I would affirm that Scripture is inspired, authoritative, normative, and
sufficient for salvation and the Christian life. The Bible makes these
statements about itself and by faith I accept them. If this is what is
meant by "high" then I have a "high" view of Scripture.
I also have no problem with the concept of "infallibility" if my this we
mean that when believed and obeyed, God's word cannot fail to be
effective in the believers life, and my own life story is testimony to
that
However I get a bit twitchy when people start using words such as
"inerrant". There are several reasons for this. What is meant by in
errant?
Is it a particular translation? Speaking two languages and have a
smattering of a couple of others I can't accept that any translation is
without error, it is merely a question of degree.
Is it a particular Greek or Hebrew text? The only reason I have seen this
advanced is by people who want to argue a particular translation is
inerrant. This has no foundation as far as I can see in the Bible or in
scholarship.
Is it the original autographs? This is a popular definition, but seeing
we don't have them, are unlikely to ever have them, and probably would
not recognise them if we did, it isn't very useful.
Then we have the common where when people say they defend the inerrant
Scriptures, what they are really defending an errant interpretation of
them and are trying to boost the credibility that interpretation, no
doubt unconsciously, by saying this is what the inerrant Scriptures
really say.
All these problems lead to most thought out statements of Niblical
inereancy being convoluted and even contradictory. It s several years
since I have read them, but I recall that the shorter and longer versions
of the Chicago statement actually say quite different things. At that
time I could have signed off on one (the longer, I think, which is more
qualified), but not the other.
Finally we have the case where people extend use the extend the concept
of inerrancy to fields that are beyond equipping the believer in
righteousness.
I wonder if it is possible to have too high a view of Scripture?
The development of the doctrine of inerrancy by Warfield et al. came
after the affirmation of papal infallibility. Is there a link here -
catholics declared that they had an infallible pope, so protestants
declared they had an inerrant Bible?
Blessings
Jon
"Terry M. Gray" wrote:
> Bob,
>
> The definitive work is that of Hodge and Warfield entitled
> "Inspiration" (1881, rpt. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1979).
> Along the same lines is the work of J. G. Machen from the 1920's and
> 1930's. Many scholars in conservative Presbyterian denominations
> (OPC, PCA, EPC) would continue to stand by Machen's work.
>
> A more recent statement and discussion by faculty of the Westminster
> Seminaries (Philadelphia and Escondido) is "Inerrancy and
> Hermeneutic: A Tradition, a Challenge, a Debate" (1988) edited by
> Harvie M. Conn.
>
> A more broadly evangelical statement is in D.A. Carson and John D.
> Woodbridge's collection of essays entitled, "Scripture and Truth"
> (1983)
>
> I'm sure that there are other more fundamentalist statements, say
> such as Lindsell's, "The Battle for the Bible", but the one's that I
> have mentioned are significantly more nuanced, in my opinion. For
> what it's worth, I would place myself in this conservative
> Presbyterian tradition, so, indeed, there are some of us with these
> views in the ASA. When I was in my mid-20's, I spent several years
> reading the then current literature pro and con on the question of
> inerrancy. I gave close attention to what has been labeled
> neo-evangelical views (Rogers, McKim, the later Pinnock, etc.) I came
> to the conclusion early in my study that my belief in Christianity
> would withstand a re-working of my views on Biblical inerrancy,
> infallibility, and authority (i.e. a denial of inerrancy and
> infallibility), but in the end I re-affirmed my belief in Biblical
> inerrancy and infallibility along the more nuanced lines of the
> Hodge, Warfield, Machen, and Westiminster Seminary position. For the
> Old Princeton/Westminster school, the ontological character of
> scripture (as verbal, plenary, inerrant, infalllible inspiration) is
> maintained and the "problems" are hermeneutical (what's the genre? --
> is there an accomodation to common language? -- etc.) and perhaps a
> recognition that unsolved "problems" don't necessarily undercut what
> scripture says about itself. (For a very nice discussion of this in a
> slightly different context see Davis Young's final chapter of
> "Christianity and the Age of the Earth".)
>
> I often get the feeling around the ASA that we must abandon this
> "high view of scripture" in order to not end up as young-earth
> creationists. It is clear to me that this was not the case for Hodge,
> Warfield, Machen, and others. I seldom see this view being defended
> in ASA circles (for fear of being labeled an evangelical or even
> worse, a fundamentalist).
>
> TG
> --
> _________________
> Terry M. Gray, Ph.D., Computer Support Scientist
> Chemistry Department, Colorado State University
> Fort Collins, Colorado 80523
> grayt@lamar.colostate.edu http://www.chm.colostate.edu/~grayt/
> phone: 970-491-7003 fax: 970-491-1801
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