{"id":712,"date":"2008-12-22T07:44:59","date_gmt":"2008-12-22T14:44:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tgdarkly.com\/blog\/?p=712"},"modified":"2008-12-22T07:44:59","modified_gmt":"2008-12-22T14:44:59","slug":"bloesch-on-scriptural-authority-truth-and-error-third-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/2008\/12\/22\/bloesch-on-scriptural-authority-truth-and-error-third-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Bloesch on Scriptural Authority, Truth and Error (Third Way)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scot McKnight has been blogging about a “Third Way<\/a>” in evangelicalism. \u00a0Donald Bloesch wrote a book in 1983 — yes, 25 years ago! — talking about many of the same ideas: \u00a0The Future of Evangelical Christianity: \u00a0A Call for Unity Amid Diversity<\/a>. \u00a0Among other things, Bloesch’s book (and others from that era like it) show that thinking about a “third way” is not just some kind of emergo-liberal babble. \u00a0Bloesch resonates with me on scripture and epistemology. \u00a0Here he is in “The Future of Evangelical Christianity” on scripture:<\/p>\n

As I see it, there are three basic approaches to scriptural authority: \u00a0the sacramental, the scholastic, and the liberal-modernist. \u00a0In the first, the Bible is a divinely appointed channel, a mirror, or a visible sign of divine revelation. \u00a0This was the general position of the church fathers, the doctors of the medieval church, and the Reformers. \u00a0In the second, the Bible is the written or verbal revelation of God, a transcript of the very thoughts of God. \u00a0This has been the viewpoint of Protestant fundamentalism, though it was anticipated in both Catholic and Protestant scholastic orthodoxy. \u00a0in the third, the Bible is a record of the religious experience of a particular people in history; this refelects the general stance of liberalism, both Catholic and Protestant. \u00a0Only the first position does justice to the dual origin of scripture — that it is both a product of divine inspiration and a human witness to divine truth. \u00a0 We need to recognize the full humanity of Scripture as well as its true divinity. \u00a0Indeed, it should be impressed upon us that we can come to know its divinity only in and through its humanity. \u00a0As Luther put it, the Scriptures are the swaddling clothes that contain the treasure of Christ.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well there you have it — all of the issues that are on the table today were being discussed by wise and eminent evangelical theologians such as Bloesch twenty-five years ago. \u00a0And, as Bloesch notes, what we are calling the “third way” is really the ancient way of “faith seeking understanding.”<\/p>\n

Similarly, Bloesch deals in “The Future of Evangelical Christianity” with how we define the inerrancy or infallibility of scripture. \u00a0He says:<\/p>\n

On the intractable problem of whether Scripture contains errors, e need to recognize that this conflict is rooted in disparate notions of truth. \u00a0Truth in the Bible means conformity to the will and purpose of God. \u00a0Truth in today’s empirical, scientific milieu means an exact correspondence between one’s ideas or perceptions and the phenomena of nature and history. \u00a0Error in the Bible means a deviation from the will and purpose of God, unfaithfulness to the dicates of his law. \u00a0Error in the empirical mind-set of a technological culture means inaccuracy or inconsistency in what is reported as objectively occurring in nature or history. \u00a0Technical precision is the measure of truth in empiricism. \u00a0Fidelity to God’s Word is the biblical criterion for truth. \u00a0Empiricism narrows the field of investigation to objective sense data, and therefore to speak of revelation as superhistorical or hidden in history is to remove it from what can legitimately be considered as knowledge. \u00a0The difference between the rational-empirical and the biblical understanding of truth is the difference between transparency to Eternity and literal facticity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Again, here it is — a critique of modernist epistemology from an evangelical theologian who is not “post-modern” twenty-five years ago. \u00a0 The “third way” is not an effort to do something new. \u00a0It’s an effort to correct something new and get back to something ancient.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scot McKnight has been blogging about a “Third Way” in evangelicalism. \u00a0Donald Bloesch wrote a book in 1983 — yes, 25 years ago! — talking about many of the same ideas: \u00a0The Future of Evangelical Christianity: \u00a0A Call for Unity Amid Diversity. \u00a0Among other things, Bloesch’s book (and others from that era like it) show […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31,32,19,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biblical-studies","category-hermeneutics","category-historical-theology","category-theology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-bu","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}