Lord's Day August 24 2014

I decided to preach yesterday from 2 Peter 1:16-18 and 19-21, so on Scripture and its integrity, New Testament then Old Testament. They are not easy verses to tackle but I did my best and hope I got through to most of my hearers. In the evening I explained accommodation, inspiration and inerrancy, using Ferguson, Carson and the Chicago Statement from a few years back. Numbers were down a little, being that time of the year, but it was okay. Four Romanians with no English turned up in the evening. Very hard to be any blessing to them. I must pray for them though and the others who were there.

Reading the Bible P

The doctrine of plenary inspiration holds that the original documents of the Bible were written by men, who, though permitted to exercise of their own personalities and literary talents, yet wrote under the control and guidance of the Spirit of God, the result being in every word of the original documents a perfect and errorless recording of the exact message which God desired to give to man.
Rene Pache The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible

Foundations online

Those who have not yet seen will be interested to know that the Affinity journal Foundations is now available online. See here. This edition contains the papers given at the last Affinity conference and rather inadequately reported here at the time.

I remember getting my first copies of Foundations personally from the then editor Eryl Davies. It was made up of sheets of paper bound with a plastic clip along the spine. I was a student in Aberystwyth at the time. Things move on.

Glad to commend it (except the cover which seems to me out of keeping with the name of the journal though it looks very nice! ;-)).

Inspiration again

These two quotations from the Nichols' book I thought would be worth highlighting. They are both by Warfield, the first along with Charles Hodge in their book on inspiration and the second from 1893 on the real problem of inspiration.

“it is not in the first instance a principle fundamental to the truth of the Christian religion."
"We found the whole Christian system on the doctrine of plenary inspiration as little as we found it upon the doctrine of angelic existences."

I find myself partly resisting the idea and I'm sure many a Christian would struggle with it I dare say but it is surely correct.

Ancient Word, Changing Worlds

This helpful little Crossway book Ancient word, changing worlds by Steve Nichols and one of his students, Eric Brandt, is a useful work for looking at the vital subjects of inspiration, inerrancy and hermeneutics.

For each subject the writers first summarise the scholarly debate over it bringing us pretty much up to date in each case. These chapters each contain a time line. The first one, for example, takes us from the publication of Charles Hodge's article on inspiration in 1857 by way of Thayer, Orr, Fosdick and Packer through to Berkouwer's book on Scripture in 1966. The book is nicely set out but these tables deserve a page of their own. Then in addition, each of those three chapters is immediately followed by a chapter containing source material with brief comments. Between seven and seventeen short extracts are given each time. So on hermeneutics, we have quotations from Hodge, Kaiser, Poythress, Longman, Ramm, Bultmann, Childs, Frei, Thiselton, Orr and Waltke. The book would make an ideal tool for readers at various levels.It would be especially good for use in a classroom or discussion group. Its usefulness is further enhanced by a glossary and three appendices - Doctrinal statements on Scripture, a list of Scripture references (the Bible is not quoted anywhere else) and a short guide for further reading.

The book is easy to read though being co-written does not help it. On rare occasions it trips up over its desire to be straightforward and descriptive. It does not appear to be a part of a series but other subjects could probably be treated in a similar way.

JOC Lectures on Scripture 4

Apologies for the delay in writing up the final morning of studies. We continued to look at Andy McGowan's problematic book. We discussed his idea of relocating our doctrine of Scripture in systematic theology, which seems a rather minor point in many ways. The changes of vocabulary he suggests could create as many problems as they may solve. His idea that Warfield's faulty (to McGowan) statement of the doctrine arose because of the heat of battle would not be one shared by Warfield himself. McGowan says there is no reference to Scripture in the early creeds (p 25) but Warfield says the opposite (p 106 of his book on Bible Inspiration). Inerrancy may not be a biblical doctrine but it is one that is discernible by implication. Although he complains of this McGowan himself does the same thing with his doctrine. Further, it is more than an implication - see Psalm 12:6, Jeremiah 42:5, 6, John 17:17. McGowan's suggestion that Bavinck is different to Warfield and superior to him is an overstatement.

We finished off with a discussion of the round table discussion article found in the current edition of Modern Reformation here (for subscribers).

A great week then. It was a privilege to be with Dr Campbell and with old friends Lewis, Wim (both doing the course), Ian (a graduate like myself) and Rich.

JOC Lectures on Scripture 2/3

Another stimulating two days have passed with Iain D Campbell and the other four doing the week's course at JOC.

On Day 2 we looked at Calvin - first the Institutes Book 1 and then, more interestingly, various places in the commentaries – the authorship of 2 Peter, early remarks in the Psalms, comments on Genesis 1 and 3, Matthew 2:6, 27:9 and 1 Peter 1:12. There is an essay on Calvin and inerrancy by Jim Packer in Volume 4 of his Shorter Writings. (See here too).
Then we came on to Karl Barth. I am not familiar with Barth but given that Greg Beale has accused Peter Enns of Barthianism and the fact Andy McGowan seems much under the spell of the Barthian Torrances his current influence cannot be denied. (Apparently Kevin VanHoozer has traced the recent history of this in Karl Barth And Evangelical Theology edited by Sung Wook Chung).

Barth's view, it appears, is rather elusive, but he distinguishes the Bible and revelation, speaks of recollection and anticipation, preparation and accomplishment and warns against absolutising a word that is always human. He calls the Bible the Word of God but what he means by that is not what we may mean. Bruce McCormack has labelled his view "Dynamic infallibilism". Barth spoke of the Word of God as the Word of GOD – God not being the object; the Work of God – an event not a storehouse of facts and the Miracle of God. He also warned against trying to shield ourselves from its offensiveness. He does not see the presence of God inhering directly in the book as such and says that we cannot decide just when the Bible is the Word of God. God, he says, is not ashamed of the fallibility of the word nor should we be. Mark Thompson has identified certain motifs in Barth - God's Lordship – he can't be mastered by a text; the centrality of Christ and the fact that God reveals himself dynamically so that things can change (see Gibson and Strange's Engaging with Barth).
We finished off the day with a summary of Peter Enns' very controversial Inspiration and incarnation. We mentioned the book in a previous blog here. Since then Enns has ceased to be a professor at Westminster. He has a blog here. This blog is not recommended by any means.

On Wednesday we carried on with Enns this time in more critical fashion, considering some of the so called problem texts that he mentions in Proverbs, Acts, etc.

We then went on to the answer to Enns produced by Greg Beale The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism
We took up Beale's criticisms of the way Enns uses the incarnational analogy and Dr Campbell traced the more recent history of the subject. Gaussen (Theopneustia) and Shedd (in his Dogmatics) are in favour of it and Kuyper and Bavinck (as Gaffin reveals in his God's Word in Servant Form: Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck on the Doctrine of Scripture see sample here) go into overdrive with it. Barth is fairly happy with the idea but sees overlappings and contradictions. Tom Torrance is similar.
It is Warfield who cautions against misusing of the analogy. Christ is a divine human person, Scripture is a divine human work. The analogy is therefore remote. Andy McGowan is not happy either (pp 119, 121). James Scott writing on Enns (WTJ Spring 2009) says it is a mistake to see Christ trapped in his culture. He concludes that Enns is saying something huge in his book when he writes as he does as the idea that the incarnate Christ misunderstood things is a major error.
We were also referred to John Goldingay's book on Model for interpretation of Scripture (pp 248-251 and a Lane Tipton article here. He points out that if the hypostatic union is unique, it cannot be an analogy. The only way forward is to focus on then on pneumatology. He also draws attention to the resurrection and ascension and how Scripture brings about regeneration, sanctification, etc.

We ended the day with summarising Andy McGowan's The Divine Spiration of Scripture. More tomorrow, God willing.

JOC Lectures on Scripture 1

It was my privilege once again today to be among the privileged few at the John Owen Centre in nearby Finchley for lectures this time from fellow blogger Iain D Campbell on the doctrine of Scripture. We began with brief biblical introduction (taking in Psalm 19, John 10:35, 2 Timothy 3:16, etc). We then went on to look at Westminster Theological Seminary and Scripture. We began with Machen (see this Daryl Hart essay via here) moved on to Murray (in the Infallible Word symposium, outline here) and E J Young (Thy Word is Truth). We also looked at Sinclair Ferguson in Harvie Conn's symposium (outline here).

We then turned to Old Princeton beginning with Turretin (whose tome Hodge would have used), passing over Hodge himself and focusing on Warfield, especially his inaugural address at Western in 1881 and his essay with A A Hodge on Inspiration (see here). I notice that several Warfield articles are here. In the afternoon we looked at the opening chapter of the Westminster Confession which, though familiar, was worth going through together its finely balanced statements.