The response of ASA members to the resignation of Bruce Waltke from RTS prompts me to write this. Perhaps I am mis-reading my fellow ASAers, but it seems that there is little grasp of a divide that occurred in evangelicalism over forty years ago–a divide that continues to this day as I see it. This is a response in part as well to comments of Ted Davis and George Murphy to my post about Eugenie Scott’s visit to CSU.
The divide is over the distinction between inerrancy and what we might call limited inerrancy. Inerrantists, as defined by the Chicago statement, regard those who do not hold to this view as “neo-evangelicals”. The view of Rodgers, McKim, Bloesch, Pinnock, etc. would be in this camp. While these theologians may be theologically conservative compared to full-blown liberal theology on some key questions, e.g. the Trinity, Christology, the atonement, justification by faith, the work of the Holy Spirit, etc., as far as inerrantists are concerned, they are with the liberals as a consequence of their doctrine of scripture. These individuals and their associated institutions are not evangelicals–they are neo-evangelicals.
It is clear that the ASA as a whole is on the neo-evangelical side of this divide. Perhaps, even, the ASA helped pioneer this view with the writings of Richard Bube in the Journal of the ASA in the 1970’s. Paul Seely (among others) provided the Biblical scholarship arguments for this. Harold Lindsell’s The Battle for the Bible documents this from a highly critical perspective, and, while I don’t necessarily agree with all of Lindsell’s story, it makes the point. Today’s ASA remains in this camp for the most part. Lamoureux, Seely, Enns, N.T. Wright, etc., either ASAers or favorite theologians of ASAers, are among the ranks of Rodgers, McKim, Bloesch, Pinnock, etc. on the doctrine of Scripture. Biologos.org and those directly associated with it are in this camp as is evident from their books and the way that they address the science/Scripture problem.
What may surprise ASAers is that the conservative Reformed camp embodied in denominations such as the Presbyterian Church in America, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and institutions such as the Westminster Theological Seminaries, Covenant College, Covenant Seminary, and the various Reformed Theological Seminaries are on the more conservative end of this evangelical/neo-evangelical or inerrancy/limited inerrancy spectrum. There are other denominations and institutions that we would not necessarily label “fundamentalist” that would also be at the conservative end of the spectrum–I’m thinking here of places like Wheaton College. A significant group of ASA members and even leaders are from these denominations and institutions or are strongly influenced by them.
In these institutions to move from the evangelical to the neo-evangelical camp usually means losing one’s job if you are a pastor, college professor, or seminary professor. In making this move you have abandoned a key aspect of the modern conservative evangelical and Reformed faith. Witness the events surrounding Peter Enns at Westminster Seminary.
So what to make of the response to Bruce Waltke? The historicity of Adam and Eve and the Fall is a marker of adherence to the evangelical doctrine of Scripture. Most even go further and make the advocacy of any sort of animal ancestry of Adam or his body to be impossible in the inerrantist perspective. Thus, the reaction to Waltke (and in my opinion a similar fate awaits Tim Keller) for his comments at Biologos. Now for the record I believe that it is possible to maintain an evangelical/inerrantist perspective and to entertain evolutionary ideas, extending even to aspects of human evolution. I believe that both Waltke and Keller do this. If you read their contributions to Biologos carefully, you will see that there is no hesitation to affirm the evangelical/inerrantist view of scripture or to affirm the historicity of Adam and Eve and the Fall. We see this as well in the early 20th century theologian B. B. Warfield. In some respects, Waltke and Keller are finding common ground with neo-evangelicals on these evolution questions at the risk of their reputations as evangelicals.
So why do I engage in this “splitting” (as opposed to “lumping”) activity? Those of us in the ASA in the “evangelical” camp (in contrast with the “neo-evangelical” camp) are fully aware that the ASA is a big-tent organization, especially on this issue. While I can only speak for myself, I suspect that there are others with similar qualms. We are very uneasy with the “neo-evangelical” approaches to scripture/science questions. These approaches will not work in our churches or institutions. Thus, when we use Lamoureux or Collins or Falk or Enns, we have to qualify them, if we use them at all. They often provide good discussions of the science from the theistic perspective; they often point to acceptable ways of reading scripture on some issues (age of the earth, days of Genesis, the Flood, etc.) but often intermingled with these, especially when we start talking about human origins and the Fall, are what we regard to be compromising claims about the character of Scripture.
ASA members, especially those at the neo-evangelical end of the spectrum, should know that they are only preaching to the choir when they root their arguments in a neo-evangelical view of scripture. While some advocate that young-earth creationism is the only consistent inerrantist position, it is clearly not the case. However, arguments for evolution and human evolution need to be cast into an inerrantist perspective in order to be made convincing. This, of course, is a much trickier enterprise. Some ASA members seem oblivious to this divide and in doing so seem surprised when it becomes important. Their ignorance of or indifference to this divide muddles the conversation.
Alternatively, the ASA could just say that these inerrantist/evangelicals have their heads buried in the sand and that the “neo-evangelical” view of scripture IS the basis for a correct understanding of science/Scripture issues. This is largely what the ASA has done with young-earth creationism in practice. In the heyday of the fundamentalist/Modernist debate in the early 20th century, J. G. Machen in Christianity and Liberalism argued that in reality there were two irreconcilable and competing views of Christianity here–two different religions even. The evangelical world (in contrast to the neo-evangelical world) would argue similarly today. ASA could decide to play on only one side of this divide, but if we do, let’s fully understand what we are doing. When we call evangelicals to become neo-evangelicals, it is like asking them to change religions.
Like Terry I feel the tension all the time. Our pastor’s wife described a situation when she was in an evangelical college where the professor noted that the Bible was in effect not completely historical all the time. She took it and takes it as a departure from Christianity.
Take a listen to this piece which pitted Brian McLaren against Al Mohler.
I would add that the paleo-evangelical side of the debate tends to add extra “fences” to avoid a fullscale neo-evangelical hegemony. And this tends to put people like Tim Keller over in the neo-evangelical camp when I don’t think it’s warranted.
Take this discussion of Waltke’s approach to Scripture by Keller in his Biologos paper:
“Ancient writers also could use much figurative and symbolic language. For example, Bruce Waltke points out that when the Psalmist says, “you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Ps 139:13) he was not saying that he hadn’t developed in the perfectly normal biological ways. It is a figurative way to say that God instituted and guided the biological process of human formation in his mother’s womb. So when we are told that God ‘formed Adam from the dust of the ground’ (Gen 2:7), the author might be speaking figuratively in the same way, meaning that God brought man into being through normal biological processes.
17 Hebrew narrative is incredibly spare—it is only interested in telling us what we need to know to learn the teaching the author wants to convey.”
OK. At this point the evangelicals might be getting out their pitchforks. But Keller shows himself squarely in the paleo-evangelical camp in just the following page:
“I am not arguing something so crude as “if you don’t believe in a literal Adam and Eve, then you don’t believe in the authority of the Bible!” I contended above that we cannot take every text in the Bible literally. But the key for interpretation is the Bible itself. I don’t believe Genesis 1 can be taken literally because I don’t think the author expected us to. But Paul is different. He most definitely wanted to teach us that Adam and Eve were real historical figures. When you refuse to take a Biblical author literally when he clearly wants you to do so, you have moved away from the traditional understanding of the Biblical authority. As I said above, that doesn’t mean you can’t have a strong, vital faith yourself, but I believe such a move can be bad for the church as a whole, and it certainly can lead to confusion on the part of laypeople.”
I do see Keller getting into trouble with conservative evangelicals, but I believe it’s the tendency to eschew scholastic nuance that’s so prevelant now in 21st Century evangelicalism. Some fifty years after Hofstadter wrote “Anti-Intellectualism in America Life” the underlying effects he saw clearly have manifested itself in the evangelical subculture.
Terry, thanks for your post. I also appreciate Richard Blinne’s comment. Terry, given your adherence to evangelical rather than neo-evangelical views, why were you put on trial by your denomination years ago? You handled things so admirably, in my opinion, and you clearly retained evangelical, inerrantist views. I never completely understood why some people in your denomination mistrusted your theology. Was it a lack of imagination on their part? Perhaps some people simply cannot imagine how to combine evolutionary biology with evangelical Christian views. At best, maybe they suspected that you were neo-evangelical, and nothing you said could convince them otherwise. Or, maybe they were young-earth creationists and no old-earth view, let alone evolutionary creation view, would satisfy them. Anyway, you certainly landed on your feet!
Well done, Terry, very well done: you’ve hit one of the biggest nails directly on the head. Of the many responses I could make, let me make just this one for the time being.
I have been asked about my own view of inerrancy often–by students, by faculty colleages, and by people not affiliated with Messiah, including faculty and administrators at other Christian colleges. Like you, I’ve thought about this a lot. Whether or not I personally endorse “inerrancy” depends a great deal on whether or not it’s accompanied by an acceptance of the classical priniciple of accommodation–the view articulated by Augustine, Calvin, Galileo, Kepler, and many other theologians and scientists, that the Bible is accommodated to the understanding (which means both the verbal and conceptual vocabularly) of the ordinary person. Without such accommodation, in my opnion, the Bible could not have conveyed its crucial message of salvation to anyone at all, for it would not have been understood by anyone. The very fact that the divine word has been conveyed to us in Hebrew, Greek, or any other human language is part and parcel of the problem addressed by accommmodation: namely, that the word of God is mediated to human beings in human language, with all of the limitations, impreciseness, and ambiguities of human languages. And, in my view, with all of the erroneous conceptions that underlie human languages. (The upside of this is that the word is mediated to us with all of the richness, power, and beauty of human languages. I will ignore that here, but I do not want anyone to ignore that I have said it.)
In other words, Terry, I can accept a notion of inerrancy that is coupled with a proper notion of accommodation. To take this further, let me ask you, Terry, for your view of the following passage, taken from Calvin’s Commentary on the Pslams, specifically for Psalm 58: 4-5, as follows:
“Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder. He prosecutes his description; and, though he might have insisted on the fierceness which characterised their opposition, he charges them more particularly, here as elsewhere, with the malicious virulence of their disposition. Some read, their fury; but this does not suit the figure, by which they are here compared to serpents. No objection can be drawn to the translation we have adopted from the etymology of the word, which is derived from heat. It is well known, that while some poisons kill by cold, others consume the vital parts by a burning heat. David then asserts of his enemies, in this passage, that they were as full of deadly malice as serpents are full of poison. The more emphatically to express their consummate subtlety, he compares them to deaf serpents, which shut their ears against the voice of the charmer — not the common kind of serpents, but such as are famed for their cunning, and are upon their guard against every artifice of that description. But is there such a thing, it may be asked, as enchantment? If there were not, it might seem absurd and childish to draw a comparison from it, unless we suppose David to speak in mere accommodation to mistaken, though generally received opinion. He would certainly seem, however, to insinuate that serpents can be fascinated by enchantment; and I can see no harm in granting it. The Marsi in Italy were believed by the ancients to excel in the art. Had there been no enchantments practiced, where was the necessity of their being forbidden and condemned under the Law? (De 18:11.) I do not mean to say that there is an actual method or art by which fascination can be effected. It was doubtless done by a mere sleight of Satan, whom God has suffered to practice his delusions upon unbelieving and ignorant men, although he prevents him from deceiving those who have been enlightened by his word and Spirit. But we may avoid all occasion for such curious inquiry, by adopting the view already referred to, that David here borrows his comparison from a popular and prevailing error, and is to be merely supposed as saying, that no kind of serpent was imbued with greater craft than his enemies, not even the species (if such there were) which guards itself against enchantment.”
Terry: what is your overall opinion of Calvin’s appeal to accommodation in this passage, especially in the final sentence I have quoted?
My sense is, that a lot (perhaps nearly all) of those in the paleo-evangelical camp would not want to go as far as Calvin goes here. Would you agree with me, Terry?
The problem with the principle of accommodation is, it does not come with an “off switch.” That is, it does not come with a rubric, indicating when it is appropriate to use and when it isn’t. That judgment is always left as an excercise for the reader, as it were, and not all readers will read it the same way. Does this get at what you are saying, Terry?
If we were to apply accommodation to Genesis One (not the story of the fall), then in my view we could conclude that God used an existing human literary genre–namely, an ANE creation myth–to convey a powerful theological truth, namely that all visible things were created by the One, invisible God, such that no thing we see ought to be worshipped. (This of course underscores the oxymoronic nature of Incarnation, from the Jewish perspective; I am unable to read Genesis One without the gloss found in the prologue to John’s gosel. But, I am a Christian, not a Jew.) Would you agree with this, Terry? Could God use a secular literary genre, in which significant details in the story (”days” of creation, watery chaos to order) come from the genre itself? Does this fall within your own understanding of accommodation?
For more on this, see the essay by Conrad Hyers in our own journal. http://www.asa3.org/aSA/PSCF/1984/JASA9-84Hyers.html
Charles, Terry was convicted in believing Adam had animal ancestors (as out of accord of both Scripture and the confessional standards of the OPC) but acquited of subordinating Scripture to empirical evidence. My sense of the atmosphere inside of evangelicalism is worse and more poisonous than when Terry was originally tried. I believe he would be in more jeopardy on the second charge if he was tried today. I know that Terry would say that I’m living in the wrong corner of evangelicalism. Still, my comments are more to the general state of the community rather than to deny there exists safe pockets within the community.
The ASA is clearly a home for those resolve the tension between the scientific and Biblical evidence through either accomodationism or concordism. The problem that Terry is raising is how much of a home is it for both him and myself who find aspects of both approaches unsatisfying. Perhaps both our personalities tolerate the cognitive dissonance more than others. To be sure, modern evangelicalism is a quest for absolute certainty and this disrupts it. There are exceptions such as Tim Keller who stress the importance of doubt in the faith process.
I don’t believe Terry and I are alone here. I get the sense that everyone wants us to chose between the two books. We want to affirm both without denying either. The fact that we cannot fathom how to do it shouldn’t be an argument against making the humble affirmation of both.
Excellent point, Richard – “The fact that we cannot fathom how to do it [affirm both the Book of God's Works in Nature and the Book of God's Word, the Bible, without denying either] shouldn’t be an argument against making the humble affirmation of both. “ As Polkinghorne put it in a recent essay in Theology and Science (Vol 7, No. 4, 2009, pp. 317-322) when discussing models for personal agency and divine action explored at Vatican-sponsored conferences in the 1990s: “These explorations were certainly worthwhile, but they could amount to no more than the toys of thought in considering agency. The discussion served to “defeat the defeaters”, who were proclaiming that science denied the possibility of agency, but it would have been hugely overambitious to expect that full answers would be found to the deep problems involved … What is clear is that science is in no position to forbid us to take with utmost seriousness … our religious intuitions discerning God’s providential action within history.” Indeed, I think we need to humbly admit that we don’t have all the answers, about divine action or about Bible interpretation or about anything else, and yet we need to assertively counter “defeaters” who claim (on the basis of science) that God cannot exist or (if existing) cannot act. If such humble confidence were more widespread among Christians, then postures regarding Bible interpretation and other issues might be less defensive, and more open to fruitful dialogue.
But would it be a lie for one to claim that the two books don’t conflict when one knows in their heart that they do conflict? Is it ok for people to accept cognitive dissonance in their life, but deny that they are experiencing it?
So for the ancients (those in OT and NT times), the story of Noah’s ark and flood was a myth that they took to be real. Now we know there was no local or global flood so God was just accommodating them.
Theology also gets redefined because of new origins interpretations.
OLD: Adam’s sin ushered in death and disease.
NEW: Death and disease were in play billions of years before Adam was created.
I think the ASA is doing the right thing by encouraging discussion without taking an official stand.
…Bernie
(Friend of the ASA)
Bernie, I don’t have anything against discussions and as someone who comes from the Reformed community I have a lot of respect for the accommodationist school. What I am saying is both the concordist and accommodationist schools sometimes claim they solve more problems than they actually do. As for “new” theology, any student of the history of theology will tell you much of what goes for new is merely rehashed ancient doctrines.
It would be arrogant to assume that we are less prone to error than the ancients but rather we have different ones. Thus, any theology of accommodation must include accommodating our error.
Charles. As Rich pointed out, the issue in the OPC turned into a simple question. Does the Bible (mainly Genesis 2:7) allow for a view where Adam’s body could have an evolutionary forebear? The question of my view of Scripture had been dropped as I had convinced the church that there was no difference between the church’s view and my view. I think I had also convinced the church that there were no theological consequences to my notion that Adam had evolutionary forebears, at least in the way I held my particular view. Nonetheless the church ruled that this particular interpretation of Genesis 2:7 was indisputable and essential for office bearers in the OPC. Of course, you can never know exactly why people voted the way they did. I suspect there was a coalition of those who were firmly convinced of the Genesis 2:7 argument, those who were actually strongly convinced anti-evolutionists and young-earth creationists, and those convinced by slippery slope type arguments, i.e. even though my views seemed not to go anywhere bad, we can’t let the camel’s nose in the tent. I appealed to B.B. Warfield but to no avail. Some have consequently speculated that it was Warfield’s “compromise” on evolution that led to the abandonment of orthodoxy in the Presbyterian church that ultimately led to the formation of the OPC.
Thanks, Terry. I’m Lutheran rather than Presbyterian, but everything has a familiar ring. I take it that the OPC respects B.B. Warfield in general, but … they won’t follow him on evolution anymore. Same thing has happened in other denominations. It’s not always enough to have the same view of Scripture – sometimes there also has to be the same particular interpretation of a key verse, often for reasons going beyond the verse itself. Reminds me of the way Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina was ill-received by the theologians of his day, yet JPII would later commend Galileo’s interpretations as being better than those of the 17th century theologians. Same will happen over Gen 2:7 and Adam having evolutionary forebears – it just might take a few centuries. Anyway, thanks again for the clarification.
Terry said:
Wasn’t that back when you had a pony tail? That would be another reason for suspicion in many churches, even though you could appeal to pictures with Jesus having long hair.
Richard said:
I agree we all have errors. But one thing I see totally different than you is that I think we, if we are smart, have an obvious advantage over the ancients. There is so much that we take for granted but they didn’t even know (such that the Earth is spinning at 1,000 mph and going 68,000 mph around a spinning Sun moving at 486,000 mph). They wouldn’t believe you if you told them this. And that is just two examples of hundreds or thousands of facts, because of our modern science we have because we have tools and technology they didn’t have. We also have the advantage of learning from their mistakes… priceless. Many of these facts conflict with Scripture, so in order to resolve them, we should try to ascertain the scientific facts before we attempt to reach a conclusion. For example, how serious do young earthers contemplate the facts of evolution, rather than just categorically dismiss it as a problem of atheistic presuppositions?
Newton said:
“If I have seen farther it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
If we can’t see more and farther than the ancients, then we aren’t using the data available to us. Many have said to me that we aren’t any better than the ancients, and it seems like nonsense to me. I don’t understand how we can stand on the shoulders of giants and NOT see farther… esp. as they guide and direct us.
…Bernie
(Friend of the ASA)