Recasting Inerrancy: the Doctrine of Scripture In
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RECASTING INERRANCY: THE DOCTRINE OF SCRIPTURE IN CARL HENRY AND THE OLD PRINCETON SCHOOL By George Michael Coon A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Theology of Wycliffe College and the Department of Theology of the Toronto School of Theology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Theology Awarded by the University of St. Michael's College Toronto 2009 © George M. 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While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. 1*1 Canada ABSTRACT RECASTING INERRANCY: THE DOCTRINE OF SCRIPTURE IN CARL HENRY AND THE OLD PRINCETON SCHOOL George Michael Coon Faculty of Theology of Wycliffe College Department of Theology of the Toronto School of Theology University of St. Michael's College Doctor of Philosophy in Theology Toronto 2009 The purpose of this thesis is to investigate evangelical inerrantism with specific attention to the doctrine of Scripture in Carl Henry and the theologians of the Old Princeton School. While nearly all affirmations of Scripture's inerrancy share basic similarities, the best articulations of the inerrantist position have undergone development in order to address contemporary theological concerns. As such, adherents to the inerrantist tradition have offered significant theological insights to the Christian community concerning the doctrine of Scripture. In the Introduction, I describe the need for this investigation, offer a definition of an "inerrantist position on Scripture," and describe the methods and procedures for the thesis. In Chapter 1,1 trace the development of inerrancy from the Reformation notion of Sola Scriptura, through the Protestant Scholastic focus on Bibliology, to the effect of the Enlightenment on the doctrine of Scripture. ii In Chapter 2,1 detail the doctrine of Scripture in the Old Princeton School, focusing on the work of Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield, with whom the inerrantist position reached its fullest expression. In Chapter 3,1 consider the work of J. Gresham Machen, who sought to locate inerrancy in a fuller theological context. Machen represents a "recasting" of inerrancy in which formal statements of Bibliology are de- emphasized and located more appropriately on the theological hierarchy of truths. In Chapter 4,1 analyze the doctrine of Scripture in Carl Henry, whose treatment of inerrancy supersedes that of his fellow inerrantists. Henry affirmed inerrancy, yet he understood that inerrancy alone was not an adequate foundation for orthodoxy. With this realization, Henry avoids making inerrancy a test of faith, and he even predicates inerrancy on the more crucial doctrines of biblical authority and inspiration. In Chapter 5, a way forward for the inerrantist tradition is discussed, including a brief overview of more recent treatments of the subject. Present proposals are brought into conversation with the primary interlocutors of the previous chapters, and the question of the viability of the inerrantist tradition is raised. The thesis then concludes with a brief review of the content of each chapter. in ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To my lovely wife, Amy, Who has read not one word of this Thesis, But without whom, not one word could have been written. IV CONTENTS Chapter INTRODUCTION 1 Setting of the Thesis 4 Defining the "Inerrantist Position on Scripture" 7 Scope and Limits 13 Method and Procedure 16 ONE INERRANCY IN ITS HISTORICAL-THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT 20 The Roots of Inerrancy 22 Martin Luther 22 John Calvin 28 Ulrich Zwingli 34 Summary of the Reformation Doctrine of Scripture 37 The Consolidation of Protestant Bibliology 39 Philip Melanchthon 40 Francis Turretin 43 Inerrancy as the Answer to Critical Scholarship 51 Biblical Narrative and Questions of Historicity ... 53 Scripture Translation and the Development of Theological Systems 60 From Inerrantist Roots, to Inerrantist Position, to Inerrantist Tradition 63 TWO INERRANCY ACCORDING TO THE OLD PRINCETON SCHOOL 66 The Princeton Theology in Context 69 Scripture and the Inductive Theological Method 80 The Princetonians' Doctrine of Scripture 83 The Question of Historical Continuity 83 Inspiration as the Foundation of Inerrantist Bibliology 87 The Meaning of Theopneustos 90 Textual Evidence for Scripture's Inspiration 91 How Biblical Figures View the Biblical Text 95 The Princetonian Defense of Inerrancy 98 Answers to Common Objections 98 The Criteria for Proving an Error 102 Dissenting Voices Concerning the Old Princeton Inerrantist Position 107 Toward Inerrancy in Christological Context Ill Summary and Evaluation 114 v THREE INERRANCY ACCORDING TO J. GRESHAM MACHEN 117 Machen's Doctrine of Scripture and Inerrantist Position .. 119 Machen's Inerrancy in Theological and Historical Context 128 Summary and Conclusion 135 FOUR SCRIPTURE AND INERRANCY ACCORDING TO CARL F. H. HENRY 139 Henry' s Polemical Context: Answering Karl Barth 144 Henry's Theological Methodology 151 Henry's Epistemology 154 Henry's Theology of Revelation 159 The Place of Scripture in Revelation 159 The Centrality of the Logos 162 The Necessity of Propositional Truth 164 Henry's Doctrine of Scripture 167 Authority 167 Inspiration 170 Inerrancy 177 Henry's Recasting of Inerrancy 187 The Limits of an Inerrantist Position 188 Against an Overemphasis on Inerrancy 192 Inerrancy De-emphasized yet Important 194 Conclusion 200 FIVE THE INERRANTIST TRADITION IN POSTMODERN CONTEXT 207 Scripture and Inerrancy in a Postmodern Context 208 Kevin Vanhoozer 210 JohnFranke 213 JohnMorrison 216 Peter Enns 219 Framing an Emerging Evangelical Consensus 221 The Emerging Consensus and the Inerrantist Tradition ... 222 What Then of Inerrancy? 226 CONCLUSION 232 BIBLIOGRAPHY 236 VI INTRODUCTION As a particular proposal within the Christian doctrine of Scripture, evangelical inerrantism has been controversial almost since its inception. Inerrantists have claimed to have a view of Scripture that best reflects the Bible's teaching about itself and the nature of special revelation, and that flows most naturally from the doctrine of inspiration. Non- inerrantists see inerrancy as an unnecessary aberration that ignores the human elements of the biblical text, binds the reader of Scripture to literal exactness in interpretation, and detracts from the role of the Spirit. The inerrantist position has thus had a polarizing effect due to a basic tension within itself: while it appears to offer a high view of Scripture, it also seems to be a modern construct which espouses a rationalistic epistemology that locates Scripture's authority in its self-evidencing character, rather than in the authority of God Himself. In the Reformation, any understanding of Scripture's authority was related to the authority of Christ and the work of the Spirit.1 By the time of Protestant Scholasticism and the work of Francis Turretin,2 Sola Scriptura had become the foundation for an inerrantist view of Scripture, with the result that Scripture bore the burden of proving all 'Two leading discussions of the Reformers' view of Scripture—in the context of a debate over inerrancy—are Jack B. Rogers and Donald K. McKim, The Authority and Inspiration of the Bible (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979), and John D. Woodbridge, Biblical Authority: A Critique of the Rogers/McKim Proposal (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982). 2Francis Turretin, Institutes ofElenctic Theology, trans. George Geiger, ed. by James T. Dennison, Jr., 3 vols. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1994). 1 2 theological belief.3 At the Enlightenment, the historical-critical method was introduced as a way to overcome "naive" beliefs in the supernatural which many theologians of that period had come to reject.4 With the rising influence of the historical-critical