Defending Inerrancy: Affirming the Accuracy of Scripture for a New Generation

Packer

Prologue

The doctrine of the total or unlimited inerrancy[2] of Scripture has a venerable history (see John Hannah, Inerrancy and the Church). It is rooted in the early fathers of the church, expressed emphatically in Augustine and Aquinas, expressed explicitly by the Reformers, and continued into the nineteenth century without a major challenge within the church (see chap. 1 below). Since the time of Darwin (ca. 1860), however, there has been a constant challenge to it both from without and from within, with major eruptions from time to time.

The first of these came near the beginning of the twentieth century in the Warfield/Briggs debate when Charles A. Briggs, a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York, denied inerrancy. B. B. Warfield and A. A. Hodge responded strongly with both books and articles. Together they wrote Inspiration (1881). Warfield penned essays (1894) now in The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (1948) and in Limited Inspiration (1961).

Another major crisis came in the 1960s when a major evangelical institution, Fuller Seminary, took inerrancy from its doctrinal statement, which occasioned the exodus of many of its name teachers. This led one of them, Harold Lindsell, to blow the whistle in his book The Battle for the Bible. In the wake of this, nearly three hundred scholars gathered in Chicago in 1978 as the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI) and formulated the famous Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. For the rest of the twentieth century, this detailed statement (see chap. 2 below) became the norm for the vast majority of evangelicalism. It was a strong influence in the major reversal of the Southern Baptist Convention on this issue. During this same period the major scholarly society based on the inerrancy of Scripture, the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), experienced a rapid growth from a little over one thousand members to over four thousand members to date.

With the dawn of the twenty-first century, however, a major disruption has occurred in the ongoing inerrancy debate. A noted evangelical, Clark Pinnock (Scripture Principle), challenged the traditional view of unlimited inerrancy and defended a view of limited inerrancy, which allows for minor errors in nonredemptive matters (see chap. 4). This led to a vote to expel him from the ETS, which garnered a solid majority of over 63 percent yet fell just short of the two-thirds majority needed to dismiss him from the society.

Meanwhile, many young evangelicals trained in contemporary higher criticism have grown increasingly dissatisfied with the traditional view of unlimited inerrancy that was embraced by Warfield, the ETS founders, and the ICBI. Many of them had joined the ETS since that society made a conscious decision not to challenge the consistency of each member’s views with what the ETS framers meant by the statement. Instead, each member was allowed to follow his own conscience to judge whether his views were consistent with the ETS statement The Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety is the Word of God written, and therefore inerrant in the autographs.

Inevitably, this open view on membership has led to two camps within ETS. The vast majority (80 percent) voted (in 2003) to accept the ICBI Chicago Statement as the ETS definition of what is meant by inerrancy, that it means unlimited inerrancy and that the Bible is totally without error in any matter on which it speaks (see Geisler, Inerrancy). As the ICBI Short Statement put it, Holy Scripture, being God’s own word, written by men prepared and superintended by his Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches.

The other camp contains those who do not believe in unlimited inerrancy as meant by the ETS and ICBI framers. This came to light in 1976 when the ETS Executive Committee confessed that some of the members of the Society have expressed the feeling that a measure of intellectual dishonesty prevails among members who do not take the signing of the doctrinal statement seriously. Further, an ETS Ad Hoc Committee recognized this problem when it posed the proper question in 1983: Is it acceptable for a member of the society to hold a view of [a] biblical author’s intent which disagrees with the Founding Fathers and even the majority of the society, and still remain a member in good standing? The society never said no. And the subsequent vote to retain Pinnock reveals that a large percent of the members do not believe it is necessary to hold to unlimited inerrancy as the ETS and ICBI framers meant it.

Now in the morning of the twenty-first century, evangelicalism is faced with a new challenge to the traditional view of inerrancy as expressed by ETS and ICBI. In fact, some are openly challenging the adequacy and even the correctness of the ICBI statement (see chaps. 4–11). Has the Erosion of Inerrancy (see Beale, Erosion of Inerrancy) been so strong that it cannot be rehabilitated? This leads us to pose the question for this book: Can this view of total inerrancy be reaffirmed for the twenty-first century? Does the ICBI statement need to be revised or even discarded? Is it possible to be a biblical scholar and still believe in unlimited inerrancy?

Before trying to answer these questions, we need to look at the background of this issue (chaps. 1–3) and examine the charges of those who challenge total inerrancy (chaps. 4–11). Then we can fully discuss the issues involved (chaps. 12–16) and finally respond to the challenge posed by the new evangelical and other scholars of this new era. In brief, our quest is whether we can reaffirm Inerrancy for the New Generation (which we answer in chap. 17 and the epilogue).

Sources

Beale, Erosion of Inerrancy

Geisler, Inerrancy

Hannah, Inerrancy and the Church

Hodge, A., and Warfield, Inspiration

Lindsell, Battle for the Bible

Pinnock, Scripture Principle

Warfield, Inspiration and Authority

———, Limited Inspiration

1

Background of the ICBI Chicago Statement on Inerrancy

Introduction

There has always been a battle for the Bible. Church history is plagued with deviant views on the topic. Origen (AD 185–254) denied the historicity of parts of Genesis and allegorized other passages as well. The biblical views of Theodore of Mopsuestia (AD 350–423) were challenged in the Middle Ages and afterward. During the Reformation, Calvin charged Servetus (AD 1511–53) with denying the factual inerrancy of parts of the Bible. Until modern times, however, none of the deviant views on Scripture became mainstream. This was true right up to the late 1800s, when the B. B. Warfield and Charles A. Briggs controversy broke out. Indeed, it was not until the early 1900s that unorthodox views of Scripture became widely accepted in mainline churches.

The Great Teachers of the Church

As has been demonstrated elsewhere (see Hannah, Inerrancy and the Church, 1984; Geisler, Systematic Theology, vol. 1; Woodbridge, Biblical Authority, 1982), total inerrancy has been the standard orthodox view throughout the history of the Christian church. This is true from the earliest times. The view of limited inerrancy (that only spiritual or redemptive matters are without error) is a late view in church history, arising as a result of accommodating the doctrine of inerrancy to modern science and biblical criticism (see below).

The Early Church Fathers

Justin Martyr (d. 165) spoke of the Gospels as the Voice of God (Apology 65). He stated, We must not suppose that the language proceeds from men who were inspired, but from the Divine Word which moves them (1.36). Irenaeus (d. 202) added that the Bible is above all falsehood (Against Heresies 3.5.1) and we are most properly assured that the Scriptures are indeed perfect, since they are spoken by the Word of God and His Spirit (2.28.2; 2:35).

Medieval Church Fathers

Summing up the early church, Augustine of Hippo declares: I have learned to yield respect and honour only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error (Letters 82.3). So if we are perplexed by any apparent contradiction in Scripture, it is not allowable to say, the author of this book is mistaken: but either the manuscript is faulty, or the translation is wrong, or you have misunderstood (Reply to Faustus 11.5).

Likewise, in the later Middle Ages Thomas Aquinas insisted that it is heretical to say that any falsehood whatsoever is contained either in the gospels or in any canonical Scripture (Exposition on Job 13, Lect. 1). For A true prophet is always inspired by the spirit of truth in whom there is no trace of falsehood, and he never utters untruths (Summa 2a2ae, 172, 6 ad 2).

The Reformation Period

The great reformer Martin Luther affirms that the Scriptures, although written by men, are neither of men nor from men but from God (Luther’s Works 35:153). So God’s Word is God’s Word. . . . When one blasphemously gives the lie to God in a single word, or says it is a minor matter, . . . one blasphemes the entire God and makes light of all blasphemy (37:26). Indeed, whoever is so bold that he ventures to accuse God of fraud and deception in a single word . . . likewise certainly ventures to accuse God of fraud and deception in all His words. Therefore it is true, absolutely and without exception, that everything is believed or nothing is believed (Reu, Luther and the Scriptures, 33).

Likewise, John Calvin agrees, insisting that the Bible has come down to us from the mouth of God (Institutes 1.18.4). Thus we owe to Scripture the same reverence which we owe to God; because it has proceeded from Him alone. . . . The Law and the Prophets are . . . dictated by the Holy Spirit (Urquhart, Inspiration and Accuracy, 129–30). Scripture is the certain and unerring rule (Calvin’s Commentaries, Ps. 5:11).

For when we reflect how prone the human mind is to lapse into forgetfulness of God, how readily inclined to every kind of error, . . . it will be easy to understand how necessary it was to make such a depository of doctrine as would secure it from either perishing by the neglect, vanishing away amid the errors, or being corrupted by the presumptuous audacity of men. (Institutes 1.6.3)

Nor is it sufficient to believe that God is true, and cannot lie or deceive, unless you feel firmly persuaded that every word which proceeds from him is sacred, inviolable truth. (3.2.6)

The Post-Reformation Period

The same is true of the post-Reformation creeds. The Lutheran Book of Concord (1580) adds, Therefore, as a whole and in all its details the Word of God [is] without contradiction and error. Indeed, H. D. McDonald has demonstrated (in Theories of Revelation) that the standard orthodox view of Scripture dominated Christendom up to the post-Darwinian end of the nineteenth century. It was then that the battle broke out in America.

The American battle was initiated by the Warfield/Briggs debate when Charles A. Briggs, a professor at Union Seminary in New York, denied inerrancy. B. B. Warfield and A. A. Hodge responded strongly with both books and articles. A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield wrote Inspiration (1881). Warfield penned The Inspiration of the Bible (1894) and Smith on Inspiration (1894), reprinted as Limited Inspiration (1961). Their views formed what has come to be known as the Old Princeton view, summed up in the following citations: The New Testament continually asserts of the Scriptures of the Old Testament, and of the several books which constitute it, that they are the Word of God. What their writers said, God said (Inspiration, 29). Thus every element of Scripture, whether doctrine or history, of which God has guaranteed the infallibility, must be infallible in its verbal expression (21–23). This is true because throughout the whole of his work the Holy Spirit was present . . . everywhere securing the errorless expression in language and thought designed by God (16).

Harold Ockenga summarizes this period well in his foreword to Harold Lindsell’s bombshell book The Battle for the Bible (1976). Inerrancy dominated the fundamentalist-modernist controversy in the 1920s and 1930s. It was centered in the Presbyterian Church in the USA over the Auburn affirmation and was expressed in some withdrawing from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1929. That year a group of students followed J. Gresham Machen, Robert Dick Wilson, Oswald T. Allis, Cornelius Van Til, and Ned Stonehouse in forming Westminster Theological Seminary. By 1942 effects of denying the inerrancy of Scripture in the Protestant denominations organized under the Federal Council of Churches prompted the founding of the National Association of Evangelicals in St. Louis on the basis of inerrancy. During the summers of 1944 and 1945, Ockenga convened a group of evangelical scholars in Manomet Point, Massachusetts, to encourage evangelical writing based upon inerrant Scripture, and not dependent upon literature from a previous generation.

The Wenham Inerrancy Conference

As a result of the conferences of the World Evangelical Fellowship, it became evident that there were two views of Scripture held by evangelicals. To discuss the issue, Ockenga convened a conference at Gordon College in June 1966, which was attended by more than fifty men from various parts of the world. No unanimity emerged. The two opposing views of inerrantist and noninerrantist remained. In 1955, at the suggestion of Billy Graham, a group gathered first at Bass Rock, Massachusetts, and then in New York City to discuss the formation of Christianity Today, to be based on the inerrancy of Scripture.

However, the rift over inerrancy remained simmering on the back burner. Two important factors gave impetus to the limited inerrancy movement (that inerrancy was limited to only redemptive matters). First, neoevangelicalism arose originally from a sermon by Ockenga in 1948 at the Civic Auditorium in Pasadena. It was a call to repudiate separationism and involve evangelicals in social action while retaining a commitment to fundamental doctrines like inerrancy. It was not initially designed as a movement, but the name caught on as it was used by Edward Carnell and Harold Lindsell, and also by Carl Henry (who had already written The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism, 1947); Gleason Archer also began to support it. Soon after this, younger evangelicals started to join the movement, and the doctrinal emphasis was downplayed until inerrancy was no longer a characteristic of the group. The next significant move away from inerrancy was the action that occurred during the 1960s when Fuller Seminary faculty removed inerrancy from their doctrinal statement.

Fuller Seminary and the Battle for the Bible

According to Harold Lindsell (Battle for the Bible, chap. 6), in 1947 Charles Fuller invited Ockenga to join him in founding a School of Missions and Evangelism. Biblical inerrancy was part of the doctrinal statement. Harold Lindsell was the first dean and with Wilbur Smith, Everett F. Harrison, and Carl Henry formed the first faculty. The doctrinal statement of Scripture read: The books which form the canon of the Old and New Testaments as originally given are plenarily inspired and free from all error in the whole and in the part. These books constitute the written Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice. Such a statement meant that the Bible is free from errors in matters of fact, science, history, and chronology, as well as in matters having to do with salvation.

Within the ensuing years, doubts began to arise on the Fuller board and faculty about the inerrancy of Scripture. First, Fuller staff member Bela Vassady said his honesty kept him from signing the inerrancy part of the doctrinal statement, and he voluntarily left the school. By 1962 it became apparent that others at Fuller no longer believed in inerrancy. One wealthy and influential board member, C. David Weyerhaeuser, came to the conviction that the Bible was not inerrant. Two other faculty members came to the same conclusion, but neither was asked to leave the school. The founder’s son, Daniel Fuller (after studying under Karl Barth in Basel), soon followed suit. Calvin Schoonhoven admitted that he did not believe in inerrancy when he was hired. Finally, David Hubbard was hired as president in spite of the fact that the syllabus on the Old Testament he had coauthored with Robert Laurin stated that Adam was not historical, Moses had not written the whole Pentateuch, and Daniel was written after the great world kingdom events that are recorded as prophecies in his book (though Hubbard maintained that his own views were orthodox).

In December 1962, Black Saturday occurred at a faculty-trustee meeting in Pasadena. Here a number of faculty and board members expressed that they did not believe in the inerrancy of Scripture. Edward Johnson declared his belief that inerrancy was a benchmark belief and resigned because the board failed to take its stand on inerrancy (which was still in the doctrinal statement from its beginning).

The 1963–64 seminary catalogs still retained the usual statement that faculty members must have concurrence to the doctrinal statement including inerrancy without mental reservation, and any who cannot assent agrees to withdraw from the institution. In the 1965–66 catalog this statement disappeared. So the school continued under the dark cloud of faculty and staff who signed the doctrinal statement with mental reservations. As time went by, faculty began to resign. First, Charles Woodbridge resigned (even before Black Saturday). Wilbur Smith was next to resign by spring of 1963. Harold Lindsell left in 1964, and Gleason Archer departed a couple years later.

In 1967 at the ETS meeting in Toronto, Daniel Fuller presented a paper in which he denied the factual inerrancy of the Bible, claiming that the Scriptures were only inspired and inerrant on revelational matters, not on nonrevelational matters such as science. This was followed by George Ladd’s book The New Testament and Criticism (1967), in which he denies the factual inerrancy of Scripture. As the next decade rolled by, the influence of Fuller Seminary and its decision to scrap inerrancy became more pervasive. The full story is told in George Marsden’s work Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism (1987).

Even before the battle for the Bible began, which led up to the ICBI summit on inerrancy (1978), the Lausanne Covenant was formed by evangelists and missionaries in 1974. Its statement on Scripture reads in part as follows: 2. The Authority and Power of the Bible: We affirm the divine inspiration, truthfulness and authority of both Old and New Testament Scriptures in their entirety as the only written word of God, without error in all that it affirms, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice . . . (2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21; John 10:35; Isa. 55:11; 1 Cor. 1:21; Rom. 1:16; Matt. 5:17, 18; Jude 3; Eph. 1:17, 18; 3:10, 18).

This statement served as an indicator of evangelical unity on inerrancy even before the Chicago Summit. It clearly affirmed both the infallibility and inerrancy of Scripture when it declares: "We affirm the divine inspiration, truthfulness and authority of both Old and New Testament Scriptures in their entirety as the only written word of God, without error in all that it affirms."

The Battle for the Bible Begins

In 1976 Harold Lindsell’s book The Battle for the Bible blew the lid off the Fuller situation and labeled inerrancy a watershed issue. Foreseeing the problem for the broader evangelical church, in 1975 Francis Schaeffer wrote No Final Conflict, in which he says, It is my conviction that the crucial area of discussion for evangelicalism in the next few years will be the Scripture. At stake is whether evangelicalism will remain evangelical. He met privately with a few of the ICBI leaders in Chicago and there pledged his support for the inerrancy movement, which he fulfilled later by signing the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978), though he expressed his preference for the term without error.

The anti-inerrancy movement became more aggressive by 1977 with the publication of the book Biblical Authority by Fuller Professor Jack Rogers. Gradually the inerrantists realized the need to respond. The first effort to produce a response to Rogers was the book The Foundation of Biblical Authority (1978), edited by James M. Boice. Meanwhile, plans were moving forward toward the inerrancy conference in Chicago in 1978.

The Origin of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI)

According to the official ICBI Update (December 1987), ICBI was birthed as follows: In February 1977 God laid upon the hearts of a small band of His people a tremendous burden—the erosion of the authority and accuracy of Scripture. Having observed the preaching in many churches, the teaching in some seminaries and much of the popular Christian literature, there was great concern that many evangelicals were turning away from the Bible as the final authority in matters of Christian doctrine and living. Thus the initial corps who gathered for prayer, discussion and planning were: Greg Bahnsen, John Gerstner, Norman Geisler, Jay Grimstead, Karen Hoyt, A. Wetherell Johnson, James Packer and R. C. Sproul. From this corps developed the formation of the ICBI Council and Advisory Board (ICBI Update, 3). All agreed that something needed to be done to support the traditional, historic view on inerrancy. Plans were laid for the big 1978 summit in Chicago, which would produce the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (see chap. 2).

Shortly after the ICBI summit, Jack Rogers and Roger McKim published a massive, historical 484-page defense of the noninerrancy or limited inerrancy view called The Authority and Interpretation of the Bible (1979). Then ICBI responded by producing and inspiring a raft of books defining and defending inerrancy—biblically, theologically, historically, philosophically, and hermeneutically. In order of publication, this included Inerrancy (Geisler, 1979); Biblical Errancy: Its Philosophical Roots (ed. Geisler, 1981); Inerrancy and the Church (ed. Hannah, 1984); Hermeneutics, Inerrancy, and the Bible (ed. Radmacher and Preus, 1984); Applying the Scriptures (ed. Kantzer, 1987). Another very important book, not under ICBI sponsorship, was the masterful refutation of Rogers’s book by Trinity Evangelical Divinity School professor John Woodbridge, Biblical Authority: A Critique of the Rogers/McKim Proposal (1982). So thorough and incisive was this critique that Rogers chose not to respond to it. Also worthy of mention is H. D. McDonald on Theories of Revelation (1979) and Inerrancy and Common Sense, edited by Roger Nicole and J. Ramsey Michaels (1980). Since the ICBI movement helped spawn the Southern Baptist inerrancy resurgence, the book by the late Russ Bush and Tom Nettles, Baptists and the Bible (1980), should be noted as well. Another influential non-ICBI book was God’s Inerrant Word (1974), edited by John Warwick Montgomery.

Summary and Conclusion

The inerrancy issue broke on the American scene in the late 1800s with the works of A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield. It continued in the fundamentalist-modernist controversy (of the 1920s and 1930s), but never became a dominant issue within evangelicalism until Fuller Seminary broke rank in the 1960s. The events leading to calling for the ICBI inerrancy movement began with the failure of the Wenham Conference to reach a consensus on the topic in 1966. It was given impetus by the Fuller Seminary decision to eliminate the requirement to hold to inerrancy, deleting it from the seminary’s doctrinal statement during the same period. But the bombshell dropped with the publication of The Battle for the Bible (1976), when Harold Lindsell blew the lid off the Fuller situation. By this time the influence of Fuller on the broader evangelical community, along with the growing neoevangelical tendency away from inerrancy, made the situation ripe for an evangelical reaction to the drift away from this historic doctrine. In the atmosphere of Lindsell’s warning and Francis Schaeffer’s exhortation that this was a watershed issue that could change the very nature of evangelicalism, the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy was born.

In its ten-year plan (1977–1987), ICBI produced three summits and numerous books in defense of the doctrine of inerrancy. The first summit was on defining inerrancy (1978), the second on interpreting inerrancy (1984), and the last on applying inerrancy (1987).

In the wake of the ICBI effort, numerous denominations and schools were strengthened in their stand on Scripture, many adding inerrancy to their doctrinal position. One of the largest Protestant denominations—the Southern Baptist Convention—reversed their liberal direction and adopted the ICBI statement. Others joined the bandwagon, and the Chicago Summit’s declaration and definition of inerrancy became the standard evangelical position again. It has remained that way for almost a generation now.

However, a new generation has arisen that knows not Lindsell, Henry, Archer, Schaeffer, Gerstner, Nicole, or Boice—all of whom have passed on to their reward—and once again inerrancy is being challenged. Part 2 of this book addresses the response to unlimited inerrancy by men like Clark Pinnock (chap. 4), Bart Erhman (chap. 5), Peter Enns (chap. 6), Kenton Sparks (chap. 7), Kevin Vanhoozer (chap. 8), Andrew McGowan (chap. 9), Stanley Grenz and Brian McLaren (chap. 10), and Darrell Bock and Robert Webb (chap. 11).

So now we face crucial questions: Can inerrancy be reaffirmed for this new generation? Or will it go the way of all flesh? More precisely, has the ICBI Chicago Statement and commentaries on inerrancy become outdated? Does it need to be revised or discarded? Can it withstand the current attacks? As a founder and framer (Norman Geisler) of the ICBI position and as a young scholar of this new generation (Bill Roach), we wish to face this challenge head-on (chaps. 12–17) and respond to these questions. The readers will have to decide whether or not our efforts are successful.

Sources

Augustine, Reply to Faustus

Boice, Foundation for Biblical Authority

Bush and Nettles, Baptists and the Bible

Calvin, Institutes

———, Commentaries

Geisler, Biblical Errancy

———, ed., Inerrancy

———, Systematic Theology, vol. 1

Hannah, Inerrancy and the Church

Henry, Uneasy Conscience

Hodge, A., and Warfield, Inspiration

Irenaeus, Against Heresies

Justin Martyr, Apology

Kantzer, ed., Applying the Scriptures

Ladd, New Testament and Criticism

Lindsell, Battle for the Bible

Luther, Luther’s Works

Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism

McDonald, Theories of Revelation

Radmacher and Preus, eds., Hermeneutics, Inerrancy

Reu, Luther and the Scriptures

Rogers, Biblical Authority

Rogers and McKim, Authority and Interpretation

Schaeffer, No Final Conflict

Thomas Aquinas, Exposition on Job

———, Summa

Warfield, Inspiration and Authority

———, Limited Inspiration

Woodbridge, Biblical Authority

2

Formation of the ICBI Chicago Statement on Inerrancy

During October 26–28, 1978, the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI) held a summit near O’Hare airport. The result was the famous Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. These nineteen articles, along with the Preamble and Short Statement and an official commentary, Explaining Inerrancy by R. C. Sproul, were produced. Over the next ten years, two other major conferences were held, one on hermeneutics and inerrancy (1984), and one on applying inerrancy to the issues of our day (1987). During this same time several scholarly volumes were produced under the auspices of ICBI, defending inerrancy. These include Inerrancy (ed. Geisler); Hermeneutics, Inerrancy, and the Bible (ed. Radmacher and Preus); Biblical Errancy: Its Philosophical Roots (ed. Geisler); and The Church and Inerrancy (ed. Hannah).

The Chicago Statement was produced by the summit scholars based on an initial draft by R. C. Sproul. It was later revised to its final form in light of the comments by the attendees and put in form by the Draft Committee composed of Edmund Clowney, Norman Geisler, Harold Hoehner, Donald Hoke, Roger Nicole, James Packer, Earl Radmacher, and R. C. Sproul. After considerable discussion, the final draft was presented to the participants and overwhelmingly approved by 240 of the 268 delegates (see appendix 1). Signers included noted evangelical leaders of the last part of the twentieth century, including James Boice, John Gerstner, Carl F. H. Henry, Kenneth Kantzer, Harold Lindsell, John Warwick Montgomery, Robert Preus, Francis Schaeffer, R. C. Sproul, John Wenham, Charles Colson, and numerous others. An official commentary on these articles was written by R. C. Sproul (Explaining Inerrancy), and a book covering the major addresses was published (Inerrancy, ed. Geisler), as were other books covering the history of inerrancy (Inerrancy and the Church, ed. Hannah) and philosophical presuppositions of the anti-inerrancy view (Biblical Errancy: Its Philosophical Roots, ed. Geisler).

For clarity, this Chicago Statement was formulated with both affirmations and denials. After the Drafting Committee agreed on the content, J. I. Packer was most helpful in putting it into succinct statements. The following is the Preamble, a Short Statement, and the nineteen articles:[3]

PREAMBLE

The authority of Scripture is a key issue for the Christian church in this and every age. Those who profess faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior are called to show the reality of their discipleship by humbly and faithfully obeying God’s written Word. To stray from Scripture in faith or conduct is disloyalty to our Master. Recognition of the total truth and trustworthiness of Holy Scripture is essential to a full grasp and adequate confession of its authority.

The following statement affirms this inerrancy of Scripture afresh, making clear our understanding of it and warning against its denial. We are persuaded that to deny it is to set aside the witness of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit and to refuse that submission to the claims of God’s own Word which marks true Christian faith. We see it as our timely duty to make this affirmation in the face of current lapses from the truth of inerrancy among our fellow Christians and misunderstanding of this doctrine in the world at large.

This statement consists of three parts: a summary statement, articles of affirmation and denial, and an accompanying exposition. It has been prepared in the course of a three-day consultation in Chicago. Those who have signed the summary statement and the articles wish to affirm their own conviction as to the inerrancy of Scripture and to encourage and challenge one another and all Christians to growing appreciation and understanding of this doctrine. We acknowledge the limitations of a document prepared in a brief, intensive conference and do not propose that this statement be given creedal weight. Yet we rejoice in the deepening of our own convictions through our discussions together, and we pray that the statement we have signed may be used to the glory of our God toward a new reformation of the church in its faith, life and mission.

We offer this statement in a spirit, not of contention, but of humility and love, which we purpose by God’s grace to maintain in any future dialogue arising out of what we have said. We gladly acknowledge that many who deny the inerrancy of Scripture do not display the consequences of this denial in the rest of their belief and behavior, and we are conscious that we who confess this doctrine often deny it in life by failing to bring our thoughts and deeds, our traditions and habits, into true subjection to the divine Word.

We invite response to this statement from any who see reason to amend its affirmations about Scripture by the light of Scripture itself, under whose infallible authority we stand as we speak. We claim no personal infallibility for the witness we bear, and for any help which enables us to strengthen this testimony to God’s Word we shall be grateful.

A SHORT STATEMENT

1. God, who is Himself truth and speaks truth only, has inspired Holy Scripture in order thereby to reveal Himself to lost mankind through Jesus Christ as Creator and Lord, Redeemer and Judge. Holy Scripture is God’s witness to Himself.

2. Holy Scripture, being God’s own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God’s instruction, in all that it affirms; obeyed, as God’s command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God’s pledge, in all that it promises.

3. The Holy Spirit, Scripture’s divine author, both authenticates it to us by His inward witness and opens our minds to understand its meaning.

4. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God’s acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God’s saving grace in individual lives.

5. The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total divine inerrancy is in any way limited or disregarded, or made relative to a view of truth contrary to the Bible’s own; and such lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the Church.

THE CHICAGO STATEMENT ON BIBLICAL INERRANCY (1978)

ARTICLES OF AFFIRMATION AND DENIAL

Article 1

We affirm that the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the authoritative Word of God.

We deny that the Scriptures receive their authority from the Church, tradition, or any other human source.

Article 2

We affirm that the Scriptures are the supreme written norm by which God binds the conscience, and that the authority of the Church is subordinate to that of Scripture.

We deny that Church creeds, councils, or declarations have authority greater than or equal to the authority of the Bible.

Article 3

We affirm that the written Word in its entirety is revelation given by God.

We deny that the Bible is merely a witness to revelation, or only becomes revelation in encounter, or depends on the responses of men for its validity.

Article 4

We affirm that God who made mankind in His image has used language as a means of revelation.

We deny that human language is so limited by our creatureliness that it is rendered inadequate as a vehicle for divine revelation. We further deny that the corruption of human culture and language through sin has thwarted God’s work of inspiration.

Article 5

We affirm that God’s revelation in the Holy Scriptures was progressive.

We deny that later revelation, which may fulfill earlier revelation, ever corrects or contradicts it. We further deny that any normative revelation has been given since the completion of the New Testament writings.

Article 6

We affirm that the whole of Scripture and all its parts, down to the very words of the original, were given by divine inspiration.

We deny that the inspiration of Scripture can rightly be affirmed of the whole without the parts, or of some parts but not the whole.

Article 7

We affirm that inspiration was the work in which God by His Spirit, through human writers, gave us His Word. The origin of Scripture is divine. The mode of divine inspiration remains largely a mystery to us.

We deny that inspiration can be reduced to human insight, or to heightened states of consciousness of any kind.

Article 8

We affirm that God in His Work of inspiration utilized the distinctive personalities and literary styles of the writers whom He had chosen and prepared.

We deny that God, in causing these writers to use the very words that He chose, overrode their personalities.

Article 9

We affirm that inspiration, though not conferring omniscience, guaranteed true and trustworthy utterance on all matters of which the Biblical authors were moved to speak and write.

We deny that the finitude or fallenness of these writers, by necessity or otherwise, introduced distortion or falsehood into God’s Word.

Article 10

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 assertions of Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.

Article 11

We affirm that Scripture, having been given by divine inspiration, is infallible, so that, far from misleading us, it is true and reliable in all the matters it addresses.

We deny that it is possible for the Bible to be at the same time infallible and errant in its assertions. Infallibility and inerrancy may be distinguished, but not separated.

Article 12

We affirm that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from all falsehood, fraud, or deceit.

We deny that Biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields of history and science. We further deny that scientific hypotheses about earth history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture on creation and the flood.

Article 13

We affirm the propriety of using inerrancy as a theological term with reference to the complete truthfulness of Scripture.

We deny that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according to standards of truth and error that are alien to its usage or purpose. We further deny that inerrancy is negated by Biblical phenomena such as a lack of modern technical precision, irregularities of grammar or spelling, observational descriptions of nature, the reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyperbole and round numbers, the topical arrangement of material, variant selections of material in parallel accounts, or the use of free citations.

Article 14

We affirm the unity and internal consistency of Scripture.

We deny that alleged errors and discrepancies that have not yet been resolved vitiate the truth claims of the Bible.

Article 15

We affirm that the doctrine of inerrancy is grounded in the teaching of the Bible about inspiration.

We deny that Jesus’ teaching about Scripture may be dismissed by appeals to accommodation or to any natural limitation of His humanity.

Article 16

We affirm that the doctrine of inerrancy has been integral to the Church’s faith throughout its history.

We deny that inerrancy is a doctrine invented by Scholastic Protestantism, or is a reactionary position postulated in response to negative higher criticism.

Article 17

We affirm that the Holy Spirit bears witness to the Scriptures, assuring believers of the truthfulness of God’s written Word.

We deny that this witness of the Holy Spirit operates in isolation from or against Scripture.

Article 18

We affirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico-historical exegesis, taking account of its literary forms and devices, and that Scripture is to interpret Scripture.

We deny the legitimacy of any treatment of the text or quest for sources lying behind it that leads to relativizing, dehistoricizing, or discounting its teaching, or rejecting its claims to authorship.

Article 19

We affirm that a confession of the full authority, infallibility, and inerrancy of Scripture is vital to a sound understanding of the whole of the Christian faith.

We further affirm that such confession should lead to increasing conformity to the image of Christ.

We deny that such confession is necessary for salvation. However, we further deny that inerrancy can be rejected without grave consequences, both to the individual and to the Church.

The Official ICBI Commentary on the Chicago Statement

Foreseeing possible disputes on what the ICBI inerrancy statement meant, the ICBI wrote a commentary on its Chicago Statement, Explaining Inerrancy. It was prepared by R. C. Sproul, and the full text is available through Ligonier Ministries, Orlando, Florida. Unfortunately, it has been largely overlooked in subsequent discussion on inerrancy, particularly on disputed areas of discussion on inerrancy.

The following are important excerpts from the official ICBI commentary on the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978). They speak to controversial areas of the Chicago Statement by some who have misinterpreted it to accommodate their own deviant views. For example, Clark Pinnock says, I supported the 1978 Chicago Statement of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, noting that article 13 made room for nearly every well-intentioned Baptist (Scripture Principle², 266). But this is clearly contrary to what the ICBI framers meant by inerrancy, as is revealed in its official commentary on that article cited below:

ICBI Commentary on Article 12

It has been fashionable in certain quarters to maintain that the Bible is not normal history, but redemptive history with an accent on redemption. Theories have been established that would limit inspiration to the redemptive theme of redemptive history, allowing the historical dimension of redemptive history to be errant. (Sproul, Explaining Inerrancy, 36)

Though the Bible is indeed redemptive history, it is also redemptive history, and this means that the acts of salvation wrought by God actually occurred in the space-time world. (37)

The denial [in art. 12] explicitly rejects the tendency of some to limit infallibility and inerrancy to specific segments of the biblical message. (36)

ICBI Commentary on Article 13

When we say that the truthfulness of Scripture ought to be evaluated according to its own standards, that means that . . . all the claims of the Bible must correspond with reality, whether that reality is historical, factual or spiritual. (41)

By biblical standards of truth and error is meant the view used both in the Bible and in everyday life, viz., a correspondence view of truth. This part of the article is directed toward those who would redefine truth to relate merely to redemptive intent, the purely personal, or the like, rather than to mean that which corresponds with reality. (43–44)

ICBI Commentary on Article 18

When the quest for sources produces a dehistoricizing of the Bible, a rejection of its teaching or a rejection of the Bible’s own claims of authorship, [then] it has trespassed beyond its proper limits. . . . It is never legitimate, however, to run counter to express biblical affirmations. (55)

By biblical standards of truth and error is meant the view used both in the Bible and in everyday life, viz., a correspondence view of truth. This part of the article is directed toward those [like Pinnock] who would redefine truth to relate merely to redemptive intent, the purely personal, or the like, rather than to mean that which corresponds with reality. (43–44)

Thus, what Scripture says, God says; its authority is His authority, for He is the ultimate author. (Packer, Exposition, 69)

ICBI Commentary on Hermeneutics

Also, an official commentary on the ICBI Hermeneutics Statement (1982) was composed: Geisler, Explaining Hermeneutics (EH). The following are some relevant excerpts from it:

EH on Article 6: We further affirm that a statement is true if it represents matters as they actually are, but is an error if it misrepresents the facts. The commentary on this adds, The denial makes it evident that views which redefine error to mean what ‘misleads,’ rather than what is a mistake, must be rejected.

EH on Article 13: We deny that generic categories which negate historicity may rightly be imposed on biblical narratives which present themselves as factual. Some, for instance, take Adam to be a myth, whereas in Scripture he is presented as a real person. Others take Jonah to be an allegory when he is presented as a historical person and [is] so referred to by Christ.

EH on Article 14: We deny that any event, discourse or saying reported in Scripture was invented by the biblical writers or by the traditions they incorporated.

EH on Article 22: It affirms that Genesis 1–11 is factual, as is the rest of the book. And, The denial makes it evident that views which redefine error to mean what ‘misleads,’ rather than what is a mistake, must be rejected (892).

Thus, what Scripture says, God says; its authority is His authority, for He is the ultimate author. (Packer, Exposition, 69)

Influence of ICBI Statements on Other Scholarly Societies

After a long debate on the meaning of inerrancy in the Clark Pinnock case (2003), the largest group of evangelical scholars in the United States (the Evangelical Theological Society) adopted the ICBI statement as their definition of inerrancy (in 2003). This they believed would help them in future disputes over the meaning of its brief statement on inerrancy: The Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety is the Word of God written, and therefore inerrant in the autographs.

Another scholarly group, ISCA—the International Society of Christian Apologetics (www.isca-apologetics.org)—has adopted the ICBI statement as its official interpretation of their doctrinal statement on inerrancy. And since some have injected their own meaning into the ICBI statement in order to claim agreement with it, ISCA added: This doctrine is understood as the one expressed by the Framers of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy in its ‘Chicago Statement’ and as interpreted by the official ICBI Commentary on it (Sproul, Explaining Inerrancy).

Conclusion

We have just listed the primary sources on the ICBI inerrancy position. The two main statements are (1) the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978) and (2) the Chicago Statement on Hermeneutics (1984). Two official commentaries on these statements are called, respectively, (3) Explaining Inerrancy, by R. C. Sproul, of which selections are included above; and (4) Explaining Hermeneutics, by N. L. Geisler, which is appendix B in (5) Hermeneutics, Inerrancy, and the Bible, edited by Radmacher and Preus. This is the ICBI book with the conference papers on defining hermeneutics (1984). The other book, (6) Inerrancy, is on defining inerrancy (1978), includes papers from the first ICBI conference, and was edited by N. L. Geisler. These six works are the primary sources for ICBI’s official understanding of inerrancy.

A careful reading of the first four pieces of literature listed above, as will be seen from their use in this book, is crucial to understanding the official ICBI understanding of what they meant by inerrancy. Throughout this book this position will be referred to variously as the historic, classical, or orthodox view of inerrancy. It is also sometimes called full, factual, or unlimited inerrancy as opposed to limited inerrancy, inerrancy of purpose, inerrancy of intent, or inerrancy of redemptive statements only.

Sources

Geisler, ed., Biblical Errancy

———, Explaining Hermeneutics

———, ed., Inerrancy

Hannah, Church and Inerrancy

Packer, Exposition

Pinnock, Scripture Principle, 2nd ed.

Radmacher and Preus, eds., Hermeneutics, Inerrancy

Sproul, Explaining Inerrancy

3

Influence of the ICBI Chicago Statement on Inerrancy

Introduction

The influence of the ICBI stand on inerrancy has been extensive. Foremost among these influences is that it helped reverse decades of the drift from inerrancy in one of the largest Protestant denominations in the United States—the Southern Baptist Convention. Other crucial schools and denominations that were drifting in the wrong direction were also influenced to change course. This included Bethel Seminary in Minneapolis, Gordon Conwell Seminary, Wheaton College, and a number of smaller groups. With the exception of Fuller Seminary (which by this time had hardened its limited inerrancy view), the ICBI inerrancy has become the banner view of evangelicalism. Even the Evangelical Theological Society, the largest group of evangelical scholars in the country, adopted the ICBI Chicago Statement on inerrancy in 2003. So influential was the ICBI movement that, one may safely say, it made inerrancy the standard view of American evangelicals.

The Influence of ICBI

Space does not permit elaborating in full the many groups and movements influenced by the ICBI. Two movements call for further comment because of their size and influence. The first is the Southern Baptist Convention.

The ICBI Influence on Southern Baptists

What happened in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is, so far as we know, unprecedented in history. Certainly it is unprecedented in American history. Never before has a major denomination reversed course in its doctrinal decline toward liberalism. Water simply does not flow back up after the water falls. However, as a result of the success of the Chicago Summit on inerrancy, this is exactly what did happen both theologically and denominationally in the SBC.

The Beginnings

Although a small group of SBC leaders had gathered earlier in an Atlanta hotel to discuss the issue, a major thrust of the inerrancy movement began in a small room in a hotel near O’Hare airport in Chicago. A small group of influential Southern Baptist leaders, inspired by the success of the ICBI conference on inerrancy, huddled together to strategize on how they could regain control of their seminaries, which had for decades been drifting away from inerrancy toward a more neo-Barthian view of the Scripture. The group included Paige Patterson, Judge Pressler, and W. A. Criswell. More than any other single person, Patterson deserves the credit for courageous leadership in putting this plan into operation.

The Game Plan

The SBC came up with a game plan to win back their seminaries and denomination from its drift away from this fundamental pillar of the Christian faith. It was not easy, and the road was long, but the result has proved the wisdom of their plan. The plan included recruiting delegates from the churches to vote for inerrancy-believing presidents who were prominent pastors in the SBC (including Adrian Rogers, Charles Stanley, Jimmy Draper, Bailey Smith, and Ed Young). Once these men were elected presidents by a vote of the delegates, they in turn appointed persons to crucial positions in the denomination, who in turn appointed board members in the seminaries. Once they had a majority on the boards, they could hire inerrantist presidents and deans, who were then able to hire inerrantist faculty and turn the schools around. This has since occurred at every major SBC seminary, including Southern, Southwestern, Southeastern, New Orleans, Golden Gate, and Midwestern. Liberty Baptist Seminary was already an inerrancy seminary when they later joined the fold, as was Luther Rice.

Within a few decades the inerrantists were able to control their seminaries again and build a foundation on inerrant Scripture. Today every major SBC seminary is committed to inerrancy. They have presidents and deans who are inerrantist. Their faculty are inerrantists, and their boards are governed by inerrantists. The result is that the top SBC seminaries now have more students than all the major liberal seminaries in the country combined! This indeed is one of the greatest doctrinal turnarounds in history. And a major impetus for it was provided at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare in Chicago, inspired by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, which produced the Chicago Statement (see chap. 2 above). Given the thousands of graduates from these schools and the firm basis formed by inerrancy, there is no telling how enduring the legacy in souls, churches, and missions will result from this before our Lord returns.

In fact, the success of the ICBI movement spawned a similar summit among the Southern Baptists at Ridgecrest called The Conference on Biblical Inerrancy. The papers from this conference were published as The Proceedings of the Conference on Biblical Inerrancy (Nashville: Broadman, 1987). Even before that, Russ Bush and Tom Nettles, professors at Southeastern Baptist Seminary, produced a scholarly tome on Baptists and the Bible (Chicago: Moody, 1980), demonstrating that the inerrancy tradition is deeply rooted in Baptist history.

Doctrinally, this movement resulted in the adoption of the Chicago Statement on inerrancy as the official view of the SBC. It is called the Baptist Faith and Message, which was adopted on June 14, 2000. Its stand on Scripture reads as follows (emphasis added):

The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.

Exodus 24:4; Deuteronomy 4:1–2; 17:19; Joshua 8:34; Psalms 19:7–10; 119:11, 89, 105, 140; Isaiah 34:16; 40:8; Jeremiah 15:16; 36:1–32; Matthew 5:17–18; 22:29; Luke 21:33; 24:44–46; John 5:39; 16:13–15; 17:17; Acts 2:16ff.; 17:11; Romans 15:4; 16:25–26; 2 Timothy 3:15–17; Hebrews 1:1–2; 4:12; 1 Peter 1:25; 2 Peter 1:19–21.

The crucial lines regarding the inerrancy of Scripture are put in italics. God is the author of Scripture, and it is expressed in truth, without any mixture of error, and is "totally true and