Today’s Battle for the Bible: The Enns-Beale Debate

By Robert Saucy

For some sixteen centuries the church believed (with few exceptions) that the Bible was the inspired Word of God—not simply the “witness” to God’s Word, or the Word of God in its “theological truth,” but totally God’s Word in all matters that it affirmed. They recognized, of course, that God didn’t write the Bible in heaven and drop it down to man.  It was penned by human writers. But as Peter says, they were not writing simply out of themselves, but were “men moved by the Holy Spirit.”  Thus they “spoke from God” (2 Pet. 1:21).  In short they firmly believed that the whole Bible was the words of God as well as human words.  

This ancient conception of the Bible began to be challenged with the inception of what is known as the Age of Reason in the 17th and 18th centuries—a time characterized by new philosophical thought associated with the Enlightenment (18th century) and great changes in scientific thought and exploration.  The underlying change of attitude taking place during this period is exemplified by Immanuel Kant’s description of the “enlightenment” as “the liberation of man from his self-caused state of minority.”  Describing “minority” as the “incapacity of using one’s understanding without the direction of another,” Kant goes on to explain that it does not mean a “lack of understanding,” but rather “a lack of determination to use it without the assistance of another” (emphasis added).  In short, mankind need not look to the transcendent God for the way of true life.  Man would make more progress toward perfectibility using his own abilities in determining what was finally true or false.  As fallen humans we have always tended to prefer our own thoughts over the mind of our Creator.  The Age of Reason simply made this spirit fashionable among the intelligentsia of the leading civilizations.

Up to this time, the primary source from which Western civilizations had sought assistance for the enhancement of life was the revelation of God in the Holy Scriptures.  The exaltation of human reason as the supreme authority on what is beneficial or detrimental for human life naturally dethroned this biblical authority.  As a consequence, Scripture began to be placed under the microscope of human reason and knowledge and was pronounced wanting in total factuality.  To cite one definition of the Historical Critical Method that emerged and came to full flower in the 19th century, it is the historical reasoning: “(1) that reality is uniform and universal; (2) that it is accessible to human reason and investigation; (3) that all events historical and natural occurring within it are in principle interconnected and comparable by analogy; (4) and that humanity’s contemporary experience of reality can provide objective criteria by which what could or could not have happened in the past is to be determined.” (It is acknowledged that this method “rests on presuppositions . . . that are finally philosophical and theological in character.”1

This inaugurated the real battle over the nature of the Bible and consequently its authority.  For some scholars, this new rationalistic criticism reduced the Scriptures to human writings that conveyed spiritual ideas and experiences.  It included prescientific and prehistoric thought as well as mythical stories—including the account of the bodily resurrection of Jesus.  Others rejecting the anti-supernaturalism of this method that essentially ruled out supernatural miraculous events continued in various ways to affirm the Scriptures as a divine revelation.  But for many a division was made between inerrant theological and moral teaching and other matters related to history and science.  

The historic view of the full inspiration and inerrancy of the Scriptures prevailed in America and Britain against this critical attack into the 18th and early 19th centuries.  But with the growing evolutionary movement, notably the publication of Darwin’s Origen of the Species in 1859, the idea of inerrancy began to be discarded in the church.  The conflict between Darwin’s theory and the book of Genesis made it impossible for anyone who desired to be “scientifically instructed” to accept the total inerrancy of Scriptures.  The weakening of inerrancy in relation to the creation facilitated the progress of the application of rationalistic criticism and the charge of errors throughout the Scripture.2

The controversy over inerrancy which has been present ever since this time notably in America has come to the forefront of evangelical theological discussion at three particular times due to particular challenges from within.  The first contention erupted in 1874 when the noted Presbyterian scholar Charles Augustus Briggs in his inaugural address as professor of Hebrew and cognate languages at Union Seminary.  While affirming the inspiration of Scriptures, he denied “the dogma of verbal inspiration” and asserted that the inspired original text contained errors.  In response Warfield and Hodge set forth the classic view of biblical inerrancy which provided a foundation for inerrantists for decades.  

The next outbreak of the inerrancy battle came in the 1970s with the controversy and ultimate rejection of inerrancy associated with Fuller seminary and Harold Lindsell’s Battle for the Bible (1976).  The International Council on Biblical Inerrancy was also formed around this time in response to this challenge.  

The question of the Bible’s inerrancy has again come to the fore in the present time although it may be questioned whether it yet has the same prominence within the evangelical community as the prior eruptions.  Some recent theological views, such as “open theism” which denies that God can know all the future thoughts and actions done freely by humans, have raised the issue of inerrancy because they seem incompatible with the express teachings of Scripture.  The same is true of the acceptance of certain evolutionary theories which are difficult to harmonize with the biblical account of creation.  

Perhaps the most obvious evidence of the present debate is represented in the discussions between two evangelical scholars, Peter Enns, formerly of Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia) and Greg Beale (Wheaton Graduate School).  The 2005 publication of Enns’ work, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament, caused a major controversy at Westminster resulting in his resignation from that institution.  Enns’ book was also criticized by others including D. A. Carson, Paul Helm, Richard Averbeck, and especially Greg Beale who wrote several journal articles dealing with Enns’ teaching to which Enns also wrote responses.  Beale brought this material together along with other things related to the discussion in his 2008 book, The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism: Responding to New Challenges to Biblical Authority.  . . .

Finish reading Robert Saucy’s article in the October issue of Credo Magazine:

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