All of life is a dialogue, a dialogue between person and person, person and nature, person and God.
—Mikhail Bakhtin, an interview with
V. V. Kozhinov in 1992
Yes, sir! No, ma’am! No excuse, sir. Ma’am, I do not understand. These are the four stock answers to all questions given by new cadets entering West Point during the summer prior to their first academic year. Needless to say, these responses don’t exactly engender dialogue or conversation, nor do they leave room for asking questions. Those of us with enquiring minds often tried to add another stock response: “Sir/Ma’am, may I ask a question?” As you might expect, we were met with a sharp rejoinder: “If the army wanted you to think, they would have issued you a brain at the central issue station!” So much for understanding. Of course, West Point has a method to its madness as it seeks to provide a strong dose of humility, believing that effective leaders must first understand what it means to follow. Moreover, these stock replies were never meant to be ends in themselves; rather they were the beginning of inculcating values that produced leaders of character.
Part and parcel to this methodology were intensive field exercises where we had the opportunity to embody the very things we were learning throughout the year. One of the key principles stressed was situational awareness, particularly on the battlefield. There are numerous ways to achieve situational awareness, but the essential element is clear, open, and honest communication. Without such communication, as the nineteenth-century Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz noted, the battlefield narrows, the friction intensifies, and the fog sets in, increasing the likelihood of misjudgment and fratricide.1 Unfortunately, as we mentioned in the introduction, it seems that North American evangelicals are poised to “battle over the Bible” again. Only this time evangelicals are positioned against themselves. In order to avoid fratricide and engender fraternity, we believe it is necessary to find ways of opening lines of communication across various perspectives, all within the friendly confines of Christian virtue. Yet given the charged nature of the current debate, how do we propose to do this?
As you might recall, we considered at various points in the introduction the early 1980s debate between Robert Gundry and Norman Geisler. We chose to highlight this example for several reasons: (1) it exposed a number of doctrinal joints related to inerrancy; (2) its proximity to the drafting of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (CSBI) provided insight into how the CSBI was initially understood and used; and (3) it seemed to demarcate a shift inwards and towards a more argumentative tone. Each of these reasons shapes the structure and intended outcomes of this project as we seek to go beyond the stock answers and old battle lines in order to enrich and deepen evangelical faith and life. This project also attempts to map the contemporary debate in North American evangelicalism while looking to provide the impetus for a dialogue that includes voices of different, perhaps even disparate, tonalities from every tribe and nation who desire to understand what it means to say “Thy Word is Truth.”
First, inerrancy as a doctrine is not a solo doctrine. It is in fact bound up with the compendium of Christian doctrine, as we argued in the introduction, using the Gundry-Geisler controversy to highlight several of these points. Hence, there are a number of theological decisions necessary prior to arriving at a doctrine of inerrancy. For example, the maxim, “What Scripture says, God says,” is loaded with presumptions begging for clarification. Who is this God that speaks? Does he speak in just this book? If so, why this book, and how does divine speech relate to the human speakers in the Bible? Moreover, if God speaks in and through Holy Scripture, then it should be in some way discernible to the reader. How should readers approach Holy Scripture? Is there a proper disposition for right reading? If so, how do readers nurture this disposition? The types of arguments, then, that move directly from, say, God’s truthfulness to Scripture’s truthfulness without considering these kinds of questions run roughshod over a number of important theological considerations, leading to a thin understanding of inerrancy and a malnourished evangelical theology. Thus, if discussions regarding inerrancy are going to advance, inerrancy’s doctrinal location and rationale and the implications of these prior theological decisions should be taken into account. Otherwise, the doctrine of inerrancy is nothing more than Henry Flemming’s “red badge of courage.”
Second, in the late 1970s, the crafting of the CSBI was thought to be a landmark achievement. The Gundry-Geisler controversy demonstrated the prominence of the CSBI as then president of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), Louis Goldberg of Moody Bible Institute, appointed an ad hoc committee chaired by William F. Luck, also of Moody Bible Institute, at the 1983 annual ETS meeting. The committee made three proposals to deal with the controversy. One of the proposals called for the CSBI to be adopted as the official interpretation of the doctrine of inerrancy. Although all three of the proposals were rejected by ETS members at the time, the proposal that the CSBI serve as a point of reference in defining the doctrine of inerrancy reveals its significance to adjudicating the Gundry-Geisler controversy.2 Moreover, the proposal seems to set the CSBI on a path toward further prominence when, nearly twenty years later in 2004, another controversy regarding open theism would move ETS members to pass a resolution solidifying the CSBI as its point of reference for defining inerrancy: “For the purpose of advising members regarding the intent and meaning of the reference to biblical inerrancy in the ETS Doctrinal Basis, the Society refers members to the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978).”3 Hence, many evangelicals still consider the formulation of the CSBI not only as an important moment of North American evangelical consensus but also one worthy of perpetuating today. Thus, if discussions regarding inerrancy are going to advance, they should respond to the framers’ invitation to engage the document itself, not only its content but also its status, use, and viability. Otherwise, the doctrine of inerrancy may become historically blind, neglecting important lessons at a pivotal moment in North American evangelicalism’s recent past.
Third, the Gundry-Geisler controversy seemed to demarcate a shift inwards and towards a more argumentative tone away from the intention of the CSBI framers to engage this issue “in a spirit, not of contention, but of humility and love, which we purpose by God’s grace to maintain in any future dialogue arising out of what we have said.”4 The future and the death of dialogue came five short years later when Gundry was asked to resign from ETS. To be sure, how one interprets these events, whether as purificatory or punitive, depends upon a number of factors. Our point, though, is not to hail or exhale over the outcome of the Gundry-Geisler controversy but rather to draw attention to the ethics of inerrancy, namely that the manner of argumentation is just as important as the content. There is a place for well-reasoned, lucid, and spirited argumentation. Yet when such argumentation is ill-performed, Christian witness to the other suffers. Thus, if discussions regarding inerrancy are going to advance, Christian virtues like patience, humility, and charity should be fittingly performed in the manner of Christ. Otherwise, the doctrine of inerrancy, like any other doctrine, can become a fragging, swashbuckling sword.
In the introduction, we outlined the structure of the book and indicated several reasons why this perspectival arrangement was advantageous: (1) converging and diverging perspectives on the doctrine of inerrancy are largely dependent upon one’s theological sensibilities and particular location in evangelicalism; (2) perspectives provide a fairer arrangement that maps aspects of the current landscape in evangelicalism, which allowed authors to express their position without trying to fit within some prescribed label; and (3) perspectives recognize the personal particularities of viewpoints (yes, authors are people too!) while acknowledging the complexity and difficulty of dialogue.
It is important to restate as well that the perspectival arrangement should not be viewed as a limited conversation between two persons but as an open conversation with crisscrossing lines of communication throughout all the essays, following the parameters and questions articulated at the outset. Moreover, the perspectival arrangement is not suggesting that the truth of the matter (or beauty and the good) is relative. There is objective reality. There is something to know. Yet it takes different perspectives, because of our finitude and fallenness, to attain an adequate understanding of it. Hence, this book is not an end in itself but one hoping to generate new theological conversations that considers old questions as well as new ones and encourages engagement with diverse perspectives within and without North America, all in an effort to enrich evangelical faith and life.5
Dialogical encounters between persons are at the heart of this arrangement. In response to the dehumanizing elements of German Idealism, the likes of Ferdinand Ebner, Martin Buber, Gabriel Marcel, and Franz Rosenzweig (a student of Hermann Cohen) independently arrived in the early twentieth century at what came to be known as the “principle of dialogue.” The central aspect of this principle, the personal encounter between I and You, engages with the other as a subject, as a whole being, whereby the realization of the other brings us to a deep awareness of our self. By contrast, I-It encounters are characterized by description, analysis, detachment, and mastery.6 To be sure, I-It kinds of relationships, better said experiences, are inevitable as they provide important useful information not unlike the objectifying modus operandi of science. Yet to dwell or live within this relationship as if it were primary leads to dehumanization and fragmentation, says Martin Buber, as human beings lose the power to relate and community crumbles.7 To dwell, though, within I-You kinds of relationships opens human persons up to love as I and You share a sense of mutuality, reciprocity, care, respect, compassion, commitment, and responsibility—those virtues that consider others before themselves. These kinds of encounters give way to a sense of something more, something that is more fulfilling than the immediate present. Buber maintains that God is wrapped up in this “more” and is thus the one who is the basis for and sustainer of all I-You relationships.8 Yet how is God the basis for and sustainer of I-You relationships?
Franz Rosenzweig’s contribution to the principle of dialogue focuses on divine revelation, for it is God’s self-revelation in his address to human persons that not only calls human persons into being but also is the impetus for considering the other. It is the Creator’s loving call, “Where are you?” and humanity’s obedient, receptive response, “Here I am,” says Rosenzweig, that reveals the love of God through the commandment, making it possible to love God and neighbor (Gen. 3; Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18).9 Without God’s self-revelation, humanity would be deaf, wrapped up in love of self. It is only in and through God’s dialogical I-You encounter that humanity can recognize the other “not [as] a ‘He-She-It’, but an T, … not a travel acquaintance on a journey through time without beginning or end, but my brother, the consort of my destiny; … my brother not in the world … but in the Lord.”10 Hence, love of the other is predicated not on some common human nature but on God’s self-revelation, his dialogical encounter with humanity.
Moreover, God’s fuller self-revelation in Christ through the power of the Spirit reveals not only a more personal, dialogical encounter between God incarnate and humanity but also personal, dialogical encounters within the Godhead (e.g., John 17), namely between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God’s identity, then, is love—not just any kind of love but the greatest kind of love where one lays down his life for the other (John 15:13). That being said, God’s love is dynamic, multifaceted, self-giving, sacrificial, and relational (1 Cor. 13). God’s love requires the other, not in the sense that he needs someone or something outside himself to be who he is. God’s love is sufficient and is found within his triunity. Yet God’s love is not self-seeking or self-promoting but self-giving. It cannot remain within himself. It must be sent. In short, God’s sacrificial, self-giving love is the essence of the gospel in that he communicates himself (his self-giving love) through himself (his triunity) for the purpose of communing with us. God’s love, therefore, can be understood only in and through relation, in and through dialogical encounter.
These dialogical encounters, though, are not mere events, mere occurrences, without existential import.11 God’s actions in the world matter. They affect not only human identity but also human action with deep existential and moral consequence. Ferdinand Ebner, in his journals from 1912, identified the ethical claim that extends from the divine I-You relationship, more specifically from God’s act in Christ’s death on the cross: “This is the most difficult problem for ethics: the recognition of the ‘I’ in the other, which actually constitutes the ‘thou’; thus the ‘thou’ is posited as an ethical demand.”12 In other words, human persons come to realize their identity only in light of God’s address in the person and work of Christ performed in the power of the Spirit, who gives the ethical demand to love God and neighbor. Personal identity is enveloped in God’s sufficient, sacrificial, self-giving love and humanity’s response to him. The realization of God’s love comes by the Spirit when humanity obediently responds to Christ’s demand for faith. In doing so, personal uniqueness is actualized and understood in and through fitting and faithful performances such that personal identity is not wrapped up in love of self but in love of the other, both God and neighbor (Luke 9:23).
As followers of Christ, dialogical encounters with others should manifest a particular disposition, characterized by Christian virtue and Christlike consideration of the other (Phil. 2). It’s at this point that the dialogue principle is important for conversations on the doctrine of inerrancy. A clear implication can be seen in the aforementioned discussion, albeit brief, regarding the ethics of inerrancy. Do conversations on this topic dwell within I-It kinds of relationships where description, analysis, detachment, and mastery are the focal point? Certainly, debate over concepts and ideas involve description, analysis, and clear reasoning. The question, though, is whether a turn toward the other, conceived in an I-You relationship, is made by seeking first to understand before being understood. In order to make this turn towards the other, performance of Christian virtues like patience, humility, and charity is necessary. In doing so, human frailties, finitude, and fallenness are acknowledged; possibilities for a fuller understanding of the matter (which would be unattainable otherwise) are opened; and true witness to the love of Christ at work in the world through the power of the Spirit is revealed.
One of the things that may not be so clear, though, regarding the implications of the dialogue principle for conversations on the doctrine of inerrancy is the relationship between form and content. As mentioned previously, God’s chosen form of self-revelation comes through himself in a personal way, namely through the incarnate Christ in the Spirit. While he communicates a number of things about his identity in his personal, dialogical encounter with humanity, we noted that his self-giving, sacrificial love is the essence of the gospel. Yet understanding of this love is distorted and deformed if the trinitarian form in which God reveals himself is neglected, not to mention the personal manner in which he engages humanity through the life of Christ in the Spirit (Phil. 2:8). That being said, understanding of the content (God’s self-giving love) is shaped by the manner or form (God’s triunity) in which he communicates himself. The implication being that how we communicate content is just as important (perhaps more) as the content itself, both of which allude to the desires, thoughts, and intentions informing the action.
So when the medieval crusader raises his swashbuckling sword, looks to the heavens, and cries out saying, “Jesus is Lord!” while running the “infidel” through, his declaration that “Jesus is Lord” may be true on a prima facie level, but the manner in which he makes the declaration reveals his gross misunderstanding. He is in fact dead wrong, for the kingdom of God is not of this world (John 18:36)! As such, while arguments for a particular position on the doctrine of inerrancy may in fact turn out to be correct, the truth of the matter in effect is maligned and obscured when human action persists in ways that are ugly and unbecoming of Christ—in ways that fail to actualize a fitting disposition toward the other—particularly in our dialogical engagement with others. Hence, if the dialogue on the doctrine of inerrancy is to move forward, a fitting, Christlike disposition that considers the other is essential. How beautiful are the feet of those who fittingly perform the gospel (Rom. 10:15).
One of the difficulties of this project and particularly the perspectival arrangement was the danger that authors would simply talk past one another, confusing the matter even more. Keenly aware of this difficulty, we pressed authors through the editorial process to engage with the theological and biblical matters we outlined in the introduction, matters we believe expose the theological joints of the doctrine of inerrancy and are necessary to consider. As such, we asked authors to develop their position in light of the following: (1) God and his relationship to his creatures, (2) the doctrine of inspiration, (3) the nature of Scripture, and (4) the nature of truth. We also asked authors to consider the CSBI’s historical contribution when developing their position and apply their perspective to three kinds of biblical texts that may pose as challenges to inerrancy. When examining the main essays and responses, keeping these parameters in mind, several lines of continuity and discontinuity emerged. While we wholeheartedly encourage readers to identify other important comparisons and contrasts, these lines are ones we believe will deepen evangelical faith and life, illumine the theological and hermeneutical decisions necessary to a doctrine of inerrancy, and hopefully advance a discussion that engenders fraternity rather than fratricide.
Each participant addressed how God relates to his creation through the notion of divine accommodation—the notion that the eternal God of the universe who is infinitely and qualitatively different from his creation reveals himself in a way that his finite creatures can understand him, albeit not exhaustively.13 When considering the doctrine of inerrancy, then, the question becomes how God speaks truth. Vanhoozer advocates a communicative model where God is true to the communicative action of his covenant by keeping his promises, a fittingness between word and deed. Franke contends that God descends to us through the use of human language with all of its cultural particularities and limitations such that the truth God speaks remains within those limitations. Michael Bird affirms God’s accommodation of himself to the worldviews and expectations of human beings yet asserts that divine accommodation does not capitulate to error. Enns’s understanding of God’s accommodation to the historically situated human condition seems, though, to include such possibilities, even while God reigns amidst them. Mohler rejects such capitulation to error in God’s divine accommodation, maintaining that human authors of Scripture were protected from all error by the Holy Spirit. Hence, participants converge on the notion that God graciously accommodates himself to human sensibilities, yet diverge when considering the manner, degree, and extent to which he does.
Inherent to discussing divine accommodation as it relates to biblical inerrancy is the doctrine of inspiration, the idea that God, through the Holy Spirit, enabled the human authors of Scripture to write what he desired to be written. The looming question is how God can preserve an inerrant text without supplanting human agency. Mohler argues for verbal-plenary inspiration of the Bible in that God, while respecting the particularities of human authors, has breathed out every last word of Scripture, going so far as to say that inerrancy “requires and defines verbal inspiration” (p. 37). While inerrancy for Vanhoozer does not require or define verbal inspiration, he operates from a much more nuanced understanding of it in that the Bible as verbally inspired “is an instance of dual-author (i.e., divine-human) discourse” where the biblical text is part of God’s “divine triune discourse” (p. 214). Bird affirms to a certain degree of verbal inspiration, yet he emphasizes, following John Webster, God’s sanctifying work that extends “to the human literary processes” and preserves “the meaning and power of God’s Word to achieve the ends for which it was given” (p. 164). Similarly, Franke focuses on the Spirit’s work to guide human speech-acts as they bear witness to God’s divine speech-acts in and through Scripture and the church. Yet while biblical inspiration entails a proper relationship to God, the words of Scripture are not divinized and are unable to “transcend their limitations as a finite creaturely medium” (p. 269). While Enns says little about inspiration in this essay, he makes an important point in that any notion of biblical truth must first reckon with the “energetic interplay of the Spirit of God working in and through ancient human authors” (p. 87).
From these snippets, there appears to be convergence, with the exception of Mohler, on the notion that inerrancy is a consequence of inspiration rather than a requirement of it. However, as Mohler aptly questions Vanhoozer regarding “where we are to locate the inspiration of the biblical text” (p. 240), this same question seems fitting to ask of all the authors. In doing so, divergences emerge. At what stage in the literary process does inspiration occur? Are the concepts and ideas inspired, or does inspiration extend to the very words and syntax of the text? If so, which text? Does inspiration occur at the textual locution, illocution, or perlocution? Or is the Spirit’s work of union and communion present throughout the literary process? If so, how is human agency preserved?
How one parses divine inspiration as it relates to the production of the biblical text influences how one understands the nature of Scripture—namely, what kind of book are we dealing with? All participants converge on the idea that Holy Scripture is both divine and human. Yet how each understands these aspects leads to a number of differences. Operative among Enns’s thought is an “incarnational” understanding of Scripture that sees God as present in the Spirit amidst the unabashed, historically conditioned textual phenomena of Scripture, which should have bearing on interpretative conclusions. Similarly, Franke ascribes to an incarnational analogy of Scripture, emphasizing the creaturely character of the biblical text without compromising it as a medium for the Word of God. Yet Franke develops the incarnational model further, noting how the Spirit speaks in and through the biblical text and uses it to call new eschatological realities into existence. This pneumatological instrumentality, Franke contends, is able to account for the plurality within Scripture as well as the plurality of Christian community. Mohler acknowledges the fruitfulness of the incarnational analogy, but he appeals to the debate regarding Christ’s (im)peccability to highlight the fact that Scripture is still without error. The Bible is a divine-human book. Hence, when Scripture with all the marks of human particularity, language, and culture speaks, God speaks. Bird, while he recognizes the phenomenological and creaturely character of the biblical text, argues unequivocally that the incarnational model is based on a category mistake because it threatens the uniqueness of the Christ-event and divinizes the biblical text. Bird identifies Scripture, though, as divine and human based on the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit as a mode of God’s self-communication in and through the exigent circumstances and particularities of the human authors. Finally, Vanhoozer sees Scripture as the triune God’s personal communication to human beings through human language in that God speaks in and through the written discourse of the biblical authors.
To this point, the lines of continuity and discontinuity reveal the doctrinal intricacies involved when discussing inerrancy, for inerrancy is not a solo doctrine. Biblical inerrancy, though, raises another important issue, one that Pontius Pilate recognized when he asked Jesus during his trial, “What is truth?” (John 18:38). Some would argue that this is the heart of the matter and simply link the truth of Scripture directly to divine truthfulness. Such a quick move, as we indicated in the introduction, glosses over a number of doctrinal issues (foremost of which is the doctrine of God) and fails to even consider God’s relationship to time. What emerges within the dialogue of the previous chapters regarding the nature of truth is an array of viewpoints, some of which overlap, others of which are implied, and some of which possess greater nuance. Yet all are anchored in their understanding of God. To be sure, this is a matter that requires further discussion and more careful consideration beyond this project.
Mohler’s take on the nature of truth could be considered, in large part, as factual correspondence. In other words, the extralinguistic state of affairs in the Bible is accurately and precisely portrayed by the biblical authors. This does not mean that biblical truth is merely propositional, yet it does entail that there are “affirmations found within every text of Scripture—whatever its literary form” (p. 239). While not clearly defining what he means by affirmation, he seems to think, as evident in his response to Vanhoozer, that “affirmations are statements of fact” (p. 241). This understanding of truth leads him to conclude, whether considering the conquest narratives, the exodus, or Luke’s account in Acts, that the Bible depicts these events as they actually happened. For Mohler, the truth of Scripture is anchored, then, in the fact that God is truth.
Enns also seems to be operating with a factual understanding of truth, though he does not state this explicitly. We draw this conclusion based upon his thinking that the Bible may be empirically false at times, which leads him to reject an understanding of inerrancy that understands truth primarily as factual (e.g., the Bible says that the walls of Jericho fell and archeological data says Jericho was a small, unwalled settlement). Yet Enns, while not developing this point, does state on a number occasions that any understanding of truth “must address as a first order of business the energetic interplay of the Spirit of God working in and through ancient human authors” (p. 87). In other words, when God speaks truth, he does so within the historical and cultural limitations of the biblical authors. And it’s at this point where any discussion regarding the nature of truth should begin, particularly regarding the truth God speaks in and through Scripture. For Enns, the truth of Scripture is anchored, then, in God’s willingness to be among us in the midst of our blindness, confusion, and ignorance.
Franke offers a much more nuanced understanding of truth that grapples with some of Enns’s concerns. Franke presents an analogy by identifying truth as God knows and experiences it as ultimate truth, Truth with a capital T. Truth as we know and experience it is situated and fragmented, truth with a lowercase t. The link between the two, Franke contends, comes by inspiration, yet “inspiration does not enable them to transcend their limitations as a finite creaturely medium” (p. 269). The core element of Franke’s understanding of truth is related to God’s mission to the world, where God, in and through the Word and the Spirit, creates Christian communities of faith in particular sociolinguistic contexts that bear witness to the gospel and cohere in Christ. For Franke, the truth of Scripture is anchored, then, in the plurality and missional nature of God.
Vanhoozer also offers a nuanced understanding of truth, describing it as “covenantal correspondence.” He considers the language of covenant to be “a communicative act that establishes or ratifies a personal relationship and aims at communion,” where all language is in some sense “quasi-covenantal” (p. 216). As such, human language is a divinely ordained medium of communicative action designed for communion. Language, though, can be corrupted, chief of which is the lie leading not to communion but to alienation. Yet God proves himself to be “true” because there is “a faithful fit, between God’s words and God’s deeds” (p. 216). The nature of truth, then, as covenantal correspondence faithfully communicates what is. For Vanhoozer, the truth of Scripture is anchored in the fittingness between the words and deeds of the communicative, triune God.
The implicit notion in Bird’s main essay regarding the nature of truth, which he makes more explicit in his responses, is a variant on the correspondence theory of truth, for there must be a “tangible connection between God’s revelation of himself in Scripture and the reality to which the revelation attests” (p. 301). Moreover, while truth is more than but surely no less than propositional, it is also personal. Keenly aware of other theories of truth, he offers a christological sketch stating explicitly that “the proposition ‘Jesus is Lord’ is the key criterion for the coherence of any truth claim and the pragmatic presupposition for living a missional life” (p. 300). For Bird, the truth of Scripture is anchored, then, in the faithfulness of God to his Word.
While we don’t see conversations from different perspectives as impossible, we do find them to be complex. Thus, we have endeavored to expose the various theological points of departure in a doctrine of inerrancy and have tried to sketch the contours of this debate by tracing various lines of continuity and discontinuity. There are, of course, other lines to trace. For example, the doctrine of God, God’s actions in history, the nature of history, etc. In addition to the conversations generated between participants, we hope these four lines of inquiry we have outlined here begin to provide the kind of situational awareness necessary for a continued, fruitful dialogue. With the right disposition, we trust that new diverse lines of communication will open, enriching evangelical theology, faith, and life.
As we stated at the outset, the doctrine of inerrancy is embedded within the compendium of Christian doctrine. More specifically, inerrancy is part of the doctrine of Scripture and is bound up at the very least with matters such as Scripture’s sufficiency, perspicuity, reliability, and authority. The doctrine of Scripture, being a subset of divine revelation, also wrestles with matters of Scripture’s inspiration, communication, and reception. When considering the subjective aspects of revelation’s reception, the doctrine of salvation, Christ, the Holy Spirit, sin, humanity, and creation are also necessary to consider. In the end, the doctrine of revelation, including the doctrine of inerrancy, is ancillary to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, Christology, and ultimately the triune God. This brief recap of the doctrinal nexus of inerrancy serves to remind us that inerrancy is shaped by a number of prior theological decisions. If lines of communication between various theological sensibilities are to emerge, then honesty about these intricacies should be prevalent.
After reflecting upon the entire project, the proposal we presented to the authors may in fact have been too robust to address in the limited space of this edited volume. Yet one of the chief goals of this project was not for it to be a be-all and end-all resource but rather for it to be a resource that we hope will generate new questions, new conversations that will include diverse voices about what it means to say, “Thy Word is Truth.” With that being said, there are a number of fruitful lines of research not covered or fully developed in this volume that we believe should be considered when discussing the doctrine of inerrancy. What follows, then, is a sampling of the kinds of trajectories and questions that may deepen the discussion.
One of the underlying themes, pervading all the essays and responses, is the nature of history and God’s actions in it, not to mention our subjective appropriation of God’s revelatory acts in history. Eighteenth-century Enlightenment philosopher Gotthold Lessing leveled sharp criticisms against the historicity of Christian revelation, severing “the accidental truths of history” from the “necessary truths of reason,” thereby creating an “ugly, broad ditch” between the so-called Christ of history and the Christ of faith.14 This point is germane because much of the modern, Western church, particularly North American evangelicalism, has spent an inordinate amount of time trying to build a bridge across Lessing’s ditch. But why do we even have to accept Lessing’s premises? The “real distance,” says Karl Barth, is “a problem of distance of quite another kind,” namely between sinful humanity and a holy God.15 Is God’s self-revelation in Christ identical, then, with history? What might it mean to say that Jesus is Lord of history? Perhaps the matter rests not upon a distinction between historical contingency and the necessary truth of reason but rather upon an epistemic and existential one where knowledge of God in and through divine encounter is shaped by being conformed to Christ. We are beginning now to wade into deep theological waters, and longer, more sustained thought is needed to correlate a thicker understanding of history and God’s actions in it with the truth God communicates to us in and through his written Word.
Another matter that deserves further consideration is the relationship between the truth God speaks and the various genres of Scripture. If God’s Word written is utterly true and trustworthy, how do the various genres of Scripture communicate God’s truth? Indeed this question is wrapped up with theological decisions regarding the doctrine of God, divine revelation and its subjective reception, divine inspiration, and the doctrine of Scripture. But there seems to be a linguistic point of which many biblical scholars are keenly aware. What does it mean to say that a poem is true? Is it the same as saying that a biblical narrative is true? What about apocalyptic writings? So when we say that the Bible is true and trustworthy, is our understanding of truth able to capture not only what the Bible says about truth (content) but also the various ways in which the Bible communicates truth in and through its various genres (form)? This seems to be one point where biblical scholars, theologians, and philosophers should be able to work together, exploring the nature and nuances of language and plunging the depths of theology. Moreover, if the truth communicated through various genres of Scripture does so in a variegated manner, what might this mean for biblical authority? It would seem that while Holy Scripture retains its primacy and remains authoritative, it does so with more texture. How, then, might this textured account of truth and biblical authority affect our understanding of inerrancy?
Finally, a subset of the discussion on divine accommodation and God’s relationship to his creation is the matter of the subjective reception of God’s truth. Living in late modernity has brought this matter to the fore through postmodern reading strategies like reader-response theory, where interpreters play with a number of textual signs ad infinitum to construct meaning as they see fit. Despite the fact that such strategies tear at the very fabric of language and meaning, these strategies should alert us to the role that readers do have in receiving God’s objective self-revelation, particularly as it relates to reading Holy Scripture. It seems on one level that readers are able to ascertain a measure of understanding through grammatical-historical interpretation. Yet when readers integrate the knowledge generated from their investigations without a deep existential and moral reordering, it begs the question of who is reading whom. Are readers seeking to master the text or be mastered by it? If readers approach the biblical text, though, with a proper measure of patience, humility, and willingness to listen and learn, readers are positioned to respond to what God is saying and doing in and through the text. How, then, might the doctrine of inerrancy be positioned within the compendium of Christian doctrine to account for the proper reception of God’s truth?
Trevor Hart, in his book Faith Thinking, conceives of Christian theology as “faith thinking in community—the critical reflection which takes place within the community of the church.”16 This project has, in large part, been an exercise in “faith thinking” as we sought to spur a dialogue between various perspectives, albeit limited, on what it means to say that Holy Scripture is trustworthy and true. Engagement with the other, as we indicated in the previous section, necessitates an attentive ear prepared to listen and learn from the other, particularly from every tribe and nation. In doing so, this does not mean we jettison our various perspectives without due consideration but rather set out to persuade others that our perspective has a much better view of reality because it maps its various features and contours better than others. This kind of approach readily confronts us with the very real notion that we just might be persuaded ourselves, serving as a constant reminder to maintain our convictions both with humor and humility. Alas, we never intended, though, to instigate a dialogue simply for dialogue’s sake. Instead, we set up the parameters of the project to foster the mutual enrichment and edification of evangelical faith and life. Most important, the dialogical nature of this project was designed to spur further dialogue, not simply with each other but with the triune God himself, whereby prayer becomes “the original research” of the theologian.17 Hence, it is our prayer that as we engage with each other and with the living God of the Bible (Heb. 4:12) that “prayer [becomes a] dialogue, not man’s monologue before God” in that “the essential thing is for us to hear God’s word and discover from it how to respond to it.”18
1. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, edited by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 117–26.
2. Leslie R. Keylock, “Evangelical Scholars Remove Robert Gundry for His Views on Matthew,” http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/2003/novemberweb-only/11–17–42.0.html; accessed 26 June 2013. Cf. Craig D. Allert, A High View of Scripture? The Authority of the Bible and the Formation of the New Testament Canon (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 165–71.
3. Allert, A High View of Scripture? 169; cf. http://www.etsjets.org/application_landing; accessed 26 June 2013.
4. “Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy,” JETS 21/4 (December 1978): 289.
5. See D. Keith Campbell, “The American Evangelical Academy and the World: A Challenge to Practice more Globally,” JETS 56/2 (June 2013): 337–54, for the need to shift the North American theologian’s perspective from “thinking globally to practicing globally” (340). While including Michael Bird as a perspective outside of North America may not be considered diverse, his inclusion is designed to provoke the question, “What might inerrancy look like if other diverse voices outside of North America who seek to understand what it means to say ‘Thy Word is Truth’ were included?” Moreover, this emphasis should not preclude us from asking the same question within North America.
6. Martin Buber, I and Thou, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 53–85; see also Eugene Thomas Long, Twentieth Century Western Philosophy of Religion 1900–2000 (Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic, 2000), 215–34, for an overview of the principle of dialogue and its influence upon modern theology.
7. Bub er, I and Thou, 87–95.
8. Ibid., 123–28, 148–60.
9. Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, trans. Barbara E. Galli (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005), 188–99.
10. Franz Rosenzweig, The New Thinking, trans. Alan Udoff and Barbara E. Galli (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1999), 56.
11. As we indicated in the introduction, the use of the term existential should not be understood in a way that means the authors are committed to existentialist philosophy. Rather, the term is being used in a less technical sense to capture the way in which Christian teaching penetrates to the deepest core of one’s identity and self-perception.
12. Ferdinand Ebner, Schriften, 3 vols. (Munich, 1963), 2.94.
13. Authors seem to have John Calvin’s notion of divine accommodation in mind. See John Calvin, Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeil and trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 1.17.13, and for a secondary summation of Calvin’s development of divine accommodation, see Ford Lewis Battles, “God Was Accommodating Himself to Human Capacity,” Interpretation 31 (1977): 19–38.
14. Gotthold E. Lessing, “On the Proof of the Spirit and of Power,” in Lessing’s Theological Writings, ed. Henry Chadwick (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1956), 54–55.
15. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV/1, The Doctrine of Reconciliation, trans. G. W. Bromiley, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2010), 290.
16. Trevor Hart, Faith Thinking: The Dynamics of Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: InterVarsity, 1995), 230.
17. Ibid., 229. Hart has P. T. Forsyth in mind: “P. T. Forsyth sums the matter up nicely. Prayer, he informs us, is to the theologian what original research is to the scientist. It is that whereby we put ourselves in touch the reality to be known” (229).
18. Hans Urs von Balthasar, Prayer, trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), 14–15.