Book Review: Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy

I recently saw a meme featuring a picture of Karl Barth and Emile Brunner. The text read, “For every theologian there is an equal and opposite theologian.” This axiom seems especially apt for the many “Views” books published over the last few years by Zondervan.

Zondervan’s recent volume Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy is especially helpful. This text accurately summarizes the various views possible within the parameters of evangelicalism.

This book strives to gain an overview of five different ways of understanding the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. The five contributors are Al Mohler, president of Southern Seminary; Peter Enns, Affiliate Professor of Biblical Studies Eastern University; Michael Bird, Lecturer in Theology at Ridley Melbourne Ministry and Mission College in Australia; Kevin Vanhoozer, Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School; and John Franke, Professor of Missional Theology at Yellowstone Theological Institute in Bozeman, Montana.

The book follows the same formula as other “Views” volumes. After an introductory chapter each contributor presents his view and then each of the other authors respond.

The Evangelical Theological Society’s first article in its doctrinal statement reads, “[t]he Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs.” (The second, and only other, article affirms an orthodox belief in the Trinity.) According to the book’s introduction, ETS’s statement was created because “there was a direct correlation between believing in the accuracy of Scripture and reading Scripture accurately.” (Kindle Locations 59-60).

STRENGTHS OF THE BOOK

I want to highlight four overall strengths of this book, and then I’ll point out a weakness.

The first strength is the book’s demonstration of the broad differences among current theologians regarding biblical inerrancy. On the far right we have Al Mohler who holds to a very conservative view of the doctrine; on the other extreme, Peter Enns is well known for his opposition to nearly everything Mohler and other conservative theologians stand for.

Mohler and Enns draw the borders of the conversation, and it’s up to the other authors, especially Bird and Vanhoozer, to highlight the nuances.

Mohler’s penchant for confessional theology is betrayed when he announces his allegiance to the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (CSBI). He states,

Without reservation, I affirm the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. I affirm               the document and agree with its assertions in whole and in part. To be true to the                 Scriptures, I believe, evangelicals must affirm its stated affirmations and join in its                 stated denials. (Kindle Locations 679-681).

Without reservation? That’s quite a pledge of allegiance. I wonder if Athanasius could have affirmed the Nicene Creed without some reservation. Anyway, Mohler’s wholehearted affirmation allows him to use the Chicago statement as an interpretive tool. When he exegetes some tricky biblical passages he frequently says, “according to the Chicago statement . . . .” Mohler, then, clearly shows us the most conservative position on inerrancy.

Many critics of the contemporary strands of confessionalism (especially amongst Baptists) wonder if confessionalism might be a form of credalism. Confessions are descriptive; they tell us what a group thinks. Creeds, on the other hand, are prescriptive in that they tell a member of a group how they should think. When Mohler uses the Chicago statement to guide his interpretations it seems this statement has morphed from confession to creed.

On the other extreme, Enns doesn’t even want to use the word inerrancy. One wonders why Enns still wants to be associated with evangelicals when he seems so intent on disagreeing with so many fundamentally held beliefs like inerrancy and the historicity of Adam. Enns rightly points out that “inerrancy has been a central component of evangelicalism for its entire history, a response to the challenges of biblical higher criticism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.” (Kindle Locations 1373-1375). If, as he mentions, inerrancy is a part of evangelicalism’s DNA, why not just join a different community with a less stringent view of the truthfulness of the Bible?

The second strength of this book is that it clearly locates inerrancy as a culturally bound expression of Bibliology. The doctrine of inerrancy cannot be historically separated from Schleiermacher nor epistemologically separated from Descartes. In other words, the doctrine of inerrancy is a way of saying that the Bible is completely truthful at a particular time in a particular culture.

Orthodox Christians have been forced to describe the Bible’s truthfulness in more relevant terms because of theological liberalism’s critical mass. This doesn’t mean inerrancy is an innovation; it means that the belief about scriptural truthfulness might be described in ways not familiar to Luther and Calvin. It is anachronistic to say that the Reformers or Church Fathers believed in the Bible’s truthfulness in exactly the same way we do. There is no way that they could have communicated the specific dangers of form criticism’s potential to divorce the Bible from its historical setting.

Bird, an Australian, is particularly helpful when he essentially holds to the tenants of biblical inerrancy without using the specific word. He believes inerrancy carries a lot of bad press outside of the United States. Bird avers, “the American inerrancy tradition, though largely a positive concept, is essentially modernist in construct, parochially American in context, and occasionally creates more exegetical problems than it solves.” (Kindle Locations 2454-2456).

We need to listen closely to our brother from Down Under. In another helpful section Bird builds the context even more. “Here is the problem: there are thousands of churches around the world that are both evangelical and orthodox and get on with their ministry without ever having heard of the CSBI and without ever using the word inerrancy in their statement of faith.” (Kindle Locations 2606-2607).

The third strength of the book is its establishment of inerrancy as a descriptive rather than a prescriptive doctrine. Many errors are the result of going beyond inerrancy’s claim that the Bible is inerrant to the claim that a particular interpretation of the Bible is inerrant. As Vanhoozer states, “After all, what is inerrant is the text, not our interpretation.” (Kindle Location 1121).

Vanhoozer skillfully unfolds a necessarily complex and nuanced understanding of inerrancy that is worth the price of the book:

I propose the following definition: to say that Scripture is inerrant is to confess faith             that the authors speak the truth in all things they affirm (when they make                             affirmations), and will eventually be seen to have spoken truly (when right readers               read rightly). (Kindle Locations 3569-3571).

The idea of “right readers reading rightly” is brilliant. When Franke, in his chapter, eschews any notion of strong foundationalism he fails to offer a good epistemological alternative. Vanhoozer’s notion of “reading rightly” leaves room for a way of seeing knowledge as more dependent on the Holy Spirit’s intervention. Vanhoozer’s definition might make possible a view of epistemology that combines the strengths of a thoroughgoing correspondence theory with Plantinga’s Reformed epistemology. The Bible is completely true, and the Holy Spirit confirms this through a properly functioning sensus Divinitatus.

The fourth strength is the inclusion of two of the most refreshing theologians writing today, Kevin Vanhoozer and Michael Bird. Vanhoozer shines in these view books because he is forced to succinctly summarize his complex views in a limited amount of pages. Bird’s sense of orthodoxy and humor is very refreshing in a theological landscape that often celebrates dry prose.

Some of the more “serious” authors don’t seem to get Bird’s jokes, but he really is funny. For example, Bird reports that Enns’ views on the Bible “have courted more controversy than Kim Kardashian’s attending a Jihadists-for-Jesus fundraiser.” (Kindle Locations 2018-2019).

In great humor, Bird makes a serious argument:

To insist on inerrancy as the singular doctrinal device for global evangelicalism’s affirmation of scriptural authority makes about as much sense as insisting that African, Asian, or Australian sports fans abandon their enthusiasm for local sports and start following American football instead. We internationals have our own form of tackle football; it is called rugby. We like it better than American football because American football looks wimpy in comparison. Rugby is an international sport with a world cup, while American football is played by the USA— oh, and Canada. Rugby is continuous, whereas American football has more breaks than a Harley-Davidson on Route 66.

Rugby was the game played by the great Scottish missionary Eric Liddell, while                American football was the game played by O. J. Simpson. I rest my case! (Kindle Locations 2896-2902).

WEAKNESS

The only real weakness in the book is the editors’ desire to have each author interpret three different passages to show how their view of inerrancy plays out in the real biblical world. It was never really clear why these sections were even in the book. Some authors didn’t spend a lot of time in interpretation and others dedicated a lot of their chapters in this exercise. These exegetical exercises didn’t really help explain their specific ideas about inerrancy and the book would have been better focused without them.

CONCLUSION

In the world where a new “views” book seems to be published every month, it’s hard to know which ones deserve our time and attention. You will do well to invest in this book.

Inerrancy might be the most important in-house discussion happening among evangelicals today. This book will surely draw the borders of the debate while also educating us about how we should understand the book that defines who we worship and how we worship.