Here is a provocative post on “Bible inspiration and inerrancy” in the ‘Warfieldian’ tradition. It is offered by Paul Helm, check it out:
Athanasian Reformed
πππππ’π π·ππ πππππ‘ ππ πππ‘ππππ’π. ππ‘π ππ¨π«π π¨π ππ¨π π°π’π₯π₯ π₯ππ¬π ππ¨π«ππ―ππ«.
I wanted to post a comment at Helm’s blog, but alas, he doesn’t allow comments, so I’ll post one here.
I want to say at the outset that I agree with more than I disagree both with what I’ve read of Warfield on this topic and Helm’s treatment of it. The careful expression of the parity of biblical inspiration with other apostolic teaching without making inspiration the foundation of all Christian doctrine I appreciate and agree with.
My only major complaint is the complete absence of Christ and his work of redemption in Warfield’s account inspiration; it is presented entirely in terms of the Spirit’s work through the human authors (in a non-mechanical way). There are two reasonable grounds I can think of for this. First, inspiration is rightly considered the work of the Spirit and within orthodox Trinitarianism this does not rule out but necessarily affirms that active presence of the other two persons of the Trinity – thus Christ as the Son is included in the work of the Spirit and therefore does not need to be specifically named. Second, the work of Warfield Helms is calling attention to is not giving an account or narrative of biblical inspiration, but an apologetic for it. He is not defining inspiration but demonstrating how we know the Bible is inspired. Fair enough. (I concede there might be other reasons for Christ’s absence, but I can’t think of any).
Nevertheless, it seems to me that if Warfield is going to make his case for biblical inspiration on exegetical grounds, the unique authorizing of the apostles by the incarnate Son of God himself and the necessity of their redemption in his blood in order to partake of his ministry through kerygmatic presentation of the Gospel ought to play a quite central role in that. This certainly ought not replace the emphasis on the inner work of the Holy Spirit, but it should be held together with it. For how much attention is given by Warfield-Helm to the possibility of God communicating infallibly through the fallible speech of fallible men, it seems that Christ’s infallible teaching ministry to the apostles, giving them the very words they were to pass on to others (though not necessarily in a mechanical way) ought to be invoked in order to fully make that case.
I don’t think this takes anything away from Warfield’s concern to safeguard the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture; it gives it ontological depth by rooting it in the inerrancy and infallibility of the living Christ Jesus. As much as Torrance complains about guys like Warfield locating the Truth of God in Scripture itself rather than in Christ to whom it points, I think this is all he really means by that – that classical Reformed types don’t need Christ and the atonement in order to have an inspired Bible and they should need those things.
And the tragedy is Warfield is so often caricatured because he’s been co-opted by the “fundamentalists” of the 20th century.
I read this the other day about Augustine and Scriptureβnot really related, but interesting.
Adam,
Yeah, I was actually encouraged as I read Helm’s work with Warfield; it fit the way I think about this quite well, and it’s not at odds, necessarily with how TF would frame things — it’s a more than situation (with TF adding the “more than”) than a less than (with Warfield offering a “less than”) π .
I think your caveats here are will taken!
Yes, I think you’re right, Chris. I have a friend working on a PhD diss involving this very topic; I’ll have to give it a read and see what he comes up with when he’s done (working on inerrancy with Hodge and Warfield).
Wow, Augustine was a hyper-Catholic, eh (when it comes to scripture).
Frankly I think Torrance would be reeling if he heard his name in conjunction with this article. I am amazed you find a worthy apologetic here which is not based on outmoded thought forms of induction etc, ‘based on history’ remarks, and so on. The structure of the thought is totally at odds with Torrance it seems to me for Torrance method is inimicable to such a cosy alliance without falsifying or misunderstanding Torrance. I feel sad about this as both unworthy of our God and unrepresentative of Torrance’s God. I really feel the unique vision of Torrance and his method has not begun to be understand otherwise such an unworthy alliance would not have been brought to the fore.
Tim,
Provide something more substantive than just appealing to anecdotal emotive appeal to Torrance.
Instead of appealing to Torrance, why don’t “you” undercut Helm’s point on Warfield’s parity, in principle; that way you can provide me with something constructive and critical to think about.
To put it crassly, Torrance is not interested in infallibility or inerrancy as properties of the text itself. Rather , he is working from an empirico-theoretical framework of theological knowledge in which , to name a supreme example, the empty tomb is an empirical correlate of the faith or as St Paul says, without the raising of Christ your faith is in vain. But where these empirical correlates occur in the text, how many of them, etc, is another matter. Presumably such a method takes the pressure off of the reader in asserting the ‘inspiration’ of all text, given that how ever hard one may try, certain portions of text my not easily succumb to such a cognate view of scripture. Such a corrdinated view of text, is not so much found in the text, but derives from it, in the mind of the interpretator who is creatively engaged with it.
Hey Bobby!
I was responding to Tim there and googled
“empiricle correlate”. I got alot of chemical engineering stuff, so I added Torrance to the search, and found THE “God is For US” blog by one Anglican Prof Martin Davis. Heard of Him?
He has a boatload of Torrance over there, and his current blog does a great job of explaining Augustianism and Thomism and agrees that the reformation failed to reject these errors.
http://martinmdavis.blogspot.com/
if you get a chance. I’m going to read more.
I tried to post this before, but the blog said I already posted. So if you are moderating, and I don’t know it, that’s fine. Just deleate one of these 2 posts (or both if you like). Might have jsut been a glitch.
Hey again Bobby!
So I went back to “God For us”, Followed his link to Baxter Kruger, you’ve probably heard of Him, and their talking about trinitarianism and the full blown love of God, and who is there objecting? (about what, I could not discern, he called them “sycophants”) It was our friend Timothy Parker.
From what I observe, they seem ok. I don’t see any evidence of universalism yet (they like Barth). Just a lot of anti-greek philosophy, a lot of pro-Athanasius, and one commenter disparaged John’s prologue and Paul, which seems quixotic to me.
They are referring to a book “The Shack” on which it would seem many establishmentarians (read “Thomists”) have pronounced anathema.
What da ya think?
DuaneA1
Hey Duane,
I’m totally off topic but thought I’d address your question about “The Shack”. Someone suggested I read it when it was first out and I felt a check in my spirit. Decided to go ahead anyway and only got halfway through before I felt so uncomfortable I had to put it down.
Regardless of what the Thomists or others are saying about it, I know the Lord did not want me to read it. The portrayal of God the Father and the Holy Spirit as women grated right from the start and I just could not get past the blatant disregard for the fact that Scripture clearly designates God as “He” and never once have I read in the Bible that He manifests as a woman. On the other hand, g*ddess worship is front and center in most of the pagan religions. It was a little creepy.
I set the book down and have never looked back.
Hi Heather!
I’ve encountered that sort of thing in the Lutheran Church before (ELCA). I think it’s a misguided attempt to include women.
Where does the bigger argument of the nature of God, and God revealed in the Incarnaton fit in?
Is it possible some recognize Augustine’s error, but just wish to supplant that with their own idol? Or is it that they can look at this male-female thing in shack (I read a synopsis on wiki) as mear artistic license, after all this was not a physical manifestation but just a dream or vision. I definitely agree with you, that God as revealed in the Canon and obviously the incarnation is only described as masculine, and who am I to turn off of that path?
Thanks
Duane