295 - Biblical Inerrancy: Are We Going Anywhere

Biblical Inerrancy: Are We Going Anywhere?
By Richard J. Coleman

"The question of biblical inerrancy is remarkably the same now as it was nearly a century ago…. If history is to be our teacher, and biblical inerrancy our illustration, we have somehow not learned from the past. "

THE whole question of biblical inerrancy does not want to die. Granted, for some Christians, it is simply no longer a pressing issue. But for many other Christians, and we presently are finding out how many, the issue never was a dead one-only submerged. Recent events surrounding Concordia Theological Seminary, its faculty and students, and to a lesser extent the Southern Baptist Church and the new break-away National Presbyterian Church, demonstrate anew the potency of the issue. Presbyterians will remember those difficult times when biblical inerrancy became the focal point around which friends were lost, seminaries split, faculties divided. Names like B. B. Warfield, Charles A. Briggs, J. Gresham Machen, and Harry Emerson Fosdick once stirred the fighting spirit within us. My purpose is not primarily to discover analogies between past and present but to analyze whether the controversy over biblical inerrancy has changed. As the familiar adage goes, we do not want merely to repeat history but to learn from it.

As the nineteenth century was coming to a close, forces were polarizing Christians along two lines of doing theology-the traditionalists and the revisionists. Europe had already been through its catharsis over biblical inerrancy. David Friedrich Strauss' Life of Jesus sent the first shock waves through the continent, but latter expositions like Albert Schweitzer's Quest of the Historical Jesus were mostly absorbed as matter of fact. In America the situation was quite different. A feeling of popular reverence for the Bible, coupled with a renewal of millenarianism, provoked cries of heresy.1 Princeton

Richard J. Coleman is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and Princeton Theological Seminary. He is the Executive Director of the Christian Center, Pittsfield, Mass., and the author of Issues of Theological Warfare: Evangelicals and Liberals (1972). In our April, 1973, issue, he prepared the Editorial on "Is the Issue Unity or Truth?"
1 See Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenariansim 1800-1930 (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1970).

296 - Biblical Inerrancy: Are We Going Anywhere

Theological Seminary became the scene of the most systematic defense of biblical authority in the persons of Archibald Alexander, Benjamin B. Warfield, Charles Hodge, and his son Archibald. The chief protagonists were Charles A. Briggs of Union Seminary, Henry P. Smith of Lane Seminary, and Arthur Cushman McGiffert of Lane and Union Seminaries. Briggs and Smith were subsequently suspended from the Presbyterian Church in 1893 and 1894, while McGiffert withdrew under fire in 1899.2 The issues which divided them were basically five-each one so fundamental that they are still with us today.

I

The primacy of biblical inerrancy. There have been long periods in the history of the church when biblical inerrancy has not been a critical question. It has in fact been noted that only in the last two centuries can we legitimately speak of a formal doctrine of inerrancy. The arguments pro and con have filled many books, and almost anyone can join in the debate. All too often, however, a prior question is never considered: "What place does the doctrine of inerrancy have in the general context of church dogmatics?" As a scholar, Warfield was too thorough to overlook the primacy of this question. He repeatedly emphasized that "inspiration is not the most fundamental of Christian doctrines, nor even the first thing we prove about Scriptures. "3 The truth of Christianity would have been preserved even without the written record, Warfield argued, because Jesus entrusted his message to his apostles who entrusted it to the historical witness of the living church. It is difficult to know whether this answer satisfied the opposition, because the question of primacy never received the attention it deserved.

The same cannot be said of the controversy as it is now taking shape within the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Two articles, appearing in 1972 in the Concordia Theological Monthly, edited by the faculty of Concordia Seminary, not only raise the question but imply that the Church has been led astray. "The Log in Your Own Eye," by Paul G. Bretscher refers to myopia caused by elevating the formal principle (the authority of inspiration) over the material principle (the authority of the gospel). In the second article, Edward Schrolder argues that forces within the Missouri Synod have allowed the distinction between law and gospel, especially as a hermeneutical tool, to be blurred. Schrolder concludes by quoting a statement made by an official Missouri Synod delegation of theologians in 1948:

The doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture does not stand in the relationship of a priori but a posteriori in our theology. The doctrine of verbal in-

2 The best account of these episodes is still found in Lefferts A. Loetscher, The Broadening Church (Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1954).
3 Benjamin B. Warfield, "The Real Problem of Inspiration," in The Living God: Readings in Christian Theologyed. Millard J. Erickson (Baker Book House, 1973), p. 279.

297 - Biblical Inerrancy: Are We Going Anywhere

spiration is not the basis of our systematic theology and is not the major premise of Christian assurance (p. 246).

Lest there be any doubt, President Jacob A. 0. Preus and his sympathizers do not agree. On the contrary, the log in the church's eye is the refusal to see the centrality of the doctrine of verbal inspiration. Robert Preus, the President's younger brother and faculty member at Concordia, states: "the doctrine of Scripture is generally the first article to be considered in Lutheran dogmatics."4 Nor should we be so quick to think the issue was any different in the 1880's. While Warfield was careful to avoid being trapped into making all Christian doctrines rest upon the single doctrine of biblical inerrancy, he was most dogmatic in his defense of plenary inspiration.

One must remember that Warfield had absolute confidence in the "trustworthiness of the biblical writers as teachers of doctrine." Standing upon this bedrock, it was natural for him to reason that biblical inspiration is a subsequent and crowning fact for belief in the veracity of the biblical writers as historians. Since no one could shake Warfield's confidence in the Bible as an accurate teacher of theology and history, there was no point to dispute Scripture's inspiration. But as long as inspiration and inerrancy are tied together, the line will be drawn then, as it is now, whether inerrancy or verbal inspiration are essential doctrines which cannot be compromised or reduced, or whether they are secondary doctrines which are not formal objects of faith.

II

Internal vs. External Criteria. A closely related issue is how one determines whether the Bible is infallible. Does one begin by demonstrating what Scripture says about its own inspiration, or by examining the critical phenomena of the Bible? Warfield is frequently regarded as the one who brought the debate over inerrancy into the open where the results of the critical-historical method could be measured. There is probably no clearer statement of this than Warfield's famous challenge to be shown "just one indisputable error." As a matter of principle, Warfield did intensify the trend away from purely circular arguments, such as statements to the effect that the Scriptures are inerrant because they are inspired, or the books of the Bible are inspired because they were canonized.

A new period in the controversy over biblical inerrancy began when individuals like Warfield committed themselves to the legitimacy of external verification. "By all means let the doctrine of the Bible [inerrancy] be tested by the facts and let the test be made all the more, not the less, stringent and penetrating because of the great issues that hang upon it."5

4 Robert D. Preus, The Theology of the Post-Reformation Lutheranism (Concordia, 1970), p. 256.
5 Warfield, op cit., p. 283.

298 - Biblical Inerrancy: Are We Going Anywhere

The opposition, however, sensed that Warfield was only giving lip service to the critical-historical method. A closer reading of Warfield reveals the reasons. Warfield believed the weight of evidence to be so greatly in favor of inerrancy that there existed only a "theoretical possibility" of finding sufficient counter evidence. In addition, he placed so many restrictions and conditions on the kind of error he would accept that he made it virtually impossible for anyone to provide that one fatal flaw.6 Charles Briggs, for instance, felt obliged to respond by reasserting the right of criticism and the inductive method to determine what Scriptures teach about their own inspiration. Warfield and Hodge, in his estimation, were allowing themselves to be guided by the authority of the church and tradition and thereby neglecting the Reformation principle of sola scriptura.7

We find a striking parallel in President Preus' "Statement of Scriptural and Confessional Principles" laid before the faculty of Concordia Seminary in 1972. On the one hand, Dr. Preus begins with a positive statement that scarcely anyone would wish to criticize. But then follows a series of negative conditions which seem to be in direct conflict. As part of his opening statement on the historical method, Preus says that since the Scriptures are historical documents they therefore "invite historical investigation." The Catch-22 comes in the fourth restriction: "We therefore reject that if the use of historical methods leads to conclusions at variance with the evident meaning of the biblical text, such conclusions may be accepted without violating the Lutheran view of Scripture (for example, the claim that it is permissible to deny the existence of angels or a personal devil)." The evident meaning of a text thus, by definition, can never be determined by the historical method, especially when that evident meaning is contrary to Missouri Synod theology. In another section we are told to reject any variations in meaning of a particular text due to either various stages of its pre-canonical history or the time difference between when it was written and the present.8 It appears that Preus, like Warfield, has such a low view of the critical-historical method, has placed so many restrictions upon the method, and believes the weight of evidence to be so great in favor of inerrancy that the issue of internal vs. external criteria cannot go very far.

In a different context, slightly more liberal but solidly evangelical, the issue is being discussed more realistically. Clark Pinnock's Biblical Revelation (Moody, 1971) is one of the most consistent contemporary defenses of biblical inerrancy. Pinnock sincerely attempts to give the critical-historical method a legitimate place. In contrast to a

6 Beginning with Charles Hodge and often repeated afterwards in one form or another, a proper allowance has always been made in case that one irrefutable error was found. He said it would be like finding a speck on the face of the Parthenon.
7 Charles A. Briggs, "Critical Theories of the Sacred Scriptures in Relation to Their Inspiration," Presbyterian Review, XI (1881), 558.
8 Report of the Synodical President to The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (Sept., 1972), pp. 154-155.

299 - Biblical Inerrancy: Are We Going Anywhere

noticeable trend to retreat to a position of internal verification, Pinnock tackles a number of specific texts and difficulties.9 Nevertheless Daniel Fuller, who has openly proposed a modification of strict inerrancy at Fuller Seminary,10 chides Pinnock. "My problem with Biblical Revelation is the same as I recall it was with Set Forth Your Case. There is part of you that wants to be inductive, to let critical thinking prevail. But you can't go all the way. Down deep in your heart, you feel that faith has to start the knowing process."11

We are faced once again with that recurring problem of what theological, ecclesiastical, epistemological conditions we will place upon the inductive method as it is applied via the critical-historical method. It is a most important question that continues to plague us because it seldom receives the attention it deserves.

III

Total vs. Limited Inerrancy. The question of biblical inerrancy is remarkably the same now as it was nearly a century ago. Yet it is not the black and white issue commonly conjured up in the minds of most people; namely, one side claiming the Bible contains no discrepancies or inconsistencies whatsoever, with the other side claiming the Scriptures are riddled with error. On the contrary, even Warfield and Hodge conceded that the biblical writers were at times "dependent for their information upon sources and methods in themselves fallible, their personal knowledge and judgment were in many matters hesitating and defective or even wrong." They also recognized that "inspiration does not suppose that the words and phrases written under its influence are the best possible to express the truth, but only that they are an adequate expression of the truth. Other words and phrases might furnish a clearer, more exact, and therefore better expression . . . . "12 These two concessions in themselves permit an unexpected latitude in the kind and number of errors possibly found in Scripture. 13

9 Typical of the "internal" approach is Harold Lindsell, the editor of Christianity Today. In a two part article entitled "The Infallible Word," Lindsell's line of reasoning is summed up in the statement: "Once it has been established that the Scriptures are 'breathed out by God,' it follows axiomatically that the books of the Bible are free from error and trustworthy in every regard" (Christianity Today, Aug. 25, 1972, p.11). Evidence from the critical-historical method is simply ignored.
10 Daniel P. Fuller, "Warfield's View of Faith and History," Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society, XI (1968),75-83.
11 Daniel P. Fuller's review of Pinnock was first published in the Christian Scholar's Review, II, 4 (1973) and reprinted in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, XVI, 2 (Spring, 1973), 67-69.
12 Archibald A. Hodge, Benjamin B. Warfield, "Inspiration," Presbyterian Review, II (1881), 238, 256.
13 Dr. Jacob Preus' position can rightfully be seen as shading toward fundamentalism. He rejects the possibility of any error arising from the author's accommodation to the world view of his time, the use of literary forms which might not be historically accurate, and the need to take into account the intention of the writer. See the Report of the Synodical President, p. 154.

300 - Biblical Inerrancy: Are We Going Anywhere

In spite of the fact that Hodge and Warfield proceeded to lay down certain impregnable conditions, like the necessity of showing an error to have existed in the original autographs,14 conservatives have consistently acknowledged in various degrees the reality of certain difficulties and minor divergencies. What distinguishes their position is the insistence that the Bible is not only the "infallible rule of faith and practice" but the infallible record regardless of subject matter. The traditional conservative argument has been that if the inerrancy of Scripture is limited in any way, then it cannot be trusted concerning those truths necessary for man's salvation. Limited inerrancy also introduces the insoluble problem of separating religious and moral matters from secular and historical ones.

Looking at the question from a different perspective, the crux is not so much how many errors can be found but the nature and purpose of each biblical writing. After all, the liberal interpreters are not usually obsessed with the number of errors they can find. They may even shy away from the term "error" because it takes no account of the intent of the author. It is interesting to note that Dr. Martin Scharlemann, the same Dr. Scharlemann who was recently named President of Concordia Seminary after it split, sent shock waves through the Missouri Synod in 1958 by raising the basic issue. "An insistence on the inerrancy of Scripture," he stated, "oversimplifies the whole process of communication." Biblical revelation is given on an "I-Thou" basis, and in many different literary forms, and for this reason "to talk about inerrancy in this kind of communication is to reduce the Bible to less than it proposes to be."15

IV

Who Is The Adversary? In an unpublished doctoral dissertation entitled, "The Princeton Apologetic as Exemplified by the Work of B. B. Warfield and J. G. Machen," William Livingstone ponders the tragedy that has plagued all such controversies. There exists the human tendency to paint the situation in black and white. Warfield and his supporters lumped all the opposition together as modernists. Consequently he failed to distinguish between the modernists who still

14 In addition to the condition of original autographs, Warfield and Hodge demanded that four others be met; namely, an error must be the professed intent of the author, it cannot be attributed to a difference in form as long as the same basic truth is conveyed, an alleged error, must be shown to be incapable of being harmonized with other statements, and it must he indisputable as opposed to a difficulty open to future resolution. Armed in this manner Warfield and Hodge were able to ward off the onslaught of all attackers. Historical and geographical errors fell to the first and fourth conditions. Internal inconsistencies, such as the place and phrasing of the Sermon on the Mountain in Matthew and Luke were disposed of under the second and third conditions. And so forth.
15 Martin Scharlemann. "The Inerrancy of Scripture," delivered to the faculty of Concordia Seminary and reprinted later in Missouri Today (May, 1969), pp. 18-20. Under pressure, Scharlemann felt obliged to withdraw his views in 1962 and thus explains his succession to the presidency, a post which he has since relinquished due to physical exhaustion.

301 - Biblical Inerrancy: Are We Going Anywhere

accepted a supernaturalistic framework and those who wanted to begin with new presuppositions (naturalistic and idealistic). Individuals like William Sanday, A. B. Bruce, Lewis Stearns, Ronald Seeberg, and James Orr accepted historical criticism as a basic exegetical tool but without losing faith in the traditional doctrines of Christianity. They remained strongly positive toward Scripture as the sola prima record of revelation.

The very same proclivity was present, if not amplified, during those years when Princeton again became the center of liberal-conservative antagonisms. In spite of his great love of truth, and partly as a result, J. G. Machen was a victim of rigid categorization."16 Others, such as J. Ross Stevenson, Charles R. Erdman, Frederick W. Loetscher, and J. Ritchie Smith, stood loyal to the standards of their church while sharing reservations about biblical inerrancy. In 1947, Carl F. H. Henry wrote about a new breed of evangelicals who felt uneasy with the old fundamentalism (The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism). The change was not one stemming from a dissatisfaction with the great biblical verities, but a feeling that the application of those truths was not keeping up with the times. Yet it is difficult to see how this new breed of men were so different from the Seebergs or Erdmans of yesterday.

There is undoubtedly the possibility that history is repeating itself in the contemporary scene. President Preus, on the one hand, is justified in concluding that some of the professors are personally prepared to accept as probable certain results of historical criticism, such as the documentary hypothesis, deutero-Isaiah, the different sources behind the Gospels. On the other hand, these same faculty members point out that while everyone in the exegetical department makes use of the historical-critical method, they made use of it "with Lutheran presuppositions, that is, they begin with the basic affirmation about Scripture as being the Word of God and the source and norm of faith and results of historical criticism. The time has come for us to recognize that not all Christians fit into either-or molds.

We must be doubly hesitant about isolating people according to predetermined "sides" for the simple reason that there is a much greater diversity among conservatives today. Richard A. Quebedeaux's book, The Young Evangelicals (1974), is the most recent illustration of what Carl F. H. Henry has labeled the "Revolt on Evangelical Frontiers." 17 Quebedeaux describes as marks of the "new

16 More so than any other book by J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (1923) typifies the attitude by which all Christians are divided into two groups, orthodox and modern liberals.
17 His review of Quebedeaux's book can be found in the April 26, 1974, issue of Christianity Today. A reply to Henry is given by Jim Wallis, editor of Post American, in the June 21 issue of Christianity Today.

302 - Biblical Inerrancy: Are We Going Anywhere

evangelicalism": a fresh concern to translate religious piety into social involvement, a friendlier attitude toward ecumenical bodies, a marked aversion to dispensationalism and detailed eschatological speculation, greater openness toward science, and a reinterpretation of biblical infallibility and acceptance of the critical-historical method. It would greatly surprise me if the latter two concerns did not become the two focal theological issues; and if this becomes the case, there will be an even greater need to acknowledge a number of positions concerning biblical inerrancy as it relates to higher criticism.

V

Always a Question of Church Politics. It is inevitable that any crucial theological issue becomes an ecclesiastical one. Writing in 1925, Robert H. Nichols commented that at its deeper level the question of biblical literalism was one of a certain conception of the church. "Fundamentalism is a monstrous assertion of ecclesiastical authority. It aims to control the organization of the church in order to bring the church into rigid conformity with its doctrine."18 There is of course the counter argument that liberalism also has its particular conception of the church which it imposes upon others. History reveals both sides of this inevitability.

In 1910, when fundamentalism was on the rise, the Presbyterian General Assembly adopted the celebrated "five points."19 It eventually became a constitutional question in 1924. Could certain deliverances of the General Assembly be granted authority equal to that of the church's historic creeds? Thus the issue of biblical inerrancy, among others, became a political-ecclesiastical struggle over whether non-conforming ministers and candidates (to the five points) could be excluded. When the tide began to turn in favor of the moderate-liberal wing, those who held firmly to the five points, for example J. G. Machen, were ostracized.

The collision taking place in The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod provides the interested observer with a rare opportunity to relive history. In addition to theological debate, there are the usual political power plays. Can President Preus achieve his goal of making his "Statement of Scriptural and Confessional Principles" binding upon all Missouri Synod Ministers? Will the students who left Concordia for Seminex (Seminary in Exile) be certified and ordained? Will churches who "call" Seminex graduates be forced to split off from the denomination? Who will win the struggle between congregational au-

18 Robert H. Nichols, "Fundamentalism in the Presbyterian Church," Journal of Religion, V (January, 1925), 35.
19 As adopted by the Presbyterian Church in 1910 and reaffirmed in 1916 and 1923 the five points were: the inerrancy of Scripture, the virgin birth of Christ, the substitutionary atonement, his bodily resurrection, and the miracle-working power of Christ. It is historically erroneous to state that the five points were first published in 1895 (the Niagara creed contained fourteen points) or that fundamentalism could be reduced to these five points.

303 - Biblical Inerrancy: Are We Going Anywhere

tonomy and the 46-member council of presidents? Will foreign missions again become a political football? In spite of presumptions that differing positions have already been made clear, there lingers the feeling that many basic theological issues have been neglected. When does doctrinal unity take precedent over Christian fellowship? What are the limits of toleration in a confessional church? What doctrines, or questions of church polity, are so vital to the church as to warrant denominational splits? How will the Synod resolve potential conflicts between the Scriptures as interpreted by the historical-critical method and as interpreted by the Lutheran Confessions? Can a definition of evangelicalism be found that is acceptable to both conservatives and the "young evangelicals"?

VI

If history is to be our teacher, and biblical inerrancy our illustration, we have somehow not learned from the past. Some may explain this as evidence that there can be no compromises concerning biblical inerrancy. On the other hand, I trust I have shown that the deeper one looks the clearer it becomes that there are many rocks which have not been turned over. Rocks have the habit of becoming stumbling blocks and then becoming walls, and if walls are not quickly dismantled it isn't long before we cannot see over them. Can there be any doubt that we are again approaching a time when even the mention of biblical inerrancy quickens our defenses? Since Christianity is not an irrational faith, and Christians are expected to be reasonable and considerate people, it is not asking too much that we sit together and pray together about some of the logs in our own eyes. There is no other choice if we are to prevent biblical inerrancy from becoming once again the principal barrier between Christians.