected light, and for every truly helpful statement one will easily encounter ten that blur the issues. The unfortunate result is that large numbers of writers and students assume, quite incorrectly, that their ideas about inerrancy correspond with the classic conception.
Westminster Theological Journal. 1998 (electronic edition.). Philadelphia: Westminster Theological Seminary.

Silva is referring to the original authors of the "classic conception" of inerrancy - B. B. Warfield and Charles Hodge. Their definitions were far more nuanced than what we see today.

For instance, Back of the Envelope says that most fundamentalist and many evangelicals would hold to a dictation view of inspiration, or a view that most of the bible was given by dictation. This is the view that the writers were merely God's secretaries, mechanically taking down the words of Scripture as God spoke them. Back of the Envelope makes a few curious statements regarding the gospels that seem to me to be colored by his understanding of the dictation theory. He seems to oppose books that were "dictated" to those which were "eyewitness accounts" like the gospels. He says that non-inerrantists make a "more convincing point" when they claim that the gospels are not divine revelation but eyewitnesses to the divinity of Jesus and their accounts of Him. They are eyewitness accounts with some commentary. However, he believes that the commentary is given the same authority as the letters. I find that paragraph a little confusing and am hoping that if Donald reads this he'll add a comment to clear up the confusion for me. I am pretty sure he didn't mean it this way, but these words come perilously close to the neo-orthodox party line that the Bible is not the Word of God, but it contains the Word of God.

Either way, I think this issue could be resolved by understanding that when we say "inerrancy" we don't mean dictation. The classic "inerrancy" position believes in "organic inspiration." The words of Scripture are 100% God's words and 100% man's words, yet the humanity of the men does not corrupt the divinity of the words since they are God's. God did not dictate the words to the writers but inspired them in an organic fashion. Here is a good definition of organic inspiration from Sola Scriptura.

Organic inspiration. The proper conception of inspiration holds that the Holy Spirit acted on the writers of the Bible in an organic way, in harmony with the laws of their own inner being, using them just as they were, with their character and temperament, their gifts and talents, their education and culture, their vocabulary and style. The Holy Spirit illumined their minds, aided their memory, prompted them to write, repressed the influence of sin on their writings, and guided them in the expression of their thoughts even to the choice of their words. In no small measure He left free scope to their own activity. They could give the results of their own investigations, write of their own experiences, and put the imprint of their own style and language on their books.

The advantage of that definition, which I think is biblical, is that it relieves some of the tensions that come about when we try to figure out things like dictation vs. eyewitness accounts and things like that. If I may put a few words in Donald's mouth (which he is free to spit out because I may be totally misunderstanding him) it seems that his discussion bleeds over into distinguishing different modes of inspiration. The "organic" view gives a broader definition that alleviates some of the hoops you may have to jump through if you take a dictation view. Thus inerrancy should be understood in terms of organic inspiration.

I would point out that "organic inspiration" applies to the very words of Scripture themselves, not merely the ideas. Those who believe in "organic inspiration" also hold (usually) to the verbal, plenary inspiration of Scripture. The word "verbal" refers to the fact that the words themselves are inspired, and "plenary" means all of them are inspired. Its not just the ideas of Scripture that are inspired, it is the words themselves.

Furthermore, consider how Hodge and Warfield defined inerrancy. Per Silva

The whole thesis of their famous work is that the Bible, whose primary author is God, teaches no errors.
Westminster Theological Journal. 1998 (electronic edition.). Philadelphia: Westminster Theological Seminary.

John Frame defines inerrancy as follows:

“Inerrant” simply means “without error,” or “true” in the sense that we normally speak of true sentences, true doctrines, true accounts, true principles. Were God to speak to us in person, “directly,” none of us would dare to charge him with error. Errors arise from ignorance or deceit; and our God is neither ignorant, nor is he a deceiver. Similarly, we dare not charge his written Word with error.

This simple definition of inerrancy has suffered at the hands of friends and foes alike. In the aforementioned article by John Frame he gives an example of the definition of inerrancy from a foe:

James Orr, for example, defined “inerrant” as “hard and fast literality in minute matters of historical, geographical, and scientific detail.

One of the friends of inerrancy, Harold Lindsell (author of The Battle for the Bible) seems to hold a similar view, at least in view of some of his criticisms of others. Lindsell cites the following words from George Eldon Ladd as evidence that Ladd had abandoned the doctrine of inerrancy:

“Thus saith the Lord” means that God has spoken His sure, infallible Word. A corollary of this in the minds of many Christians is that we must have absolute, infallible answers to every question raised in the historical study of the Bible….
This conclusion, as logical and persuasive as it may seem, does not square with the facts of God’s Word;…the authority of the Word of God is not dependent upon infallible certainty in all matters of history and criticism.
Westminster Theological Journal. 1998 (electronic edition.). Philadelphia: Westminster Theological Seminary.

In these words, Ladd seems to be affirming the infallibility of Scripture while not demanding "hard and fast literality" in some matters. Lindsell finds this problematic, but Ladd's statement would fit within the classical definition of inerrancy.

When I was in seminary Bruce Metzger, the famous Greek scholar came for a couple of days and the students got to interact with him a bit. I asked him if he believed in inerrancy. He said no and cited errors in the Bible such as the use of bad grammar, and misplaced punctuation and things like that. He was operating with a far more technical definition of "inerrancy" than the classic formulators used.

Such notions cut against the grain of the classical formulation of inerrancy.

Again, quoting Silva: And this issue in turn reminds us of the crucial role that exegesis must play in our discussion. Not everything found in the Scriptures is actually affirmed or taught by the biblical authors (e.g., “There is no God,” Ps 14:1). The text must therefore be studied so that we can determine what it teaches.
Westminster Theological Journal. 1998 (electronic edition.). Philadelphia: Westminster Theological Seminary.
detail.”

And:

Our best theologians made it clear all along that inerrancy was being claimed for the Bible on the assumption that the Bible would be interpreted responsibly, and such a proper interpretation consists in determining what the original author meant, what he intended. As Hodge and Warfield stated it: the Bible gives us “a correct statement of facts or principles intended to be affirmed…. Every statement accurately corresponds to truth just as far forth as affirmed.
Westminster Theological Journal. 1998 (electronic edition.). Philadelphia: Westminster Theological Seminary.

Silva, and through him, Hodge and Warfield, are saying that the Bible does not affirm all that it reports and this is no threat to inerrancy. Silva gives a good example of this:

It may be useful to illustrate our problem by referring to 1 Cor 10:8, where Paul makes mention of 23,000 Israelites who died because of their immorality, in apparent conflict with Num 25:9, where the number given is 24,000. Notice the following attempt to solve the problem:

… it is not unheard of, when there is no intention of making an exact count of individuals, to give an approximate number…. Moses gives the upper limits, Paul the lower.

Westminster Theological Journal. 1998 (electronic edition.). Philadelphia: Westminster Theological Seminary.

That commentator who said that "there is no intention to give an exact count of individuals" is none other than John Calvin himself. Calvin understood that Moses and Paul were giving approximations, they were not trying to give exact statistics. Similar things could be said about the way the Bible often speaks in generalities and uses phenomenological language. When the Bible says that the sun rises it was not trying to comment on astronomy, it was describing things as they appeared to the writers.

I recently heard John MacArthur talking about one of the parables of Jesus. I think he may have been talking about the parable of the Good Samaritan, but I'm not sure. He was talking about the difficulty in figuring out who the priest was. Was he this kind of priest or that kind of priest. MacArthur said that he finally came to realize that there was no priest - this is a parable, not history. The parable intended to teach a specific truth for which precise identifications of the personalities were not required. It was enough to know that the parties were some kind of Samaritan, some kind of priest, etc.. In saying this, MacArthur in no way violated the principle of inerrancy.

We have to be careful in distinguishing one's view on inerrancy from exegetical conclusions in a particular matter. For example, many believe that inerrancy entails a certain view on the role of women in the church, the days of creation and eschatology, among other things. But these are all matters of exegesis, not inspiration. I am one who takes one of the most conservative views on the role of women in the church. In fact, a person could not be an officer in my church if they believed that women should be ordained into ministry. But this is an exegetical conclusion that, in many ways is independent of your view of inerrancy. True, someone may advocate women's ordination because they have denied in the inerrantist position and don't find the Bible authoritative. But, on the other hand, there are those who affirm inerrancy but just think I am all wet in my exegesis of the pertinent passages. Roger Nicole at RTS - Orlando comes to mind. He believes that there were certain cultural factors that applied in the days of the New Testament that no longer apply and that women can be ordained. While I disagree with his exegesis, I or anyone else would be foolish to call into question his view on inerrancy. Similar examples could be raised in issues regarding the creation days, the end times and other matters.

And so my point is that inerrancy simply teaches that the Bible is true, it does not teach error. This is not to say that only the ideas of Scripture are inerrant, and not the words. The words themselves are inerrant, but the words must be understood in terms of authorial intent. If John says that Jesus fed 4000, he is not teaching error if it turns out that there were only 3,964 people there that day, or 4237. On the other hand, an attempt to explain away the miraculous in the Bible by redefining the miracles in naturalistic terms is an affront to inerrancy because this would assume that the Bible errs in ascribing miraculous intervention to natural events.

In this sense, I would argue that a belief in inerrancy is foundational to evangelicalism. It seem to me that a failure to affirm inerrancy is an affront to the character of God, in saying that He can err. A belief in the organic, verbal, plenary inspiration of Scripture forces us to an inerrantist view. In all of our discussions about the elements of evangelicalism, let's not forget that our definition of God is central. A god who can err is no god at all.

On the other hand, I think we ought to stick to the carefully nuanced definition of inerrancy that was found in the original framers of the doctrine. This will alleviate some of the tensions that arise from dictation and overly technical views.

Comments

[Jeremy Pierce]

I should say, in reference to your penultimate paragraph, that those who deny inerrantism don't think every word of the Bible is God's word. It's a little unfair to say that they believe in a god who can err. They believe of God's words that they are in error, but they don't believe that they are God's words that are in error. It's a fine but important distinction (de re, or of the thing, vs. de dicto, or of what's said).

[Jeremy Pierce]

I wonder how many times I've done multiple trackbacks to you. Every time I do a trackback to a Typepad blog, it tells me it timed out. Then I try again later, and it gives me the same message. It just happened again, but the trackback appeared. So if you've gotten multiple trackbacks to me from the same post to the same post, that's why. Now I know not to bother doing it again when I receive those messages, since timeout messages from Typepad aren't inerrant. In fact, they're highly fallible.

[David]

Jeremy,
Thanks for the comments. Yes, I have gotten multiple trackbacks from you in the past, but I just deleted the additional ones. I just figured there was some little cyber-demon out there whom I could exorcise with the delete button. I don't know how the gods of Typepad are going to feel about your assertion of their fallibility though.

Its late, I should be in bed and am not thinking clearly. I think I know where you were going with your comment on my penultimate paragraph, but if there is anything you can add by way of explanation that would be appreciated. If not, maybe I'll wake up in the morning and understand.

Thanks,
David

[Rong]

I'm not a theologian so understand these comments come from a very simple lay person.

Firstly thank you for a great article. My understanding of the inerrancy of the bible are directly in line with yours. It's nice to be able to read, in such well defined terms, that which I have always known but could have never expressed with such preciseness.

This mostly goes to Mr. Pierce's comment from May 11. For those that deny inerratism where do you then start and stop with the Truth? Isn't this the same slippery slope that can lead to the belief that (and I know I'm taking this to the extreme) homo-sexuality is OK, that Pauls contentions were culturally based and have no authority to today? If you ("you" in the broad sense not personalized) don't see the entire bible as the innerant word of God then where do you base your understanding of who God is and what his decrees and desires for your life trully are?

I'm not looking for a debate, if what I question is not what is being said can you please straighten me out.

Thanks

[Bob Waters]

Just thought that I'd point out in passing that we Lutherans also had something to do with the Reformation- and were, in fact, the first to be called "Evangelicals."

Nor, in my view, do many of those who claim the title "Evangelical-" namely, the "decision for Christ" crowd- share the Reformation's teaching as regards justification.

[Bawi Nawn Lal]

Sent me some books

[Robert Talley]

In light of the Ted Haggard situation, I'm trying to explain on our church weblog what an evangelical is and isn't and am referring them to this post.