Is Warfield’s Claim True That Calvin Is Better Than Westminster On Inspiration?

By Jeffrey A. Stivason

[Jeffrey A. Stivason is pastor of Grace Reformed Presbyterian Church in Gibsonia, PA, and professor-elect at Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, PA.]

Abstract

In 1894, Warfield published an article in which he compared the Westminster divines’ view on the mode of inspiration to that of the Reformers. According to Warfield, whereas the Reformers argued for a mode rooted in the theory of concursus the Protestant Scholastics argued for dictation. Is Warfield’s assessment true? Or was Warfield reading his own view of inspiration into the Reformers’ position? If so, why would he favorably cite an article written by Dunlop Moore, which argues that Calvin held to dictation as the mode of inspiration? On the other hand, the Westminster Confession of Faith embodied Warfield’s own cherished convictions regarding the Reformed faith. Why then would Warfield pit two battalions, both personally cherished, from the same army against one another? This article will seek to substantiate the claim that Warfield’s apparently inconsistent statements regarding the Reformers and the Protestant Scholastics can be and perhaps ought to be considered through the lens of Warfield’s understanding of progressive orthodoxy. Therefore, this article will explore Warfield’s own theological progress with regard to the mode of inspiration between the years 1880 and 1894. This point will provide us with the background for understanding Warfield’s 1894 statements contrasting the Reformers and Protestant Scholastics. Second, with Warfield’s own progress in hand, we will examine his understanding of the progressive and constructive nature of orthodoxy. Third, we will bring Warfield’s understanding to bear upon his 1894 statements in order to see them through that grid of comprehension.

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It is not undue adulation to describe Benjamin B. Warfield as a true Renaissance man. The Princetonian’s interests are enough to tell the tale. For example, from the very beginning Warfield’s tastes were strongly scientific, and his short shift as livestock editor of the Farmer’s Home Journal in 1873 simply confirms the fact. Following his conversion and training for the ministry, he was initially appointed as stated supply to First Presbyterian Church of Dayton, Ohio. He was then called to occupy the chair of New Testament at Western Theological Seminary before being whisked away to Princeton Theological Seminary to fill the vacancy in the department of systematic theology left in the wake of A. A. Hodge’s death, which was felt as much as observed. If that were not enough, Warfield also did the work of a church historian. In keeping with his naturally quizzical mind Warfield investigated the figures, patterns, and trends of history and admirably so. His work on Augustine, Tertullian, Calvin, and the Westminster Assembly are valuable still to those who have eyes to see. In fact, it is an historical observation that he made in 1894 which gives rise to the present article.

In 1894 Warfield published an article for the Presbyterian Quarterly titled “The Doctrine of Inspiration of the Westminster Divines,” in which he compared the Westminster divines’ view on the mode of inspiration with that of the Reformers.[1] According to Warfield, there were two great differences between them. First, “the Reformers, striving for very life, had little time or heart to do more than to insist on the sole divine authority of Scripture, and the facts involved in and underlying that authority.”[2] Second, the Protestant Scholastics of the seventeenth century sought to give the aforesaid “facts an indefectible foundation in a special theory of the mode of inspiration, the theory of dictation.”[3] According to Warfield, the difference between the Protestant Scholastics and the Reformers was palpable and he succinctly summarized the disparity, arguing that the Reformers’ view of the mode of inspiration seems to be “rooted in a theory of concursus or synergism rather than one of dictation,” which was, in Warfield’s estimation, the view of the Protestant Scholastics.[4]

Statements like these raise all sorts of questions. For example, is Warfield’s assessment true? Did the Reformers, in the main, hold to a concursive mode of inspiration while the later Protestant Scholastics held to a dictation theory? We might ask another more personal question. Was Warfield reading his own view of inspiration into the Reformers’ position? If so, why would he cite, as an article to be consulted on Calvin’s position, one written by Dunlop Moore, which argues that Calvin held to dictation as the mode of inspiration?[5] To read his own view into the Reformers’ position while citing articles which argue the opposite could leave us thinking little of the Princeton theologian.

But on the other hand, Warfield was a Westminster Catechism boy and the Westminster Confession of Faith embodied his own cherished convictions regarding the Reformed faith. He even argued that the Confession is authoritative because (quia), rather than in so far as (quetanus), it is in accord with the Word of God. Why then would Warfield pit two battalions, both personally cherished, from the same army against one another?

These and other similar questions make these statements from Warfield all the more interesting. However, this article will contend for a narrow thesis. It will seek to substantiate the claim that Warfield’s apparently inconsistent statements regarding the Reformers and the Protestant Scholastics can be and perhaps ought to be understood through the lens of Warfield’s understanding of progressive orthodoxy. Therefore, this thesis will explore the following: first, we will examine Warfield’s own theological progress with regard to the mode of inspiration between the years 1880 and 1894. This point will provide us with the background for understanding Warfield’s 1894 statements contrasting the Reformers and Protestant Scholastics. Second, with Warfield’s own progress in hand, we will examine his understanding of the progressive and constructive nature of orthodoxy. Third, we will bring Warfield’s understanding to bear upon his 1894 statements in order to see them through that grid of understanding.

I. Warfield’s Theological Development from 1880 to 1894

In order to understand Warfield’s 1894 comments we must travel back to the year 1880. At that moment, Charles A. Briggs, professor of Hebrew at Union Theological Seminary, was ready to strike the editorial match that would ignite theological controversy for over a decade. On January 11, the Presbyterian Review was set to launch. The Review was Briggs’s brain child. In the wake of the Old School/New School reunion he sought a forum, or a better expression might be “platform,” to discuss the new methods of historical criticism he had learned while studying in Germany.[6] Having failed to establish an international journal with Scotland, he succeeded in establishing a joint venture with Princeton Theological Seminary. According to Briggs and A. A. Hodge, the two editors, the purpose of the Review was “to treat all subjects in a broad and catholic spirit, comprehending those historical phases of Calvinism which combined in the Presbyterian Church at the reunion.”[7]

But struggles characterized the relationship between Union and Princeton from the beginning. Not one year into the journal’s existence Briggs penned for the Review an historical account of the William Robertson Smith trial, which was at the time ongoing in Scotland. Briggs, who was becoming the American champion of the critical methods he had learned while abroad, was obviously in the theological corner of Smith, who was being tried for heresy. Hodge wrote to register his disagreement, and after some personal correspondence it was agreed that the issues that had vexed the Scottish church should be dealt with in a series of eight articles, to begin in April 1881, only after the Scottish church had decided the fate of Robertson Smith.[8]

The opening salvo in the series came from A. A. Hodge. The article was simply titled “Inspiration.” Hodge wrote the first part of the article, which focused on the definition, presuppositions, and genesis of the doctrine. For the second part, he enlisted a young New Testament scholar by the name of Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield. Being known to the Hodges and the Princeton community and having just delivered an inaugural lecture titled “Inspiration and Criticism,” he was a likely choice. And so began not simply a theological controversy but a theological rivalry that would last more than a decade.

Against this background, we turn to the work and development of Benjamin B. Warfield that will help to explain the historical observation of his 1894 article. The primary area of Warfield’s thought that is important for this study is that of inspiration’s mode. In his 1880 inaugural lecture, Warfield began by establishing two architectonic pillars, one personal and one historical/theological. First, he started his lecture with a clear affirmation of his commitment to the Westminster Standards as an expression of his own personal and cherished conviction.[9]

Second, he stated the traditional Reformed doctrine of inspiration as the “extraordinary, supernatural influence (or, passively, the result of it,) exerted by the Holy Ghost on the writers of our Sacred Books, by which their words were rendered also the words of God, and, therefore, perfectly infallible.”[10] However, Warfield also pointed up what the traditional definition lacked. He claimed that “it purposely declares nothing as to the mode of inspiration.”[11] Characteristically, Warfield explained the reason for the omission, “The Reformed Churches admit that this is inscrutable.”[12]

However, Warfield was not willing to concede entirely to tradition. As an exegete, he believed that if Scripture revealed something, then it was, in fact, revealed; it was open to investigation and Warfield had obviously given some preliminary thought to the matter. Nevertheless, the point to notice is that Warfield had not, as of yet, come to maturity in his thinking on the issue of inspiration’s mode. For example, Warfield does not use the term concursus to describe his conception of inspiration in his inaugural lecture. In fact, this would be true for a little more than a decade. It is not until 1893 that Warfield consistently and forcefully began to apply the word concursus as a descriptor to his own conclusions concerning the divine-human relationship in Scripture. One must ask why this is the case. There are at least two reasons and possibly three for this reticence until the year 1893.

First, after reading the fifteen articles that Warfield wrote on inspiration during the years 1880 to 1893 one realizes that Warfield is, quite simply, maturing in his views. His thought was in process and therefore so was the mode of his expression. This should not be taken to mean that Warfield was working into orthodoxy. He had signed the standards “gladly and willingly as an expression of a personal and cherished conviction.” But these standards had not only supplied him with a place to stand theologically, but room to move as well, and from 1880 to 1915 Warfield would continue to work out his theology in the area of inspiration’s mode.

Second, and likely the most crucial for our understanding of Warfield’s theological development, we must realize that much of Warfield’s writing at this time grew out of existing controversy earlier described—a controversy that would eventually swallow the church. Yet, in the heat of controversy one has a tendency to think upon those aspects of the debate that appear most crucial at the time, and between 1880 and 1893 the mode of inspiration had become front and center in the debate.

The third reason for Warfield’s reticence to use concursus in order to describe the relationship between the divine and human may indeed go back to Charles Hodge himself. After explaining the doctrine of concursus in volume 1 of his Systematic Theology, Hodge gives three objections as to its usefulness as a theological concept. First, Hodge posits that concursus is built on a false assumption, that being “an inference from the assumed nature of the dependence of the creature upon the creator.”[13] Hodge’s apparent fear is that in order to sustain the sovereignty of God through concursus we will end by giving up something essential to man’s constitutional makeup. This alone may go a long way in explaining Warfield’s reticence to speak in much detail about the relationship between the divine and the human in the inspiration process.

Second, Hodge objected to concursus because it was an attempt to explain the inexplicable. According to Hodge, concursus is an attempt to explain how the “efficiency of God controls the efficiency of second causes.”[14] Furthermore, Hodge argues, “[The] mode of God’s action we cannot possibly understand.”[15] One certainly wonders if Warfield had this passage from Hodge in mind when he told the audience at Western Theological Seminary that the mode of inspiration had always been considered inscrutable by the Reformed churches.[16]

Third, Hodge said that the doctrine of concursus multiplies difficulties.[17] To argue that God excites, sustains, and determines the action of free agents and yet is not implicated in the morality of the act raises perplexing metaphysical questions.[18] Furthermore, Hodge asks, what does it amount to? What real knowledge does it communicate?[19] When one reflects on the nature of these criticisms it is not difficult to see them in Warfield’s own thought. Thus, it seems likely that Warfield would have been reticent to speak about the divine and human relationship as being concursive in nature so long as he was unable to provide answers to the questions posed by his beloved and respected professor.

In 1893, however, Warfield encountered something of a turning point. Up until this time Warfield recognized that the divine and human had to be co-present, if not co-authors of Scripture, but the question was how to describe this relationship. In 1893, with regard to the divine and human in the process of inspiration, Warfield came to clarity with regard to two aspects.

First, due to Kant’s having excised God from the phenomenal realm, theologians like Schleiermacher began teaching that access to the God of the noumena could be found only in the area of feelings. Consequently, nineteenth-century theologians following in the wake of such understanding began to teach that God was so immanent to the human realm that even human thoughts could be divinely inspired. All one needed to do to connect with the deity, said Schleiermacher, was to develop or submit to the conscious feeling of absolute dependence.[20]

Warfield reasoned that when arguments for the divine origin and character of Scripture have little impact it becomes “necessary … to emphasize the supernatural in the mode of knowledge and not merely in its source.”[21] Or as he put it in 1893, “The present controversy concerns something much more vital than the bare ‘inerrancy’ of the Scriptures, whether the copies or in the ‘autographs.’… It concerns, in a word, the authority of the Biblical presentations … and the mode and course of its revelation.”[22] Thus, what crystallized for Warfield in 1893 was that the fight for special revelation with the foe of liberal nineteenth-century theology, which was spreading its doctrine of immanence, would be, at least, a battle over the mode of inspiration.

Second, in 1893, in a review of seven German books on inspiration for The Presbyterian and Reformed Review, Warfield began using concursus to describe what he believed was the biblical mode of inspiration.[23] In the review, Warfield takes up August Wilhelm Dieckhoff’s work Die Inspiration und Irrthumslosigkeit der Heiligen Schrift and writes, “The true conception of inspiration as a concursus of the divine and human … is brought out roundly and richly in Dieckhoff’s volume.”[24] Warfield continues with these striking affirmations of Dieckhoff’s work, “We find ourselves practically in complete agreement with its exposition of the mode of inspiration.”[25] And yet a third time, Warfield says, “Dieckhoff’s principal service in this little book, however, arises from the clearness with which he announces, and the force with which he commends the conception of concursus as the truth as to the mode of inspiration.”[26] The following year, in 1894, Warfield published a brief article called “The Divine and Human in the Bible,” articulating his own understanding of concursus.

We can see even more clearly Warfield’s own developing view of the process of inspiration and how he understood the doctrine’s historical development by comparing two articles that he wrote, one before 1893 and one after, and both on the Westminster Confession and inspiration.[27] In an 1891 article published in The Independent titled “The Westminster Doctrine of Inspiration,” Warfield wrote of the assembly, “Let us note what they teach, from section to section, of the nature of inspiration, its mode, and its effects.”[28] When dealing with the mode, however, Warfield never mentions the doctrine of concursus.

But in 1894, when Warfield published “The Doctrine of Inspiration of the Westminster Divines” in The Presbyterian Quarterly he had a different historical perspective on the development of the Scripture’s mode of inspiration. Early in the article, he compares the Westminster divines with the Reformers, arguing that the Reformers’ view of the mode of inspiration seems to be “rooted in a theory of concursus or synergism rather than one of dictation.”[29] Later in the article, Warfield says of the development of the Divines’ doctrine of inspiration, “But the time had not yet come when the true concursus of inspiration, by which we may see that every word of Scripture is truly divine and yet every word is as truly human, had not become the property of all.”[30] Perhaps the question is obvious: Did Warfield’s own theological adjustment influence his view of these historical periods? To answer this question we must take up the next point.

II. Warfield’s View of Progressive Orthodoxy

Did Warfield’s personal theological development influence his perspective on and interpretation of the history of theological construction? In other words, did Warfield read his newfound theory of inspiration into his evaluation of the theology of the Reformers? One may assert such a conclusion. But if so, questions inevitably arise. For example, why did he not do the same with the theology of the Westminster Assembly? After all, if we take Warfield at his word, the theology of Westminster was an expression of his own personal and cherished conviction from at least as early as 1880. And in 1901, well after the years in question, he described the Westminster Confession in The Presbyterian and Reformed Review as “the consummate flower of Reformed symbols—that Westminster Confession which it has been our happiness as Presbyterians to inherit.”[31] Surely, to believe that what was held by the Divines of the Assembly was in fact concomitant in all its constituent parts with his own view of Scripture must have been a temptation.

What is more, during the time under our consideration, Charles Briggs was vehemently attempting to show that Warfield’s position on the inspiration of Scripture was actually foreign to the document produced by the Westminster Assembly. Briggs went so far as to call Warfield’s position “a false doctrine circulating in a tract bearing the imprint of the Presbyterian Board of Publication, among our ministers and people, poisoning their souls and misleading them into dangerous error.”[32] To add insult to injury, Briggs finished by saying, “No more dangerous doctrine has ever come from the pen of men.”[33] It seems that if Warfield was willing to commit one anachronism, then two might well have been in his best interest!

But there is another question to be asked. It was surely not difficult to determine that the Protestant Scholastics held to dictation as their theory of inspiration. When Warfield took up his “tolerably full exposition” of John Lightfoot, arguably the most scholarly divine of the Assembly, Warfield concluded his study with these words, “It is perfectly evident that his fundamental conception of Scripture was that it is the Book of God, the ‘dictates of the Holy Spirit,’ of every part and every element of which—its words and its very letters—God is Himself the responsible author.”[34] The conclusion Warfield drew from his study of Lightfoot was the one he drew for the theology of the Westminster Assembly; the divines believed that the mode of inspiration was best understood in terms of a theory of dictation.[35]

How then could Warfield have possibly found the mode of concursus in the doctrine of the Reformers? The evidence seems to undermine, if not entirely eliminate, such a conclusion. For example, in his 1909 article “Calvin’s Doctrine of the Knowledge of God,” Warfield quotes a number of passages from Calvin, including, “We owe it [Scripture] therefore the same reverence which we owe to God Himself, since it has proceeded from Him alone, and there is nothing human mixed with it.”[36] Afterward, Warfield says of Calvin, “He is somewhat addicted to the use of the language which, strictly taken, would imply that the mode of their gift was dictation.”[37] And when summarizing Calvin’s view of the inspiration of Scripture, Warfield writes,

Such then, are the Scriptures as conceived by Calvin: sixty-six sacred books, “dictated” by God to his “notaries” that they might, in this “public record,” stand as a perpetual special revelation of Himself to His people, to supplement or to supersede in their case the general revelation which He gives of Himself in His works and deeds, but which is rendered ineffective by the sin-bred disabilities of the human soul. For this, according to Calvin, is the account to give of the origin of Scripture, and this the account to give of the function it serves in the world.[38]

The inescapable conclusion, even for Warfield, seems to be that Calvin was addicted to the language of dictation when describing the gift of special revelation. So, how could Warfield say in 1894, “[The Reformers’] thinking concerning Scripture appears, indeed, to be rooted in a theory of concursus or synergism rather than in one of dictation”?[39] On the surface, it appears that Warfield has blundered not only in his reading of the Reformers at this point, but he has failed to carry his blunder through to the theology of the Assembly.

Now, we must never think that a man is free from error. However, there are some errors, to quote Warfield, that simply stupefy. This one could fall into that category. An overly sensitive reader might argue that Warfield had this scenario in mind when he wrote “The Idea of Systematic Theology” two years later in 1896, wherein he acknowledged that the theologian is “smitten with a deadly fear” of fitting separate truths “into a system of our devising.”[40] However, in this case, not only does he appear to read his own theory of the mode back into the Reformers’ theology but he seemingly further upsets the applecart by setting the Reformers in opposition to his own cherished Assembly.

Are we able to account for Warfield’s analysis without attributing to him malicious error or careless scholarship? Let us begin with the wisdom of the Lord himself who said that we are not to judge by mere appearances but, in fact, to make a right judgment. In doing so, let us turn our attention to Warfield’s understanding of progressive orthodoxy.

Warfield was aware that the label of progressive orthodoxy had been used frequently and in some strange connections, so he was eager to make clear his own meaning with regard to the expression.[41] First, he stated the obvious for those who have difficulty seeing such things. He said that progressive orthodoxy means orthodoxy. The obvious was then followed by the provocative, to be progressively orthodox is to be “ever growing more and more orthodox as more and more truth is established.”[42] This last statement takes some explanation.

According to Warfield, becoming more and more orthodox or the establishment of more truth might be compared to building a theological house. Because of Warfield’s penchant for the scientific he augmented the engineering metaphor by appealing to science. Warfield said that this advance in knowledge has been true in the history of every field of science and is not less so with regard to the science of theology.[43] The science of theology has as its aim the advancement of knowledge.

At this point it is important to remember that Warfield is building on what he had learned from his professor of systematic theology, Charles Hodge, while a student at Princeton Theological Seminary. According to Warfield, Hodge was the perfect example of a theologian and his lectures were ideal, and this notion of theological advance is the very thing that Warfield heard in Hodge’s lectures. Take this statement from Hodge’s teaching:

The true method of theology is, therefore, the inductive, which assumes that the Bible contains all the facts or truths which form the contents of theology, just as the facts of nature are the contents of the natural sciences. It is also assumed that the relation of these Biblical facts to each other, the principles involved in them, the laws which determine them, are in the facts themselves, and are to be deduced from them, just as the laws of nature are deduced from the facts of nature.[44]

From this quote, several important points emerge. First, when Hodge, and Warfield after him, refers to the establishment of knowledge he is not speaking of additional supernatural revelation. Rather, all the facts needed for theological advance are already revealed. From Warfield’s perspective, “[The] Scriptures form the only sufficing source of theology.”[45]

The second observation that we must make from Hodge’s quote is that the relationship between these facts is not always plain but through the use of reason we may organize them into a concatenated system, not arbitrarily weaving a theological tapestry of our own, but rather deducing the connections from the facts themselves, which is simply to acknowledge the organic whole and its natural relations as one would do in any scientific inquiry. Or, as Warfield put it,

Just because God gives us the truth in single threads which we must weave into the reticulated texture, all the threads are always within our reach, but the finished texture is ever and will ever continue to be before us until we dare affirm that there is not truth in the Word which we have not perfectly apprehended, and no relation of these truths as revealed which we have not perfectly understood, and no possibility in clearness of presentation which we have not attained.[46]

Warfield, like his professor and mentor before him, believed that theological knowledge was to be built with the whole in view.

But Warfield’s reasons for theological advance were not simply for the sake of establishing truth. He said, “The contemplation and exhibition of Christianity as truth, is far from the end of the matter.”[47] According to Warfield, this truth was communicated by God for a purpose. He asserted, “It is not a matter of indifference, then, how we apprehend and systematize this truth.”[48] Warfield expressed the apprehending and the purpose in the following way:

The task of thoroughly exploring the pages of revelation, soundly gathering from them their treasures of theological teaching, and carefully fitting these into their due places in a system whereby they may be preserved from misunderstanding, perversion, and misuse, and given a new power to convince the understanding, move the heart, and quicken the will, becomes thus a holy duty to our own and our brothers’ souls as well as an eager pleasure of our intellectual nature.[49]

This conclusion was also something that Warfield gleaned from Hodge, who said that wrong religious beliefs would lead to a deformed and misshapen religious life.

We might think of the church from its establishment to its perfection as analogous to a zygote, which possesses the DNA code that it will need to become mature. It must, however, grow through various stages of development along the way with each new stage building on the previous one. Warfield used a scientific model to explain the same when he said, “The conditions of progress in theology are clearly discernible from its nature as a science. The progressive men in any science are the men who stand firmly on the basis of the already ascertained truth.”[50] For Warfield, this meant that “it is ours to advance steadily towards this ideal, as it is God’s delight to be ‘daily smoothing the wrinkles and wiping the spots of his church away.’”[51] In other words, it is our task to advance steadily in the expression of theological knowledge that ever seeks to attain precision and perfection for it is God who works in us to bring us to maturity.

With this background we are able to move to our third point.

III. Progressive Orthodoxy, the Reformers and the Protestant Scholastics

Let us return to the question we posed earlier. Did Warfield read his own theological discovery into the theology of the Reformers, and did he use his new narrative in order to chastise the Protestant Scholastics? The answer is, yes and no. According to Warfield, from the existence to the perfection of the church God will wipe away the theological spots and wrinkles from his bride. One era will build upon another. Great theologians will stand on the shoulders of even greater theologians. And in so doing, the body of Christ will attain to the perfection of theological knowledge—or at least grow in that direction from age to age.

In 1894, Warfield contended that there was “a difference between the Reformers’ treatment of Scripture and that of the theologians of the seventeenth century.”[52] We have already observed the difference. Warfield explained the reason for the difference as one of necessity based upon the historical context: “The Reformers, striving for very life, had little time or heart to do more than to insist on the sole divine authority of Scripture, and the facts involved in and underlying that authority.”[53] In other words, their circumstances did not allow for much by way of theological reflection, and even less for theological construction. Sadly, but necessarily, the Reformers were militia battling not only for doctrine but for their very lives and those for whom they had responsibility.

Clearly, Warfield was not claiming irresponsibility on the part of the Reformed. He was arguing for the reality of the situation. The Reformers were not ivory tower theologians but working pastors, sometimes exiles and always soldiers facing the tempestuous and sometimes violent controversy brought about by Luther’s hammer. For example, Warfield seems to follow the claim of a French scholar who argues that Calvin had not distinguished the doctrine of inspiration from his doctrine of revelation. Whether the claim is true or not, the sentiment surely is, or so thought Warfield.

However tired and crestfallen were these Reformers, Warfield is equally clear that they did have the facts even if they were at a loss as to how to bundle them. But even that may be saying too much. Calvin may well have used the language of dictation to describe the gift of supernatural revelation, but an examination of his writings on the subject also yields the conclusion that the action of God in inspiration, from Calvin’s view, did not transform the authors of Scripture into machines.[54] Thus, Warfield’s caveat in assessing Calvin is that what the Reformer “has in mind is not to insist that the mode of inspiration was dictation, but that the result of inspiration is as if it were by dictation, viz., the production of a pure word of God free from all human admixtures.”[55] Warfield adds an historical and clarifying point, “The term ‘dictation’ was no doubt in current use at the time to express rather the effects than the mode of inspiration.”[56] What is more, claims Warfield, this is in fact what Calvin does teach and with great strenuousness. Calvin everywhere, said Warfield, “asserts that the effects of inspiration are such that God alone is the responsible author of the divine product.”57 In other words, the product of inspiration would be tantamount to dictation.

For Warfield, the conclusion is nothing if not apparent. Calvin did not and could not give himself to the elaboration of this particular locus of theology for, as Warfield claims, he had neither time nor heart to insist on more than what strength and time would allow. However, what Calvin did stress, as strenuously as any Protestant Scholastic, were the facts of plenary verbal inspiration, divine authority, inerrancy, infallibility and the effects of inspiration. And having gleaned these facts from Scripture, Calvin left them for the next generation of reformers to enfold within their system of theology.

Consequently, in God’s providence, it fell to the Protestant Scholastics to organize the facts rediscovered in the Reformation. However, according to Warfield, “the Systematists of the seventeenth century, intrenching a position already won, sought to give these facts an indefectible foundation in a special theory of the mode of inspiration, the theory of dictation.”[58]

It would be a tragic error to think that Warfield opposed dictation as a legitimate mode of inspiration per se; he certainly did not oppose it but rather identified it as the mode best suited to describe prophetic utterance. What Warfield did oppose was identifying dictation as a theory that could encompass all genres of God’s Word. This assertion, thought Warfield, simply could not bear up under the facts provided by Scripture.

Yet, Warfield’s contention was that the Protestant Scholastics were in a different position entirely. Having inherited the theological, ecclesiastical, and geographical victories of the Reformation, their task was to systematize and codify the theological facts bequeathed to them by the Reformers. However, the Protestant Scholastics ensconced these facts in an erroneous theory when applied to the whole of Scripture.

Of course, the immediate question is, why? Warfield is not slow to answer. He writes,

For us to understand the origin of their error, gross as it was, it is only necessary to suppose that they imagine the doctrines of verbal inspiration and inerrancy to be corollaries of the theory of dictation, instead of the theory of dictation to be, as it was historically, an attempt to supply for these necessary doctrines a firm and impregnable basis.[59]

In other words, the Protestant Scholastics did not recognize the situation of the Reformation for what it was—that the theory of dictation was used as a temporary place holder until someone could come along and systematize the facts according to a theory that could be deduced from the facts themselves. Instead, the Protestant Scholastics actually believed that the facts handed down were corollaries of the theory of dictation. For Warfield, this inability to recognize the difference is an example of theological regress rather than theological progress.

It must also be said that in pointing out the failure of the Protestant Scholastics to identify from the facts a view of the mode of inspiration consistent with the facts, we are not saying that Protestant Scholastics denied or mishandled the facts. In other words, the failure to organize the facts of Scripture under a theory of inspiration left them in essentially the same place as that of the Reformers, holding to a bundle of facts without the twine to secure them into a cohesive load.

In 1893 Warfield had finally arrived at a conclusion with regard to the mode of inspiration. He, like theologians before him, had stood upon the shoulders of others, including August Wilhelm Dieckhoff. And yet, he was able to see farther. Like men before him, he thought that mere men, through the rigorous application of God’s gift of reason to the Scripture, could build the theological house and so enable the church to grow more and more orthodox. Warfield believed that God had always used men to advance the truth. In his 1896 article “The Idea of Systematic Theology,” Warfield went through the litany of men who had done this very thing.

In their 1880 article on “Inspiration,” A. A. Hodge and Warfield point up the fact that the word inspiration had been used irresponsibility in theological discourse. Their proposal was a definition that would be never varying. They were doing the work of constructive theologians. And in 1894, Warfield was doing it again.

This brings us back to the answer I gave at the beginning of this section, the yes and no answer. No, Warfield was not being anachronistic. Rather, he believed that he had determined the theory of inspiration which was a true corollary of facts of Scripture, and he was simply and only bringing history to the bar of Scripture. He was in a sense allowing Scripture to judge the Reformers and the Protestant Scholastics. Both were guilty, but one was not without excuse.

On the other hand, yes, he was allowing his theory of inspiration’s mode to influence his view of the past, and if he is correct, then rightly so. Perhaps the conclusion that we might draw—a conclusion that Warfield did not draw for himself—was that in God’s providence he, Warfield, standing on the shoulders of greater theologians than he, was able to deduce from the facts a theory of inspiration worthy of those inspired facts. It was, or so he thought, a theory that could bundle them all together.

Notes

1. Benjamin B. Warfield, “The Doctrine of Inspiration of the Westminster Divines,” in The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 6:261–333 (hereafter Works).
2. Ibid., 6:262.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Dunlop Moore, “Calvin’s Doctrine of Holy Scripture,” Presbyterian and Reformed Review 4 (1893): 55: “Let us attend to the manner in which Calvin treats the manifest diversity that presents itself in the four Gospels. He does not believe that either Mark or Luke made any use of the Gospel of Matthew. He calls upon us to hold that Mark, though not an apostle, is a legitimate and divinely ordained witness, who related nothing without the guidance and dictation of the Holy Spirit (qui nihil nisi præeunte dictanteque Spiritu sancto prodiderit).”
6. Mark S. Massa, Charles Augustus Briggs and the Crisis of Historical Criticism (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 51.
7. A. A. Hodge and Charles A. Briggs, “The Idea and Aims of The Presbyterian Review,” Presbyterian Review 1 (1880): 4.
8. Massa, Charles Augustus Briggs, 57–58.
9. Benjamin B. Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1948), 419.
10. Ibid., 420.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 1:604.
14. Ibid., 1:605.
15. Ibid.
16. Warfield, Inspiration and Authority, 420.
17. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1:605.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 1:12.
21. Benjamin B. Warfield, “The Idea of Revelation and Theories of Revelation,” in Works, 1:27.
22. Benjamin B. Warfield, “The Inerrancy of the Original Autographs,” in Selected Shorter Writings, ed. John E. Meeter, 2 vols. (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2005), 2:581.
23. Benjamin B. Warfield, “Recent Theological Literature,” Presbyterian and Reformed Review 4, no. 15 (1893): 496.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid., 497.
27. Warfield actually wrote two articles on the Westminster Confession and Scripture before 1893 and two after, but only the two on inspiration concern us here.
28. Benjamin B. Warfield, “The Westminster Doctrine of Inspiration,” in Selected Shorter Writings, 2:576.
29. Warfield, “Doctrine of Inspiration of the Westminster Divines,” in Works, 6:262.
30. Ibid., 6:276.
31. Benjamin B. Warfield, “Predestination in the Reformed Confessions,” in Works, 9:121.
32. Charles Augustus Briggs, Whither? A Theological Question for the Times (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1889), 64.
33. Ibid., 73.
34. Warfield, “Doctrine of Inspiration of the Westminster Divines,” in Works, 6:332.
35. The fact that the Westminster divines do not spell out the mode in the Confession is an interesting feature of this historical document. What is more, it lends credibility to Warfield’s earlier statement that the Reformed have always found the mode of inspiration to be inscrutable despite their theories.
36. John Calvin, Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries, vol. 10 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), comment on 2 Tim 3:16; quoted in Benjamin B. Warfield, “Calvin’s Doctrine of the Knowledge of God,” in Works, 5:61.
37. Warfield, Works, 5:62.
38. Ibid., 5:67.
39. Ibid., 6:262.
40. Benjamin B. Warfield, “The Idea of Systematic Theology,” in Works, 9:80.
41. Ibid., 9:78.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid.
44. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1:17.
45. Warfield, “Idea of Systematic Theology,” in Works, 9:63.
46. Ibid., 9:76.
47. Ibid., 9:79
48. Ibid., 9:80.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid., 9:76.
51. Benjamin B. Warfield, “True Church Unity: What It Is,” in Selected Shorter Writings, 1:306.
52. Warfield, “Doctrine of Inspiration of the Westminster Divines,” in Works, 6:261–62.
53. Ibid.
54. Warfield, “Calvin’s Doctrine of the Knowledge of God,” in Works, 5:63.
55. Ibid., 5:63–64.
56. Ibid., 5:64.
57. Ibid.
58. Warfield, “Doctrine of Inspiration of the Westminster Divines,” in Works, 6:262.
59. Ibid., 6:263.