The Living Enns...
Saturday, 13. May 2006, 03:25:06
Book Review
Peter Enns
Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament
Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005
N.E. Barry Hofstetter
It is fully granted that we should never approach Scripture with an a priori theory of its character and impose that theory upon the evidence… We derive our doctrine of Scripture from what the Scripture teaches with respect to its own character – in a word, from the testimony it bears to itself.
John Murray, “The Attestation of Scripture,” in The Infallable Word, p. 10, 1946.
In what way shall we discover how the terms ‘infallible’ and ‘inerrant’ can be applied to the Bible? We might conceivably approach the matter with an a priori idea as to what infallibility should be and the proceed to make the Bible fit into that idea… There is a much better way to follow, namely, that of turning to the Bible itself to learn what infallibility is.
E.J. Young, They Word is Truth, p. 113-114, 1957.
Recently, Peter Enns’s Inspiration and Incarnation has caused something of a stir in conservative evangelical circles. As it has been discussed on certain online forums, Dr. Enns has been charged with compromising the traditional evangelical understanding of the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture. However, as I looked at the quotations adduced to support this assertion, I experienced a form of cognitive dissonance, in that the citations did not appear to support the actual claims. In fact, in several instances, I found myself saying “that sounds suspiciously like something I might say, and I certainly don’t deny either the inerrancy or the infallibility of Scripture.” I therefore had to run out and purchase a copy of the book and write this review.
I found that my suspicions were largely correct, and that Dr. Enns’s detractors simply did not appreciate the position that Dr. Enns was advancing. Essentially what I see Dr. Enns doing is neither advancing a novel doctrine of inspiration nor compromising with liberalism, but attempting to take seriously the ideas cited above by his predecessors at Westminster Theological Seminary, Mssrs. Murray and Young. In paraphrase, the reader of Scripture must not impose a theory of inspiration, including ideas of inerrancy and infallibility on the Scriptures, and then expect Scripture to conform to that doctrine (otherwise known as the eisegetical or etic approach). Instead, one allows the Scriptures themselves to inform the reader concerning the proper doctrine of inspiration (the exegetical or emic approach). In Dr. Enns’s own words:
For a number of years now, teaching courses such as “Introduction to Theology” and “Biblical Theology,” I have used what I call “the incarnational analogy” in explaining the phenemonology of the Scriptures, an idea inspired (pun intended) nearly 20 years ago when first reading B.B. Warfield’s classic treatments on the inspiration of the Scriptures. Essentially, inscripturation is parallel but not identical to the incarnation of Christ. In the incarnation of Christ, the true God becomes true man, and the infinite, as it were, is comprised by the finite, or as we might paraphrase Col 1:15, Christ is the “invisible God made visible.” In the Scriptures, the infinite mind and thought of God is reduced to human terms, human language, in all its generic diversity – historical narrative, poetry, prophetic utterances, and apocalyptic visions.
Now, an important point to stress here is the “real reality” of both inscripturation and incarnation. Recently I had an online exchange with a couple of Jehovah’s Witnessess who attempted to disprove the physical resurrection of Christ by asserting that his bodily functions would perforce continue even in eternity. I pointed out that the problem was not Christ’s bodily functions, but their assumption that there was something wrong with his created bodily functions, which God had after all called “very good” very early on in history. In other words, Christ was and is really human, with all that this implies. He was made like us in every way, excepting sin, and so experienced emotions such as anger and sorrow, and states such as exhaustion or pain. If we were to meet Christ during his earthly walk, we would meet a very human person, and we would perceive him as such, even if spiritually we might recognize that he was more than human. There would be a certain “messiness” (to borrow a lexical item used several times by Dr. Enns) to our experience with Christ, as we might see crumbs in his beard and stains on his robe. To deny “that Christ has come in the flesh” is to enter the realms of Gnosticism and Docetism.
Similarly, then, Scripture, to be understood by human readers must be given in language and forms understandable by human beings. Thus we have Hebrew and Greek, and the Greek is not even the quasi-artificial literary language of the Classical period, but the type of language spoken and read regularly throughout the Roman Empire, real Greek for real people. The literary forms are similarly understandable in terms of the cultural context in which they are given (more on this below). But if we expect a certain “messiness” with Christ in his incarnation, why do we avoid that implication with the Scriptures themselves? I have discussed this idea with a number of individuals through the years, and have noted several authors who make claims similar to Enns, Young, and Murray. What I find interesting, even disturbing, though, is that they are not consistent with these claims. Yes, Scripture accommodates to human forms, but in practice most inerrantists seem to treat Scripture in a nearly Gnostic fashion, seeking an artificial uniformity which is foreign to the texts themselves. Rather, as I endeavor regularly to point out, the unity of Scripture is not that of a single editor/redactor (such as the Qur’an), but is much deeper. It is the unity of a living organism, and not an artificial mechanism. Its diversity is of such a nature as to avoid facile consistency, while inviting the reader to contemplate its deeper thematic connections. Scripture is not a “power point” presentation consisting of a number of bulleted one-liners designed simply to impart information (however ideally suited to the business context), but literature in various genres meant to promote wisdom. In other words, the “difficulty” of Scripture (cf. 2 Pet 3:16) is likely intentional of the Spirit who inspired it, meant to evoke a deeper desire to understand, to delve its depths. As someone once said, Scripture is like the ocean: on the shore, the youngest “babe in Christ” can splash around, but even the greatest theologians will never dive to the bottom. Why is Scripture like this? It is incarnational: it is the word of the living God, inspired, eternal, and absolutely true, but it also the words of human beings, written by real people for specific occasions. As Warfield long ago theorized, the Spirit does not overwhelm the human authors, but used them in all their humanity to write his word, a humanity which also implies the very diversity that we find in the Scriptures.
Now, I have given this quick review of my own thinking on this subject in order to help the reader of this review understand why I was extremely pleased, though not completely surprised, by Dr. Enns’s main thesis concerning the incarnational analogy for understanding the nature of the Scriptures.
What we have in this book is a thinker who is willing to take this principle seriously, and begin to work out its full implications. The reader may disagree concerning some of these implications, and even disagree concerning some of the specific applications, such as Dr. Enns makes in later chapters, but the principle itself is sound and helps make a great deal of sense out of Scripture as we have it.
Rather than going chapter by chapter and analyzing the specific arguments that Dr. Enns employs in supporting his thesis, I am instead going to emphasize several theological principles that I think are foundational for pursuing this study, and that hopefully will contribute in at least a minor way to the discussion. I then wish to make some observations pertinent to NT studies, since Dr. Enns is rather myopically focused on the OT (but I am forced to forgive him, considering his background).
1)Christ, who is the Lord of Scripture and the Lord of our personal spiritual experience is also the Lord of history. The implications of this are truly astounding once actually considered beyond the slogan level. For example, are we to assume that God simply accommodated his message to the cultural standards of the day, or may we at least speculate that God arranged or controlled historical and cultural development so that his truth might be expressed in the best possible way, not only for the culture at the time, but for all time (hence inscripturation)? It is possible, indeed probable, that God has planted “redemptive analogies” in various cultures, analogies which make the Gospel understandable to peoples even when they have no cultural framework that has been influenced by Christianity. How much more so the cultures in which God revealed himself and his plan of redemption? This is really a matter of trust – do we really believe that God chose the best way in which to reveal himself?
2)At the risk of sounding too Van Tilian, I’d like to suggest that the ultimate theological “key” to understanding the unity and diversity of the Scriptures is the Trinity, which is essentially infinite diversity in infinite combination. While God is one, he is also three, and each person of the Trinity has qualities peculiar to that person, which describe him as a person and distinguishes him from the other two persons. I see the Trinitarian principle not standing in opposition to the incarnational analogy in any way, but rather an equal, complementary truth.
3)We wish to avoid artificial harmonization while recognizing the essential unity of the Scriptures. Just as we will never see all of the implications of the Trinity, so we may never (this side of eternity, anyway) understand all of the ways in which the diverse elements of the Bible may be reconciled. But perhaps even seeking such surface harmonization is not what is important, but the very pursuit of the underlying principial unity. We are to grow chiefly in wisdom as our character is transformed in the image of Christ. Having said that, though, our cultural conditioning in Aristotelian logic is such that we probably can’t help trying to harmonize, but our attempts must be thoroughly grounded in the logic of the Scriptures themselves, and not any external principles.
With regard to the NT writings, I believe that there are some characteristics peculiar to those documents which need to be considered. One is the issue of genre: try as we might, we have never really found any other literature from the first century era which approximates the gospels. They appear to be sui generis, a form of theological narrative which has elements of history and biography but are not really either of these. What is of supreme importance to the gospel writers is their vision of of the Gospel, and it is around this vision, as interpreted by each author/redactor, that the details are organized and arranged. Quite simply, the gospel writers are not concerned with accuracy in the same way that our modern writers of history and biography are, and it is a great mistake to impute to them this standard. Even the Greeks, and their imitators the Romans, who invented and developed these genres did not write them with the same standards as modern writers (one only has to compare Herodotus with Thucydides, or Suetonius with Tacitus, to see remarkable differences!). In fact, I believe that the best possible antecedents for understanding the method of the gospels is not any type of literature from the Greco-Roman world, but the OT, and particularly what we normally call the historical literature, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles.
The epistles of the NT also call for a great deal more research in terms of method. Paul’s letters are obviously real letters, unlike the epistolary genre occasionally employed in Greco-Roman literature (such as the letters of Pliny the Younger). However, simply calling them letters doesn’t do them justice at all. There is a great deal of difference between Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and the First Epistle to Timothy. The former is largely a theological treatise, probably sermonic in form, while the latter is a series of practical instructions to a relatively young man about to assume the leadership of a church. In my mind, these are practically different genres, and this generic distinction explains the difference in form, theological content, and vocabulary.
I have neither the time nor the space in this particular forum to elaborate at length, but merely wish to suggest that issues of diversity and unity of the biblical writings must be recognized honestly along with a full commitment to derive our ideas from the very structure, form and content of the Scriptures themselves. At the very least, our own method begins with understanding each Scripture in its own context, as the author brings to bear his understanding of the particular truth with which he is concerned. Only as we appreciate the diversity of the Scriptural writings will be begin to penetrate to the deeper and very real actual unity of the entire canon of Scripture.
It must be freely admitted that there are difficulties connected to the doctrine of biblical infallibility. There appear to be discrepancies and contradictions in the Bible…Furthermore, disingenuous and artificial attempts at harmony are to be avoided, for they do not advance the cause of truth and faith…But some difficulties, perhaps many, remain unresolved. The earnest student has no adequate answer and he may frankly confess that he is not able to explain an apparent discrepancy in the teaching of Scripture…There is no doctrine of our Christian faith that does not confront us with unresolved difficulties here in this world, and the difficulties become all the greater just as we get nearer the center.
John Murray, p. 6-7
Peter Enns
Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament
Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005
N.E. Barry Hofstetter
It is fully granted that we should never approach Scripture with an a priori theory of its character and impose that theory upon the evidence… We derive our doctrine of Scripture from what the Scripture teaches with respect to its own character – in a word, from the testimony it bears to itself.
John Murray, “The Attestation of Scripture,” in The Infallable Word, p. 10, 1946.
In what way shall we discover how the terms ‘infallible’ and ‘inerrant’ can be applied to the Bible? We might conceivably approach the matter with an a priori idea as to what infallibility should be and the proceed to make the Bible fit into that idea… There is a much better way to follow, namely, that of turning to the Bible itself to learn what infallibility is.
E.J. Young, They Word is Truth, p. 113-114, 1957.
Recently, Peter Enns’s Inspiration and Incarnation has caused something of a stir in conservative evangelical circles. As it has been discussed on certain online forums, Dr. Enns has been charged with compromising the traditional evangelical understanding of the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture. However, as I looked at the quotations adduced to support this assertion, I experienced a form of cognitive dissonance, in that the citations did not appear to support the actual claims. In fact, in several instances, I found myself saying “that sounds suspiciously like something I might say, and I certainly don’t deny either the inerrancy or the infallibility of Scripture.” I therefore had to run out and purchase a copy of the book and write this review.
I found that my suspicions were largely correct, and that Dr. Enns’s detractors simply did not appreciate the position that Dr. Enns was advancing. Essentially what I see Dr. Enns doing is neither advancing a novel doctrine of inspiration nor compromising with liberalism, but attempting to take seriously the ideas cited above by his predecessors at Westminster Theological Seminary, Mssrs. Murray and Young. In paraphrase, the reader of Scripture must not impose a theory of inspiration, including ideas of inerrancy and infallibility on the Scriptures, and then expect Scripture to conform to that doctrine (otherwise known as the eisegetical or etic approach). Instead, one allows the Scriptures themselves to inform the reader concerning the proper doctrine of inspiration (the exegetical or emic approach). In Dr. Enns’s own words:
The presence of theological diversity does not mean that it lacks integrity or trustworthiness. It means that we must recognize that the data of Scripture leads us to conceive differently of how Scripture has integrity or is worthy of trust. Scripture may indeed “lack integrity” if we impose upon it standards that have little in common with how the Bible itself behaves. (p. 169, emphasis added)
For a number of years now, teaching courses such as “Introduction to Theology” and “Biblical Theology,” I have used what I call “the incarnational analogy” in explaining the phenemonology of the Scriptures, an idea inspired (pun intended) nearly 20 years ago when first reading B.B. Warfield’s classic treatments on the inspiration of the Scriptures. Essentially, inscripturation is parallel but not identical to the incarnation of Christ. In the incarnation of Christ, the true God becomes true man, and the infinite, as it were, is comprised by the finite, or as we might paraphrase Col 1:15, Christ is the “invisible God made visible.” In the Scriptures, the infinite mind and thought of God is reduced to human terms, human language, in all its generic diversity – historical narrative, poetry, prophetic utterances, and apocalyptic visions.
Now, an important point to stress here is the “real reality” of both inscripturation and incarnation. Recently I had an online exchange with a couple of Jehovah’s Witnessess who attempted to disprove the physical resurrection of Christ by asserting that his bodily functions would perforce continue even in eternity. I pointed out that the problem was not Christ’s bodily functions, but their assumption that there was something wrong with his created bodily functions, which God had after all called “very good” very early on in history. In other words, Christ was and is really human, with all that this implies. He was made like us in every way, excepting sin, and so experienced emotions such as anger and sorrow, and states such as exhaustion or pain. If we were to meet Christ during his earthly walk, we would meet a very human person, and we would perceive him as such, even if spiritually we might recognize that he was more than human. There would be a certain “messiness” (to borrow a lexical item used several times by Dr. Enns) to our experience with Christ, as we might see crumbs in his beard and stains on his robe. To deny “that Christ has come in the flesh” is to enter the realms of Gnosticism and Docetism.
Similarly, then, Scripture, to be understood by human readers must be given in language and forms understandable by human beings. Thus we have Hebrew and Greek, and the Greek is not even the quasi-artificial literary language of the Classical period, but the type of language spoken and read regularly throughout the Roman Empire, real Greek for real people. The literary forms are similarly understandable in terms of the cultural context in which they are given (more on this below). But if we expect a certain “messiness” with Christ in his incarnation, why do we avoid that implication with the Scriptures themselves? I have discussed this idea with a number of individuals through the years, and have noted several authors who make claims similar to Enns, Young, and Murray. What I find interesting, even disturbing, though, is that they are not consistent with these claims. Yes, Scripture accommodates to human forms, but in practice most inerrantists seem to treat Scripture in a nearly Gnostic fashion, seeking an artificial uniformity which is foreign to the texts themselves. Rather, as I endeavor regularly to point out, the unity of Scripture is not that of a single editor/redactor (such as the Qur’an), but is much deeper. It is the unity of a living organism, and not an artificial mechanism. Its diversity is of such a nature as to avoid facile consistency, while inviting the reader to contemplate its deeper thematic connections. Scripture is not a “power point” presentation consisting of a number of bulleted one-liners designed simply to impart information (however ideally suited to the business context), but literature in various genres meant to promote wisdom. In other words, the “difficulty” of Scripture (cf. 2 Pet 3:16) is likely intentional of the Spirit who inspired it, meant to evoke a deeper desire to understand, to delve its depths. As someone once said, Scripture is like the ocean: on the shore, the youngest “babe in Christ” can splash around, but even the greatest theologians will never dive to the bottom. Why is Scripture like this? It is incarnational: it is the word of the living God, inspired, eternal, and absolutely true, but it also the words of human beings, written by real people for specific occasions. As Warfield long ago theorized, the Spirit does not overwhelm the human authors, but used them in all their humanity to write his word, a humanity which also implies the very diversity that we find in the Scriptures.
Now, I have given this quick review of my own thinking on this subject in order to help the reader of this review understand why I was extremely pleased, though not completely surprised, by Dr. Enns’s main thesis concerning the incarnational analogy for understanding the nature of the Scriptures.
In the same way that Jesus is – must be – both God and human, the Bible is also a divine and human book…. It was not an abstract, otherwordly book, dropped out of heaven. It was connected to and therefore spoke to those ancient cultures…. Because Christianity is a historical religion, God’s word reflects the various historical moments in which Scripture was written. (p. 17-18, emphasis original)
This way of thinking about the Bible is referred to differently by different theologians. The term I prefer is incarnational analogy: Christ’s incarnation is analogous to Scripture’s “incarnation.” [p. 18, emphasis original]
What we have in this book is a thinker who is willing to take this principle seriously, and begin to work out its full implications. The reader may disagree concerning some of these implications, and even disagree concerning some of the specific applications, such as Dr. Enns makes in later chapters, but the principle itself is sound and helps make a great deal of sense out of Scripture as we have it.
Rather than going chapter by chapter and analyzing the specific arguments that Dr. Enns employs in supporting his thesis, I am instead going to emphasize several theological principles that I think are foundational for pursuing this study, and that hopefully will contribute in at least a minor way to the discussion. I then wish to make some observations pertinent to NT studies, since Dr. Enns is rather myopically focused on the OT (but I am forced to forgive him, considering his background).
1)Christ, who is the Lord of Scripture and the Lord of our personal spiritual experience is also the Lord of history. The implications of this are truly astounding once actually considered beyond the slogan level. For example, are we to assume that God simply accommodated his message to the cultural standards of the day, or may we at least speculate that God arranged or controlled historical and cultural development so that his truth might be expressed in the best possible way, not only for the culture at the time, but for all time (hence inscripturation)? It is possible, indeed probable, that God has planted “redemptive analogies” in various cultures, analogies which make the Gospel understandable to peoples even when they have no cultural framework that has been influenced by Christianity. How much more so the cultures in which God revealed himself and his plan of redemption? This is really a matter of trust – do we really believe that God chose the best way in which to reveal himself?
2)At the risk of sounding too Van Tilian, I’d like to suggest that the ultimate theological “key” to understanding the unity and diversity of the Scriptures is the Trinity, which is essentially infinite diversity in infinite combination. While God is one, he is also three, and each person of the Trinity has qualities peculiar to that person, which describe him as a person and distinguishes him from the other two persons. I see the Trinitarian principle not standing in opposition to the incarnational analogy in any way, but rather an equal, complementary truth.
3)We wish to avoid artificial harmonization while recognizing the essential unity of the Scriptures. Just as we will never see all of the implications of the Trinity, so we may never (this side of eternity, anyway) understand all of the ways in which the diverse elements of the Bible may be reconciled. But perhaps even seeking such surface harmonization is not what is important, but the very pursuit of the underlying principial unity. We are to grow chiefly in wisdom as our character is transformed in the image of Christ. Having said that, though, our cultural conditioning in Aristotelian logic is such that we probably can’t help trying to harmonize, but our attempts must be thoroughly grounded in the logic of the Scriptures themselves, and not any external principles.
With regard to the NT writings, I believe that there are some characteristics peculiar to those documents which need to be considered. One is the issue of genre: try as we might, we have never really found any other literature from the first century era which approximates the gospels. They appear to be sui generis, a form of theological narrative which has elements of history and biography but are not really either of these. What is of supreme importance to the gospel writers is their vision of of the Gospel, and it is around this vision, as interpreted by each author/redactor, that the details are organized and arranged. Quite simply, the gospel writers are not concerned with accuracy in the same way that our modern writers of history and biography are, and it is a great mistake to impute to them this standard. Even the Greeks, and their imitators the Romans, who invented and developed these genres did not write them with the same standards as modern writers (one only has to compare Herodotus with Thucydides, or Suetonius with Tacitus, to see remarkable differences!). In fact, I believe that the best possible antecedents for understanding the method of the gospels is not any type of literature from the Greco-Roman world, but the OT, and particularly what we normally call the historical literature, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles.
The epistles of the NT also call for a great deal more research in terms of method. Paul’s letters are obviously real letters, unlike the epistolary genre occasionally employed in Greco-Roman literature (such as the letters of Pliny the Younger). However, simply calling them letters doesn’t do them justice at all. There is a great deal of difference between Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and the First Epistle to Timothy. The former is largely a theological treatise, probably sermonic in form, while the latter is a series of practical instructions to a relatively young man about to assume the leadership of a church. In my mind, these are practically different genres, and this generic distinction explains the difference in form, theological content, and vocabulary.
I have neither the time nor the space in this particular forum to elaborate at length, but merely wish to suggest that issues of diversity and unity of the biblical writings must be recognized honestly along with a full commitment to derive our ideas from the very structure, form and content of the Scriptures themselves. At the very least, our own method begins with understanding each Scripture in its own context, as the author brings to bear his understanding of the particular truth with which he is concerned. Only as we appreciate the diversity of the Scriptural writings will be begin to penetrate to the deeper and very real actual unity of the entire canon of Scripture.
It must be freely admitted that there are difficulties connected to the doctrine of biblical infallibility. There appear to be discrepancies and contradictions in the Bible…Furthermore, disingenuous and artificial attempts at harmony are to be avoided, for they do not advance the cause of truth and faith…But some difficulties, perhaps many, remain unresolved. The earnest student has no adequate answer and he may frankly confess that he is not able to explain an apparent discrepancy in the teaching of Scripture…There is no doctrine of our Christian faith that does not confront us with unresolved difficulties here in this world, and the difficulties become all the greater just as we get nearer the center.
John Murray, p. 6-7
WIDGETIZE
trappermark # 13. May 2006, 15:22
I've seen few people online "get it" about Enns's book as thoroughly as you do. Your post has been linked at my blog.
gentry # 13. May 2006, 16:00
BarryHofstetter # 15. May 2006, 19:11
timharris # 16. May 2006, 16:17
If the propositions of Scripture are not presupposed to be True, then how could we with confidence learn from those propositions whether the propositions of Scripture were necessarily true?
In short, inerrancy seems to me to be a transcendentally necessary attribute of Scripture as Word of God, not one that we "learn about" from Scripture's own teaching on the subject. Let alone, something that might be falsified by Scripture's teaching on the subject.
BarryHofstetter # 16. May 2006, 19:17
I agree with your statement "inerrancy...(is) a transcendentally necessary attribute of Scripture..." However, if Scripture informs us of all doctrine, how can we exclude our doctrine of Scripture itself? If Scripture truly is the *principium cognoscendi* of our spiritual lives, then the nature of Scripture perforce must be derived from the Scriptures themselves. Of course, any doctrine may be falsefied through the twisting of Scripture. The problem I have with your formulation is that it posits an external definition to which the Scriptures must adhere, and I fear that such a definition becomes simply a procrustean bed.
timharris # 17. May 2006, 20:10
1. There is a verse that says:
"Not every word of God is true."
Then we know that one of the following is the case:
a. The verse is erroneously translated, mis-copied by a scribe, etc.
b. It should not have been recognized as Scripture and is not Scripture.
How do I know this? Because if a word of God could be false, then there is no more criterion for saying anything is true.
2. It says, "90% of the assertions of Scripture are true."
Same choices as above.
Ask yourself, on the basis of (2), do we know that 90% of Scripture is true?
No. Because that verse could be one of the 10% false verses. Therefore, we would have no idea what percentage was really true.
3. It says, "Scripture is inerrant."
Would such a verse add anything to our knowledge?
No; because it would only prove the point if we went in knowing it was a true assertion by virtue of being Scripture, i.e. necessarily true a priori: but then we already "knew" the thing that is allegedly proven by the verse.
------------
In my mind, if any reader follows my logic to this point, then we must say together that the inerrancy of Scripture is an apriori, or a transcendental, or an inescapable concept, or however you want to put it. But it is not something you could be taught by Scripture itself, that is, as a contingent truth (one that might have been otherwise).
BarryHofstetter # 18. May 2006, 03:32