A Challenge to Michael Patton of Pen and Parchment

Acting on a tip from Suzanne McCarthy, I visited a blog this afternoon which was unknown to me. It definitely is an interesting site. It is polemical but not disrespectful in tone. The people who write for it are whip-smart and know how to turn a phrase.

I enjoyed reading and listening to a number of contributions available on the site. The post entitled “The Danger of Inerrancy,” for example, is very well-done.

The intellectual honesty of the following statement by the blog’s Michael Patton is particularly striking: “Protestants have a fallible interpretation of a fallible canon of infallible books.” I can do one better! Protestants have a fallible interpretation of a fallible canon of infallible books, the exact contents of which are also up for grabs. I think Michael would agree.

But you know what? The bottom line is – and the preceding paragraph and featured posts of Pen and Parchment prove it – the inerrancy debate is an unedifying spectacle. Even when prosecuted by the likes of one as sensitive and brilliant as Michael Patton.

This is how I read Michael Patton. Like many scholars I read and respect, and whose view of Scripture, in practice, is close or identical to my own, Michael signs off, as he notes, on the Chicago Statement of Inerrancy every year. Well, if I had to sign it, I would too. But the fact of the matter cannot be hid: what Michael writes and says represents a considerable improvement on that document.

The Chicago Statement is a cramped and verbose document at the same time. Read as a kind of truce statement among the combatants in the inerrancy wars that have long constituted both the glory and shame of a certain evangelicalism, it makes sense. But it is an in-house document. Looking in from the outside, the natural reaction is: if the document reflects how Scripture functions among the people and churches the evangelicals who sign it belong to, something unhealthy is going on here.

Thankfully, the Chicago Statement does not begin to reflect how Scripture actually functions among said people. For most evangelicals, Christianity is not about being a YEC-er or not, or about having a view of Scripture closer to that of Gleason Archer than to C. S. Lewis. Nor is it about sweating bullets thinking about the high numbers of those said to have left Egypt with Moses.

Scripture for evangelicals is about “hearing the word of God with reverence and proclaiming it with faith.” “In His goodness and wisdom God chose to reveal Himself and to make known to us the hidden purpose of His will, such that through Christ, the Word made flesh, man might in the Holy Spirit have access to the Father.” “Those divinely revealed realities which are contained and presented in Sacred Scripture have been committed to writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.” “In composing the sacred books, God chose men, and while employed by Him, they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted.” “[T]he books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation.”

What source do I quote from to describe how evangelicals read Scripture? The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation. That’s right, a Catholic document known in Latin as Dei verbum. The above quoted statements from that document (apart from the gendered language even Wayne Grudem and company would probably not want to imitate), I contend, do a better job of articulating a full-throated, unabashed, and intellectually honest devotion to Scripture than does the Chicago Statement. The Chicago Statement, it seems to me, ill-fits the very people whose views it is supposed to reflect.

The problem with Dei verbum, let it be said, is that it puts Scripture and tradition on a par with each other, to wit: “sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence.” This statement is, and has to be, anathema to evangelicals (though the statement can be construed in such a way as to allow for the attribution of a higher degree of authority to Scripture than to tradition, the thrust of the statement moves in the opposite direction). The reason is simple. It has to be possible, as Paul recounts, for something like this to occur: “And when Kephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he was clearly wrong” (Galatians 2:11). That very Kephas to whom was entrusted what is now referred to as the Petrine ministry.

John Paul II once said that what the church needs is saints, not prophets. I suppose if the prophets he had in mind were Leonardo Boff and Jon Sobrino, I might agree. On the other hand, compatible with the preceding statement, the church is always in need of prophets, that is, of those who, in accordance with Scripture and inspired by the Spirit, call the church from top to bottom to renewed faithfulness to its Lord and Savior.

John Paul II also spoke of “sacred scripture as the highest authority in matters of faith” in his ecumenical encyclical Ut unum sint (1995). That suggests that for Catholic teaching also, Scripture is norma normans, that is, the norm which norms all other norms, whereas Tradition is norma normata, that is, a norm normed by a higher norm, which is Scripture.

Evangelicals affirm that the norming of tradition by Scripture is not actuated in practice like it should be by the Catholic magisterium. But evangelicals also know that the loci of teaching authority which function among them do not actuate in practice the norming of faith and life by Scripture like they should either. Perhaps the most accurate summary of reality is that each tradition (Catholic and evangelical, among others) is unfaithful to Scripture in different ways.

My challenge to Michael Patton: explain why the above quoted statements of Dei verbum are not edifying to you as a believer. Pretend that you did not know who composed them, that someone told you that, say, Norm Geisler drew them up as a summa of the orthodox understanding of Scripture. How would you argue against it, if at all?

Comments

[Bob MacDonald]

I know why I dislike the doctrine of inerrancy - it is the red herring that prevents people from really talking to each other. The word is etymologically unsound to boot. If anything, the Word is errant (John 3:8).

[Michael Patton]

John, news travels fast in the blogsphere!

Though I don't know you except through this post and hanging out on your site for the past hour, you seem to be very well thought of and you write on some great stuff.

Having read and reread this post many times, I seriously have a hard time finding anything I disagree with. Dei verbum is an excellent summary of our belief about Scripture and its authority. The beauty of it is that is says what it needs to in very few words, leaving much to be commended.

I would also say, like you, that the Chicago statement leaves much to be desired, especially in relevance to the current state of affairs. The "slippery slope" arguments which facilitated the passions behind the particular articulations of the document have proved to be overstated and, in many cases, defamatory. These nuances still come through to those who understand the history behind it all.

Having said that, while I do have to ponder its implications while scratching my head, its basic thrust is tolerable. In other words, I will probably hold my nose and sign it when the time comes.

I have to correct something though. I said in my post you referred to that I do sign it every year. This was not true. It has been approved by ETS as a dogmatic interpretation of inerrancy that all members will soon have to sign, but, as of yet, I have not signed it. I think when I wrote that I was thinking of the future and applying it to the past. Or I was just lying...who knows? :)

Anyway, I am not in favor of ETS adopting the CSBI. I don't mind going on record concerning this. Again, while I agree with its thrust, I think it says too much and has faulty implications about the state of those who don't agree.

Thanks for your kind words and excellent blog.

[JohnFH]

Thank you, Michael, for stepping up to the plate and hitting a home run on the first pitch.

Besides being smart, you have a gift of spiritual discernment which will get you in trouble, but not with God.

[Michael Patton]

That is very kind John. God bless you my friend.

[Joel Conley]

Glad to read the friendly yet intelligent conversation. I would hate for two bloggers who are both in my bookmarks to not get along.
I've never read the Chicago Statement of Inerrancy (but I did go to college in Chicago). I read the "Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation" that you had linked to in your post John. Although The parts you quoted seem agreeable to me, after reading the whole page I could not sign the DCDR.

[JohnFH]

Hi Joel. I wouldn't either, unless I had to. It's got its own share of unfortunate emphases.

[Eric Rowe]

The characterization of "a fallible interpretation of a fallible canon of infallible books, the exact contents of which are also up for grabs," is pretty accurate. It's also the main objection I've encountered to any doctrine of inerrancy (or infallibility, as expressed here). Bart Ehrman in Misquoting Jesus expresses incredulity that inerrancy of Scripture can stand at all with such a qualification. But elsewhere in the same book he gives an analogy that actually clarifies precisely how inerrancy can still stand even with such a clarification.

Ehrman compares the relationship between the MSS we have and the autographa with the relationship between a black and white video copy of something originally in color (forgive me if I'm expressing this slightly differently than he did). But for me, I have no trouble at all saying that if I believed God had given His Word thousands of years ago in the form of a detailed, true color, HD, 3-d video, of which all that remained today were a variety of scratchy, black and white, sometimes re-edited, copies of copies of copies, then I would treasure those horrid copies more than gold. I would affirm without hesitation that the original from which they were made was the faithful and true Word of God, and an authority that could never be subjected to any more trustworthy source of Truth. I would have two responsibilities incumbent on me, a lesser one and a greater one. The lesser one would be to study those faulty copies as fully as possible in comparison with one another with the purpose of knowing as well as I am able just what was in the original. The greater would be to receive those faulty copies, to whatever degree they are accessible to me and , as the very Word of God, preserved for me by His providence as the most perfect and ultimate guide available for my life.

But on ETS and the Chicago Statement, as you said, it's an in-house document. There is a place for a group like ETS that affirms inerrancy, and as long as that's the case there must be some concise guide as to what that doctrine involves. The CSBE fits the bill.

[JohnFH]

Eric,

thanks for an excellent and insightful comment.

I would also point out that the CSBE does not represent a compromise document with a set of nuances (in tension, of course, on several fronts) that reflects the diversity of views among those who currently belong to ETS.

I think everyone knows that, and I would guess that the proposal that ETS adopt the CSBE is designed to put a damper on that diversity. It's a political move, and whether it passes or fails, it is unlikely to have much practical effect in my estimation.