The Refonned Presbyterian Church of North America (Covenanters) which was organized in 1774 traces its roots to the Scotch reformation and stresses the Lordship of Christ in the life of the individual, the church and the nation. In worship it sings only the Psalms, without instrumental accompaniment. Its seminary is in Pittsburgh and its Geneva College is at Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania.

The question of the authority of the Bible has once more become a subject of intense debate among professing Christians. In the Modernist-Fundamentalist controversy of the 1920‘s and ‘30’s, those who affirmed the great truths of the virgin birth of Christ, his miracles, substitutionary atonement, bodily resurrection and ascension, also stated their belief in the full inspiration of the Bible. In recent years, a growing number of evangelicals who profess to hold the orthodox doctrines regarding the person and work of Christ are expressing various degrees of hesitation in affirming the inerrancy of Scripture. The debate has been going on for some years, but it has gotten much more attention since the publication of Harold Lindsell‘s The Battle for the Bible (Zondervan, 1976), in which the former editor of Christianity Today charged a number of evangelical seminaries with having departed from a full commitment to the authority of Scripture. A significant response has come in Biblical Authority (Word Books, 1977), edited by Jack Rogers of Fuller Theological Seminary.

In the face of such a controversy among evangelicals, it is important that the stance of our own Seminary be clear. The faculty of the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary is committed to the system of doctrine contained in the Westminster Confession, and believes that that system includes the teaching that the Scriptures, as originally given by God, are without error in all that they affinn. Further, all the professors concur with the statement in the revised Testimony of the R.P. Church, approved unanimously by the 1977 Synod, which reads,

God gave His written revelation progressively by holy men whom He chose, inspired and infallibly guided to write, inerrantly and completely, the revelation of His will. In all that they wrote . they were guided by the Holy Spirit as to matter and manner so that their writings are indeed the word of God.

In order that our meaning may be clear in affirming the inerrancy of Scripture, and that our concerns regarding the rejection of inerrancy may be expressed, we will examine briefly what is being said about Scripture in the current debate.

1. It is said that since inerrancy is ascribed only to the original manuscripts of Scripture, and we have only imperfect copies, the concept is meaningless. It is true that we do not have any perfect copies of the original Scriptures, and that God is able to use the Bibles we have, even in translation, to make his will known for our salvation and life. However, in preaching and study of the Bible we must seek to he as accurate as possible, and that means that when there are variations in the manuscripts, we endeavor by textual criticism to determine the correct reading. The whole procedure of textual criticism assumes that there is an original form of Scripture which is the most authoritative. When we are confident that we know the original reading, we regard that as God‘s own word. It should be noted, by the way, that the number of variations is small, and affects no basic doctrine of Christianity.

2. It is said that the Bible is imperfect according to the rules of grammar and literary style of the original languages. This objection assumes that there is somewhere a perfect model of the Greek and Hebrew languages, to which the Bible should con· form. However, rules of grammer are only descriptions of the way in which a language usually or often functions, and, as any student of English knows, there are many exceptions to the rules. The Bible is written in the language of common people, and the grammatical irregularities are there to communicate God’s truth in a way that is vivid and clear.

3. It is said that the Bible uses “prescientific” language, and therefore states things about the natural world that are not literally true. For example, it speaks of the sun “rising,” when everyone knows that it is the earth, not the sun, which changes position. No significant defender of inerrancy would deny that the Bible uses popular and poetic language when speaking of events in the natural world, but such language is readily understandable by both “scientific” and “non-scientific” people. No one calls it a mistake when the newspaper give the time of “sunrise” every day! 4. More seriously, some of those who are rejecting the term “inerrancy” are saying that while the Bible is generally trustworthy, there are actual mistakes with regard to details. We must not get lost in disputes over trivia, they tell us, but listen in faith to the central message of the Scripture. We must not debate how many people saw the risen Christ, and in what order, but must believe that he truly rose from the dead. The problem with this position is that the details cannot be successfully separated from the central affirmations. Resurrection appearances are described in the Gospels as the evidence of the bodily resurrection. If the evidence cannot be trusted, what grounds have we for believing in the event itself? Further, how shall we determine which teachings of the Scripture are central and which are details that are not necessarily to be believed? 5. Finally, it is being said that the Bible is infallible in matters that are “saving” or “revelational,” but not in the areas of science or history. According to such an approach, scientific and historical investigation can establish what is true in these areas of study without any reference to what the Bible teaches about those matters. Then, the Bible’s statements about the natural world and human events can be tested and rejected by the standards of secular learning, while its “religious” meaning remains unaffected. For example, if anthropologists tell us that no such person as Adam ever existed, we must accept that, and still believe the “saving” truth which is in the early chapters of Genesis. Not all who speak of limiting infallibility to the area of salvation are willing to go as far as the illustration does, but it is clearly the trend. Francis Schaeffer’s books (particularly The God Who Is There) are helpful in understanding the kind of “two-story thinking” which wrongly separates religious truth from scientific knowledge. It is the kind of thinking which dominates neo-orthodoxy. While it would be wrong to label all those who are questioning inerrancy as being neo-orthodox, it is a matter of grave concern that three of the six articles in Biblical Authority speak in favorable terms of some of the theological contributions of Karl Barth. The question occurs, If inerrancy is abandoned, can neo-orthodoxy be successfully resisted?

Without denying the complexities and difficulties involved in the position of Scriptural inerrancy, the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary operates on that basis, believing that it is what is taught by Christ and the apostles. We believe that when we have correctly understood a passage of Scripture, its meaning possesses absolute authority over our faith and life. We do not approach Scripture as critics and judges, but as students and servants, confident that in the very words of the Bible we hear the voice of our Master and Lord. 

Reprinted by permission from the Nov. 30, 1977 Covenanter Witness, magazine of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America.

Wayne R. Spear, Professor of Systematic Theology, at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, PA.