James Orr: Inerrancy as "a most suicidal position"?

I had an earlier post on James Orr’s Revelation and Inspiration (Scribner’s, 1910), reflecting on seeming inconsistencies in his views (e. g., rejecting higher criticism but embracing evolution). At the close of the same book the Scottish theologian who contributed to The Fundamentals offers a surprising critique of the Hodges/Warfield construal of inerrancy. He writes:

It is urged, e.g., that unless we can demonstrate what is called ‘inerrancy’ of the Biblical record, down even to the minutest details, the whole edifice of belief in revealed religion falls to the ground. This, on the face of it, is a most suicidal position for any defender of revelation to take up (p. 198).

So, Orr does not think it necessary to affirm inerrancy in order to uphold the authority of the Bible. Though this sounds like the same view disastrously adopted in liberal Protestantism, perhaps Orr was intuiting some of the flaws in the defense of the Bible based in the hypothetical reconstruction of inerrant, non-extant autographs.

Along these lines, he has some interesting points to make with regard to the doctrine of preservation, noting, “it is reasonable to expect that provision will be made for the preservation of the knowledge of revelation in some permanent and authoritative form.  Otherwise, the object in giving revelation would be frustrated” (p. 155).

Though Orr’s unwillingness to defend the uniform truthfulness of Biblical content is distressing, could he have been on target in other ways? Is it that Orr saw a fundamental disconnect between the Westminster construal of the infallibility of Scripture stressing immediate inspiration and divine preservation and the new construal of inerrancy by Hodges/Warfield?

JTR

Letis on Warfield, Infallibility, and Innerancy

Image:  B. B. Warfield (1851-1921)

Here are a few more gleanings from Theodore Letis’ The Ecclesiastical Text (1997):

Theodore Letis lays much of the blame for the contemporary abandonment of the received text of Scripture in favor of the modern critical text at the feet of the Princeton lion B. B. Warfield.  According to Letis, it was under Warfield’s influence that conservative Reformed and evangelical Christians began to speak of the “inerrancy” of the Bible rather than the “infallibility” of the Bible.  Warfield did this in an effort to defend the Bible from its modern critics, but, Letis contends, the unintended result was a compromise of the traditional, confessional, “catholic” view of the authority of the Bible.  He observes:

Warfield attempted to retain the old orthodoxy but by also making a major, largely unacknowledged concession to modernity, by abandoning a sacred text of the Church for a future scientific reconstruction of the Academy (p. 81).

By turning the focus away from the preservation of the Bible in its received form (i.e., in the copies or apographa) in favor of the “scientific” text critical search for the elusive original text (i.e., the autographa), Letis contends that Warfield “made the Church a bondservant of criticism” (p. 72).

Here are some of Letis’ thoughts on the shift of terminology from “infallibility” (the word used in the Westminster Confession and London Baptist Confession, article one, to describe Scripture) to “inerrancy” (originally an astronomical term to refer to “fixed stars” that was not applied to the Bible until the nineteenth century):

The change of one landmark word in the theological terrain can alter the entire landscape!  Such is what happened with the substitution of the non-confessional word “inerrancy” for the catholic term infallible.  Because “inerrancy” always and only has as its referent, the “original autographs,” it always invites the quest for the historical text, which in turn always culminates in the quest for the historical Jesus.  The change of but one word has resulted in the complete destruction of the classic Protestant view of Scripture and yet its would-be Reformation advocates continue to bow to the political pressures of non-Reformation “evangelical” communities (p. 79).

Thus, Letis argues:  “A reclamation act is in order” (p. 80).

Thomas Vincent on the Apographa

I have started a new sermon series on Sunday afternoons through Spurgeon’s Catechism (an edited version of the Westminster Shorter Catechism). In preparation I am reading Thomas Vincent’s The Shorter Catechism Explained and Proved from Scripture (first published 1674; Banner ed., 1980).

In his comments on the second question, “What rule hath God given us to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him?” Vincent lists ten ways the Scriptures can be proved to be the Word of God. The eighth of those reasons in the following (emphasis added):

Because the Scriptures were confirmed by miracles. We read of many miracles in the Scriptures, especially those which were wrought by Jesus Christ and his disciples, to confirm their doctrine, that it was from God; such as curing some who were born blind, raising the dead, calming the sea with a word, and many more. Now, these and like miracles were from the immediate hand of God; and the relation we have faithfully handed down unto us, as appeareth by the writings still amongst us, of several holy men upon them and concerning them, as also by the several copies of them (which could not be forged, and not be found out) agreeing in the same relation. And as surely as God did effect those miracles, so surely is God the author of the Scriptures, which are confirmed by them.

The thing I am struck by here is Vincent’s implied understanding of the transmission of the Scriptures. With regard to the Scripture’s “relation” of miracles which come “from the immediate hand of God” (cf. Vincent’s description of the source of miracles with the confession’s language concerning the immediate inspiration of Scripture), by the autographic hand of “several holy men” but “also by the several copies of them (which could not be forged, and not be found out)”. Note the high view of the preservation of the Word of God through the apographa and not merely the autographa. Again, contrast his view with that of modern inerrancy:

Vincent: Autographa→ faithfully preserved in apographa

Modern Inerrancy: Autographa→ corruption of apographa in transmission→ restoration of autographa by modern text critics

Zaspel, Warfield, Owen, Inerrancy and the 2LBCF (1689)

Another follow up to the question of “inerrancy” and the WCF and the 2LBCF (1689):

I’ve been reading through Fred Zaspel’s The Theology of B. B. Warfield: A Systematic Summary (Crossway, 2010) and ran across the section on “Autographs Only” (p. 118) in which Zaspel writes:

It should be noted that Warfield’s doctrine of inspiration necessarily concerns the autographs specifically, and the copied texts only by implication and only insofar as they are accurately copied. As did the Westminster Confession of Faith, Warfield argues that while translations of Scripture may faithfully convey the Word of God, and while the text of Scripture has in God’s providence been substantially preserved in its purity, it is the original text alone that was immediately inspired of God. The human biblical authors and their writings are the focus of concern in this discussion.

The thing to be challenged here is Zaspel’s assumption that Warfield’s views were consistent with the WCF. Though the confession does indeed affirm that the OT in Hebrew and the NT in Greek were “immediately inspired,” it proceeds to affirm that these texts “by his singular care and providence kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentic” (N.B.: this is quite different from Zaspel’s assertion that the confession affirms that the Word of God has been only “substantially preserved in its purity”). There is no mention in the confession of inerrant autographs that were corrupted in transmission and that now must be restored through modern critical text scholarship. No, the assumption is that the immediately inspired autographs have been providentially preserved in the apographs. The confession then proceeds to affirm that translations be made from these texts (the preserved apographs) into “the vulgar language of every nation unto which they come.”

As I’ve noted before, I think we can get a good impression of how the framers of the WCF and the 2LBCF looked at the issue of the text of Scripture by examining the writings of John Owen on Scripture in Volume 16 of his Collected Works. In “The Divine Original,” for example, Owen writes:

“It is true, we have not the autographa of Moses and the prophets, of the apostles and evangelists; but the apographa or ‘copies” which we have contain every iota in them” (pp. 300-301).

And in “Of the Integrity and Purity of the Hebrew and Greek Text of Scripture” he writes:

“…We add, that the whole Scripture, entire as given out from God, without any loss, is preserved in the copies of the originals yet remaining…. In them all, we say, is every letter and tittle of the word. These copies, we say, are the rule, standard, and touchstone of all translations, ancient or modern, by which they are all to be examined, tried, corrected, amended; and themselves only by themselves” (p. 357).

And:

“Let it be remembered that the vulgar copy we use was the public possession of many generations,--that upon the invention of printing it was in actual authority throughout the world with them that used and understood that language, as far as anything appears to the contrary; let that, then, pass for the standard, which is confessedly its right and due, and we shall, God assisting, quickly see how little reason there is to pretend such varieties of readings as we are now surprised withal;” (p. 366).

We can assume that the view of the framers of the WCF and 2LBCF (1689) on Scripture was closer to Owen and, therefore, quite different from that of Warfield.  Here is a summary of the contrast: 

Owen/Puritan/Early Particular Baptist view:

Immediate inspiration of autographa → pure preservation in apographa

Warfield/Modern Text Critical/Chicago Statement view:

Inerrant autographa → corrupted apographa → reconstructed autographa

JTR

Inerrancy and the 2LBCF (1689)

Bob Gonzales of the Reformed Baptist Seminary recently wrote a post [update 2/22/14:  the link to the original post by Bob Gonzales has been broken and I could not find it on the archive of his current blog; thus, readers will not have access to the post to which this article responds]  suggesting that chapter one in the 2LBCF (1689) might be updated to include a reference to “inerrancy.” Reformed theologian-pastor Richard Barcellos offered several responses in the comments suggesting that the confession should not be altered. RB, in particular, calls attention to the fact that though several WCF affirming pastors championed the inerrancy movement of the 70s (e.g., J. M. Boice) they did not suggest altering their historic confession, the WCF. RB implies we should do the same. That is, affirm inerrancy but not alter the confession.

Here are some thoughts on this debate:

1. I agree with RB that the 2LBCF (1689) should not be altered to include the term “inerrancy,” but differ from him regarding the reason.

2. I believe the confession already affirms the concept of “inerrancy,” when that term is taken to mean an affirmation of the complete and total trustworthiness of the Scriptures and their freedom from error in all matters they address (including in the fields of history and science and not just in doctrinal or spiritual issues). This, in my view, is fully encompassed in the confession’s current use of the term “infallibility.”

3. In my view, however, the confession does not affirm “inerrancy” in the modern sense in which it is defined by the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. This statement, following the lead of B. B. Warfield, affirms the inerrancy of the original autographs of Scripture and does not address the providential preservation of the apographs, as in the confession. For a critique of Warfield’s construal of the inerrant autographs, see Theodore P. Letis’ The Ecclesiastical Text (The Institute for Renaissance and Reformation Biblical Studies, 1997). For a guide to how the framers of the WCF and the 2LBCF likely saw the nature of Scripture, see John Owen’s “Of the Divine Original of the Scripture” and “Integrity and Purity of the Hebrew and Greek Text” in vol. 16 of his Collected Works.

4. In addition, one might well argue that the neo-evangelical emphasis on the inerrancy of the original autographs, a la the Chicago Statement, has been a failure. For illustrations of this, see wrangling in recent years in the scholarly Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), which uses “inerrancy” as a litmus test for membership, over Clark Pinnock and Openness Theology (i.e., Pinnock claimed to affirm “inerrancy” while denying an orthodox doctrine of God and survived an attempt to remove him from ETS membership). Along these lines, Francis Beckwith was elected to the Presidency of ETS but had to abdicate after he announced he had decided to convert to Roman Catholicism. In his memoir, he stated, “I did not believe that the ETS doctrinal statement was inconsistent with my Catholic beliefs” (Return to Rome: Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic [Brazos Press, 2009]: p. 118). We might add a note here about the more recent row over Peter Enns of Westiminster Seminary who could belong to ETS and affirm its inerrancy statement while, at the same time, denying the historical reliability of the OT (see Peter Enns’ Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the OT [Baker Academic, 2005] and the response by Greg Beale in The Erosion of Innerancy in Evangelicalism [Crossway, 2008]). Given the failure of “innerancy” to safeguard orthodoxy in evangelicalism (as illustrated by the ETS), why should this term be added to a reformed confession that is more than adequate as it is?

JTR