Scripture is composed of human words that retain the frailty that belongs to all human language in a fallen world. That is not to say that we are condemned to wander the no-man’s land of relativism at all; only that we should not be surprised that the Scriptures are contested territory. This side of the eschaton, absolute certainty is not possible; though confidence is.
In fact, I would want to say that the human weakness of Scripture is entirely in keeping with the character of the God whose word Scripture claims to be. Protestant attempts to defend the Bible from its own scandalous humanity by appeals to (real or alleged) “original autographs”, and the like are not only futile: they are unnecessary. While often this theology appeal to the character of God, by supernaturalising Scripture it actually conceals something of God’s true nature. These appeals are an expression of an over-realised eschatology of Scripture, an emphasis of the “now” at the expense of the “not-yet.”
Scripture is, according to its human nature, revealed to be powerful along the continuum of salvation-history. That power has yet to be revealed in full; it as yet remains a power that is partly concealed, and contentious. It is rejected as much as accepted; denied as much as affirmed. It is a great, unfinished symphony! The themes have been stated and re-stated, but the resolving cadence has yet to be played.
However, we must also assert that the judgement of God has been inserted into human history, at the cross of Christ. For all the gentleness and forbearance of God’s word to us in Scripture, it has at its central motif God’s fearful verdict on humanity. The publication of this judgement in the pages of Scripture stands as a terrible warning to men and women of what the final judgement holds for them. It is God’s promise that he will vindicate his own righteousness at the last.
26 comments:
Sounds familiar... :-)
Although is the fallibility of language only the result of the fall, or is the possibility built into finitude? Could Adam have said 'tree' and Eve have heard 'three'?
PS This latter point is picked up in detail by James K. A. Smith in The Fall of Interpretation - great little book (I know you're not a fan generally, but this one was good).
---Although is the fallibility of language only the result of the fall, or is the possibility built into finitude? --
Alternatively, could the account of the Tower of Babel's frustration have something to do with it?
It is always an interesting question as to whether we should expect more of Scripture than we do of the Lord who speaks through it.
Many of the things that people claim in the inerrancy debate seem to put Scripture at a greater level of power than the Lord himself exhibited in his earthly ministry.
It might be important to recall that Scripture and the message of the Gospel which dwells there-in and holds all together, are being perfected by the Spirit along with everything else. Of course people and things can be perfected in the Father's purposes even when they are in a state of rebellion or misinterpretation.
Yes, David, John Webster kind of uses this argument, or line of thought: he says, God sanctifies them (words, people) for his use.
Byron, you recognise these words from my School of Theology paper in 2004. I am having a bit of a crisis of confidence about it, I must say... I need to submit it for publication soon. My gut instinct is to say: no.
It is a great, unfinished symphony
You sound like Tolkien at the beginning of the Simarillion...
IN After Babel? I read that some time ago, interesting stuff!
"Protestant attempts to defend the Bible from its own scandalous humanity by appeals to (real or alleged) “original autographs”, and the like are not only futile: they are unnecessary."
So who does this? When has any theologian ever tried to rescue the Bible from 'its own scandalous humanity' by appeal to 'original autographs'? Can we have chapter and verse please?
Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy
Article X states:
We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original.
We deny that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.
Ah, yes, you got in before me. I was about to say: it is there in black and white in the Chicago Statement.
Of course there are many statements that talk about inspiration on autographs. Michael, however, made a further assertion, namely that the purpose of talking about autographs was to defend the Bible from its humanity. I don't think that was the purpose at all. So I ask again for evidence that appeal to the 'original autographs' was for the purpose of such a defence.
You'll have to give me some licence for rhetoric in this brief excerpt from a longer paper! However, the purpose of the Chicago Statement was to assert the doctrine of inerrancy by means of this sleight of hand: acknowledging that in fact the only inerrant texts were ones no longer accessible to us (how convenient!). This immunising move protects the documents from the rather grubbier and more obviously human process of transmission - at once both putting the doctrine out of reach of its critics and rendering it all but meaningless in one fell swoop.
Also, the whole idea of an 'autograph' seems to me to be fictional when we talk about say, Jeremiah...
But, you are the textual critic PJ!
Thanks for the clarification. I think, however, we should be careful about judging the motivation of the creators of doctrinal statements. There were probably enough people involved in the Chicago Statement for it to be likely that they had a variety of motives. You are attributing the motive of 'immunising' 'documents'. Now I have serious doubts as to whether any theologian has ever thought that a document (a material entity) was ever inspired. Even if we found them talking about an 'inspired document' they would almost certainly be talking about an 'inspired immaterial text' materially represented on a document. Jews, Christians and Muslims have always believed that God inspired an immaterial text (word sequence). It is the word sequence that the Israelites were to teach to their children (Deut. 6:7) and on which the Psalmist meditated at night without a bedside lamp (Ps. 1:2). It is inspired even if everyone in the society is illiterate and there are no material copies of the text.
Surely, therefore the talk about autographs within the Chicago Statement is simply a continuation of earlier theological language seeking to apply categories of inspiration only to immaterial text. The immaterial text does not get any grubbier how ever many flawed physical representations of it may be made.
I've written on this elsewhere.
Of course Jeremiah didn't write an autograph, but poor Baruch probably wrote several, each of which held a text that was inspired.
My rhetoric about the intentions of the Statement was not meant to inquire of what they thought they were doing, but rather in a polemical way to describe what in fact the appeal to the original autographs does.
Hmm. Your suggestion sounds docetic to me...when is a text not a text? This word 'immaterial' is curious... Words do have a materiality whether they are written or not... just a different kind of materiality. Why is writing so inherently corrupt that we cannot locate inspiration in it? (Again, tacit acknowledgement that the text we DO have is not in fact 'inerrant'!)
The Chicago Statement however talks about the autoGRAPHS, ie, the WRITTEN aspect of the text, doesn't it? So I am not sure your suggestion protects it from the problem (if I have understood you).
Actually, the reverence that Muslims show to actual copies of the Koran as objects shows that there is some reverence of the material artefact in its materiality, or at least in its textual materiality in Islam.
BTW, congrats on your new position: I hope to meet you sometime soon.
Some interesting passages regarding the materiality of texts come to mind: the drinking of the ink by the accused woman in Deuteronomy, the eating the sweet as honey text by Ezekiel, the keeping of the stone tablets in the covenant box...
Sure, sure. Texts can be represented materially. However, in an oral culture the emphasis is on the 'word'. Secondarily people show reverence for material containers of texts (e.g. Qur'ans and Bibles). I did not suggest that writing corrupts, but merely picked up language that you were using. I really don't see why describing something as immaterial is remotely docetic. Texts are ideas. You seem to be saying that logos is inherently weak. However, since I'm about to go home for Christmas, I wish you a merry one and hope that we can resume this discussion face to face some time.
Best wishes,
Pete
As you know, Michael, I think the appeal to the frailty of human language is quite overdone most of the time. In the more extreme cases we are told that human language is an entirely inappropriate form for the divine self-revelation. What is needed here, me thinks, is a theological account of human language that takes account of a number of critical facts: 1. God is the first to use language which is understood by the man and the woman; 2. there is no indication in Scripture that God's communication with human beings is any more difficult post the Fall than it was prior to the Fall; 3. even after Babel Abram is able to comprehend the words God spoke to him; 4. the divine initiative which generates biblical texts as well as speeches with a fullsome expectation that the words will communicate and that the faithful will both heed and delight in them; 5. the use of human words in the incarnate Christ's exercise of divine power (e.g. 'Be still!' or 'Lazarus, come out!'). I don't think anyone has quite provided that for us yet, at least not at the level of rigour that we need.
As for inerrancy, this is an old debating topic for us I know. I think some of the opposition to inerrancy is hysterical and some of the advocacy overly defencive and tendentious. Nevertheless, I am not prepared to jettison the idea that what we have in Scripture is absolutely trustworthy, and where the judgement is appropriate, true. This need not be seen as an a priori judgement, one solely deduced from the character of God (though surely this has its place). Rather, we might also consider that it is a judgement reached inductively by an examination of the stance Jesus himself takes towards the Old Testament. Could you imagine Jesus speaking about 'the scandalous humanity' of the text?
I would want to insist that the biblical text is not simply a natural phenomenon. It is genuinely human, that is true. The identities and personalities and rationality of the human authors are integral rather than peripheral to the text. We must beware so speaking of Scripture that this human element is elided in a way akin to Doceticism. However, the opposite danger, a kind of Adoptionism, where there is nothing supernatural about the text either in origin or resulting nature, is also alive and well in the theological academy. For this reason I find Webster's account of Scripture as a sanctified human artefact and even the illustrious Cyberpastor's talk of the text as 'being perfected by the Spirit alone with everything else' somewhat unconvincing. We don't need to 'supernaturalise' the biblical text. If the text as we have it really is the word of God then God is present with it as it is read just as he was when it was first uttered or written.
Like you, I am not entirely happy with that strand of the argument that appeals to non-extant autographs as the proper locus of biblical inerrancy. There are problems with a suggestion that God provided a perfect text but was unwilling or unable to preserve it as such through the centuries. However, I'd like to suggest that the principle of 'charitable reading' might extend to the Chicago Statement every bit as much as the literature produced by those at the other end of the theological spectrum. Perhaps we might even give the drafters of that statement 'some licence for rhetoric'. What is it they were trying to affirm? Surely they were trying to find a place for genuine scribal error over the centuries which does not vitiate the essential truthfulness of the text they were seeking to transmit. There may be better ways of doing this, but we might be on surer ground understanding the statement on these terems rather than suggesting they were seeking to defend Scripture from its own humanity.
I'm with you in being unconvinced by Pete Williams talk of 'an inspired immaterial text'. Jesus picked up a scroll in the synagogue in Nazareth, Paul wrote epistles with his characteristic 'large letters'. We don't have to look beyond the words we have to find the real text.
There is much more I could say, but this is already far too long. Thanks for getting us all talking (or rather, typing).
One more thing:
Could David Hohne please give me just one example of someone who puts Scripture at a greater level of power than the Lord himself exhibited in his earthly ministry?
Hey, wow thanks for that Mark. I think we are in mucho agreement. The modification I was going to explore was along the lines that Byron suggested about the fact that human language is part of the creation (so therefore, good!) as well as affected by the fall. Question is, I guess: is scripture affected by the conditions of the fall in whatever way? Not that it is the product of sin, but is it the case that it surmounts somehow the usual problems we have with language post-Babel? And if so, how so?
You write: I am not prepared to jettison the idea that what we have in Scripture is absolutely trustworthy, and where the judgement is appropriate, true.
With this I am in complete agreement: I just don't think a doctrine called 'inerrancy' is necessary or even helpful to affirm it.
As for charitibly reading the Chicago statement: now, don't spoil my fun by asking me to be consistent now! The trouble is, it is used as a shibboleth in certain evangelical circles...
Webster's suggestion doesn't leave much room for 'men spake from God' does it?
I guess you see a variety of processes at work in Scripture. There is the kind of direct inspiration model (Ezekiel) which doesn't follow an adoptionist pattern; but then there are some parts were you feel it is the incorporation of the text into scripture as scripture was the inspired decision rather than the composition of the text...(ie parts of proverbs perhaps?)
As usual Michael, we find ourselves on the same side reaching for greater precision and rigour (and occasionally carried away by our own rhetoric, but isn't that part of the fun).
To your Ezekiel I would add Jude and some of the material in Acts. Undoubtedly a concept that allows for a variety of processes (at points even dictation (parts of Exodus and Jeremiah; at others seemingly much more indirect, Proverbs, Psalms) but all equally recognised as inspiration (the end result is theopneustia).
It is interesting to note that JRWS and JIP and even DAC voice some unease about the word inerrancy and some ways in which the doctrine is articulated, but still want to preserve what the doctrine itself is trying to preserve. Many point to the need for a positive rather than a negative mode of expression. Others point to the need for genre sensitivity:
'What believers mean when they say that the entire Bible is inerrant is that wherever the category is applicable in the Bible, it prevails. To find some places where it is nto directly applicable is not the same as finding places where it is applicable but is falsified.' (DAC, Gagging of God)
I guess I would want to put in a plea for acknowledging the venerable history of the term (Latin equivalents can be found in the Fathers and the Reformers), the fact that there are some out there who believe it with considerably more nuance than Harold Lindsell, and that there is an important corollary of divine speaking here that needs to be preserved somehow.
Postscript: even the writers of the Chicago Statement realised that it needed to be supplemented with another statement dealing with issues of hermeneutics.
Yes, I remember reading that: did it ever appear?
Yes it was published by the same group and appears in a number of places (e.g. the book published by ICBI on Hermeneutics)
so, Mark: cheeky question:
though you would say you hold to inerrancy -
would you be able to sign the Chicago Statement?
From what you say here, I would guess not...
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