Dear Editor:

In the June issue of THE OUTLOOK Rev. Peter De Jong takes me to task in an article entitled “Attack on the Bible.” He begins by stating that in my March article in The Reformed Journal on the subject of the infallibility of Scripture I suggest: that instead of speaking about an infallible or inerrant Bible we should use words such as “trustworthy” or “reliable.” But the very opposite is what I wrote. I hold that these words are inadequate and misleading descriptions of the veracity of Scripture. I hold strongly that we should speak of an infallible Bible and I am very explicit about that in the article.

From that point on I give a quite different interpretation of what I understand by infallibility than the view Rev. De Jong and many with him entertain. Here we can enter into true discussion. But if discussion is to be fruitful we should correctly report the views and positions of another. This is particularly necessary when we write in different papers many of whose readers do not subscribe to both The Reformed Journal and THE OUTLOOK.

Cordially yours,

HARRY R. BOER

REPLY

In my June article I called attention to Dr. Harry Boer‘s attack on the doctrine of the infallibility of the Bible. He now charges me with misrepresenting his position because (1) he holds that the words “trustworthy” and “reliable” which suggested he would have us use were “inadequate and misleading” and (2) he “holds strongly that we should speak of an infallible Bible, but only want to interpret “infallibility” quite differently from what I and others do. What are the facts?

(1) Dr. Boer was writing on “the question of the infallibility of the Bible in its relationship to biblical” or “higher criticism.” In this and previous articles Dr. Boer strongly defended the efforts of this criticism to find and point out all kinds of mistakes and errors in the Bible, although he preferred to call them “disparities.” He pointed out that many people today prefer to speak of the Bible as “trustworthy” and “reliable” rather than “infallible.” This practice he explained and defended as the result of “the legitimate claims of higher criticism.” One does not find him in. his article saying, as he now does, that the words “trustworthy” and “reliable” are “inadequate and misleading.” There he only said “we should . . . be very careful how we use these qualities to define the integrity of the Scriptures” and somewhat later admitted “the considerable danger that using ‘infallibility’ in the sense of reliability and trustworthiness will result in losing the quality of absoluteness that attaches to the concept of infallibility.”

(2) Concerning the second point that “he holds strongly that we should speak of un infallible Bible and only wants to give this word ‘a quite different interpretation’” the word “infallible” is defined by our common English dictionaries (Webster’s) as meaning “not fallible; not capable of erring.” Compared with the synonym “that is infallible which makes, or is capable of making, no mistakes; that is inerrant which contains no errors.” If the word “infallible” properly means and if everyone understands it to mean “not capable of erring,” “capable of making no mistakes,” what gives Dr. Boer the right to say that he holds strongly that we should speak of an “infallible Bible” but interprets that to mean one that is full of mistakes! Does anyone have the right to redefine words to mean the opposite of what everyone else understands them to mean?

Dr. Machen a half century ago pointed out that the attempts of theologians already then to do that very thing were both nonsensical and dishonest.

While Dr. Boer wrote that the Bible “is not inerrant in the accepted sense of the word” because “inerrancy” connotes the unqualified absence of inconsistency of disparity of any kind,” he wanted to keep on calling it “infallible” by changing the meaning of that word. Although he suggested that his view was always really the churches’ doctrine, he admitted that “there is a new element in this view of infallibility and it is of great importance. The new element consists of an absence, an excision.” (“Excision” means a “cutting out.”) “It excludes from the understanding of infallibility the conception that the Bible as a human literary product is a book in which literary, historical, geographical, numerical or other disparities do not and cannot exist. In that sense the Bible cannot be said to be infallible or inerrant.” (Italics are his.)

If, as Dr. Boer insisted, “infallible” is an “absolute” word and if it means “capable of making no mistakes,” how can he possibly change it so that it can properly be applied to a Bible which he insists contains many kinds of errors? A book which contains some truths but also contains many mistakes cannot be “infallible in a different sense or “less infallible.” It cannot be considered infallible at all.

If Dr. Boer denies that the Bible is “infallible” in the sense in which the word is commonly defined and understood, why should he want to keep on using it to describe the Bible? It is plain that while he critically rejects many kinds of material in the Bible he still wants to keep something absolutely authoritative which is connoted by the word “infallible.” Using a number of examples he tried to point out among what he considered the contradictory accounts found in the Bible certain “common and abiding teachings” which he would have people continue to accept as God‘s Word. Who or what must determine what these “common and abiding teachings” are? Obviously the Bible cannot decide this for it, in this view, is full of many kinds of contradictions. Only the critical scholar can make this decision. Even on Dr. Boer‘s basis, therefore, what is there left in the Bible that could properly be called “infallible”?

In my article on Dr. Boer’s attack on the doctrine of the infallibility of the Bible, I did not bring up his attempt to change tile definition of the word so that it would cover something different from and even opposite to the meaning that the dictionary gives it. Since he himself now brings up this point, let the reader judge whether his attempt to change the meaning of the word so as to justify calling a Bible which he insists is full of human contradictions and errors “infallible” makes the view of Scripture which he advocated any more acceptable to an evangelical Christian or church.

PETER DE JONG

REPLIES TO THE BANNER EDITOR RE LINDSELL’S “THE BATTLE FOR THE BIBLE”

The Banner of August 20 continued an article by Dr. Dc Koster that makes me hang my head in shame. He refers to The Battle for the Bible by Dr. Harold Lindsell. The Banner editor says: “It is a highly incompetent work, at most a reservoir of unseemly gossip . . . the closer you look at it, the worse the book looks, as we shall we together sometime soon” [italics added].

This is a most injudicious blast, a diatribe unworthy of De Koster. The Bottle for the Bible has every manifestation of a competent research and of being most thoroughly documented. Lindsell actually tells us there is a Jot more to be said, but that, in the interest of clarity and no interest in hurting individual persons, he gives the facts of the main stream from earliest centuries, through the late 19th century and up to the current time. His basic thesis is to show what happens to any Church that questions the complete authority of Scripture in the whole of it, or any of its parts.

Now, De Koster, you have blasted a great work in a couple of sentences and promise that “we shall see together sometime soon” that you are right. Why, sir, do you make such a foul comment and then promise to tell us, who knows when, that the book really is “incompetent” and “gossip.” Shame on you. I consider you a competent man of letters, and the accusation against Lindsell can well be handled in one piece, indeed if you have the evidence of “incompetency” and “gossip.”

First, I regard Dr. Lindsell a brother in Christ. He is too worthy a soldier of the Lord to swat his work in a sentence, and then drop it for a latcr ibne.

Second, Dr. Lindsell writes simply nnd systematically. He develops what he says, and the documentation is clear. Those who denied the complete infallibility of the Bible in any part all went ‘that-a-way’—down. It’s a matter of record. Is that “incompetent”? Is it “gossip”?

Time’s ‘a wastin: Silence is sin on the part of any who believe the whole Word of God. You must speak quickly for you seem to say that Lindsell is wrong. If you really think so, you ought to say so, and tell us simply why he is wrong. Do you question total infallibility, or do you just question Lindsell? Your sulphorous denigration of such an important book, Battle for the Bible, requires an answer. It is a BATTLE being fought. We ourselves in Report 44 have not done well at all. There the Committee tried to mix “oil and water” in your own words, as of early 1972. That’s a longer story, and Report 44 has gained approval of which it is not at all worthy. Lindsell‘s work outclasses Report 44 immeasurably. He puts historical criticism of the Bible where it belongs—a denigration of the Holy Word. Report 44 confuses the infallible Word with cultural, historic research, and in the process Professors stand in judgment upon the Scriptures.

Tell us, please, brother De Koster, just what is “incompetent” and “gossip” in Dr. Lindsell’s excellent book. Of course you need make no comment on Report 44. , bear responsibility for that.

Fraternally,

CLIFFORD VANDER ARK

REPLY

Dear Cliff, please see The Banner editorial of September 24 in response to your letter. Sincerely,

LESTER DE KOSTER