The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy: Article XVI

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.

The inerrancy of the Scriptures is a doctrine which rises or falls on the merits of the Scriptures themselves. It is a doctrine derived from both the fact of the inspiration of the Scriptures and from the nature of God as True. But to assert these things does not also preclude the possibility that the inerrancy of the Scriptures has been recognized by Christians since they were written down and disseminated throughout the church. In fact, the authors of the Chicago Statement recognize that inerrancy is a historic doctrine found not only within the Scriptures themselves but also recognized throughout the history of the church. In their sixteenth affirmation, they assert as much, and more. They affirm that not only has inerrancy been recognized by Christians throughout time but was a central tenet of their faith and to THE Faith. Later in the Statement in the section entitled ‘Inerrancy and Authority,’ they state, “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.” Robert Preus agrees, stating, “That the Bible is the Word of God, inerrant and of supreme divine authority, was a conviction held by all Christians and Christian teachers through the first 1,700 years of church history.”[1] Preus quotes the indefatigable Irenaeus, which said in his Adversus Haereses, “We must believe God, who has given us the right understanding, since the Holy Scriptures are perfect, because they are spoken by the Word of God and the Spirit of God.”[2] This is not to say that one must agree with the Fathers’ hermeneutics or methods of interpretation[3], but rather it is an affirmation that Irenaeus, Tertullian, etc affirmed the necessary consequence of divine inspiration in the nature of the truth of the Scriptures.

The sixteenth denial sets the doctrine of inerrancy within the light of perhaps the two main battlegrounds within the church post East-West separation: the Protestant Reformation and the onset of higher criticism. To opponents of the Chicago Statement and those to which is argues against, the doctrine of inerrancy is nowhere found within the Scriptures themselves and is itself a product of human invention during the two controversies mentioned. Opponents argue that Protestant thinkers such as Luther and Calvin manufactured inerrancy as a weapon in their war against the Roman church. Furthermore, they argue that it was a weapon once again wielded to fight the onslaught of German heresy seeking to damage the nature and authority of the Bible. While it is true, however, that the Reformers and orthodox theologians of the 19^th and 20^th centuries argued for the inspiration, inerrancy, and authority of the Scriptures in terms and language that the Fathers may not have used, it would be a grave error to suggest that they manufactured it out of thin air. The same argument may be used of the Nicene Fathers in their arguments against Arius and Co. in the earlier days of the church. Although Solomon is right in saying there is nothing new under the sun, old ideas often reformulate in more subtle ways which require innovative and modern language to combat. But this does not mean the thoughts behind the language aren’t much older or consistent with the thoughts of the Fathers or of Scripture itself. Scripture as Truth revealed by God to men who wrote down those revelations is a doctrine thoroughly biblical AND thoroughly historical. To assert otherwise is ignorant at best, heretical and hellish at worst. It is certainly no coincidence that Satan’s first recorded words are “did God really say.”

Keith Kauffman attended University of Maryland (B.S.) and Capital Bible Seminary(M.Div.). Keith currently works at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, working in the Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases studying the immune response to Tuberculosis. Keith serves as an elder at Greenbelt Baptist Church.