Accommodation—Orthodox, Socinian, And Contemporary

By Hoon J. Lee

[Hoon J. Lee is currently a historical theology doctoral candidate at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Ill.]

From the early days of the Patristic Age the doctrine of accommodation, also called condescension, has been a vital element in biblical hermeneutics. John Chrysostom describes the theological principle: “God condescends whenever he is not seen as he is, but in the way one incapable of beholding him is able to look upon him. In this way God reveals himself by accommodating what he reveals to the weakness of vision of those who behold him.”[1] Being God he is unknowable, and being human we are limited in what we can know. However, God has condescended to our limited capacity so that we can comprehend divine truth. Accommodation is a free act of grace, in which God reveals himself and lets himself be known.

The most recognized outworking of accommodation is the incarnation. John Calvin comments on Isa 25:9, “Therefore he lowers himself to our weakness, gives himself to us through Christ.” Jesus condescended himself in human form to show man the way to salvation. While the incarnation is not limited to accommodation, it is divine condescension at its essence.

Likewise, this doctrine is also applicable in the nature of Scripture. The divine Author condescended in the form of written word and accommodated language to communicate his message through a human medium. The Bible is truth but in an accommodated form, which allows man to know matters of God and salvation otherwise unknowable. Calvin once described God’s communication with man as “lisps” to a child, in other words, condescension to baby talk.[2]

Understanding the nature of God’s adapted or condescended revelation facilitates the explanation and interpretation of creaturely realities within Scripture. Why certain elements of the text are described in a particular fashion can be attributed to the accommodated manner in which Scripture was written. Commenting on God’s remorse in Gen 6:6, Martin Luther wrote, “God condescends to us in order that we may understand Him. He reveals Himself to us in figures, accommodating Himself to our feeble comprehension so that we may somewhat know Him.”[3] The Holy Spirit is using anthropomorphic language in order to communicate an aspect of God in a manner that we would be able to comprehend. The theological and exegetical principle of accommodation addresses the human description of divine matters. It is no wonder that Graham Cole described accommodation as “one of the most fertile ideas” within the history of biblical interpretation, and D. A. Carson declared, “A contemporary restatement of that doctrine would be salutary today.”[4]

I. Establishing Two Definitions Of Accommodation

Scholars such as Calvin held to a definition described by Richard Muller as follows, “Accommodatio occurs specifically in the use of human words and concepts for the communication of the law and the gospel, but it in no way implies the loss of truth or the lessening of scriptural authority. The accommodatio or condescensio refers to the manner or mode of revelation, the gift of the wisdom of infinite God in finite form, not to the quality of the revelation or to the matter revealed.”[5] Historical accommodation upheld the inspiration and authority of Scripture without challenging its inerrancy.[6] God condescended to man’s limitations due to our finitude and sin; however, accommodation did not include actual sin, error, contradiction, or misunderstanding.

On the other hand, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries accommodation was distorted to include the errors of the common people. First introduced in the sixteenth century by Faustus Socinus (1539–1604), this new definition contradicted the historical position while holding to the same name. Socinian accommodation did acknowledge the need for God to condescend his revelation to the limitations of man. However, included in this condescension was the adaption of the Bible’s matter and content to the erroneous understanding of the ancient Near East. Socinian accommodation reads errors into anthropomorphic and phenomenological language, stating that accommodation includes false doctrines that were standard fare in the time of the Bible’s writing.

Socinus expunged the existence of hell by contending that Christ and the apostles “accommodated themselves to the opinions of men which at the time largely prevailed.”[7] Hell was never a doctrine that Christ and the apostles thought was true. Since ancient Israel believed in its existence the NT authors went along with this erroneous doctrine. Socinus also applied his use of accommodation to other doctrines such as the resurrection. Christ again accommodated to the “level of the people” when speaking of bodily resurrection.[8] While Christ knew that bodily resurrection would not occur, he taught the doctrine merely to adapt to his audience.

Seventeenth-century Dutch Reformed Cartesio-Cocceians popularized Socinian accommodation with a Cartesian twist. This form of accommodation added Cartesian dualism to Socinian accommodation. Balthasar Bekker (1634–1698) claimed, “It is certain that philosophy [i.e., natural science] contemplates all that is accessible to reason; it is theology that teaches what transcends the power of the human mind, as the Apostle testifies.”[9] These two disciplines do not intersect, nor do they contradict. While the Bible is the ultimate source for divine matters, it cannot speak to natural science.

The leading spokesman for Cartesio-Cocceian accommodation, Christoph Wittichius (1625–1687), stated that the Bible “does not speak accurately but according to the erroneous opinion of the common people.”[10] Wittichius did not limit the errors of the common people to matters of science. In addition to the false dichotomy between scientific accuracy and common opinion, Wittichius extended false thinking especially to OT morals and practices. Fellow Cartesio-Cocceians Lambert van Velthuysen (1622–1685), Lodewijk Wolzogen (1633–1690), and Bekker all advanced this Cartesian form of Socinian accommodation.[11]

Defending Calvin’s accommodation was Martin Schoock (1614–1669), Jacobus du Bois (d. 1661), Samuel Maresius (1599–1673), and Peter van Mastricht (1630–1706).[12] According to them, Cartesio-Cocceian accommodation results in a lying God who knowingly deceives his people.[13] Adhering to the historical position, they contended that accommodation does not imply that the Bible contains error. Instead, the language adapted to “public and ordinary meaning” should be interpreted with “common sense.”[14] Though Wittichius, Wolzogen, and Spinoza all shared the same definition of accommodation, for Mastricht, Spinoza’s use of accommodation was the most offensive.[15] In Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670) Spinoza minimized Cartesian dualism but did maintain that the natural science contained in the Bible cannot be reliable. He wrote,

It is not in the least surprising, therefore, that God adapted Himself to the imaginations and preconceived opinions of the prophets and that the faithful have held conflicting views about God. . . . Nor is it at all surprising that the sacred books express themselves so inappropriately about God throughout. . . . They are here manifestly speaking according to the [utterly deficient] understanding of the common people, whom Scripture strives to render not learned but obedient.[16]

Spinoza’s radicalized accommodation is a stark break from the historical definition and was used for the elimination of all supernatural acts in the Bible.[17] While Bekker’s accommodation found in The World Bewitched (1691–1693) may be the culmination of Cartesio-Cocceian accommodation, it was Spinoza’s form of Socinian accommodation that was carried over into eighteenth-century German exegesis.

The difference between the historical and Socinian position boiled over in the accommodation debate of the eighteenth century. It has been estimated by Gottfried Hornig that in the years from 1763 to 1817 at least thirty-one works are known to have been published on the subject of the accommodation debate.[18] In 1804 Jodocus Heringa listed a minimum of fifteen scholars involved in the debate. Figures such as Johann David Michaelis (1717–1791), Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), and Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) utilized Socinian accommodation, but championing this form of the doctrine was Johann Salomo Semler (1725–1791). While never providing a systematic treatment of the doctrine, the extensive use of Socinian accommodation is evident in the corpus of the oft-titled “father of historical criticism.”

While the debate encompassed many subjects and various biblical passages, three issues were central to the discussion. First, cosmology was hotly debated, particularly in the early years. The Bible’s account of creation was deemed an adaption of the understanding of non-scientific people. Second, whether or not the demon possession described in the Bible was according to truth was called into question. The Socinian camp claimed that mental illnesses were to blame. The biblical authors did not want to challenge their audiences’ understanding with a proper medical diagnosis so they maintained the flawed doctrine of demonology. Third, the extent to which Jesus and the apostles used accommodation in their teaching was questioned. Towards the end of the century, contentions rose over the issue of prophecy. Utilizing Socinian accommodation scholars argued that the prophecies claimed by Jesus were in fact not true. Knowing that his audience expected the fulfillment of prophecy, Jesus used this to his advantage. Deceiving his audience and accommodating to their expectations, Christ erroneously established himself as the fulfillment of OT prophecy.

Returning to Muller’s definition, we see that the accommodation found among many scholars of the eighteenth century, especially Semler, had “no relation” to historical accommodation.[19] Semler’s accommodation was a direct challenge to the Bible’s inspiration and authority. Speaking to Semler’s accommodation Charles Hodges wrote,

It must be perceived that if the principle contended for be admitted, every one will be at liberty to assert, that any doctrine he may see fit to object to, is a mere accommodation to Jewish opinion. It is in this way that the existence and agency of Satan, the reality of demoniacal possessions, the expiatory character of Christ’s sufferings, and many other important doctrines are explained away. Every individual’s opinions, or what he calls his reason, is made the supreme judge on matters of religion.[20]

The danger of Semler’s accommodation was also warned against in The Catholic Encyclopedia (1907–1912). While “there is no good reason for interdicting the proper use of accommodation,” a violation of accommodation is “found in the writings of those who endeavor to destroy the value of the Messianic prophecies; they are not confined to our days, but date back to Theodore of Mopsuestia and the Socinians.”[21] Specific to Semler, A. J. Maas writes, “The first to adhere to the principle of Biblical rationalism was Semler (d. 1791), who denied the Divine character of the Old Testament, and explained away the New by his ‘system of accommodation,’ according to which Christ and the Apostles only conformed to the views of the Jews.”[22]

II. Contemporary Confusion Concerning Accommodation

In recent years there has been a concerted effort to revive the doctrine of accommodation for exegesis. Accompanying this revival is confusion concerning accommodation in conjunction with biblical inerrancy, inspiration, and authority. In 1979 Jack Rogers and Donald McKim stated in The Authority and Interpretation of the Bible,

The central Christian tradition included the concept of accommodation. This was a grateful acknowledgement that God had condescended and adapted himself in Scripture to our human ways of thinking and speaking. God’s ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts. But for our sakes, God became intelligible to us in the incarnation, the person of Christ, as well as in the normal language and experiences of human beings recorded in the Bible. Through both of these very human means, the Good News of God’s salvation is clearly shown.[23]

It was not until the Old Princetonians’ appropriation of Francis Turretin’s (1632–1687) understanding of inerrancy and the use of Common Sense Realism that the doctrine of accommodation was abandoned.[24] The authors contend that inerrancy excluded the historical use of accommodation.[25]

Their definition, however, includes an accommodation of content and matter which challenges the authority of Scripture. As Muller states, “There are, certainly, differences in formulation between the Reformers and the orthodox, but they bear little resemblance to those described by Rogers.”[26] Muller goes on to show how Turretin continued the use of Calvin’s accommodation.[27] As John Woodbridge in Biblical Authority: A Critique of the Rogers/McKim Proposal has shown, Rogers and McKim are dependent on G. C. Berkouwer and his understanding of accommodation which “necessitates an errant Bible.”[28] Not only do Rogers and McKim misquote and misunderstand the historical position, they also do not differentiate between their Socinian accommodation and the historical position held by the church. While they may not have used Socinian accommodation to negate salvific doctrines in the nefarious manner some did during the Enlightenment, Rogers and McKim’s understanding of accommodation does derive from the same Socinian definition.

More recently, in 2005 Peter Enns published his work Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. Utilizing Socinian accommodation Enns seeks to answer three questions: “Why does the Bible in places look a lot like the literature of Israel’s ancient neighbors?” “Why do different parts of the Old Testament say different things about the same thing?” “Why do the New Testament authors handle the Old Testament in such odd ways?”[29] Similar to Rogers and McKim’s “incarnational principle” Enns uses an “incarnational analogy.”[30] As Jesus is both God and man, the Bible has a divine and human component.[31] Also, as doceticism marginalized the humanness of Christ, modern exegesis can do the same by misunderstanding the humanness of Scripture. While Enns’s efforts to establish the importance of accommodation in understanding the role of historical criticism within evangelical hermeneutics is admirable, he does so with little regard for the historical position on accommodation. Enns fails to acknowledge the ramifications that Socinian accommodation has on the Bible’s inspiration and authority.

Even more to the point, Kenton Sparks in God’s Word in Human Words (2008) proposes the use of Socinian accommodation for the evangelical appropriation of historical criticism. In developing his argument Sparks stipulates three principles.[32] First, a Cartesian rationalism that holds to an elevated grasp of knowledge runs through the evangelical world. Second, postmodernism has taught us that all interpreters of Scripture are situated in their unique time period and reflect the exegetical principles of that day. This is true for modern interpreters, historical figures, biblical authors, and even Jesus. Third, in what Sparks calls a postmodern practical realist perspective, he argues that the adequacy of everyday communication is what characterizes the inerrancy of the Bible.

The connecting question to these three concerns, “Why is the written discourse of a perfect God less than perfect?” is answered by the doctrine of accommodation.[33] Sparks defines the doctrine: “Accommodation is God’s adoption in inscripturation of the human audience’s finite and fallen perspective. Its underlying conceptual assumption is that in many cases God does not correct our mistaken human viewpoints but merely assumes them in order to communicate with us.”[34] In other words, Sparks states, “accommodation is the explanation for the errors that are already in the text.”[35] In a move to claim accommodation for his cause Sparks alienates evangelicals from the doctrine. He argues that the evangelical stance on inerrancy “will oblige them in principle (or so it would seem) to reject the conceptual validity of accommodation altogether.”[36] Thus, evangelicals should forgo their stance on inerrancy and embrace the use of accommodation that has been practiced throughout the history of the church.

In response to Sparks let us begin with the fact that throughout history it was the position of the church that the Bible was completely infallible. James Kugel contends that the ancient interpreters “assumed that the Bible contained no contradictions or mistakes.”[37] This was a universal assumption that did not have to be systematically “formulated” but was “simply assumed.” Mark Noll writes,

Most Christians in most churches since the founding of Christianity have believed in the inerrancy of the Bible. Or at least they have believed that the Scriptures are inspired by God, and so are the words of eternal life. The term inerrancy was not common until the nineteenth century. But the conviction that God communicates in Scripture a revelation of himself and of his deeds, and that this revelation is entirely truthful, has always been the common belief of most Catholics, most Protestants, most Orthodox, and even most of the sects on the fringe of Christianity.[38]

In establishing the church’s belief in inerrancy, leading expert on medieval accommodation Amos Funkenstein writes, “Scripture cannot be mistaken; rather, it speaks the language of everyday man, or of primitive man. . . . ‘The Scriptures speak a human language’ means simply that the Scriptures adapt themselves to the point of view of the multitude. They do not contradict science, but neither do they contain all of it.”[39] In other words, medieval accommodation argued that while the Bible may not be an exhaustive science textbook, what science it does contain is completely accurate. Contrary to Sparks, it is abundantly clear that the church has held to an inerrant Bible throughout its history.

Repeatedly throughout his work Sparks contends that the necessity of accommodation is contingent upon errors in the Bible. He claims, “Conceptually, accommodation is entirely unnecessary if one denies the errors in Scripture, but it is absolutely essential if one admits the errors. Why so? Because it is only when we admit the errors that the need arises to explain why these appear in the divine speech of an infinite and perfect God.”[40] Historically, however, the necessity of accommodation is contingent upon the transcendence of God and the limitation of man. Sin did not help the situation, but regardless of sin, man could not understand the infinite God. Sparks ignores the historical position in order to bolster his case for an errant Bible.

Sparks tries to show that he is in line with the historical position on accommodation. Claiming the historical position, Sparks defends the contradictory Socinian definition of accommodation.[41] By doing so Sparks creates the illusion that his use of accommodation is in keeping with the historical doctrine. In his most recent work Sparks contends, “In [Calvin’s and Wesley’s] theological hands, biblical error became God’s wise accommodation to the intellectual and spiritual limitations of the human audience.”[42] While this presents a “paradox” for Sparks, the clear reading of Wesley portrays an entirely different picture. As Woodbridge has shown, Wesley explicitly rejected the Socinian accommodation used by Soame Jenyns and wrote,

He is undoubtedly a fine writer; but whether he is a Christian, Deist, or Atheist I cannot tell. If he is a Christian, he betrays his own cause by averring, that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God; but the writers of it were sometimes left to themselves, and consequently made some mistakes.” Nay, if there be any mistakes in the Bible, there may be as well a thousand. If there be one falsehood in that book, it did not come from the God of Truth.[43]

Lastly, Sparks argues that evangelicals succumb to a Cartesian foundationalism that adheres to Scripture an unrealistic demand for inerrancy. Victim to Enlightenment thinking, evangelical Cartesianism cannot imagine the Bible through a postmodern practical realist perspective, thus negating the true nature of the Bible and inerrancy. Evangelicals should rid themselves of this Cartesianism in order to recognize the accommodated nature and the errant state of the Bible.

While I do not agree with Sparks’s understanding of evangelical epistemology and Cartesianism, I leave the refutation of his argument to others. I would like, however, to take a moment to address the historical validity of his claim.[44] Though Sparks contends that Cartesianism is one of the major factors in not recognizing his doctrine of accommodation, history tells us otherwise. As previously illustrated, it was the Cartesio-Cocceians who upheld the same Socinian accommodation as Sparks. Jonathan Israel advances the argument that the principle that “parts of Scripture were intended only to be figurative and allegorical, tailored to the ignorance and superstition of the ancient Israelites” was the link between Cartesianism and Cocceians.[45] Socinian accommodation harmonized the concept of an errant Bible with Cartesian science and philosophy. In addition, not only did Cartesio-Cocceians hold to the same accommodation as Sparks, they also modeled the Cartesian confidence in reason which Sparks argues against. It was Wittichius and company who were on the defense after fellow Cartesio-Cocceian Lodewijk Meyer (1629–1681) applied Cartesian philosophy to biblical exegesis.[46]

III. A Historical Case Study: John Calvin

For a proper understanding of accommodation I would like to take a look at John Calvin’s use of the doctrine. Calvin once pondered, “Who am I, that God should show me such condescension?”[47] In the Institutes he writes, “For because our weakness does not attain to his exalted state, the description of him that is given to us must be accommodated to our capacity so that we may understand it.”[48] Sparks states, “Calvin always worked hard to resolve the apparent contradictions and tensions that he found in the Bible. But when this effort failed—and sometimes it did—he was not above admitting that something errant appeared in the pages of Scripture.”[49] Sparks goes on to claim, “Calvin paradoxically believed in inerrancy but allowed for the errant viewpoints in Scripture.”[50] However, when we take a look at Calvin’s use of accommodation an entirely different and more natural understanding is revealed. With the historical understanding of accommodation, and not a Socinian definition, Calvin’s use of accommodation is not paradoxical at all. Rather, as we examine Calvin’s comments on Gen 1 we will see how the reformer’s use of the historical position differs from Sparks’s Socinian accommodation.

Before we look at Calvin’s use of accommodation in Gen 1 we must address an antiquated understanding of Calvin’s accommodation that persists in the thinking of scholars such as Sparks. An influential but flawed article is Ford Lewis Battles’s 1977 piece, “God Was Accommodating Himself to Human Capacity.” While the article can be lauded on numerous points, Battles makes the error of situating Calvin’s accommodation primarily in a rhetorical setting.[51] In an attempt to read Calvin in his humanistic background the doctrine of accommodation lost its theological and exegetical foundation.

Fortunately, this view has been corrected in Calvin studies by scholars such as Jon Balserak.[52] Addressing the difference between Cartesio-Cocceians and Calvin’s accommodation, Balserak states, “Rarely, if ever, [Calvin’s accommodation] suggests a conception of the Bible which understands its truth as being historically-relative, as seems to have been the case with these later proponents of accommodation such as Christoph Wittich.”[53] Unfortunately, this view persists in some scholarship. For example, this rhetoric foundation is used by Wiep van Bunge to draw a historical connection between Calvin and the Cartesio-Cocceians of the seventeenth century.[54] A humanistic context gives the illusion of continuity without needing to address the more important theological discontinuity. For Calvin, accommodation is primarily a theological doctrine utilized as an exegetical principle. Van Bunge loses this distinction.

In his commentary on the book of Genesis, Calvin’s first mention of accommodation occurs in his comments on Gen 1:5. The question Calvin is answering is, when does a day commence and conclude? Moses chose to begin with the evening and end with the morning. This was in keeping with the way Israel understood the two components of a day. Calvin writes, “Although Moses did not intend here to prescribe a rule which it would be criminal to violate; yet (as we have now said) he accommodated his discourse to the received custom.”[55] However, Sparks distorts Calvin’s use of accommodation to build his case against inerrancy. He quotes Calvin’s statement, “It is useless to dispute whether this is the best and legitimate order or not.”[56] Instead of the natural reading of Calvin’s comment, Sparks interprets this quote as meaning, “Accommodation was a useful interpretive tool because it made irrelevant in such cases any questions about the Bible’s correctness.”[57] When reading Calvin’s statement in context, it is clear that Calvin does not believe that the inerrancy of the Bible is “irrelevant.” He is stating that whether one begins a day with the evening or morning is unimportant because Moses was accommodating to Israel’s custom and not making a hard and fast rule.

For Gen 1:6 Calvin writes that “nothing is here treated of but the visible form of the world.”[58] That is the context of Calvin’s later remarks concerning the “design of Moses” and the description of the firmament. In accommodated fashion, v. 6 refers to what the “rude and unlearned may perceive.”[59] It is a phenomenological description of how some in the ancient Near East understood clouds and “celestial waters.” Calvin cautions against efforts that read too much into the text. The verse simply refers to “the clouds suspended in the air, which threaten to fall upon our heads, yet leave us space to breath.”[60] On the other hand, similar to his argument concerning v. 5, Sparks contends that Calvin’s use of accommodation is admitting the existence of ancient Near Eastern error in the text. Sparks fails to take heed of the phenomenological context of Calvin’s comments and ignores words such as “visible world,” “garniture of that theatre which he places before our eyes,” “perceive,” and “see.”

Calvin continues his line of reason in v. 16. Astronomers can disagree with Moses, proving with “conclusive reason” the inaccuracies of Moses’ description of the two great lights. However, according to Calvin, “Moses wrote in a popular style things which, without instruction, all ordinary persons, endued with common sense, are able to understand.”[61] The reformer goes on to address the importance of astronomy and how Moses is not saying that astronomy should be neglected. Rather, according to the design of Genesis, Moses wrote by “descending” to the common man’s capacity. Thus, he “adapts his discourse to common usage” and perception.[62]

Though I have limited myself to passages that Sparks considers the greatest support to his argument, more complete studies of Calvin’s accommodation reveal the same conclusions.[63] Calvin’s doctrine of accommodation did not challenge the authority of the Bible, nor did he maintain that the Bible contains errors in science or doctrine. Accommodation explains the particular manner in which Scripture is written, and it is a violation of the principle when it is used to distort the extent of God’s condescension.

IV. Conclusion

The evangelical world awaits a contemporary theology of accommodation. While I leave this task in the hands of those better equipped, I take on the more modest task of analyzing some of its history and recent uses. History has taught us that the church’s position on accommodation did not compromise the Bible’s authority. God accommodated the manner and form of Scripture while maintaining the truth of the matters it addresses. God did not include erroneous facts or doctrines in adapting the common notions of the ancient Near East. The NT use of the OT, such as prophecy, was not merely an accommodation to the expectation of Jesus and the apostles’ audience. Christ and the apostles did not include erroneous doctrines in their teaching to play to the assumptions of their hearers.

Beginning with Socinus, the doctrine of accommodation was distorted in a way that challenged what the doctrine had stood for. The Socinian definition continued into the seventeenth century, being utilized by certain reformed Cartesio-Cocceians. In the eighteenth century a debate erupted among German scholars over the proper understanding of accommodation. Championing the Socinian definition was Semler.

Despite nineteenth-century scholars such as Hodge, who identified the dangers of Socinian accommodation, much of the twenty-first century’s use of accommodation follows this theological innovation. While scholars such as Sparks call for the evangelical world to incorporate the doctrine of accommodation into a theological interpretation of Scripture, they do so without understanding the dangers of this proposal. By confusing a Socinian definition with the historical position, Sparks and those who follow introduce a subversive tool that can exclude any truth that the interpreter does not agree with. At the whim of the exegete, the Bible’s doctrines can be claimed void as an accommodation to erroneous notions of ancient times. The Socinian definition opens a floodgate of heterodox interpretation without any parameters that maintain theological orthodoxy.

Evangelicals should embrace the doctrine of accommodation in our interpretation of the Bible. But as we do so, we would be prudent to recognize accommodation’s historical past and the dangers of violating its principles.

In the words of the great “Magus of the North,” Johann Georg Hamann (1730–1788), in his trinitarian statement of accommodation,

How has God the Father humbled himself when he not only formed a lump of clay, but even enlivened it with His breath? How has God the Son humbled himself! He became a man, the most humble of men, He took the form of a servant, He became the most unfortunate of men, He was made sin for us. In the eyes of God He was the sinner of all the men. How has God the Holy Spirit humbled himself when He became a historian of the smallest, the contemptible, and most insignificant events on earth in order to reveal to men in their own language, in their own history, in their own ways the counsels, the mysteries, and the ways of the Godhead?[64]

Notes

1. John Chrysostom, On the Incomprehensible Nature of God (trans. Paul W. Harkins; FOTC 72; Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1984), 101-2.
2. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (ed. John T. McNeill; trans. Ford Lewis Battles; 2 vols.; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 1.13.1.
3. Martin Luther, Luther’s Commentary on Genesis (trans. J. Theodore Mueller; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1954), 135.
4. Graham A. Cole, “The Peril of a ‘Historyless’ Systematic Theology,” in Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith? A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Postmodern Approaches to Scripture (ed. James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary; Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 63; D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 130.
5. Richard Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985), 19.
6. I understand inerrancy as B. B. Warfield defines it in The Inspiration and the Authority of the Bible (ed. S. Craig; Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1948). Inerrancy is also described, though the term is not actually used, in A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield, “Inspiration,” Presbyterian Review 2 (1881): 225-60.
7. Faustus Socinus et al., “Epitome of a Colloquium Held in Rakow in the Year 1601,” in The Polish Brethren: Documentation of the History and Thought of Unitarianism in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and in the Diaspora, 1601-1685 (ed. George Huntston Williams; 2 vols.; HTS 30; Missoula, Mont.: Scholars, 1980), 1:105.
8. Ibid., 1:121.
9. Balthasar Bekker, De philosophia cartesiana admonitio candida et sincera (Wesel: Andrea Hoogenhuysen, 1668), 10.
10. Christoph Wittichius, Dissertationes duae, quarum prior de S. Scripturae in rebus philosophicis abusu examinat (Amsterdam: Elzevier, 1653), 92.
11. See Lambert van Velthuysen, Bewys dat noch de leere van der sonne stilstant, en des aertryx bewegingh, noch de gronden vande philosophie van Renatus Des Cartes strijdig sijn met Godts woort (Utrecht: Dirck van Ackersdijck and Gijsbert van Zijll, 1656), 7; Lodewijk Wolzogen, De scripturarum interprete adversus exercitationem paradoxum (Utrecht: Ribbium, 1668), 70; Balthasar Bekker, De betoverde Weereld (Amsterdam: Daniel van den Dalen, 1691-1693), 2:143-79.
12. Schoock called for the proper use of accommodation “but not so that it lies with the liars and errs with the erring,” as the Cartesio-Cocceians do (Martin Schoock, De scepticismo [Groningen: Henrici Lussinck, 1652], 406). Through a series of books between 1654 and 1656 Du Bois and Van Velthuysen debated the interpretation of Josh 10 and the motion of earth.
13. See Peter van Mastricht, Vindiciae veritatis et authoritatis Sacrae Scripturae in rebus philosophicis (Utrecht: Johannis Waesberge, 1655).
14. Samuel Maresius, Disputationes theologicae prior refutatoria libelli de philosophia interprete scripturae (Groningen: Johannis Collenus, 1667), 3:11, 16.
15. Jonathan Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650-1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 215.
16. Benedict de Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise (trans. Michael Silverthorne and Jonathan Israel; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 177.
17. J. Samuel Preus, “Prophecy, Knowledge and Study of Religion,” Religion 28 (1998): 129.
18. Gottfried Hornig, Die Anfänge der historisch-kritischen Theologie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1961), 211.
19. Muller, Dictionary, 19.
20. Charles Hodge, “Introduction to Charles Christian Tittmann on Historical Interpretation,” Biblical Repertory 1 (1825): 126.
21. A. J. Maas, “Exegesis,” The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Encyclopedia Press, 1907-1912), 5:695.
22. Ibid., 5:705.
23. Jack Rogers and Donald McKim, The Authority and Interpretation of the Bible: An Historical Approach (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979), xxii.
24. J. Ligon Duncan rightly contends that Common Sense Realism was not at the root of the Princetonians’ doctrine of inerrancy. In fact, opponents of the Princetonians and inerrancy utilized Common Sense Realism in their arguments as well. See J. Ligon Duncan III, “Common Sense and American Presbyterianism: An Evaluation of the Impact of Scottish Realism on Princeton and the South” (M.A. thesis, Covenant Theological Seminary, 1987). See also Paul Kjoss Helseth, “Right Reason” and the Princeton Mind: An Unorthodox Proposal (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2010), for further information on the role of morality and the Christian person in conjunction with reason.
25. This line of reasoning is repeated by Paul Seely in “The Subordination of Scripture to Human Reason at Old Princeton,” in Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Authority of Scripture: Historical, Biblical, and Theoretical Perspectives (ed. Carlos R. Bovell; Eugene, Ore.: Pickwick, 2011), 29. Seely’s claim, however, is inconsistent from his earlier works where he speaks more favorably of the Princetonians’ use of accommodation. See Paul Seely, “The Debate of the Tower of Babel and Some Theological Implications,” WTJ 63 (2001): 32; and Paul Seely, “Noah’s Flood: Its Date, Extent, and Divine Accommodation,” WTJ 66 (2004): 310.
26. Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725 (4 vols.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 2:100.
27. Ibid., 2:305.
28. John D. Woodbridge, Biblical Authority: A Critique of the Rogers/McKim Proposal (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982), 147-48.
29. Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problems of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 15-16.
30. John Webster warns against the use of the incarnational analogy. He contends that by utilizing the hypostatic union or the incarnation in relation to the Bible, one runs the risk of failing to preserve the uniqueness of the incarnation. Such language implies an ontological relationship between the Bible and God’s deity (John Webster, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch [Current Issues in Theology; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003], 23). Incidentally, while not disagreeing with the issues present in the concept of accommodation, Webster ultimately rejects the term in favor of sanctification. According to Webster the terms accommodation and condescension fall into a dualism that separates the creaturely aspects of Scripture as “external and contingent,” resulting in a distinction between manner and matter that is too sharp and does a disservice to the doctrine of Scripture (ibid., 22).
31. Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation, 17.
32. Kenton L. Sparks, God’s Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Biblical Scholarship (Grand Rapids, Baker, 2008), 54-55.
33. Ibid., 200.
34. Ibid., 230-31.
35. Ibid., 256.
36. Ibid., 247.
37. James L. Kugel, How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Now and Then (New York: Free Press, 1997), 15.
38. Mark Noll, “A Brief History of Inerrancy, Mostly in America,” in The Proceedings of the Conference on Biblical Inerrancy (Nashville: Broadman, 1987), 9-10.
39. Amos Funkenstein, Theology and the Scientific Imagination: From the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986), 214-15, 216.
40. Sparks, God’s Word in Human Words, 256. Sparks also states, “This is because, as I have pointed out, accommodation is theologically necessary only if we believe that errors appear in Scripture. Indeed, very conservative evangelicals wholly reject the theological viability of accommodation” (ibid., 247).
41. Seely does the same in “The Debate of the Tower of Babel,” 22. See also Seely, “Noah’s Flood,” 291-311.
42. In addition to ch. 7 of his God’s Word in Human Words, see also Kenton L. Sparks, Sacred Word, Broken Word: Biblical Authority & the Dark Side of Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 52-53.
43. John Welsey, Journal, July 24, 1776, quoted by John Woodbridge, foreword to Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?, 17.
44. For epistemological issues related to Sparks, see Thomas H. McCall, “Religious Epistemology, Theological Interpretation of Scripture, and Critical Biblical Scholarship: A Theologian’s Reflection,” in Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?, 33-54.
45. Jonathan Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477-1806 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), 666, 892.
46. See Lodewijk Meyer, Philosophy as the Interpreter of Holy Scripture (trans. Samuel Shirley; Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2005).
47. John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms (trans. James Anderson; 5 vols.; Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1846), 5:262. Calvin makes a similar remark in his commentary on Gal 3:15-18.
48. John Calvin, Institution of the Christian Religion (trans. Ford Lewis Battles; Atlanta: John Knox, 1975), 227.
49. God’s Word in Human Words, 236. Sparks also argues that Calvin used the doctrine of accommodation sparingly and only for difficult passages. However, Calvin makes it clear that he believed the doctrine is foundational to the whole Bible and not only isolated passages.
50. Ibid., 256.
51. Before Battles’s 1977 article E. David Willis presented a similar view in “Rhetoric and Responsibility in Calvin’s Theology,” in The Context of Contemporary Theology: Essays in Honor of Paul Lehmann (ed. Alexander McKelway and E. David Willis; Atlanta: John Knox,1974), 43-63. The argument is repeated by Richard Stauffer, Dieu, la création et la providence dans la prédication de Calvin (Bern: Peter Lang, 1978); and Olivier Millet, Calvin et la dynamique de la parole: étude de rhétorique réformée (Bibliothèque littéraire de la Renaissance, series 3, vol. 28; Geneva: Editions Slatkine, 1992).
52. Jon Balserak, Divinity Compromised: A Study of Divine Accommodation in the Thought of John Calvin (Dordrecht: Springer, 2006).
53. Ibid., 166.
54. Wiep van Bunge, From Stevin to Spinoza (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2001), 50-51.
55. John Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis (trans. John King; 2 vols.; Edinburgh: Edinburgh Printing Company, 1847), 1:78.
56. Sparks, God’s Word in Human Words, 235.
57. Ibid.
58. Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses, 1:79.
59. Ibid., 80.
60. Ibid.
61. Ibid., 86.
62. Ibid., 87.
63. Cf. Balserak, Divinity Compromised.
64. Johann Georg Hamann, Sämtliche Werke (ed. Josef Nadler; 6 vols.; Vienna: Herder, 1949-1957), 1:91; my translation.