Preservation: How and What? Part 3
Read Does the Bible teach that God’s people will always be able to point to a particular text1 of the Bible and know that it is the word-perfect, preserved text? Those who believe a particular choice of translations is “the biblically right” option, tend to answer (passionately) in the affirmative. But many who use other translations or simply prefer the KJV are not so sure. Who is right?
Points of agreement
Nearly all involved in the controversy are agreed that God has preserved His Word for us in some sense. Nearly all are agreed as well that Scripture teaches God will preserve forever, somewhere and in some form, every one of the words He inspired and that some believers will always have access to Scripture in some form. God’s ability to use imperfect sinners to perfectly preserve His Word is also not in dispute, nor is the fact that we should accept what the Bible reveals to be true regardless of the claims of the “science of textual criticism” or any “high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor. 10:5, KJV).
It is also agreed that the Bible depicts human beings as both finite and fallen and prone to error in what they do, but that God overcame human fallibility when He inspired “holy men of God” to record the Scriptures (2 Pet. 1:21). This is where we come to a major fork in the road. Though we do not have equally direct and clear statements to the effect that God also ensures word-perfect preservation (see part 2), many believe a compelling case for this kind of preservation can be derived from less direct passages. The book Thou Shalt Keep Them (TSKT) is an important example.
The next two articles in this series aims to examine all of the relevant biblical arguments in TSKT to see whether we have sufficient grounds for believing God has continuously overcome the limitations of His servants so that they maintain a word-perfect, preserved text of the Bible.
Passages handled previously
TSKT has chapters devoted to several of the seven popular preservation texts I examined earlier in this series: Psalm 12:6-7 (TSKT, ch. 1), Matthew 5:17-18 (TSKT, ch. 3), Matthew 24:35 (TSKT, ch. 5) and 1 Peter 1:23-25 (TSKT, ch. 7). These passages clearly affirm a concept of preservation, but do not tell us to expect a word-perfect text to be available to every generation.
Though all of these passages would be consistent with the idea that we will always be able to access word-perfect copies of Scripture, “consistent with” is not strong evidence that God has chosen to overcome the human fallibility the Bible clearly teaches us to expect.
Other important passages
Perhaps recognizing that these often-cited passages are not sufficient to support their conclusions, the writers of TSKT look to several other verses as well. We’ll consider these individually.
“Every word that proceedeth”
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. (Matt. 4:4)
Thomas M. Strouse handles this passage in TSKT’s second chapter and concludes the following:
The Lord clearly stated His belief in the availability of Scripture by assuming the accessibility of every Word. The Savior clearly stated His belief in the verbal, plenary preservation of God’s Words since they had been and were still preserved intact in His day. (p. 39)
But Strouse’s case proves to be weak on several grounds. First, the perfect tense of “it is written” (gegraptai), does not indicate anything about the future of what is written, as he asserts (p. 38). Rather, the tense indicates an action that occurred in the past and has produced a state that continues in the writer’s (or, in this case, speaker’s) present. The idea here is simply “it stands written.”
Second, Jesus describes the “every word” He has in mind as coming from the “mouth” of God, and uses the Greek rhēma (ῥῆμα) for “word.” Rhēma normally indicates spoken rather than written words.
Third, “proceeds” is in the present tense. The sense is “every word that is proceeding from the mouth of God.” Though continuation is not always part of the meaning of a present tense verb, the fact that “shall live” is future almost requires that sense here. “Man shall live now and in the future by every word that is proceeding from the mouth of God.”
Finally, the context is also significant. Deuteronomy 8:3, which Jesus quotes here, is a reminder to the children of Israel that they are dependent on God’s decrees for their well being. And in the immediate context, Jesus is responding to pressure from Satan to turn stones into bread (during a long fast).
These details do not prove that Jesus was referring to unwritten words, but together they do strongly suggest He was speaking of God’s continual commanding of what we need to “live.” He was emphasizing our dependence on the Father as well as the Father’s sovereign control over our lives. In Matthew Henry’s words:
It is true, God in his providence ordinarily maintains men by bread out of the earth (Job 28:5); but he can, if he please, make use of other means to keep men alive; any word proceeding out of the mouth of God, any thing that God shall order and appoint for that end, will be as good a livelihood for man as bread, and will maintain him as well.2
Jesus’ statement here does not communicate that He had access to an Old Testament text that contained every word originally inspired. The statement is even further from teaching that every generation of believers will have access to such a text.
“They have received them”
For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. (John 17:8)
In ch. 4, Strouse takes up the case once again, this time emphasizing the concept of a “received Bible.”
This essay will demonstrate that…the Lord Jesus is the Author of the received Bible mindset and expects His followers to be united around the received Bible movement throughout history. (p. 52)
The chapter’s argument is based in part on the view that “the words” Jesus says the Father gave Him are the entire “Bible canon,” and the same as the “all Scripture” of 2 Timothy 3:16—the same words Jesus said would never pass away (Matt. 24:35, p. 53). Furthermore, since all will be judged by these words (John 12:48), all of the “canonical Words” must be written and preserved. To judge men by anything less than “perfectly preserved, inscripturated Words” would be unjust (p.53).
Strouse then cites several references to believers “receiving” the word (pp. 54-55) and, in the process, gives “receive” a special meaning: something along the lines of “to get a hold of a copy of the entire Bible that you know is a word-perfect copy” (my words, not his).
A close look at the text, however, reveals that it does not support the conclusions Strouse draws from it. That Jesus is referring to the entire canon when He says “the words which thou gavest me,” is far from “presumably” true (p. 53), especially since much of the canon had not yet been written at the time. Plus, the words Jesus says His hearers will be judged by (John 12:48) refers most naturally to those He had been speaking to them personally. Other passages may expand on the content of what men will be judged by, but can we reasonably argue that every word of Scripture must be preserved, recognized and accessible in order for this judging to be just? How would someone be judged differently if Luke 9:3 reads mēte ana duo chitōnas, “not two tunics apiece” (Textus Receptus), rather than simply mēte duo chitōnas, “not two tunics” (Nestle-Aland 27th ed.)?3
What Jesus says in John 17:8 is simply that He has faithfully passed on the words He was given. Turning this into “every single one of the words of Scripture” is reading into the text. Even if we suppose that Jesus meant exactly that, the conclusion that He promises a word-perfect text for every generation does not follow.
“Thou hast known the holy scriptures”
In ch. 6, Charles Nichols argues that “inspiration implies preservation,” based on 2 Timothy 3:15-17.
15And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 17That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
Nichols summarizes his claim as follows:
2 Timothy 3:15-17 strongly suggests perfect, available, verbal and plenary preservation of Scripture just as it establishes God’s inerrant, verbal, plenary inspiration. (p. 68)
His argument asserts that “holy” (v.15) indicates “unadulterated, and pure from defilement” (p. 65). He argues further that the primary meaning of grammata (“scriptures” in v.15) is “letters,” therefore, Paul was pointing out to Timothy that Timothy had grown up having access to a letter-perfect Old Testament text (p. 66). On the basis of the relationship between v.15 and v.16, Nichols observes, “what God inspired is perfect. Therefore, the Old Testament was perfectly preserved to Timothy’s day” (p. 66).
Based on the sufficiency of Scripture expressed in 3:17, Nichols concludes that “Sufficiency depends on every writing God breathed” and “the availability of every writing is an obvious ramification of ‘all Scripture is profitable’ ” (p.67). His conclusion is that “the unadulterated Words, recorded up to or more than a thousand years earlier, were available to Timothy.”
A closer look
Several problems exist with this line of argument as well. First, “holy” (hieros, which Nichols says is synonymous with hagios) does not always mean completely pure. For example, 1 Corinthians 7:14 describes the children of believers as hagios.
Second, the passage does not say that Timothy “had access to” or “possessed” the “holy scriptures” but that he knew them. Unless we suppose that young Timothy knew every single inspired word of the Old Testament, “holy scriptures” in v.15 cannot have that meaning. Rather, it refers to the subset of the Scriptures Timothy had personally learned.
Verse 16, however, does specify that “all Scripture” is theopneustos (an adjective rendered “given by inspiration” in the KJV). Paul’s point is that the Scripture Timothy knew was powerful and sufficient because the Scripture that was inspired was powerful and sufficient. He does not say that what Timothy knew included every word originally given.
Third, even if Timothy had had access to a word-perfect copy of the Old Testament, what would this prove about what we have today?
The sufficiency argument based on 3:17 remains. Nichol’s reasoning is that if “all Scripture” is sufficient, missing any words would render it insufficient. But the reasoning is faulty. If I say “all of my money is sufficient to buy a hamburger,” I’m not denying that “some of my money is sufficient to buy a hamburger.” Granted, if the “some” is reduced to a small enough subset of “all,” it eventually becomes insufficient. But it is far from obvious that the discrepancies we find in the MSS cross that threshold.
Conclusion
Several passages and Bible-based arguments in TSKT remain to be considered. So far, its case for a biblical doctrine of word-perfect text preservation proves nothing beyond what is generally agreed: that God has seen to it that we have His Word today in a form that is sufficient to inform our faith and direct our obedience.
Notes
1 “Text” here means a complete Hebrew and Aramaic OT and complete Greek NT.
2 Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, (Matt. 4:4).
3 Of course, not all manuscript differences are so minor, but a vast quantity of them are. TSKT’s preservation argument here requires that every pronoun and qualifier be preserved in order for God to judge justly.
Aaron Blumer, SI’s site publisher, is a native of lower Michigan and a graduate of Bob Jones University (Greenville, SC) and Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). He, his wife, and their two children live in a small town in western Wisconsin, where he has pastored Grace Baptist Church (Boyceville, WI) since 2000. Prior to serving as a pastor, Aaron taught school in Stone Mountain, Georgia and worked in customer service and technical support for Unisys Corporation (Eagan, MN). He enjoys science fiction, music, and dabbling in software development.
[] Paul’s point is that the Scripture Timothy knew was powerful and sufficient because the Scripture that was inspired was powerful and sufficient.In discussion on an earlier article in this series someone asked if I though the “Scriptures” of 3.15 referred to something different than the “Scriptures” of 3.16. At the time, I had not studied the question closely. What I’m suggesting here is that they both refer to the Scriptures themselves, the autographa. But there is a distinction between the two verses based on the word “all” in v.16 which is not in v.15.
Timothy “knew” some of the verbal, plenary inspired Scriptures … just as we do today regardless of what Hebrew or Greek text underlies the translation we are using.
The word-for-word inerrant quality of what God inspired is not in dispute in anything I’ve written.
As for what kind of proof is necessary. There are really only two possibilities that matter here.
a) God said He would do it
b) External evidence
Either way, we must have a reason for believing something. But if we have the first, we have no need for the second. My thesis is simply that we do not have the first.
The whole effort to cast the preservation debate as a choice between a modernistic/rationalistic way of thinking vs. a “logic of faith” way of thinking is a fantasy.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
I think you get this right. Timothy had access to the Scriptures in the same sense we all do - in either a translation or a copy of a copy of a copy…. (edition). To the degree that the copy we have is faithful to the original, we can claim to have an inspired copy. The originals are what were “given by inspiration”. We wouldn’t say that every copy of the originals is “given by inspiration” or “breathed out by God”. But the original words are. The original message is. Inspiration extends to the words and letters. But here in 2 Tim. 3 we don’t have a promise that every copy will be equally perfect to that degree.
Striving for the unity of the faith, for the glory of God ~ Eph. 4:3, 13; Rom. 15:5-7 I blog at Fundamentally Reformed. Follow me on Twitter.
[Aaron Blumer] The sufficiency argument based on 3:17 remains. Nichol’s reasoning is that if “all Scripture” is sufficient, missing any words would render it insufficient. But the reasoning is faulty. If I say “all of my money is sufficient to buy a hamburger,” I’m not denying that “some of my money is sufficient to buy a hamburger.” Granted, if the “some” is reduced to a small enough subset of “all,” it eventually becomes insufficient. But it is far from obvious that the discrepancies we find in the MSS cross that threshold.I thought this was really good, Aaron. This is where the rubber meets the road. It just isn’t true that the nature of the differences we find between the various Greek editions is such that only one or the other can be useful, and even more— that one or the other must of necessity be Satanic and corrupted to the point of it being unfit for use at all. That is just not the case.
Striving for the unity of the faith, for the glory of God ~ Eph. 4:3, 13; Rom. 15:5-7 I blog at Fundamentally Reformed. Follow me on Twitter.
[Aaron Blumer][]Thanks for saying this. I get so tired of people framing theological arguments using straw men. “Either you are 1611 or you are a liberal rationalist” gets used way too much. It also exhibits the fallacy of the excluded middle. Just because I don’t believe in the KJB doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in preservation.
The whole effort to cast the preservation debate as a choice between a modernistic/rationalistic way of thinking vs. a “logic of faith” way of thinking is a fantasy.
As Bob mentioned above your sufficiency argument was good. Here is another rubber-meets-the-road place: can a person get saved after reading a [inert the translation you love to hate here] version? I have a dear brother who constantly wants to attribute translations to the Satanic realm and yet he has to admit that “even the meanest” versions point to a clear way of salvation by repentance of sin and faith in Christ.
Jon Bell Bucksport, ME "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
Well, I think that I asked this question and I don’t buy your answer. It flies in the face of the plain fact that there is no signifying distinction. As much as this portion has been exegeted, dissected and analyzed, can you provide a single scholarly sourceWell, for one thing, depending on a scholarly source would sort of be following the modernist, rationalist paradigm, wouldn’t it? I’m half kidding about that.
But I don’t need a scholar for this point and you don’t either. The distinction rests on two things…
- the word “all” in vs.16 and
- the unlikelihood that Timothy had every word of the OT committed to memory
why did the Fundamentalist fight the Liberals/Modernists so hard over the doctrine of inspiration.This is a very good question as well. I can’t speak for those who were involved in the fight, but for my part, I’d join the fight today because
- The Bible clearly teaches the doctrine of inspiration… we cannot deny it without becoming completely arbitrary in what we choose to believe and not believe
- Even without every word preserved, having no inspired words to pursue (by comparing the mss) would a dramatically different situation.
To illustrate, suppose the Mona Lisa were destroyed in a museum fire. Would it make sense to say “Well, we don’t have any perfect copies that are exactly like the original so there’s no point in claiming DaVinci painted it?” It doesn’t follow.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
That accusation has been repeated ad nauseum (and that’s getting close to literally true at this point) and you’ve observed that I have not disproved it, but I don’t have to disprove it. The one who makes the assertion is the one who must supply the argument.
Absent that argument, as far as I can tell, your thinking is basically this…
- We know Aaron is wrong about preservation because his thinking is naturalistic.
- We know Aaron’s thinking is naturalistic because he is wrong about preservation.
If there is any other evidence that my thinking is naturalistic, etc.—please lay it out.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
I’m completely with you on this one:
That accusation has been repeated ad nauseum (and that’s getting close to literally true at this point) and you’ve observed that I have not disproved it, but I don’t have to disprove it. The one who makes the assertion is the one who must supply the argument.RPittman has attempted to shoot down every argument of yours by claiming it is not based entirely in Scripture. Therefore I would like to hear from him
- What is his real position on this issue?
- If he prefers one translation above the others (or rejects all others) how does he get to that position without using any evidence or arguments not found in the pages of Scripture?
MS -------------------------------- Luke 17:10
[RPittman]This is right in line with what Aaron is writing about. How do you do #1 and #6?
- I believe that God has miraculously preserved His revealed, inspired Word in a line of texts, loosely known as the Received Text, from the time of inspiration until the present.
- I believe that we have God’s inspired Word present in written form today.
- I believe that the Believing Church is the recipient, conservator, transmitter, guardian, and preserver of God’s Word.
- I believe that God’s preservative power and acts are presupposed in our acceptance of canonization and inspiration.
- I believe that the same reasoning that leads us to plenary verbal (The Bible does not say plenary verbal) inspiration with the inferences of inerrancy, infallibility, etc. are applicable to establishing the doctrine of preservation.
- I believe that the KJV is God’s inspired Word in the English language.
- I do not believe or accept Original Autographs Theory, Modern Critical Text Theory, etc. These are either reactions or products of Modernity (read Modernism).
- I reject the epistemological tenets of Modernity (i.e. Modernism) and naturalistic-rationalism (i.e. scientific rationalism).
And I am prepared to vigorously defend every one of the above. What more would you like to know?
It seems like the same process that the Roman church used in producing the TR was used in producing other compendiums of the MS evidence. It seems like the same processes that were used in producing the KJV are able to be used in producing other good translations. Lastly, it seems that if there is 1 translation that is God’s inspired Word (presumably to the exclusion of other good translations) for a people group in a certain time (1611 [or 1769 or whatever] to the present) that each people/language group in each time must have the same level of inspiration/revelation/preservation.
[Also as to my earlier post. I was not seeking to set up a straw man but simply relaying a straw man that I have heard so often used by KJVOs: “If you don’t believe in preservation exactly like me then you don’t believe in preservation.” I am not accusing anyone in this discussion of doing that but simply stating that it has been done before.]
Jon Bell Bucksport, ME "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
1. He does not live up to the requirements that he places on the preservationists (i.e. Their arguments must be entirely based on Scripture.) (Note: Perhaps this is the source of your misunderstanding.) I, personally, do not require that every argument be entirely based on Scripture except that Aaron must meet the same requirements that he places on the preservationists. The point of the argument is consistency.On #1, I have not said the perfect text view must argue only from Scripture. I’m just responding to their efforts to do so in TSKT because I believe the biblical case is the most important question. But as it turns out, I have argued entirely and only from Scripture. Haven’t quoted external sources or referred to them (I guess I footnoted a couple of books in part 2 where I was summarizing views, but these are not part of my case). It just isn’t there.
2. He is not consistent in following the requirements of his chosen epistemological methodology (i.e. Modernity) including verifiable, replicable, and observable. I do not think that every idea must be verifiable, replicable, and observable but I do insist that Aaron be restricted to these requirements if he is going use scientific epistemological, which he naively calls observations, to correct theological interpretation.
On #2: I’m still waiting for a basis for this claim. Please show us where I have used “scientific epistemological, which he naively calls observations, to correct theological interpretation.” If you can’t actually supply any evidence for your assertion on this point, it’s only fair and honest to stop making it. I’m tempted to offer a $1000 reward to anyone who can find a naturalistic or external argument in any of the three articles I’ve written so far on this topic.
Roland, you keep constructing distorted versions of my claims and responding to those instead of what I’m actually saying. But your constructs don’t even resemble my position anymore, and I think most readers can see that. There isn’t much point in continuing to do that. I can’t defend what I don’t really believe and if you succeed in arguing against what I’m not saying, my actual claims are still unanswered. So it’s just not an effective approach.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[RPittman] Well, Jon, you gotta help me here in order to at least understand. …Then why did you bring it up if it doesn’t apply to those posting here?[Getting a little aggravated but attempting to remain charitable.]
Here’s some help, Mr. Pittman. One. Tell me how you can posit #1 and #6 on your list. You don’t have to write a book. Just give the outline. A leads to B leads to C or whatever epistemological method you want to use. Two. I minister in an area that is full of other “frame of reference” and so I have heard a lot of the arguments but not one of them that avoided the problem that we are discussing here, namely the Bible teaches preservation but does not tell us exactly how that works. Three. You still sound as if you are asking us to just accept on faith that God has miraculously preserved his word exclusively in the KJV and the TR without any rational proof or evidence from scripture or church history or any kind of objective standard. Four. Thanks for admitting that there could be another miraculous translation as good as the KJV—so how would we recognize it? Five. I brought up the straw man because it was germane. Six. As for not answering questions, my whole post was about wanting (honestly interested in wanting!) to hear your explanation of how I might know where God’s Word was residing if I was a non-english speaker now or say prior to 1500.
Jon Bell Bucksport, ME "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
1. I believe that God has miraculously preserved His revealed, inspired Word in a line of texts, loosely known as the Received Text, from the time of inspiration until the present.
2. I believe that we have God’s inspired Word present in written form today.
3. I believe that the Believing Church is the recipient, conservator, transmitter, guardian, and preserver of God’s Word.
4. I believe that God’s preservative power and acts are presupposed in our acceptance of canonization and inspiration.
5.I believe that the same reasoning that leads us to plenary verbal (The Bible does not say plenary verbal) inspiration with the inferences of inerrancy, infallibility, etc. are applicable to establishing the doctrine of preservation.
6. I believe that the KJV is God’s inspired Word in the English language.
7. I do not believe or accept Original Autographs Theory, Modern Critical Text Theory, etc. These are either reactions or products of Modernity (read Modernism).
I reject the epistemological tenets of Modernity (i.e. Modernism) and naturalistic-rationalism (i.e. scientific rationalism).
And I am prepared to vigorously defend every one of the above. What more would you like to know?
I am ready to read your defense. Sounds interesting! Since you state each of these with absolute certainty as a belief or doctrine, there must be scriptural revelatory authority that you feel backs each of these principles. Would you be so kind as to keep it simple. Please just list at the end of each principle the applicable scripture references that you feels backs that belief.
Thank you
[RP] So, please define your own paradigm. What is your epistemological system?For purposes of the present discussion, it’s just this: Bible says it, I believe it. Bible doesn’t say it, I might or might not, depending on where other evidence points.
[RP]On 1… the analogies just illustrate, as you correctly pointed out. Your refutations boiled down to essentially this: “I don’t find them convincing.” That’s fine. Someone else might. As for the hamburger one, the analogy was to illustrate a bit of logic: it does not follow that if all of A is sufficient for B, a subset of A is therefore insufficient for B. But I really think the analogy (or one like it) is an easier way for most people to see the logic. I’ll actually have more to say on that subject in the next article because TSKT has a chapter that depends entirely on the “all is sufficient, therefore some is insufficient” fallacy.
- Why haven’t you addressed my refutation of your analogies?
- Why haven’t you commented on my clear contradiction of your interpretation of II Timothy 3:15-17?
- Why haven’t you answered whether the Scriptures (text) of II Timothy 3:15 that leads us to salvation is the same Scriptures (text) II Timothy 3:16-17 that guides us in Christian obedience?
- Why won’t you deal with the canonization-preservation-inspiration issue?
- Rather than simply denying or calling upon me to offer proof, why haven’t you stated your epistemology?
On 2… On 2 Tim.3:15-17. Your response on that seemed to completely miss what I had actually said about the passage. So all I can do is repeat my view: The word “all” appears in v.16, indicating every word of Scripture. The word “all” does not appear before “Scriptures” in v.15; plus, Timothy is said to have “known” the Scriptures. So in v.15, every word of Scripture is not meant—because Timothy did not “know” every word and it doesn’t say “all.” (It also doesn’t say he had access to anything more than what he “knew.” Presumably he did, but we cannot presume that what he had access to was every inspired word. The passage does not say this.)
On 3… I don’t see any relevance. But yes, “Scriptures” in both v.15 and v.16 refer to what God inspired, and both the subset of that Timothy “knew” in v.15 and the totality of it that is theopneustos in v.16 are sufficient for salvation and the full furnishing of the man of God in 15 &17.
On 4… canonicity is another subject and I may get to it eventually. I have already answered it to some extent in previous discussion threads in this article series. Inspiration I have already affirmed repeatedly. The doctrine of inspiration does not depend in any way on a person’s views on preservation and canonicity because inspiration refers to what God did in giving us the Word and both preservation and canonicity have to do with things that happen later. (Even TSKT is quite clear that inspiration only refers to how God originally gave us the Word. p.240. I have no disagreement with the authors at all on that point.)
On 5… you have stated (I’ll drop “accused” since that seems to distract you) that my case against perfect text preservation is based on naturalistic thinking. You have shown no evidence of that at all. The honest thing to do is either back it up or stop repeating it. The only “epistemological paradigm” etc. that matters here is the one that I’ve employed in the articles, which is simply that the Scriptures mean what they say and do not mean what they do not say. So my method is to interpret the Scriptures using the grammatical-historical method and reason to conclusions based on what is written.
If you cannot offer any reason for your claim that these articles are naturalistic or modernistic etc., we have to guess as to what your reason is. The most likely scenario is that your only reason for thinking my case is modernistic is that I disagree with your position—which takes us back to the circularity problem. You have denied that your thinking is circular, but haven’t given me any evidence of any alternative.
So… all I’m asking for is some reason for the modernism/naturalism assertion. Why?
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[RPittman]Oh, is that it? LOL People have been doing that all my life![Aaron] I think I’m starting to lose my mind so I’ll have to wrap up my involvement in this thread … soon. The repetitiveness is driving me nuts but I’m not quite “there” yet.No, not yet. But you are perturbed to have your comfortable way of thinking disturbed.
I thought it was from not having my question answered. Just one… why do believe my case against perfect preservation is naturalistic/rationalistic/modernistic? Why should anyone else believe it is? (Sounds like two questions, but they’re really just different ways of asking the same thing)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Of all the unconvincing arguments for the TR/KJVO (or KJVP) view I’ve heard, this ranks right up there. If you could call it an argument at all.
-------
Greg Long, Ed.D. (SBTS)
Pastor of Adult Ministries
Grace Church, Des Moines, IA
Adjunct Instructor
School of Divinity
Liberty University
I’d really love to see a few folks help Roland out here. There are probably some other perceived (or real) problems in my case, but we’re not hearing from many perfect text preservationists. Kent Brandenberg tells me he will be posting some responses at his blog pretty soon, so we’ll get some additional criticism there I’m sure. Would be nice to see more here, though.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
1. I believe that God has miraculously preserved His revealed, inspired Word in a line of texts, known as the Majority Text, from the time of inspiration until the present.
2. I believe that we have God’s inspired Word present in written form today.
3. I believe that the Believing Church is the recipient, conservator, transmitter, guardian, and preserver of God’s Word.
4. I believe that God’s preservative power and acts are presupposed in our acceptance of canonization and inspiration.
5.I believe that the same reasoning that leads us to plenary verbal (The Bible does not say plenary verbal) inspiration with the inferences of inerrancy, infallibility, etc. are applicable to establishing the doctrine of preservation.
6. I believe that the ESV is God’s inspired Word in the English language. It is miraculously being widely accepted and I hardly even need to mention all the people that have gotten saved after reading the ESV in the very short time that it has been available.
7. I do not believe or accept Ancient Critical Text Theory(read it was OK for old catholics to examine the manuscript and decide what the original was but not for modern scholars to do it).
I reject the epistemological tenets of Modernity (i.e. Modernism) and naturalistic-rationalism (i.e. scientific rationalism) so I don’t really have to explain why I believe any of the above but I have faith that my position is correct and I am prepared to vigorously defend every one of the above. What more would you like to know?
How would this be any different from what is being posited by Mr. Pittman here?
Jon Bell Bucksport, ME "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
1. I believe that God has miraculously preserved His revealed, inspired Word in a line of texts, known as the Majority Text, from the time of inspiration until the present.8. Because of my position on the MT, I have my doubts about the inclusion of I John 5:7.
2. I believe that we have God’s inspired Word present in written form today.
3. I believe that the Believing Church is the recipient, conservator, transmitter, guardian, and preserver of God’s Word.
4. I believe that God’s preservative power and acts are presupposed in our acceptance of canonization and inspiration.
5.I believe that the same reasoning that leads us to plenary verbal (The Bible does not say plenary verbal) inspiration with the inferences of inerrancy, infallibility, etc. are applicable to establishing the doctrine of preservation.
6. I believe that any faithful translation based on the MT is God’s inspired Word in the English language.
7. I do not believe or accept Ancient Critical Text Theory because I don’t accept the idea that older is better.
There. That should bring me enough pain and suffering for today.
"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan
[RPittman] Well, it appears to me that the historical-grammatical uses materials external to Scripture.Clearly, whatever method you are using does the same, when you come to conclusions about the Received Text and the KJV.
Let’s say for the sake of argument you grow up in a country with only one translation of the Bible available in your language, and the text used for that translation was the critical text. What information coming from the scriptures themselves would allow you to determine you had an errant Bible and that the basis for the translation you are reading is incorrect?
Dave Barnhart
[RPittman] Dave, you seemed to have missed all of the points.I’ve been paying attention, but I have been waiting to see how all of this plays out.
And you fail to connect the dots of how my method clearly does the same.What method am I using? What external sources does it use?I may have been unclear about what I meant, but the dots are connected well enough, and I don’t need to know either your method or sources:
1. You have come to conclusions about the Received Text and KJV being the proper vehicles for preservation.
2. Neither of these are referred to in scripture.
3. Therefore, you are using something external to the scriptures to come to your conclusions. QED.
We use external sources for things about which the Bible does not speak.Agreed. Yet you seem to decry natural observation as being unworthy of use. However, even the scriptures declare that things about God can be revealed through natural revelation. That means that both observations and conclusions for those observations are considered by God to be valid methods of evaluating information (in fact, man will be held accountable for them), though they do not trump God’s direct revelation.
I would agree (though I know some don’t), that the Bible teaches preservation of God’s word. It nowhere teaches that preservation was in the received text (or any particular text), or that the KJV was the only valid translation of God’s word for English-speaking people. The authors of TSKT (a book I own and have read twice, the second time making annotations) argue that not only can preservation be shown from scripture, that the conclusions about the received text and KJV can be drawn from “proper” interpretation of scripture. I do not believe that the authors have sufficiently shown that such conclusions MUST follow from scripture.
Obviously, even the TSKT authors are using some external sources, as they rely on Greek lexicons and other tools in the writing of this book, in which they attempt to present the scriptural argument for their view of preservation. To some extent, we all do. However, I believe it’s perfectly appropriate to attempt to use the same technique (make the argument from scripture, instead of history, etc.) to refute a work that the work itself is using. I think you are being intentionally obtuse when you make the claims you do about not recognizing we all use external sources, etc.
Are you including yourself by saying “we,” after you have declared that you have renounced any modernist epistemology? You do switch to “they” fairly quickly after this, so I suppose this use of we might have been a mistake.
We, modern Fundamentalists, use the basic epistemology as the Modernists. That’s what I’m trying to establish…
They can’t shake off what they’ve been taught. Until they deliberately alter their paradigm and look at things through different spectacles, they will never see until they change the lens through which they view the world.I’m curious what lens you believe you are using and how you think you can completely remove a modernist one from your own thinking. Believing you can is not the same as actually being able to do so.
Perhaps the Holy Spirit would guide me.If I understand the scriptures correctly, the Holy Spirit guides us into all truth *through* the scriptures. Well, in my posited case, the scriptures would be what you have in front of you, flawed or not. Are you arguing you would receive special, extra-scriptural revelation that would tell you the scriptures you have are false? If so, what would make it possible for you to discard certain words rather than distrust the whole work, and the basis for your belief in a Holy Spirit?
Dave Barnhart
[RPittman] You are still trying to press me into the naturalistic/rationalistic/modernistic mindset. Aren’t you aware that there other means of knowledge other than evidence-proof method.OK, Roland. We should all believe you just because you say so. No reasons required… because requiring reasons is the naturalistic-rationalistic paradigm and we shouldn’t force you into it.
On the grammatical historical method
Of course I use external information to interpret Scripture. Everyone does. Words do not have meaning without reference to things in our experience. And the principle of author’s intent in interpreting Scripture has been well established for a very long time. This is not the same thing as building a case on external evidence. Rather, I have made my case based on the evidence of Scripture. (FWIW, I’m not crazy about the wikipedia excerpts you quoted. There are many better places to read up on the grammatical-historical method.)
Where is the Holy Spirit?
The Holy Spirit never promised to do our thinking for us, Roland.
Where you seem to be going is the idea that there is some direct route to knowledge of the meaning of Scripture apart from employing the faculties of the mind. Do you hold to perfect text preservation because you believe the Holy Spirit has revealed it to you directly? Because you have grasped this truth intuitively? Received it in a vision?
That may be good enough for you, but it will not persuade others. This is why the writers of TSKT didn’t simply publish a one-page book in which they reported “God has revealed to us by ‘other means of knowledge than evidence-proof method’ that He has preserved a word-perfect text of the Bible down to today, and it’s the TR.”
Instead, they interpreted passages using the grammatical historical method and offered reasoned conclusions to support their claims. You would do well to take that approach as well!
I happen to believe they executed the grammatical historical method poorly in lots of places and also reasoned badly to conclusions that don’t follow, but their method is the right one and the same one I’m using.
No disrespect intended, Roland, but “other means of knowledge” is the ultimate cop out. It basically declares your view to be beyond all debate.
At least the TSKT guys are trying to give people something to think about.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
I would agree we need more than just naturalistic methods for Bible interpretation, we need Spirit-filled teachers and the Spirit does guide the church. Illumination is key, as 1 Cor. 2:14 teaches that a natural man is not able to understand the Word. Still the principle of finding the author’s intent goes back way before modernity. It predates the Reformation as well.
I find it odd that RP gives a list of declarations that he believes and is prepared to contend for. Then when Bob Torpatzer and others ask for that defense and contention, he refuses to give it.
It appears that the Spirit’s teaching the church, and the common faith that we have inherited as members of the church, plays a role in RP’s thinking as revelatory or at least a way of gaining knowledge. Still, citing the WCF doesn’t take the day. That statement in its specificity was relatively new in the history of the church, and given in the day of much debate with the Romanists. Still, it doesn’t exactly say that the copies of Scripture they had were confessionally held to be equal to the Scripture as given originally. Furthermore, some of the signers and fellow Reformed leaders and thinkers (all pre-Modernity, mind you) reveal that they don’t shun any text-critical sort of thinking. Turretin, Calvin, Luther all sought evidence in ancient copies about whether certain readings were genuine. Beza and Stephanus added textual notes to their TR editions.
On the 2 Tim. 3:16 point, you do know the words aren’t equivalent necessarily in vs. 15 and vs. 16. Vs. 15 has grammata and vs. 16 has graphe. I contend that the in the word theopneustos in vx. 6 (inspired of God) implies a one-time event. That event (God’s breathing out the Word) left the resultant text with a particular quality. That quality extends to the copies that Timothy had in vs. 15, but not because the copies are exactly identical in every particular. But because they are generally faithful copies of the text of Scripture and so share the quality Scripture has. So I find the hamburger analogy still holds pretty well. Saying Timothy was made wise to salvation by the scriptures he had. And that every Scripture is inspired, does not say anything about how accurate the copies that Timothy had were.
I do say it appears awful convenient for RP to sidestep argumentation altogether in this by denouncing our epistemology. What may be lost in the shuffle on this, is that he hasn’t shown how or why we should believe that he is using his different epistemology correctly. It’s almost as if he just uses that to obscure matters and he does this because this particular topic is touchy or something.
That is how it appears. Honestly, Roland, if you really want to convince us that our epistemology is totally misguided, then try being irenic and humble and show us patiently how to get where you are. The Spirit has guided a good many of us, along with the majority of the English speaking church, to accept and make wise use of modern English Bible versions. And He has guided us on the basis of many texts in Scripture too.
Striving for the unity of the faith, for the glory of God ~ Eph. 4:3, 13; Rom. 15:5-7 I blog at Fundamentally Reformed. Follow me on Twitter.
[RPittman] Aaron, I’ve found this particular thread most unimaginative particularly during the last few days. It seems that folks became stuck in a rut. There has been a poverty of ideas in that no one was able to envision any other possibilities other than their own. It was not a question of which possibility was right and which possibility was wrong but it was a matter of no other possibilities. Well, the link below may offer some subtle possibilities to rejuvenate your imaginative powers. That is unless one is brain dead. :-) As someone observed, a rut is a grave with the ends kicked out.Roland,
http://benbyerly.wordpress.com/2009/07/31/the-limitations-of-historical…
I greatly enjoyed this article. I almost entirely agree with him. But a redemptive historical interpretation doesn’t lead by necessity to a complete overturn of epistemological structures and a rejection of any resort to evidence.
Striving for the unity of the faith, for the glory of God ~ Eph. 4:3, 13; Rom. 15:5-7 I blog at Fundamentally Reformed. Follow me on Twitter.
Among other things, how does one tell the difference between the Holy Spirit and some random intuitive impression? If we make a distinction between Holy Spirit and Scripture and suggest that Scripture is not enough to establish doctrine, we basically head into territory where any notion we happen to like can be blamed on Him.
The main reason I have focused on the biblical evidence is that the Scriptures are sufficient for doctrine and if they do not teach a doctrine of perfect text preservation, that’s the end of the story as far as a “doctrine of preservation” is concerned. It is certainly possible to hold to a position of perfect text preservation based on any number of things… “the believing church” (which is really another way of saying “my understanding of church history”—external evidence), some mind-bypassing direct revelation from the Spirit (if you believe the Spirit is doing that sort of thing today), something even more bizarre, like chaos theory—or just ordinary external evidence (like looking at MSS and finding that a bunch of them match perfectly… so far, waiting for that to happen).
But any conclusion we arrive at in these ways cannot properly be called doctrine and those who disagree cannot be in “doctrinal error.”
Roland, there’s really no shame in saying “perfect text preservation is my opinion and I can’t prove it, but I believe it.” But others can’t be expected to find that persuasive and it’s not OK to elevate an opinion like that to the level of doctrine.
Doctrine can only properly be derived from interpreting Scripture and reasoning soundly from it. And the Holy Spirit’s role in the process is mainly that of giving us the Word in the first place. Whatever else He does beyond that is debatable and, in any case, a small factor by comparison. I often think we are insulting Him when we insist on something more than what He has already inspired for us for doctrine, reproof and instruction in righteousness.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[RPittman] By showing a number of possible alternatives, I hope to persuade posters that the alternatives are not limited to the prevailing epistemology or a return to baseless superstition. I am not opposed to observation, reason, etc. as components of epistemology as they must be. However, I think that we stretch the system to make everything proven or provable. It is better to say, “I don’t know.” Proof, evidence, and support are precise words with limited semantic range. Yet, they are used far too loosely. I can’t prove how God has preserved His Word. I can’t prove that He did but I believe that God did because of His statements and actions. It’s argument from a consistent pattern. Furthermore, God’s past actions provide a pattern of both Scriptural evidence and external evidence to reasonably suppose that He will act consistently in the present and future. This does not mean that everyone will be persuaded, as everyone is not persuaded of any doctrine/teaching, but it is a valid and reasonable position to hold.This is the closest we have come to seeing your rationale for your positions, Roland. Thanks, this helps.
I read the same Bible and just don’t come away with an equal stress on the word perfect nature of preservation. I see loose quotations all over the place, and statements about the authority of Scripture and its perfection, but not of the need for perfect representations of the text of Scripture. That wasn’t the focus of the Scriptural texts when it talks of preservation and the role of the Bible for the church, as far as I read it. When it comes to seeing how the Spirit guided the church in the last 2,000 years we also manifestly come away with differing conclusions. For the first several centuries the church used the LXX. Then the Vulgate was used by one wing of the church and the LXX / Ecclesiastical Greek Text was used by the other. The Reformation brought us back to the Ecclesiastical Greek Text being prized and this was disseminated in even more common language translations than there were before. And since then this translation impetus has continued even as the discovery and study of the Greek and Hebrew has intensified all birthed out of the respect for the authority of the text of Scripture which the Reformation recovered.
Now that’s my reading of history and of Scripture. And it is the reading of many other Spirit-indwelt believers. This is behind the widespread adoption by the English speaking church of the last 40 years, of the NKJV, NIV, NASB, ESV and other sound translations.
Now how exactly do you disagree with this reading of history and Scripture? How does accepting other inputs to knowledge from beyond rational or observable sources make you see things in a different light? How do you get from point A to point B? And why is your way better than mine and the many others who agree with me and also claim the name of Christ?
Like Aaron, I’m at a loss for this kind of reading being described and summarily dismissed as modernistic with no alternative explained….
Striving for the unity of the faith, for the glory of God ~ Eph. 4:3, 13; Rom. 15:5-7 I blog at Fundamentally Reformed. Follow me on Twitter.
[RP] you are using precisely the same methods that the preservationists use, yet you deny the legitimacy of their case.Yes! We have an understanding here! I’ve been trying to say that for days. We are using the same methods and neither theirs nor mine is a “rationalistic schema” or any of the other things you have called it. I do not deny the “legitimacy” of their case, only their conclusions because—as I have explained repeatedly, I believe they made errors in the interpretive process as well as in the post-interpretation reasoning.
[RP] I though Brandenburg, et. al. were using Biblical arguments. If so, it comes down to Aaron and Kent disagreeing about what the Bible says. It’s not as if one is on the high road and the other on the low.Right again! This is encouraging. (Sadly, what comes later is very discouraging)
I’ve never claimed a higher road, only that Kent et. al. have not correctly interpreted and/or reasoned from the passages they use. There is no problem of methodology, only of execution.
[RP] Does the Holy Spirit speak to individuals today? How do you know? The Scriptural precedence is that He did.See Mark Snoeberger’s excellent series on cessationism for one good answer to that. Two more installments coming. The short answer is, I believe He does not because Scripture does not seem to support the idea that He does.
[RP] [on what we were taught in school….] We accepted it as true and went our way.Maybe you did. I did not. I accepted what was well supported based on the convictions I had at the time, filed much in the “Maybe” file, and rejected some things as well (some of which I later discovered to be the truth after all. And many things have moved in and out of the “Maybe” file multiple times!).
[RP]Doctrine is the teaching of Scripture. If it helps, what I mean by the term is “something Scripture teaches.” We cannot claim Scripture teaches things that we have figured out only by external evidence (or some claim of direct revelation). But there’s a simpler answer. We cannot claim as “doctrine” in the 2 Tim. 3:16 sense anything that is not taught in Scripture. That was my point.[Aaron] But any conclusion we arrive at in these ways cannot properly be called doctrine and those who disagree cannot be in “doctrinal error.”No, this is a false dichotomy. Doctrine is simply a teaching.
[RP] earlier stated that the essentials of salvation are explicit in Scripture. I believe it. However, these essentials are not rationally provableActually, they are. This is an important point for understanding what my “paradigm” really is, so please don’t miss this part: there are things we all take “without proof” as starting points, our a priori beliefs. We cannot really prove there is a holy God or that He has revealed Himself in the Bible. These things are convictions I have not arrived at by evidence and reasoning.
There are “reasons” for them, but they are circular (I believe the Bible is true because the Bible claims to be true). It’s fairly easy to put my “objectivity hat” on and see that this is not “proof.” Yet I am convinced. The Spirit did not reveal these things to me directly. He convinced me (John 16:8) that what the Bible said about them was true.
Once a person becomes convinced by the Spirit that the Bible’s claims about itself and God are true, a whole lot of things become “rationally proveable.” Whether we are willing to see them is another matter, but if you believe the Bible is true, it’s a rational process to figure out what it says so you can believe it.
The role of reasoning is in understanding what it teaches. This reasoning process is inescapable if we are going to truly “read” it at all. More on this later.
The tenets of the gospel are absolutely rationally provable once a person accepts that the Bible is true.
To put it in the ol’ syllogism format
A. The Bible is true
B. The BIble teaches A
C. Therefore A is true [edited to fix… got a bit rushed there]
This is not a rationalistic/modernistic/etc. “paradigm;” it’s just thinking straight.
[RP] Your methodology is defunct. It can’t prove anything even using Scripture. And I have already suggested reasons why it can’t. Now, please don’t jump to conclusions and accuse me of opening the door to every man with a revelation. I’m not proposing that at all.Roland, it doesn’t matter if you are “proposing” it or not. There is nothing else left after you reject the approach to understanding the Bible that I have described (and which you are incorrectly calling “rationalistic methodology.”) We have to use reason to even read the Bible. It is not possible to make sense of even the simplest sentence if we don’t take the sequence of words, associate each word with some referent in our experience (or imagination), and then do the logical exercise of applying a set of grammatical rules to discern how each word is related to each other in the sentence. We normally do this without consciously thinking about it, but we always do it. When studying the Bible, we do it very intentionally.
There’s a reason we don’t just take all the words in the Bible, each on its own little slip of paper, shake them thoroughly and pull them out and read them at random for a “text” on Sunday morning! God chose to give us sentences and paragraphs, and by doing so He communicated an important fact: “I intend that you should reason.” This inference is a “necessary” one. It cannot be avoided. Otherwise, there is no point in translating the Bible at all. We could hear it in Hebrew, and—without knowing the language—know intuitively (claiming it’s “by the Spirit” if we like) what it means. No reasoning required.
[RP]2 Timothy 3:16 has no meaning apart from this, Roland. The whole idea of sufficiency of Scripture has no meaning without it. As to how I know reasoning is involved, see my remarks above.[Aaron] Doctrine can only properly be derived from interpreting Scripture and reasoning soundly from it. And the Holy Spirit’s role in the process is mainly that of giving us the Word in the first place.Aaron, you have just made doctrinal assertions. Back them up with Scripture or retract according to your own previously professed standard!
How do you know from Scripture that “[d] octrine can only properly be derived from interpreting Scripture?” Is not this a conclusion?
How do you know from Scripture that “reasoning soundly from [Scripture] ” is the only way to derive doctrine? How do you know that reasoning is involved?
How do you know from Scripture that “Holy Spirit’s role in the process is mainly that of giving us the Word in the first place”
Now we’ve gone on quite a rabbit trail here. I really don’t want to spend any more time on it.
I’ve written this series of articles (and pretty much every other article as well) with a particular audience in mind and certain givens in place.
These givens include that my readers are already firm believers in the sufficiency of Scripture for “doctrine, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness.” To be honest, the sufficiency of Scripture to answer these questions is not a belief I’m really very interested in defending. That is, it’s on my short list (and it is a short list) of things I take for granted, pretty much right up there with my belief that God exists and the Bible is His Word.
But there are lots of good books on the subject, and others have done excellent work on it. For me, it’s just a given. So I’m probably not going to spend much more time on that.
(I sure hope all this work is helping someone! :D )
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
I appreciate how you clarified your position with your 8 points in Post #14 (above). Normally in these debates when someone tries to prove something not found clearly stated in the Scriptures the proofs have to go one of two directions:
- The evidence of history, the church, etc. proves my point. Additional points are usually made that my expert (or translator or manuscript compiler) is better than yours (i.e. more godly, intelligent, etc.) and my thinking is better than yours.
- I have received some kind of direct revelation which shows that I am right.
You seem to be following the second point and added a third: - My mind is able to grasp concepts which your mind is not able to grasp (e.g. your references to “thinking out of the box,” “chaos theory,” that you have “other means of knowledge” which no one else on this thread seems to have).If this is true, putting #2 and #3 together makes it appear you are walking on dangerous ground since this “method” subjugates the Scriptures to human thoughts and feelings and makes one to be unteachable.
Roland, you have posted 30 of the 56 comments on this page and (if I could speak for the rest of us) you still have not clearly stated what your source of truth is which makes you feel you can claim those 8 points and “vigorously defend” them. I am afraid that your method of defending the Received Text and KJV actually ends up denigrating them.
MS -------------------------------- Luke 17:10
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
(You can’t really claim the sufficiency of Scripture for doctrine and simultaneously insist that proving doctrines from Scripture is a “naturalistic methodology” that should be dismissed.)
I think it’s obvious to most readers that I’m just trying to determine what the Bible really teaches on the subject of preservation. It really is that simple.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[quote: Aaron Blumer]
I’d really love to see a few folks help Roland out here. There are probably some other perceived (or real) problems in my case, but we’re not hearing from many perfect text preservationists. Kent Brandenberg tells me he will be posting some responses at his blog pretty soon, so we’ll get some additional criticism there I’m sure. Would be nice to see more here, though. [quote: Mr. Pittman]
1. I believe that God has miraculously preserved His revealed, inspired Word in a line of texts, loosely known as the Received Text, from the time of inspiration until the present.
2. I believe that we have God’s inspired Word present in written form today.
3. I believe that the Believing Church is the recipient, conservator, transmitter, guardian, and preserver of God’s Word.
4. I believe that God’s preservative power and acts are presupposed in our acceptance of canonization and inspiration.
5. I believe that the same reasoning that leads us to plenary verbal (The Bible does not say plenary verbal) inspiration with the inferences of inerrancy, infallibility, etc. are applicable to establishing the doctrine of preservation.
6. I believe that the KJV is God’s inspired Word in the English language.
7. I do not believe or accept Original Autographs Theory, Modern Critical Text Theory, etc. These are either reactions or products of Modernity (read Modernism).
8. I reject the epistemological tenets of Modernity (i.e. Modernism) and naturalistic-rationalism (i.e. scientific rationalism). I can’t offer much help to Mr. Pittman, but I can stand with him in saying I believe the first six points of his TR Confession. I might be persuaded of the remaining two, but I’m not sure I understand them fully - yet. The whole preservation series has been fascinating, informative, and edifying. I hope it will continue. I, for one, would like to read this paper that Mr. Pittman has proposed writing.
Chris Long
[RPittman] Aaron, it may be that my answers are simply unsatisfying to your preconceived notions (i.e. your epistemology). The fact is that my ideas won’t fly in naturalistic/rationalistic/modernism. In an earlier exchange, you brushed aside my suggestion of a “logic of faith” without any apparent understanding of the concept. Why should I trot out ideas only to have them ridiculed with the same old stale arguments. There has been very, very little serious discussion of the ideas that I have proposed. Sometimes I have intentionally been evasive and sometimes I have not. Here are some reasons:Ok, Roland. I don’t think I can read any more of this thread. My head is spinning. So, I have a suggestion for you:
- If I propose an idea, then I know that it will be attacked and I will be called upon to defend it. A defense of these ideas would require a tremendous amount of time and effort that I cannot afford just now. So, I reserve it until I can adequately explain and defend it.
- I make leaps and jumps in logic and information assuming that the readers/posters are well-read and educated to follow my allusions to things generally known. I am not trying to profess esoteric knowledge but I can’t supply all the details and background. I’m surprised that folks missed my point about Chaos Theory.
[*[When I post, it is composed on the fly from memory. I do not have the time to pull my references and make my posts conform to scholarly academic standards.- There are things that I don’t know and haven’t worked out. It’s more like an outline than a finished work.
- There are simply too many points and questions for me to answer adequately. I have to pick and choose.
And some folks have just failed to comprehend what I have said. I have told you that I am being an iconoclast. Also, I have plainly told you that I am trying to shake your Modernist epistemology. Until some of you guys step outside this paradigm and are willing to consider another framework of thought, then I will not submit my ideas to be ridiculed within a Modernist epistemology. The error that you make is assuming what my position is. I asked in an earlier installment of this article, “How did people think before Modernity?” Am I advocating a return to a Pre-modern epistemology? No, it there are some things that may be instructive for us.
Please, for the sake of this discussion, assume that we (Aaron, others, I, etc.) have accepted your statement that our thinking is wrong. (Believe me, if I am wrong I really would like to hear about it and I would assume that the others would too). We accept that you are being an iconoclast. We now (for the sake of this discussion) have admitted we are wrong, and are willing to “step outside [our incorrect] paradigm” and “consider another framework of thought.” Therefore, I am asking you to tell us succinctly how to think correctly. It is not enough to say that you don’t want to have your ideas “ridiculed.” Challenging someone’s position is not the same as ridicule - and as I look through this thread it seems everyone has been patient with you.
It is not enough to simply refute others’ arguments. You must tell us what your “framework of thought is.”
MS -------------------------------- Luke 17:10
Can you point us somewhere that explains your epistemology? Certainly you aren’t the only one with this particular viewpoint. You should be able to point an inquirer somewhere for help in grasping from what vantage point you are coming from.
Thanks
Striving for the unity of the faith, for the glory of God ~ Eph. 4:3, 13; Rom. 15:5-7 I blog at Fundamentally Reformed. Follow me on Twitter.
If a person has been asked several different ways to explain a position and their answers appear to several persons to not be clear, then continuing conversation is impossible.. They should be ignored and we move on. If they have not said anything clearly they really have said nothing and may continue to do so. They should be left to explain their position to themselves alone.
[MShep2] We accept that you are being an iconoclast. We now (for the sake of this discussion) have admitted we are wrong, and are willing to “step outside [our incorrect] paradigm” and “consider another framework of thought.”Great idea… but good luck with that. ;)
I think Bob T has probably nailed it this time: it seems likely to me that there is nothing explainable there to explain, at least not yet. But I don’t envy Roland his task. Once you throw out the basic tools of logic and rhetoric, you have nothing to work with to persuade others that your views are true.
I’ll grant to Roland that it is possible to believe we establish Christian doctrine legitimately from Scripture and also from direct revelations from the Holy Spirit (though this is not my belief and, I think, a serious doctrinal error). But even if that is one’s “paradigm/methodolgy/epistemology,” it does not entitle him to look at a sound biblical argument and dismiss it with a “Oh, that’s just your natrualistic epistemology at work.”
The only way to do that is with a method that embraces direct revelation instead of Scripture… but Roland has rejected that (fortunately) as well.
So I don’t think it’s possible to distill a self-consistent, working methodology from what Roland has described.
(Next, I expect to hear that “self consistent” is yet another quirk of the “naturalistic methodology” and part of modernity)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
One of the big problems here is that you seem to be confusing rational thought with rationalism. My impression is that you are a pretty smart and educated person so I am not saying that mockingly. People have been doing rational thought since the beginning of time. Rationalism is the idea that rational thought trumps revelation and thus the human intellect is the ultimate authority. This gets right back to my straw-man comment. You have some kind of rationale for what you believe but Aaron’s rationale and others of us who have begged you to explain your position here are being told by you that their thought processes are flawed by rationalism. No one here who has honestly signed the agreement to post here is doing rationalism as per above so you are setting up a straw man by bringing it up over and over and over.
As several have mentioned above, I would beg of you to gather your thoughts and martial your technical terms and submit an article explaining how you can view this matter with such iron-clad clarity when other good men cannot. You might scroll through the posts here and look at the questions that were put to you and answer them even if you think people are just mocking you although I don’t think anyone here was. I certainly wasn’t when I asked my direct questions of you.
Aaron, thanks for the great original article. I look forward to seeing the conclusion. I have a great deal of respect for you as I have read your writing and even more as I have read your posts on this thread. I think you have done an admirable job keeping your cool through this very trying discussion. I need to go can put some bandages on my head where I am bleeding from pulling our my remaining hairs!
Jon Bell Bucksport, ME "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
[Bob T.] It is interesting that we have a thread by Dr. Warren Vanhetloo on SI right now. He was Dean and professor to theology at Central Baptist Seminary when I was a student there. He always allowed class time for opinions and discussion. One statement he made was that; “if a person cannot explain something clearly they may not know what the are talking about.”I awoke this morning thinking about what Bob said. This post and this thread illustrate what I have found of the KJVO movement: that they are sure that they are right but are unable to explain how they got there other than to use unverifiable/unmeasurable evidence (“God has mightily used the KJB!”) or the spiritual dodge (“You just have to have faith that it is so!”) or the vague warning (“Your modern version is undermining doctrine!”). I have come to realize that the vast majority of KJVO people are good people who sincerely want to hold to sound doctrine but they are following after leaders who seem at the end of the day to be unable to give an answer for how this works. Until you can explain 1) How a perfect translation can objectively be known/recognized/produced in any place, time and language and 2) Which actual doctrines are at stake in any translation then there is really nothing else to talk about.
If a person has been asked several different ways to explain a position and their answers appear to several persons to not be clear, then continuing conversation is impossible.. They should be ignored and we move on. If they have not said anything clearly they really have said nothing and may continue to do so. They should be left to explain their position to themselves alone.
The beauty of preservation is that God uses many men in many ages all of whom are imperfect and many of whom acted from ulterior motives to preserve and translate His Word so that we can say, “I have the very words of God here!” SDG!!
Jon Bell Bucksport, ME "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2010/05/is-this-central-issue-in-christian…
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2010/05/is-this-central-issue-in-christian…
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[Jon Bell] One of the big problems here is that you seem to be confusing rational thought with rationalism. My impression is that you are a pretty smart and educated person so I am not saying that mockingly. People have been doing rational thought since the beginning of time. Rationalism is the idea that rational thought trumps revelation and thus the human intellect is the ultimate authority. This gets right back to my straw-man comment. You have some kind of rationale for what you believe but Aaron’s rationale and others of us who have begged you to explain your position here are being told by you that their thought processes are flawed by rationalism. No one here who has honestly signed the agreement to post here is doing rationalism as per above so you are setting up a straw man by bringing it up over and over and over.I didn’t see this latest installment until last night. As I read through Roland’s responses, I had the same thought about rationalism vs. Rationalism. I believe it is critical for this discussion that we make a distinction between the philosophy of Rationalism and rational thinking (i.e. reasoning based upon the rules of logic).
As I read through this thread last night, I was reminded repeatedly of the series of essays Dr. Kevin Bauder wrote some time back called “Shall We Reason Together?” I believe it would greatly benefit the discussion on this topic if all of the main contributors would read that essay series (or re-read it, as the case may be). There are several reasons I strongly recommend that particular set of writings:
- It describes the approach to the Scriptures and external truth that I believe Aaron and most of the contributors to this thread share: It describes the framework we are working from, and in the process, furnishes a vocabulary that will help bring clarity to our discussion.
- It does an excellent job explaining various types of rational arguments and clarifying the place that reason should have in our approach to Scripture. I think that will help us to be more clear about what we mean when we speak about “rationalism” (lower case) vs. Rationalism (one instance of that “vocabulary” I was talking about).
- It uses the Scriptures themselves to demonstrate his points. (I believe the argument he presents is unanswerable.)
- It is written in a very clear and simple way that is accessible to most anyone—you don’t need to be a philosopher or an expert in epistemology.
- It is extremely succinct: very high IPLT ratio (“insight per line of text”). :-)
- On a personal note, this series brought more clarity to my thinking about the interpretation and application of Scripture than any other single thing I’ve ever read.
http://www.centralseminary.edu/resources/nick-of-time/132-nick-archives
The first of ten essays begins with the 09/15/2006 issue.
Here’s a teaser:
Reasoning from the Scripture, Dr. Bauder demonstrates the following truths about reason and the Scripture:
- Scripture presupposes that we use reason to understand its premises
- Scripture requires that once we understand its premises, we then reason from those premises to understand their necessary implications
- The prior point is demonstrated by the fact that the Scripture holds us accountable for conforming not only to the requirements of its direct statements, but also the requirements demanded by the implications of those direct statements. I could explain how he proves this from Scripture, but he does it so much better than I could.
Philip Knight
But in the case of this particular thread I have another view as to what the real problem is. When it comes to being persuaded to change our thinking about something there are two major factors:
1- the quality of the case (the accuracy of facts and soundness of reasoning)
2- the openness of our will (how willing we are to fairly consider the case)
Often the real sticking point is #2, but folks are not willing to simply say “My mind’s made up and I’m not willing to do any more thinking on the subject.” It just doesn’t sound like a strong defense I guess. So, instead, they do a sort of shallow engagement (if it can be called engaging at all) with the arguments but mostly in a dismissive way, latching on to plausible sounding (in their mind) reasons to just not consider the substance of what’s been said. Just give the view you’re not open to an unattractive label and act like that settles it.
In the case of perfect text preservation I have seen this occur more frequently than in any other debate I’ve been involved in. There is a group that is deeply committed to the idea and not willing to examine it in the light of Scripture. And being unwilling to do so, the actual biblical case is irrelevant in their case.
So the whole Rationalistic Epistemology thing is really a rabbit trail. If it weren’t that rabbit trail, it would be some other one.
I have posted similar thoughts at Kent Brandenburg’s blog where he responds to the article above:
http://kentbrandenburg.blogspot.com/2010/05/answering-aaron-on-doctrine…
Basically because his response, while having a couple of legitimate challenges regarding clarity, etc., is mostly reflective of a commitment to not really thoughtfully read what I’ve written.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[Aaron Blumer] Just give the view you’re not open to an unattractive label and act like that settles it.Back in my debating days we called this “Lump ‘n’ Dump”. It is also a popular method in our political discourse from both sides. It is something that I have less and less patience for in others but especially myself. That is why I spent so much time in this thread. I want to really understand and interact with people that think differently than me. But you are correct: to get most KJVOs to interact on any kind of logical basis is rare and difficult. And I think this is a broader issue in IFB circles on other issues to especially soteriology (Calvinism) and church history (Landmarkism)!
Jon Bell Bucksport, ME "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
[Aaron @ ‘What is Truth’ ] [Kent wrote] “…maybe you don’t know what I mean by ‘provide an exegetical basis.’ You didn’t give any examples from scripture that would prove that man’s depravity is related in anyway to God’s promises of preservation being annulled. I would be looking for those examples. Showing us that man is depraved and then making a conclusion that this means that God would forfeit the ability to use men to preserve His Words”Edit: “Lump N Dump” … Great term, Jon, thanks!
Everything in me screams that I’m wasting my time, but I’m addicted. There are worse vices I guess. So anyway, two things on this
1) Exegetcal basis for my view of preservation.
You don’t seem to have noticed that our views on preservation overlap considerably. I have a theory about why, but I’ll skip it for now. In part 3, you’ll notice a heading “Points of agreement.” Don correctly observed that these are, well, points of agreement.
That is, in both your view an mine, God preserves all of His inspired words. In both your view and mine these words are accessible to at least some believers and in some form. We disagree about the form and the accessibility.
In my view there are no “promises of preservation being anulled.”
It’s very important to see this overlap in views because it means that your case for the idea that God preserves every word is the same as mine. They have the same exegetical basis (basically). I pointed this out in part 1.
Where we actually truly differ is on the part of TSKT’s case that has to do w/the word perfect form and the every generation accessibility to such a form.
As for depravity, I showed in part 2 that it applies to everything we do. Absent a promise from God to overcome it in the case of preservation, it applies to that as well. The real question there is whether God has made such a promise. … but I’ve said all this before repeatedly. Part 2 could not possibly be more clear on that point.
But clarity is not the issue here! One does not see what one is determined not to see.
2) God’s ability to use men I can’t believe you’re going back to that again. Please reread the introductory paragraphs in part 3. God’s ability is not, and has never been, in question in any of what I’ve written. But again, this is clear to anyone who gives it a fair reading.
My point on that has been that we need a biblical basis for believing that God uses His ability to maintain an accessible word-perfect text if we’re going to claim it as Bible doctrine.
(Failing that, we could look at history and other external evidence and conclude that He has used His ability in that way. But then we really would not have a Bible doctrine, we would have something less.)
But I’ve said all of this before. There is no way to clarify what people are determined to obfuscate.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Fantasy: The creative imagination; unrestrained fancy. See synonyms at imagination. Something, such as an invention, that is a creation of the fancy. A capricious or fantastic idea; a conceit. Fiction characterized by highly fanciful or supernatural elements. An example of such fiction. An imagined event or sequence of mental images, such as a daydream, usually fulfilling a wish or psychological need. An unrealistic or improbable supposition.
I was incredulous that Kent attacked your 3 foundational statements and apoplectic that he states that he cannot understand what you mean by that. My impression, the more I read these things, is that the KJVO movement has been taken over by the post-modernism of the emergents. They have a certainty that is demanding that their opponents have uncertainty!
“I believe in the inspiration of the Bible, both the Old and the New Testaments…” I have been saying and believing that since I was a lad and I have no uncertainty about the Word of God or any of the doctrines that it teach. I have no uncertainty that God has and will preserve His Word throughout time and eternity. I love to read the word in all English versions especially the ESV. I love the Jerome’s Latin translation. Luther had a good balance of formal and dynamic equivalence that makes his translation a joy to read. I love the Word of God but I will not worship the King James Translation. If anyone wants to fantasize that my last statement negates all the other statements than have at it but I will not join you on that quest!
Jon Bell Bucksport, ME "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
…. somebody makes better use of their time than I do!
(I was probably watching reruns while you were learning Latin)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[Aaron Blumer] You read the Vulgate?It has been my practice for 20+ years to follow along in another language during preaching. I read a parallel German-English Bible throughout college. When I started learning Latin I started to carry a Latin NT. Since I have never studied Greek it is especially informative since it is very close to the Greek in sentence structure and verbiage (i.e. Latin has distinct words for “love” that mirror the Greek words). Now with the wonders of the iPod Touch and Bible Reader App I can carry the Vulgate, Luther, and all the English translations with me along with search and other works like Matthew Henry CCB. It is only going to get better with the iPad since the bigger screen will allow easier reading and comparison of different texts!
Jon Bell Bucksport, ME "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
I’m going to stick my cheap netbook for a good while though.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
I think it speaks volumes, but not those he intends. When you have the truth on your side you do not have to misrepresent what those who disagree with you are saying.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Jon Bell Bucksport, ME "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
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Greg Long, Ed.D. (SBTS)
Pastor of Adult Ministries
Grace Church, Des Moines, IA
Adjunct Instructor
School of Divinity
Liberty University
So far, nobody of the TSKT perspective has complained about my use of “perfect text” or “perfect text preservation,” so that tilts me its favor. But at this point, even if they do, I’m likely to keep using it. It’s accurate, non-pejorative and not hard to understand (and a nice plus is that PTP sounds like a dangerous toxin! …kidding!)
I really think it serves everyone well if a vocabulary can be established that folks on all sides recognize. But at some point I fully expect PTPers to resist that because many of them do not want the debate itself to be clear. That is, they do not want what the disagreement is really about to be clear. The reason is that when the debate is properly framed as really being mainly about what the Scriptures say, they can feel that this is not a winning approach for them. If they grant that, they lose the biblical doctrine debate and I think some of them know this or at least sense it. They fear that they will have to admit that they cannot claim their view is legitimate “biblical doctrine” but rather is a position based on other criteria.
Once that happens, you have to grant the other side an equal playing field in evaluating the external evidence. This they want to avoid because if it’s not a true biblical doctrine, then we merely have a difference of opinion about history and there is nothing to “preach” on the subject—and neither side’s legitimacy as fundamentalists can be called into question, etc.
It’s a very hard path to walk for those who are already deeply vested in PTP as an article of faith—because of years of preaching it and serving up polemics based on it.
But I’m comforted that some who believe in PTP are well aware that it is really based on a view of external evidence and not a biblical doctrine. And we get along just fine.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[Aaron Blumer] I really think it serves everyone well if a vocabulary can be established that folks on all sides recognizeVery true. It is hard to discuss anything without defining terms. Again though it seems that PTP put us on the side of Imperfect Text Preservation which *sounds* like an errantist perspective so, while they might not reject the term I would be uncomfortable being labeled ITP! I serve up the particular/general distinction because 1) it is non-pejorative to either side and 2) it is a well-recognized distinction in other areas (i.e particular vs general redemption).
[Aaron Blumer] Once that happens, you have to grant the other side an equal playing field in evaluating the external evidence.LOL There you go with your unscriptural assumptions again! J/K. Pittman almost got there here when he admitted that another perfect translation could be produced which opened the door to providing criteria by which one can know a “perfect” translation. Then we just got back to the faith dodge.
[Aaron Blumer] But I’m comforted that some who believe in PTP are well aware that it is really based on a view of external evidence and not a biblical doctrine. And we get along just fine.There are some of these in my church. Unfortunately many people who believe fervently in particular preservation only know that they have been taught that general preservation gives away doctrine but they really don’t understand the issue. They talk a lot about scripture but when pressed they always fall back on St. Riplinger, St. Waite and all the other apostolic fathers of KJVO! I get along with these dear brothers and sisters as well but I get very perturbed with the purveyors of this “doctrine” and the damage that it is doing to real unity around the teaching of scripture. I know that some will bridle at this but, it seems that while we are fighting about which translation to read the Conservative Evangelicals are fighting the real modern battles of orthodoxy!
Jon Bell Bucksport, ME "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
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