1. Our starting point for all discussions of biblical authority should begin with an affirmation of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. More needs to said on this subject than was said there, but not less. Fruitful discussion can take place only among those who can honestly sign that statement. With those who cannot sign it, our duty is that of charitable debate and refutation.
2. Obedience is a key element in exegetical understanding. Obedience is the opener of eyes. Without obedient application, the text is not really being studied.
3. Affirmations of biblical authority are worthless unless we understand that the contemporary secular challenges to biblical authority create enormous pressure on those affirming inerrancy to develop interpretive workarounds, such that inerrancy can be formally affirmed while being practically denied. Examples of such pressures today would include biblical teaching on sexuality and human origins.
4. Scripture is given to us as seed, and is therefore intended to grow and flower down through history. The Word of God is living and active and this extends to more than just the personal conversion of individuals. The living Word is intended by its growth to shape and govern all of human history. The development of unbelief in history has no authority to dictate the contents of the seed.
5. The spirit of liberalism wants to detach this life and growth from the seed, in order to shape an autonomous direction for that life and growth. The spirit of blinkered conservatism wants to keep things orthodox by keeping the seed deep frozen in the shape of a seed. But the nature of the plant depends upon absolute allegiance to the seed, and the nature of the seed requires growth and development that is fully in line with the intention of the one who gave the seed.
6. This growth means that in addition to the autographic meaning of the text, there may also be additional (non-contradictory) canonical meanings to the text. The original Masoretic text says “my ear you have opened” (Ps. 40:6), while the New Testament citation of this passage, using the LXX, says “a body you have prepared for me” (Heb. 10:5). This latter meaning is a canonical meaning, fully consistent with the autographic meaning, while plainly not meaning the same thing.
7. While no “normative revelation has been given since the completion of the New Testament writings,” canonical meanings can be expected to develop in post-apostolic history as well. Examples would be the development of the Table of Contents of Scripture itself, the growth of Trinitarian understanding, and the gracious God-given knowledge that justification is by faith alone.
8. Dealing with such issues honestly and with theological and intellectual integrity is necessary to prevent young biblical scholars from coming to believe that they must choose between inerrancy and personal honesty. Presented with this false choice, too many have discovered that choosing “personal honesty” leads them straight into professional and personal dishonesty.
9. We must therefore reject a biblicist primitivism that regards it a higher way, for example, to “get back” to chanting psalms in Hebrew. If God had been all that enamored of Hebrew, He wouldn’t have switched to Greek for the New Testament. If you had two buttons in front of you, one which would make everyone in your congregation a superb Hebraist, able to chant the psalms just the way David chanted them, and the other button giving you a congregation that contained several Greek and Hebrew scholars to help keep things honest, but the congregation was acquainted with and well-versed in the history of Christian psalms and hymns, along with other songs from around the world, in various styles, and was also a congregation engaged in composing new music for the psalter that would make David go hmmmmm, which button would you push? And, just as an aside, which one did God push?
10. The Bible itself gives us the standards of truth and accuracy that we must use in judging all things. A false precisionist approach, in which words are believed to have decimal points, seeks to judge Scripture with a set of idolatrous standards. But the Enlightenment does not judge the Bible — rather the Bible judges the Enlightenment, in part by growing right past it.
11. The Word of God is absolute truth, the breath of God, silver that has been refined seven times.
Like a knobly sturgeon sleekly pushing upstream.
Perhaps #7 though should more clearly state that we are unable and unauthorized to add to the canonical meaning?
We can add to our understanding, and application — but it would be futile for us wee ones to add to His meaning.
Doug, Another issue related to the doctrine of Scripture which you have spoken and written about is the Reformation idea that God will preserve His Word, which is at least one of the reasons why you affirm the KJV as superior to other English Bible translations. But in this video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STjoyYsTUZ8 – someone asks you about an error in the KJV, which you basically admit is an error, and then you go on to explain that the important thing is that secular businesses should not control Bible translation. Your response in the video seems consistent with the Chicago Statement,… Read more »
Drew — great question.
Might you be implying, however, that God’s chosen way of preservation & dissemination doesn’t meet your standard of “perfection”?
Even the original autographs perhaps lacked perfection — perfect grammar, etc, though still infused — nay, completely overcome with His perfect meaning.
And so by means of the magic (the Spirit) sprinkled into the words through the ages, the “imperfect” retranslations with all their errors can not block His perfect meaning getting through.
Drew, sort of. The autographs were perfect. An apographic stream retains all that perfection, but there are choices to make, which I was referring to in the video.
Only a bit tangential. Truth is more than fact.
http://freenortherner.com/2015/01/23/creationism-the-modernist-frame/?theme=suits
Accuracy is not precision. In our excessively precise world we often forget that. And over-precision gives many a false sense of accuracy.
Barnabas, that article would seem to contradict item 3.
And I note with some irony a man capitulating to evolutionism calling out creationism for capitulating to modernism.
Jesus revealed that John the Baptist was Elijah. What if we imagine that an archeologist were able to find the bodies of John and Elijah? What if he were able to sequence their genomes and tell me that they were, in fact, not the same person? I wouldn’t need to assume a conspiracy. My faith wouldn’t hang on refuting his findings and I really wouldn’t be surprised if John and Elijah weren’t genetically the same. They were the same in some sense that is more true than a gene sequence. If you find yourself arguing that the archeologist didn’t use… Read more »
Led Zeppelin was right: “cuz you know sometimes words have two meanings.” Much to add a Bible thumpin’ “amen” to in this one, Doug. I would add that Liberals and Benny Hinn types are not the only ones who can distort and kill the seed by forcing erroneous applications and calling them canonical. I have read some pretty bizarre stuff from conservatives/Puritan writers too. For example, some have actually taught that every newborn baby is not merely born in sin but actually *guilty* of sin and deserving eternal wrath upon their first breath! Matthew Henry claims that those born with… Read more »
Barnabas, Whose error are you addressing in your comment about John the Baptist and Elijah? I have never met a Christian who thinks that John was literally Elijah in disguise. The Bible directly contradicts that idea: “And they asked him, ‘What then? Are you Elijah?’ He said, ‘I am not.'” (Jn 1:21) Your article accuses those who take Gen. 1 literally of capitulating to modernism. But your opinion that the only thing that matters is some spiritual truth divorced from historical truth is itself a modern invention. It is the view common to Schleiermacher, Ritschl, Bultmann, and the Barthians. All… Read more »
Then why does Jesus say, “But I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they pleased.” Also, you don’t give details on your understanding of myth but I think that you equate it with a lie. I think that you need to broaden you understanding of myth. I do not say that fact and transcendent truth may contradict one another. I say that you are imposing your materialism on the text. Genesis is a presentation of transcendent truth that is as intelligible to an illiterate nomad as it is… Read more »
Since you bring up Augustine, you are probably aware that there is a bit of something for everyone in Augustine when it comes to age of the Earth, some support for an old Earth but also not a bad case for and instantaneous creation with the seven days being allegorical. I think any of the varied views over the course of his life could be held without damaging faith in scripture. That being said, I’ll assume the one is true that is supported by the investigation of Creation.
Barnabas, Taking the Genesis account as historical is not the same as taking it as scientific in the modern sense of the word. Barth thought historical meant scientific, but no one here is a Barthian. I never equated myth with lie. What I said was that you “argue as if fact and truth are non-overlapping sets” and in this way make the mythical into the imaginary. You simply bypass my criticism, that an evolutionary worldview makes natural revelation impossible, drives a wedge between the immanent and the transcendent, and therefore makes the “myth” of Genesis into the fairytale of Genesis.… Read more »
Just to be clear, I often cite freenortherner’s blog to gently introduce my fellow Evangelicals to critical thinking but I am not the author. I think I have given you an example from scripture (chosen from among many potential examples) of something that is true but not “fact” as you are using the term fact. While I think that science would not be able to show that John and Elijah are the same I would be uncomfortable saying that it is not a fact that they are the same. Jesus tells me that they are the same so they must… Read more »
Doug Sayers, I have come across the kind of preacher to which you referred. A newborn baby is capable of sin because it is selfish; it puts its own desire for comfort ahead of its mother’s need for sleep; it disobeys its father’s wish that it sleep peacefully through the night. It screams with impatience when it is hungry, and with misery when it has pain. This kind of thinking freezes my blood. It is, in fact, so repellent to anyone with normal human instincts that one shudders at the spiritual state of those who find it good.
Doug Sayers and Jill Smith-
There are several significant theological problems that arise be attributing righteousness or innocence to newborn babes. “How messed up is that” or “this kind of thinking freezes my blood” are really not arguments. Remember that God commanded the slaughter of Philistine infants but, being God, he is not subject to the moral judgements of man.
Thank you
Hi Barnabas. I hold to the doctrine of original sin, so I understand your point about the problem of attributing moral innocence. My issue was in attributing sinfulness to the natural behavior of newborns. A five-year-old clobbering his brother for possession of a toy may be showing his sin nature; a newborn crying for milk is not. I still think there is something chilling in the mindset of a person who can contemplate the eternal damnation of newborns with equanimity.
The Westminster Confession also speaks of “imputed guilt”, i.e., mankind being guilty for Adam’s sin. And what’s worse, the corruption (sin) which we are said to be born with remains in the regenerate!
Barnabas, I certainly agree “that God commanded the slaughter of Philistine infants but, being God, he is not subject to the moral judgements of man” but there is nothing explicit (or necessarily inferred) in scripture about those infants being sent to hell or Adam’s guilt being imputed to their account. We suffer the consequences of Adam’s transgression but not the culpability. The best biblical inference is to believe that those Philistine kids will enjoy God forever. God is the sovereign Potter and He can use our earthly lives however He pleases, within the scope of His holy character. We are… Read more »
The fate of those souls is a mystery and men have tried to resolve this by their own means through paedobaptism, limbo, etc. The larger issue is whether a moral judgement can be applied to God. This is the same line of reasoning used to argue against Calvinism, penal substitution, or the condemnation of homosexuality. God creates some vessels for dishonorable use. That’s his prerogative. That’s something to come to grips with whether those souls leave the earth in infancy or later.