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Continuing
LEHRE UNO WEHRE
MAGAZIN FUER Ev.-LuTH. HOMILETIK
THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY-THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY
Vol.xm July, 1942 No.7
CONTENTS Page
Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to the Jews and Foolish-
ness to the Greeks. Th. Engelder ... __________________________________________________ 481
Leading Thoughts on Eschatology in the Epistles to the Thessa-
lonians L. Fuerbringer . ______ . _________________________________________________________________ 511
Outlines on the Wuerttemberg Epistle Selections _________________________ 519
Miscellanea ____ . ___________________________ ____ __ _________________ ________ ______________ .__ __ __________________ 528
Theological Observer. - Kirchlich-Zeitgeschichtliches ___ . _________________ 541
Book Review. - Literatur __ . ______________________ ________________________________________ 553
Eln Pred1ger muss nicht alleln wei-
114m, also dass er die Schafe unter-
weise. wle de rechte ChrIsten sollen
seln. sondern auch daneben den Woel-
fen weh,.en, dass sle die Schafe nicht
angreifen und mit falscher Lehre ver-
fuehren und Irrtum elnfuehren.
Luther
Es 1st kein Dlng. daS die Leute
mehr bel der Kirche behaelt denn
die gute Predigt. - Apolog!e, Arl. 24
If the trumpet give an uncertain
sound. who shall prepare himaeU! to
the battle? - 1 Cor. 14:8
Published for the
Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States
CONCORDIA PUBLISHING HOUSE, St. Louis, Mo.
Concordia
Theological Monthly
Vol. XIII JULY, 1942 No.7
Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to the Jews
and Foolishness to the Greeks
(Continued)
IV
The moderns have many more objections against Verbal In-
spiration. To three of these they attach special importance. They
denounce Verbal Inspiration as "a mechanical theory of inspira-
tion"; they abhor it as "resulting in an atomistic conception of the
Scriptures"; they abominate it as establishing "the legalistic
authority of the letter." - The old evil Foe means deadly woe.
The appeasers have up till now been telling us that nothing is lost
if the Church gives up half of the Bible, seeing that they are willing
to let her retain the important half, the Gospel message; if only
the saving truths be inspired, all is well. And now they are in-
sisting that not even this portion of Scripture is inspired, verbally
inspired. They would have us believe that the words in which
the saving truth is clothed are purely human - human words which
are not absolutely reliable, human words which do not carry
divine authority.
Verbal Inspiration is a detestable thing in the eyes of the
moderns. They express their detestation of it in the horrified
exclamation: "Mechanical Inspiration!" and stigmatize us as "me-
chanical inspirationists." Some of them call it a heathen con-
ception. G. P. Mains: "Many have believed in its verbal inspira-
tion as literal as though God dictated every word, using the human
writer only as an automaton. This view, however, is distinctively
neither Hebrew nor Christian. From immemorial times it has been
shared by the heathen seers concerning the utterances of their
oracles." (Divine Inspiration, p.71.) R. Seeberg: "We must also
be careful not to regard the situation as if the theory of verbal in-
spiration were 'really' Christian. . .. That kind of inspiration in
31
482 Verbal Inspiration-a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc.
which the prophet in ecstatic fervor forgets himself and the world
and becomes only the pen or tongue of a deity, was far from
unknown in the ancient world, and was then introduced into
Jewish and Christian thought by the theories of Plato and Philo."
(Revelation and Inspiration, p. 31 f.) Dr. H. C. Alleman supports
Seeberg's protest against the heathen doctrine of Verbal Inspira-
tion: "The doctrine of verbal inspiration . .. is foreign to the
genius of our Confessions. It is, in fact, a carry-over from the old
heathen conception of inspiration: a man who was possessed by
a god lost self-control and became but a mouthpiece of the deity."
(The Luth. Church Quart., Oct., 1940, p.352.) M. Dods, whom
Alleman calls in as a corroborating witness, describes "the mechan-
ical or dictation theory as the theory of complete possession, in
which the divine factor is at its maximum, the human at its min-
imum. What is human is suppressed; the indwelling God uses
the human organs irrespective of the human will. The man is the
mere mouthpiece of the God. This view has always been popu1ar
outside of Christianity." (The Bible: Its Origin and Nature, p. 107.)
S. P. Cadman voices his protest in these words: "It is conceivable
that God possessed the power to reduce the authors of this sacred
literature to the level of mere automata acting under hypnosis .. ..
God inspired selected personalities to transmit His wil1 to their
fellows, but in so doing He did not obliterate their individuality
nor thereby make them speak like puppets in a Punch-and-Judy
show." (Answers to Everyday Q-tustions, p.253.) Dr. J . A. Sing-
master puts it this way: "Various theories of inspiration have been
advocated. The most popular and fallacious of these is the d ictation
theory, which holds that the writer is merely an instrument which
the Spirit used as a player does the organ or that he is merely the
stenographer of God. . .. The apostles were not unconscious
media for the Spirit.," (Handbook of Chr. Theol., p. 67.) The
modems are up in arms against the idea of putting the prophets
and the apostles on a level with the pythoness of Delphi.
As a rule, the moderns use more moderate language. Tbey
will not use the terms "heathen doctrine," "mantic divination,"
"hypnosis," but use the milder term "mechanical" to express the
same idea: the holy writers must not be made automata.2G3 ) Dr. R.
V. Foster inveighs against ''the mechanical theory," "which holds
that the sacred writers were as mere machines, or amanuenses ;
253) Cremer: "The dogmaticians taught a doctrine of inspiration
which was an absolute 7lO't)1J.n.'- Tru~, it la~ed only the concept of ecstasy
to be a renewal of the mantle doctnne of lDBP!ntlon as ta~ght by Philo
and the old apologetes, which had been UDl'lersally reJected by the
Church in its opposition to MontaniBm. But the very absence of this
concept only made the situation worse, for it reduced the mantic in-
spiration to a mechanical one." (Pieper, Chr. Dog. I, p. 279.)
Verbal Inspiration-a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc. 483
mere passive recipients and recorders of what was dictated by the
Holy Spirit." Dr. T. O. Summers takes Musaeus, Baier, and Quen-
stedt to task for teaching "that the Holy Spirit acted on men in a
passive state; that those who were under the power of the inspiring
Spirit were acted upon as mere machines, mechanically answering
the force which moved them." Dr. M. S. Terry takes "the leading
churches of the Reformation, which accepted the Calvinistic creed"
to task for teaching that "the normal powers or the holy writers
were suspended or neutralized in the process or their writing";
that they were "impassive machines, controlled by another per-
son." 254) Dr. A. H. Strong: "The dictation theory holds that in-
spiration consisted in such a possession of the minds and bodies
of the Scripture writers by the Holy Spirit that they became
passive instruments or amanuenses - pens, not penmen, of God ... .
Representatives of this view are Quenstedt, Hooker, Gaussen ... .
We cannot suppose that this highest work of man under the influ-
ence of the Spirit was purely mechanical." (Systematic Theology,
p.102.) Dr. G. Drach: "One theory of divine inspiration is that
of mechanical verbal dictation. According to this theory the human
writers under the influence of the Holy Spirit were in a passive
state of receptivity, similar to that of a stenographer who takes
dictation. . .. Zwingli's spirit led his followers to incline toward
the dictation of words as well as to the inspiration of the contents
of the Sacred Scriptures, and this theory found its way into some
of the Reformed confessions, and also influenced some or the Lu-
theran theologians of the seventeenth century." (The Luth. Church
Quart., 1936, p. 244 f.) Dr. A. J. Traver: "There can be nothing
mechanical about it. God did not dictate to the writers of the
Bible as to a stenographer." (The Lutheran, Jan. 23, 1936.) Dr. J.
A. W. Haas: "In the problem of inspiration the racts of course
refute any mechanical theory of verbal inspiration in minute
detail." (The Lutheran, Jan. 23, 1936.)
The moderns denounce Verbal Inspiration as a dangerous and
horrible thing. Dr. A. T. Kantonen, in the article "The Canned
Goods of Past Theology," published in The Lutheran, Dec. 12 ff.;
254) See Theological Quarterly, 1913, p. 2 fl.; 1914, p. 79. The article
containing these references is entitled: "'Mechanical Inspiration' the
Stumbling-Block of Modern Theology." Our selection of a similar title
for the present writing is a pure co-incidence. - Are the tenns "mechan-
ical inspiration" and "verbal inspiration" synonymous? Not with us.
But the modems use them so. See footnote 1. When the moderns de-
nounce "mechanical" inspiration, they mean verbal, plenary inspiration.
Ladd: "Theories of verbal or mechanical operation." Sanday: "Mechan-
ical and verbal inspiration of the Bible." Evangelischer Oberkirchenrat
in Stuttgart: "Die evangelische Kirche betrachtet die Bibel als Wort
Gottes; nlcht im Smne einer mech4nischen Verbalinspiration, sondern
als das in Menschenwort gekleidete Zeugnis Gottes von seinem Wesen
und WaIten." (See CONC. THEoL. MTHLY., VII, p.719.)
484 Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc.
1935: "Lutheran exegesis will be seriously handicapped unless it
abandons once and for all the unpsychological and mechanical
theories of inspiration and unhistorical views of verbal inerrancy
which the application of scientific and historical methods to the
study of the Bible has rendered obsolete." Dr. E. E. Flack: "Is not
the inspiration of Scripture too high and holy a reality to be defined
in terms of stenography? Does one exalt the Word of God by
dehumanizing it?" (The Luth. Church Quart., 1935, p.417.)
The moderns are demanding that this foolish, wicked theory
be abandoned once and for all. A. Deissmann is glad to note that
"this dogma of verbal inspiration of every letter of the New Testa-
ment, which rightly can be called mechanical inspiration, is now
abandoned in all scientific theology." (The New Testament in the
Light of Modern Research, p.234.) And they want the Lutheran
Church, together with the entire Christian Church, to abandon it
because it is not Biblical. H. E. Jacobs wrote in the introduction
to Biblical Criticism, by J. A. W. Haas: "If the verbal theory of
inspiration means that every word and letter is inspired, so that the
writer was purely passive and performed a merely mechanical
office, as 'the pen of the Holy Ghost,' this, we hold, is an assumption
for which we have no warrant." (See F. Bente, Was steht der
Vereinigung im Wege? p.50.) W. Sanday: "The mechanical and
verbal inspiration of the Bible may be questioned, but its real and
vital inspiration will shine out as it has never done." (The Oracles
of God, p.46.) Christ did not teach it, says G. T. Ladd: "The
germinal doctrine of Sacred Scripture given us in these words
[of Christ] is as far as possible from the rabbinical view of His
own day. Nor does it afford a root for a growth into any theories
of verbal or mechanical inspiration or of the infallibility of the
Old Testament .... " (The Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, I, p.38.)
And the Lutheran Church should not teach it any longer, says
E. E. Fisher: "It is more consistent with Lutheranism to believe
that the writers of the Holy Scriptures were truly human in the
way in which they accomplished their tasks than to believe that
they were automatons who served as 'secretaries' to take down
the dictation of the Holy Spirit. For one thing, what we know
of the way in which the writings have come to assume their
present form precludes any conception of dictation. But more
important is Lutheranism's conviction that the human personality
may be made the vehicle of the divine without the loss or destruc-
tion of human freedom." (The Luth. Church Quart., 1937, p.l96.)
If the Lutherans want to get together, they must get rid of Verbal
Inspiration, says Folkebladet, Nov. 23, 1938: "Students of Scripture
are more and more getting away from the theory of verbal in:
spiration, a theory which has brought more confusion among
Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc. 485
Christians than perhaps anything else. It is an impossibility to
imagine that the prophets and apostles could have intended that
their words should be considered as a dictation by the Holy Spirit
and that they as almost unconscious automatons were the Holy
Spirit's pencils. When a subjective theory is elevated to the status
of an objective primary truth, then hubbub [virvar] surely will
ensue in the Church. And that has most certainly been the
case." - This, then, is the grievance of the moderns against Verbal
Inspiration: it degrades the writers to the level of machines! 255)
They resent the idea that the apostles had to submit to be made
into dead writing machines. They ask the "mechanical inspira-
tionists": How dare you make the prophets undergo the horrible
experience of Verbal Inspiration? Summoned by the cry of Cad-
man: Let us not reduce the authors of our sacred literature to
the level of mere automata acting under hypnosis! they are de-
termined to drive the foul spook out of the Church.256 )
255) Fundamentals, III, p. 13: "The inspiration includes not only all
the books of the Bible in general but in detail, the form as well as the
substance, the word as well as the thought. This is sometimes called the
verbal theory of inspiration and is vehemently spoken against in some
quarters. It is too mechanical, it degrades the writers to the level of
machines, it has a tendency to make skeptics, and all ~that."
256) Queerly enough, the charge that the later dogmaticians, such
as Quenstedt, and those who accept their phraseology are "mechanical
inspirationists" is made by some who themselves believe that every word
of Scripture is divinely inspired and absolutely true. For the sake of
a complete record we submit the following references. W. Lee declares
that "it seems impossible to reconcile this phase of the purely organic,
or as it has of late years been termed, mechanical, theory of Inspiration
with the highest aim of religion" and quotes these words of Quenstedt
(Theo!. Didactico-Polemica, cap. IV, sect. II) as proving him a "mechan-
ical inspirationist": "All and each of the things which are contained in
the Sacred Scriptures ... were not only committed to letters by divine,
infallible assistance and direction but are to be regarded as received by
the special suggestion, inspiration, and dictation of the Holy Spirit. For
all things which were to be written were suggested by the Holy Spirit
to the sacred writers in the very act of writing and were dictated to
their intellect as if unto a pen (quasi in calamum) , so that they might be
written in these and no other circumstances, in this and no other mode
or order." Lee adds: "For the present, I shall merely observe that,
while I can by no means accept this system as correct or as consistent
with the facts to be explained, it will be my object in the present dis-
courses to establish in the broadest extent all that its supporters desire
to maintain; namely, the infallible certainty, the indisputable authority,
the perfect and entire truthfulness, of all parts and every part of Holy
Scripture." (The Inspiration of Holy Scripture, pp. 33, 37.) B. Manly
quotes this same statement of Quenstedt as proving that Quenstedt held
"the theory of mechanical inspiration, or, as it has been termed, the dic-
tation theory." Manly himself says: "Who said these words [Gal. 3: 8]?
God, personally. The manner of the quotation can only be explained on
the principle that the Scripture is so identified, in all that it says, with
God Himself, that what Scripture says, God says; and so a personal
utterance of God and a saying of Scripture are simply equivalent." (The
486 Verbal Inspiration - a Stwnbling-Block to Jews, Etc.
What is all this about? In the first place, the moderns are
fighting against a straw man. And as they unfold this particular
grievance of theirs against Verbal Inspiration, we notice, in the
second place, that they are waging war against Scripture.
The lusty strokes which the moderns deliver against "verbal,
mechanical inspiration" hit a straw man. The advocates of Verbal
Inspiration have not taught and do not teach that the holy writers,
uttering the words of the Holy Spirit, were thereby deprived of
their intelligence and consciousness. The moderns cannot produce
a single statement by the dogmaticians of the early Church or
of the seventeenth century to the effect that the Holy Ghost could
not speak through the prophets without turning them into dead
machines or putting them into a state of coma or forcing them to
act as vacuous stenographers. All that we can find in these state-
ments about Verbal Inspiration is to the effect that the holy writers
wrote what was given them to write consciously and rationally,
that they fully used the powers of their mind and their special gifts,
that their hearts were filled with horror of the sins which their
words denounced and with joy and wonderment at the grace of
God which their pens described. Quenstedt is held up by the
moderns as the exemplum horribile of the mechanical-inspiration
aberration. Have they read Quenstedt through? Have they read
pages 82 ff. of the offensive chapter in his Theol. Didae.-Pol.?
There he repudiates the idea "as though the holy writers had
written without, and contrary to, their will, without consciousness
and unwillingly." No; "they wrote uncoerced, willingly, and
knowingly; sponte enim, volentes scientesque scripserunt. . . .
The holy writers were said to be !P£QOI-LE'VOt, aeti, moti, agitati a
Spiritu Sancto, by no means as though they were out of their
mind ... or as though they did not understand what they were to
Bible Doctrine of Inspiration, pp. 44 f., 130.) Quenstedt could not have
used stronger language. One more example. We read in The Luth.
Church Quart., 1940, p.353: "It is only fair to Dr. M. Reu to say ... that
he disclaims the doctrine of mechanical verbal inspiration. In his bro-
chure In the Interest of Lutheran Unity, in the chapter 'What is Scrip-
ture?' he says: 'The mode (of inspiration) was a mystery and will re-
main a mystery for this life. It is always a mystery how the Spirit of
God works on hwnan personality.' (P.65.) 'There is a theory of Verbal
Inspiration which degrades the authors of the Biblical books to dead
writing machines.' (P.68.) But with that limitation he proceeds to claim
that the Scriptures themselves demand verbal inspiration." The entire
pas~ge reads: " ... dead writing machines, who without inner participa-
tion wrote down word for word what was dictated to them by the Spirit.
We meet this doctrine in the Lutheran Church occasionally already
during the sixteenth century, more frequently in the seventeenth cen-
tury, although it can hardly be called the earmark of the presentation of
all orthodox dogmaticians; later it is limited to popular writers, and
today it is found only in some fundamentalist camps."
Verbal Inspiration-a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc. 487
write." 257) Were the old Church Fathers "mechanical inspira-
tionists"? "Epiphanius urges against Montanus 'that whatsoever
the prophets have said, they spake with understanding'; he refers
to their 'settled mind,' their 'sel£-possession,' and their 'not being
carried away as if in ecstasy.' So also Cyril of Jerusalem, alluding
to this question, says of the true Spirit: 'His coming is gentle;
most light is His burden; beams of light and knowledge gleam
forth before His coming.''' (W. Lee, op.cit., p.85.) And which
one of the present-day verbal-inspirationists makes of the prophets
and apostles vacuous stenographers or even senseless machines?
Not A. L. Graebner: "The Bible was written by divine inspiration,
inasmuch as the inspired penmen performed their work as the
personal organs of God," etc. (Outlines of Doctrinal Theology, p. 4.)
Not F. Pieper: "The inspired authors were not dead or mechanical,
but living instruments, endowed with intelligence and will, and
employing a definite style, and using a peculiar mode of expres-
sion (modus dicendi)." (What Is Christianity? p.242.) "God did
not first kill or dehumanize Isaiah, David, and all the holy prophets
in order either to speak or write His Word through (lk6.) them;
but He carefully kept them alive and preserved them in their
genuine human way of expressing themselves, in order that they
might speak and write so as to be understood by men." (Chr. Dog.,
I, p.277.) Not R. C. H. Lenski: "'God-inspired' means 'breathed
by God,' the very word 'breathed' referring to His Pneuma.
Is that mechanical? Peter says: ' ... borne along by the Holy
Pneuma,' like a vessel on its true course by the gentle wind. This
is neither a theory nor something dead and mechanical. God made
the mind and heart of man, and His Spirit knows how to guide
them. He does not move them about like blocks, but fills them
with light, guides them with light, guides them in word and
thought." (On 2 Tim. 3: 16.) Not H. M'Intosh: Mechanical in-
spiration "was never taught in its usual sense by any intelligent
upholder of the Bible claim. But while we disown this, we hold
that the words of Scripture are not merely the words of man, but
also the words of God -the Spirit's inspired words, as well as the
writer's spontaneous words." (Is Christ Infallible and the Bible
True? p.658.)258)
257) Presenting a detailed examination of Quenstedt's position, the
article in the TheQl. Quart. (" 'Mechanical Inspiration' the Stumbling-
Block .. .") states: "There is not a single place to which his modem
critics can point that would prove that Quenstedt regarded the inspired
penmen of God as 'impassive instruments,' 'machines,' 'dehumanized or
superhuman humans.' This is a turn which Quenstedt's critics have
given to Quenstedt's thought. This thought Quenstedt himself declines."
258) A few more statements might prove welcome. They will con-
vince the honest opponent that the upholders of Verbal Inspiration do
not teach a mechanical inspiration. A. Hoenecke: "The passages just men-
tioned (1 Tim. 5:23 and 2 Tim. 4:13) prove that the apostles were not
488 Verbal Inspiration-a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc.
We have not read every book and article and remark that was
written by a verbal-inspirationist. But as far as we have read,
we have not found a single statement to the effect that divine
inspiration put the holy writers into a state of coma. Neither did
Dr. W. T. Riviere ever find such a statement. He writes: "Fun-
damentalists and Bible-believers are accused of holding what may
be called a Typewriter Theory. . .. I do not recall ever hearing
dead machines under inspiration, that the Holy Ghost did not, in the
process of inspiration, ignore the personal and brotherly relationship of
the holy writers but operated with it in the inspirational act." (Ev.-Luth.
Dog., I, p.350.) G. Stoeckhardt: "Das Diktieren des Heiligen Geistes war
kein mechanisches Vorsprechen, dem ein mechanisches Nachschreiben zur
Seite gegangen waere. The holy men of God were not sleeping or
dreaming as they spoke and wrote, moved by the Holy Ghost. The
powers of their soul, their will, and intellect were active. It was a real
speaking and writing. And that is an intellectual activity of rational
beings. . .. The Holy Ghost put this entire apparatus, this human
research, meditation, study, and composing into action, applied it to His
purpose, made it the medium of His activity, His speaking. The
prophets and apostles themselves, these living persons with their will
and thoughts, their searching and composing, were pens, calami, of the
Holy Ghost. . .. While they were searching, meditating, writing, the
Holy Ghost supplied His heavenly wisdom, His eternal, divine thought,
and also the right words; He gave them the words gleichsam u'ltter der
Hand. That is what the fathers described with the phrase suggestio
rerum et verborum. . .. Thus the Holy Ghost in no way did violence
to the will and thought of His human organs. He swayed and actuated
their will and their thinking, but i}EOrcQercro~; suaviter, leniter, as the
fathers expressed it, gleichsam u'ltvermerkt, wie tmter der Hand. He
poured His divine wisdom, spiritual thought, spiritual words into their
mind and heart. The mind of the holy authors moved freely, according
to its natural bent; freely it expressed itself in the sacred writings. At
the same time it was altogether swayed and controlled by the Holy
Ghost. What the mind, the mouth, the pen, of the prophets and apostles
produced was not their own, not human wisdom and human words, but
from beginning to end it was of the Holy Ghost. From the first con-
ception of the thought to its finished expression it was all the product
of the Spirit of God." (Lehre und Wehre, 1886, p. 282 f.) The Lutheran:
Teacher, Feb. 13, 1938 (Norwegian Lutheran Church): "One of the tenets
of our Church is belief in the verbal inspiration of the Bible .... Now,
if God really did not guide these men in the choice of words but left
this matter to the discretion of the writers, we could never feel free
from the suspicion that these fallible human beings might have erred
in the selection of their phraseology. Yet, on the other hand, God did
not dictate to a dictaphone, which is a machine for reproduction void
of all personality. The holy writers were not mere machines .... They
knew what they were writing, though it might be true that they did
not at all times realize to the £Ull the deep significance of all they said .
. . . They found expression for their personality in their own individual
habits of style. . .." Let us hear a few representatives of the Reformed
Churches. J. Bloore: "In those who wrote the Bible, the emotions of the
soul, the energies of the spirit, and even the infirmities of the body are
made use of under the control of the divine Spirit, always, of course, in
a manner according to the purpose in view. The individuality, pecu-
liarity, and distinctive qualities of these writers find expression in their
work, so that the Book is one of ever-living interest from the human
side, while from the divine it proves itself in every part to be 'the word
of God, living, active, and sharper .. .' (Heb. 4: 12, 13). . .. This is not
mere dictation - far from it, for all the powers of the mind and heart
Verbal Inspiration- a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc. 489
this theory advocated, but something of the sort is often attributed
to conservatives. It makes a nice target for ridicule." (Bibliotheca
Sacra, July, 1936, p.298.) And even if the moderns could dig up
such a statement, that would not justify them in characterizing
the old doctrine of verbal inspiration as "the mechanical theory
of inspiration," in charging Luther and Quenstedt, Pieper and
Warfield, with making the holy writers vacuous stenographers.
"It ought to be unnecessary," says B. B. Warfield, "to protest again
against the habit of representing the advocates of Verbal Inspira-
tion as teaching that the mode of inspiration was by dictation."
(Revelation and Inspiration, p.l73.) Warfield utters his protest
in connection with his statement: "The Church has always recog-
nized that the Spirit's superintendence extends to the choice of
the words by the human authors (verbal inspiration). It ought to
be unnecessary .... " We protest against the insinuation that
Quenstedt and Luther, Warfield and Pieper, ever intimated that
the Holy Spirit dictated to Moses and Paul as to vacuous ste-
nographers.
We protest against it in the name of reason. Reasonable _men
refrain from "fighting against windmills." - Weare back on our
old subject. It seems that in every phase of their attack on
Verbal Inspiration the moderns are doomed to display a lack of
acumen. - There is no sense in taking the old dogmaticians to
task for something they never said. There is no profit in setting
of the instrument are engaged and wrought upon !SO that a divine im-
press is left upon the whole man." (AlteTnative Views of the Bible,
pp.148,150.) Bibliotheca Sacra, Jan., 1941, p.72: "It is of interest to com-
pare Peter's declarations here (1 Pet. 1: 10, 12) with his claim in the
second epistle (2 Pet. 1: 20, 21) that men spake from God as they were
carried along by the Holy Spirit. Here the passivity of the prophets
seems to be emphasized, and yet in the first epistle we are introduced to
the most intense kind of mental activity. There is no conflict, provided
we understand that the reflection of the prophets followed the revelation
of the Spirit to them and did not enter into the prophetic message ....
Hence the prophets, though passive in the sense that they did not con-
tribute the message apart from the Spirit's moving, yet were so far from
being mechanical instruments that they had all their powers of thought
aroused and taxed by the disclosures granted to them." L. Boettner:
"Instead of reducing the writers to the level of machines or typewriters,
we have insisted that, while they wrote or spoke as they were moved
by the Holy Spirit, they nevertheless remained thinking, willing, self-
conscious beings whose peculiar styles and mannerisms are clearly trace-
able in their writings. . .. Hence we see that the Christian doctrine
of inspiration is not the mechanical lifeless process which unfriendly
critics have often represented it to be. Rather it calls the whole per-
sonality of the prophet into action, giving full play to his own literary
style and mannerisms, taking into consideration the preparation given
the prophet in order that he might deliver a particular kind of message,
and allowing for the use of other documents or sources of information
as they were needed. If these facts were kept more clearly in mind, the
doctrine of inspiration would not be so summarily set aside nor so un-
reasonably attacked by otherwise cautious and reverent scholars." (The
Insp. of the H. Scr., pp. 37, 44.)
490 Verbal Inspiration-a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc.
up a straw man and then knocking him down.259l Philippi is right
in calling these tactics "senseless ridicule" and Boettner in calling
it an "unreasonable attack." The attack springs from ignorance.
"When modern theologians declare that our orthodox dogmaticians
had the conception of a purely mechanical inspiration, this must be
condemned as outright fiction or else lack of acquaintance with
the old dogmaticians." Thus Pieper (What Is Christianity? p.242.)
It is one of the "groups of confusions and misconceptions, mis-
representations, and caricature which ... have confused the issues."
Thus M'Intosh (op. cit., pp. 8, 312). It is a sorry spectacle. M. S.
Terry attacks the dogmaticians for teaching that the holy writers
spoke "with the mantic frenzy of sibyls and soothsayers," and that,
when Jeremiah dictated to Baruch, "his normal intellectual activity
was temporarily arrested or neutralized by divine power." (See
Theol. Quart., 1913, p.2.) Terry is fighting a bogey. S. Bulgakoff
enters the fray: "I assume that no one can any longer, in our
time, advocate the theory of a mechanical inspiration of sacred
books. This theory either regards the writers as passive instru-
ments in God's hands or interprets the process of writing as dic-
tation from the Holy Spirit." And he asseverates: "Inspiration
is not a question of deus ex ma,china. It is not an act of God which
coerces man and to which he is subjected apart from his own will."
(In Revelation, by Baillie and Martin, p. 153.) Bulgakoff is
wrestling with a specter which he himself created. There is no
point in A. H. Strong's quoting Locke: "When God made the
prophet, he did not unmake the man." (Op. cit., p.103.) Pro-
fessor Ladd is wasting his energy when he declares: "Nor is man
made most fit for this office when rendered passive like a pen to
write, or a tablet on which to write, the dictated message from
God." (What Is Scripture? p.430.) What do you think, in the
light of wh~t the dogmaticians really taught and actually did not
teach, of W. Elert's strong language: "Wenn manche Dogmatiker ...
259) J. G. Machen: "This doctrine of 'plenary inspiration' has been
made the subject of persistent misrepresentation. Its opponents speak
of it as though it involved a mechanical theory of the activity of the
Holy Spirit. The Spirit, it is said, is represented in this doctrine as
dictating the Bible to writers who were really little more than stenog-
raphers. But of course all such caricatures are without basis in fact, and
it is rather surprising that intelligent men should be so blinded by
prejudice about this matter as not even to examine for themselves the
perfectly accessible treatises in which the doctrine of plenary inspira-
tion is set forth. It is usually considered good practice to eJramine
a thing for one's self before echoing the vulgar ridicule of it. But in
connection with the Bible such scholarly restraints are somehow re-
garded as out of place. It is so much easier to content one's self with
a few opprobious adjectives, such as 'mechanical,' or the like. Why
engage in serious criticism when the people prefer ridicule? Why attack
a real opponent when it is easier to knock down a man of straw?"
(Christianity and Liberalism, p.73.)
Verbal Inspiration-a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc. 491
folgerten, dass der schreibende Mensch auch an der Bildung des
Wortlautes keinen eigenen Anteil mehr habe, so grenzt das an
Gotteslaesterung" (Der ChristZiche Glaube, p. 209.)? It is nothing
less than bathos when Dr. Flack exclaims: "Is not the inspiration
of Scripture too high and holy a reality to be defined in terms of
stenography? Does one exalt the Word of God by dehumaniz-
ing it?"
Again, it seems such a waste of paper when the moderns pen
statements like these: "This is one of the chief reasons why the
doctrine of verbal inspiration has been discarded as incapable of
proof and incompatible with the evident fact. If the divine mind
dictated to the writers the substance and form of the writings,
there could not be the individuality that characterizes these docu-
ments. There is a striking unity of purpose disclosed in them; but
their style, vocabulary, and point of view are as various as their
names." (H. L. Willett, The Bible Through the Centuries, p.284.)
The facts disprove a mechanical inspiration! Dr. E. H. Delk: "That
the oracular and dictation theory of writing has disappeared . . .
goes almost without saying. The note of individualism is so strong
in the synoptic writers that no theory of verbal inspiration is
longer tenable." (Luth. Quart., 1912, p. 568.) F. Buechsel: "Selbst-
verstaendlich kam die alte Inspirationslehre in Widerspruch zu
den einfachsten Tatsachen in den Schriften der Bibel. Die indi-
viduellen Eigentuemlichkeiten, die diese Schriften stilistisch zeig-
ten," etc. (Die Offenbarung Gottes, p.1l3.) Similar statements
have been set down above. But the verbal-inspirationists, the
so-called "mechanical-inspirationists," have been making the same
statements. Find examples above. We, too, have discovered these
facts and cheerfully accept them. Why should the moderns waste
paper by repeating what the dogmaticians have long ago set down?
Every statement of theirs dealing with the difference of style and
the individuality of the writers can be matched with one by Pieper
and Hoenecke and Warfield. The moderns are beating the air.
They are proving to us what none of us denies. Have done with
this nonsense.
The moderns will reply to this that we are inconsistent; that,
if we concede the difference in style, etc., and with them reject
mechanical inspiration, we shall have to reject verbal inspiration,
too. And here lies the root of the trouble. The moderns will
admit that Quenstedt and Warfield and Pieper never said, in so
many words, that the holy writers became dead machines and
vacuous stenographers. But they insist that anyone who declares
that every word written by the apostles was given them by the
Holy Ghost to write necessarily teaches a mechanical inspiration:
verbal inspiration cannot but be mechanical inspiration. This
492 Verbal Inspiration-a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc.
objection reveals the ignorance on the part of the moderns of an
essential feature of inspiration: its miraculous nature. We have
treated of this matter in the sixth article of this series, under
Assertion No.9. We say with Luther: "Die Heilige Schrift ist
nicht auf Erden gewachsen." (VII: 2095.) Every miracle presents
a mystery, and we are ready to admit that we cannot solve the
mystery how the holy writers wrote exactly what the Holy Spirit
gave them to write and still wrote with perfect freedom. Weare
not presumptuous enough to deny either one of these revealed
truths because we are unable to solve the psychological difficulty
that confronts us here. Will you say that it was impossible for
God to make Paul His mouthpiece without destroying the person-
ality and freedom of the apostle? "It is in vain," says Charles
Hodge, "to profess to hold the common doctrine of Theism and yet
assert that God cannot control rational creatures without turning
them into machines." (Syst. Theology, I, p.169.) Do not quote to
us the laws of psychology - "the unpsychological and mechanical
theories of inspiration and unhistorical view of verbal inerrancy"
(Professor Kantonen). The handbooks of psychology certainly
do not contain a section explaining the mystery of Verbal In-
spiration. But God is not bound by our psychological wisdom.260)
And it is not for us to form judgments on this matter on the basis
of our very limited knowledge of psychology; the less so, as we
do not know from personal experience what inspiration is. "We
who have never ourselves experienced this act of the Spirit can-
not penetrate the mystery of it; we doubt whether the holy
writers themselves did." (Lenski, on 2 Tim. 3: 16.) At any rate,
260) F. Bettex: "But just here we are amused at those weak-minded
critics who, with hackneyed phrases, talk so glibly about 'mechanical in-
struments' and 'mere verbal dictation.' Does, then, a self-revelation of
the Almighty and a making known of His counsels, a gracious act which
exalts the human agent to be a co-worker with Jehovah, annihilate per-
sonal freedom? Or does it not rather enlarge that freedom and lift it
up to a higher and more joyous activity? Am I, then, a 'mechanical in-
strument' when with deep devotion and with enthusiasm I repeat after
Christ, word for word, the prayer which He taught His disciples? . . ."
(The Fundamental$, IV, p. 77.) H. M'Intosh: "Psychological difficulties .
. . . A similar presumptuous and inane objection is that such a control
or influence over men's minds as would secure the truth and divine
authority of the Bible is inconsistent with the mental freedom of man-
as if God the Holy Ghost could not so act on the human mind as to
ensure this without violating its free action - and must be confined
within the narrow grooves of the oracular dictates of such audacious
but unveracious speculation." (Op. cit., p.623.) Der Deutsche Ev.-Luth.
Schulverein: "Wir halten fest an dem Wunder der Inspiration, und das
ist, was die modernen positiven Theologen 'mechanisch' schelten. . . .
Wir lehnen jede Erklaerung des Vorgangs der Inspiration abo ... Gegen
das Zeugnis Jesu und seiner Apostel ist uns die Gelehrsamkeit der ge-
lehrtesten Professoren und Doktoren lauter Wind." (See Lehre und
Wehre, 1909, p.234.)
Verbal Inspiration-a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc. 493
they gave us no explanation of it. And here are men who are
not afraid to declare ex cathedra: Verbal Inspiration must be
mechanical inspiration! - If their reasoning is correct, then pity
the blessed in heaven, who are incapable of thinking any but
God's thoughts and cannot but speak in God's own words; they
have lost their personal freedom! We thank God that He knows
how to work in men in ways that are beyond the laws of common
psychology. We thank Him that He converted us by His gracious
power. We contributed nothing of our own towards our con-
version. We were pure passim. And yet we were not coerced.
In the moment that faith was created in us we gave joyous consent.
We were converted willingly - God made us willing.261 ) We do not
find it impossible to accept the teaching of Scripture that God
spoke through the prophets and apostles, made them His mouth-
pieces, without making them insensible machines.
The moderns keep harping on the term "dictation." Did not
the dogmaticians state that the Holy Spirit "dictated" the contents
and words of Holy Scripture to the holy writers? And is not
"dictation" a mechanical affair? We have promised (footnote 172)
to shed some light on this plaguing term and now tell the moderns
that they are misquoting the fathers. Oh, yes, the fathers em-
ployed the word "dictation" and called the holy writers "aman-
uenses." B. Mentzer actually wrote: Tanta est S. Scripturae auc-
toritas, quanta est DICTANTIS Spiritus Sancti, cuius illi jueTUnt
AMANUENSES," But are the moderns not acquainted with the
common law of all language that where metaphors are employed
the point of comparison must be scrupulously observed lest the
writer be made to utter nonsense? No man dreams of saying that
when Jesus called Herod a fox He had the idea that Herod was a
four-footed animal. Herod was a fox in a certain respect. It is the
cheapest kind of ridicule to make the fathers who compared the
holy writers to stenographers in a certain respect say that the
holy writers were vacuous stenographers. Use common sense!
When the fathers call the apostles amanuenses, they give expression
to the truth that they spoke and wrote not by their own right,
in their own wisdom, but by the authority of God. The words
of John 3: 16 are so truly the very words of the Holy Ghost as
261) Quoting some more from Stoeckhardt (Lehre und Wehre, 1886,
p. 283): "Verbal Inspiration presents an incomprehensible mystery,
which the human mind cannot elucidate ... , We may perhaps find an
analogy in the miracle of conversion. The conversion of the sinner is
in solidum the work of the Holy Spirit; not the least part of it is effected
by man's own powers. Still conversion is not effected by way of coercion;
it does not change man mechanically; but it is a mysterious, inscrutable
working of God on the will, the mind of man, which so influences his
will and mind that he now wills, and gladly wills, what is God's will
and thinks that which is godly."
494 Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc.
though He had dictated them into the pen of St. John, as though
we heard the Holy Ghost proclaim them today from heaven in His
own majestic voice. The fathers never intended to convey the
thought that the holy writers were lifeless machines. Again and
again they disavow such ideas. G. P. Mains got the right idea
when he used the phrase "as though God dictated every word,"
but falsified the idea of the fathers when he added: "using the
human writer only as an automaton." The moderns are quoting
the dogmaticians correctly as far as the bare word "dictation" is
concerned, but are misquoting as far as the context is concerned.
In the words of Dr. Pieper: "God used the holy writers as His
organs, or tools, in order to transmit His Word, fixed in writing,
to men. In order to express this relation between the Holy Ghost
and the human writers, the Church Fathers as well as the old
Lutheran dogmaticians call the holy writers amanuenses, notarii,
manus, calami, secretaries, notaries, hands, pens, of the Holy Spirit.
It is a well-known fact that these expressions are very generally
derided by modern theologians. But Philippi justly calls this
'senseless ridicule,' The expressions are altogether Scriptural if
only the point of comparison (tertium comparationis) is not lost
sight of, namely, the mere instrumentality. The expressions state
neither more nor less than the fact that the holy writers did not
write their own word but TU Myw; Toil i)wil, the Word of God,
and that, as we have seen, is the authoritative judgment of Christ
and of His apostles. These expressions therefore should not be
made the butt of ridicule; people ought to realize that they are
in conformity with Scripture." (Op. cit., I, p.276.) The moderns
are fighting a straw man.262)
262) Dr. Stoeckhardt: "Ganz sachgemaess haben daher die alten
Lehrer der Kirche diese Taetigkeit des Heiligen Geistes ein Diktieren und
Propheten und Apostel Haende, Handlanger, Notare, Griffel (manus,
amanuenses, notarii, actuarii, calami) des Geistes Gottes genannt. Es
ist Unverstand und boeser Wille, wenn man deshalb den Alten vorwicit,
dass sie eine ganz aeusserliche, mechanische Vorstellung von der In-
spiration gehabt haetten. Das tertium comparationis liegt auf der Hand.
Man wollte mit jenen Vergleichen nur recht stark hervorheben, dass
Propheten und Apostel hier dem Geist Gottes nur als Organe gedient
haben, um seine Gedanken den Menschen kundzutun, dass sie in keiner
Weise MitheHer waren, dass sie alles, was sie geschrieben, auch aIle W orie
und Ausdruecke empfangen, nichts aus sich selbst herausgenommen
haben .... Ihr ganzes Herz war bei dem, was sie schrieben. Hierony-
mus schon bezeugt: (N eque vero prophetae in ecstasi locuti sunt, ut
nescirent quod loquerentur.' Die Propheten haben, wie er weiter aus-
fuehrt, ihres Amtes nicht gewartet (instar brutormn animalium.' Der
Geist hat ihnen nicht nur das aeussere Hoeren ('quod in auribus resonat'),
sondern auch das feinere geistliche Gehoer ('secretiorem auditum') ge-
geben, kraft dessen sie nicht nur die Rinde, sondern auch das Mark zu
erfassen vermochten." (Lehre und Wenre, 1892, p. 327 f.) - We cannot
permit men to charge those who use the term "dictation" with being
"mechanical-inspirationists." Dr. R. Watts upheld Verbal Inspiration in
Verbal Inspiration - a Stumbling-Block to Jews, Etc. 495
The terms "dictation," "amanuensis," "mouthpiece," are not
bad, said Pieper. They express the Scripture truth that God spoke
by, through, aLii. "tou .1tQo