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CHAPTER FIVE THE INERRANCY OF SCRIPTURE 1. DEFINITION, SCOPE AND IMPORTANCE OF INERRANCY THE Scriptures have been divinely inspired. It follows, therefore, that these Scriptures possess certain divine characteristics, or properties. These properties are inerrancy, authority, sufficiency, clarity and...

CHAPTER FIVE THE INERRANCY OF SCRIPTURE 1. DEFINITION, SCOPE AND IMPORTANCE OF INERRANCY THE Scriptures have been divinely inspired. It follows, therefore, that these Scriptures possess certain divine characteristics, or properties. These properties are inerrancy, authority, sufficiency, clarity and efficacy. These properties all result directly from its inspiration. This is emphatically maintained by all the dogmaticians. All the divine attributes of Scripture stand or fall with its inspiration. This stress laid upon the relation between the divine origin of Scripture and its divine properties is significant. It helps to explain the vigour with which the dogmaticians sometimes expressed themselves with regard to the inspiration of Scripture. In defending their views concerning the integrity, authority, perfection and clarity of Scripture they appeal over and over again to its singular origin. One cannot help but feel when one studies the theology of the old Lutheran dogmaticians that their primary purpose in expending so much effort on the inspiration of Scripture is not so much to substantiate this doctrine itself as to employ it in support of these divine properties of Scripture, and especially of the principle of sola scriptura. Such a statement may appear bold, especially in view of what more than one scholar has said regarding the theology of these men concerning Scripture, but it is the statement of a fact which will be brought out in the course of the following chapters, a fact which is, I believe, essential to a true understanding of the dogmaticians and their attitude towards the Word of God. Calov1 discusses the inerrancy of Scripture in his section on the plenary inspiration of Scripture, thus indicating that he feels the relationship between these two questions to be very close. The seventeenth century dogmaticians hold that the prophets and apostles were sinners like all other men, but in the act of writing Scripture they were kept from all error and preserved by the Spirit of God from any lapse of memory.1 This teaching, which is embraced by all the dogmaticians, is emphasized and given special consideration by the later ones, beginning with Calov. It is a dogma which is simply taken for granted; it is accepted a priori. The possibility that the prophets and apostles could err in their writings is unthinkable.2 According to Dannhauer,3 Scripture is plena, that is, always the same and without any contradiction. It is never yes and no, but always yes or no. It is infallible. It can never be called into doubt. It was written for the very sake of our certainty. Quenstedt,4 true to form, states the orthodox position in a manner which defies misunderstanding. He says: ‘The holy canonical Scriptures in their original text are the infallible truth and free from every error, that is to say, in the sacred canonical Scriptures there is no lie, no deceit, no error, even the slightest, either in content or words, but every single word which is handed down in the Scriptures is most true, whether it pertains to doctrine, ethics, history, chronology, typography or onomastics; and no ignorance, lack of understanding, forgetfulness or lapse of memory can or should be attributed to the amanuenses of the Holy Spirit in their writing of holy Scriptures.’ 5 Scripture, then, is the source of truth (principium veritatis) from which all derived, or revealed, theological truth is to be gained.6 Inerrancy, of course, pertains only to the canonical Scriptures and only to the original autographic texts; there is no preclusion of error in copies and versions of the Bible. Inerrancy does not apply to what is recorded in Scripture recitative in every case, although the recording of what the devil or some wicked person said is always true, but it does apply to everything in Scripture which is stated assertive or approbative. The inerrancy of Scripture extends also to all necessary and obvious conclusions which may be drawn from the Word of God. Some theologians at the time of the orthodox period had maintained a distinction between errors of the inspired writers themselves and occasional slips of the pen on the part of their secretaries, opposing the possibility of the former while granting the possibility of the latter, but to the dogmaticians neither possibility could be conceded. Before Pentecost the apostles were subject to error, but after the gift of the Spirit on that day they were unable to err because the Holy Spirit had led them into all truth. This, of course, does not apply to their ordinary conversation but to their preaching and writing. Infirmitates vitae were always with them but errores doctrinae were impossible. According to Quenstedt,1 ‘The apostles could never err after receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. Their mind and speech were in a sense the lyre and pen of the Holy Spirit who gave them utterance and spoke in them (Matt. 10. 19) and led them into all truth (Jn. 16. 13). Of course, in their outer lives and daily intercourse they were certainly sinners.’ But what about Peter? Did he not err when he ate with the Gentiles but ordered others not to do so? Peter erred, but this was a mistake in practice, not in theoris fidei. It was not possible for him to err in doctrine. His was a sin of weakness; he simply did not practise what he preached. The prophets and apostles must be viewed in a twofold manner: first as prophets and apostles who had the Spirit of God, and who spoke by immediate direction of that Spirit, and were hence infallible, and second as men who had the spirit of man, and spoke by that spirit, and were hence fallible. With his own spirit Nathan approved David’s building a temple, but the Spirit of God soon corrected him. Nathan did not err with respect to his prophetic ministry when he favoured the building of the temple, for he made his approbation without consulting God. In support of the truthfulness and reliability of Scripture the dogmaticians appeal to its divine inspiration.2 Scripture is given by inspiration. Therefore it is infallible, , and without contradiction.1 The writers of Scripture wrote not of their own free will but as hands and penmen of the Holy Spirit who could not err. The inspiration of Scripture rules out the possibility of any falsehood being present in it—unless one would wish to impute such falsehood to God.2 And so we are under no obligation to prove that what Scripture says is true. We must simply accept what it says because it says so. The contents of Scripture are eternally and immutably true. Inspiration precludes the possibility of any error in Scripture because God cannot lie Himself, nor can He lie through someone else.3 Quenstedt argues this point on the basis of 2 Pet. 1. 21: 4 ‘The prophets and apostles spoke and wrote not from the decision and impulse of their own free will, nor, as Scripture says, ’ , of themselves (Jn. II. 51; 16. 13) but , that is, led and moved by the Holy Spirit, or as . If this is true, then it follows that they could under no condition make mistakes in their writing, and no falsification, no error, no danger of error, no untruth existed or could exist in their preaching or writing because the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth and the fountain of all wisdom and who had as His hand and pen the holy writers, cannot deceive or be deceived, neither can He err or have a lapse of memory.’ Christ promised his disciples that His Spirit would lead them into all truth.5 The Scriptures themselves witness that the apostles wrote those doctrines which had been delivered to them by God Himself through the revelation of Christ (Gal. 1. 12). If there is a lapse of memory or a mistake in Scripture, even in matters which seem of little importance, we can no longer call Scripture the Word of God. In such a case it would be only partly the Word of God and partly the fallible word of men.1 Hence we can no longer be certain of anything which Scripture says. If it can err on one point it can be mistaken on another.2 Finally, if Scripture is not entirely true it cannot be the organic foundation and source of theology. The organic norm of faith and life must be subject to no doubt whatever. It is not only foolish but wicked and blasphemous to charge the Holy Spirit with allowing any error to enter His book.3 Quenstedt cannot hold back from pouring out his indignation upon those who will allow errors in Scripture. He says:4 ‘Whatever fault or untruth, whatever error or lapse of memory, is attributed to the prophets and apostles is not imputed to them without blaspheming the Holy Spirit who spoke and wrote through them. Through His infinite knowledge God the Holy Spirit cannot be ignorant of anything, can forget nothing; through His infinite truthfulness and infallibility it is impossible for Him to err, deal falsely or be mistaken, not even in the smallest degree; and finally, through His infinite goodness He is unable to deceive anyone, neither can He lead anyone into offence or error. With such an opinion the authenticity and authority of Scripture are overthrown and the certainty and assurance of our faith is destroyed. For if anything uncertain, doubtful, mistaken or false is present in Scripture, what becomes of the authority, certainty and integrity of the rest? Even Socinus said, “If a person can doubt concerning one passage, there is no reason why he may not doubt concerning all of them” (Epist. 3. ad Radec, fol. 139 ff). Unless we are made infallibly certain of the source of our faith, how can there be any to our faith (Heb. 11. 1), any assurance of salvation or even any peace of conscience?’ Quenstedt is only echoing what Aegidius Hunnius had said almost a century before: 5 ‘That the apostles and evangelists who wrote the history of the words and deeds of Jesus recorded everything as it happened in a narrative which was holy and incorrupt in the memory of men is so certain that it is a sacrilege and a crime to dispute their veracity even in the minutest detail.’ 2. THE DOCTRINE OF THE ADVERSARIES Among the opponents of the Lutheran doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture was the Catholic theologian Albert Pighius, who held that the evangelists could forget and even prevaricate when they wrote Scripture. They did not see what they wrote about Christ, he argues, but merely followed the reports of others. Erasmus too had taught that the memory of the evangelists was not always accurate. But it was mainly the Socinians who prompted these outbursts on the part of the dogmaticians. The Socinians believed that it was not necessary for Scripture to be infallible or inerrant. In his Socinismus Profligatus, which was a polemic against Socinianism in general, Abraham Calov bitterly attacks this view as utterly un-Christian, and conducive to scepticism and even atheism. Calov offers a number of reasons why we must at all costs uphold the inerrancy of Scripture.1 Scripture is the source of all our knowledge of revealed theology and must therefore remain infallible or we can gain no certainty of faith or assurance of salvation.2 But our faith is immovable and certain, and this fact alone shows that its source is also infallible. The Socinians teach that the truth of Scripture is only probable. The consequences of such a view are disastrous. That there is a Christ, that Jesus is the Messiah, that we may hope for a life after death, nay, even that there is a God, is only probable. The consequences of such a heresy are simple Pyrrhonism, scepticism and ultimately atheism.3 If Scripture is not certain there can be no real certainty of forgiveness of sins or the grace of God, God is made responsible for man’s unbelief or lack of spiritual knowledge, and the efficacy of the Gospel to bring about faith in its own message is denied. But the Socinians not only admitted the possibility of errors creeping into Scripture; they taught that the evangelists and apostles on many occasions had lapses of memory and actually fell into error. Again Calov attacks such a pernicious and false opinion. The writers of Scripture did not write of human volition, but , as hands and penmen of the Holy Spirit. Under His activation they were incapable of error or forgetfulness. Or, to put it more accurately, the Holy Spirit who wrote through them was unable to forget or make mistakes.1 Since the doctrine and even all the words in Scripture are not the doctrines and words of men but of God, there can be no possibility of untruth in Scripture, for God cannot lie (Heb. 6. 18). And did not Christ promise His disciples that the Spirit would lead them into all truth? The Socinians, however, did not categorically affirm that Scripture was unreliable. They taught that those portions of Scripture which dealt with doctrine were indeed true and dependable. But this was not enough for Calov. Granting such an opinion for the sake of argument, we should then be forced to conclude that there was a possibility of error in those parts of Scripture which are not concerned specifically with doctrine. But who can say that any given parable or historical incident recorded in Scripture does not and cannot pertain to doctrine? No, the fact of the matter is this: everything in Scripture concerns doctrine and should be believed by us. In his Systema Calov writes,2 Tf it is enough that we believe that to be true in Scripture which pertains to true doctrine, as Socinus would have it, then the holy Scripture contains errors in many places, such as historical portions, parables and other matters which are contained in Scripture and which, according to Socinus, do not pertain to true doctrine. But if error, or even the intimation of error, is admitted in these matters, then not even that which pertains to true doctrine is above the suspicion of error, since both historical sections and parables contribute greatly to the truth of doctrine, nay, all things which are recorded in the sacred writings pertain to our doctrine and require our faith. We are to believe not merely some things or certain passages in Scripture, but everything which is contained in the holy writings.’ Thus the notion that only the doctrinal sections of Scripture are infallible casts suspicion upon the whole Bible. Again, assuming that Scripture erred in respect of matters of minor importance, how could it then be called God’s Word? But after all, what right have we to assume that Scripture erred only in unessential matters? If Scripture can be mistaken on one point it is only sensible to assume that it can be mistaken on other points too.1 No, this Socinian aberration will only drive us to doubt and will discourage our love and study of the Scriptures.2 It is highly significant that Calov conceived of everything in Scripture as pertaining at least indirectly to doctrine. This fact indicates how utterly opposed and irreconcilable were the views towards Scripture of the Lutherans and of the Socinians. That there are no levicula in Scripture, that everything in Scripture pertains somehow to Christian doctrine, makes the inerrancy of Scripture an important consideration. The opposite opinion will be little concerned whether or not everything in Scripture is infallibly true. Certain Arminians in the seventeenth century taught that the Holy Spirit, when He inspired Scripture, accommodated Himself to common errors and misconceptions of the day. Calov attacks this opinion, too, in his Consideratio Arminianismi.3 He submits that such a teaching is incompatible with the doctrine that Scripture is the Word of God, and it too leads to Pyrrhonism. If the Spirit accommodated Himself to errors in geography, science, chronology etc., why not to doctrine? The authority and the very meaning of Scripture fall, if such a view holds true.4 Again, Calov maintains that the religious content of Scripture cannot be dissociated from other interests.1 It was not only the Socinians and Arminians who taught doctrines regarding the inerrancy of the Bible which were considered unorthodox by their more conservative Lutheran contemporaries. In 1650 L. Cappellus wrote a book entitled Critica Sacra, sive de Variis, quae in Sacris vel V. T. Occurrunt Lectionibus, in which he maintained that the Old Testament had been corrupted in those cases where New Testament writers quoted only roughly from it: he held that the form given in the New Testament quotations was the original and that the text of the Old Testament had been corrupted. His teaching therefore did not pertain to the doctrine of inerrancy specifically, but to the question of the authenticity of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. August Pfeiffer answered Cappellus in his own book, Criticus Sacer,2 and his argumentation is of interest in our present discussion, since the question of the New Testament quotations from the Old was raised by others in connection with the inerrancy of Scripture. Pfeiffer believed such loose translations on the part of the New Testament writers as occurred so often in the New Testament were legitimate since these writers, like the prophets before them, were moved by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, inasmuch as He is the true author of the Old and the New Testaments, has the right to quote Himself freely or literally, as He chooses. That there can be no real contradiction as to meaning between the original statement and the quotation must be assumed a priori, since all Scripture is inspired.3 In regard to the many contradictions between statements of the Old and the New Testaments, contradictions mentioned by Cappellus in support of his position, Pfeiffer answers that they simply do not exist. If Scripture seems to contradict itself we must confess our ignorance and say, ‘Thus it has pleased the Lord to say much which seems wrong and impossible’ (sic placuit Domino, dicere plura nefas). 3. THE UNITY OF THE SCRIPTURES The dogmaticians affirmed that there was a unity of Scripture, a perfect and complete harmony between the Old and the New Testament and between all the books of the Bible. This does not mean that there is no difference between the Old Testament and the New. These two divisions of the Scriptures were written at different times and by different penmen. The Old Testament points to the coming Messiah, the New to the Christ who has already come. Revelation is more complete in the New Testament than in the Old. The New Testament is clearer than the Old in that it explains more fully the mysteries of our faith.1 And yet a marvellous unity prevails in Scripture. The content and the purpose of all the books are the same, and there is a perfect agreement doctrinally and in every other respect between all the statements of Scripture.2 Inconsistencies and contradictions do not exist, but only seem to exist.3 Vitiating this perfect unity of Scripture is the Socinian tenet that the Old Testament Scriptures were not as necessary for the Christian as the New. Calov counters 4 that the Scriptures of the Old Testament are the same inspired Word of God as those of the New. God is the author of all the Scriptures, and the Old Testament no less than the New is the foundation of our faith (2 Pet. 3.2). The Old Testament Scriptures are profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness. They also proclaim the same Christ and announce the same way of salvation as the New Testament, and they exhort us to worship and serve the same true God. Moreover, without the Old Testament there could be no true Christian faith in or understanding of the New Testament, for the New Testament is vindicated by the Old. As was so often said by all the dogmaticians, ‘in veteri testamento novum latet, in novo vetus patet’ The messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth can be proved only from both Old and New Testaments (Acts 18. 28). Not only did Christ Himself urge us to search the Scriptures, but both He and His disciples sought to prove their authority by the Old Testament Scriptures. 4. THE RELEVANCE OF INERRANCY TO INSPIRATION My survey of Calov’s and the other dogmaticians’ stand on the inerrancy of Scripture has been protracted not merely to show that they regarded this doctrine as important in itself, but also to demonstrate that their attitude towards the reliability and infallibility of Scripture cannot be isolated from their doctrine of inspiration. To them a Scripture which is not and is simply not consonant with a monergistic idea of inspiration. The words of Quenstedt already alluded to are a postulate: ‘Whatever has been inspired by God is also trustworthy and above human criticism; it is at all times and under all circumstances true, and it is free of all error and deceit’ (Quicquid autem a Deo inspiratum, illud est et , perpetuae ac immutabilis veritatis, omnis erroris aut falsitatis expers).1 Inspiration per se precludes the possibility of error. It is surprising that Dorner 2 says that the fear of human error entering Scripture drove the dogmaticians to their doctrine of a monergistic inspiration. The very opposite is the case. The dogmaticians were perfectly satisfied that the passages in Scripture dealing with inspiration taught a monergistic doctrine. It is unfair to state that their fear of a fallible Bible drove them to this conclusion. Inerrancy was always considered what we might call a concomitant consequence of inspiration, a consequence which in no way conditioned it. Dorner has somehow interchanged cause and effect in this case, a curious mistake in view of the clearness of the facts. More to the point is the criticism of Sasse,1 that the dogmaticians argue for the inerrancy of Scripture from the sola scriptura principle. Quenstedt,2 for instance, defends the inerrancy of Scripture on the basis of the nature of a principium. Sasse picks on this rather sophistic bit of argumentation—he calls it rationalism—in an attempt to demonstrate how the seventeenth century Lutherans departed from Luther’s simple trust in the truthfulness of Scripture. Sasse’s criticism is valid, but he does not mention the fact that the argument from the nature of a principium is not the main proof used by Quenstedt or by any other dogmatician for the inerrancy of Scripture. Quenstedt’s first argument and that which he obviously considered basic to his thesis was from Scripture, from the teachings of a long list of Scripture passages which he felt supported his position. Hence, not sola scriptura but the application of sola scriptura was Quenstedt’s appeal for the reliability and infallibility of Scripture. The habit of Sasse and other theologians of comparing the scholastic dogmaticians with Luther is highly interesting and instructive and often very necessary, but at times I believe it degenerates into a petitio principii with regard to the questions involved. That one does not happen to follow Luther does not mean that one is automatically wrong. Such a comparison, moreover, ought to be made with some appreciation of the great changes which had taken place in a century. Arrayed against the dogmaticians was a host of highly skilled controversialists, armed with ability, scholarship and persuasiveness, the like of whom Luther had not encountered except in the case of Erasmus, who was not primarily a theologian but a humanist, and who was not of a bellicose temperament.