On Peter Enns
March 28, 2008 at 10:33 am (Bible)
Many have noted by now that Enns has been suspended from teaching at WTS, effective May 23. My thoughts on the matter are recorded here. Gary Johnson’s post is here. Few have commented, however, on the most recent development. One who has (and with whom I whole-heartedly agree), is Jim Cassidy. Update: see now Scott Clark’s extremely compassionate and measured thoughts. I have little to add to his excellent comments, except to say this. I am by no means dancing in glee, delighted, or in any other way gloating. It is a sad day for Westminster, despite the fact that it was the right decision. I am praying earnestly for Pete that the Lord will sustain him in this time of trial, and that the Lord will lead him to more solid views on Scripture. I echo Jim’s comments on the fact that critics of Pete are not trying to duck the tough questions. Rather, the issue is how we answer these questions.
GLW Johnson said,
March 28, 2008 at 10:56 am
Lane
I echo Jim Cassidy’s sentiments.Pete and I were students in the mid-80’s at WTS. He has many fine qualities-and his views would fit nicely into alot of other seminaries-like Biblical seminary just up the road in Hatfield ( where both Steve Taylor and Sam Logan are now)-that are not like WTS with its confessional identity and roots in the Old Princeton tradition. I personally hope that others who share Enns views at WTS take this as a clear message and seek positions elsewhere.
E.C.Hock said,
March 28, 2008 at 11:58 am
As noted above in the previous post, where its says, “others who share Enns views” there is pending news. From what has been recently conveyed by students at WTS Philly, the word is out that two other WTS professors have in fact prepared their own resignations based upon what finally happens with Enns. Names were mentioned as the most likely men, but I need not enter them here. So it appears there is more to come from this matter.
ReformedSinner (DC) said,
March 28, 2008 at 12:00 pm
I couldn’t say it better than what has been already said by Dr. Clark, Rev. Johnson, Mr. Cassidy, and GreenBaggins. Dr. Enns has opened my eyes to the deep possibilities of Biblical scholarship, and even today I owe many of my own Biblical studies to his guidance while I was a student. Even thought I cannot agree with some of his exegetical viewpoints as I survey other Reformed BT scholars, but as a whole I will always cherish him as a Christian scholar, a friend, and a fellow brother in Christ.
Hopefully it would not come down to the Board having to “terminate” Dr. Enns, but Dr. Enns would leave gracefully and lovingly. I believe this is the best for both Dr. Enns and the Seminary (and for the students.)
thomasgoodwin said,
March 28, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Gary, I didn’t know big Sam was at (post-)biblical Seminary … that is quite a jump, in my opinion. But, having spoken with him in South Africa, I am not at all surprised.
anneivy said,
March 28, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Dr. Clark’s comments were stellar….simply stellar. And applicable to us all in many situations in not only church, but work and even family.
It’s sad how rarely we consider the possibility that the person from whom we’re demanding an explanation or action - and believe me, I’M a huge offender in this regard! - might be saying nothing because he or she cannot in conscience say anything. They’ve put their hand over their mouths, as Scripture puts it.
That which ought to be the possibility that occurs to us first, occurs to us last, assuming it occurs at all.
Excellent comments. Thanks for pointing me to them, Lane.
And I’m praying for all concerned at WTS/P.
Tim Harris said,
March 28, 2008 at 2:54 pm
A concern I have in all this is that the Board seems to have hung everything on “the book.” The effect will simply be to scare professors of a certain viewpoint from expressing their views in print.
greenbaggins said,
March 28, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Tim, the book is the problem. And, if by “certain viewpoint,” you mean someone who is not confessional, then he shouldn’t be at the school.
CP said,
March 28, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Tim I can understand that you might think that everything was hung on ‘the book’ but it is my understanding that there were over 100 pages of material submitted to the Board by the President. There have also been many many papers produced by the Faculty on both sides of the issue.
greenbaggins said,
March 28, 2008 at 3:18 pm
CP, thanks for your comment. Who are you? Your comment reminds me of Scott Clark’s remarks about students being much too quick to rush to judgment on one side or the other without having access to all the facts. I know that there is at least one 200 page document floating around.
Tim Harris said,
March 28, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Well, I based my remark on the communique published by the Board as given by Jim Cassidy at the link in the post above; which says, in part,
“Thank you very much for your prayers for the special meeting of the Board of Trustees that was held on March 26 to address the disunity of the faculty regarding the theological issues related to Dr. Peter Enns’ book, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. After a full day of deliberation, the Board of Trustees took the following action by decisive vote…”
GreenBaggins (#7) — I disagree that the book is “the problem” if by that you mean that if the book didn’t exist there would be no problem. The same content of the book has been taught to wave after wave of students for many years. Conversely, non-confessional teachers that don’t write books on the subject tend to fly under the radar.
greenbaggins said,
March 28, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Tim, it is only fair for the board to phrase itself in a way that indicates the main spark of the controversy, which everyone agrees is the book. However, as many have pointed out by now, the book is not the only basis of evidence on which the board has made its decision. If the board had mentioned such evidence, then it would be awkward, since that evidence is probably not going (or supposed!) to see the light of day.
Scott Jorgenson said,
March 28, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Having read Enns’ book, I would say the problem he and others like him perceive (myself included) isn’t really that their critics have been ducking the issues. He may occasionally seem to characterize it in that way in his book, but I think he would agree that’s not really what he means.
Its that the classical, inerrantist, answers their critics have offered for those issues are, in our view, bogus. There is a portion of the Christian community, Reformed and otherwise, which cannot find those rationalizations convincing. Again, myself included. For us, Enns’ book is very welcome. And the idea that he and fellow teachers would be “housecleaned” for it is very sad. At least at first.
But upon further reflection, if the hardline Reformed tradition cannot make room for softer views on the nature of scripture like Enns’ then I agree it is best for him and others like him to leave. They may just find the freedom of a broader view refreshing.
Andrew Webb said,
March 28, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Thanks Scott for making what I think was possibly the most helpful comment yet in this dialogue. No matter how we spin it, this is once again simply the confrontation between the broad and the narrow, the liberal and the conservative, the puritan and the latitudinarian. Kudos for calling it like it is.
Nothing new here.
David Gadbois said,
March 28, 2008 at 6:52 pm
I think I’d find orthodox teaching to be refreshing at this point.
And, please, I’ve heard enough about those teachers poisoning the flock and leading seminarians astray being “nice” or being a “gentleman.” Guh.
reformedmusings said,
March 29, 2008 at 11:08 am
Scott, RE #12,
Softer view of Scripture? I don’t see Jesus, the apostles, gospel writers, or Paul having a “softer view on the nature of Scripture.” They freely quote Scripture, even from the cross in Jesus’ case, taking it to be inerrant in every case, even to the point of the singular “seed” in Paul’s case. Are the answers they offered bugus?
Of course, here are ample Scriptural examples of those who had a “softer view of the nature of Scripture.” Saul, Ahab, Jezebel, the 400 prophets of Baal, Herod, Judas, etc., etc. I don’t find their direction or example worthy of emulation. However, they did find the freedom of a broader view refreshing…for a time.
So I guess the real question is, where do you draw the line and who gets to decide? Enns? You? NT Wright? A tiny group of Federal Visionists? Or the collective wisdom of the Reformed fathers and Westminster Divines who didn’t draw the line but recognized and accepted the line that God has drawn.
Joel St. Clair said,
March 29, 2008 at 3:12 pm
I found the R. Scott Clark link very helpful.
Re: 15
Is that type of grandiloquent post accurate or helpful? It reads something like: join the Reformed fathers and be like Jesus, anything “softer” [left undefined - but I guess short of a modern inerrantist view] and be like Judas.
J.R. Polk said,
March 29, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Re: 16
I think Bob’s post was right on target. In light of threads like this one and those on the Federal Vision, I think he asked an extremely important question; “Where do you draw the line?” When various “pioneers” who at one time signed on to uphold and defend the Westminter Standards begin to chip away at them in order to make room for their own peculiar views, you set up a situation envisioned by the title of a popular blog — creed or chaos.
This past week I sat before the session on which I served and put my money where my mouth is. Their loose view of certain aspects of our standards caused me to always be the odd man out and very frustated to boot — so I resigned. Men like Dr. Enns are “free” to do what they want — somewhere else. I choose creed over chaos.
Joel St. Clair said,
March 29, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Re: 17
I will pray for your transition and respect your courage. I agree with your post and found nothing objectionable. My previous post was directed toward the fashion in which the line is drawn - not whether a line needed to be drawn in Enns’ case.
But I disagree that the line drawn between WTS/Enns is analagous to a line separating Jesus/Judas; Paul/400 prophets of Baal; [Peter]/Herod; [John]/Jezebel.
E.C. Hock said,
March 29, 2008 at 4:30 pm
RE: reformed (#15) says, Where do we draw the line? Well, if we hold to Scripture’s perspecuity, 2 Timothy 3:16-17 draws the line for us. Luke 24:25-27, 44-45 draws the line for us, as do a host of other passages.
How are these passages represented in a “softer view,” I cannot say precisely. I am not sure what Scott means when he speaks of a “softer view of Scripture”, or what Enns’ may mean by this language. Maybe it means how authority is conveyed through humanity opposed to the nature of authority itself. Perhaps “softer” pertains to the question of truth clothed in the weakness of the incarnation, or how scriptural authority might be defined (or re-defined) in an incarnational sense (i.e., not the Word over flesh, but the Word as flesh). In another way, when Paul conveys his apostolic authority (in preaching and writing) as “my power made perfect through weakness” (2 Cor. 12), was he reflecting in his canonical office what scripture reflects in its canonical authority? Is that the role of humanity with Divinity? I do not presume. As I read Bromiley’s take on Barth. I wonder if these are the kind of dynamics Barth was working with, though more radicalized, when he saw inspiration and biblical history through the incarnation.
But aside from that, as we see differences arise in Enns’ view, let’s be careful not to impugn him (and them) with damning categories and mud-slinging anti-scripture rhetoric like “bogus”, “Jezebel”, “Judas”, and the like, as if we are talking about one acting out of deceit and wickedness to undermine WTS. A church can have heretical elements within its domain yet still remain a true church. So too, a seminary more or less. though one ought not to sanction it, but assess it, when discerned. But there is no place for uncharitable words, however one may envision or imagine some slippery slope. I do not think that is how the review Board at WTS is approaching their assessment, so neither should we.
Scott said,
March 29, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Mr Polk,
Sorry to hear about the circumstances leading to your resignation.
Please remember, your office is perpetual.
Those who serve well are worthy of double honor (1 Timothy 5:17).
We need you.
God’s richest blessing upon you and thank you for all you have done.
Kent Sparks said,
March 29, 2008 at 11:50 pm
In his Genesis commentary, Calvin clearly said that the cosmology of Genesis was not correct; it presented the cosmos “as the unlearned perceive it to be.” “There’s no water above the heavens,” he said, “and we all know it.” Why the error? God–the inerrant God–accommodated the errant views of human beings. This isn’t the only place where Calvin (or many church fathers) saw this pattern at work in Scripture.
WTS will do what it will do. But for my own part, and in the opinion of many others, the present course of events is an intellectual disaster. There are thousands of problems and contradictions in the Bible. Everyone who’s not an evangelical can see that, and many evangelicals see it as well. Judas may have hung himself before the priests bought the field of blood, or Judas may have fallen headling in the “field of blood” that he bought for himself. But it’s plain silly to say that both are true. Grow up.
If the Westminster Confession doesn’t allow for the genuine diversity in Scripture, then it’s wrong … and while building a seminary around it is possible, it would be a big mistake. On the other hand, I’d say that Calvin ought to be allowed to teach at Westminster. And if that’s right, then the Westminster Confession would allow for accommodated errors in the Bible.
But wait … that would mean that Peter Enns can stay too.
And then there’s the all important question: How can the WTS board judge that Enns’s views are outside of the doctrinal boundaries when a clear majority of the theologically trained Presbyterian faculty believe that he’s in? You must have one confused faculty? Or a very confused board? Which is it?
Paul Seely said,
March 30, 2008 at 4:06 am
Jim Cassidy seems to be unaware of how many hard questions Old Princeton/Westminster has not answered. The three questions I posed in response to Gary Johnson’s post (#123 and ff.) are just a tiny sample. Here is another sample. Davis Young, E.J. Young’s son, a trained geologist, sat down a few years ago with Meredith Kline and sincerely asked him how the story of Adam, who is culturally Neolithic, could be harmonized with the scientific evidence that genuine humans existed tens of thousands of years before the Neolithic period (see http://www.asa3.org/aSA/resources/CSRYoung.html). Kline literally had no answer whatsoever.
In order to make the doctrine of a scientifically inerrant Bible stand up, Old Princeton/Westminster have given us such answers as the Framework hypothesis, day-age concordism, and the local Flood. But, are these the real meanings of the biblical text or creative impositions upon the text ? Or if the stories are real history, how can we believe against all of the scientific evidence the world was created in the space of six days or that a Flood less than 10,000 years ago destroyed all but eight humans?
Enns may not have all the right answers, but WTS is in deep need of his absolute honesty. Without him (and the others who may resign) who will answer the hard questions? Who will even ask them?
David Gray said,
March 30, 2008 at 5:54 am
>Or if the stories are real history, how can we believe against all of the scientific evidence the world was created in the space of six days or that a Flood less than 10,000 years ago destroyed all but eight humans?
We believe the eye witness account rather than somebody’s best guess based on limited circumstantial evidence?
Darryl Hart said,
March 30, 2008 at 7:47 am
Paul Seely, without Enns, Calvin, Warfield, and other important voices in the Reformed tradition will ask the questions. The trouble is whether people will read, let alone try to understand, their answers. Believe it or not, Calvin and Old Princeton were pretty careful not to equate inerrancy with a scientific understanding of the cosmos. That is why Calvin developed the idea of accommodation, and why Warfield appealed to concursus. (It is also why Warfield, right or wrong, believed he was along with Calvin an evolutionist.) Both accommodation and concursus stemmed from an effort to do what Enns does — account for the messiness (his word) of Scripture. Unfortunatly, Enns doesn’t deal much with accommodation or with concursus. In fact, his book is fairly light on the Reformed doctrine of Scripture and does not interact with WCF ch. 1, one of the best statements on Scripture from the era of Reformed scholasticism. It seems to me that Enns was reacting against the straw man of a Harold Lindsell version of inerrancy, one that lacked the nuance of Old Princeton or the Westminster Divines. (Enns needs more theology and less biblical scholarship.)
So I become annoyed with Enns’ supporters claiming all the honesty is on his side when in fact there is some denial of the riches of the Reformed doctrine of Scripture.
At the same time, what is also missed by Enns’ supporters is his obligation as a seminary professor training pastor to give answers, not simply to raise questions. In fact, Enns regards the theological enterprise as one that is always asking, never answering. It is a conversation. It is provisional. It listens in a Rodney King like way, saying “can’t we all get along?” According to Enns, “Because our theologies are necessarily limited and provisional, the church today must be open to listening to how Christians from other cultures read Scripture and live it out in their daily lives. . . . To put is more positively, the Bible sets trajectories, not rules, for a good many issues that confront the church. . . . There do not seem to be any clear rules or guidelines to prevent us from taking this process too far. But again, this is why the metaphor of journey or pilgrimage is so appealing. . . . We should continue the journey, . . . not because we are sure of our own footing, but because we have faith in God who placed us on this journey to begin with.” (169, 170, 171)
Much deeper than the doctrine of Scriputre in Enns’ book is the issue of theology, creeds and confessions more generally. Enns may not realize it, but his language of provisionality, conversation, and situatedness is very similar to the arguments made by signers of the Auburn Affirmation (1923) against the Princeton doctrine of inerrancy. What the Auburn Affirmation did was essentially to deny a confessional basis for the Presbyterian Church. I see a similar move in Enns. We can’t be content with WCF because nothing is final, everything is provisional, and that creed was so yesterday (it was part of the journey 400 years ago). But again, Enns may not understand the similarities between his views and that of liberal Presbyterians because of a lack of awarness of the history of Reformed Protestantism. (Enns needs to read more history and less biblical scholarship.)
In any case, aside from Enns’ doctrine of Scripture (more accurately, questions about Scripture), Enns’ doctrine of doctrine is even more troubling. If it is honest for Enns to raise questions about inerrancy, it is also honest to raise questions Enns’ theology.
GLW Johnson said,
March 30, 2008 at 8:18 am
Hart has struck a nerve. It is distressing to me to see the doctrine of inerrancy as formulated by Warfield dump unceremoniously overboard with the views of other zealous proponents of inerrancy-like Lindsell and Norman Giesler. Even more troubling is that the present crisis over inerrancy in the Evangelical world is being lead by those in the Reformed camp who are linked with Westminster. Darryl-I must demur however with your labelling BBW a ‘evolutionist’ he never once referred to himself as one and given his strong insistance on the actual historicity of Adam and the Fall-it is impossible to fit him into any form of ‘Darwinian evolution’.
peter enns, westminster seminary, and graffiti « finitum non capax infiniti said,
March 30, 2008 at 12:45 pm
[...] are a few things that must be clarified regarding the situation. Some blogs have overstated the actual facts of the situation. Clarity and truth must be valued during all [...]
RBerman said,
March 30, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Paul Seely, thank you for showing us, with your link to Young’s work, what happens under liberal premeses. First, Genesis 1-2 gets tossed. Then Genesis 3. Then Genesis 4. Before long, he’s up through Genesis 11. Davis (and, I assume you as well) accepts the prevailing secular interpretations of carbon dating, mitochondrial DNA, and paleoanthropology as true, then finds them irreconcilable with Scripture, and then declares science the winner of the “true history” label and Scripture the loser. He concludes that Adam and Eve were not the first humans, but simply representatives chosen by God from the many humans alive 10,000 years ago. He then recognizes that the doctrine of original sin, as normally understood, cannot survive this conclusion.
Haven’t we been this way before? Have we learned nothing from the mistakes of the mainline churches 100 years ago, and what’s been happening in the CRC for the last 20-30 years?
Tim Harris said,
March 30, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Kent Sparks (#21) I must challenge your assertion that “Calvin clearly said that the cosmology of Genesis was not correct.” On the contrary, he denies that water in outer space (as we would say today) is what Gen 1 is talking about. Thus, it is not “the cosmology of Genesis” according to Calvin. And the expression “as the unlearned perceive it to be” is what we call “phenomenal language.”
Calvin concludes that the waters above the firmament refers to the clouds. Those that have the Baker 22 vol set can find this in Vol 1, p. 80, around the middle third of the page.
Scott Jorgenson said,
March 30, 2008 at 2:30 pm
If anyone is going to take scripture wholly inerrantly, he needs to be consistent and believe there is a sea above the dome of the sky and another one underneath the land - that these seas have existed since the second day of creation, and that they continue to exist to this day and beyond, as scripture alludes to repeatedly (Gen 2:6-7, Gen 7:11, Ps 148:4-6, etc). For those of us who cannot go so far, and for whom classically conservative inerrantist answers to such issues do not work, the work of Enns and people like him is most helpful.
Please recognize, those of you who are concerned about how their work might undermine the faith of others, that there are those of us whose faith is built-up by that same work. For example, if I thought I had to believe that Judas hung himself from a tree which conveniently overdangled a cliff, the rope then snapping, thus “reconciling” his death accounts in Matthew and Acts (though not really, since this rationalization now means that by leaving out germane facts both Matthew and Acts got it wrong - besides which it fails to address the accounts of how the field was acquired and named) - well if I had to believe that, my faith would be sorely tested. This is not merely hypothetical - just read the testimony of Bart Ehrman and people like him.
Romans 14 would seem to suggest to you that we “weaker brothers” be permitted Enns and people like him even though you may not need them. (And likewise Romans 14 when read in the inverse direction would advise us to tolerate you - but it is not Enns driving out the seminary’s leadership here, is it.)
J.R. Polk said,
March 30, 2008 at 2:36 pm
# 21 Kent Sparks
Judas may have hung himself before the priests bought the field of blood, or Judas may have fallen headling in the “field of blood” that he bought for himself. But it’s plain silly to say that both are true. Grow up.
This is a wonderful example of what “plain silly” truly is. There’s nothing really all that difficult to reconcile between Matthew and Acts on Judas unless you have such a heavy axe to grind that reconciliation is simply not permitted in your world.
Notice how the following explanation is entirely plausible and doesn’t require one to lament over, and subscribe to, the “Scripture is messy theory,” concluding that everyone just got it wrong up until now.
Kistemaker and Hendriksen on Acts 1:18
Bret McAtee said,
March 30, 2008 at 3:58 pm
OK… let’s play,
“Scripture has errors”
First contestant is S. Jorgenson
Scott hails from Waverly, Colorado where he drives truck for a Miller Lite Beer Distributor. He has been married for 13 years and his children, Sonny, and Lucy attend The Righteous Heart Parochial school.
Now, Scott, your first big question on
“Scripture Has Errors”
Is,
If Scripture Has Errors, who gets to determine what God really said from what God didn’t really say?
Remember, Scott the answer, ‘it’s self-evident’ is not allowed.
Scott Jorgenson said,
March 30, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Interesting. Regarding the Kistemaker and Hendriksen rationalization regarding Judas’ death and the field, this is exactly the sort of thing that doesn’t work for me.
First, the harmonization as a whole appears nowhere in scripture; rather it is a unification of two parts each of which evinces no knowledge of the other or the postulated whole. Now, given two errant accounts, one of which says A and the other of which says B, it is almost always possible to postulate A+B and think one has defended the idea they are inerrant. Present me with two secular historians contradicting one another on some matter, for example, and I will happily be able to harmonize them even if we know from other sources that at least one of them is simply wrong.
Such harmonization is just an exercise in creative exposition and proves nothing. It doesn’t even really defend inerrancy in that it renders at least one account, and often both, incomplete in germane facts, and thus misleading and incorrect. Acts suggests Judas died by a fall after purchasing the field for himself; if we didn’t have the Matthew account, no one would think otherwise, because it is the plain meaning of the text in Acts. Even if the harmonization is correct, by missing the larger picture about the events surrounding Judas’ death I don’t see how Acts can be considered inerrant in this.
For example, if I were to write simply that John F Kennedy died while in surgery, and say nothing more on the matter, I would be errant. Why? Simply because (while technically true) such a statement leaves out the more germane fact of the shooting, while letting stand alone the less germane fact of the the attempted surgery, thus magnifying it and consequently giving a basic and fundamental misimpression about JFK’s death. To take up Kistemaker’s and Hendriksen’s analogy, if two news reporters came away with the accounts of Matthew and Acts, we would be justified in calling at least one of them simply wrong, even if the harmonization is true.
Not to mention that the explanation of the purchase of the field which Kistemaker and Hendriksen give falls flat with me. If I give $500 to a ministry for feeding the poor, and they spend it on a big-screen TV, can it inerrantly be said that I bought a big-screen TV? Kistemaker and Hendriksen would seem to think so: after all, I gave the money, and the ministry took that money which was mine and used it on the TV even though that was not my intent. Or if I am robbed of $500 and the thief uses it to by drugs, can it be said that I bought $500 of drugs? Kistemaker and Hendriksen would seem to think so: after all, it was not the thief’s money, but mine that was used for the purchase. I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that again, if we admit this kind of reasoning in defense of inerrancy, then all sorts of known-errant texts can be justified as inerrant. Believe me, the Mormons do it all the time.
It makes more sense to me to simply allow each text to stand on its own, and look for what the tension between them might tell us about the nature of scripture, rather than explain it away in ways that end up making each account incomplete and incorrect. I’m glad Enns has done this.
Darryl Hart said,
March 30, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Gary: Warfield did say that at one point in his life he was an “evolutionist of the purest water” (quoted in Warfield, Evolution, Science and Scripture, eds., Noll and Livingstone). Don’t you see how brilliant this is? It shows that a doctrine of inerrancy built on the Westminster Standards is much more accommodating, flexible and attuned to the messiness of Scripture than either Lindsell or Enns allows. You can still believe the Bible is inerrant and do justice to its humanity.
E.C. Hock said,
March 30, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Scott, I think you just gave us (above) an example of what you meant earlier by a “softer view of the nature of scripture,” yes? That is, let tensions between passages remain as presented and not revert to creative reconstructions that harmonize, but cannot claim the mantle of inerrancy since they are of human design. Thus, the classical doctrine of inerrancy cannot be said to be consistent throughout the entire text, nor can it avoid the claim of having been patched together by harmonizations. Yet, given our ignorance of precise happenings, rather than deny inerrancy altogether, we adopt a softer view of inerrancy. Is this getting close to what you mean?
J.R. Polk said,
March 30, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Scott J. # 30
Interesting. Regarding the Kistemaker and Hendriksen rationalization regarding Judas’ death and the field, this is exactly the sort of thing that doesn’t work for me.
What’s even more interesting Scott, is your very own long, twisting and turning rationalization of the impossibility of Bible reconciliation and harmonization. It’s like the pot calling the kettle black — don’t ya think?
Honestly, what you’ve presented doesn’t work for me because it goes to such great and unbelievable lengths, falling all over itself, to destroy a very easily understood and altogether plausible harmonization. The mental gymnastics required to believe your explanation is astounding.
Hmmm . . . so tell me again why we should be happy about men like you teaching in our seminaries?
E.C. Hock said,
March 30, 2008 at 5:11 pm
J.R. #33 = Be careful about the need to distinquish statements so as to avoid misconceptions. especially on a blog format. Let us not begrudge Scott’s attempt to make sense of his argument, to explain and nuance intricate portions of text by examples and logic to highlight his point (though we disagree). Some harmonizations I have read by inerrantists in the past, out of the fundamentalist school, frankly do as much “twisting and turning rationalization” as any to reach their conclusions. Given the nature of this discussion, distinctions and clarifications by various analogies need to be made to grasp what each are saying. Otherwise, we start to talk past each other and resort to banner waving. Let’s take the time to respect what others are saying. even when they disagree with our position. So, Scott, if this is what Enns is getting at, by the examples you state above (#30), then that helps me discern more where the arguments and assessments of him reside.
J.R. Polk said,
March 30, 2008 at 5:28 pm
E.C. Hock #34
You may play footsie with Scott J. if you so desire, but I know all too well what his mindset is all about and I reserve the right to call a spade a spade. I doubt that we are talking past each other in the least. There’s nothing new under the sun E.C.
J.R. Polk said,
March 30, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Scott #20 & Joel #18
Thanks for the kind words guys. Much appreciated.
Scott Jorgenson said,
March 30, 2008 at 6:57 pm
EC, yes, if by inerrancy we mean a high regard for scripture as generally trustworthy and primary (certainly a “softer” definition of inerrancy than many would have it), I see no reason to deny it. However modern theologically (very) conservative Protestants, from those in the SBC (famously) to those in the OPC and PCA, have stamped their definition of it pretty well into history, and so I’m not sure that redefining the term has much promise. I feel better off without it, adopting other terms instead, such as those I just used.
JR, if your combative reception is any indication of what Enns faces, he may well be better off just leaving as I first said. Unwanted guests do best to leave. You seem to have a lot of anger about this kind of liberal slippery-slopism so-called, though in fact we simply disagree. But I understand that tolerance of disagreement is not something that very conservative Protestants can very often handle.
Best regards to all of you.
Jason J. Stellman said,
March 30, 2008 at 7:13 pm
I, for one, am hoping someone here steps up and answers Scott’s argument. Though there isn’t anything “soft” about my view of Scripture (I hope), I did feel that JR’s response (#33) was more dismissive than it was helpful.
Towne said,
March 30, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Mr. Jorgenson (#37)
If you are still with us, may I conclude from a quick scan of your small body
of Amazon reviews, that you are a universalist? For example, you said:
“Those conservatives who could most benefit from seeing the utter majesty and glory of God’s grace, which only universalism underscores,…”
Tim Harris said,
March 30, 2008 at 8:10 pm
I would define inerrancy as follows:
1. The Bible says “P” (i.e. some sentence or passage in human language)
2. “P” says P (P is the intended assertoric meaning of “P”
3. Therefore P (i.e. P is true)
If what is contended is step 2, i.e. the hermeneutical question of determining the meaning, that is one thing. If it is (3), then it is no longer Christian.
As such, inerrancy of the Word of God is an inescapable concept. If God could say “P” and P not be true, then there is no truth at all anywhere.
Jeff Waddington said,
March 30, 2008 at 8:47 pm
I would be curious to know how a God who would speak through an errant word could be considered truthful or trustworthy?
There is a defective doctrine of God lurking behind the defective doctrine of Scripture evidenced by Enns.
Kent Sparks said,
March 30, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Hi Tim:
In response to your post #27:
If I’ve understood you, correctly then I think you’re saying something like this: (1) Calvin was telling us that the Genesis cosmology was not a “water above the heavens” cosmology, and (2) that the “water above the heavens” cosmology was merely perceptual/phenomenological language, which didn’t actually indicate anything about an ancient belief that there was water in the heavens.
Is this what you’re saying?
Tim Harris said,
March 30, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Kent (#42). Right. And (3) the perceptual language (re the firmament separating the waters above and below) references the clouds, and thus (4) this Day 2 narration posits acts and objects, like all the others in Gen 1, that have definite physical referents that can be known and are true.
“We see that the clouds suspended in the air, which threaten to fall upon our heads, yet leave us space to breathe. They who deny that this is effected by the wonderful providence of God, are vainly inflated with the folly of their own minds. We know, indeed, that the rain is naturally produced; but the deluge sufficiently shows how speedily we might be overwhelmed by the bursting of the clouds, unless the cataracts of heaven were closed by the hand of God.” (p. 80, Baker edition).
Kent Sparks said,
March 30, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Thanks, Tim:
OK, I do understand you. But I also think that you’ve misunderstand Calvin. In my opinion, Calvin definitely thinks that (1) the ancient peoples perceived and believed that there were waters above the heavnes, and that (2) there were/are no such waters. They were wrong. This appears to be an error on God’s (and Moses’s) part, but it isn’t. This is because God (says Calvin) has accommodated the false views of the audience in his discourse.
Calvin does make a perceptual argument, but not in the way that you take it. You seem to be saying something like, “When we say that the sun is rising, that’s perceptual language and not an actual claim about the cosmos.” Now you’d be right about that for the perception of modern people who know that the earth is turning on its axis, but when ancient peoples said, “The sun is rising,” they not only perceived it but also believed it. They had the relative motion right, but misunderstand its nature. Calvin is making the same claim for the ancient regarding “the waters above.” They perceived them, but were wrong about it.
The whole point of accommodation is to explain why there are errant views in the Bible of an inerrant God. If you don’t belive such errors exist, then you don’t need accommodation. You simply say: “Everything in the text is exactly right.” But Calvin knew better and so tried to provide an explanation.
Jeff Waddington said,
March 30, 2008 at 10:15 pm
How do you know if God is inerrant if the Bible he inspired is errant?
pduggie said,
March 30, 2008 at 10:20 pm
“For example, if I were to write simply that John F Kennedy died while in surgery, and say nothing more on the matter, I would be errant. Why? Simply because (while technically true) such a statement leaves out the more germane fact of the shooting, while letting stand alone the less germane fact of the the attempted surgery, thus magnifying it and consequently giving a basic and fundamental misimpression about JFK’s death.”
Not so
You’re ignoring audience. Maybe you’re addressing some surgeons who think they can save everyone with their expertise, and the death in the surgery is the salient point.
You’re ignoring milieu too, where Luke may very well expect that many people already know the Matthew text, and his additions are to be understood in a complementary fashion, intentionally.
Kent Sparks said,
March 30, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Hi Jeff,
Let’s not lose sight of my first point: Calvin believed that God accommodates human error in Scripture. So, if the question you raise is a problem for my views, then its also a problem for Calvin.
But, that said, I’d point out that one doesn’t need inerrancy to acquire knowledge. We get knowledge from lots of books that are not inerrant. So, even if the Bible reflects influences of accommodated human error, that doesn’t mean it fails to communicate to us. We communicate quite adequately with each other all of the time through errant discourses.
Also, even if I were to give up my Christianity, I think I’d still judge that there’s one God and that he’s good and without error. The Bible has been around for only a small part of history, and even today is virtually unknown to much of humanity. If God’s left them without written confirmation of his inerrancy, then why should we demand that he provide it to us? In other words, I don’t need a written word from God to confirm his inerrancy in order to believe that he’s inerrant.
Kent Sparks said,
March 30, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Dear pduggie:
I think that things are more complicated than in your example. Read the accounts of Judas’s death in Matt and Acts. Did Judas die by hanging himself (Matt), or did he die in a terrible fall (Acts)? Did the priests buy the “field of blood (Matt), or did Judas buy it (Acts)? Was the field named because it was bought with blood money (Matt), or because Judas died in it (Acts)? Sure, I can concoct all sorts of scenaios that harmonize these two stories, but they will look and feel very … well … concocted. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind a concocted solution if this were the only problem in the Bible. But it isn’t. There are hundreds of them, and all of them equally obvious contradictions.
But let me be clear on one point: Calvin would never say that there are hundreds of human errors in Scripture. So far as I know, he only admitted a few. But his approach to those problems is in my view helpful for the many other problems that we face in Scripture.
Bret McAtee said,
March 30, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Hence, the Bible, being an errant book, is just like lots of other books that likewise are not errant. God can reveal Himself through any channel. We would still uniquely prize scripture because it is in Scripture we can encounter God?
Second, the Bible is to us, what our conversation with each other is to us — that is a quite adequate means of communication filled with errant discourse.
It is our responsibility to separate the errant discourse from the inerrant discourse — separating what God really said from what He really said but didn’t really mean since He was just accommodating human error. And this all the while realizing that our separating the errant from the inerrant is provisional and is only as good until somebody else who resides in a different cultural situated-ness decides to separate differently then we do.
That’s funny because if I gave up my Christianity I think I’d judge that if there was a god he must be the devil. I also think I’d be a Nietzsche disciple and so wouldn’t worry to much about objective categories of good or inerrant. I’d be to busy making it up as I go.
I guess I’m to old to appreciate you hard po-mo guys.
Scott Jorgenson said,
March 30, 2008 at 11:36 pm
I had been intending to leave it at that, but have been feeling obligated to answer questions and comments put to me for at least a while longer.
To pduggie:
“You’re ignoring audience. Maybe you’re addressing some surgeons who think they can save everyone with their expertise, and the death in the surgery is the salient point.”
“Errant” does not mean “worthless, of no value for teaching.” Its not that black and white, in my view. To the audience of surgeons needing to hear that sometimes people do die in surgery, the statement that JFK died in surgery, with no further background or elaboration, is useful and true teaching. But that does not make its plain and obvious implication, that JFK’s death did not have anything else more remarkable about it, any less errant. To Jeff Waddington’s point, this is a good example of how something true and useful, from an intentionalist standpoint, can come from something not strictly true in a correspondence sense.
“You’re ignoring milieu too, where Luke may very well expect that many people already know the Matthew text, and his additions are to be understood in a complementary fashion, intentionally.”
Most scholars agree that Matthew and Luke/Acts are more-or-less contemporary in their authorship, but addressed to different communities (Jewish believers on the one hand, Gentile believers on the other). It seems fairly speculative to me to think that new Gentile believers would already know the Jewish Christian tradition to such a degree that Luke could assume it, without even mentioning it, when telling something so apparently different.
To (Mr?) Towne:
“If you are still with us, may I conclude from a quick scan of your small body
of Amazon reviews, that you are a universalist?”
I do believe Christian universalism (not religious pluralism, but that all are eventually saved through Jesus) is a live biblical option. However it is under-determined by the biblical data (though I do hope it to be true because of what it seems to me to mean about the glory and grace of God). Please note that it is my high regard for scripture that leads me to consider it a possibility; I don’t think exclusivist interpretations of scripture’s universalist passages work very well. Even if I subscribed fully to the modernist doctrine of biblical inerrancy, I don’t think my thoughts on universal salvation would be any different.
ReformedSinner (DC) said,
March 31, 2008 at 2:02 am
Interesting Mr. Sparks. While grammatically I guess you can argue that Calvin argues that the ancients were errant in their worldview, and Calvin needs to provide the right explanation (clouds, rain) to fix it to make it more scientifically sensible.
However, it seems incredible to me that you give absolutely no credit to Moses and his worldview (or common sense). Remember, Genesis 1 wasn’t written at the time of Genesis 1, it was written way later at the time of Moses (and presumbly the sky above Moses has no water.) When Moses penned down the Creation account do you not think a lightbulb pop in his head about the waters in the sky? Then he looked up in the sky and see only clouds and blue color “sky?” The question is what prompts him to term Genesis the way he did, when he could of been asking the exact same question Calvin asks in the 16th century.
Possible solutions:
1) Moses is that dumb and all ancients were that dumb. I hope nobody here believes this (incredible how this point is so easily refuted in common English, but when you argue this point in academia language with 500+ pages and 20 pages of bibliography it is taken seriously by other “learned”.)
2) Moses was “verbally inspired” by God to term it the way he did. Well, then we have a problem. It seems like it is not the ancients with an errant worldview here but God purposely injected an errant worldview into the ancients, when the ancients could easily look up in the sky and realize there are no waters.
3) The “Framework View” answer (or others with similar arguments on “literary genre”
4) There really were waters in the sky when God provided the vision of Creation for Moses to write down. This one might seem like it’s very refutable (just look up in the sky), but the more I think about this the more I take this seriously. It’s like what Sherlock Holmes says: when you disgarded all the more logical answers as impossible, the last answer left, however improbable, must be the truth. We don’t know how the world has evolved in the spans of thousands of years (if not more, depending on your Creation view), and trust me when I say scientifically it is possible for water to exist in the sky.
My point is the problem of “water in the sky” is not a modern problem, it is just a big problem for Moses, but clearly Moses did not see it as a problem and still recorded it the way he did. We must ask why before we dismissed it as “another pre-scientific errant worldview by the ancients”, Moses knows better.
Jeff Waddington said,
March 31, 2008 at 5:33 am
What is the criteria or standard used to separate the erroneous from the true in Scripture?
its.reed said,
March 31, 2008 at 6:03 am
Scott Jorgenson:
I’m curious if you might tell me your current denominational home, background, etc. I’m not asking to set you for any barbs. Rather, I truly am curious as to how you got where you are in your convictions. Some sense of your background would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Reed DePace
Minister, PCA
Kent Sparks said,
March 31, 2008 at 6:50 am
Dear Reformed Sinner:
Again, let’s not lose sight of my initial point. You seem to admit that Calvin allowed for the accommodation of human error in Scripture, but then quickly propose a list of other solutions that deny any error. Notice, then, how you find it important to distance yourself from Calvin’s views. This is similar to what’s going on with Enns … he’s heading down Calvin’s path, while Lillback and the board are trying to get back to modern fundamentalism. Calvin was very radical in his day … I find it interesting that, so far as I can tell, his views don’t seem to fit the Westminster Confession as the WTS admin is interpreting it.
As for your proposals to resolve the apparent error in Gen 1, I’m not in that game anymore. There are enough problems in my opinion to warrant putting FI (fundamentalist inerrancy) behind us while reappropriating the valuable insights of TI (traditional inerrancy, of Calvin and the fathers).
By the way, it wasn’t dumb for the ancients to think that there was water above the heavens. But it is dumb if we think it. We must respect the intellectual context of all human beings, and should not treat it as blameworthy when erring human judgments were based on less complete information. On the other hand, we should admit that they err.
Believe it or not, it’s not a sin for human to err.
Kent Sparks said,
March 31, 2008 at 6:58 am
Hi Jeff:
“What is the criteria or standard used to separate the erroneous from the true in Scripture?”
You already have the answer to this question. You already know how to read something and to make judgments about where it speaks rightly and where it reflects some manner of error.
To go back to the Calvin examples, he understood that Genesis was right about God creating the cosmos but that, in describing this, God accommodated errant human viewpoints on cosmology. How did he notice the error? Because he lived in a day when scholars had already deduced that there were no waters above the heavens. Not that complicated, is it?
Jeff Waddington said,
March 31, 2008 at 7:00 am
Not a sin to err? Really?
Tim Harris said,
March 31, 2008 at 7:16 am
Kent — there’s simply no evidence from his text that Calvin believed the ancients were in error about their view. He makes no reference to the ancients’ cosmological view (whether the Hebrews or others) at all in this pericope.
His argument is a purely textual one. It could be laid out like this.
1. The text appears to say that there is continuous water above and below.
2. But we know this is not the case. We learn astronomy from astronomers.
3. Therefore, the apparent meaning of the text must not be its actual meaning.
4. Instead, it means the force that holds the clouds up.
If anything, this passage is strong evidence that Calvin did not believe that God accommodated himself to human error. When a passage appears to contain error at first blush, he digs deeper until he finds the real meaning, which must be without error.
Calvin’s view of accommodation had to do with human capacity and usage, not error — you can see both types of accommodation explained on p. 78, same edition.
Jeff Waddington said,
March 31, 2008 at 7:19 am
So the criteria or standard for picking out truth from error or vice versa in the Bible is your mind. Hmm… Is your mind infallible?
Jeff Waddington said,
March 31, 2008 at 7:47 am
So can we say that Jesus remained sinless while committing epistemological errors? If it is not sinful to err than this would seem to be a possibility. However, I would be curious to know how we determine that those passages that tell us Jesus was without sin are accurate or erroneous. In other words, what standard outside of our own minds guide us?
J.R. Polk said,
March 31, 2008 at 7:56 am
#49 Scott J.
I do believe Christian universalism (not religious pluralism, but that all are eventually saved through Jesus) is a live biblical option. However it is under-determined by the biblical data (though I do hope it to be true because of what it seems to me to mean about the glory and grace of God).
So now we get a glimpse into Mr. Jorgenson’s reason for his own combativeness and rejection of textual harmonization. He needs Scripture to be as full of holes as a block of Swiss cheese in order to make his universalism plausible. Like I said before Mr. Jorgenson, you dismiss everything I’ve said thus far as a mere rationalization couched in “combativeness,” and yet your very own reason for rejecting inerrancy, (seen very clearly in my quote of you above), is nothing less than a rationalization itself. Why the double standard? You don’t have to answer, I already know why.
GLW Johnson said,
March 31, 2008 at 7:58 am
I would like to make sure I completely understanding what Kent Sparks is driving at- are you disavowing the doctrine of inerrancy as formualted by Warfield and defended by Machen & co. ?
Darryl- regarding the quote you cited , cf. my chapter in the book I edited on Warfield p.215, footnote 64. I address that in response to the accusations of the creationist group ‘Answers In Genesis’-BBW made that statement about himself as pre-college teenager!
Kent Sparks said,
March 31, 2008 at 8:33 am
GLW: What I’m describing is Calvin’s view; if that contradicts the inerrancy views of Warfield and Machen, then it contradicts them.
Tim Harris: You’ve got your view of Calvin, and l have my view. That’s how it goes with interpretation.
Response to Jeff:
“So the criteria or standard for picking out truth from error or vice versa in the Bible is your mind. Hmm… Is your mind infallible?”
-I’d not say “criteria.” I’d say the “faculty” for distinguishing truth from error is always our mind. Minds are infallible, of ourse, but there’s nothing you can do about that. This is why, even among fundamentalist inerrantists, one can find widely different views of what the Bible (or Cavlin, or science) says.
“So can we say that Jesus remained sinless while committing epistemological errors? If it is not sinful to err than this would seem to be a possibility. However, I would be curious to know how we determine that those passages that tell us Jesus was without sin are accurate or erroneous. In other words, what standard outside of our own minds guide us?”
-Sure. Is it a sin if I think that my keys are in my left coat pocket and find out that they were in the right pocket? Remember, the orthdox argument against docetisim is that Jesus (in his human nature) didn’t know when the end would come, and that he “grew in wisdom and stature” (See Athanasisu, “On the Incarnation”
“In other words, what standard outside of our own minds guide us?”
-The standard, of course, is reality itself. I’m right insofar as my ideas correspond to reality, and wrong when they don’t.
GLW Johnson said,
March 31, 2008 at 8:55 am
Kent
You are NOT describing Calvin’s view of Scripture -even the most ardent opponents of the classic Protestant view of Scripture ,like Karl Barth ,acknowledged that Calvin held to plenary verbal inspiration with no room for errors, a view he said that border on divine dication.
Jeff Waddington said,
March 31, 2008 at 8:57 am
Kent:
I guess we differ on what the reality of the incarnation and inspiration is and entails.
Jeff Waddington said,
March 31, 2008 at 9:00 am
And I would say that our fallible minds do need an infallible and inerrant standard by which to ascertain the truth and the way of salvation.
And for Jesus to grow in wisdom and stature does not require growth out of error into truth unless you already assume that it is of the essence of humanness to be in error. That is a view I do not hold or believe the Bible substantiates. Notice that I do not equate finitude with error.
Kent Sparks said,
March 31, 2008 at 9:01 am
GLW: That’s your opinion. Lot’s of people disagree with you, though.
The thing that you are overlooking, perhaps, is that Calvin (like all of us) had his inconsistencies. You can find the same thing at work in Gleason Archer, who used accommodation to explain human errors in the text but didn’t realize that it contradicted his view of inerrancy.
But I’m not interested in fighting about it. I’ve told you what I think about Calvin and the implications of his theology. You are free to agree or disagree. I’m not the reality police. I’m just a little, finite, fallen person with judgments about how to understand what I read and experience.
Jeff Waddington said,
March 31, 2008 at 9:02 am
Also, granting general fallibility does not prove error in any given instance.
Tim Harris said,
March 31, 2008 at 9:04 am
Kent, if such a simple textual matter as determining what Calvin believes just comes down to “I say, you say” then we have a more serious problem than hermeneutical theory. I have backed up my view with quotes and page numbers; you might gain a bit of credibility if you would do the same.
GLW Johnson said,
March 31, 2008 at 9:08 am
Kent
That is NOT my opinion-that is the overwhelming scholarly consensus- you may not like it ,but that is what you are up against.
Ron Henzel said,
March 31, 2008 at 9:21 am
I believe John Murray published a survey of Calvin’s view of Scripture which more-than-adequately demonstrated Calvin’s view of plenary verbal inspiration. I just can’t lay my hands on my copy of it right now.
ReformedSinner (DC) said,
March 31, 2008 at 9:29 am
Again Mr. Sparks you don’t give Calvin enough credit now. You have to demonstrate why Calvin is inconsistent and that’s more than just quoting a couple of lines here and there. Also, you have to argue that your definition of “accomodation” and “errant, inerrant” and “fallibility and infallibility” is the same categories that Calvin uses (i.e. to prove your case that Calvin is inconsistent as you said). It’s safe to say at least on here you have not done that.
GLW Johnson said,
March 31, 2008 at 9:41 am
Ron
The work you are refering to is in the old Baker Biblical Monograph series. Murray’s was entitled ‘Calvin On Scpriptue and Divine Sovereignty’ first published in1960.
Kent Sparks said,
March 31, 2008 at 9:58 am
Jeff,
“Also, granting general fallibility does not prove error in any given instance.”
-Of course. What’s your point?
All others:
I think you’re wrong about Calvin, and you think I’m wrong. I think that the Bible has human errors in it, and you disagree. That’s how it goes.
In my opinion, Scott Jorgenson (#29) understands the situation very well.
GLW Johnson said,
March 31, 2008 at 10:07 am
Kent
Well, having a closed mind is not very useful in this sort of discussion. The evidence against your take on Calvin is overwhelmning - you are simply turning a blind eye to anything that goes contrary to your misguided assumptions. Tell me ,did Enns unintentionally help you arrive at this position in anyway?
Ben Dahlvang said,
March 31, 2008 at 10:21 am
Echoing D. Hart’s comment - #24 - (”Enns needs to read more history and less biblical scholarship”
and those of J. Waddington - #43 - (”There is a defective doctrine of God lurking behind the defective doctrine of Scripture evidenced by Enns”), it seems to me that Enns incarnational analogy needs significant reworking as well. Here’s something Trueman said from a lecture available here (the quote is around the 13 minute mark):
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=650619931
“one has to be very careful about using incarnational analogies for things such as the doctrine of Scripture. There is no equality of divinity and humanity in the orthodox understanding of the incarnation. They are not parallel and they are not equal because of this: the humanity brings no personhood into the incarnation. The humanity is just an abstraction until its united to the divinity. The form of the humanity in the incarnation is provided by the divinity. And when you talk about Scripture as being analogous to the incarnation, you better take that into account, or you’re going to come of what a doctrine of Scripture that is Nestorian at best and Ebionite at worst.”
Judging by the way he uses the analogy, I can’t help but thinking that Enns seems a bit ignorant of what the church has always taught with respect to the incarnation. Frankly, this makes the premise of his whole book, regardless of where he goes with it, appear quite silly to me. But perhaps I’m missing something.
Kent Sparks said,
March 31, 2008 at 11:10 am
Hi GLW:
No, Enns has nothing major to do with my views. I’ve worked them out over a long period of time, largely because of the troubles I’ve found in Scripture itself. My understnading of Calvin and the fathers was helpful to me … without it, I’d not have the faith in Christ that I now have.
Though Pete’s work was not formative for me, I do know that his book is preserving the faith of many who read it. That’s something that many in the Reformed tradition don’t realize.
About closed minds: Let’s make a deal. If you’ll tell me what it would take to show you an error in the Bible, I’ll tell you what it would take to change my view of Calvin.
GLW Johnson said,
March 31, 2008 at 11:16 am
Kent
Would you please reference in Calvin’s writings any notion that he held that the Bible contained errors?
Scott Jorgenson said,
March 31, 2008 at 11:24 am
To JR (62): If I have been combative here, I apologize, but I fail to see where (maybe I shouldn’t have used the word “bogus”). And if I have failed to answer your objections, it is because I also fail to see where you posed any specific objection, unlike ‘pduggie’ did. You also apparently failed to read on to the very next sentence in what I wrote, where I indicated my views on universal salvation would be very much what they are today even if I were an inerrantist. The issues have, in my experience at least, been unrelated and I certainly do not need one to prop-up the other.
Scott Jorgenson said,
March 31, 2008 at 11:26 am
To Reed (55): I currently attend a non-denominational church here in California which could be best characterized as moderate-evangelical, and whose attendees could be best characterized as, well, diverse. We have those more liberal than I in attendance, and in the same church we have those much more conservative (an adult education class advocating for 6-day young-earth creationism is being taught currently). Our senior pastor is from Fuller seminary and I would say the church falls pretty much into that groove. Its an interesting exercise in getting along, which is maybe why I find the high degree of rigidity that a strictly confessional environment like OPC, PCA, and apparently WTS represent a little unfamiliar.
I consider myself an essentially orthodox Christian who believes Jesus is the God-man and savior of the world. Theologically I am liberal-leaning but basically moderate — neo-orthodox like Barth would probably be the best label for me (though I have never been wedded to the Calvinist/Reformed tradition). I have been a Christian since I was a teen, and though I still have my issues, I have only really grown in my faith IMO over the last 10 years as I have studied more academically and become more moderate in my views.
I thank God for where he has led me; it may have saved me from Ehrman’s path, as many of the conservative answers began to work for me less and less. (And please note my problems with those conservative answers arose first, as I became acquainted with informed secular criticism; not from my later moderate/liberal study.)
Unless its not clear, let me also say I’m just an interested layman here (I’m a software engineer by profession). JR need not worry about me teaching in your seminaries by any means
Clearly I find myself here among devotees of Calvin and the Westminster Confession, and if I do not “fit” I apologize; I have no desire to be an unwelcome intruder. I arrived here only following Google for more information on the Enns situation.
greenbaggins said,
March 31, 2008 at 11:29 am
Scott, as long as you are courteous and stay on topic, which you have been so far, you are welcome. We don’t duck the tough questions here.
Scott Jorgenson said,
March 31, 2008 at 11:33 am
Could I just point out that, to a mind ungifted with modern education, the blue sky does look rather like it has a sea overhead? After all, the ocean on a sunny day is blue, and the sky on a sunny day is also blue. Where they meet at the horizon, it is not so farfetched to imagine that the one might continue with the other. Its not so ridiculous as we might think in our modern conceit, and so it is not ascribing stupidity to the ancients to think otherwise.
As to the sky being a solid dome: Even my own child, when she was very young, thought the sky was a solid dome - she thought she could ride in a rocketship up to the top of the sky, reach out, and touch the moon. In the ancient world, what would have taught her otherwise as she grew up? Its a very common conception, apparently, in the pre-modern world.
I refer to Paul Seely’s WTJ papers on all this.
Kent Sparks said,
March 31, 2008 at 11:40 am
GLW,
I’ve got class now, but will get back to you. If you have my most recent book, the references are on pp. 232-36.
Please know, I understand your impulse to take a strong stand on inerrancy. If God is inerrant, then he cannot err in his discourse. Our difference of opinion is whether God accommodates error in his discourse (which is not an error for God, on my reading of Calvin and the Fathers) or whether he somehow shielded it from the errant perspectives of the ancient author and audienc of Scripture (which, I take it, would be your view of Calvin).
There are other epistemological issues at play here, of course. I don’t believe that we can have incorrigible evidence for incorrigible human knowledge. What we have instead are human judgments for good or ill, and the responsibility to get those judgments as right as we can. In the end, it is God who will take care of finally judging out judgments.
Scott Jorgenson said,
March 31, 2008 at 12:48 pm
I thought some of the questions which Jeff Waddington was posing were interesting. Here’s my take:
First, how can we trust a source unless it is verbally inerrant? Well, as Kent said, we generally trust and regard human, errant, sources all of the time. Those here who do this with Calvin himself are cases in point. Simply because we can’t assume the historicity/factuality of every implication of every claim from a particular source, doesn’t mean we can’t learn anything at all from it.
Second, does this then reduce all sources to a common level, making scripture no more authoritative and primary than Calvin or Luther or a modern writer like CS Lewis — or a non-Christian source, for that matter? No, not that I can see. As Christians, scripture holds its place of primary authority because it is the testimony of those most closely-situated with the root stock of our faith: the story of Jesus and of God’s movement through Israel up to that point. As I see it, this is similar to why we pay such close attention to the Founding Fathers of the US Constitution today, and give them higher regard when interpreting the meaning of the document than we give to any particular 21st century legal scholar.
Third, how then can we discern the proper teaching point of scripture if it is primary for us but not verbally inerrant in every single extraneous matter? I would say by generally trusting its plain meaning unless there is significant reason otherwise; and in any case by always seeking the teaching point for us, which may not necessarily match the exegetical meaning of a historically-situated passage. We weigh passages of scripture against other passages and against the trajectory of the Bible as a whole; we weigh it against well-established outside knowledge of science and history; and we most of all weight it against the life and teaching of Jesus (that old rule which the “resurgent conservatives” of the SBC famously took out).
The result is not a logical-deductive Cartesian system, but that’s OK. Relationships never are.
ReformedSinner (DC) said,
March 31, 2008 at 1:39 pm
#85: I guess my only question is on what basis do you logically reasoned which is “errant” and which is “inerrant?” To proclaim something errant (like you and others are too happy to do) it must be projected against a concept and model of inerrancy that you upheld whether consciously or subconsciously, however unattainable, for you to make the conclusion that so and so passages are of errant.
So far the only criteria I see on this board is “our science and history today has proven that some passages are of errancy”, in which you are also saying: “everyword of the Bible that are not in consistency with 21st century science and historical criticism are of errant”, which by implication means you define inerrancy as “submitting to the test of 21st century science and historical criticsms”
Is that really wise? Is this really putting the Word of God as the sole authority (not just primary authority) for the rule of faith over all Creation?
greenbaggins said,
March 31, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Way to Van Til this, RS! Great post.
Kent Sparks said,
March 31, 2008 at 1:41 pm
GLW: About Calvin and accommodation of error:
According to Hebrews 11:21, Jacob “leaned on his staff” as he blessed his sons at life’s end. Calvin recognizes that that the LXX quoted here by the Hebrew writer is wrong, since the original text was “upon the head of his bed.” Why did the Hebrew writer leave the mistake in his text?
Calvin’s answer: “The Apostle hesitated not to apply to his purpose what was commonly received: he was indeed writing to the Jews, but they who were dispersed into various countries, had changed their own language for the Greek. And we know that the Apostles were not so scrupulous in this respect, as not to accommodate themselves to the unlearned, who had as yet need of milk; and in this there is no danger, provided readers are ever brought back to the pure and original text of Scripture.”
I’d say that several things are true of Calvin here:
1. He believes that the LXX is wrong.
2. He believes that the mistake in the LXX is cited in Hebrews
3. He believes that the explanation for this errant view in Scripture is accommodation.
4. He is aware that his description of this phenomenon applies not only in this case but to “the Apostles” in general (undoubtedly because there are other similar problems in NT quotations of the LXX).
Don’t get me wrong. Calvin always worked very hard to avoid the implication that error was in the Scripture. But in those few cases where he couldn’t (in his opinion) avoid admitting the errors, he used accommodation as a solution. The same move is made in his commentary on the Genesis creation and in a few others cases mentioned in my book.
The only case where Calvin uses the word “mistake” explicitly is in his commentary on Matt 27, where Zechariah’s prophecy is errantly attributed to Jeremiah. Here Calvin writes: “How the name Jeremiah crept in, I confess that I do not know, nor do I give myself much trouble to inquire. The passage itself plainly shows that the name Jeremiah has been put down by mistake, instead of Zechariah.” There is a debate about how to interpret this. Calvin may mean that we have textual corruption, in which case the problem is nothing for him; other find in this the same indifference to problems that he exhibits in handling the LXX citations.
There are other cases cited in studies of Calvin, but for my purposes I only needed to highlight a few. In fact, it only takes one example to make the point.
Scott: My points exactly. Its easy for inerrantists to insist on strict FI inerrancy, but what can that inerrantist say to someone interested in the faith but troubled by having to swallow the elephant of FI inerrancy? Swallow! I don’t think so. We’d have more success by handing them Pete’s book, which artfully defends divine inerrancy in the context of adequate human discourse.
More From Hart on the Enns Controversy and the Aurburn Affirmation « Heidelblog said,
March 31, 2008 at 2:02 pm
[...] March 31, 2008 in Recovering the Reformed Confession, Reforming Evangelicalism, The Defense of the Faith Tags: Aurburn Affirmation, Confessionalism, Enns, Hart, inerrancy, scripture, WCF, WTS From a comment at the GB discussion: [...]
pduggie said,
March 31, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Well, doesn’t Luke explicitly state that he knows Theophilous knows of other accounts?
pduggie said,
March 31, 2008 at 2:20 pm
I personally like the explanation of waters above the firmament referencing actual water that God created on Day 1 that was taken by God up into heaven (the place where angels were, and Jesus is).
You don’t have to believe there is water in outer space in such a case.
I’m a bit of an “unscientific creationist”
Bret McAtee said,
March 31, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Of course that is just your opinion. As I read the trajectory of the Bible what I see is the Bible as a living document that encourages us to hear God in other documents. For example, Jude quotes the book of Enoch and Paul cites Greek poets. In doing so these both prove from Scripture that Scripture should not be the primary authority but only one of a host of errant documents that give us wisdom about God. You like reading the Bible. I like finding errant knowledge from the Bhagavad gita.
This is just like Constitutional scholars today ignoring the Constitution and looking to international law as a basis to adjudicate case law.
Who gets to decide what reason makes a reason significant enough and how do they make that decision?
Shouldn’t we weigh knowledge of science and history against the well established inerrant nature of Scripture?
Kent Sparks said,
March 31, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Bret:
“Of course that is just your opinion.”
-We should perhaps remember that all of us are giving “just our opinions.”
Scott Jorgenson said,
March 31, 2008 at 3:52 pm
About the dangers of submitting scripture to science and history: yes, but the reality is far more difficult. In fact, that train has already left the station. It left the moment believers became aware of the Greek discovery that the world containing the land and the terrestrial seas is spherical. It accelerated when it was discovered that the sky was not solid and there are no waters above it. Calvin submitted scripture to science in just that case. And of course we could mention Galileo and his detractors here, where eventually scripture’s suggestions of geocentricity were again reinterpreted per science.
Frankly, this isn’t a bad thing. God is the ultimate “author” of both “books”, scripture and nature. When we learn something from science and history that illuminates understanding of scripture, I think we should be thankful.
Yes, this means that biblical interpretation is dynamic, not static, and even has an element (but only an element) of the personal and subjective about it. If you find your muse in the Bhagavad Gita, so be it. I may critique the Gita (there is very little about love or grace in it, and a lot about embracing honor and duty, and something tells me that if this world means anything and if this life is to be worth living, its got to be more about the former than the latter). But my critique isn’t really on foundationalist grounds. I can live with that. Some of you might be able to as well — didn’t presuppositionalism come out of Reformed philosophy?
BTW, as for the waters above the sky being lifted out of nature and into the supernatural realm, as per ‘pduggie’ (91): Psalm 148:4-6 indicates that so far as the psalmist is concerned, the waters are still there, above the heavens (’heavens’ being the name given to the sky firmament in Genesis 1). As for the Judas accounts in Matthew and Acts (’pduggie’ in 91), Luke indicates he intends to write an orderly account for Theophilus — how much prior knowledge of tangential obscura like the events around Judas’ death would he then assume? Anyway, precisely because the exact events are so tangential to the overall Gospel story, that’s why I think we needn’t look for such detailed synchronicity in the accounts.
Bret McAtee said,
March 31, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Kent,
Right, You have an opinion, I have an opinion, God has an opinion — and since all of us beings are errantist all we have are opinions.
Hence the greatest Prophet of them all was Chairman Mao when he opined,
Power comes from the barrel of a gun.
Scott Jorgenson said,
March 31, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Oh, as to “who gets to decide”: maybe its just my own church experience talking (see above for my description of that), but why does anybody need to “decide”, as in, to then enforce across a body of believers? If that’s what that means, I guess I choose “chaos over creed”, to echo in reverse something someone else said above. But I can see how it would be a difficult question for those in a heavily confessional tradition.
Kent Sparks said,
March 31, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Scott: right on.
Bret: My “opinion” I mean judgment. Mao had an opinion, to be sure, but in my opinion God’s opinion is that he was wrong.
Nevertheless, going back to your post #92, I do agree with the sentiments that you expressed there. If there’s a God and he’s in the business of getting any insights to us, he could use anything to do it–including, as Barth said, a “dead god or a communist.”
Kent Sparks said,
March 31, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Oops. I meant a “dead dog” … I not so far left as “god is dead”
Bret McAtee said,
March 31, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Just for the record,
My ’sentiments’ in #92 were tongue in cheek. A feeble attempt to cause people to pull back from their positions due to the implications thereof.
It looks as if only the implications lived out as they were in Treblinka and Bergen-Belsen will cause people to pull back.
When you lose objective authority, it is a chaos world guys.
Enjoy.
BruceGBuchanan said,
March 31, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Airing various viewpoints here does not bother me in the least.
Nor does WTS letting PE go–a move that is not only their prerogative, and falls within their liberty and responsibility to helm their own ship; but also is to be commended, imo. Maybe WTS will last a while longer now, maybe even as long as Old Princeton?
What does bother me is co-opting identity.
People who believe that because God is permanent, he intrudes a form of “permanence” into this world–and tells us things like “contend earnestly for the faith once delivered,” even when we know that this world is essentially impermanent–sacrifice their lives and treasures to build institutions dedicated to preserving that which is of lasting value. They hope for a form of permanence regarding their labors, while realizing that the permanence they desire is ultimately in the age to come.
But isn’t it a pity (almost) that those who couldn’t sustain the energy necessary to build a sand-castle find places to roost in the edifices built by men whose commitments were antithetical to the newcomers’ ethos? The reputation earned by the builders is paraded by men disgusted with the founders’ ideals. And soon, this place that previously stood out from the crowd is just another boring monument to our ephemeral cultural fads.
Meanwhile, laboring in obscurity, the founding of new/old institutions proceeds. Perhaps this one will last a generation longer than the previous one? Its all part of the pilgrim enterprise of the church. The repeated raids bother me… but they don’t–in the sense that I knew the institutional permanence wasn’t meant to be, not in this world. Frustration is God’s “foolish” way of ensuring that we don’t so fall in love with this “promised land” that we look away from the “Jerusalem above.” Still, these Amalekite depredations get old.
CABriggs calculated his provocative publication, and escalated his rhetoric, back when he knew that regardless of the outcome of the inevitable dust-up, he was set for advancement. Nothing has changed. Semper eadem.
PE is not going to suffer. He will probably be rewar