JH Thornwell Position on Inerrancy

[sedsr57]

Hello. I'm in the middle of reading The Metaphysical Confederacy : James Henry Thornwell and the Synthesis of Southern Values by James Oscar Farmer, Jr. On page 135 Farmer makes the following statement: "Thornwell's confident application of man's God-given, though sin flawed, reason to the study of nature and Scripture inevitably led him, with others, to question the verbal accuracy of holy writ." Is this an accurate statement? Farmer goes on to say, and this is a direct quote, " John Calvin had labored over the above questions and concluded that the doctrine of literal infallibility of Scripture was not true. The Bible does contain errors, Calvin noted." I struggle with the validity of either of these statements. Might someone enlighten me? Thank you.

 

[iainduguid]

You should always be skeptical of any such assertions without relevant footnotes. If there are footnotes, then look them up to see what the primary author actually said. His term "the literal infallibility of Scripture" may mean something other than what you or I would mean by it.

 

[sedsr57]

Dr. Duguid. No footnotes to support the statements, thus my skepticism. I'll keep reading and see if the author explains further. Many thanks for taking the time to respond. I own several of your books and commentaries and have benefitted greatly from them. Once again, thank you.

 

[Ploutos]

Unfortunately, I can't remember where I've seen this, but several years ago I did come across someone trying to show that Calvin had something akin to a Barthian view of inerrancy. I don't remember which Calvin passages they cited, but I recall not agreeing with their conclusion. People try to make the Reformers say all sorts of weird things.

I'd be interested to know what you discover regarding why this author thinks Thornwell rejected the verbal accuracy of the Scriptures.

 

[sedsr57]

Unfortunately, I can't remember where I've seen this, but several years ago I did come across someone trying to show that Calvin had something akin to a Barthian view of inerrancy. I don't remember which Calvin passages they cited, but I recall not agreeing with their conclusion. People try to make the Reformers say all sorts of weird things.

I'd be interested to know what you discover regarding why this author thinks Thornwell rejected the verbal accuracy of the Scriptures.

Thank you for responding. I'll let you know if I uncover how and why the author came to such a conclusion. It was new to my ears.

 

[Joshua]

That don’t pass the sniff test…

 

[pianoviolin]

Unfortunately, I can't remember where I've seen this, but several years ago I did come across someone trying to show that Calvin had something akin to a Barthian view of inerrancy. I don't remember which Calvin passages they cited, but I recall not agreeing with their conclusion. People try to make the Reformers say all sorts of weird things.

I'd be interested to know what you discover regarding why this author thinks Thornwell rejected the verbal accuracy of the Scriptures.

We need to be careful with injecting our own assumptions into previous writers. Just because someone doesn't hold the exact technical view of Princetonian biblical inerrancy does not mean that person actually rejects inerrancy. (The same goes with injecting forensic justification into the Church fathers every time "justification" is mentioned. While not all held a proto-Protestant view, many did.)

 

[sedsr57]

That don’t pass the sniff test…

Brother, my sentiments exactly.

 

[MW]

It is anachronistic because it brings a 20th century debate into 19th and 16th century authors. All we can do is to see how they handled Scripture. Was their aim to harmonise it or did they rest content with contradictions? I can't speak to Thornwell's approach, but Calvin consistently sought to harmonise Scripture. He recognised "apparent" discrepancies but resolved them on the basis of his high view of Scripture’s divine origin. The error lies in human understanding, not in holy Scripture. It would surprise me if Thornwell didn't do the same thing.