The Doctrine of “Moderate Inspiration”
By L. A. S.
UNDER the title, “The Logical Stopping Place,” The Independent argues that it is not necessary for a Christian to believe that all statements in the Bible are given by divine inspiration, but that he can reject many statements whose “inaccuracy” has been shown by Bible critics, without any damage resulting to his Christian faith. The doctrine of infallible, inerrant inspiration, says The Independent, leads to a rejection of the whole Bible when once the latter’s statements are shown to be in error, since there is no logical stopping place short of that result. It therefore recommends its doctrine of a “more moderate” inspiration, which allows one to believe that the Bible makes many erroneous statements, but that “these errors and contradictions affect nothing vital” in the Christian religion. This affords a logical stopping place, it says, between the belief that all Scripture is by divine inspiration, and the belief that none of it has other than a human origin. The Independent gives some examples of Scripture texts which it says may be disbelieved in part, without giving up anything essential to Christian faith. The Christian, it says, “reads that ‘in six days the Lord made heaven and earth.’ He is informed by science that the world was not made in six days, and he is compelled to believe science. What does he give up? Simply ‘six days.’ What has he left? All this: ‘The Lord made heaven and earth,’ which is all that is of any account for religion.”6 But let us examine this statement in the light of another Scripture text. There is a very important and familiar text which reads: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, . . . for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” If the Lord did not make heaven and earth in six days, he did not rest on the seventh day; and if he did not rest on the seventh day, he did not make a Sabbath day; and there is no Sabbath day. But when we give up the Sabbath, when that institution is dropped out of the Christian religion, how much is left? As well might one give up Christianity altogether as give up the Sabbath. And to retain the Bible Sabbath, the seventh day, it is absolutely necessary to believe that the earth was made in six days. The Sunday sabbath, of course, may be adhered to without involving this necessity, since it has no connection with the creation work. Next is given what The Independent calls “a more serious example.” The Christian “reads in the fourth commandment as recorded in Exodus that the Sabbath was instituted to commemorate the resting of God on the seventh day after the work of creation. God so declared it on Sinai, and wrote the words on tables of stone. He reads in Deuteronomy that God declared from Sinai that the reason for its institution was to preserve the memory of the deliverance from Egypt, and nothing said about creation, and each the exact words of Jehovah from the burning mount and recorded on the tables of stone preserved in the ark. When a man sees that, he begins to question whether Moses wrote Exodus and Deuteronomy, or spoke the words recorded of him; and he begins to accept the conclusion of the higher critics as to . . . the unhistorical character of much written therein.” Is there any discrepancy between the statement that the Sabbath was made as a memorial of creation, and the statement that it was given to God’s ancient people because he had delivered them from Egyptian bondage? Seemingly there is, but in reality there is not. The Sabbath is a memorial of creation, yet no one can enjoy it till he has been delivered from the bondage of sin. The deliverance from Egypt under Moses was a type of the experience of all those who find deliverance from sin through faith in Christ. The law of God, of which the fourth commandment is a part, and which is addressed to all persons in the world, says to each one, “I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” Every individual is by nature in bondage to sin, and he who has not been led up out of the house of this bondage is not a Christian, whatever may be his profession. He can not become a son of God until he leaves the Egypt of sin. “Out of Egypt have I called my Son.” The Sabbath can no more be separated from the experience of deliverance from sin than it can from the fact of creation. There is no reason here, therefore, for questioning the reliability of the statements of Exodus and of Deuteronomy. Both books are true and historical, and from the standpoint of Christianity there is perfect harmony between them. For another example, says The Independent, the Christian “reads in school the text-books on history, and he finds that the story of the flood is absolutely contradicted, and that no such event could have occurred within thousands of years of the time fixed for it in Genesis. Then, if a sensible man, while he is confirmed in his relaxation of doctrine, he does not feel compelled to relax beyond the evidence. There may have been no Noah, no ark, no two and two, no seven and seven, no flood at all; but it does not follow that there is no God who hates sin, who loves righteousness, who is our Father in heaven, and to whom worship should be paid. What has Noah got to do with religion?” As well might it be asked, What has Jesus Christ got to do with religion? For Christ said of Noah and the flood, “As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” Matt. 24: 37-39. And in the prophecy of Peter also are these words: “For if God . . . spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly,” etc. And also: “For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” 2 Peter 2: 4, 5; 3: 5-7. If the Bible story of the flood is rejected, what becomes of these words of inspiration which indorse that story? If that story is false, these words are false, and their author, Jesus Christ, appears as a falsifier and an impostor. And how much religion can a Christian have without Jesus Christ? This is what Noah “has got to do with religion.” Again, to quote from The Independent: “The story of Abraham’s faith is sublime, but faith does not lose its beauty if we conclude not to believe that Abraham lived to be a hundred and seventy-five years old, and that Isaac was born when he was a hundred years old, and his wife was nearly or quite as old, or that he was about to kill his son on Mount Moriah when an angel stopped him.” In a portion of Scripture devoted especially to the subject of the beauty of faith, the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, the stories of the birth of Isaac and of the offering on Mount Moriah are mentioned as examples of the triumphs which are made possible to individuals through faith. But if these things never happened at all, the beauty of the faith which they depict is as mythical as they are themselves. If faith does not enable an individual to perform superhuman things, its chief point of beauty is gone. Again, says The Independent, “The careful student of the Bible may absolutely deny the truth of the beautiful story of Jonah and the whale, and the repentance of Nineveh, and yet not lose a bit of the lesson of obedience and of the love of God even for idolaters.” But Jesus said to the Pharisees concerning Jonah: “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” And, “The men of Nineveh shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.” Matt. 12: 39, 40; Luke 11: 32. If the story of Jonah and the whale and the repentance of Nineveh is not true, Christ’s words are not true, and must be rejected; and if we give up the words of Christ, we must give up Christ himself. There is no other alternative. And therefore it is strictly true that there is no logical stopping place between belief in the absolute inerrancy of the Bible and the blankness of unbelief. The doctrine of “moderate inspiration” may provide such a stopping place in theory, but in practice the doubter does not stop there, but drifts on into a virtual atheism but thinly disguised, if at all, with a pretense of piety. By the best showing that can be made in behalf of this doctrine, it is found to be utterly wanting. The only safety lies in accepting all Scripture as being by inspiration of God, and “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” Any other view leads inevitably either to the substitution of tradition for the Word of God—the religion of the papacy—or to atheism. We have no use for the doctrine of “moderate inspiration.”