From: REXLEX@linac.fnal.gov
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Limits to Criticism/Conclusion
Date: 30 Aug 92 05:34:56 GMT
Organization: Fermi Lab

[This is the conclusion of a series of articles posted a couple of days
before.  Somehow I didn't get it with the others.  --clh]

 LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM AND OPPOSITION TO 
                   PLENARY INSPIRATION

A.  LIMITS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM AND OPPOSITION TO 
     PLENARY INSPIRATION
B.  THE IMPOSSIBILITY THAT A FALLIBLE MESSAGE COULD
     BECOME THE WORD OF GOD
C.  EVANGELICALS SUPPOSEDLY NONSCIENTIFIC IN REGARD TO
     THE BIBLE
     1)  THE BASIS OF PREACHING
     2)  EXPLAINING SUCCESSIVE THEOLOGICAL FASHIONS
     3)  THE MORAL AND SPIRITUAL POINTS OF VIEW

Excerpts from "The Inspiration & Authority of Scripture"  by Rene Pache,
copyright 1969, Moody Press.  Used by permission.

EVANGELICALS SUPPOSEDLY NONSCIENTIFIC IN REGARD TO
THE BIBLE

3)  THE MORAL AND SPIRITUAL POINT OF VIEW

     The terrain for the attack against the integrity of the biblical text and
its plenary inspiration is purportedly a scientific one.  All sorts of
historical, philosophical, linguistic and literary reasons are advanced for the
claim that the Bible in itself cannot be the Word of God. (See, in regard to
this, chap. 14, "The Difficulties of the Bible.")  But it seems to us that much
more important moral and spiritual considerations are being put to one side.
Here are some of them.
1. It is unthinkable that the spiritual value of a great portion of the Bible
books is not altered if, as we are told, these parts are false. The fact that
some sections of Scripture are anonymous (many of the Psalms) or were written
by several authors, some of them unknown (the Proverbs), poses no problems and
changes nothing in regard to inspiration.  It is, however, quite different with
the supposed "sources" of the Pentateuch, a document which, we are told, was
written by various authors who contradicted one another and whose identity,
actually, is unknown-authors whose literary efforts were fabricated over the
centuries and then fraudulently attributed to Moses.  We have, for example,
brought up the fact that Leviticus affirms fifty-one times that Moses himself
set down the words of God in it for the people.  Now, according to the critics,
this whole "priestly code" was invented by priests at the time of Ezra and was
attributed to Israel's great law-giver so it would be more easily accepted. 
Essentially the same thing is said about Deuteronomy, which, they say, was
"discovered" for the first time in the temple in the days of Josiah (II Kings
22: 8) .
The prophecies of Daniel, II Timothy and II Peter, full of details about the
authors and the circumstances of their lives, were likewise the result of
"pious frauds," written by impostors long after the death of those men of God
(or, in some cases, after the predicted events).  They try to make us believe
that men in those days did not possess our sense of literary propriety and that
they could have done all this with a perfectly clear conscience.  Now in the
case of the Israelites, at least, we are convinced of just the opposite.  From
their very law, they had a much higher concept than our contemporaries do of
truth, holiness, morality, social obligations, propriety and the rights of the
individual; and, above all, of the absolute reverence due to the person and the
Word of God.  A prophet who falsely claimed to have received a message from the
Lord was subject to death (Deut. 18:20).  To suppose, moreover, that Israel,
attached for centuries to Moses and her sacred books, would have adopted such
fraud without the shadow of a reaction is a total impossibility from either the
psychological or the ethical point of view, to say nothing of the historical. 
To claim that Jesus endorsed with all His authority an Old Testament full of
such falsehoods is, at least, an insult to His moral sense, if not a complete
denial of His deity.  One can think as much of the veracity and spiritual
discernment of the apostles and of the primitive church. 

2. We have spoken of the difficulties of the preacher who is obliged to preach
on texts which he believes to be not genuine.  But what can be said about the
shock experienced by the young theological student when he finds certain
professors starting right off to ridicule his naive faith and to try to
persuade him that "the Bible is not the Word of God"?  This type of young man
often comes from an evangelical milieu or family, where it is still common for
a call to the ministry to originate.  Every year we have known cases where
doubt thus sown has produced veritable crises.  And how many young pastors,
coming to grips with the realities of the ministry have again found faith-and
the Bible-by resolutely rejecting the negative criticism they have been taught!

3. If the biblical text has no authority and each one simply finds in it his
own "Word of God," the invariable result is an attitude favoring relative
values.  All interpretations are good, and no one person can say that he has
the truth. (But Paul exclaimed: "We have the mind of Christ"; and "Though we,
or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any gospel other than that
which we preached unto you, let him be anathema"!  I Cor. 2:16; Gal. 1:8.) 
Dogmas, they tell us, are not important; and they may even be dangerous.  Have
they not engendered all the ecclesiastical harshness, the violent polemics, and
the persecutions of the past?  The ecumenical trend is toward dialogue, where
the most biblical matters and the least biblical matters confront each other in
an amicable spirit.  A typical example is the foundation laid down for the
World Council of Churches.  Because any agreement about the credo (the
Apostles' Creed) proved impossible, there was adopted a brief formula which
declares Jesus Christ God and Saviour according to the Scriptures, to the glory
of the Trinity.  It is understood, however, that each may interpret this
formula in any way he pleases.  The largest churches of France and Switzerland
frankly said at New Delhi that in accepting such a statement they were
maintaining their theological "pluralism" while keeping all their doctrinal
liberty.
     The abandonment of the great historic confessions of faith has basically
been for the same reason.  These confessions were very exact (too exact to suit
some people) on all the essentials of the faith. (See chap. 20, subhead "The
Great Confessions of Protestant Faith," what some were saying about the
inspiration of the Bible.)  The churches of Switzerland now declare that they
no longer have any declaration of faith.  Elsewhere, the theoretical
conservation of the thirty-nine Anglican articles does not at all stand in the
way of the greatest theological liberty.  One very influential movement in the
religious world acknowledges that it has freed itself of an ancient evangelical
confession of faith because it had become a veritable straitjacket.
     In the face of such latitude as this, one cannot help feeling very uneasy
about the future.  Diametrically opposite points of view already coexist in the
same ecclesiastical organizations.  If the biblical revelation no longer serves
either as a norm or as a restraint, what will hinder an amalgamating of all
these groups-even a uniting of these with other religions entirely?

4. We see that negativistic liberalism has, in general, had nothing but sterile
results.  But just what kind of faith could we expect to see produced by a
purely human and fallible Christ, one incapable of getting Himself out of the
grave so as to insure the salvation of the world (which, moreover, is not
considered lost in the first place)?  And what can be said for the kind of
criticism which emasculates the authority and import of the Holy Scriptures? 
In all humility we are convinced that nothing but total faith in the
inspiration of the Scriptures can produce integrity in spiritual power and
life.  We seek to demonstrate this in chapter 20 and in chapter 22.

5. In conclusion, we align ourselves with the opinion of Professor Finlayson on
the subject of modern hostility to inspiration:

     It has severed the Christian faith from its roots in history, bringing it
down to the level of mystical experience; it has emptied Christian faith of its
revealed doctrinal content and obliterated the clistinction between truth and
error, between orthodoxy and heresy, between faith based on knowledge and mere
credulity.  Most serious of all, it has impugned the trustworthiness of the
historical Christ and changed the heart-throbbing words of his message to the
world into the mere echoes of other men's experience.  Under its solvent the
Person of Christ becomes elusive and illusionary, a mere intruder into history,
who has troubled men with his message but left no sure word for posterity.  For
it must be clearly understood that the battle being waged against the
inspiration of the Bible is, in the last resort, an assault upon historic
Christianity and its foundation, Jesus Christ.  This is an impressive
acknowledgment of the fact that Scripture is recognized to be the supreme
bulwark of the historic Christian faith."

th th tha that's all folks


(RexLex@fnal.fnal.gov)