The Bible Binds and Barth is Bad: CSBI Articles II and III

"The BioLogos Forum" frequently features essays from The BioLogos Foundation's leaders and Senior Fellows. Please note the views expressed here are those of the author, not necessarily of The BioLogos Foundation. You can read more about what we believe here.

Today's entry was written by Pete Enns. Pete Enns is a former Senior Fellow of Biblical Studies for The BioLogos Foundation and author of several books and commentaries, including the popular Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament, which looks at three questions raised by biblical scholars that seem to threaten traditional views of Scripture.

This is part seven in a blog series by Pete Enns (other parts can be found in the sidebar). In order to remove obstacles from the science and faith discussion, Enns carefully examines both the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (CSBI) and the Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics (CSBH), two documents that were developed by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. The CSBI and CSBH were produced during three-day summits to which approximately 300 pastors from the Evangelical community came in an effort to defend and define biblical inerrancy. Despite their best efforts, there are still hermeneutical and theological shortcomings in the statements that pose road blocks to the progression of the science and faith discussion. Throughout the series, Enns looks at three main problems with the content of these declarations: inadequate genre recognition, a failure to appreciate how the New Testament’s use of the Old Testament complicates various Articles, and a failure to appreciate narrative developments within the Bible.

Today we continue our series on the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy by looking at Articles II and III and their affect on the science/faith discussion.

Article II

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.

What we see here in Article II is nothing less than the heart of the Protestant faith: Scripture is the final authority and no human authority will be over it. As CSBI puts it, Scripture alone is the norm that has the authority to “bind the conscience.” This phrase has behind it a history of spirited Protestant discussion over the authority of Scripture. Basically, the writers here are saying that only Scripture has the right to tell the believer what to believe and how to act in matters pertaining to faith and life.

The very practical problem, though, is that what Scripture says on any given topic is not always clear, which is why Protestantism has had a rather robust history of writing statements like CSBI in an effort to clarify how and in what instances Scripture plays its “binding” role. Further, and ironically, such statements, including CSBI, often wind up being de facto lower-order “binding” statements because they are adopted by communities of faith (or at least by some speaking for the group). As such, these statements act as community boundary markers, which in effect perform a binding function.

It is ironic, therefore, that despite the Protestant tone of Scripture’s supremacy set by this Article, the framers wrote CBSI to set clear parameters of what is “in” and “out” in an Evangelical doctrine of Scripture, and the document has most certainly been used throughout its brief history in just this way to adjudicate theological differences. I have certainly seen this often in Evangelical contexts where faith/science matters are discussed as well as many other topics concerning biblical studies in general.

Having said all this, however, it is certainly good and proper to say plainly at the outset, “We intend to listen to Scripture first and foremost.” What is missing here, as I have been saying in previous posts, is an expression of theological and hermeneutical subtly in working out how Scripture actually functions in the life of the church.

In other words, what we see here in Article II is a well-stated general principle, but without further elaboration, it is hard to know how this would actually function. So, to bring this back to the evolution issue, we can ask the following question: Scripture may be the sole written norm of the church, which alone can bind conscience, and to which every thought is to be subject. But what does it mean to read Genesis 1-3, or Romans 5:12-21 (where Adam is mentioned), or any other creation text (Psalms 74:13-14; 104:7) well? What do these texts “bind” us to?

Declaring that the Bible has a central authoritative role in the church does not settle how these texts should be handled. A reading of the Preface and Summary Statements, however, suggests the “how” question is already being implicitly answered by the framers—in a literalistic direction. For the science/faith conversation to proceed well, hermeneutical and theological positions will need to be addressed more deliberately.

Article III

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 III is focused on the perceived dangers of a theological movement of the twentieth century known as Neo-Orthodoxy and of Karl Barth, its first and chief proponent.

This is one of those issues in CSBI that deserves attention, but that, if discussed in any length, would take us far from the science/faith discussion. So, to be brief, a major concern some have had with Barth was his view that Scripture “becomes” the word of God for us in our encounter with God, and so seems to ignore what Scripture “is,” regardless of whether one reads it or not. In other words, what many felt Barth’s theology sacrificed, to great peril, was the objective nature of Scripture as God’s word, in favor of the subjective appropriation of Scripture by the believer.

It is safe to say that precisely what Barth thought of Scripture has been the subject of much debate throughout the twentieth and still now into the twenty-first centuries, and competent experts on Barth’s theology write whole books on the subject and come to different conclusions. CSBI has in mind one particular interpretation of Barth (deeply called into question by some Barth scholars) as denying that Scripture is revelation from God and only becomes revelation to us when read, albeit guided by the Spirit.

When CSBI was written, Barth’s influence (“Barthianism”) was still a major bone of contention in Evangelicalism, particularly among conservative Reformed (i.e., Calvinst) Evangelicals (e.g., one of the framers of CSBI was R. C. Sproul, the famous conservative Reformed apologist). So, in Article III, CSBI is simply putting its stake in the ground by saying, “Barth is wrong. Scripture is worthy of our careful attention because of what it is, the word of God, not by what it becomes.”

Given the theological climate of the late 70s and early 80s, the question of Neo-Orthodoxy was important enough of an issue for the framers to mention it early on in the Articles. How one settles the Barth question, however, will not determine how one settles the science/faith question. Confessing that Scripture is objectively God’s word does not settle how that objective word of God is to be understood in Genesis 1-3 and other key passages surrounding the evolution discussion.

In other words, successfully opposing Neo-Orthodoxy does not vindicate a literalistic reading of Scripture. And conversely, accepting evolution is not evidence of the erroneous influence of a Barthian view of Scripture (as the framer understood Barth). The hermeneutical and theological issues remain and still need to be addressed.