The Chicago Statement
on Biblical Inerrancy
Dennis Bratcher, ed.
Note: This is a
temporary version; the final editing and the historical information about
the document have not been completed.
Preface
The authority of Scripture is a key issue for the Christian Church in
this and every age. Those who profess faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and
Savior are called to show the reality of their discipleship by humbly and
faithfully obeying God's written Word. To stray from Scripture in faith or
conduct is disloyalty to our Master. Recognition of the total truth and
trustworthiness of Holy Scripture is essential to a full grasp and
adequate confession of its authority.
The following Statement affirms this inerrancy of Scripture afresh,
making clear our understanding of it and warning against its denial. We
are persuaded that to deny it is to set aside the witness of Jesus Christ
and of the Holy Spirit and to refuse that submission to the claims of
God's own Word that marks true Christian faith. We see it as our timely
duty to make this affirmation in the face of current lapses from the truth
of inerrancy among our fellow Christians and misunderstanding of this
doctrine in the world at large.
This Statement consists of three parts: a Summary Statement, Articles
of Affirmation and Denial, and an accompanying Exposition. It has been
prepared in the course of a three-day consultation in Chicago. Those who
have signed the Summary Statement and the Articles wish to affirm their
own conviction as to the inerrancy of Scripture and to encourage and
challenge one another and all Christians to growing appreciation and
understanding of this doctrine. We acknowledge the limitations of a
document prepared in a brief, intensive conference and do not propose that
this Statement be given creedal weight. Yet we rejoice in the deepening of
our own convictions through our discussions together, and we pray that the
Statement we have signed may be used to the glory of our God toward a new
reformation of the Church in its faith, life and mission.
We offer this Statement in a spirit, not of contention, but of humility
and love, which we propose by God's grace to maintain in any future
dialogue arising out of what we have said. We gladly acknowledge that many
who deny the inerrancy of Scripture do not display the consequences of
this denial in the rest of their belief and behavior, and we are conscious
that we who confess this doctrine often deny it in life by failing to
bring our thoughts and deeds, our traditions and habits, into true
subjection to the divine Word.
We invite response to this Statement from any who see reason to amend
its affirmations about Scripture by the light of Scripture itself, under
whose infallible authority we stand as we speak. We claim no personal
infallibility for the witness we bear, and for any help that enables us to
strengthen this testimony to God's Word we shall be grateful.
I. Summary statement
1. God, who is Himself Truth and speaks truth only, has inspired Holy
Scripture in order thereby to reveal Himself to lost mankind through Jesus
Christ as Creator and Lord, Redeemer and Judge. Holy Scripture is God's
witness to Himself.
2. Holy Scripture, being God's own Word, written by men prepared and
superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all
matters upon which it touches: It is to be believed, as God's instruction,
in all that it affirms; obeyed, as God's command, in all that it requires;
embraced, as God's pledge, in all that it promises.
3. The Holy Spirit, Scripture's divine Author, both authenticates it to
us by His inward witness and opens our minds to understand its meaning.
4. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or
fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God's acts in
creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary
origins under God, than in its witness to God's saving grace in individual
lives.
5. The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total
divine inerrancy is in any way limited of disregarded, or made relative to
a view of truth contrary to the Bible's own; and such lapses bring serious
loss to both the individual and the Church.
II. Articles of affirmation and denial
Article 1
We affirm that the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the
authoritative Word of God.
We deny that the Scriptures receive their authority from the Church,
tradition, or any other human source.
Article 2
We affirm that the Scriptures are the supreme written norm by which God
binds the conscience, and that the authority of the Church is subordinate
to that of Scripture.
We deny that church creeds, councils, or declarations have authority
greater than or equal to the authority of the Bible.
Article 3
We affirm that the written Word in its entirety is revelation given by
God.
We deny that the Bible is merely a witness to revelation, or only
becomes revelation in encounter, or depends on the responses of men for
its validity.
Article 4
We affirm that God who made mankind in His image has used language as a
means of revelation.
We deny that human language is so limited by our creatureliness that it
is rendered inadequate as a vehicle for divine revelation. We further deny
that the corruption of human culture and language through sin has thwarted
God's work of inspiration.
Article 5
We affirm that God's revelation in the Holy Scriptures was progressive.
We deny that later revelation, which may fulfill earlier revelation,
ever corrects of contradicts it. We further deny that any normative
revelation has been given since the completion of the New Testament
writings.
Article 6
We affirm that the whole of Scripture and all its parts, down to the
very words of the original, were given by divine inspiration.
We deny that the inspiration of Scripture can rightly be affirmed of
the whole without the parts, or of some parts but not the whole.
Article 7
We affirm that inspiration was the work in which God by His Spirit,
through human writers, gave us His Word. The origin of Scripture is
divine. The mode of divine inspiration remains largely a mystery to us.
We deny that inspiration can be reduced to human insight, or to
heightened states of consciousness of any kind.
Article 8
We affirm that God in His work of inspiration utilized the distinctive
personalities and literary styles of the writers whom He had chosen and
prepared.
We deny that God, in causing these writers to use the very words that
He chose, overrode their personalities.
Article 9
We affirm that inspiration, through not conferring omniscience,
guaranteed true and trustworthy utterance on all matters of which the
Biblical authors were moved to speak and write.
We deny that the finitude or falseness of these writers, by necessity
or otherwise, introduced distortion or falsehood into God's Word.
Article 10
We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the
autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be
ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further
affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to
the extent that they faithfully represent the original.
We deny that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected
by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence
renders the assertion of Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.
Article 11
We affirm that Scripture, having been given by divine inspiration, is
infallible, so that, far from misleading us, it is true and reliable in
all the matters it addresses.
We deny that it is possible for the Bible to be at the same time
infallible and errant in its assertions. Infallibility and inerrancy may
be distinguished but not separated.
Article 12
We affirm that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from
all falsehood, fraud, or deceit.
We deny that Biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to
spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the
fields of history and science. We further deny that scientific hypotheses
about earth history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of
Scripture on creation and the flood.
Article 13
We affirm the propriety of using inerrancy as a theological term with
reference to the complete truthfulness of Scripture.
We deny that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according to standards
of truth and error that are alien to its usage or purpose. We further deny
that inerrancy is negated by Biblical phenomena such as a lack of modern
technical precision, irregularities of grammar or spelling, observational
descriptions of nature, the reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyperbole
and round numbers, the topical arrangement of metrical, variant selections
of material in parallel accounts, or the use of free citations.
Article 14
We affirm the unity and internal consistency of Scripture.
We deny that alleged errors and discrepancies that have not yet been
resolved violate the truth claims of the Bible.
Article 15
We affirm that the doctrine of inerrancy is grounded in the teaching of
the Bible about inspiration.
We deny that Jesus' teaching about Scripture may be dismissed by
appeals to accommodation or to any natural limitation of His humanity.
Article 16
We affirm that the doctrine of inerrancy has been integral to the
Church's faith throughout its history.
We deny that inerrancy is a doctrine invented by scholastic
Protestantism, or is a reactionary position postulated in response to
negative higher criticism.
Article 17
We affirm that the Holy Spirit bears witness to the Scriptures,
assuring believers of the truthfulness of God's written Word.
We deny that this witness of the Holy Spirit operates in isolation from
or against Scripture.
Article 18
We affirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico-historical
exegesis, taking account of its literary forms and devices, and that
Scripture is to interpret Scripture.
We deny the legitimacy of any treatment of the text or quest for
sources lying behind it that leads or relativizing, dehistoricizing, or
discounting its teaching, or rejecting its claims of authorship.
Article 19
We affirm that a confession of the full authority, infallibility and
inerrancy of Scripture is vital to a sound understanding of the whole of
the Christian faith. We further affirm that such confession should lead to
increasing conformity to the image of Christ.
We deny that such confession is necessary for salvation. However, we
further deny that inerrancy can be rejected without grave consequences,
both to the individual and to the Church.
III. Exposition
Our understanding of the doctrine of inerrancy must be set in the
context of the broader teachings of Scripture concerning itself. This
exposition gives an account of the outline of doctrine from which our
Summary Statement and Articles are drawn.
A. Creation, Revelation and Inspiration
The God, who formed all things by his creative utterances and governs
all things by His Word of decree, made mankind in His own image for a life
of communion with Himself, on the model of the eternal fellowship of
loving communication within the Godhead. As God's image-bearer, man was to
hear God's Word addressed to him and to respond in the joy of adoring
obedience. Over and above God's self-disclosure in the created order and
the sequence of events within it, human beings from Adam on have received
verbal messages from Him, either directly, as stated in Scripture, or
indirectly in the form of part or all of Scripture itself.
When Adam fell, the Creator did not abandon mankind to final judgement,
but promised salvation and began to reveal Himself as Redeemer in a
sequence of historical events centering on Abraham's family and
culminating in the life, death, resurrection, present heavenly ministry
and promised return of Jesus Christ. Within this frame God has from time
to time spoken specific words of judgement and mercy, promise and command,
to sinful human beings, so drawing them into a covenant relation of mutual
commitment between Him and them in which He blesses them with gifts of
grace and they bless Him in responsive adoration. Moses, whom God used as
mediator to carry his words to His people at the time of the exodus,
stands at the head of a long line of prophets in whose mouths and writings
God put His words for delivery to Israel. God's purpose in this succession
of messages was to maintain His covenant by causing His people to know His
name--that is, His nature--and His will both of precept and purpose in the
present and for the future. This line of prophetic spokesmen from God came
to completion in Jesus Christ, God's incarnate Word, who was Himself a
prophet--more that a prophet, but not less--and in the apostles and
prophets of the first Christian generation. When God's final and climactic
message, His word to the world concerning Jesus Christ, had been spoken
and elucidated by those in the apostolic circle, the sequence of revealed
messages ceased. Henceforth the Church was to live and know God by what He
had already said, and said for all time.
At Sinai God wrote the terms of His covenant on tablets of stone as His
enduring witness and for lasting accessibility, and throughout the period
of prophetic and apostolic revelation He prompted men to write the
messages given to and through them, along with celebratory records of His
dealings with His people, plus moral reflections on covenant life and
forms of praise and prayer for covenant mercy. The theological reality of
inspiration in the producing of Biblical documents corresponds to that of
spoken prophecies: Although the human writers' personalities were
expressed in what they wrote, the words were divinely constituted. Thus
what Scripture says, God says; its authority is His authority, for He is
its ultimate Author, having given it through the minds and words of chosen
and prepared men who in freedom and faithfulness "spoke from God as they
were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (I Pet 1:21). Holy Scripture must
be acknowledged as the Word of God by virtue of its divine origin.
B. Authority: Christ and the Bible
Jesus Christ, the Son of God who is the Word made flesh, our Prophet,
Priest and King, is the ultimate Mediator of God's communication to man,
as He is of all God's gifts of grace. The revelation He gave was more that
verbal; He revealed the Father by His presence and His deeds as well. Yet
His words were crucially important ; for He was God, He spoke from the
Father, and His words will judge all men at the last day.
As the prophesied Messiah, Jesus Christ is the central theme of
Scripture. The Old Testament looked ahead to Him; the New Testament looks
back to His first coming and on to His second. Canonical Scripture is the
divinely inspired and therefore normative witness to Christ. No
hermeneutic, therefore, of which the historical Christ is not the focal
point is acceptable. Holy Scripture must be treated as what it essentially
is--the witness of the Father to the incarnate Son.
It appears that the Old Testament canon had been fixed by the time of
Jesus. The New Testament canon is likewise now closed, inasmuch as no new
apostolic witness to the historical Christ can now be borne. No new
revelation (as distinct from Spirit-given understanding of existing
revelation) will be given until Christ comes again. The canon was created
in principle by divine inspiration. The Church's part was to discern the
canon that God had created, not to devise one of its own.
The word 'canon', signifying a rule of standard, is a pointer to
authority, which means the right to rule and control. Authority in
Christianity belongs to God in His revelation, which means, on the one
hand, Jesus Christ, the living Word, and, on the other hand, Holy
Scripture, the written Word. But the authority of Christ and that of
Scripture are one. As our Prophet, Christ testified that Scripture cannot
be broken. As our Priest and King, He devoted His earthly life to
fulfilling the law and the prophets, even dying in obedience to the words
of messianic prophecy. Thus as He saw Scripture attesting Him and His
authority, so by His own submission to Scripture He attested its
authority. As He bowed to His Father's instruction given in His Bible (our
Old Testament), so He requires His disciples to do--not, however, in
isolation but in conjunction with the apostolic witness to Himself that He
undertook to inspire by his gift of the Holy Spirit. So Christians show
themselves faithful servants of their Lord by bowing to the divine
instruction given in the prophetic and apostolic writings that together
make up our Bible.
By authenticating each other's authority, Christ and Scripture coalesce
into a single fount of authority. The Biblically-interpreted Christ and
the Christ-centered, Christ-proclaiming Bible are from this standpoint
one. As from the fact of inspiration we infer that what Scripture says,
God says, so from the revealed relation between Jesus Christ and Scripture
we may equally declare that what Scripture says, Christ says.
C. Infallibility, Inerrancy, Interpretation
Holy Scripture, as the inspired Word of God witnessing authoritatively
to Jesus Christ, may properly be called 'infallible' and 'inerrant'. These
negative terms have a special value, for they explicitly safeguard crucial
positive truths.
'Infallible' signifies the quality of neither misleading nor being
misled and so safeguards in categorical terms the truth that Holy
Scripture is a sure, safe and reliable rule and guide in all matters.
Similarly, 'inerrant' signifies the quality of being free from all
falsehood or mistake and so safeguards the truth that Holy Scripture is
entirely true and trustworthy in all its assertions.
We affirm that canonical Scripture should always be interpreted on the
basis that it is infallible and inerrant. However, in determining what the
God-taught writer is asserting in each passage, we must pay the most
careful attention to its claims and character as a human production. In
inspiration, God utilized the culture and conventions of his penman's
milieu, a milieu that God controls in His sovereign providence; it is
misinterpretation to imagine otherwise.
So history must be treated as history, poetry as poetry, hyperbole and
metaphor as hyperbole and metaphor, generalization and approximation as
what they are, and so forth. Differences between literary conventions in
Bible times and in ours must also be observed: Since, for instance,
nonchronological narration and imprecise citation were conventional and
acceptable and violated no expectations in those days, we must not regard
these things as faults when we find them in Bible writers. When total
precision of a particular kind was not expected nor aimed at, it is no
error not to have achieved it. Scripture is inerrant, not in the sense of
being absolutely precise by modern standards, but in the sense of making
good its claims and achieving that measure of focused truth at which its
authors aimed.
The truthfulness of Scripture is not negated by the appearance in it of
irregularities of grammar or spelling, phenomenal descriptions of nature,
reports of false statements (for example, the lies of Satan), or seeming
discrepancies between one passage and another. It is not right to set the
so-called "phenomena" of Scripture against the teaching of Scripture about
itself. Apparent inconsistencies should not be ignored. Solution of them,
where this can be convincingly achieved, will encourage our faith, and
where for the present no convincing solution is at hand we shall
significantly honor God by trusting His assurance that His Word is true,
despite these appearances, and by maintaining our confidence that one day
they will be seen to have been illusions.
Inasmuch as all Scripture is the product of a single divine mind,
interpretation must stay within the bounds of the analogy of Scripture and
eschew hypotheses that would correct one Biblical passage by another,
whether in the name of progressive revelation or of the imperfect
enlightenment of the inspired writer's mind.
Although Holy Scripture is nowhere culture-bound in the sense that its
teaching lacks universal validity, it is sometimes culturally conditioned
by the customs and conventional views of a particular period, so that the
application of its principles today calls for a different sort of action.
D. Skepticism and Criticism
Since the Renaissance, and more particularly since the Enlightenment,
world views have been developed that involve skepticism about basic
Christian tenets. Such are the agnosticism that denies that God is
knowable, the rationalism that denies that He is incomprehensible, the
idealism that denies that He is transcendent, and the existentialism that
denies rationality in His relationships with us. When these un- and
anti-Biblical principles seep into men's theologies at presuppositional
level, as today they frequently do, faithful interpretation of Holy
Scripture becomes impossible.
E. Transmission and Translation
Since God has nowhere promised an inerrant transmission of Scripture,
it is necessary to affirm that only the autographic text of the original
documents was inspired and to maintain the need of textual criticism as a
means of detecting any slips that may have crept into the text in the
course of its transmission. The verdict of this science, however, is that
the Hebrew and Greek text appears to be amazingly well preserved, so that
we are amply justified in affirming, with the Westminster Confession, a
singular providence of God in this matter and in declaring that the
authority of Scripture is in no way jeopardized by the fact that the
copies we possess are not entirely error-free.
Similarly, no translation is or can be perfect, and all translations
are an additional step away from the autograph. Yet the verdict of
linguistic science is that English-speaking Christians, at least, are
exceedingly well served in these days with a host of excellent
translations and have no cause for hesitating to conclude that the true
Word of God is within their reach. Indeed, in view of the frequent
repetition in Scripture of the main matters with which it deals and also
of the Holy Spirit's constant witness to and through the Word, no serious
translation of Holy Scripture will so destroy its meaning as to render it
unable to make its reader "wise for salvation through faith in Christ
Jesus" (2 Tim. 3:15)
F. Inerrancy and Authority
In our affirmation of the authority of Scripture as involving its total
truth, we are consciously standing with Christ and His apostles, indeed
with the whole Bible and with the main stream of Church history from the
first days until very recently. We are concerned at that casual,
inadvertent and seemingly thoughtless way in which a belief of such
far-reaching importance has been given up by so many in our day.
We are conscious too that great and grave confusion results from
ceasing to maintain the total truth of the Bible whose authority one
professes to acknowledge. The result of taking this step is that the Bible
that God gave loses its authority, and what has authority instead is a
Bible reduced in content according to the demands of one's critical
reasoning and in principle reducible still further once one has started.
This means that at bottom independent reason now has authority, as opposed
to Scriptural teaching. If this is not seen and if for the time being
basic evangelical doctrines are still held, persons denying the full truth
of Scripture may claim an evangelical identity while methodologically they
have moved away from the evangelical principle of knowledge to an unstable
subjectivism, and will find it hard not to move further.
We affirm that what Scripture says, God says. May He be glorified. Amen
and Amen.
-Dennis Bratcher, Copyright
©
2018, Dennis
Bratcher, All Rights Reserved
(No copyright claims are made for the text of the original document.)
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