Dear Terry,
I admire you steadfastness in consistently defending your conservative
(even fundamentalist, you say) understanding of the nature of the Bible.
It is difficult, I know, not to charge you with a certain arrogance in
stance or speech. Personally, I think it possible to "lower" your claims
about God's Word, without losing your laudable steadfastness. Several
points occur to me when reading your reply:
1. After citing the Westminster statement on Scripture, a
venerable tradition, you go on later to use a horribly slippery word, a
word shaped by the modern "battle for the bible" and shaped by a
particular era of Enlightenment science - "inerrant." Whose definition of
"inerrant" are you using?
2. As you described your understanding (along with others, too, of
course) of God's Word - written - it occurred to me that what you were
presenting was a "fully gifted piece of writing" within a "fully gifted
creation" a la Howard Van Till.
3. How do you see the relationship between the ongoing work of the
Holy Spirit and the fully gifted piece of writing, ie God's Word written?
Does the Holy Spirit open up new interpretations of things the bible
refers to while supporting it as a fully gifted piece of writing or does
the work of the Spirit add, go beyond scripture, eg., in opening up
scientific understanding of the world?
Kind regards...
On Fri, 31 May 2002, Terry M. Gray wrote:
>
> At 2:04 PM -0700 5/30/02, Dr. Blake Nelson wrote:
> >
> >Jim, you cannot be serious (nor could any conservative
> >theologian) in writing that "God wrote the Bible" as
> >if He physically put pen to paper. That is really a
> >huge definitional leap from the Bible consists of
> >God-inspired writings, written by human beings.
> >
> >More fundamentally, where does the "Bible" say that
> >all the books of the Bible are written by God? Most
> >citations regarding the trustworthiness of scripture
> >are absolutely inapposite to the New Testament since
> >the books of the New Testament were not canonical
> >(indeed nothing was canonical before the church
> >councils) until well after the last document that is
> >contained in the New Testament was written.
>
>
> Blake (and Burgy and Shuan),
>
> Here's where the doctrine of inspiration and God's sovereignty come
> together. Conservative Calvinistic theologians would argue that even
> though the human authors of scripture fully expressed their humanness
> (their personalities, their personal histories, their unique
> perspectives and purposes, etc.) in writing the Biblical documents
> that God who is in full Providential control of all of their affairs
> and histories, etc. sees to it that they write exactly what he wants.
> This is why we would argue for plenary, verbal, divine inspiration of
> Scripture. What Scripture says, God says! This is no dictation theory
> because the authors of scripture were acting according to their own
> wills, intellects, and purposes (full human). But the outcome is no
> different than if "physically put pen to paper." Seriously!
>
> The question of God limiting his omnipotence in order to provide for
> free will has been asserted several times on this list. I don't see
> why this is anything than a so-called "philosophical necessity"
> rather than a Biblical argument. The Bible doesn't seem to suggest
> this. The Bible puts God so fully in control so that whatever comes
> to pass is an expression of his will (secret, decretive will to be
> contrasted with his revealed moral will). The Bible also makes man
> fully responsible for his actions and credits him with free will. Is
> it not conceivable that God's control is such (in ways that perhaps
> we can't even understand) that I do exactly what I always freely
> choose to do and at the same time do what God from all eternity
> purposed me to do? This is exactly what the "venerable" Westminster
> Confession of Faith says is the teaching of scripture. I cite the
> Confession here not on the weight of its own authority, but as my
> tradition's systematic summary of the teachings of scripture. Fuller
> expositions of the Westminister Confession can provide the
> "proof-texts" and the Biblical argument. We can pursue that if you
> want. This argument is the heart of Warfield and Hodge's defense of
> inspiration and infallibility from the late 19th century.
>
> [Quotes from the Westminster Confession of Faith]
>
> III. I. God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel
> of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to
> pass: yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin; nor is
> violence offered to the will of the creature; nor is the liberty or
> contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
>
> V. I. God the great Creator of all things doth uphold, direct,
> dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the
> greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy, providence,
> according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable
> counsel of his own will, the praise of the glory of his wisdom,
> power, justice, goodness, and mercy.
>
> V. II. Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God,
> the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly;
> yet, by the same providence, he ordereth them to fall out, according
> to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or
> contingently.
>
> V. IV. The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness
> of God so far manifest themselves in his providence, that it
> extendeth itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels
> and men; and that not by a bare permission, but such as hath joined
> with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and other ordering, and
> governing of them, in a manifold dispensation, to his own holy ends;
> yet so, as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature;
> and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is nor
> can be the author or approver of sin.
>
> IX. I. God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty,
> that it is neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature,
> determined to good, or evil.
>
> IX. III. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all
> ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation: so as,
> a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in
> sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to
> prepare himself thereunto.
>
> [End of Westminster Confession quotes.]
>
> To summarize: God ordained and providentially executes whatever
> happens (even the bad stuff). Those events occur necessarily (via
> "laws of nature"), contingently ("by chance"), or freely (via the
> activity of agents who have free wills). The Confession sees no
> contradiction between a certain God-determined outcome and free
> agents exercising their free will (no violence is offered to the will
> of the creature (no coercion here!)).
>
> One of the reasons that I think that Walter's programmer's image
> fails, in the end, is because the programmer does not and cannot
> control the totality of reality for the computer and the AI. Perhaps
> this is close to what Blake? was saying about immanence. There is no
> sense of the AI "living, moving, and having its being" in the
> programmer, the way we "live, move, and have our being" in God.
>
> Clark Pinnock (one of the architects of Open Theism) rejects the
> doctrine of inerrancy and plenary, verbal inspiration precisely
> because he rejects this Calvinistic understanding of the sovereignty
> of God (see his argument in the book *The Scripture Principle*). In
> Pinnock's view God doesn't have the kind of control over the lives,
> circumstances, and thoughts of men that my view describes. (Open
> Theism is simply a fuller expression of this limitation of God.)
> Consequently, scripture cannot be the words of God in the sense that
> I am describing.
>
> I simply don't have the time to fully answer Blake's second
> paragraph. Volumes have been written by "conservatives" discussing
> this. Here's the very short answer:
>
> The OT books are determined inspired and authoritative by virtue of
> the authoritative teachings of Jesus and the apostles. e.g. 2 Timothy
> 3:16
> The NT books are determined inspired and authoritative by virtue of
> their authenticity and apostolicity. For an early internal
> recognition of apostolic writings as scripture along side the OT see
> 2 Peter 3:16 (and yes, I believe that 2 Peter was written by the
> apostle Peter and to be date prior to his death in the 60's).
> Canonicity is not determined by church council but by scripture's own
> self-attesting claims. (Westminster Confession of Faith, I. IV. The
> authority of the Holy Scripture...dependeth not upon the testimony of
> any man, or church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the
> author thereof...) The NT documents were recognized as scripture and
> used as such long before church councils that made lists of canonical
> writings. They may not have been collected together in their present
> form early, but that's not to say they were recognized or used as
> scriptural before then.
>
> Sounding very conservative here (not much difference between me and
> "the fundamentalists" on this stuff),
>
> 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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