Fuller Theological Seminary illustrates the effect of a Christian institution or local church abandoning a solid doctrinal statement. The Domino Effect took place at Fuller Theological Seminary which was founded in 1947 by Charles Fuller. Harold Lindsell who served as vice-president at Fuller Theological Seminary documented Fuller’s departure from inerrancy in The Battle for the Bible (click to open). Lindsell dedicated chapter six to this battle at Fuller: The Strange Case of Fuller Theological Seminary.
Gregg Allison writes that “Perhaps the most notable institutional example of the drift from affirming the inerrancy of Scripture to affirming the infallibility of Scripture was Fuller Theological Seminary (Gregg Allison. Historical Theology (116). Zondervan Academic. Kindle Edition. See note at the end of the post for Gregg Allison’s approach to Historical Theology.
Gregg Allison notes that Harold Lindsell and other teachers at Fuller resigned over the inerrancy issue. Other conservative scholars who resigned were Charles Woodbridge, Wilbur Smith, and Gleason Archer (Allison, Gregg. Historical Theology, 119).
Here is Gregg Allison’s definition of inerrancy: The church has historically acknowledged that Scripture in its original manuscripts and properly interpreted is completely true and without any error in everything that it affirms, whether that has to do with doctrine, moral conduct, or matters of history, cosmology, geography, and the like (99).
Fuller's first doctrinal statement
Fuller was founded in 1947 by Charles E. Fuller along with Wilbur Smith, Everett F. Harrison, Carl F. H. Henry, and Harold Lindsell who were all committed to the inerrancy of Scripture which the first doctrinal statement reflected:
“The books which form the canon of the Old and New Testaments as originally given are plenary inspired and free from all error in the whole and in the part. These books constitute the written Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice.” This is a solid Biblical statement.
Every faculty member was to sign the doctrinal statement every year without mental reservation or voluntarily leave. In 1962, one wealthy board member, C. Davis Weyerhaeuser, openly denied inerrancy, and nothing was done. Later two faculty members denied inerrancy and nothing was done. Neo-Orthodoxy made its influence on Fuller through Daniel Fuller (Charles Fuller’s son) who went to Bazil, Switzerland, to study under Neo-Orthodox theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968), who did not believe in inerrancy. Barth wrote about his view of errancy in his Church Dogmatics: “The Bible witnesses to a revelation from God …. The prophets and apostles are actually guilty of error in their spoken and written word” (Church Dogmatics pp. 507, 528, 529). When Daniel Fuller returned to Fuller he had abandoned inerrancy.
Daniel Fuller’s Public Denial of Inerrancy
Daniel Fuller delivered an address to the Evangelical Theological Society in 1967 entitled “Benjamin B. Warfield’s View of Faith and History.” Daniel Fuller acknowledged that “Warfield, however, inferred from the plenary verbal inspiration unmistakably taught by the doctrinal verses, that all Biblical statements whether they pertain to knowledge that makes men wise unto salvation or to such subjects as botany, meteorology, or paleontology, are equally true. He affirmed ‘the complete trustworthiness of Scripture in all elements and in every, even circumstantial statement.’” Fuller offered a corrective to Warfield’s view: “to understand that verbal plenary inspiration involves accommodation to the thinking of the original readers in non-revelational matters” (Fuller Theological Seminary Bulletin, Issue, Vol. II, No. 2, Spring 1968, p. 80).
Grudem specifically responded to Fuller saying “We must respond that such ‘accommodation’ by God to our misunderstandings would imply that God had acted contrary to his character as an ‘unlying God’ (Num. 23:19; Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18) ((Systematic Theology, 97).
“The illustration that the Neo-Orthodox usually gives is that the Bible is like a minister preaching the Gospel. Although there may be many mistakes in his sermon, he is still witnessing to the truth, and this is sufficient to secure salvation for men” (Steward Custer, Does Inspiration Demand Inerrancy, 75).
David A. Hubbard was elected president of Fuller in 1963. “Hubbard wanted to do away with the use of the word inerrancy. It ‘is too precise, too mathematical a term to describe appropriately the way in which God’s infallible revelation has come to us in a Book’” (Lindsell, 115).
Wayne Gruden in his defense of inerrancy argues that “the Bible can be inerrant and still speak in the ordinary language of everyday speech” (Systematic Theology, page 91). He adds that “this is especially true in ‘scientific’ or ‘historical’ descriptions of facts or events …. A similar consideration applies to numbers …. Inerrancy has to do with truthfulness, not with the degree of precision with which events are reported” (91-92).
Three Examples of Inerrancy
For example, when Joshua notes that the sun stood still in Joshua ten to give him more time to defeat his enemies, he was using the common “appearance of language” to describe the event. He was not scientifically imprecise. Joshua spoke as a layman, not an astronomer. Even astronomers speak of a beautiful sunrise or sunset.
Michael Horton gave another example of the authors of Scripture and even Jesus speaking in the common language of the people: Critics often point to Matthew 13:32, where Jesus refers to the mustard seed as ‘the smallest of all seeds.’ From the context, it is clear that Jesus was not making a botanical claim but drawing on the familiar experience of his hearers, for whom the analogy would have worked perfectly well (The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims On the Way, 178). Jesus used this proverb well known in His day also in Matthew 17:20.
Grudem states that in 1 Corinthians 10:11, Paul can refer even to minor historical details in the Old Testament (setting down to eat and drink, rising up to dance) and can say both that they ‘happened’ (thus implying historical reliability) and ‘were written down for our instruction’” (page 93).
In 1972, Fuller adopted a new doctrinal statement
Between the drafting of the first and second doctrinal statements, Fuller hired faculty, such as Calvin Schoonhoven and James Daane, who did not hold to the inerrancy of Scripture.
Lindsell reports that “It was ten years after the issue of inerrancy had erupted” that Fuller adopted a second doctrinal statement:
“Scripture is an essential part and trustworthy record of this divine disclosure. All the books of the Old and New Testaments, given by divine inspiration, are the written Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice.” One all-important statement is omitted from the first statement: “free from all error in the whole and in the part.”
The new doctrinal statement reflected the denial of inerrancy by most of the administration and faculty.
Now the view is the infallibility of the Bible in areas of faith and practice. Grudem addresses this challenge to inerrancy. “One of the most frequent objections is raised by those who say that the purpose of Scripture is to teach us in areas that concern ‘faith’ and ‘practice’ only; that is, in areas that relate to our religious faith or to our ethical conduct …. Its advocates often prefer to say that the Bible is ‘infallible,’ but they hesitate to use the word inerrant …. The response to this objection can be stated as follows: the Bible repeatedly affirms that all of Scripture is profitable for us (2 Timothy 3:16) and that all of it is ‘God-breathed.’….. The Bible itself does not make any restrictions on the kinds of subjects to which it speaks truthfully” (page 93).
Michael Horton agrees with Grudem when he writes that “there is no ‘canon within a canon’’; all Scripture is God-breathed and therefore useful (i.e., canonical)” (175). Horton also stated that he rejected “theories of limited inerrancy. If we cannot trust God as creator, then we cannot trust God as Redeemer” (180).
In 1975, Paul King Jewett limits inerrancy only when Scripture speaks of salvation
Five years later (1975) Fuller’s professor Paul King Jewett in his Man as Male and Female said Paul’s teaching about the subordination of women to male leadership is an error:
Paul is not only basing his argument exclusively on the second creation narrative but is assuming the traditional rabbinic understanding of that narrative whereby the order of their creation is made to yield the primacy of the man over the woman .... We do not think it is, for it is palpably inconsistent with the first creation narrative, with the lifestyle of Jesus, and with the apostle’s own clear affirmation that in Christ there is no male and female (Gal. 3:28) (Paul King Jewett, Man As Male and Female, Grand Rapid (Eerdmans, 1975, p. 119).
Dr. Jerry Hullinger notes a principle of the Evangelical Feminist Perspective called an interpretive center which uses a verse as a starting point as a filter for other texts in analyzing the NT view. The interpretive center, in this case, is Galatians 3:28 which overrides any other verse on the subject such as Ephesians 5:22. Dr. Hullinger is correct in stating that equal weight should be given to each text (from classroom notes in Hermeneutics).
I would add, in its context. In Galatians, Paul is arguing that justification by faith produces spiritual equality in the body of Christ. therefore men and women are spiritually equal in Christ (3:28). In Ephesians 5, Paul is arguing that being Spirit-filled produces submission to the different roles God has ordained in the family. There is no error in Paul’s teaching, which includes wives submitting to the spiritual leadership of their husbands.
Now at Fuller, according to Jewett’s view, the Scripture is infallible only in faith or salvation.
Look at the downward spiral that took place at Fuller.
1. Fuller started out believing the infallibility and inerrancy of all Scripture in their first doctrinal statement.
2. Fuller then moved to believe the infallibility of the Scripture only in faith and practice (seen in the second doctrinal statement) not mentioning inerrancy.
3. Finally, Fuller moved to believe the infallibility of Scripture only in the area of salvation (Jewett’s view). Or the Scripture is only inerrant when it speaks of salvation.
On its website, Fuller warns of The Language of “Inerrancy” and Its Dangers (click to open). One of the six dangers is “that too often it has undermined our confidence in the Bible by a retreat for refuge to the original manuscripts (which we do not possess) whenever problems cannot otherwise be resolved.”
Grudem specifically addresses this argument: “The study of textual variants has not left us in confusion about what the original manuscripts said” (Grudem, 96). Horton quotes from A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield in Inspiration. Horton said this book is “the best formulation of inerrancy and challenges caricatures” (176). “These two Old Princeton theologians advocated that inerrancy is not attributed to copies, much less to our vernacular translations, but to “the original autographic text” (page 42 in Inspiration and page 177 in Horton).
Defenders of inerrancy goes all the back to Augustine: “And if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the manuscript is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand” (Zondervan. Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology, Zondervan Academic. Kindle Edition., 235)
The number of manuscripts of the New Testament, of early translations from it, and of quotations from it in the oldest writers of the Church, is so large that it is practically certain that the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved in someone or another of these ancient authorities .... This can be said of no other ancient book in the world (Sir Fredrick Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts [NY: Harper, 1958], 55).
The Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy
Conservative inerrantists pushed back in 1978. Three hundred noted scholars met in 1978 in Chicago, including Wayne Grudem, Homer Kent, Jr., John MacArthur, R. C. Sproul, John Whitcomb, etc., and produced The Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy. Article XI reads, “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.”
These conservative theologians not only saw the error that resulted from a doctrinal statement abandoned, they not only cursed the darkness, but they also lit a light and forged another solid doctrinal statement that now must be practiced and defended.
Grudem warns: The problem that comes with a denial of biblical inerrancy is not insignificant .... If we deny inerrancy, a serious moral problem confronts us: may we imitate God and intentionally lie in small matters also? Ephesians 5:1 tells us to be imitators of God. But a denial of inerrancy implies that God intentionally spoke falsely to us in some of the less central affirmations of Scripture …. If inerrancy is denied, we begin to wonder if we can really trust God in anything He says (100).
Horton makes a similar statement: “Whatever the holy, unerring, and faithful Father speaks is-----simply by virtue of having come from him----holy, unerring, and faithful” (184).
There are two basic approaches commonly found in historical theology: synchronic and diachronic.
The synchronic approach engages in the study of the theology of a certain time period, a particular theologian, a specific theological school or tradition, and the like. Examples of this approach include the study of the doctrine of the Trinity in the third and fourth centuries, the development of Christology in the fourth and fifth centuries, the theology of John Calvin, and neoorthodox theologies of the Word of God.[1]This is the approach of Alister E. McGrath in Historical Theology: An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought.
In addition to the synchronic approach, “The diachronic approach engages in the study of the development of thought on a given doctrine throughout the periods of the church’s history. Examples of this approach include the study of the doctrines of Scripture and sin as developed in the early church, the Middle Ages, the Reformation and post-Reformation period, and the modern period.”[2] This is the approach of Gregg Allison in his Historical Theology.
[1] Gregg Allison. Historical Theology, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 29, Kindle Edition.
[2] Ibid., 29-30.