WTS documents 2

The first part of the collection of documents from WTS regarding the Enns matter is the report from the Historical Theological Field Committee (HTFC). The report is critical of what Enns wrote in I&I, especially the absence of a discussion of the doctrine of inspiration and how he believes that doctrine falls short in terms of dealing adequately with the phenomena of Scripture. Whatever else one thinks of the HTFC report, this aspect of the report is correct in raising this question. It is a question that rose in my mind when I read I&I. In fact, I wondered if Professor Enns was not setting up a straw man in order to make a point.

This morning I re-read parts of E.J. Young's Thy Word is Truth, especially his chapters on the human writers of Scripture, where he addresses the notion of the incarnational analogy, and inerrancy, where he notes that Warfield, for example, did not have an a priori notion of what inspiration or inerrancy should look like. Young does not appear to have much sympathy with the incarnational analogy to the extent that it would allow for "all the crudities and the errors that such a people [the Hebrews] would make" (p. 73). Left to themselves, the writers of Scripture would have made such errors. However, the doctrine of inspiration says that God guided the writers of Scripture so that what they wrote was true. This is why when the OT records places and customs of antiquity (the Ancient Near East), they are recorded accurately.

If Professor Enns is truly following in the tradition of Old Princeton and WTS, it seems to me that reference to Young's work would have influenced what he wrote in I&I. That he does not raises in my mind the question of whether he believes Young is one of those who have not let the phenomena of Scripture influence their understanding of inspiration.

I wonder, too, who Professor Enns might have in mind when he warns against having what Young would call an a priori view of what Scripture should look like. It appears that Warfield did not have such a view.

The HTFC report rightly raises this point as one way in which Professor Enns' argument falls short.