To continue the theme of my last post, here’s a summary of what Wayne Grudem has to say about the doctrine of Scripture in his Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. I’m focussing on what Grudem says about the authority, inspiration (although Grudem doesn’t use that word) and inerrancy of Scripture. I’m doing this so that I understand and remember more of what I read (so my primary intention isn’t that somebody can come along and know what Grudem says – although I certainly hope that that can happen if anybody reads this).

Grudem’s Systematic Theology is divided into seven parts that systematically explain the doctrines of Scripture, God, man, Christ and the Holy Spirit, the application of redemption, the church, and the future. Each of these parts is divided into a number of chapters, and in this, I am obviously going to be looking at the first part on the doctrine of Scripture.

The Doctrine of the Word of God

The Word of God

The “Word of God” can refer to a number of different things. Namely, it can refer to Christ as a person (John 1) or God’s speech. God’s speech can refer to: God’s decrees (such as God’s speech in Genesis 1); God’s words of personal address (such as God’s speech to Adam in Genesis 2); God’s speech through human lips (such as that of the prophets); and God’s written word (the Bible). The focus of the rest of this is on God’s written word.

The Canon of Scripture

The canon of Scripture refers to which books belong in the Bible, and which books don’t belong. There are many reasons to believe that the “canon of Scripture today is exactly what God wanted it to be, and it will stay that way until Christ returns.” (p. 68)

The Four Characteristics of Scripture: (1) Authority

The entirety of Scripture is the Word of God. Although written by a number of humans over a long period of time, God claims the words of Scripture as his own. Scripture therefore comes with the authority of God, and thus cannot be challenged and must be obeyed. This is what Scripture teaches about itself, and we believe it.

It is impossible to prove that Scripture is true by appealing to a higher authority (such as historical accuracy or logical consistency) as Scripture, as God’s Word is already the highest authority one can appeal to. Although it is a circular argument to say that Scripture is the highest authority because it claims to be the highest authority, this does not make it invalid, as any appeal to ultimate authority will base its claim on that authority.

God used a wide variety of mechanisms to inspire Scripture. God sometimes dictated what to write (Revelation 2:1; OT prophets etc.), and at other times the authors of Scripture simply researched the subject matter and wrote (like Luke in Luke 1:1-3). More often Scripture does not indicate exactly how it happens, although a number of influences are hinted at (dreams and visions, and men who followed Christ and learned from him and had the Holy Spirit bring things to their remembrance – John 14:26). Scripture was written by humans who wrote with distinctive personalities and writing styles. For these authors, it is best to say that God providentially directed their life so that their experience, their education, their judgment, and their access to historical data were exactly what God wanted, so that the words they wrote were exactly as God wanted them to be.

God cannot lie, so the Bible cannot lie. Therefore, “there is no untruthfulness or falsehood affirmed in any of the statements of the Bible.” (p. 83) Scripture is not just true, it is truth itself. Therefore, as God’s Word, it the ultimate standard of truth and reflects God’s omniscience and truthfulness. As all truth is God’s truth, and God knows all things (past, present and future), we can be sure that no true fact or discovery will ever contradict Scripture.

The Bible, as it was written, is God’s authoritative Word. Therefore, it is not valid to, for example, translate Jesus’ words back into Aramaic and consider these as more authoritative than Scripture (although translating them may legitimately lead to a better understanding of what is written in Scripture).

The Inerrancy of Scripture

“The inerrancy of Scripture means that scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact.” (p. 90)

The Bible can speak in the language of normal people, so it can be imprecise (for example, with the number of people in a crowd – saying 10000 when there are actually 10849 is not wrong) and speak in phenomenological language (that is, talk about things from the perspective of somebody on earth – so the sun rises and rain falls).

The Bible can include “loose” or “free” quotations provided they are an “accurate report of the substance of a statement.” (p. 92) In the NT, there were no quotation marks, and quotations were not expected to be verbatim.

Odd spelling or grammar is not inconsistent with an inerrant Bible.

There are a number of objections made about inerrancy:

• The Bible is only infallible and authoritative on matters concerning “faith and practice” and can be wrong about scientific and historical details. However, the Bible never makes this distinction, and the distinction is often very difficult to make given how much teaching is based on historical events.
• The word “inerrancy” is too precise for what we should expect of Scripture. It may not be perfect (and it may not be in the Bible), but it is the best we can think of and it is well defined, so we should keep using it.
• We don’t have the original inerrant manuscripts, so it isn’t helpful to talk about an inerrant Bible. However, we can be quite sure that the Bible as we have it today is extremely close to the original manuscripts (and, for the most part, we know where the errors are), based on the work of scholars and our belief that God preserves his Canon.
• Biblical authors “accommodated” their message to the often false ideas of the day. However, although God did condescend to speak to us in human languages, he would not have affirmed anything contrary to fact as this would contradict his truthfulness.
• Inerrancy downplays the humanness of Scripture. But being human does not necessitate being erroneous.
• There are some obvious errors in the Bible. Many people claim this, but fewer are able to point out such errors. But many problematic texts do have reasonable ways to understand them, and there are many scholars who don’t know of any “problem texts” for which there does not exist a reasonable solution.

Denying inerrancy brings about many problems. Can we trust God in anything? If we get to decide what parts of the Bible are inerrant, does this make us a higher authority than the Bible? If the Bible is wrong about minor details, could it also be wrong about doctrines?

The Four Characteristics of Scripture: (2) Clarity

Although there are parts of the Bible that are hard (but not impossible) to understand, much of it is clear and every believer should expect to learn from it. Believers are expected to know the Bible – most of the NT letters were written to entire congregations (not just the leaders), and even the congregations with many Gentile Christians with no background in the OT were expected to read and understand the OT.

“The clarity of Scripture means that the Bible is written in such a way that its teachings are able to be understood by all who will read it seeking God’s help and being willing to follow it.” (p. 108)

However, believers often misunderstand Scripture. To avoid this as much as possible, we have hermeneutics (how to study the Bible) and exegesis (the process of interpreting and explaining the Bible).

The Four Characteristics of Scripture: (3) Necessity

“The necessity of Scripture means that the Bible is necessary for knowing the gospel, for maintaining spiritual life, and for knowing God’s will, but is not necessary for knowing that God exists or for knowing something about God’s character and moral laws.” (p. 116)

The Four Characteristics of Scripture: (4) Sufficiency

“The sufficiency of Scripture means that Scripture contained all the words of God he intended his people to have at each stage of redemptive history, and that it now contains all the words of God we need for salvation, for trusting him perfectly, and for obeying him perfectly.” (p. 127)