Gaffin, McGowan, Bavinck and Berkouwer

No, that's not the name of a dodgy legal firm.  Rather, four theologians who have reflected in significant ways on scripture.   What is interesting is that, in reading Andrew McGowan's new volume from Apollos UK, The Divine Spiration of Scripture, I am puzzled that he comes to very different conclusions to those of Dick Gaffin in the book mentioned by Del on this site a few days back.

Andy seems (and I am careful to stress the provisionality of my analysis here as I need to reread his book) to want to argue that the Warfield trajectory on inerrancy is a dead-end and is not consistent with the tradition of Herman Bavinck which he (Andy) sees as a more fruitful source for constructive thinking about scripture. 

A few immediate thoughts come to mind:

1. Critiquing inerrancy, while nothing new, suddenly seems to be gaining some ground among evangelical writers, such as Craig Allert in his book, A High View of Scripture? from Baker,    I wonder if the arrival of Andy's book is significant not simply for its intrinsic arguments but because it reflects a cultural trend as well.

2. I am puzzled that Andy cites Dick Gaffin's work, but never engages him on the very point where Dick makes his singular contribtion and where Andy would be most in disagreement: the consistency of Warfield's position with that of Bavinck.

3. I take at face value Andy's distancing of himself from Berkouwer, but it is at times very hard to see of what exactly that distance consists.  I am also perplexed that Berkouwer is treated only through the English translation of the scripture book.  The translations of B (if memory serves) were generally (with the exception of Holtrop's translation of the volume on sin) abridgements of the Dutch, made more conservative for the Eerdmans audience (those were the days, when it was leftward stuff that needed to be cleaned up for the Dutch American audience).

In this context, I am acutely conscious that, when it comes to the Bible, I'm no scholar, just a simple believer.  But I am also mindful of the words of my esteemed senior colleague, Dick Gaffin, with regard to the role of history in all this; and as a prelude to any further comments on Andy's book, I would wish that he had addressed the historical-theological arguments of Dr G in establishing his thesis.  Here's what Dick says at the end of his book on Dutch views of scripture:

`To the extent that the historical record is not set straight but remains uncertain or misrepresented, evangelical and Reformed theology today...lacks direction, and it's future, in Bavinck's words, is "not rosy" -- a not exactly optimistic but necessary note on which to end this study.'

As a historian, I do not think you can drive a wedge between Bavinck and Warfield unless you first deal with the mass of historical argumentation put forth in Dick's book.  That's not a theological point about whether inerrancy is or is not true; it is a prolegomenal point which the careful systematician working in this are must address at the outset.  This, more than anything else, is a glaring omission in Andy's stimulating, engaging, well-written but, I believe, flawed, book.