Systematic Theology: Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (CSBI)
· International Council on Biblical Inerrancy 1978-1988
· “Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy”[1]
o Explaining Inerrancy by R. C. Sproul
· Note on “affirmations” and “denials”
o Needed to fully explain truth
o “Denials” often aim at refuting faulty conceptions
· Notes on “Articles” of Chicago Statement
o Articles I-V: Authority and Revelation of the Bible
o Articles VI-XIII: Inspiration and Inerrancy
§ “While Articles I-V establish the foundation for the remaining affirmations and denials, articles six through thirteen constitute the very heart of the CSBI, for the latter define precisely what is meant by the use of the terms inspiration and its corollary, inerrancy.”[2]
o Articles XIV-XIX: Further matters in a doctrine of Scripture
§ “These latter articles of affirmation and denial round out the CSBI by addressing issues that are integrally related to the doctrine of inerrancy but that do not set out to define the doctrine as explicitly as the previous articles. Nevertheless, the matters covered [by] Articles XIV-XIX are essential for developing a robust articulation of inerrancy and for demonstrating how inerrancy cannot be detached from other categories related to a sound theology of Scripture.”[3]
Articles: Some Comments
· Article I
o Denial is directed at Roman Catholic understanding of authority and canonization
o Two different ideas of canon[4]
§ “When applied to the New Testament, two similar, though different, answers are given to the question [of the canon]: either the New Testament is ‘a collection of authoritative books or an authoritative collection of books.’ That is, either the twenty-seven books of the New Testament were discoveredto be authoritative because of their intrinsic worth, ‘ring of truth,’ and obvious authority (thus, a collection of authoritative books), or those were determined to be authoritative by some otherauthority (thus, an authoritative collection).”[5]
§ “Fundamentally, the Roman Catholic approach ends up confusing the instrument God uses to produce the Bible (human beings who are part of the community of faith) with the ultimate causeof the Bible (namely God himself). Thus, it is misleading to say that the church ‘caused’ the Bible. Sure, they were the means God used, but it is ultimately God who is producing the Bible through human authors.”[6]
· Article II
o Defends “Sola Scriptura”
· Article III
o Denial is directed at “neo-orthodox” (e.g., Karl Barth) understandings of Scripture
· Article IV
o Language is an adequate vehicle for revelation
· Article V
o Affirmation: “progressive” think of doctrine of Trinity, life after death, etc.
o Denial: Though certain precepts which were obligatory to people in the Old Testament period are no longer so in the New Testament, this does not mean that they were discontinued because they were wicked in the past and now God has corrected what He formerly endorsed, but rather that certain practices have become superseded by newer practices that are consistent with fulfillment of Old Testament activities.[7]
o “Normative revelation”: Wayne Grudem’s addition!
§ Allows for Charismatic community of churches to have “continuing revelation” but always subordinate to the Scriptures.
§ It is also added by way of denial that no normative revelation has been given to the church since the close of the New Testament canon. The denial does not mean that God the Holy Spirit has stopped working, or that the Holy Spirit in no way leads His people today. Part of the difficulty is that theological words are used in different ways within different Christian communities. For example, what one group may call “revelation” another group may define as “illumination.” Thus the qualifying word normative is important to understanding the last part of the denial. What is meant here is that no revelation has been given since the first century that merits or warrants inclusion in the canon of Holy Scripture. Private leadings or guidance or “revelations,” as some may term them, may not be seen as having the force or authority of Holy Scripture.[8]
· Article VI
o “Verbal Plenary Inspiration”
§ “verbal” words
§ “plenary” all of Scripture’s words
o “very words of the original” autographs (originals)
· Article VII
o 2 Peter 1.20-21
o Mode is not dictation; mode mystery
· Article VIII
o Strong view of God’s sovereignty implied here
· Article IX
o Not every statement every uttered by Paul, Peter, etc. was inspired; only those that are the result of them being “moved to speak and write.”
· Article X
o Inspiration applies only to autographs (originals) not to process of preservation
o Need for textual criticism
o Reasons why God might not preserve the original texts or precise copies:
“I will suggest three. (1) God desired to help his people avoid idolatry and the temptation to worship the original manuscripts. (2) The loss of the original manuscripts causes God’s people to focus on what is most important: the original text rather than the original codex. (3) It may have been better to allow errors to creep into subsequent copies so that the original text might be recovered with a large degree of certainty. If the claim is made that a pristine text has been handed down from generation to generation (as with the Qu’ran), then this claim can only be taken by faith. That is, there is no way of knowing beyond the claim whether or not it is true; one can only hope that the text has been passed down without error. Errors in the subsequent copies of the biblical text require the comparison of the various manuscripts in order to determine the original reading. Through the work of textual criticism, scholars can determine the original text with a high degree of certainty. It appears, then, that in his infinite wisdom, God allowed for errors to creep into copies of Scripture for the very purpose of providing the apparatus with which to reclaim the text with confidence without having to rely upon a non-falsifiable claim.”[9]
· Article XI
o Denial is aimed at those who argue that the Scriptures are infallible in its purpose to save but they still have errors in the realms of science, history, etc.
· Article XII
The Bible does have something to say about the origin of the earth, about the advent of man, about creation, and about such matters that have scientific import, such as the question of the flood. It is important to note that the second denial, "that scientific hypotheses about earth history may not be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture on matters such as the creation and the flood," does not carry with it the implication that scientific hypotheses or scientific research are useless to the student of the Bible or that science never has anything to contribute to an understanding of biblical material. It merely denies that the actual teaching of Scripture can be overturned by teachings from external sources.
To illustrate the intention of the second denial of Article XII, recall the classic example of the church's debate with the scientific community in the Middle Ages over the question of geocentricity and heliocentricity. The church had adopted the ancient Ptolemaic view that the earth was the center of the universe. Hence, the concept of geocentricity. Scientific inquiry and studies, particularly attending the advent of the telescope, led many scholars to believe that the sun, not the earth, was the center at least of our solar system, for the evidence from the scientific community for the centrality of the sun rather than the earth was seen to be compelling and overwhelming. We remember with embarrassment that Galileo was condemned as a heretic for asserting heliocentricity against what the church believed to be the teaching of Scripture. However, the scientific discoveries made it necessary for the church to re-examine the teaching on Scripture to see whether or not Scripture actually taught geocentricity or if this was an inference read into the Scripture on the basis of an earlier world view. Upon re-examining what Scripture really taught, the church came to the conclusion that there was no real conflict with science on this question of geocentricity because the Bible did not in fact in any place explicitly teach or assert that the earth was the center of either the solar system or the universe. Here the advances of science helped the church to correct an earlier misinterpretation of Scripture. To say that science cannot overturn the teaching of Scripture is not to say that science cannot aid the church in understanding Scripture, or even correct false inferences drawn from Scripture or actual misinterpretations of the Scripture. On the other hand, this does not give one license arbitrarily to reinterpret Scripture to force it into conformity to secular theories of origins or the like. For example, if the secular community asserts that the origin of humanity is the result of a cosmic accident or the product of blind, impersonal forces, such a view cannot possibly be reconciled with the biblical view of the purposive act of God's creation of mankind without doing radical violence to the Bible itself.
Questions of the extent of the flood or the literary genre of the earlier chapters of Genesis are not answered by this Statement. Questions of biblical interpretation that touch on the field of hermeneutics remain for further investigation and discussion. What the Scriptures actually teach about creation and the flood is not spelled out by this article; but it does spell out that whatever the Bible teaches about creation and the flood cannot be negated by secular theories.[10]
· Article XIII there is a great deal in the denial section!
o “observational” sunrise/sunset; the way the world looks to the natural observer
o “reporting falsehood” “You surely will not die” (Gen 3.4)
o “topical arrangement” example = order of temptations in Matt 4 and Lk 4
o “variant selection of materials” compare Matt 8.5-13 and Luke 7.1-10[11]
o “free citations” writers of NT can quote OT in partial ways or summarize the concepts of an OT passage
· Article XIV
o “alleged errors and discrepancies that have not yet been resolved”
§ Important to know that there are difficulties that are not fully resolved
§ The debate over inerrancy frequently comes down to choosing whether to tolerate such problems as “unanswered questions” or to transfer them to the category of “demonstrated errors.” Often that decision reflects one’s initial attitude toward Scripture and toward critical methods. If Scripture is accepted as the inspired Word of God, as “the standard that sets the standard,” one will be reluctant to charge it with error—since to do so one must have some other, perhaps higher, norm by which to evaluate Scripture.[12]
· Article XV
o Issue of “accommodation” some say that Jesus (and others) were simply speaking within the confines of their cultures, including their cultures’ errors about history and science.
· Article XVI
o Jack Rogers and Donald McKim, The Authority and Interpretation of the Bible: An Historical Approach(1979).
§ Argued that early church and Reformation era did not necessarily affirm inerrancy; only with nineteenth century Princetonian scholars did this take on importance.
§ Fully answered by John Woodbridge, Biblical Authority: A Critique of the Rogers/McKim Proposal(1982).
o The word “inerrant” is a modern word but the concept is found throughout church history
o “The view that Scripture is entirely truthful and without error in all that it affirms was largely assumed by the bulk of the church until after the Reformation, so there was no need to argue strenuously for it. We should, therefore, expect a stronger and more detailed emphasis on the error-free nature of Scripture when nineteenth century scholars presented sophisticated arguments that undermined the truthfulness of major theological affirmations and large swaths of biblical narrative.”[13]
· Article XVII
o Internal testimony of the Holy Spirit
o Holy Spirit is needed to come to full assurance of Scripture
· Article XVIII
o “Grammatico-historical exegesis” using normal rules of grammatical analysis and taking into account the historical background of the writer
o Recognizes literary devices and various genres
o “Scripture is to interpret Scripture”
· Article XIX
o Confessing inerrancy is not necessary for salvation
o Grave consequences for denying inerrancy
o We are conscious too that great and grave confusion results from ceasing to maintain the total truth of the Bible whose authority one professes to acknowledge. The result of taking this step is that the Bible which God gave loses its authority, and what has authority instead is a Bible reduced in content according to the demands of one's critical reasonings and in principle reducible still further once one has started. This means that at bottom independent reason now has authority, as opposed to Scriptural teaching. If this is not seen and if for the time being basic evangelical doctrines are still held, persons denying the full truth of Scripture may claim an evangelical identity while methodologically they have moved away from the evangelical principle of knowledge to an unstable subjectivism, and will find it hard not to move further.[14]
[1] Online: http://www.bible-researcher.com/chicago1.html.
[2] Derek James Brown, “A Theological Reassessment and Reformulation of The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy in Light of Contemporary Developments,” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, May 2014), 167.
[3] Derek James Brown, “A Theological Reassessment and Reformulation of The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy in Light of Contemporary Developments,” 247.
[4] For a fuller presentation on the Canon of Scripture see my blog post: “The Canon of Scripture: A Brief Introduction”—online: https://whiterosereview.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-canon-of-scripture-brief.html
[5] J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace, Reinventing Jesus: How Contemporary Skeptics Miss the Real Jesus and Mislead Popular Culture (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel, 2006), 123-124—bold-face added.
[6] Michael Kruger in “Rethinking the Canon of Scripture: An Interview with Michael Kruger—by Matthew Barrett” Credo Magazine(February 2015), 15-16. Available online at: www.credomag.com.
[7] R. C. Sproul, Explaining Inerrancy (Orlando: Ligonier Ministries, 1996 [original: 1980]), 20. Online: http://www.churchcouncil.org/ICCP_org/Documents_ICCP/English/White_Papers/01_Biblical_Inerrancy_Paper.pdf.
[9] Derek James Brown, “A Theological Reassessment and Reformulation of The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy in Light of Contemporary Developments, 84.
[11] Vern Poythress, Inerrancy and the Gospels: A God-Centered Approach to the Challenges of Harmonization (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 17-24. Online: http://www.frame-poythress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/PoythressVernInerrancyAndTheGospels.pdf. Also see my blog post covering the material in Poythress’ book: “Matthew 8.5-13 and Luke 7.1-10: Possible Resolutions to Tensions”—online: https://whiterosereview.blogspot.com/2014/05/matthew-85-13-and-luke-71-10-possible.html
[12] Harold O. J. Brown, “The Inerrancy and Infallibility of the Bible” in Phillip Comfort (ed.), The Origin of the Bible (Wheaton: Tyndale, 1992), 44-45.
