Standing firm on Scripture.
Standing firm on Scripture.
The enduring battle for biblical integrity.
In some ways, the Protestant Reformation was a monolithic enterprise that successfully revised the church’s grasp of the biblical doctrines of soteriology and ecclesiology. Through the efforts of countless theologians, the footprint of the church was forever altered. Along with such drastic reforms, though, came numerous new issues with which the church was forced to grapple, not the least of which was the insipid biblical revisionism that featured prominently throughout the modern and postmodern eras. With the advent of the Age of Reason or the Enlightenment in the 18th century, disputes over the inspiration, authority, and interpretation of Scripture soon ensued, leaving an indelible mark on the history of the church that is still being felt today. The Enlightenment’s emphasis on self-governing philosophical pursuits and ardent intellectualism capitalized on the Protestant tenet of the priesthood of individual believers, precipitating a period of biblical skepticism and criticism from the likes of Descartes and Kant to Schleiermacher and Fosdick.
To understand the modern theological era, therefore, is to grapple with bibliology and the constant developments that seemingly sought to undermine the orthodox confession of Scripture as the divinely inspired word of God. Whereas the Reformation era saw a crisis over ecclesiological authority swell from Wittenburg to the entire European continent, modernity is an arena in which a circumnavigating crisis of scriptural authority constantly unfolds, affecting the faith of individual believers. “One’s view of the inspiration, authority, and interpretation of the Bible,” Nathan A. Finn says, “necessarily affects how one conceives every other doctrine” (252). Consequently, the penetrating influence of skepticism and rationalism fostered a posture towards Scripture that doubted or outright denied its divine inspiration, with so-called “higher criticism” supplanting the content of Scripture in favor of its historicity. Insofar as canonical Scriptures were understood as a man-made contrivance, the divinely and uniquely supernatural elements of the Bible were either excused or explained as relics of pre-modern ignorance or they they were excised entirely. The resulting conflict pitted broad groupings of theologians into two camps, the modernists and the fundamentalists.
Although there is some nuance within these terms, the modernist-fundamentalist dispute of the 20th century is indicative of the brewing theological factions that had emerged during the post-Reformation era. The primary point of contention was the classical conception of biblical integrity, which, according to the fundamentalists, is the recognition that “every word of the original manuscripts was inspired by God (verbal-plenary inspiration) and that Scripture, when rightly interpreted, was fully trustworthy, even in matters of history and science (biblical inerrancy)” (Finn, 256). In opposition to this, the modernists embraced the textual-critical approaches to Scripture that were born out of the rampant skepticism and rationalism that materialized in the wake of the Enlightenment, resulting in the toppling of a series of doctrinal dominos. “In many cases,” Finn continues, “this led to a rejection of biblical miracles, a redefinition of human sin and the atonement, and a downplaying of salvation through Christ alone” (256).
Unlike the conflict that precipitated the Reformation movement, modernity’s crisis over biblical integrity saturated both inter- and intra-denominational quarrels, with disputes over inerrancy plaguing PCA, LCMS, and SBC congregations throughout the backend of the 20th century. In many ways, this crisis is still pending resolution. Although modern evangelicals have mostly retired the “fundamentalist” moniker, arguably for the better, the trademarks of the fundamentalist movement — verbal-plenary inspiration and inerrancy — endure as sources of friction between liberal and conservative theologians. As it stands, though, a church’s affinity for classical orthodoxy is directly tethered to its understanding of biblical integrity. “The health of the church,” Finn concludes, “is intricately connected to the soundness of her doctrine — and sound doctrine depends on a trustworthy Scripture” (269). The need of the hour, therefore, remains the fortitude to believe what the Bible says of itself (John 17:17; 2 Tim. 3:14–17; 2 Pet 1:19–21) — namely, that it is full of truth breathed out by God for the preservation of his people and purposes.
Works cited:
Nathan A. Finn, “Scripture and Authority,” Historical Theology for the Church, edited by Jason G. Duesing and Nathan A. Finn (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2021).