One of the latest wave-making academic books within evangelicalism is Kenton L. Sparks’s God’s Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Biblical Scholarship (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008).
Today the Old Testament Department at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School had a stimulating “brown bag seminar” for an hour during lunch to discuss this book. I left that meeting thanking God for Trinity’s gifted OT faculty.
- Dennis Magary moderated.
- Dick Averbeck summarized and evaluated.
- James Hoffmeier summarized and evaluated.
- Willem VanGemeren summarized and evaluated.
- Lawson Younger offered comments.
- John Monson (who was friends with Peter Enns while they both studied at Harvard) offered comments.
I don’t feel at liberty to publish my notes or their handouts online, but suffice it to say that the OT faculty agrees that Sparks’s book is deeply flawed and dangerous. (I’m paraphrasing, not directly quoting.)
Sparks uncritically accepts critical views and is overconfident in his conclusions while severely criticizing evangelicals like D. A. Carson, Robert Yarbrough, Kevin Vanhoozer, and James Hoffmeier. Sparks takes the debate beyond Peter Enns’s Inspiration and Incarnation. The book’s subtitle should not include the word “evangelical”: God’s Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Biblical Scholarship.
More reviews of this book are forthcoming. (For example, look for one by Bob Yarbrough in the next issue of Themelios.) Here are a couple of others already published:
- The enthusiastic RBL review by Arthur Boulet, an M.A. student at Westminster Theological Seminary and an ardent supporter of Peter Enns, is sad. A sharp friend of mine who is working on a PhD elsewhere emailed me this after reading it: “This review makes me want to cry. May God grant grace.”
- The review by Kevin Bauder is a breath of fresh air in comparison.
Updates:
1. S. M. Baugh reviewed Sparks’s book for Reformation21 in August 2008.
2. Gary L. W. Johnson comments on Sparks’s book in the introduction to Reforming or Conforming: Post-Conservative Evangelicals and the Emerging Church (ed. Gary L. W. Johnson and Ronald L. Gleason; Wheaton: Crossway, 2008), 23n21:
Sparks in particular paints contemporary defenders of inerrancy in very unflattering colors. Old Testament scholars such as R. K. Harrison, Gleason Archer, and E. J. Young are accused of sticking their heads in the sand to avoid dealing with the real issues raised by critical Old Testament scholars (133ff ) while New Testament scholars such as D. A. Carson and Douglas Moo are said to be guilty of deliberately dodging the issues of New Testament critics (167). Even greater disdain is heaped on Carl Henry, who had the misfortune of simply being a theologian and not a biblical scholar (138). However, the most reprehensible aspect of Sparks’s work is the facile labeling of all defenders of inerrancy as Cartesian foundationalists. Sparks declares Cornelius Van Til, and his presuppositional apologetics, to be Cartesian because Van Til underscored the importance of certainty, which to Sparks’s way of thinking automatically makes one a Cartesian (45). If that is the case, then we must place not only the Reformers and the church fathers in that category, but Christ and the apostles as well! Van Til was no Cartesian. His apologetical approach was rooted in classic Reformed theology, especially in the Dutch tradition of Kuyper and Bavinck, stretching back to the noted Dutch Protestant scholastic Peter Van Mastricht (1630–1706), who was an outspoken critic of all things Cartesian. As Richard Muller notes, “Mastricht’s consequent stress on the necessity of revelation for Christian theology (theology defined as ‘living before God in and through Christ’ or as the wisdom leading to that end) led to an adamant resistance to Cartesian thought with its method of radical doubt and its insistence on the primacy of autonomy of the mind in all matters of judgment.” Richard Muller, “Giving Direction to Theology: The Scholastic Dimension,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 28 (June 1985), 185.
3. Robert W. Yarbrough, “The Embattled Bible: Four More Books,” Themelios 24 (2009): 6–25.
4. A Book-Length Response to Kent Sparks
5. “Scripture: How the Bible Is a Book Like No Other,” in Don’t Call It a Comeback: The Old Faith for a New Day 
(ed. Kevin DeYoung; Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 59–69.
Hello Andy,
I’d very much like to know what constitutes my review as “sad.”
Is it because it is a positive review of a book that you disagree with, therefore you find it unfortunate that someone takes a differing view than yourself?
Is is because you believe that Kent’s view is un-Evangelical and anyone who takes that view is moving away from a ‘high view’ of Scripture?
Or is it something else?
Any clarification would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Hey, Art.
I’d answer a qualified Yes to your first two questions, though I wouldn’t frame them that way.
Disagreement provoked this sadness, but not merely because we disagree. It’s because of what we disagree about.
This issue is yet another round in a seemingly endless cycle of debates on inerrancy and evangelicalism. I’m sure you’ve heard most of the arguments, so I won’t rehash them here.
I second Art’s questions. I just read the review and didn’t come away thinking that it was ‘sad.’
I respect that answer and thank you for your honesty.
I do find, though, that the designation ‘sad’ is a bit patronizing, as if I’m some poor bloke who just doesn’t get it. But I suppose that you were just being honest about how you feel.
As a side note:
I think it might be a bit extreme to claim that the book is not “evangelical,” unless you truly believe that Kent denies the God of the Gospel. That is surely not the case.
Perhaps it might be more accurate to say that Kent goes against the doctrine of inerrancy that is held by many who have taken up the moniker ‘Evangelical’ in America. More nuance would be needed for the proposition that Kent’s book is not ‘evangelical’ to have much meaning.
For instance, there is nothing within Kent’s book that would fall outside of Barth’s work..namely: Evangelical Theology. So, in that sense as well as others, it is still evangelical.
Hello Andy et al.:
I am not at all surprised that the some (all?) on the panel find my book dangerous. After all, one important point of my book is that inerrancy in any human epistemic sense is simply wrong and, hence, can’t be the important thing that some evangelicals make it out to be. The alternative viewpoint—espoused by those on the panel, I suppose—is that inerrancy is essential for good Christian doctrine and for protecting the gospel message. I don’t fault them for that and respect them, but in the way that I respect some of my conservative Christian friends who believe that the King James Version is God’s true Bible. They are people created in God’s image, and loved by him and saved by Christ’s blood. But I don’t take their theological and biblical arguments seriously because I’ve already seen how very far away from reality the conclusion is.
A corollary of my view, of course, is that any scholar who adheres to fundamentalistic views of inerrancy (i.e., that the human authors of Scripture never erred) will naturally produce flawed scholarship at all points where that doctrine comes into play. It is very easy to see that one source in the Pentateuch contradicts another, but if one can’t admit that then the inevitable result be exegetical alchemy (such as, Judas hung himself, and then the rope broke and he fell headlong, etc …).
I am naturally sorry, as a Christian, that those criticized in the book feel that they were “bashed” … on the other hand, I’ve got lots of scholarship friends with whom I have vigorous disagreements in public meetings and in print, but we don’t think of it as “bashing” and we certainly don’t label each other as “dangerous.” Curiously, within the guild I’m viewed as a religious conservative, who still believes in the resurrection and in creedal orthodoxy; my present work, on Israel’s origins, charts out a direction that takes the Bible much more seriously as a source of early Israelite history. So, I suppose, it all depends on where one is coming from.
I’m on sabbatical and can’t take too much time with blogging and the like, but I do want to put in my two cents worth.
“Perhaps it might be more accurate to say that Kent goes against the doctrine of inerrancy that is held by many who have taken up the moniker ‘Evangelical’ in America.”
I will admit that I have not read Sparks’s book (I hope to soon), but I was at the TEDS session today and am beginning to read the reviews that are assembling. If Trinity’s professors are correct in regurgitating Sparks’s main points, I don’t see how Sparks’ can maintain any form of traditional inerrancy (from his perspective, why would he even want to hold to this?). With regard to speech-act theory, would it seem that he would have to move past finding the illocutions inerrant, and would have to hold to only the perlocutions being inerrant?
As one professor at the session today said, you don’t have to run through the ringer of historical-critical scholarship and come to these conclusions. I think the rest of the professors on the panel would have agreed.
Art,
I’m the friend quoted above who wanted to cry after reading the RBL review. I felt like crying because both the book and the review wholeheartedly embrace false teaching that is going to harm many of God’s people.
I know you feel strongly about this issue. The last paragraph of your review indicates this with the words: “the inadequate evangelical view,” “need to come to grips,” “in order for their approaches to do justice,” “evangelicals have underplayed or essentially denied the humanity of Scripture,” “their exclusion from these discussions is completely warranted,” “full agreement with Sparks,” “evangelicals shirk the difficult questions,” “revert to fideism,” “hiding their heads in the sand.”
I commend to you the advice of Jonathan Edwards (note this was what he resolved to do even if he was “strongly persuaded” of a new doctrinal position). He wrote in his diary on May 21, 1725, “If ever I am inclined to turn to the opinion of any other sect: Resolved beside the most deliberate consideration, earnest prayer, etc, privately to desire all the help that can possibly be afforded me from some of the most judicious men in the country, together with the prayers of wise and holy men, however strongly persuaded I may seem to be that I am in the right” (Iain Murray, Jonathan Edwards, 70.)
I urge you to take the concern of these professors at Trinity, Central, and Westminster CA as an opportunity to spend further time in deliberate consideration and earnest prayer and to seek out the counsel of wise and holy men who disagree with the position that you are strongly persuaded to hold.
In Christ,
Brian
Dr. Sparks,
One obvious question comes to mind – if the human authors of Scripture erred in some points at the illocutionary level (and this is the important question, what IS the author trying to do with this text because for me that is where inerrancy lies), how do you know that the essentials of the gospel message are not flawed also (the resurrection)? At the very least you have to be very open to the possibility. Maybe you address this in your book, but I have not been able to read it yet.
D.A. Carson was right in that we are headed for another round in the inerrancy debate. This one looks to be (unfortunately) more contentious than any in the past. On the bright side, I think the church will come out stronger after this one just as it did with the last.
Brian:
I honestly thank you for your concern. I know that it is heartfelt and sincere (I am not being snarky, but 100% genuine).
But I sincerely do not see Kent’s work as being dangerous for God’s people. I also do not see how the views embraced in the book (and by myself) are ‘false teaching.’ I understand that they are rejected by many evangelicals, like the men above and others, but that does not make them ‘dangerous’ or ‘false’ in my opinion.
I want to assure you that I take the study of the Bible extremely seriously. My studies and readings of the Bible and biblical studies is never absent of prayer and seeking counsel from learned women and men that I consider mentors in faith and life.
On a personal note, it’s men like Pete Enns and Kent Sparks that have helped me hold onto my faith. When I read Pete’s book I was boarding on agnosticism (think of an OT version of Bart Ehrman). God used his book in my life greatly.
I say that to say that I completely understand why you view these views as dangerous, harmful, or even false. But many of us have been persuaded otherwise from prayerful and earnest study of Scripture. Kent’s work has strengthened my faith in the Triune God of the Bible.
I’m willing to listen to arguments otherwise. But as it stands, I find Pete and Kent’s work to be extremely helpful in both understanding the Bible and strengthening my faith in God.
Art.
Sparks’s facile labelling of everybody who embraces inerrancy over the last century as ‘Cartesian’ is not only reprehensible but also reveals how poorly he really understands the subject of inerrancy.
Hello Jeremy et al,
Speech-Act theory, as you are employing it, is just another tool that turns the human authors of Scripture into inerrant authors. It says something like this: “We must judge the locutionary stance of the author of Genesis 1 in light of his illocutionary stance, which was, to tell us that Yahweh alone created the cosmos. The fact that he tells us (apprently, in error) that there are waters above the heavens is irrelevant because he was not trying to give us science but theology.” Now I do think that we should attend carefully to what authors are trying to do when we read their discourse, but that doesn’t (in my opinion) change the fact that his cosmology was at some points wrong and that he clearly communicated that cosmology in his disourse. I’d prefer Calvin’s approach, which is that the cosmology in Genesis is mistaken and that God accommodated his speech to errant human views. In this way, God does not err, but the human author and audience of Scripture are in error (although, in a twist, Calvin wants Moses to know about the accommodation so that he is “in” on the matter).
The really interesting point is that I’ll be there’s very little difference between what someone like Vanhoozer and me woudl do with Genesis 1. Both of us believe that God created the cosmos and the humans bear the divine image, and neither of us believes that the earth is young, that there is water above the heavens, or in a literal 6-day creation process.
Allegories, Accommodation, Speech-Act theory … all of these are interpretive theories that find a way of keeping parts of the biblical discourse by relativizing other parts of it. This is necessary because Scripture really is diverse in its viewpoints.
As for the resurrection, your question about it already assmes the Cartesian epistemology (i.e., any epistemology that believes humans can know that they have perfect, incorrigible knowledge) that I critique in the book. The simple answer is that the testimony to the life of Jesus and his resurrection is flawed in certain ways, as one can see by comparing the gospels. And even if they were identical, that wouldn’t prove that the testimonies were right. So I don’t “know” (in the Cartesian sense) that Jesus resurrected and ascended; I do truly believe it and live by it because there is evidence for it. But of course, I could be wrong. Maybe the universe is just a pack of little strings held together by impersonal forces and we all die and turn to dust … but that’s not what I believe.
I must say that I find it a little odd when people are discussing the book without reading it. The evangelicals who are critical of it tend to either criticize it second hand or to have misunderstood it because, to understand it as a whole, one must read it in light of my “practical realist” epistemology (that human beings never have inerrant perspectives but only the potential to have what we might call “adequate” knowledge). Unless one embraces that, then anything else I say will simply be impossible to accept. An epistemology of incorrigible certainty, that can face no “defeaters,” is simply off of the table for me.
But, bottom line: In my opinion, there is more than enough biblical, theological and philosophical evidence to show that the human (not divine) authors of Scripture erred like anyone else. My choice is either to give up Christianity (because it supposedly need an inerrant Bible to exist) or to recognize that this view of Scripture is deeply problematic. I have tried to show in my book that the Church has always allowed that the Bible has errors which are accommodated in God’s discourse, though I would modify the traditional view (on the basis of my practical realism) to say that all (not just some) of the Bible reflects accommodation.
PS: I doubt things will be more contentious than in the past.
Andy:
Thank you for this information. It is very helpful.
It is a bit cruel, though. You tease us with it but don’t publish the notes or the handouts. :) Perhaps they will permit you to publish them later.
I also appreciated the graciousness of your reply to Mr. Boulet.
Thanks,
Michael R. Jones
Kenton,
Your take on Calvin is as off base as you understanding of Cartesianism. Have you read Calvin’s commentary on Genesis!!??
Please explain Calvin’s opening remarks in his commentary on Genesis (“the design of Moses, or rather of the Holy Ghost, who has spoken by his mouth”) and where he declares that the allegorical/symbolical approach of Origen “and others like him, which Satan, with deepest subtlety, has endeavoured to introduce into the Church, for the purpose of rendering the doctrine of Scripture ambiguous and destitute of all certainty and firmness.” Huh, does this make Calvin a ‘Cartesian’?
As I had previously thought, Dr. Sparks does find that Biblical illocutions are errant. Art, I wonder if you feel differently about Dr. Sparks’s book now.
Dr. Sparks, I don’t know how you would have come to the conclusion that I believe in some form of Cartesian rationalism. I am critical realist in my epistemology (but I think that must differ from your practical realist view in some way). There will be plenty of people who will question your findings while holding an epistemology that is very close to yours. I just hope you won’t brush off their critiques, as you wouldn’t want evangelicalism to brush off yours.
I too hope that the inerrancy debates will not be more contentious than they were in the past. Time will tell.
Jeremy: I am reproducing a comment I made on my blog. Perhaps Kent can correct me if I am misrepresenting him:
I agree with Kent’s comments on Andy’s blog in that if the intention of the author of, say, Gen 1 was to convey cosmology then she or he erred because there is obviously not a solid dome covering the earth nor is there waters above that solid dome in the heavens.
Wouldn’t that mean, in terms of speech-act theory, that the author erred in her or his “locutionary” act and not her or his “illocutionary” act?
Kent does not clearly say that the authors erred at the illocutionary level.
Kent’s comment was as follows (with my notes in bold):
“Now I do think that we should attend carefully to what authors are trying to do [illocutionary act] when we read their discourse, but that doesn’t (in my opinion) change the fact that his cosmology was at some points wrong and that he clearly communicated that cosmology in his discourse [locutionary act].”
What Kent is fighting against is holding onto old forms of inerrancy. He sees Speech-Act theory as being employed in order for people to continue to hold onto old forms of inerrancy which are not very helpful.
In other words, Kent is saying that the authors may not have erred in their illocutionary act [Kent: ” I do think that we should attend carefully to what authors are trying to do”], but that does not mean that they are inerrant because they obviously erred in their locutionary act [Kent: “his cosmology was at some points wrong and that he clearly communicated that cosmology in his discourse”].
Does that make sense?
Yes it does. I’ll let Dr. Sparks clarify himself, but I don’t think you are interpreting him correctly. Yes we need to attend carefully to what the authors of Scripture are trying to do with a text, but I thought Dr. Sparks said that he was attentive to them, and said that after his analysis, they are still wrong. But if your take on Dr. Sparks is correct, his view seems to be the mainstream Evangelical opinion regarding illocutions, and then I don’t know why this book was needed.
This blog jumping is dizzying me!
It looks like quite the discussion has been going on here today.
I should clarify to Art and Stephen* that I don’t think prayer and wise counsel is the only thing that needs to occur to sort out a matter like this. But because these matters are not merely academic, prayer and meditation needs to be part of what goes on.
[*Note: The “Stephen” referenced here requested that his post be deleted.]
Regarding Stephen’s question about whether I would seek the counsel of men who disagree with my position, I would note (1) that I’m not departing from the traditionally orthodox position. I think Edwards was highlighting how slow and careful one should be in moving from what has traditionally been considered orthodox. (2) This does not mean I refuse to listen to what those who disagree with my position have to say. I read a fair bit of material that lies beyond the pale of conservative evangelicalism.
But having read the critics, I often find them unpersuasive. Some broad instances and then a specific. It seems that critics who read with naturalistic assumptions often end up counter-reading a text that was written with supernatural assumptions. It seems that critics intent on determining underlying sources often miss a book’s broader thematic unity. It seems that critics are so focused on problems that they fail to find solutions.
It is in connection with this last point that I take exception to Sparks’ contention above that those who hold to inerrancy will “naturally produce flawed scholarship at all points where that doctrine comes into play.” Instead of dismissing a hard case as an error or a contradiction, the inerrantist should spend some time seeking to find a reconciliation. This can (and in some cases has) resulted in forced harmonizations, but it can also result in a more sustained study of the text that yields a real solution that sheds light on the text.
Related to Sparks objection is Stephen’s objection that “When you decide ahead-of-time how the Bible must be (i.e., inerrant) and rule out all interpretations and approaches that could even allow otherwise, you have practically and theoretically closed-off the ability of God to challenge you through historical study of the Bible.”
I would answer by noting Baugh’s appeal that we examine what Scripture itself teaches about its own veracity. If Scripture itself decides ahead of time that certain interpretations are ruled out, this does not hinder true scholarship. It advances true scholarship by preventing scholars from running down dead-end roads.
To give a specific example, I find it interesting that Clifford in the ABD article on Second Isaiah complains that belief in verbal inspiration prevented scholars from seeing the disunity of Isaiah (3.490) while Seitz argues in his article,
So who’s view is actually obscuring accurate interpretation of the text? This question becomes more pointed when one of Clifford’s objections to verbal inspiration is made explicit: “This theory allowed readers to assume unity of authorship despite obviously different historical contexts; events later than Isaiah were considered to have been shown to him in a vision” (ABD 3.490).
But to deny that God can reveal predictions of the future through his prophet completely misses the entire point of the opening chapters of the so-called “second Isaiah.” These chapters teach that the great difference between God and the no-gods is that God can make such predictions (cf. 40:23).
Of course, one example doesn’t settle the debate, but I note it here as an example of why the embrace of critical scholarship by evangelicals puzzles me.
Art and Jeremy,
You are both right. In my illustration, I tried to show that speech-act theory does not really solve the problem because the discourse (the locutionary act) conveys viewpoints and perspectives beyound the illocutionary target. In such cases, one MIGHT say (though I probably wouldn’t) that the author did not err in reaching a given illocutionary objective, but one couldn’t say that his discourse was necessarily free of error. So Art is right insofar as my illustration.
But Jeremy is right about my book, in that I don’t believe human beings write inerrant books about God, history and theology, even if they are biblical writers. That is, it is clear to me that the illocutionary acts of the biblical authors–the very things that they wished to say–can sometimes be recognized as errant.
Central to my epistemology is that human beings only need–and can only have–adequate understandings of the real world and never God-like, error-free perceptions. In all that we see and all that we talk about, there is both true understanding and falsehood, the latter a product of our fallen and finite interpretive horizons. That adequate level of knowledge and discourse is what the Bible offers and is in fact all that we can bear. It is good enough … as Merold Westphal said, (and I paraphrase) “The Bible is like a parent telling a child, ‘Don’t put money in your mouth; it has germs on it.'”
In my understanding of Western epistemology, all epistemic theories that believe human beings have the capacity for error-free knowledge are Cartesian in that they stand in the same epistemic tradition, even when they try to say (as Van Til did) that they are not Cartesian. So (and this is the only thing I will say regarding GLW’s comments, because we’ve had this conversation elsewhere) when GLW says that Van Til was not Cartesian, he is right insofar as Van Til explicitly tried to distance himself from Descartes and stood in opposition to him. But by my definition of Cartesian epistemology, however, Van Til failed because he simply replaced Descartes’ “basic beliefs” with “god-given and well-chosen presuppositions” … that is, Van Til was still in the Cartisan game of securing inerrant, indubitable, incorrigable knowledge. To illustrate, the fact that Philo of Alexandria tried to distinguish his views from the prevailing hellenism doesn’t change the fact that he was a hellenistic Jew, who wrote in Greek and employed Platonic philosophy in his work. So long as one is in the river, one gets wet even swimming against the stream.
As regards “Critical realism,” this label is being used by people in two different ways. Many people who mean by it the very same thing that I mean by “practical realism.” That is, there is a real world and human beings have the capacity to tolerably (but never perfectly) understand it. Others use the term as merely a kind of enlightened, more self-critical Cartesiansim … That’s not a “critical realism” that I’d be interested in.
Brian:
I don’t think that Clifford and Seitz are all that different on Isaiah. Dick would say that Isaiah reflects numerous historical horizons, that it reflects redactional unity, and that religious commitments to verbal inspiration prevented some Christians from recognizing the historical complexity of the book. Seitz has different theological instincts than Clifford, but on these basic points his comments in ABD dovetail just fine. What neither would say is that the book of Isaiah was written by one prophet living in the 8th century BC.
By the way … about the label “evangelical” …
I would point out that Kevin Vanhoozer contributed a response to a book by IH Marshall that is very similar to my own and concluded that it is still “evangelical.” And then there is the philosophy book by Nick Wolterstorff, “Divine Discourse,” that espouses similar views (in some respects, inspired my views). I’d be interested to know if those who label my views dangerous would be willing to say the same about the books of Marshall and Wolterstorff.
Unfortunately I’m pressed for time and can’t blog much, but I appreciate Andy for allowing the dialogue.
warmly in Christ,
Kent
Brian wrote:
“It seems that critics who read with naturalistic assumptions often end up counter-reading a text that was written with supernatural assumptions. It seems that critics intent on determining underlying sources often miss a book’s broader thematic unity. It seems that critics are so focused on problems that they fail to find solutions.”
If I may remark: critics may also read with supernaturalistic assumptions and still find counter-readings in spite of supernatural assumptions. Critics can also become convinced of underlying sources precisely because their honest quest for broader thematic unities failed. Furthermore, critics may become so focused upon problems because the problems grow to become so great that they prove themselves more than routine anomalies and finally force a gestalt switch.
This is what happens to some of the evangelical critics who seem headed down their proverbial slippery slope.
I am not a speech-act expert, but does the locutionary act even convey any meaning at all (after all, words only have meaning in context)? If not (and again, it could, I just don’t know if it does), then the locution could be in some sense false, the illocution true, and a moderate version of inerrancy defended.
I have always thought that inerrancy was sufficient truth, not absolute truth because we all see the world through our own perspectives. I thought the majority of Evangelicalism saw it the same way. I just don’t see what is so wrong with saying that my own limited perspective can be error-free in what I affirm and deny, but limited. Just because I don’t say everything about a given subject does not mean that what I do say and affirm is not true.
The debates between Van Til and Gordon Clark relate to this discussion. Clark affirmed that the propositions in our minds must be exactly the same as they are in God’s mind, or else we cannot be assured that we have correct knowledge. Van Til argued that they cannot ever be exactly as they are in God’s, but that they are close enough. This seems further away from Cartesian rationalism than Dr. Sparks maintains. Also, Van Til’s basic beliefs were not just God-given assumptions, but the canon. There does seem to be a little bit of difference there.
Maybe the difference between Vanhoozer, Marshall, Wolterstorff and Dr. Sparks lie in the fact that they mostly talk about this issue from a theoretical level, and Dr. Sparks is happy to be more specific. Or maybe he goes farther than they do.
Not to overly defend Kevin Vanhoozer, but if he still believes this article, he seems to be at odds in several key areas with Dr. Sparks.
http://www.theologynetwork.org/biblical-studies/getting-stuck-in/the-inerrancy-of-scripture.htm
Hi Jeremy,
“…does the locutionary act even convey any meaning at all (after all, words only have meaning in context)?
Or, to rephrase your question, do words convey any meaning at all? The answer is yes, and the meaning conveyed will depend on the reader (or hearer) of the discourse. So, for instance, even if one wishes to say that the Genesis author’s illocutionary purpose was only to say “God created the universe” and very little else, his locution nevertheless reflected his errant view of “waters above the heavens,” and this can easily (of course) be taken seriously by his reader. But this is only an example … Speech-Act theory is in fact far more nuanced than our pedestrian examples (read Austin, Searle or Vanhoozer and you’ll see how smart these guys are), and yet it has often been criticized (rightly I think) as quite insufficient as a holistic theory of discourse.
The moderate form of inerrancy that you suggest is merely another way of affirming that biblical authors do get things wrong, i.e., they err. My version of inerrancy goes the whole way by just admitting the implication: I am VERY interested in affirming that God does not err in Scripture, but not the least concerned about the fact that biblical authors, as human beings speaking for God, do err. After all, in the end, even if we had inerrant human authors we’d only have our errant interpretations of the text. If that’s the case, then there’s no need to start with perfect discourse. We start with adequate discourse and end with adequate interpretation. Stability in this hermeneutical situation resides, not in the human beings, but in the realities—natural and supernatural—to which the discourse points.
You said: “I just don’t see what is so wrong with saying that my own limited perspective can be error-free in what I affirm and deny, but limited.”
Now you’re onto the real issue here. According to those of my ilk, all interpretation is contextual, and we never really understand the whole context. As a result, all hermeneutical renderings of the world and word are in some way useful and potentially adequate but also flawed and warped by our fallen, finite interpretive horizon. At this point the question is: what does it mean for a human being to be “right” under these circumstances? For postmodernists like myself, to be right is literally to be “like” … our understanding is close to reality in a useful way, but in no respect does it precisely match reality. Such an inerrant stance on reality (and here we must speak as fools) is only available to God. Now for those who still stand in the modernist tradition, they affirm that human beings have partial “atoms” of inerrant knowledge (true propositions) mixed with “atoms” of errant knowledge (“false propositions”). You recognize this as the propositional school of epistemology associated especially with Biola U. On this theory, the biblical authors—with God’s help—managed to include in their discourse only the true propositions and to avoid all false propositions. This last assertion seems totally false to me, both because Scripture is filled with human errors (because humans err) and because it fails to appreciate the contextual nature of interpretation (humans don’t know enough context to inerrantly interpret and then write about reality).
This brings us back to Van Til … Basically, Van Til was putting together the pieces that were taking him down the path of postmodernism. At one point he actually says something like, “To understand anything, one must understand everything.” If only he had realized the import of his very correct point. The problem with Van Til is that he was putting one foot in the postmodern camp and trying to keep the other in world with Cartesian results (inerrant words in a human horizon that can yield indubitable, inerrant knowledge).
About Vanhoozer … his views are certainly different from Marshall, Wolterstorff or mine … the point is that he doesn’t seem as “spooked” by these views than the OT profs at Trinity. But I do think that my book calls a spade a spade more clearly than Marshall’s … plus, my title includes the word “Evangelical.”
Sparks displays a grossly simplistic understanding of what constitutes Cartesianism that, frankly, is laughable to those who are trained in the field. The bold matter in which he advances this form of ‘certainty’ actually would make him a Cartestian if he would only take time to look in the mirror. He comes across as rabid in his cock-sure assertions as any fire-breathing ‘King James only’ advocate. This kind of dogmatism is not restricted to those mean-spirited fundamentalists (like the ones Sparks characterizes in his book and in the OT dept. at TEDS) that Sparks wants so desperately to seperate himself from in the eyes of academia.
Kent,
I realize that Clifford and Seitz hold similar views about multiple Isaianic authors. My point is this: Seitz is noting that multiple authorship view has in the past obscured a thematic unity to Isaiah. Thus the position that Clifford derides in his article as obscurantist actually has a better chance of rightly understanding this thematic unity than a multiple-author view. I think this is especially true when the denial of actual divine predictions is one of the reasons for denying the unity of Isaiah. This denial can only lead to a serious misreading the text (or else a right reading that is curiously detached from reality: e.g., “God is saying that He is the true God because He is predicting the future and the no gods cannot do this—but we all know that God was not really predicting the future here, because that just doesn’t happen”).
Cbovell,
If an “honest quest for thematic unities” fails, and if “problems grow to become so great that they prove themselves more than routine anomalies,” why would I not allow that at least part of the trouble may be my own finitude and falleness?
Again, I think we need to take seriously Baugh’s appeal that we examine what Scripture itself teaches about its own veracity. The Scripture itself must set the ground rules for what interpretations are in bounds and what interpretations are out of bounds.
If I have trouble reconciling some things in Scripture, I need to realize that I don’t have to find a solution immediately. It may take decades to find a solution. Or I may never find one.
But what right have I, in search of solutions to biblical or theological problems, to disregard the limits Scripture itself (and thus God himself) places upon me when looking for those solutions?
I’m afraid that our honest pursuits of the evidence may become an autonomous exaltation of our own wisdom.
Why are non-Evangelicals so desperate to prostitute the name to accommodate their defection, rather than simply discard it for a more accurate label?
Brian writes: “why would I not allow that at least part of the trouble may be my own finitude and falleness?”
Yes that’s always a problem, the other part of the problem is that even accounting for finitude and sin, inerrancy looks like it’s false. It’s taken years but I have finally found the strength to admit it openly: inerrancy is false.
“Scripture itself must set the ground rules for what interpretations are in bounds and what interpretations are out of bounds.”
I thought this once but found that I am the one imposing this belief upon scripture–imposing what I think scripture should look like. At the time I thought that scripture should look inerrant, but it turns out I was wrong. It’s not inerrant and there’s no use continuing to try to make it be what it is not.
“I need to realize that I don’t have to find a solution immediately. It may take decades to find a solution. Or I may never find one.”
I held this sentiment too, but no longer because there was never a solution to be found to begin with. It took a while but I have decided that I am not going to spend my life sorting out problems that were never meant to be sorted out to begin with. The Bible is errant but God still “breathed” it somehow.
“I’m afraid that our honest pursuits of the evidence may become an autonomous exaltation of our own wisdom.”
Perhaps, but I’m convinced that my honest pursuit has arrived at a Spirit-led conclusion: I no longer need to preoccupy myself with preserving inerrancy so that I may believe it. It is liberating. In fact, it’s what drove me to write my book.
Your sort always writes as if you’re the first to find “liberation” from the Godhood of God exhilarating. Eve did, too. At first.
Carols,
It seems the crux of the issue is what Scripture’s testimony about itself is. As long as we disagree about this, we’re not likely to come to any agreement about any of these other issues.
Can you explain why the passages you once thought demanded inerrancy no longer drive you to that conclusion?
Brian
I try to explain in my book, Inerrancy and the Spiritual Formation of Younger Evangelicals. I might say here, though, that inerrancy is neither here nor there in scripture. I would say that it is our own inference that we draw entirely on our own. And that inference may or may not be right. I am convinced that it is not the right inference to make regarding scripture’s authority.
If I may, I’d like to inquire into why you think scripture’s testimony should be given primacy. I agree we should consider it, but why give it primacy to the extent that it becomes the crux of the matter? I thought once that I was giving scripture priority and it ended up I was giving my own expectation of what scripture should be the priority. Once I realized that I was able to back off a bit a let scripture be scripture, whatever that may turn out to be (in my view, not inerrant).
Dan:
I notice that you refer to me as “your sort” and being the first. I never claimed to be the first to do anything. I will confess that denying inerrancy is the first breath of spiritual fresh air that I have breathed in many years.
I’m not sure how to understand what you’re saying. You’re saying that we should give Scripture’s testimony consideration. But when constructing a doctrine of Scripture the phenomena of Scripture should be given at least as much weight.
But isn’t it far more likely that the phenomena will be open to a larger number of possible interpretations than the explicit statements of Scripture?
Furthermore, if the explicit statements of Scripture rule out certain interpretations of the phenomena, I give the explicit statements of Scripture priority over my interpretations of the phenomena.
So once again, can you explain why the passages you once thought demanded inerrancy no longer drive you to that conclusion?
Kenton,
From the sounds of things, I respect your project. But here’s why the inerrancy discussion won’t go away. The claim that nothing can be believed to be “inerrant” and not be Cartesian is false. My calculator is inerrant as is my birth certificate. Inerrancy in its most basic sense means that which is “without error”–meaning it does not give false information. There is nothing here about “incorrigibility” or that which that would be immune to the “defeater” of DesCartes’ evil demon.
I think there is something to be said for divine-human accommodation and how that looks in the end, but to say that properly basic beliefs are the same thing as incorrigible beliefs is simply wrong. Thinkers like Alvin Plantinga and J. Wood have shown the varying degrees of epistemic certainty that obtain well outside the foundationalism of DesCartes. I don’t think any scholar at Trinity or WST is a Cartesian in any meaningful sense.
Cheers,
Adam
I began considering more seriously how 2Tim 3.16 says nothing about inerrancy but rather emphasizes practical spiritual benefits that can come from studying scripture. What biblical authority looks like is inferred by the reader in terms of his or her cultural context. My whole preoccupation with mistakes in the Bible is misguided, I realized. Scripture may have mistakes here or there; it’s the practical spiritual benefit that counts the most. That was a big eye opener for me.
I wondered, too: how can one discern which statements are clear anyway without a prior understanding of what scripture is doing? What is the Bible and why am I mining it for theological systems in the first place? That’s what I was told to do, but is that what it’s even for? Moreover, when I think it says something “explicitly”–like that a serpent talked– how should I understand “explicitly”? And am I forced to believe that a serpent talked just because scripture seems to explicitly say that one did. All this seems to me to require a profound existential dialectic that always does its best to do proper justice to the phenomenological aspect of scriptural study. This is where I very much agree with Kent and say that inerrancy does nothing but get in the way here.
Brian:
Above, you wrote: “The Scripture itself must set the ground rules for what interpretations are in bounds and what interpretations are out of bounds.”
This is another example of an inference being made by believers. This is not in scripture (at least as far as I know). I mean we say it all the time because it gives us the momentum we need to set up shop and do conservative evangelical theology, but this does not make it a divine instruction. It’s a helpful inference we make and it can sometimes work and other times not. For me, it no longer is helpful so I am searching for something else.
Hello Adam,
Thanks for your thoughtful comments.
Actually, if you read my post you’ll see that I specifically mentioned that we can’t speak inerrantly about complex things like “God, history and theology,” and you’ll also see in my book that I mention the possibility that very simple statements, such as “1+1=2” or “The fire truck is red,” might be inerrantly right. But I only allow this as a possibility and actually suspect that even in these simple cases we are dealing with the “illusion of perfection,” in which we confuse very close approximations of reality with perfect construals of it. Also, we have to keep straight that epistemology is about our understanding of the world and not merely about ideas in our head. Many (but not all) postmodernists will admit that mathematics and logic are perfectly right because they are very finite creations systems of our intellect that play out within our intellect. As for the birth certificate issue, it could very well be wrong (in fact, my daughter’s birth certificate had the wrong gender on it), which means it isn’t a source of incorrigible knowledge, and even if we decide that the information in it is functionally sound, there are subtle ways in which it might err. It would take too much space in a blog to explain all of the ways in which this is so, but it’d be easier than you might think. Texts are, strictly speaking, neither errant nor inerrant. Rather, they are the artifacts of human actions that are the source of any correctness and and error. Hence, to say that a text is “errant” or “inerrant” is always a metaphor that means, “The views of the author that gave rise to this text were not in error, and/or the author did not err in the effort to express his/her views.” If it can be shown that, in any respect, the production of birth certificates (as signs of citizenship) has the effect of systematically excluding one group from benefits available to others, it might be that all birth certificates are in some respects products of moral error. Now I am not saying that my illustration is right … I am only pointing to a possibility as an example to say that the matter is far more complex than it seems at first blush.
But the main point is that, IMO, no linguistic account of something so complex as the “history of Israel” or “the Holy Trinity,” however useful and adequate, will be able to avoid some degree of oversimplification and falsehood. To say that Israel went into Exile because of its sins is partly right, but if the biblical author really thought that this was THE REASON (when there are many other socio-economic forces in play) or if we think, because of the biblical author, that it really was THE REASON, then our understanding of things is at some point wrong. Similarly, to say that God is “one deity in three persona,” useful as it is, suffers as well from what will undoubtedly be a misunderstanding of “persons” by the human being saying it … this will be true whether they are a trained theologian like Karl Barth or a five-year old child.
It’s been a while (four years or so) since I read Plantinga and Wood, so the details of their epistemology are fuzzy. I think that they are headed in the right direction with their emphasis on epistemic “warrant” as opposed to “justification,” but if your account of their view of certainty is right then it has its flaws. “Certainty” as usually used means that I am, well, certain … without doubt. There is no such thing as a “degree” of certainty (though one might have degrees of confidence in beliefs). The trick is that certainty has no “necessary” connection with correctness. I can be certain and wrong at the same time. This is best spelled out in the complex little book by the Catholic theologian John Henry Newman, Grammar of Assent, where he points out that “certainty” is an epistemic function of the mind that brings a necessary close to what would otherwise be an endless interrogation of our beliefs.
At any rate, I stand by this point: any epistemology that believes human begins can have inerrant knowledge of the world stands in the modern Cartesian tradition, according to which we are able to sufficiently escape our human context to see things “as they really are”; no postmodernist would ever say something like this. We are ever and always looking at the world from a social and cultural perspective, and that perspective is always warped by our finiteness and fallenness.
But here’s my question: In the end, what’s the real problem with my claim that biblical discourse provides adequate but not inerrant access to truth? After all, I’ve stated that it’s “adequate” … doesn’t that mean, “good enough?” And why is it dangerous to say that we have an understanding that is good enough rather than inerrant? If inerrancy is a prerequisite for knowledge, then shouldn’t we be rid of all of our history and theology books (surely they all have errors)? And if, in fact, we really do get valuable and useful knowledge from errant history and theology books, then why must he Bible offer something more?
a PS for Brian:
I quite agree that Scripture’s testimony about itself must be taken seriously, but it seems to me that Scripture’s testimony has to be weighed along with Scripture’s actual features. Even if we find a biblical text that says something like, “God’s word in the Bible never communicates any errant human viewpoints” (not something we’ll find, but for the sake of discussion), that biblical word will not be God’s final word on the subject if the Bible has human errors in it.
Again, and I don’t mean this with any arrogance at all: If to be a Christian is to believe in the inerrancy of the Bible’s human authors, then to my mind Christianity has been proved wrong a hundred times over. I am still a Christian because of the sorts of things I write in my book; if anything, Archer’s “Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties” and the books of conservative evangelicals only drive me farther from the faith.
And just one more thing … it is sometimes insinuated that folks like myself, and Pete Enns, are doing what we do to gain credibility with the academy and to separate ourselves from our Evangelical brothers and sisters. This is patently false, as anyone familiar with the academy will know. One doesn’t win any points in the OT/NT guild by writing a book about “God’s Word” and “Incarnation & Inspiration,” and the very idea that I would like to distance myself from such fine fellows as John Monson and Dick Averbeck (or even outspoken critics like DA Carson and Greg Beale) is a sham. Nevertheless, it is quite true that I think evangelical biblical scholarship is deeply flawed in certain ways, and I am doing my best to suggest constructive, orthodox, theological paths for its future. Many books are appearing in this genre nowadays, and they aren’t coming from what could be construed as “liberals” who are out to escape the hand of God; they are being written by people who were born and bred as Evangelicals and who deeply love Evangelicals.
And with this very long email, I really should bring my blogging to a close. I’m sure that this interesting conversation will go on without me … naturally, I won’t be able to avoid checking in on it.
Thanks again to Andy for hosting us.
With best to all,
Kent
Kent,
Should not God’s Word be the lens through which we see and understand the world, the cosmos, our existence? If we are, then how can we do that if we are “ever and always” doing this:
“looking at the world from a social and cultural perspective, and that perspective is always warped by our finiteness and fallenness.”
Where does the work of the Holy Spirit indwelling the believer fit into this picture? How are the eyes of an unbeliever opened to see Christ?
Hi Jonathan,
I’ve covered this in the book. Give it a read.
Kent
BTW, if anyone feels the need to carry on parts of this conversation with me, I’d glady correspond through email. My address is ksparks@eastern.edu.
Kent
Kent,
You asked: “But here’s my question: In the end, what’s the real problem with my claim that biblical discourse provides adequate but not inerrant access to truth?”
Well to lay my cards on the table, I don’t affirm inerrancy because we do not have access to the original autographs. The word ‘inerrancy’ is a bit too strong to describe what it wants to describe–the totality of Scripture being absolutely without error. We read errant Bibles translated from errant extant copies and yet have sufficient knowledge of what God’s inerrant word probably said. I affirm that God’s word is inerrant because he is inerrant (there is your source and “god’s eye-view.”). I think believers can function under the authority of Scripture that is errant in its present form.
I also think that much of the literature in the Bible has a human shape that needs to be drawn out. I do not care for an overemphasis on the deity of the Bible, because it destroys the character and nature of the dual authorship of Scripture. Song of Songs is not “inerrant love poetry” but it does express God’s intentions for human sexual experience (yearning, longing, happiness, sensual delight, devotion, love) in a way would not lead us into sexual immorality. Of course, these ideas are expressed in their cultural forms which are quite interesting and perhaps impossible to fully understand.
But the general problem I am having with your views (as you spell them out here) is what I have with everything that falls under postmodern epistemology (deconstruction?). In the end, it becomes a worldview that claims to see things “as they really are” by stating “we can’t see things as they really are.” The correspondence theory of truth is ironically presupposed in this sorts of claim that ironically is made with quite a bit of certainty. The self-defeating nature of the view is all too apparent. Since it presupposes to know how social constructions shackle our knowledge of truth in a law-like fashion to cultural-socioeconomic conditions, it in of and it self, becomes an inerrant account of reality. it seems that our cognitive faculties are made for discovering such an account, even though we may be quite limited in our tools of discovery.
For biblical studies, I think it is imperative to abandon postmodern thought, because it reduced the Word to the human level too much. A more incarnational approach is needed that balances both the human and divine. In such a view, the divine is seen to be competent in communicating truth to its creatures, but it communicates in such a way that the finitude of the creatures will compensated for adapting and accommodating to their situated-ness.
I’m sure you are aware of all this and have covered this in your book, which I will now probably have to read. Thanks for the exchange.
Yours is the last word.
Adam
I appreciate your position and concerns, Adam. But yes, read the book if you will. It deals with all of this (and makes the same critique of antirealist postmodernsim; I am a postmodern realist). You can then decide what you think.
uhh, whoa.
So you affirm that “any epistemology that believes human beings can have inerrant knowledge of the world stands in the modern Cartesians tradition.” Are you are positively sure of that? Hmmm. If so, then you are a ‘Cartesian’! Also this would make the Apostle Paul a ‘Cartesian’ since he claimed to possess that kind of knowledge. Cf. chapters 7 (“Some Biblical Passages to Help Us in Our Evaluations”) and 8 (“A Biblical Meditation on Truth and Experience”) in D.A. Carson’s Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church (Zondervan, 2005).
Fellows, if any of you are buying this bull, you need to have your head examined. Sparks continues to steadfastly maintain this philosophical nonsense. If I come across rather terse with Sparks, you can chalk that up to my having been a student of the late Gleason Archer at TEDS. Like his hero, Robert Dick Wilson, Dr. Archer NEVER dodged the tough questions or avoided the critics, and for Sparks to accuse him and everyone else who espouses inerrancy as being theological cowards is highly insulting.
How easy it is for a human being to approach Scripture from above, proudly deciding where Scripture is and isn’t fully reliable, doing a linguistic dance that smokescreens pride and unbelief, and even spreading the poison for others to ingest. Why not humbly say that, when we cannot fully understand or reconcile parts of Scripture, the ignorance is with us, rather than attacking God’s Word and, by extension, the Holy Spirit himself? Is is “sad” indeed.
HI, GLW. It’s been a while.
It just occurred to me that my new book, By Good and Necessary Consequence: A Preliminary Genealogy of Biblicist Foundationalism, may be relevant to your concerns. I argue that any theology that proceeds by good and necessary consequence from alleged express statements of scripture are fundamentally cartesian and culturally stuck in an outmoded 17th century mindset.
S. Joseph:
I agree that there is a measure of unbelief that goes into denying inerrancy, but there is no reason to always equate this with an outright disbelief in the gospel of Christ. I personally don’t see myself as attacking God’s word. I don’t think Kent does either. What we are doing is raising serious questions about the interpretation of scripture’s authority that insists that the Bible must be inerrant.
S. Joseph:
I wanted to clarify further, if I may. The unbelief I mentioned regards disbelieving inerrancy. If inerrancy is seen to be central to Christianity, then disbelieving it will come across as unbelief. But if inerrancy is not central, then the measure of unbelief resulting from not believing it is not so great and should be socially and theologically tolerable. And if inerrancy really is a false doctrine as I hold, then the measure of “unbelief” (as you call it) that you sense in this discussion ultimately falls to nilch. In fact, non-inerrantists might even begin saying that inerrantists are the one’s who are really demonstrating their unbelief.
Either way, I find it problematic that questioning inerrancy is often equated with unbelief. I always thought that unbelief had to do with a diminishing of allegiance to Christ and not to intellectual agreement with a theological proposition regarding scripture’s authority. It is not helpful in the least to promote that one’s interest in inerrancy should have anything to do with one’s allegiance to Christ.
I hoped the “your sort” would tweak you a bit, CBovell; glad if it did.
Here’s the thing, without fancy fleur-de-lis. Infidelity isn’t new. It goes back to Eve, and always has the same nexus: retorting “Did God really say?” to what God really said. (Here in this meta, we have the delicious additional irony of your specifically “hath-God-said”-ing whether the serpent said “hath God said?”)
So, when you and Sparks pronounce the Scripture as “errant” in what it teaches and affirms — is that pronouncement inerrrant?
When you tell me that I can’t bet my soul on tota Scriptura, can I bet my soul on your assertion?
When you try to entice me from relying on Scripture as to the complete truthfulness of its affirmations, is your enticement completely truthful?
When you assure me that Scripture is not fully authoritative for all of my faith and life (which, be honest, is your root issue: the Godhood of God), is your assurance fully authoritative?
You’re just not new. Machen already answered you. Calvin already answered you. Augustine already answered you. Jeremiah already answered you. Moses already answered you. God already answered you.
Your defection will (I hope) be forgotten within a few decades, as were earlier attempts by your forebears going back through Marcion, to the Samaritans, and the like.
Get a sense of history, and one sees that tries like yours are absolutely no different. Each generation produces its brave new defectors who cry “Eureka!” and ape the latest terms and tools, because they subscribe to the latest way of aping the Serpent.
So, as for me? I’m sure I’m not, nor ever will be, respected by academics. Back in 1973 I came to see Jesus as Lord, by God’s grace. Jesus never, ever, EVER questioned nor weighed nor even debated the truth of Scripture; nor did His apostles, nor had the prophets.
He’s my Lord, and so (to the best of my ever-flawed ability) His thinking is my thinking. His attitude towards Scripture is my attitude towards Scripture. It is the Word of God, and it is wholly true and wholly authoritative and wholly binding on my conscience and worldview.
So, if this is where you really want to stake your souls as you shill your books, enjoy your moment.
Because that will be all any man gets, when he opposes his authority to that of God.
I say that, by the way, on the authority of the Bible — though, doubtless, on one of the parts you’ve decided (conveniently?) is in error.
In response to GLW and Dan, all of this is covered in my book. As for Archer et al, see my description of biblical scholarship and my critique of Evangelical biblical scholarship. Then decide for yourself.
BTW, note my quotation from Archer in which he tells us that the Israelites wrongly thought that rabbits chewed the cud and that the biblical author accommodated himself to that errant view; notice too his view that the author of Acts quoted from a faulty Septuagint, thus providing an incorrect chronology, but that this doesn’t matter because it didn’t concern his purpose. Now I agree with this, but Archer didn’t realize the implications.
Keypoint: If you read evangelicals carefully, you will see that they frequently admit error but, by sleight of hand that fools even themselves, they are still able to defend inerrancy.
BTW, In all of these discussions I’d invite you to listen seriously to those who oppose my views, such as DA Carson, G Beale, and (apparently?) the entire OT faculty at TEDS. They are very smart people, very well trained, and very good scholars who, in my opinion, have bought into some faulty theological assumptions.
Dan:
I wasn’t affected by your “your sort” remark. I was just looking to see if you intended some contempt in the way you were addressing me. I think I understand what you are saying but think that you are blowing into cosmic proportion a matter that is only incidental. I also think that you have convinced yourself that what you are saying has God’s authority when it is but one possible conserative interpretation of scripture’s authority (an unhelpful one in my view).
You have 35+ years of spiritual understanding on the line here and are expressing the prospect of losing that understanding in cosmic terms using biblical images. I appreciate that. But my main point (again) is that it is not a good thing that so many evangelicals are unwittingly “staking their souls” (as you say) on one particular view of the Bible. It is a very unwise socio-religious strategy that encourages believers to make mountains out of molehills.
On I. H. Marshall:
“One thing is immediately clear. We cannot close our eyes to the existence of such probems and pretend that they are not there; we cannot suspend our mental and moral faculties. In many cases the statemtns made in the Bible can be assessed by ordinary human methods of study, and there is no reason why we should no look at them in this way. We may well come to the conclusion that the Bible is imprecise on certain matters, and we have then to ask how far this is compatible with our understanding of the trustworthiness of the Bible.” (Biblical Inspiration, 122)
I think this is pretty similar to Sparks and that Vanhoozer would agree with Marshall here. But Sparks thinks that “imprecise” does not begin to do justice to some of what the biblical writers do. He thinks that calling them errors will ultimately help evangelicals see scripture as it really is and not what we imagine it should be.