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The Roman Catholic division over the canon has influenced all Christians until today. Challenges to the canon began with Friedrich Schleiermacher demoting the importance of the Old Testament. Historical criticism led to doubts about traditional authorship and the division between the Bible and the Word of God. Evangelicals defended the traditional view of canonicity, while others sought to undermine historical criticism. The doctrine of inspiration faced controversy in the modern period, with a focus on human contribution and doubts about divine inspiration. Schleiermacher rejected inspiration as the foundation for faith. Karl Barth redefined inspiration, emphasizing that the Bible becomes the Word of God. The Protestant Church condemned critics and affirmed the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture. The authority of Scripture was challenged by Schleiermacher, Brunner, and Barth, who emphasized subjective experience and encounter with Christ. Evangelicals defended the traditional unde The Canon By and large, this Roman Catholic division over the canon has colored the landscape for all Christians even to the present day. However, some have continued to offer challenges to it. Friedrich Schleiermacher sought to demote the Old Testament in terms of its importance. With the rise of historical criticism came a greater frequency of assaults. Traditional biblical authorship for certain books was doubted. A division was alleged between the Bible and the Word of God. Historical criticism drove many to deny any divine superintendence in the canonization of the Bible, suggesting it was a work entirely carried out by man. Standing against this onslaught of attacks, evangelicals contended for a traditional view of canonicity. Others set out on the defensive, seeking to undermine and destroy the historical critical method altogether. That's the Canon. The Inspiration of Scripture Not until the modern period did the doctrine of the Inspiration of Scripture experience controversy and attack. Other religions maintained a general anti-supernatural attitude, which led to the dismissal of anything miraculous. Human reason was elevated to the point of ultimate authority, standing over biblical revelation. Some biblical accounts were treated as myths, and divine inspiration was doubted. Much of this change in direction concerning this doctrine had to do with the advent of historical criticism. The human contribution to the writing of Scripture came into focus while the divine aspect began to fade. Critics insisted on the reality of genuine human error throughout the Bible. Friedrich Schleiermacher was a pivotal figure in this modern era of Protestant thought. He sought to completely reformulate the doctrine of inspiration, reading one's personal experience of Jesus Christ. A person's faith, according to Schleiermacher, by no means was dependent on a truthful and inspired Bible. Inspiration was said to belong to all Christians, and especially to the apostles throughout the extent of their ministries. The doctrine of inspiration was rejected as the foundation for the Christian faith. Man's faith must rest on the historic manifestation of God in Christ rather than the Bible as an infallible book. It was believed that there was no qualitative difference between the Holy Spirit's inspiration of the biblical writers and his inspiration of ordinary writers. The Bible was said to have differing degrees of inspiration, but it did not reach the extent of absolute infallibility. What was left of the historical doctrine of inspiration was not an inspiration of the biblical writers themselves, but rather an inspiration of the biblical writers. This was a far cry from what had been taught historically. Karl Barth continued the conversation by reformulating it altogether. He maintained that the Bible is a witness to revelation and that it becomes the Word of God. Thus, he made a distinction between the Bible and the Word of God. The Bible is not revelation in itself, but God can choose to reveal himself to people through the Bible as it becomes the Word of God. God uses the inerrant Bible to communicate to his people as he chooses to reveal himself. The Protestant Church condemned critics who rejected the historical doctrine of inspiration, claiming that inspiration is essentially incompatible with error. On the Protestant side of the matter, Basil Manley, Jr. affirmed both the divine and human authorship of the Bible. B.B. Warfield offered the most formidable defense of the historic doctrine, claiming that there was a reason that the Church has always held to the doctrine, because it was the same position held by the writers of the New Testament and even Jesus himself. That is, it was the Bible's doctrine before it was the Church's doctrine, and it is Church doctrine only because it is Bible doctrine. Warfield even offered the term confluence to describe the divine-human cooperation that took place producing the Scriptures. Despite these well-reasoned defenses for the Church's historical position on the inspiration of Scripture, critics continue to launch their scathing attacks against the doctrine. Some have suggested that it has not been the historical doctrine of the Church, and argued rather that it was introduced by the 17th century theologian Francis Turretin. Others have sought to make a distinction between the words infallible and inerrant, adopting the former rather than the latter as the proper description of the Scripture. A formidable evangelical response was made by John Woodbridge, who sought to demonstrate their misinterpretation of the historical figures of the Church and prove instead their affirmation of the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture. The evangelical consensus was finally expressed in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, which upheld the verbal plenary inspiration of Scripture, rejected the mechanical dictation theory, and affirmed Scripture's inerrancy. This document would become the standard and common expression of evangelicals' doctrine of inspiration. THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE Friedrich Schleiermacher proposed that the authority of Scripture cannot be foundational to faith in Christ. Rather, faith in Christ must be presupposed before any authority can be given to Scripture. His subjective experiential perspective thus reversed the historical order of Scripture as leading to salvation. Emil Brunner exchanged the authority of Scripture with the authority of Christ, claiming that Christians believe in Christ not because of the Scriptures, but they believe in the Scriptures insofar as they teach Christ. Brunner's position did not grant authority to Scripture but upon a subjective encounter with Christ in them. Karl Barth continued in this instrumental approach to biblical authority, teaching that rather than viewing the Bible as the Word of God, it should be understood to become the Word of God as God chooses to freely reveal himself to people through the Bible. Authority thus became associated with the function of the Bible. Evangelicals such as J. I. Packer responded in defense of the traditional understanding of the doctrine. He argued that by trusting in their biblical criticism methods, they had elevated reason to an authority along with Scripture. Abraham Kuyper argued that if Christians were to call Jesus Lord, then they must accept his view of the authority of Scripture. D. Martin Lloyd-Jones proposed that the authority of Scripture is not a matter of argument but of faith. Though critical methods are of value, in the end, man must submit himself to the authority of Scripture as a result of the internal witness of the Spirit. A proper understanding of the relationship between the Word of God and the Spirit of God, according to Millard Erickson, must be viewed in terms of the objective basis of authority in the written Word and the subjective dimension of the inward illuminating and persuading work of the Holy Spirit. Stanley Goren, influenced heavily by neo-orthodox theology, understood Scripture to possess only an instrumental authority. He granted Scripture a secondary role by making the Bible a servant to divine revelation in the Spirit. In response, contemporary evangelicalism has continued to argue for the classical formulation of biblical inerrancy and has presented its position in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. Here, Protestants affirm the divine authority of Scripture and reject functional interpretations of biblical authority. The notable consensus that had been held throughout the history of the Church concerning the inerrancy of Scripture began to unravel in the 17th century. European society, and thus Christian society, was in the midst of a scientific revolution, which functioned to restructure how many people viewed the world. Biblical criticism was introduced to the world during this time, during this confusing time. Isaac LaTirer, with his pre-Adam theory, set off the conflict between theology and science. Hugo Grotius, known for his heretical views on the Trinity, Jesus Christ, and the Atonement, also disbelieved that the entire Bible was God's truthful revelation. Baruch Spinoza, who relegated some parts of Scripture to an inferior status behind others, also insisted that human reason stood above the Scripture as its judge, highly influenced by the philosophy of Rene Descartes. Spinoza doubted the reliability of human experience and trusted human reason as the sure guide to what can be known. He thus applied his methodology to the Bible, treating it as any other human book, and eliminating those things that did not fit together with his reasoning. Spinoza left an infamous legacy behind him and influenced many, including the father of biblical criticism, Richard Simon. Simon, along with Jenna LeClerc, Johann Salomo Semmler, and others, engaged in heated debates over the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. Such biblical criticism extended into Great Britain and was especially evident in English deism. Edward Herbert of Cherbury led the way with his five tenets of deism. English deism, together with the early development of German biblical criticism, was largely a theistic approach. Richard Simon, along with Jenna LeClerc, and Johann Salomo Semmler, was largely a theological attack against scripture. Another development, known as the documentary hypothesis, proposed that the Pentateuch is a collection of selections from a number of written documents, written by a number of different authors and composed in a number of different places over about five centuries' time. This hypothesis rejected any possibility of Mosaic authorship for the Pentateuch. Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, published in 1859, had a profound effect on the undermining of people's confidence in the truthfulness of scripture, especially as it pertained to the creation account in the Book of Genesis. According to John Brodess, if one accepts Darwin's theory, and thus rejects the historical creation account in Genesis, then he would have no problem rejecting the rest of scripture as true. An example of this development came when Crawford Toy, a professor of Old Testament at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, being influenced by higher criticism of the Bible and Darwinian evolutionary theory, rejected the historical creation accounts of Genesis in light of modern science. Others moved away from the historical position on biblical inerrancy by resorting to a different approach. These men sought to draw a distinction between the terms inerrancy and infallibility. Rejecting inerrancy, which stood as the historical position of the Church, theologians adopted the term infallibility, which only required men to believe that the Bible makes no false or misleading statements on any matter of faith and practice. The most notable occurrence of this shift came in Fuller Theological Seminary's espousal of the language of infallibility. Evangelicals responded to this deflection among Christians in their 1978 Chicago statement on biblical inerrancy, in which evangelicals once again argued for the historic doctrine on the inerrancy of scripture. Paul Feinberg has continued in this evangelical stance for the inerrancy of scripture and has formulated a definition on the doctrine that has become the standard view of conservative evangelicals in the 21st century. Inerrancy means that when all facts are known, the scriptures in their original autographs and properly interpreted will be shown to be wholly true in everything they affirm, whether that has to do with doctrine or morality or with the social, physical, and life sciences. The query of scripture in the modern era, the expansion of the Protestant missionary endeavor, has been accompanied by scripture being made available in the language of numerous people groups. This venture was rooted in the conviction of scripture's clarity. Two main trends have to some degree undermined this doctrine. The science of hermeneutics handled the interpretation of the Bible as though it was nothing more than another piece of literature. Higher biblical criticism has also served to remove the individual's ability to interpret the Bible for himself, leaving the layman to doubt his ability to understand anything. This doctrine rarely garners attention today, though exceptions to this are occasionally found. The Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics dealt with the issue extensively. Evangelical scholars including Kevin Van Hooser and Greg Allison have devoted serious study to the matter. The Interpretation of Scripture Biblical criticism began to shake people's confidence in the truthfulness and authority of scripture during the modern age. Along with this came a shift in interpretive methods. For many, the Bible became just like any other book, and so its interpretation should be approached like any other book. An evolutionary perspective led to interpreters denying certain aspects of scripture that seemed antiquated and barbaric. With the rise of biblical criticism came the rejection of the Roman Catholic claim to being the sole interpreter of scripture. Baruch Spinoza led the way toward subjective interpretation as he promoted the right of interpreters to interpret scripture as they saw fit. Evangelicals rejected this subjective approach. Some defended more of a scientific approach to interpretation, suggesting that God's people should use the scientific method to interpret biblical truth. While Charles Hodge used this approach, he also insisted on the important role of the Holy Spirit in theology. Liberal Protestants concentrated on the historical critical method to aid them in their interpretation of scripture. Such interpreters focused on the JEDP theory in the Old Testament and new critical approaches such as source, form, and reduction criticism in the New Testament. In response to the critical method, Alistair McGrath argued for a mediating position between two extremes. He pointed out that evangelicals tend to respond to critical methods in one of two ways. Either they abandon their faith altogether or they resort to fundamentalism. He suggested rather that evangelicals should welcome critical methods while denying that they would do away with biblical authority. Literary criticism became another challenge for the evangelical position. The overall meaning of the text was called into question and authorial intent was considered by some to be meaningless. In 1982, key evangelical leaders responded in their Chicago statement on biblical hermeneutics by affirming that the meaning in scripture is singular, definite, and fixed. Furthermore, they proposed that one meaning could engender multiple applications. Divergence of opinion continues to exist in the evangelical world of interpretation. Such evangelicals as S. Lewis Johnson, J.I. Packer, Elliot Johnson, and Douglas Moo have pointed out the dual authorship of the Bible, human and divine, and have promoted a census-plenier or fuller sense understanding of scripture.