# B. B. Warfield and the Reformation Doctrine of the Providential Preservation



## JM (Jun 22, 2007)

Did Warfield add or change the classic Reformed view on the providential preservation of Scripture as some, like Theodore Letis have stated? 

Thanks.


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## reformedman (Jun 22, 2007)

I did hear about 2 months ago that he BB believes in a 6 long era creation. After researching it, I was surprised that he was a silent proponent of it. He said he wouldn't preach on it but that he believed it.


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## Jerusalem Blade (Jun 23, 2007)

JM,

Have you read Letis' article, “B. B. Warfield, Common-Sense Philosophy and Biblical Criticism”? There Letis documents Warfield's departure from what had been the standard view of preservation, as noted in WCF 1:8. In particular Letis looks at Warfield's _re-defining_ the Confession's statement, so that the meaning the framers intended was changed. The article got some critical acclaim, as is seen in an appendix. I quote this below from the thread, 
"What is the authentic New Testament Text", 

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Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield [made his higher-critical views widely known] when he wrote to the general Christian public in _Sunday School Times_ 24 in 1882, that Mark’s long ending was “no part of God’s word,” and therefore “we are not to ascribe to the verses the authority due to God’s Word.” [Cited from Theodore P. Letis’ _The Ecclesiastical Text: Text Criticism, Biblical Authority and the Popular Mind_, p. 53]. In naming him thus be it understood I mean not at all to demean “the mighty Warfield,” as other than in the area of text criticism I honor and love him. But when a man is wrong we sin if we do not decry that error which causes harm to the flock of God.

To his credit, Warfield’s intentions were good; he hoped to disarm the threat posed by text criticism in the hands of liberal and unbelieving scholars by redefining the Westminster Confession’s statement on Scripture to refer to the inerrant autographs (anciently lost and beyond reach) instead of the apographs (the copies; texts in the hands of the Westminster divines). I quote from Letis’ essay “B. B. Warfield, Common-Sense Philosophy and Biblical Criticism” (in _The Ecclesiastical Text”_, pp. 26-27):

Only eight years after Warfield’s death [in Feb 1921], the higher criticism entered Princeton and the seminary was reorganized to accommodate this. The facile certainty that Westcott and Hort’s system seem to offer Warfield evaporated. Later text critics abandoned the hope of reconstructing a “neutral” text and today despair of ever discovering an _urtext_, the final resting ground of Warfield’s doctrine of inspiration and inerrancy. Warfield had given earnest expression to his hope that,

The autographic text of the New Testament is distinctly within the reach of criticism….we cannot despair of restoring to ourselves and the church of God, His book, word for word, as He gave it by inspiration to men. [“The Rights of Criticism and of the Church”, _The Presbyterian_ (April 13, 1892):15]​
Fifty years later, the Harvard text critic, Kirsopp Lake, offered a more modest assessment:

In spite of the claims of Westcott and Hort….we do not know the original form of the Gospels, and it is quite likely that we never shall. [_Family 13 (The Ferrar Group_ (Phila., The Univ. of Penn. Press, 1941), p. vii]​
Warfield’s Common Sense adoption of German methods would be more fully developed by others at Princeton who would no longer find his appendage of the inerrant autographs theory either convincing, or any longer relevant for N.T. studies.​
Make no mistake about it, Warfield’s textual theories, taken in good faith from Westcott and Hort – which he was open to after his studies in German criticism at the University of Leipzig in 1876 – single-handedly turned the Reformed Communities from their former view of the WCF and its prizing the texts-in-hand to the (what turned out to be) never-to-be-found-or-restored autographic texts. This was the watershed. And today men of good intentions seek to make the best of it, developing theories and stances so as to defend what they say is a trustworthy Bible.

[end of quote from previous post]
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It goes to show how one person can influence great multitudes, for good or for ill.

Steve


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## Tallen (Jun 25, 2007)

JM said:


> Did Warfield add or change the classic Reformed view on the providential preservation of Scripture as some, like Theodore Letis have stated?


 
Yes, the change occured when the defense of the scriptures switched from the extant _apographa _to the non-existant _autographa_. 

Please consider the following article:

SEE HERE

Blessings.


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## JM (Jun 25, 2007)

Thank you.

"By 'original and authentic' text, the Protestant orthodox do not mean the autographa which no one can possess but the apographa [exiting copies] in the original tongue which are the source of all versions . . . The orthodox discussion of autographa and apographa was designed, therefore, to point toward a continuity of text-tradition between the original authors and the present-day texts." 

"...Turretin and other high and late orthodox writers argued that the authenticity and infallibility of Scripture must be identified in and of the apographa [existing copies], not in and of lost autographa [original writings]. The autographa figure in Turretin's argument only insofar as they were written in Hebrew and Greek and are, therefore, best represented quoad verba and quoad res in the extant Hebrew and Greek apographa. The issue raised by the Protestant scholastic discussion of the relationship of the autographa and apographa is, in other words, one of linguistic continuity rather than one of verbal inerrancy. The orthodox do, of course, assume that the text is free of substantive error and, typically, view textual problems as of scribal origin, but they mount their argument for authenticity and infallibility without recourse to a logical device like that employed by Hodge and Warfield.

~ Richard Muller

I wonder what the Reformers would think of the NIV or the ESV?


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## Tallen (Jun 25, 2007)

The current argument must rest upon the extant _apographa_ because that is the texts that we have currently to argue for the message of God. So then the use of the term "infallible", because that best describes the the message of God in the scriptures. Here is what I mean:

The Word was God. (An inerrant text. Look closely at these words and see that there is no mistake in them, they are inerrant. Inerrancy causes the argument to focus upon the text itself.)

The Word was Gode. (An infallible statement, and perfectly true..., even though there is a scrible error. The statement of infalliblity causes the argument to focus upon the message..., which is exactly what we have today.)

The word of God is infallible, it is preserved and kept pure by the Spirit of God in all generations, dispite the efforts of sinful men whether they be good intentioned or otherwise. It is within this _apographa_ that the Reformers placed their faith, and argued for it as the "authentical kept word of God".

The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek (which at the time of writing of it was most generally known to the nations), being immediately inspired by God, *and by His singular care and providence kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical* (Mat_5:18); so as, in all controversies of religion, the Church is finally to appeal unto them (Isa_8:20; Joh_5:39, Joh_5:46; Act_15:15). But, because these original tongues are not known to all the people of God, who have right unto, and interest in the Scriptures, and are commanded, in the fear of God, to read and search them (Joh_5:39), therefore they are to be translated into the vulgar language of every nation unto which they come (1Co_14:6, 1Co_14:9, 1Co_14:11, 1Co_14:12, 1Co_14:24, 1Co_14:27, 1Co_14:28), that the Word of God dwelling plentifully in all, they may worship Him in an acceptable manner (Col_3:16); and, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, may have hope (Rom_15:4). _WCF 1:8_


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