Book Briefs: February 1, 1985

The Scripture Principle

Clark Pinnock’s precarious balance between openmindedness and doctrinal instability.

Any work by Clark Pinnock, now professor of systematic theology at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, deserves the attention of the theological world, and especially of evangelicals. His most recent book, The Scripture Principle (Harper & Row, 1984), is certain to be much attended. It is a very ambitious attempt to present the authority and inspiration of Scripture in a comprehensive and positive manner, and to defend it against many modern attacks. But The Scripture Principle will not be received without controversy. Pinnock “calls the shots” as he sees them, and he believes that evangelicals have been evasive or unconvincing about a number of matters involving the nature of Scripture.

This theologian, a lucid and trenchant communicator, seems to thrive in an adversary posture. He moves into his subject like a man cutting a trail through a thicket with great machete slashes on the right and on the left. The consequence is that Pinnock provides delightful reading when he spars with common adversaries. He raises some hackles when the reader’s view appears to be under attack. Pinnock’s interpretation of biblical inerrancy (differing markedly from his earlier writings on the subject) is likely to raise the most hackles. In the assessment of Carl F. H. Henry, with which I am inclined to agree, Pinnock “retains inerrancy as a concept, but seems to thin it out almost to the breaking point.”

An Ambitious Scope

Pinnock has undertaken to discuss in a single volume the Scripture’s unique claim to divine authority, articulated through human language and personalities, and implemented in our day by the enlightenment given by the Holy Spirit.

He manifests a resolute rejection of left-wing critical approaches as found, for instance, in the work of James Barr and Edward Farley. He makes an uncompromising avowal of allegiance to the Protestant conservative community and shows a keen, critical sense of the inadequacies of liberalism. On the other hand, he takes issue with certain well-known representatives of the conservative wing, notably B. B. Warfield, Harold Lindsell, Gleason Archer, and at times the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. In this process he addresses certain difficult issues such as canonicity, biblical criticism, hermeneutical principles, the role of tradition, the significance of the present work of the Holy Spirit, the range of operation of the divine control and of human free agency in the composition of Scripture, and the presence of apparent discrepancies within Scripture.

One gets the impression that Pinnock has not avoided any known difficulty, but has faced squarely the most puzzling and anguish-producing problems that one can encounter in this domain. Since the volume has only 288 pages, we could not expect that it will explore any of these areas in full depth, but will leave many of the problems insufficiently covered.

An Excerpt

“Part of the problem is that we have been tricked into defending the Bible in the wrong way. The liberals, fresh from the modern Enlightenment, look at the Bible from a human and academic point of view. They raise difficult academic questions, and we try to answer them. But in the process, we are maneuvered into an alien defense formation. We agree, in effect, to discuss the issue on the basis of scholarly considerations divorced from the life context of proving the Bible true. This, in turn, requires us to tighten up the intellectual side and nearly bracket the spiritual side of this question. All of a sudden it becomes essential to argue with all sorts of scholarly apparatus for a Bible more perfect than the one that exists and it becomes an embarrassment to admit that Christians have always found the existing Bible, with its difficulties, quite sufficient in authority and truth. It has even caused some evangelicals to turn on others, questioning whether this procedure is really wise and helpful.…

There is something terribly wrong when we argue about the Bible more and enjoy it less. God gave us his Word to make us wise, to instruct our minds, to revive our spirits, to guide our feet in his ways.… This is what the Bible itself claims, and this is what really matters.”

Commendable Points

Conservative and moderate evangelicals will find Pinnock a staunch ally on several matters. He recognizes that “the Bible is … the inscripturation of God’s Word” (although he rejects Augustine’s well-known formula “What Scripture says, God says” as too simplistic). He bears witness to the internal unity and coherence of Scripture and protests against excessive emphasis on diversity as found, for instance, in the recent work of J. D. G. Dunn. He tackles some of the major difficulties in the Bible (e.g., God’s command to slaughter the Canaanites) and offers explanations intended to vindicate the biblical outlook. Pinnock acknowledges that the canon of Scripture has an unparalleled place that lifts it above every other authority. He is not stampeded into a wholesale rejection of all forms of biblical criticism, but articulates with great discernment what are the proper functions of the various types of criticism. He maintains that the use of the term “inerrant” in reference to Scripture is warranted and manifests the continuity of evangelicalism with the Reformation.

Notable Reservations

But at times Pinnock borders on professing a functional inerrancy, the view that the Bible is infallible only as a guide in matters of faith and conduct. And yet at other points in the book he appears to reject this notion.

With due recognition for the merits of this new work, then, certain reservations are necessary. This is especially the case when we compare The Scripture Principle with Pinnock’s Biblical Revelation, published in 1971.

In The Scripture Principle Pinnock attenuates greatly the force of the exegetical argument for a high view of inspiration that implies biblical inerrancy. He exaggerates the alleged opposition between the Old Testament and its messianic interpretation. He undervalues the significance of divine authorship and its relation to the notion of error. In all these matters his treatment 13 years ago in Biblical Revelation was more satisfactory.

Pinnock not only avers that there are difficulties in the Bible that we are not now able to resolve in a cogently plausible manner, but he concedes that some of these must be adjudged to be human errors embodied in the sacred text from the start. This is in sharp contradiction with his stance in Biblical Revelation and with the position of most biblical inerrantists, who perceive that the claim of errors in the autographs dilutes or even destroys the claim of the divine authorship of Scripture.

Consider these specifics:

• Pinnock considers the concept of “legend” to be applicable to certain portions of Scripture that are usually interpreted as historical in evangelical circles. Jonah is called “a didactic fiction.” The narratives of Genesis 1–3 fall in this category, as do certain events of the life of Christ (Matt. 17:24–27; 27:52) and of Paul (Acts 19:11–12; 27:1–6). If these events were actually historical—as indeed they were—it is difficult to see how the biblical language would be changed in order to reflect that more clearly.

• The distinction evangelicals make between autographs and copies or translations, so well articulated by Pinnock in his Biblical Revelation, is now dismissed as trivial or even mischievous.

• Because the biblical books reflect a variety of literary genres and a diversity of purpose, Pinnock is led to posit different degrees of inspiration. It is the melancholy verdict of history that those who advocated this kind of distinction appear invariably to have weakened the doctrine of inspiration, since such a view inevitably leads to a downgrading of those passages or books that are viewed as given under a “low” degree of inspiration.

• Pinnock lays great stress on the function of Christian tradition and of the ever-present illumination of the Holy Spirit in our perception, understanding, and transculturation of the Word of God. Surely an evangelical should be careful to acknowledge the importance of the guidance of God’s Spirit over these nineteen centuries and of his present witness in the hearts of believers. But Pinnock appears here to be insufficiently guarded against the twin dangers of a tradition-bound approach that creates a rival to canonical Scripture and of illuminism in which the properly exegeted Scripture is not the only infallible norm.

• Pinnock has also abandoned the concept of “confluence” in the relationship between divine and human activity. Stated succinctly, this abandonment means that the divine activity and the human activity do not overlap, but that God’s activity terminates where human activity starts.

This, of course, dispels on a rationalistic basis the mystery of providence and of inspiration. Room is secured for a rationally demonstrable place for human free will at the frightful loss of divine sovereignty. The impact of this approach, if carried consistently into Christology, will lead to sheer Nestorianism.

Pinnock’s Changing Mind

In all of this one may well regret that Pinnock has not allowed the influence of both the Jewish and the Christian traditions to have a greater place in his formulation of the doctrine of inspiration. What he gives us here is hardly what has always been held in the Christian community!

As J. I. Packer observed upon perusing a manuscript of The Scripture Principle, Professor Pinnock, in spite of his considerable knowledge of the relevant literature, has a tendency to “walk by himself,” which is really disconcerting.

Open-mindedness and stability are two great qualities that theologians must hold in tension: open-mindedness so that they continue to remain subject to correction where they may be wrong; stability so that some real confidence may be placed in their conclusions. Clark Pinnock has certainly shown considerable open-mindedness through the years, but this is flawed by the instability that has led him to shift his stance repeatedly, even long after he began teaching theology.

Reviewed by Roger Nicole, Andrew Murtch Professor of Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Massachusetts. Dr. Nicole edited Inerrancy and Common Sense (Baker, 1980).

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