#756 Inspired Scripture
October 31, 2021Hello Dr. Craig,
I have appreciated your teachings on the doctrine of inspiration over the past few years listening to your Defenders Class on Itunes. Could we understand "Inspiration" be more about how God has inspired the Bible to behave and function as opposed to being about the text itself? In other words, When the Bible says that the text is "God-breathed" can we understand this to be talking about the word of God as a creation of God that has been given a particular function and a purpose?
The only other place I see that "god-breathed" language used in scripture is when God breathed into Adam new life and again in Ezekiel when God breaths life into the dry bones. Although Adam was created in the image of God and was meant to be a delegate authority of God on earth, we do not typically ascribe to mankind the properties of inerrancy, infallibility, perspicuity or the like. So, could it be consistent to say that the Bible is inspired in the sense that God has created it like Adam, to be a creation with a special purpose and to function as a certain kind of witness to the truth (much like mankind). And that Gods will is that it would function like an anchor throughout the generations and a source of authority. The literary purpose of which would be as described in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, namely to provide knowledge of salvation and to equip man for every good work. If this is true, then it doesn't much matter whether there is error in the Bible, so long as the book accomplishes the will God set it out to accomplish. It also doesn't much matter if certain passages are trivial (like Paul's personal anecdotes) or even so obscure as to be useless, so long as it accomplishes the will that he set it out to accomplish.
Finally, I think this view might allow us to envision why it may not have been necessary for God to preserve the original text. It troubles me to suggest that only the original text is inspired but we don't have the original text. Even if we are able to reconstruct with some accuracy, who are we to decided that a single dot or iota is not important. I find this to be a red herring because the argument focuses purely on the new testament and ignores the uncertainty surrounding the old testament's composition. Nevertheless if the Bible is God breathed then who are we to suggest a dot or iota written by the hand of God is unimportant. If inspiration of scripture is more about the function of the text than the words, then we can imagine copies of the Bible to be inspired, translations could be considered inspired, even editorial revisions (as are prevalent in OT). We even may be able to see the category of "Scripture" as somewhat dynamic, flexible, and changing over time, scripture may come in and go out of focus in the Christian community, and may be slightly different from community to community. All as God willed it to do. So long as the text is functioning as God has purposely inspired it to do.
I am eager to hear your thoughts on this! thanks!
Aaron
Canada
Dr. craig’s response
A
We are currently going through the doctrine of inspiration in my Defenders class, Aaron, and so your question is particularly timely. I do not think that we should “understand ‘Inspiration’ [to] be more about how God has inspired the Bible to behave and function as opposed to being about the text itself.” II Timothy 3.16 makes it quite clear that it is the text itself, the written product (scripture) that we have before us, that is inspired, literally “God-breathed”:
All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (II Timothy 3.16)
It’s a hermeneutical mistake to assimilate scriptural inspiration to things like God’s breathing life into Adam or dry bones. Those are completely different contexts. God does not breathe life into Scripture. In fact, Scripture is breathed out by God, not breathed into! Scripture comes from the mouth of God.
But taking inspiration as a property of the text itself is quite compatible with understanding “this to be talking about the word of God as a creation of God that has been given a particular function and a purpose.” In fact, the above passage lays out just what that function and purpose is. Scripture has both didactic and pastoral functions: its didactic purpose is instruction in doctrine and refutation of heresy, and its pastoral purpose is spiritual and moral guidance. Now for instruction in sound doctrine and refutation of heresy, Scripture must be true in all that it teaches. If it teaches falsehood, those purposes could not be achieved. So the doctrine of inerrancy, properly formulated, states that Scripture is truthful in all that it teaches. This seems to me to be an unavoidable consequence of its profitability for teaching and correction. Only in that way can it be a source of authority in matters of doctrine.
You are quite right that such a view of inspiration is consistent with there being trivial matters in Scripture (the so-called levicula). It’s also consistent with there being false statements in Scripture, so long as these do not concern what Scripture teaches.
As for your concern with the loss of the original autographs, some have taken verbal inspiration to imply that it is only the scriptural autographs, now lost, which were inspired. Now it does seem apparent that copyists’ mistakes are not inspired, since they were not part of the God-breathed text but corruptions of it. For the same reason translations of the text are not inspired but are constantly revised in light of the originals. But the loss of the autographs does not imply the loss of God’s Word. By distinguishing between types and tokens of literary works, we may affirm that any token of the same type is as inspired as the original. Two physical copies of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, for example, are non-identical objects, and yet they can be said to be the same novel, which is not to be identified with any one physical instance. So two tokens of the New Testament are equally inspired if their type is. After all, they are identical in their wording.
While all the original words of Scripture are inspired, that does not imply that all are equally important. Indeed, you yourself recognize that some portions of Scripture are relatively trivial, and it is not hubris to recognize this fact. The doctrinal teaching of the book of Romans is obviously vastly more important than the personal greetings at its close! Any competent reader can discern this fact. Fortunately, any uncertainty in the reading of the original text concerns matters that are unimportant, and no Christian doctrine hangs on an uncertain passage. So the Church has not been disadvantaged by any uncertainty in the original text of the Bible.
- William Lane Craig