Introduction
Determining one’s
belief on how the Bible was written is a foundational step in doing theology.
With that in mind, the following will attempt to explain and evaluate all of
the most prominent views and theories about how the Bible was written, and then
construct a logical argument for why verbal plenary inspiration is the correct
view of inspiration. Each view of inspiration will be defined and explained and
then evaluated.
Natural Inspiration
Definition and Explanation
Natural
Inspiration: the belief that the Holy scriptures were written by extraordinary
men, and God’s only “role” in the writing of the scriptures was the fact that
he created those men. Natural inspiration is the view that emphasizes the human
authorship more than any other view of inspiration. By supposing that God’s
only interaction with the scriptures in this view of inspiration is creation,
the proponents of it devalue the perfection of the scripture and thus make it
easy to explain away. “It was just written by men,” they say. “Why should I
listen to what they have to say or accept it as truth? They were fallen just
like me.” Those who subscribe to this view commonly use the definition of
natural inspiration as an excuse not to do what it says.
Evaluation
Of all the views
on inspiration, this has to be the poorest. The idea of looking at a holy book
and taking the only wholly holy being completely out of the equation of the
writing of that book is absolutely ludicrous to me. To subscribe to this view
of inspiration is to negate the purpose of subscribing to a view of inspiration
at all. The purpose of determining the inspiration of the Bible is to help you
determine how to interpret it, and how to better understand the context in
which it was written, so that you might better understand how to do what it
says. The vast majority of those claiming the Bible was written by man and man
alone use that claim as a means of refuting the authority of the Bible. As
Chafer put it, “the main objective in all Bible inspiration—to secure divine
accuracy for every portion of it—is wholly wanting according to this opinion.”[1]
Divine or Mystical Inspiration
Definition and Explanation
Mystical inspiration:
the belief that the Holy Scriptures were written by Godly men, under the usual
guidance of the Holy Spirit. By the definition of Mystical inspiration, it can
be taken to mean that scripture can be written by any man whenever he gets the
“burst of spiritual inspiration” he needs to write them. Within this view, no
particular emphasis is placed on the specific words, or the context in which
the writer was writing. In reality it diminishes both the God aspect of the
scriptures and the man aspect of the scriptures at the exact same time. It
places responsibility of initiating the writing of Scripture on God, while
placing the rest of the responsibility on man to “write what he feels should be written.”
Evaluation
This
view of inspiration is insufficient for a number of reasons. First of all, as
stated above, it diminishes both the human and divine aspects of the writing of
scriptures in one fell swoop. By subscribing to this view of inspiration, you
are also agreeing that the Bible can be added to at any time. This creates all
sorts of practical problems for believers. How can we possibly learn from a
book that is constantly changing? As way of example, if you were playing soccer
and just as you were about to score a goal, the referee blew the whistle and
told you that the sides were switched and you suddenly are about to shoot into
your own goal, how would you ever succeed in playing the game?
To
subscribe to this view of inspiration also means that if you somehow managed to
establish a certain set of texts as the “real ones” you would never be able to
properly interpret them, because God’s hand in writing them has been devalued.
He simply pressed the play button on a man’s spirit, and whatever the author
values spiritually is what is conveyed as opposed to what God values.
Degree Inspiration
Definition and Explanation
Degree
Inspiration: the belief that the Holy scriptures were written by God and man
together, but at certain times, God had a bigger part in determining what was
written than at other times. In this view of inspiration there are various
manmade classifications to describe the degree with which a certain text was
inspired. They are, “suggestion, direction, elevation, superintendency,
guidance, and direct revelation.”[2]
These classifications are not actually found in the Bible, they are simply
imposed upon it from a human viewpoint. Those who subscribe to this theory
often use the same sorts of phrases as those of natural inspiration. They
attribute the passages they don’t like or disagree with to the “suggestion”
inspired passages, making the claim that the writer really wasn’t in tune with
God when he wrote that particular phrase.
Evaluation
This
view of inspiration begs the question, why would God half-ass inspiration? If a
holy and perfect God were going to inspire a holy and inerrant book, why on His
green earth would he only inspire some parts of it a little bit, and other
parts of it a lot? To it’s credit, this does take into account the fact that
the Bible has two authors, however it diminishes one author’s role prominence,
and thus makes the Bible fallible, and susceptible to being picked apart,
dissected and eventually allows critics to write their own version. In an
attempt to determine the inspiration of the Bible, an infallible method needs
to be established in order to put forth the idea that an infallible book is the
result.
Concept Inspiration
Definition and Explanation
Concept
inspiration: the belief that the Holy scriptures were written by men after God
had imparted the ideas he wanted to convey in the text, but allowed the writer
to chose his own wording to convey that idea. Much like its concept, this
theory conveys the idea that God was not present throughout the entire scripture
writing process. However it is difficult to tell because I was allowed to write
that definition however I wanted.
Evaluation
The
concept view allows for messages from God to get lost in translation between
him and the book. As I often say while teaching, I don’t always say what I mean
to say, and you don’t always hear what I actually say, so how on earth are you
supposed to hear what I mean to say? It’s a similar situation. If the Biblical
authors were allowed to write what God meant to say, how are we supposed to
know they actually wrote what he meant to say? Also, how are we supposed to
interpret a text with imprecise language? In concept inspiration the words
themselves don’t really matter as long as you get the gist of the concept. This
is dangerous by any standards, because specific words and how they are used,
and the context in which they are used, always change the meaning of a thought.
By disregarding the estimation of precise language you effectively disregard
the authority that the language carries.
Partial Inspiration
Definition and Explanation
Partial
inspiration, sometimes dynamic inspiration[3]:
the belief that the Holy scriptures were written by man, inspired by God, only
when the material being presented is a matter of faith and practice, if the
material presented is historical, scientific, or in any way a sort of kept
record of events, then those passages may be in error. Partial inspiration
rejects verbal inspiration and plenary inspiration, saying that the exact words
don’t matter and that some parts of the Bible are more reliable than others,
but it still holds to the idea that with an imperfect book we can still have a
perfectly preserved method of salvation.
Evaluation
The
real problem with partial inspiration is the conclusions drawn from it. It
simply isn’t logical to say that the Bible is fraught with errors, but the really important stuff is correct.
Basically it’s displaying a lack of trust in the Bible’s authority and
sufficiency for salvation. Taken to its core, partial inspiration states that
we can’t trust the Biblical authors with counting to 5, but we can trust them
with our souls. It’s illogical to mistrust the inspiration of the Bible in
certain areas but not in others. Other problems arise because the sections of
the Bible that are “unreliable” are not clearly delineated by partial
inspiration theorists. It’s left up to the interpreter to determine which parts
are in error and which aren’t, particularly when discussing the areas of the
bible that contain both history and doctrine, such as every single gospel.[4]
Mechanical Dictation Inspiration
Definition and Explanation
Mechanical
Dictation inspiration: the belief that the Holy scriptures were written by men
who were hearing a literal verbal voice, and writing down exactly what it said
word for word. Mechanical dictation inspiration can be compared to a secretary
writing down a memo that her boss is dictating to her. She takes it down
precisely and transcribes it repeatedly, and perfectly.[5]
Evaluation:
This view of
inspiration is insufficient because it diminishes the human aspect of the
authorship of the Bible to nil. It means that the human authors didn’t create
the Bible; they merely recorded it. When determining a method of inspiration
for the Bible two parameters must be met. Firstly, it has to yield a product
that is infallibly created by both man and God together, and secondly, whatever
means used must account for different personalities, styles, and the freedoms
of the authors manifested therein.[6] So
far none of these views of inspiration adequately fulfills these two
parameters.
However,
as a student of theology, I do have to admit that of all the flawed views of
inspiration, this is the least flawed. If an error in the determination of
inspiration has to be made, I would prefer to err on the side of putting too
much emphasis on God, than putting too much emphasis on man. That’s not to say
I agree with this view of inspiration, or even that I find it acceptable. I
view it as incorrect, and yes, incorrect is still incorrect whether a lot or a
little, but I do have to say that this view would produce a book with a higher
percentage of “truth per page” than natural inspiration would.
Barthian Inspiration
Definition and Explanation
Barthian
Inspiration: the belief, put forth by Karl Barth, that the Holy scriptures were
written by men and revolve principally around Jesus Christ. Barth defined
inspiration as, “the act of revelation in which the prophets and apostles in
their humanity became what they were, and in which alone they in their humanity
can also become for us, what they are.”[7] In
essence it states that some parts of the Bible have more authority than others,
and the dividing factor is the question of whether or not Christ can be found
in the passage. The more prominent and apparent Jesus is in a passage, the more
authoritative that passage becomes, however, all of the Bible contains errors.
Ryrie puts it this way, “To sum up, Barthianism teaches that the Bible points
to Christ, but in reality we don’t know anything about Christ apart from the
Bible.”[8]
Barthianism stipulates that Jesus Christ is the source we should look at and
the Bible, full of errors as it is, points to Jesus.
Evaluation
The problem with
stipulating that the Bible has errors but points to Christ, and that Christ is
the only source of inerrant truth, is that everything
we know about the divinity of Jesus Christ comes from the Bible. If the source
of the information is corrupt, then the information itself cannot be trusted as
a new source of information. If the bible has holes then its portrayal of
Christ has holes, but if the Bible is inerrant, then we can trust its portrayal
of Christ, and what Christ said and taught. Barthianism, unfortunately, doesn’t
teach this basic truth.[9]
Verbal Plenary Inspiration
Definition and Explanation
As this is the
correct view of inspiration, I will supply multiple definitions before
constructing my own.
Verbal Plenary
Inspiration: “God carried men along so that they wrote His message in the
Bible.”[10]
Verbal Plenary
Inspiration: “the Holy Spirit’s superintending over the writers so that while
writing according to their own styles and personalities, the result was God’s
Word written—authoritative, trustworthy, and free from error in the original
autographs.”[11]
Verbal Plenary
Inspiration: “a supernatural influence exerted on the sacred writers by the
Spirit of God, by virtue of which their writings are given Divine
trustworthiness.”[12]
Verbal Plenary
Inspiration: “in the original writings, the Spirit guided in the choice of the
words used. However the Human authorship was respected to the extent that the
writers’ characteristics are preserved and their style and vocabulary are
employed, but without the intrusion of error.”[13]
Verbal Plenary
Inspiration: “the supernatural operation of the Holy Spirit, who through the
different personalities and literary styles of the chosen human authors
invested the very words of the original books of the Holy Scripture, alone and
in their entirety, as the very Word of God without error in all that they teach
or imply (including history and science), and the Bible is thereby the
infallible rule and final authority for faith and practice of all believers.”[14]
Ok, now that I’ve
copied down all of those definitions, I think I’m ready to give it a shot.
Verbal Plenary
Inspiration: The belief that the Holy Scriptures were written by God in His
might and through the powerful Holy Spirit, using imperfect humans, their
different styles, personalities, and vocabularies to write the perfect and
exact text He intended to be written, so that it infallibly stands with the
authority of God’s own words.
Evaluation
This is the view I
subscribe to. It seems to me to explain and uphold the most facts, and
necessary parameters to make basing one’s entire life on a book, a wise
decision.
For
a person to base their entire life, and way of thinking on a book that book
should be infallible, and somehow written by God. With those two qualifications
the inspiration views of natural, degree, concept, mystical, partial, and
Barthian are no longer options. All of these views either admit to a lack of
infallibility, or take God too much out of the equation of authorship. This
leaves Mechanical Dictation or Verbal Plenary as the only viable views of
Inspiration. From this point, you have to consider the text, and an undeniable
truth about the Bible is that different books read differently. You can tell
that there were multiple personalities involved in writing the different books
of the Bible. The Greek that Luke wrote was more precise than the Greek that Paul
wrote. The style and purpose of the four Gospels are different, indicating that
the writer’s own perspective and intended audience necessitated showing the
story from different angles. Because of this undeniable fact, verbal plenary
inspiration has to be the correct view. It is the only one that correctly
balances both divine and human authorship, while adhering to guidelines that
would yield an infallible book.
Another
argument is equally as valid. This is the view of scriptural inspiration that
Jesus agreed with.[15]
He quoted text word for word from the Old Testament, meaning that the precise
words of the text do matter, while always attributing the authorship of that
text to both God and Isaiah, or God and Moses, or God and the psalmist. The two
stipulations in verbal plenary inspiration—verbal: the specific words matter,
and plenary: the whole bible is infallible—are covered in Jesus’ use of
scripture, and if it was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.
Conclusion
In
reality, there is only one true method of inspiration and it is the one that
God actually used. The question we are asking is: which one did God actually
use? While we can’t determine this with one hundred percent certainty, because
we aren’t God and we weren’t there, all of the evidence points to verbal
plenary inspiration as the most likely. It is the only view of inspiration that
accounts for the style differences apparent between different human authors,
while still preserving the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible as a whole.
Bibliography
Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics. I, 2, 563.
Chafer, Lewis
Sperry. Systematic Theology (Eight
Volumes in Four) Volunes 1 and 2. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications,
1993.
Enns, Paul. The Moody Handbook of Theology: Revised and
Expanded. Chicago, IL: Moody
Publishers, 2008.
Geisler, Norman
L. Systematic Theology in One Volume. Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House
Publishers, 2011.
Ryrie, Charles C.
Basic Theology. Chicago, IL: Moody
Publishers, 1999.
Warfield, B. B. The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible.
Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1948.
[1]
Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology
(Eight Volumes in Four) Volunes 1 and 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel
Publications, 1993), 70.
[2]
Chafer, 69.
[3]
Paul Enns, The Moody Handbook of
Theology: Revised and Expanded (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2008),162.
[4]
Ibid., 163.
[5]
Norman L. Geisler, Systematic Theology in
One Volume (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany
House Publishers, 2011), 178.
[6]
Ibid., 178.
[7]
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, I, 2,
563.
[8]
Charles C. Ryrie, Basic Theology
(Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 1999), 86.
[9]
Ibid.
[10]
Ibid., 81.
[11]
Enns, 161.
[12]
B. B. Warfield, The Inspiration and
Authority of the Bible (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1948),
131.
[13]
Chafer, 71.
[14]
Geisler, 178.
[15]
Enns, 164.
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