03_modern_0209_warfield

B.B. Warfield's book, "The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible," is highly influential and important in understanding the doctrine of Scripture. Warfield's arguments are both compelling and beautifully written, demonstrating his deep reverence for God and his belief in treasuring and trusting the Bible. He skillfully engages in debates, turning arguments on their heads and providing new insights. One noteworthy argument he addresses is the idea that the Bible is correct on matters of faith and practice, but not on matters of history and science. Warfield questions whether the Bible's own teaching, as well as the teachings of the apostles and Jesus, is that the scriptures are true in everything they say, making it more than just a matter of faith and practice. Reading Warfield's works also highlights the historical context in which the inspiration of scripture was being challenged, both defending traditional beliefs and engaging with contemporary discussions. One recommended chapter For B.B. Warfield, the book to read is called The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible. Kevin DeYoung says this about himself, this is a collection of Warfield's articles from the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, perhaps the most important influential book written on the doctrine of Scripture in the past 150 years, and he is right. Not just for the cogency of his arguments, but because of the loftiness of his prose, he really worships God in these pages, and a vision for treasuring and trusting the Bible really comes across beautifully on the pages. He also, as so many classic writers were, is a great interlocutor. He's so sunny when he needs to be, but also scary in his ability to just turn an argument on its head. I found myself often even laughing at how good he was at this. One new argument that I had not heard before was, you know, there are some people who say that the Bible is insaluble, but not inerrant, and what they mean by that is that it is correct on matters of faith and practice, but not on matters of history and science. So he asks the question, what was the teaching of the Bible itself, of the apostles and of Jesus concerning the Bible? Did they teach that it was only insaluble, or that the scriptures are true in everything that they say? You know, that it cannot be broken, and every word is by God. If the scripture's own testimony about itself is that it has God for its author, and therefore cannot err, then isn't that itself a teaching which falls into the category of faith and practice? So he's turning the argument on its head. This is how all of his arguments are on the subject matter, just really brilliantly worded and crafted. Reading him also brings up another reason it's fun to read these classic works. The inspiration of scripture was being challenged at that time in a novel way, and it was becoming more and more of a mainstream threat in academia, at a time in which it had never been in the entire previous life of the Church. So when you read him, you get this weird feel that he is, at the same time, just defending what the Church has always believed, so in some sense it's very old, but also, you know, every category and thought that he's talking about is now a part of the dramatic public conversation, and you can feel that in his talking about it, right? So if you're going to start anywhere with Warfield, I would recommend the second chapter of that book, and it's called The Church Doctrine of Inspiration, and I have it available on a shared Google document if you want it, I just really like the article, I think it's easy to read, but it's really well written, makes really good arguments, and just to show you how he thinks. I want to offer one quote, which I just found hilarious, so he's already gone through several texts which express the scripture's testimony about itself, and he's about to go through several more, but he stops for a second and he says, The effort to explain away the Bible's witness to its plenary inspiration reminds one of a man standing safely in his laboratory and elaborating, expounding, possibly by the aid of diagrams and mathematical formulae, how every stone in an avalanche has a defined pathway and may easily be dodged by one of some presence of mind. We may fancy such an elaborate trifler's triumph as he would analyze the avalanche into its constituent stones and demonstrate of stone after stone that its pathway is definite and limited and may easily be avoided. But avalanches, unfortunately, do not come upon us, stone by stone, one at a time, courteously leaving us opportunity to withdraw from the pathway of each, in turn, but all at once, in a roaring mass of destruction, just so we may explain away a text or two which teach plenary inspiration to our own closet satisfaction, dealing with them each without reference to its relation to the others, but these texts of ours, again, unfortunately, do not come upon us in this artificial isolation, neither are they few in number, there are scores, hundreds of them, and they come bursting upon us in one solid mass. Explain them away? We should have to explain away the whole New Testament. What a pity it is that we cannot see and feel the avalanche of texts beneath which we must helplessly lie, buried as clearly as we may see and feel an avalanche of stones. Let us, however, but open our eyes to the variety and pervasiveness of the New Testament witness to its high estimate of scripture, and we shall no longer wonder that modern scholarship finds itself compelled to allow that the Christian church has read her records correctly and that the church doctrine of scripture is simply a transcript of the biblical doctrine. That's a long quote, but we need to move on.