Review Essay, Keeping the Balance

Cameron goes on to consider several concepts in the Christian view of Scripture which are essential for pursuing what evangelicals believe to be the correct theological method:

Inspiration The first concept to be tackled is inspiration. What does it mean to say the Bible is inspired? Many non-Christians would, in fact, agree that the Bible is inspired work. Just like Shakespeare. However, “Historically, when Christians have spoken of the inspiration of Scripture, it is the Bible to which they have attributed inspiration, whatever may have been the talents and experiences of its human authors”. The Bible actually claims inspiration for itself. Anticipating the familiar argument of “circular reasoning”, Cameron rightly points out that it makes perfect sense, if we are going to make use of and make claims about the Bible, to find out what the Bible actually has to say about itself! “The fundamental problem of theology since the rise of the ‘critical’ view of the Bible, has been its attempt to use the Bible as the basis for theological statements while flatly rejecting the Bible’s view of itself”. The Bible considers itself “God-breathed” (the true meaning of the word sometimes translated “inspired” in 2 Timothy 3:16)—”the product of a specifically divine operation”. (Of course, “To speak of its origin in the mind and breath of God is not to speak of the method by which it came to be written”—an important point to which Cameron will return to again later on).

Plenary, or verbal, inspiration One of the first questions that must be asked, on ascribing divine inspiration to the Scriptures, is what is the extent of that inspiration? Does “the divine superintendence of their composition” really extend “right down to the form of words used by the human author”? Cameron believes so. He argues firstly that “Any claim we make about the book as a whole must hold good of its parts”. If the parts are not inspired, what is left? His second point is that the Bible itself claims an inspiration that extends down to the last “jot and tittle” (Matthew 5:18). He observes that “The New Testament, and in particular the teaching of Jesus, is full of arguments and expositions which depends for their force upon individual words and phrases in the Old Testament Scriptures”. Again, if we’re going to be consistent, we need to see what the Bible has to say about itself before we settle down to theologising from it.

Tags: balance, carl trueman, christian student, daniel strange, david field, intervarsity, phillip duce, theology, theology degree

Category: In Depth, Spring 2006