Scot McKnight is writing about a “third way” between “conservative” and “liberal” Christian faith. Today’s post is on the nature of scripture — something I’ve been studying and thinking about quite a bit lately. I think I’ve read most of the recent books on the nature of scripture. Here are my thoughts:
(a) any Christian formulation of what scripture is must acknowledge that all scripture is inspired by God; (b) any Christian formulation of what scripture is must be consistent with the completely truthful, loving, and gracious character of God as the one who inspired scripture; (c) if the God who inspired scripture is a God of truth, then any Chrisitan formulation of what scritpure is must be completely truthful and honest about the phenomena of scripture (meaning it must take scripture as we find it, with all of its marks of humanity, and not as we ideally would like it to be); (d) if the God who inspired scripture is a God of truth, then any Christian formulation of what scripture is must not stifle or react defensively to the search for truth in any discipline of study and must not cause Christians to fear any truth wherever it is found; (e) any Christian formulation of what scripture is must locate scripture in relation to God’s revelation in Christ and in connection with scripture’s overarching purposes in God’s plan of redemption (this implies the role of the Holy Spirit); and (f) and Christian formulation of what scripture is must locate scripture within a coherent and satisfying Christian epistemology. As an addendum to all this, I think we need to remember that any creedal / doctrinal statement about the nature of scripture is not scripture itself; scripture might be infallible, but our statements about scripture are never infallible. Also, we need to say something about the canon.
Taking all these things into consideration, in my very humble opinion, the “conservative” evangelical approach to scripture, rooted in Warfield and summed up in the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, misses the mark. However, “progressive” evangelical approaches to scritpure, in my view, sometimes seem weak on (b) and (e) — if “conservative” approaches can seem docetic, “progressive” approaches can seem adoptionist.
So as a very tentative first cut at a summary: “Scripture is the true and trustworthy record of God’s plan of redemption in Christ. It is to be cherished, studied, and heard with reverent humility in the community of God’s people through the ages and under the direction of the Holy Spirit. Each follower of Jesus is responsible before God to seek to understand and live out the story of redemption revealed in the scriptures and summarized in the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus.”