Thanks, Jon, for your personal reflections on this.
Below, you write:
> 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.
I agree this is a common phenomenon, which I have also run into. Bernard
Ramm makes this point also when he notes as a "psychological problem ...
that so many Christians fail to differentiate interpretation from
inspiration [italics in the original]" (_The Christian View of Science and
Scripture_, 40). It is a point that I intend to emphasize in my exposition
of inerrancy. A Muslim scholar made a comment about the Qu'ran that can
also be applied to the Bible: "Scripture is divine, interpretation is
human." The claim that the Bible is inerrant should not be a stopping point
but a commencement that leads the believer into consequent questions of
meaning and application.
Bob Schneider
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan Clarke" <jdac@alphalink.com.au>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Saturday, April 06, 2002 10:52 PM
Subject: Ramblings on a "High View" of Scripture
> 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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