The Scope of the Bible’s Authority: CSBI Summary Statements 3 and 4

"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 four 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 look at summary statements 3 and 4 of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (CSBI). The fourth statement is directly relevant for the science/faith discussion, but we begin with statement 3, which is relatively uncontroversial for our purposes.

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.

This statement is well within classic Christian orthodoxy and poses little to discuss with respect to the science/faith dialogue. It is common to think of Scripture as a product of dual authorship, meaning the “divine Author,” the Spirit, guides the human authors, a process typically referred to as inspiration.

By saying that the Spirit “authenticates” Scripture to us, the framers mean that the Spirit brings Christians to trust Scripture as God’s by bearing witness to Scripture’s trustworthiness in their hearts. Of course, this is no place for framers to go into the subtleties—for example whether this authentication is private or communal, constant or intermittent, or whether Christian growth normally bring about periods of struggling with Scripture’s trustworthiness. The general principle is that trusting God’s Word is the work of the Spirit.

We read that the Spirit also opens the minds of its readers to understand its meaning. Here, too, this is a relatively uncontroversial point, though it may be wise to take a small step back for a moment. Along with such a confession, one must also call to mind the common experience of Christians that (1) Christians led by the same Spirit regularly disagree, and (2) many who have done much work in aiding our understanding of Scripture do not profess to be Christians.

If the framers have in mind here something more along the line of spiritual or devotional meaning of Scripture, there is less of a problem with their claim. If, however, they are suggesting that proper biblical interpretation in general is limited to Spirit-led Christians who will necessarily agree with each other, common experience dictates a very different conclusion.

All that being said, this is a relatively uncontroversial statement, though it could seriously hamper any sort of theological discussion, not to mention the science/faith discussion, if the framers intend a more restrictive understanding of the Spirit-led biblical interpretation. If statement 4 is any indication, it seems that a more restrictive understanding is in view.

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.

Statement 4 is the first reference in CSBI to the science/faith discussion. I appreciate the clarity and forthrightness of the statement, though it seems to suggest a point of view that reaches too far and in doing so cuts the legs out from under it.

The framers begin this statement by claiming that Scripture is “wholly and verbally” given by God. This phrasing raises several questions that have occupied discussions over inspiration for centuries, for example whether the Spirit directs every syllable of the biblical writer (as in dictation) or whether the Spirit guides writers in all truth but without overseeing how that truth is expressed word for word. Still, the phrasing is hardly out-of-the-ordinary in Evangelicalism. What is more pertinent to us—and this bring us back to what we have seen in previous posts—is what is assumed by the framers that a verbally God-given text requires.

The framers are quite open that a verbally God-given text will be “without error or fault” (it is not immediately clear what distinguishes the two) in four specific ways. In their view, a verbally God-given, Spirit-led, without error or fault Bible is a Bible that makes no errors in all its teaching concerning creation, history, origins of biblical books, and God’s saving grace.

In addition to the ambiguity of what “teaching” means (see my previous post for other examples of ambiguous concepts), there is much to unpack here.

First, note that the fourth item on the list is indeed not like the others. A statement about salvation is more a matter of spiritual application than the other items, which are open to and regularly the topic of scholarly discussion. An unfortunate and wrong conclusion that could easily be drawn from this statement is that the truth of the last item goes hand in hand with how one treats the previous three, as if to say: “If the teaching of Scripture on creation, history, and authorship questions is wrong, then we are only one small step away from Scripture likewise being wrong matters pertaining to salvation. Hence, we must remain firm in those other areas.”

I do not think I am creating a problem out of thin air, for many of us involved in the science/faith dialogue hear quite regularly, “If the biblical teaching on creation is not literalistically true, then we have no grounds for trusting Scripture when it comes to matters of salvation.” CSBI, in my opinion, unfortunately perpetuates this line of thinking.

The question before us is not whether Scripture’s teaching on creation is to be trusted; the question is what exactly it is the Bible teaches about creation. CSBI perpetuates, albeit subtly, the notion that a text inspired by God will not mislead God’s people, which means that the Bible must behave according to standards that the framers assume to be applicable to Scripture as God’s word—namely, a literalistic hermeneutic. We will see elsewhere in these documents (CSBI and the Chicago Statemement on Biblical Hermeneutics--CSBH), in one or two places, a slightly greater degree of nuance on this notion, but the literalistic hermeneutic is the foundation of these statements throughout.

Finally, it should not escape our notice that the first three items correspond to three discrete, yet interconnected, points of contention in the early years of the rise of Fundamentalism in the nineteenth century. Scientific advances in geology and biology led to evolutionary theory, which posed a threat to a literalistic reading of the creation story, and therefore its historical value. Many other aspects of biblical scholarship in the nineteenth century, namely European higher criticism and biblical archaeology, further challenged the Bible’s historical veracity as well as traditional notions of the literary origins of many biblical books (e.g., Wellhausen’s Documentary Hypothesis of the Pentateuch).

It is fair to conclude that statement 4 intends to call to mind the contentious history of the Fundamentalist and Evangelical movements by raising the specter of evolution, higher criticism, and biblical archeology. Failure to hold one’s ground on these matters will have implications for whether Christians can trust Scripture on any matter, including salvation.

Here, too, there is much to unpack, but for the science/faith dialogue one point rises to the surface: failure to take a strong line on this historical veracity of the creation narrative jeopardizes any trust in Scripture and leads to an erosion on one’s assurance of salvation. Such a linkage, if taken to heart, can threaten to end the science/faith discussion before it even begins—or at least assures that it will be a point of contention rather than dialogue.