Matthew C Ogilvie

Abstract:

This paper shall cover Biblical fundamentalism’s most foundational doctrine, that of inspiration. The doctrine of inspiration is the very first of “The Fundamentals,” which define, in large part, the beliefs of Protestant Biblical fundamentalism. ^[1] As we shall explain in this article, the doctrine of inspiration supports consequent fundamentalist beliefs about the Bible’s infallibility and inerrancy, the Bible’s absolute authority and the nature of revelation. However, despite its doctrinal importance, it remains that most often fundamentalists do not give systematic explanation to the term “inspiration.” This lack of explanation has led to much confusion, and occasionally lessened the potency of critical arguments against fundamentalism.

In this article, we propose to fulfill three aims: (1) We aim to clarify what exactly it is that fundamentalists believe about Biblical inspiration. (2) We intend to explore the Biblical and doctrinal foundations for this belief. (3) We aim to evaluate both the sources of the doctrine and the doctrine’s reasonable support, or otherwise.

The method by which we intend to achieve our aims shall be a study of primary sources of fundamentalist doctrines. This means that we shall be taking on fundamentalism from within its own intellectual territory. In doing so, we invite readers to engage directly the fundamentalist mind. But while we are doing this, we shall be asking whether fundamentalism presents reasonable arguments that are faithful to fundamentalism’s sources.

One key problem in dealing with this topic is the very issue of defining fundamentalism. After all, there are many authors, teachers and ministers who dislike being called “fundamentalist” though it seems to the rest of the world that they fit this category well. In this paper, we shall apply the term “fundamentalist” in a liberal manner. Broadly conceived then, we shall take fundamentalism as a set of churches and movements that holds militantly to conservative doctrines that are believed to be taught in the Bible, and which are proclaimed against all rational evidence to the contrary. Such a functional definition covers a range of movements from ultraconservative Protestants to latter-day sects such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Despite the wide range of fundamentalists, we can distill a common thread of belief relating to inspiration. We shall now study that doctrine and subject it to tests of fidelity to sources and logical criticism.

The Importance of “Inspiration.”

The doctrine of Biblical inspiration is utterly foundational to the matrix of fundamentalist beliefs. It may be that in discussing the Bible, fundamentalists are best known for their proclamation of Biblical infallibility and inerrancy. However, while infallibility and inerrancy remain crucial fundamentalist beliefs, they depend upon the doctrine of plenary inspiration. In practice, inspiration, inerrancy and infallibility are used normally by fundamentalists as synonyms in reference to the same matrix of beliefs. Fundamentalists assert that the Bible is so inspired that whatever the Bible says, God says. From what is assumed in such an assertion, fundamentalists conclude that Scripture is God’s utterance and that each statement of the Bible must therefore be inerrant and infallible. ^[2] To reinforce the foundational importance of inspiration, we can consider some fundamentalist statements on the matter:

First, Bob Jones asserts that if one were to undermine faith in the Bible’s inspiration, one would leave fundamentalism utterly devastated. He further declares that inspiration is of such critical importance, that one who failed to believe in the fundamentalist notion of verbal inspiration would risk losing one’s faith in either inspiration, the Bible or Christian faith. ^[3] Similarly, Robert Lightner asserts that the manner in which one views the Bible, including its inspiration, is the most important issue for “Bible Christians.” According to Lightner, if one accepts the fundamentalist “evangelical” view of the Scriptures, one will accept the authority of the Bible. If one does not accept this theory of inspiration one will regard the Bible as neither authoritative nor trustworthy. ^[4] Packer provides further light on inspiration’s importance. He argues that to break with the fundamentalist view of inspiration is to break with the power of God’s word and to abandon access to divine authoritative teaching. Such abandonment, he asserts, leaves us with nothing but “a blank wall at which many present-day Protestants are staring.” ^[5]

While Jones, Lightner and Packer reflect current fundamentalist belief, Hindson and Dobson observe that fundamentalist belief in inspiration is based upon the plenary-verbal theory of Warfield and other Princeton theologians of the last century. Despite the nineteen century gap between these theologians and their supposed Biblical sources, fundamentalists also believe that this theory of inspiration has since the earliest times of Christianity been its basic and integral doctrine. ^[6] We would concur that contemporary fundamentalism owes its doctrine on inspiration to Warfield, who also regarded the Bible’s inspiration as critical, and who provides the basic framework for most fundamentalist arguments on this matter. So important was this doctrine, that he asserted it to be “aboriginal” to Christian faith. The crux of inspiration, he effectively stated, was that whatever is said in the Bible, God has said. Warfield proposed that we can be assured that whatever we find in the Bible is the Word of God. He argued that without the Bible, we may have had no Christianity. Moreover, Warfield proposed that it is to the inspiration of the Bible that we owe all our hope of eternal life and all the joy of the love of Christ. More so, we cannot abandon the notion of the Bible’s inspiration without even giving up confidence in the apostles’ authority as teachers of Christ’s word. ^[7] The foregoing statements give us an understanding of how important the doctrine Biblical inspiration is to fundamentalism. We shall now explore just what they mean by this doctrine.

“God-Breathed” Scripture.

To justify their doctrine of inspiration, fundamentalists normally cite II Timothy 3:15-17, with particular emphasis on the term theópneustos contained therein. It is frequently very difficult to establish what exactly fundamentalists mean to teach from this text because most often fundamentalists use it as a proof text, on the assumption that mere citation or reference to the text’s existence is all that is required to prove the Bible’s inspiration and its subsequent infallibility and inerrancy. Rather than explaining the meaning of the text, fundamentalists are generally happy either to state that II Tim 3:15-17 teaches inspiration, or to quote this text as an assertion of fundamentalist dogma. Despite the frequency of fundamentalist references to this text, fundamentalists generally give little effort to explaining in any detail the meaning of the text.

A critical reading of the text reveals easily a key problem with its application by fundamentalists. We can concede that the author of II Timothy meant to affirm that the Old Testament writings have divine authority. However, the text contains a word, theópneustos, which appears nowhere else in the New Testament. We therefore have no other Biblical uses of the word with which we may make comparison. So we find it highly troublesome that fundamentalists use the word to support a foundational doctrine without really establishing what exactly theópneustos may mean in the context at hand. We also find that the text itself really expresses no theory about how the writings were inspired, nor does it reveal any helpful comparisons. Moreover, it shows no criteria for determining which writings may or may not be inspired. ^[8] Even a face-value reading of the text shows that it does not reflect any concern with subsequent ideas on how God has inspired the Scriptures. It simply expresses a position on the work and usefulness of scriptures. Bearing in mind this lack of information that one can extract from the text itself, we find that fundamentalist expositions of the text most often do not present reasoned argument. Rather, they advance dogmatic assertions and doctrinal overstatements that are not based on the contents of the text itself. ^[9]

That theópneustos is used to underpin fundamentalist notions of inspiration can be seen from Dobson and Hindson’s reflections. While most English translations render the word as “inspired by God,” fundamentalists prefer the more literalistic translation of “God breathed.” ^[10] Because “Scripture” is “God-breathed,” they hold that the Bible must be totally free from error, in all its statements and affirmations. Theópneustos, for fundamentalists, means that the Bible is authoritative and trustworthy. ^[11] Stott also indicates the importance of the text, asserting that the literal translation reads, “All Scripture is God-breathed....” We can agree that this literal translation may be essentially valid in itself. ^[12] However, fundamentalists manipulate “God-breathed” in a way that cannot be supported by the textual evidence. By way of example, Morris uses the text to explain that all Scripture, and not just parts of it, is given by God’s inspiration. This means, according to Morris, that even the actual words that were written were given by direct inspiration of God. ^[13] Packer provides a little more detail, arguing that “inspiration” means the divine origin of Scripture. He argues that because II Timothy says that Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and because the Greek word means that Scripture is “God-breathed,” the Scriptures are actually of divine origin. ^[14] Jones argues that the “inspiration” to which II Tim 3:16 refers “stands so far above all other inspiration as to be incomparable therewith.” The Biblical word, he proposes, means that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, with the very breath of God, his spirit, being in the Bible. Interestingly, Jones admits that he goes beyond the Bible in believing in the plenary and verbal inspiration of the Bible. ^[15] In doing so, we note that he violates another key fundamentalist belief, that of teaching only “what the Bible says.” While Jones uses a translation of theópneustos without referring to the Greek, Lightner indicates that this is the Greek term at hand. Without making a detailed translation, he argues that this means that scripture was “breathed out” by God. He states that such breathing out means that the “Holy Spirit of God superintended the human writers in the production of Scripture so that what they wrote was precisely what God wanted written.” ^[16]

At this point, we can understand that fundamentalist notions of inspiration rely on a militant insistence of the Scriptures being “God-breathed.” But can we gain a clearer idea of what fundamentalists are driving at by this talk of “God-breathed” scripture? Packer provides a helpful clarification of the fundamentalist understanding of inspiration. That Scripture is theópneustos means that Scripture is “breathed out” by God. He proposes that just as God made the host of heaven “by the breath of his mouth,” so too the Scriptures have been produced by God’s creative breath. Such a radical statement makes one wonder if fundamentalism allows for substantial human involvement in the production of the scriptures. Packer fairly well answers that question by indicating that the Bible was produced in a manner similar to the earth’s creation - Just as God said, “let there be light,” he has also made the Scriptures, “let there be Law, prophets, and Writings.” ^[17] He also writes that the influence of God’s Holy Spirit meant that the human authors wrote nothing other than what God wanted written. ^[18] Despite what Packer may otherwise say, it is clear that he and other fundamentalists mean that God’s “inspiring” and superintending of the Scriptures completely negate or overwhelm any human involvement. Packer also manifests a key concern we have with these fundamentalist beliefs. Even though the text in question calls all scripture “God-breathed,” one has to ask whether the author was using analogical, equivocal or metaphorical language. If, as the Bible itself says, God is spirit, then “God’s breathing” would seem to be a metaphorical image, rather than an unequivocal or literal description. However, by ignoring this point, fundamentalists create a somewhat difficult situation from which it is near impossible to extricate themselves. If God’s production of the Bible is supposed to be “by the same breath” as his actions of creation, then one would be left with two options. In the first place, if one takes an anti-evolutionist, creationist stand, one would have to conclude that the scriptures were also created ex nihilo. On the other hand, if one admits the substantial human involvement in the Scripture’s writing, one would have to admit some intermediary action in God’s creation. Neither option would give comfort to a fundamentalist. To be more realistic, we propose that, if the Scriptures have been “God-breathed,” this has been a mediated “breathing,” as is evident from the testimony evident in the Bible. We would suggest that to understand correctly the meaning of theópneustos, one needs to come to terms with the realities of analogical and metaphorical language. After all, if one accepts the fundamentalist doctrine of inspiration, one would be stating effectively that God produced the Scriptures in a manner more immediate and more divine than is believed about his son’s incarnation, being born of a woman. However, if fundamentalists are to persist in claiming the Scriptures to have been produced by the same breath of God that brought about creation, one would have to ask if creation should also be revered as revealing the truth of God? This implication seems not to have caught the attention of fundamentalists, though the consideration of such implications could help open-minded fundamentalists towards a more critical position on Scripture.

At this stage, fundamentalists may suggest that we have missed the point. They would argue that the real issue is that “inspired by God,” lacks sufficient force to translate adequately theópneustos. Fundamentalists would direct us to their hero, Benjamin Warfield, who provides probably the most detailed justification of fundamentalist theology on theópneustos. He argued that the term does not mean inspired of God in a passive sense. Rather, it means an active spiration or spiring. That is, scripture is “breathed out” by God. Warfield argued that this passage means that God has breathed out the Scriptures, meaning that they are the product of God. Importantly though, Warfield conceded that the text says nothing about how God has produced the Scriptures. This point raises serious questions about fundamentalism. While fundamentalists find within this text no explanation of how God has inspired the Scriptures, they use the passage to base many doctrines about the nature of the Bible! We note also that Warfield asserted the now familiar point that the Scriptures’ being God-breathed means that they were created by God in the same way as the heavens and the host of heaven were produced by the creative breath of God. ^[19] Warfield thus returns us to our earlier reservation about fundamentalist exegesis. Even if fundamentalists are not always literalistic when it comes to reading the Bible, they tend towards either literalism, anthropomorphism or both when it comes to II Tim 3:16. We have made the point that one has only to consider that God does not breathe to realise that fundamentalists may be taking their creative interpretations beyond the point that their evidence may justify. We should also add the point that fundamentalists give inadequate consideration to the problem of employing a supposedly self-justifying text. Regardless of whether one employs postmodern hermeneutics, more critical exegesis, or a fundamentalist proclamation, it makes for poor logic to argue that a text is divinely inspired simply because the text itself supposedly says so.

How was the Bible “Inspired/God-Breathed?”

We should now cover some fundamentalist ideas on how the Bible was inspired, or “God-breathed.” What is most interesting here is the plurality of fundamentalist notions of just what is proposed to occur by “inspiration.” Lightner holds in positive regard a dictation theory, in which either God dictated the Bible’s words, or God has so led the authors to the extent that the Bible is as accurate as if it were written that way. Lightner himself admits the problem which critical scholarship would also raise, namely, that this theory cannot account for the variety of literary styles in the Bible. ^[20] Stott also argues that the Holy Spirit took the faculties of the Biblical authors and used them, “in such a way that His Words were theirs, and their words were His, simultaneously.” ^[21] Interestingly, Stott provides no Bible reference in support of his position. Finally, Morris summarises the fundamentalist attitude towards how inspiration was achieved. Sometimes God spoke directly to prophets, other times he used visions and dreams, other times God used skills of teaching or research. However, Morris argues, God “guided the whole process that the final result was perfectly and infallibly the Word of God.” ^[22] The essential point that unites these authors is the conviction that inspiration means that the Bible is written as if God had written it personally.

Warfield provides the most articulate exposition of what we now call fundamentalist theory on inspiration. According to him, inspiration came by way of the power of God taking over the movements of the author’s mind, and subjecting them to God’s power as something extraneous to the author’s will. The Scriptures, then, are proposed as the works that have God as their author, works that are inspired immediately by God and are thus infallible and of divine authority. ^[23] One has to wonder, however, how immediate can be an inspiration or production of the Scriptures, when human writers acted so substantially as intermediaries to deliver the message of God?

While dictation theories are prominent in fundamentalism, Packer surprises us by denying that the Bible was inspired by means of dictation from God. He allows that the Bible authors did not write each word in the manner of their being mere typewriters for the finger of God. ^[24]   Packer also notes that fundamentalists allow for a variety of forms of inspiration: There was prophetic inspiration in which one saw a vision and remained conscious of the otherness of the word being addressed; there was lyrical inspiration in which God focussed the creative processes of the author into composing what God wanted written; then there was didactic inspiration in which God guided the mental processes of a teacher to pass on the knowledge that God wanted passed on. ^[25] While Packer does allow a human element in Scripture, this accommodation of God’s word to the thought forms of Bible authors does suggest a lack of supernaturalism and the allowance of human limits on the Bible. Thus Packer provides an interesting contradiction of other fundamentalist beliefs concerning inspiration. Packer also makes an interesting observation, without taking it to its reasonable conclusion. That is, some Biblical books went through several editions before reaching their final form. ^[26] The question must be asked then, if a book went through several editions, which one is inspired? Is it the one we have now, the first edition or an intermediate one? This argument raises serious questions over other fundamentalist claims that only the original autographs of the Scriptures were inspired. Moreover, one wonders, if one promotes the theory that the Scriptures were produced by the breath of God, how can it be that this God-breathing went through several humanly written editions?

Notwithstanding the plurality of inspiration forms recognised by other fundamentalists, the sects generally lean towards a strict dictation theory. The Christadelphians, for example, assert that the Bible writers were not authors, so much as amanuenses, writing down only what God wanted. ^[27] The Jehovah’s Witnesses propose that inspiration occurred by secretarial dictation. They argue that just as an invisible radio beam can carry information, so did the Spirit of God direct Bible authors to write just what God wanted us to know. Moreover, they argue that God spoke in a literally human way. To Adam, Noah, Abraham and Moses, Jehovah’s Witnesses believe God spoke Hebrew. To the apostles, God supposedly communicated in Greek. Not too many fundamentalists take inspiration this far. For one thing, Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic suffer the same limitations as any other human languages, and one wonders if God would really want to be so limited. In any case, the Witnesses contradict themselves on the next page of their book, arguing that God inspired Biblical authors by implanting a message in their mind, a message which remained firmly fixed “in the circuits of their minds.” ^[28] It is hardly likely that such “implanting,” if possible, could occur by the speech processes described on their previous page. A reasonable reader may find oneself bewildered by these theories of inspiration. Many fundamentalist readers also have critical problems with such doctrines. However, the Worldwide Church of God exemplifies the standard fundamentalist response to such difficulties by noting that God inspired the Bible in such manner that it would be misunderstood by non-believers. One presumes that adherents to the sect will be given the right interpretation. The rest of humanity is confined to the ranks of those who see without understanding. Those not under the mantle of fundamentalism, especially from the sects’ perspective, are supposed to be under Satan’s control and dominion. ^[29]

Theories of Inspiration Opposed by Fundamentalists

Readers of fundamentalist literature would note that the movement is defined often less by what it promotes and more by what it opposes. Accordingly, to make intelligible the plurality of positions cited above, we should mention some of the inspiration theories to which fundamentalists oppose themselves. Lightner identifies several unacceptable theories. He first rejects the classic liberal theology, which has a pedigree, he alleges, that comes directly from Satan. The key to classic liberalism, according to Lightner, is that inspiration is identified with the writers, rather than what they have written. He asserts that these liberals were beholden to naturalistic philosophies and that they gave undue credit to the role of reason in Biblical interpretation. The Neoorthodox, on the other hand, represented by Karl Barth, allegedly afford too much to the personal faith of the believer. Lightner proposes that instead of letting the truth of the Scriptures be self-evident, the Neoorthodox failed by allowing for a two-tiered revelation, with one tier accessible to all and another accessible only to believers. We are not convinced that Lightner has correctly represented either Barth or the classic liberals. The point remains though, that Lightner proposes a view of the Scriptures in which the message of revelation in the Bible must be clear and that the open reader must find in it nothing but objectively true and valid propositions. Lightner also opposes himself to contemporary liberalism, which does not apparently allow for objective, propositional revelation. ^[30]

In a similar spirit, Packer rejects the notion that inspiration can be legitimately studied in distinction to revelation. He argues that modern studies have unfortunately made revelation a doctrine in its own right, instead of a mere preamble to the doctrine of inspiration. He maintains that inspiration is misunderstood when it is no longer identified with revelation. He opposes himself to the idea that inspiration can simply mean that God enlightened the Biblical authors to give them insight and thus “inspire their work.” ^[31] Packer and Lightner thus clarify for us that the fundamentalist notion of inspiration identifies Biblical inspiration with objective, propositional revelations of God, which constitute the whole of God’s revelation. What is most significant in the fundamentalists’ explanations of inspiration is that their theories all tend to downplay human involvement in the writing of sacred scriptures. The point that seems to unite the various fundamentalist theories of inspiration is that, even if one admits human stylistic variations in the writing of scripture, the human element is of no substantial consequence in either the proclamation of the word or in the understanding of the Biblical text.

Plenary Inspiration

Bob Jones admits that fundamentalists go deeper than Biblical teaching in holding to the plenary inspiration of the Bible. ^[32] By this fundamentalists mean that the entire Bible, in every one of its parts is fully inspired, and each part is equally inspired as all the other parts. This belief, that every part of the Bible is equally and fully inspired, implies the consequent belief that the Bible is verbally inspired. That is, in the original manuscripts of the Bible, it is proposed that God himself chose which words would be used to convey the exact message that he wanted to communicate. ^[33] Lightner provides more information on the plenary view of the Bible. He asserts that “The Bible in its entirety is the very Word of God.” This is because the very words, each and every one of them, were inspired by God. Lightner means that every part of the Bible arose from supernatural activity. In short, every word, every concept, each book and the whole Bible together are plenarily [fully] and verbally inspired. ^[34]

Packer provides more detail on what is meant by plenary-verbal inspiration. He proposes that Scripture is the totality of divine revelation given in a God-breathed written form and that every statement of Scripture is believed to be an utterance of God. He then argues that the Bible presents itself as a single, though complex, revelation of God which is given as the written form of God-breathed words. It is important, Packer argues, to preserve belief in the verbal inspiration of Scripture, because if the words of Scripture are not wholly God’s then the teaching of Scripture does not entirely belong to God. ^[35]

As what is ultimately a fall-back position, fundamentalists generally hold that by verbal inspiration, the Holy Spirit has spoken so that “the plain, natural meaning of the words used,” in the Bible is true, free from error, able to be understood and trusted by the believer. ^[36] This means, again, that fundamentalists place greatest import on the role of God in the production of Scripture, to the exclusion of substantial human involvement. Moreover, the lack of active human involvement applies to both the writing and the reading of Scripture. As Scripture is ultimately God’s alone, with no substantial dependence being placed upon the human authors, the reading of Scripture is also hardly dependent on the abilities of the readers. It is ultimately taught by fundamentalism that God had his inspired message written without regard to the natural knowledge or abilities of the human authors. Likewise then, one should be able to understand what God has to say in the Scriptures, and this understanding cannot be dependent upon one’s time, cultural situation, intelligence, or other abilities.

Morris draws out an example of how plenary-verbal inspiration is applied. He proposes that in Galatians 3:16, Paul established his argument by recourse to a single word of scripture, as did Jesus in Matthew 22:32. Plenary-verbal inspiration, according to Morris, is upheld, because Jesus said, “Till heaven and earth pass, not one jot or tittle, shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” (Matt 5:18) On this basis, he claims that critical scholars of the Bible, who explore the apparent contradictions of the Scriptures, call God a liar. Moreover, he argues that the Apocalypse upholds plenary-verbal inspiration. The Apocalypse states: “is testify unto every man that hearteth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. ... If any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from out of the book of life, and from the holy city and from the things which are written in this book.” Morris argues that this prophecy applies to the entire Bible, so that if modernists, cultists and unbelievers attempt a non-fundamentalist interpretation of Scripture, they are defying the Apocalypse. ^[37] The practical implication for those who share Morris’ position is that any single word of the Bible can be taken in isolation and used to extract religious truth. In this manner fundamentalism stands at odds with even the most basic hermeneutics, which demands that words and texts be understood in their relevant contexts.

Warfield provides perhaps the best summary of plenary-verbal inspiration. He proposes that the Bible be taken as the pure Word of God’s oracles. Hence, what the Bible says — God says. It is a book in which one may take any part and in it find, with complete assurance, the Word of God. We must, according to Warfield, place entire trust in every word of the Scriptures. In short, the Bible is God’s word, in the sense that even though the words were written by men, they were the words of God which adequately expressed his mind and will. ^[38]

We should note, though, that fundamentalists do not always conclude that plenary inspiration necessarily implies verbal dictation. ^[39] Moreover, not all believe that each word is literally true. First, it is argued that even though the words are inspired of God, the words nonetheless take the verbal forms appropriate to the authors. So history may be accepted as historical fact by the fundamentalists. However, poetry, parables, and other literary forms may not be literally true. We find that it is believed by only a few fundamentalists today that God actually dictated the words of Scripture. However, fundamentalists present us with another logical problem: If God did not dictate the words, how could he have plenarily-verbally inspired the Scriptures? We may not mean oral or auricular dictation. However, if God did not dictate the writing process, one wonders how he could have controlled the process of Scripture. That is, without dictation, the other party retains freedom, and if the human authors of scripture had freedom and their own creativity, then one has to wonder how God could be utterly responsible for every word, dot and iota in Scripture.

We would argue that the plenary-verbal inspiration of Scripture is very important to fundamentalists because of a neo-Calvinist despair of the natural capacities of human beings. We remember Calvin’s assertion that human nature is utterly corrupt and damnable, with only evil things coming from the nature of man. ^[40] If one, like fundamentalists, were to take such a doctrine to its extremes, one would assume that if there were a mixture of the human and the divine in Scripture,  that one would find, alongside the purity of God’s word, the damnability of man’s word. Packer clarifies the fundamentalist position by stating the point, “leave man to guess God’s mind and purpose, and he will guess wrong; he can know it only by being told it.” ^[41] For the fundamentalist, the presence of human thought in the Bible could only lead to corruption and the inability of readers to find God’s word in the text. With such lack of confidence in human ability, fundamentalists feel the need for a pure, unadulterated, God-breathed word in all the parts of the Bible.

Propositional Revelation

Finally, related to the notion of plenary-verbal inspiration is the notion that the Bible is inspired by means of propositional revelation. Stott argues that if there is such a thing as personal revelation of God, it always comes accompanied by propositional revelation. ^[42] Critical scholars find it almost self-evident that the Bible contains narrative accounts of divine actions, and not just dogmatic propositions. However, Packer asserts that if humans were left to work out what those actions meant, we would inevitably get it wrong. Again, we find a neo-Calvinist despair of human nature’s ability to work out what God may have meant in the Scriptures. The fundamentalist insistence that revelation is propositional means that when one reads the scriptures, one must read the Bible not just to access God’s revealing works, but one must find God’s revealing propositions. ^[43] Packer explains the importance of propositional revelation by noting that God’s word consists of revealed truths. There is, according to Packer, a complementing in the Bible of God’s revealing actions with God’s revealing truths which explain those actions.

One may not have too much trouble with the notion that the Bible contains a degree of explanation. However, one would have grave reservations over the notion that Biblical revelation is necessarily propositional. In the first place, the fundamentalists’ insistence on propositional revelation seems tied to a particular conceptualist philosophy, in which what is of primary importance is the words or concepts contained in a text. Upon those Biblical words, we find that fundamentalists impose a naive realist frame of reference in which there is room, not for inquiry, but only the crass dogmatism of imposed assertions. ^[44] One would find more satisfying another approach to scripture in which the Sacred texts are seen as inspired data into which human intellect can inquire, and attain answers which are appropriate to the reader’s time and culture. Secondly, the belief that the Bible contains propositions to help humans avoid inevitable error does not accord with the scriptures. First, there is no convincing Scriptural evidence for this position. In point of fact, John’s Gospel states that his record of Jesus’ life is incomplete, and that even all of the world’s books could not adequately record them. One wonders if John was leaving open also human insight and reflection, having a more positive outlook on the human spirit than would an extreme fundamental Calvinist. The fundamentalists, however, despairing of human insight and intellect, stifle the human spirit by limiting it to so-called Bible propositions.

Warfield’s Argument

We have mentioned that Warfield provides an articulate defence of Biblical plenary inspiration. We have also noted that current fundamentalist thinking on inspiration takes its lead from Warfield. As he forms the backbone for so much contemporary fundamentalist thinking, we find amazing his defence of the doctrine of inspiration. He proposes that the Church has always accepted plenary inspiration because Jesus and the apostles accepted it. He then advances three reasons for the doctrine’s proof not being required. First, he asserts that the plenary inspiration of the Bible is immediately obvious to anyone who reads the Bible. Warfield argues that Jesus Christ and the apostles conceived the Scriptures in this way, so it would insult our intelligence to seek further proof. Despite this statement, he later set out an argument of how Jesus did affirm the plenary inspiration of the Bible. Secondly, he maintains that the affirmations of “untrammelled” Biblical scholars show beyond doubt that the Bible is subject to plenary inspiration. Thirdly, he advances that we need not prove the doctrine because any attempt to argue against it makes use of the plenary inspiration of Scripture as an implied fact. As Warfield writes, “Every attempt to escape from the authority of the New Testament enunciation of the doctrine of plenary inspiration, in the nature of the case begins by admitting that this is, in very fact, the New Testament doctrine.” ^[45]

None of the foregoing reasons could possibly convince the critical reader. Each point is advanced not in the form of argument supported by evidence, but as asserted propositions which lay upon no foundation other than the reader’s predisposition towards plenary inspiration. We note moreover, that, despite explaining why an argument is not necessary, Warfield does propose a reason for belief in plenary inspiration. “It is due to an instinctive feeling in the church, that the trustworthiness of the Scriptures lies at the foundation of trust in the Christian system of doctrine, and is therefore fundamental to the Christian hope and life.” He continues to argue that it is the Church’s instinct that its doctrine lies on the Bible that is the basis for believing in the Bible’s plenary inspiration. As difficult as it may be for critical scholars to accept the existence of such an argument in learned circles, Warfield does us a great service by acknowledging that his doctrine of inspiration, which forms the basis for contemporary fundamentalism’s doctrines, is supported ultimately only by instinct, feeling and apprehension. ^[46] One would be justified then, in expressing the gravest reservations over the “arguments” put forward for the fundamentalist doctrine of inspiration. Ultimately, the doctrine is not opened to argument and critical scrutiny. Instead, fundamentalists sometimes argue, and other times imply, that the person of faith will simply accept the fundamentalist doctrine of inspiration. Those who raise questions about this doctrine are rejected by fundamentalism as unbelievers whose inability to appreciate the doctrine is caused only by the intellectual blindness of faithlessness.

Conclusion

In the history of Biblical interpretation, Fundamentalism stands as a counter-movement that challenges the legitimacy of higher critical methods. In their opposition to critical methods, Fundamentalists conceive Scripture as so inspired that God is utterly responsible for Scripture, to the exclusion of any substantial human input. Where fundamentalists do concede human involvement in the writing of the Scriptures, this involvement is seen to be incidental to the content of Scripture. Seeing the Scriptures as “God-breathed,” the fundamentalist does not conceive Scripture as being produced by in-spiration, but by a process of ex-spiration by which Scripture is exclusively the product of God’s Spirit, coming as it were, as the breath of God. The “God-breathed” or “ex-spired” nature of Scripture means to the fundamentalist that whatever is written in Scripture is effectively stated by God. Because they hold that Scripture is produced by the sole intent of God, and neither by the will nor cooperative initiative of humans, fundamentalists teach that the Bible is plenarily “inspired,” with each and every word expressing the thoughts and revelation of God.

We observe that the fundamentalist doctrine of inspiration presumes that, to have produced the Scriptures, God would do so in a manner within the humanly conceivable categories of infallibility and inerrancy. Fundamentalists do not allow for the possibility God may actually make use of concepts, images or historical information, which although limited by human fallibility and imperfection, nonetheless provide excellent means for “divine pedagogy.” For the fundamentalist, if God has inspired or “breathed” the Scriptures, this inspiring must be done according to the preconceived notions of inerrant and infallible “spiring.”

To finish, we note three key problems presented in the fundamentalist doctrine of inspiration. First, even though the fundamentalist doctrine of inspiration assumes the subsequent doctrines of  inerrancy and infallibility, the doctrine of inspiration is actually used in turn as the foundation for the doctrines of inerrancy and infallibility. With these doctrines being utterly foundational for fundamentalism, we find it unreasonable that the proofs given for each of these doctrines rely upon the other doctrines. With such unstable foundations, one has grave reservations about consequent fundamentalist doctrines which rely upon the notions of inspiration, inerrancy and infallibility.

A second problem emerges in fundamentalists making unwarranted assumptions about the purpose of Scripture. Even the author of fundamentalism’s favourite proof text, II Tim 3:16, only proposed that Scripture can be useful for teaching and moral guidance. Beyond any message taken from the Bible itself, the implications of Biblical inspiration are formed by fundamentalism’s preconceived notion that the Bible is inspired for the purpose of providing infallible doctrinal propositions.

Thirdly, despite the absolute importance of inspiration to fundamentalism, we have found that the fundamentalist doctrine of inspiration lacks any supported from Biblical evidence. The doctrine therefore breaches fundamentalism’s key belief in sola scriptura, teaching only that which is found in the Bible. As Warfield admits, the real grounds for the fundamentalist doctrine of inspiration lie in “instinctive feeling.” ^[47]

In conclusion, we recall that the doctrine of Biblical inspiration is the foundation, not only of fundamentalist Biblical interpretation, but also of the range of fundamentalist doctrines. If our observations about this doctrine are correct, one would be justified in questioning fundamentalist claims to be upholding the true meaning and spirit of Scripture in opposition to so-called “infidel” higher critics. Such claims seem to be highly questionable, coming from a movement that advances a doctrine of inspiration that is not a true Biblical theology, but a preconceived, feeling-based ideology that has been expressed in the language found within selected Bible texts.