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scott_jorgenson
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 1/26/2004 12:13 PM (GMT -6) |   | Sorry for the old news - this apparently goes back 2 months but I never heard about it at the time. Norman Geisler has resigned from the Evangelical Theological Society over the body's refusal to expel John Sanders and Clark Pinnock. He gives his reasons at his Web site: http://www.normgeisler.com/etsresign.htm
Clearly Geisler saw the ETS, not as a scholarly theological society where opposing views are irenically published and debated, but as a circling-of-wagons against false teaching. In his view, clearly it was less important that the ETS be a place of open debate within Christian faith commitments, than a bastion of wholly like-minded fellows (whose hottest internal debates would be over such relative minutiae as "pre-mill or post-mill") acting in concert to debate, not one another, but all the (by definition) apostates and near-apostates on The Outside. I wonder: if Geisler's views define evangelicalism, what the difference is then with fundamentalism - as far as I can tell, there seems to be no difference except the desire to have a more-respectable- and intellectual-sounding label. Purely as a lay observer, I am encouraged if his departure indicates a weakening of these legalistic and exclusivistic attitudes.
That said, I agree with Geisler's assessment on the creative stretching of the definition of "inerrancy" practiced by some Christians. Like it or not, inerrancy basically means what Harold Lindsell laid down the gauntlet over in the 1970's, and this is widely accepted (see Greg's own book, Across the Spectrum, for example). I've read Pinnock's The Scripture Principle and, at least at the time of that writing, he was no inerrantist. Better if Pinnock and Sanders and many others just broke with the term. I wonder what holds them back?
Scott
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honorman
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Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1137
| Posted 1/26/2004 3:03 PM (GMT -6) | | | One of the problems Geisler has is that when you read his Battle For God book, which "refutes" open theism, many of the positions he takes that he considers orthodox, are not even held by non-open theists. I definitely think its a good thing he resigned. | | Back to Top | | |
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AlyoshaKaramazov
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 49
| Posted 1/27/2004 9:45 AM (GMT -6) | | Wow, I didn't know about this "old news" either. Seems like someone as influential as Geisler resigning should have made some serious waves. Geisler's reasons for resigning are clear--maybe Pinnock and Sanders should have been given the boot--and I say this as a near open theist who reads and has learned from Sanders and Pinnock. The ETS does seem to have acted against its doctrinal positions and Geisler is justified in leaving, but does it even matter?
quote:
Clearly Geisler saw the ETS, not as a scholarly theological society where opposing views are irenically published and debated, but as a circling-of-wagons against false teaching.
This only raises the question: why are some evangelicals so petrified of irenically debating controversial issues among themselves? The only answer that makes any sense to me is that they are just insecure about their own positions. This is a little scary for anyone interested in the credibility and intellectual integrity of their evangelical leaders. I mean, why even meet if you are in perfect, unanimous agreement with each other? What do they talk about? Don't get me wrong, they're perfectly entitled to do this, but what's the point? Maybe they should rename the ETS, the "Let's pat each other on the back and provide psychological support to each other" society. Pardon the ad hominem, but what a bunch of wussies.
BTW, is Greg Boyd a member of the ETS?
"You see I have come to doubt all that I once held as true. I stand alone without beliefs, the only truth I know is you."--Paul Simon | | Back to Top | | |
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scott_jorgenson
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 1/27/2004 11:14 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by AlyoshaKaramazov
...The ETS does seem to have acted against its doctrinal positions and Geisler is justified in leaving...
I have to agree, but not because open theism is inherently in conflict with inerrancy. From what I can tell, its plain that an open theist can be an inerrantist. But from what I know of Pinnock, he is no inerrantist (I don't really know about Sanders, just having read his No Other Name). This is clear from Pinnock's The Scripture Principle where he spends 200 pages challenging extreme liberal criticism on the one hand and conservative inerrancy on the other, even (in his footnotes) dismissing such inerrancy champions as Geisler and Gleason Archer by name.
The "charges" (if that's not too dramatic a word) brought against Pinnock and Sanders, though, were not related to inerrancy in general, but inerrancy w/r/t their openness views. So, since openness is not inherently opposed to inerrancy, and Pinnock and Sanders evidently found themselves sufficiently able to explain or recant those points in their openness writings where they may have at least seemed to deny inerrancy, the ETS was probably right to retain them on those narrow grounds. But on the broader ground of denial of inerrancy in general, Pinnock at least should probably have been ejected - long ago, actually. And for that matter, I would suspect probably at least a quarter of the current membership should have been booted too, long ago, for the same "sin".
Which is a really sad thing. The problem wouldn't be the ETS acting to legalistically enforce its doctrinal basis - they're within their rights to kick people out who knew what they were getting into when they signed up - but that the Evangelical Theological Society should have such a concept as inerrancy be its doctrinal cornerstone. The evangelical community has been divided on inerrancy since the 1960's and 1970's, so who decided that a society of evangelical theologians would by definition have inerrancy in common? How about a different common touchpoint instead - oh, I don't know... Jesus lord and savior?
Incidentally, from what I can tell from his writings, Greg doesn't qualify for the inerrantist badge either, so I guess he shouldn't belong to ETS, whether or not he is still a member :-)
Scott
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scott_jorgenson
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Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 1/27/2004 2:34 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by John Earp
I'm curious, precisely what in Dr. Boyd's writings leads you to doubt he is an inerrantist?
Sorry, I probably overstepped my bounds when asserting he was probably not an inerrantist. I think I somewhere gained the impression that he not only authored the "infallibilist" section of Across the Spectrum, but that he favored that position over the inerrancy one. And I think the Woodland Hills Church statement on biblical authority and inspiration, which I once saw on their Web site, may have furthered that impression. If Greg did say he was an inerrantist, meaning what (for example) Geisler, Archer and Lindsell see in the Chicago Statement, then clearly I was confused and stand corrected.
On the other hand, as I've said before, there are a lot of people out there who seem to want the feel-good of claiming "inerrancy" for their view, while not signing on to the full position. These "nuanced" inerrantists define inerrancy in various ways, such as to affirm that God's purposes for the Bible are accomplished in the Bible without blemish - ie, there is nothing in the Bible that God does not want there for some teaching purpose. (Perhaps this is what Greg meant.) But every evangelical agrees with that. Even me, someone who feels (for example) that Genesis 1-11 is ahistorical. If I qualify as an inerrantist, then the term has no meaning.
Perhaps the ETS members are right: the ETS charter should specify what it means by "inerrant".
Scott
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feelinahole
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 754
| Posted 1/27/2004 7:09 PM (GMT -6) | | | Is Pinnock's "The SCripture Principle," still available? | | Back to Top | | |
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scott_jorgenson
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 1/28/2004 1:52 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by feelinahole
Is Pinnock's "The SCripture Principle," still available?
It seems to have gone out-of-print recently - I bought my copy new from Amazon just a few years ago and it was still in print at that time (I think the copyright is 1980-ish). But at this very moment it seems that several used copies are available through Amazon still: see http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/006066620X/qid=1075337433/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/104-3365629-8627104?v=glance&s=books
Scott
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scott_jorgenson
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 1/30/2004 11:36 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by geebob
quote:
I wonder what holds them back?
1. Statement of faith does not define innerrency
2. The definiition accepted by many, The chicago statement allows for scripture to speak through many genre.
3. in order innerrancy requires there to be a lack of errors. The conception of what constitutes an error in many an evangelical mind may be too influenced by enlightenment standards. The scripture is innerrent because without error, it fulfills the intentions that God has for it.
I agree with all this - that the Bible is perfectly trustworthy for that teaching purpose which God intends - but I also must observe that this is not the definition of inerrancy as that term is most commonly used. It is the definition of inerrancy as I would like it to be, but that doesn't make it so.
These days, inerrancy refers to total factual validity and consistency of every not-obviously-fictional statement in scripture, when plainly and literally interpreted, including ancillary statements of history, science, geography, etc. It is because of this definition that there are hundreds of apologists for inerrancy out there feverishly dreaming up creative harmonizations of parallel biblical accounts, for example (eg between Samuel/Kings and Chronicles, between the Gospels, etc). Like it or not, those folks laid claim to the word "inerrancy" and fully articulated their claim first, so unfortunately they get to decide what the word means.
As for the Chicago Statement, I've read it and I have to say it is a classic political committee document: there's something in there to please everyone, both real inerrantists and softies like me. As a result the statement is often internally in tension, and even at times contradictory. (For example, Article XVIII: "We affirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico-historical exegesis, taking account of its literary forms and devices...We deny the legitimacy of any treatment of the text...that leads to...dehistoricizing...its teaching, or rejecting its claims of authorship." Thus form analysis is affirmed while at the same time such analysis is forbidden from ever concluding any well-intentioned ahistorical or pseudepigraphical form.)
So the statement, unfortunately, doesn't really solve the question of what inerrancy means well enough, which is why today we have opposites like Geisler and Pinnock who can sign onto it in good faith, since they see in it bits of what they like. (Which is funny - you'd think that a several-thousand-word document would be able to unquestionably define what one little doctrine means - a failed exercise which, by the way, I think shows the futility of systematic theology.) So instead, I think history better solves the question of what inerrancy means; and in modern times at least it has been the hard-core inerrantists like Lindsell, Geisler and Archer who have claim to the term.
Scott
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CalvinnHobbes
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 88
| Posted 2/8/2004 5:51 PM (GMT -6) | | William Lane Craig was in town here in Ames, Iowa February 4th and 5th to give a few lectures and debate one of Iowa State University's atheistic professors of religious studies (Hector Avalos) on the resurrection. I was fortunate enough to grab dinner with him while he was here, and I asked him what he thought about Geisler's resignation. He said he and his colleagues just see the move as one more step in Geisler's "trend" of "isolating" himself. Craig didn't have any ill will towards him, of course, and even commended him on several things. Craig also mentioned that he and some of his colleagues will be publishing a book dedicated to Geisler in the near future here. For the life of me, I can't remember what the book is on, though.
Craig Hazen (editor of Philosophia Cristi and Biola professor) was in town for some lectures of his own earlier last year. I asked him what he and his colleagues at Talbot/Biola and in the ETS thought about Geisler's seminary (SES). Similar to W. Craig, Hazen said they they recognized a lot of good things going on there, but they were also a little sceptical of the seminary's ability to really outlive Geisler.
I can't imagine the resignation is going to bring SES any longevity. But hopefully the school will last at least long enough to produce someone who can explain the relational Pure Act. :)
Shane
"The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know." ~President John Adams | | Back to Top | | |
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