Originally presented at the Evangelical Theological Society, 2002

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It has now been twenty-five years since Harold Lindsell’s Battle for the Bible burst bombastically onto the stage of American Evangelicalism.  At the heart of Lindsell’s argument is a lamentation of a drift from a perceived Evangelical consensus on the centrality of the doctrine of inerrancy which, heretofore, had resulted in the righteousness of Evangelical theology and practice.  For Lindsell, the continuation of this drift would result in the ultimate loss of the authoritative place of the Scripture in the formation of Christian belief and, eventually, the loss of true Christian belief itself. 

Though Lindsell may have correctly observed that a drift of some kind or another was taking place, it is my contention that the consensus for which he mourns never existed.  Not only did it not exist more generally, it did not exist even among those that Lindsell cited as the ones who “stood or stand steadfastly for biblical inerrancy . . ..”^[1]  The most notable of these is Lindsell’s own Fuller colleague Edward John Carnell.  Though Carnell did hold to a definition of biblical inerrancy it was not identical to that of Lindsell nor did it sit squarely within the bounds of Lindsell’s mythic Evangelical consensus.

The Controversial Carnell

 

 

It nears understatement to say that Carnell was controversial.  Undoubtedly, the most controversial thing about E. J. Carnell’s life was E. J. Carnell’s death.  He died relatively young, at the age of 47, under suspicious and inconclusive circumstances.  There are those, of course, who engage in speculation.  It has even been said that his death may have been hastened by his career-long struggle of defending Christianity (especially the burden of inerrancy) from observed inconsistencies.^[2]

Carnell was also controversial because of his attacks on other groups within Christendom.  One of his favorite targets was Fundamentalism.  He did not accuse it of simply erring or straying.  His word to describe Fundamentalism was “cultic”^[3]  because it sought to separate itself from all other, less pure versions of the Christian faith.  For Carnell, the figurehead of such cultic thinking was Westminster Theological Seminary founder, J. Gresham Machen.  Though Carnell, a Westminster graduate, praised Machen for his excellent scholarship,^[4] he faulted him for succumbing to the Fundamentalist mentality of radical separatism.  He harshly criticized Machen for rebelling against his denomination when things did not go his way.  Carnell wrote, “Machen became so fixed on the evil of modernism that he did not see the evil of anarchy.”^[5]  There is no biblical warrant for such separation.^[6]  To Carnell the rejection of church authority by such an act of separation was cultic, showing less than poor ecclesiology.^[7]

 

Carnell was a controversial figure not only because of whom he attacked but also because of whom he did not attack.  This is seen most clearly in two separate, though related incidents.  The first was his inaugural address as President of Fuller Seminary and the second was as a member of a panel interviewing Karl Barth at the University of Chicago in April 1962.  The manner in which Carnell handled these two incidents set many against him including his Fuller colleagues.

Carnell was a believer in a free academy.  He supported the liberty of the academic endeavor to examine all forms of thinking.  By doing so, he thought, students would be able to know all the relevant facts on an issue and the teachers could teach with integrity and without the constant fear of censure.  On May 17, 1955, Edward John Carnell was installed as the second President of Fuller Seminary.  In his address, he championed this cause of academic freedom.  He called not only for openness within the institution to all forms of thought, but that such an openness should be taught to its students with the hope that, in turn, they would express a like tolerance to others.  To the seminary’s Fundamentalist supporters, this would be seen as treason, or as consorting with the enemy at the very least.  Yet, it is interesting that the controversy that first erupted was seemingly over what was not said.  To quote John Sims:

He made no attempt to appease the seminary’s fundamentalist supporters by using expected jargon or by making explicit references to the historic doctrines of the church, though he had an unmistakable respect for and devotion to the theological distinctives that inhered in the seminary.^[8]

 

 

This speech brought an almost immediate response, but it was a response from within the faculty itself.  Thefollowing morning Carnell was confronted in his office by four members of the faculty, who assured Carnell that he did not speak for them.  Because of this encounter, the inaugural  address was suppressed and never published during Carnell’s lifetime.  Carnell felt that his presidency never fully recovered from this confrontation.^[9]

If his inaugural address gave some people reason to mount an attack on him, then his handling of the public interview with Karl Barth gave others the reason they may have needed.  The University of Chicago invited Carnell to represent the “young evangelicals,” sitting as one of six panelists interviewing Barth.^[10]    The topic at the center of this Carnell debate was inerrancy.  Carnell questioned Barth how he could appeal to Scripture as authoritative if it contained errors.  Barth confessed that there were indeed “errors” in Scripture.^[11]  Here is where Barth’s Evangelical enemies had hoped that Carnell would pursue the matter further.  He did not.  He relinquished the floor to the next panelist.^[12]

 

However, this time Carnell did say something that would add fuel to the fire for those who felt that he was too soft on the inerrancy question.  After asking his question of Barth concerning the admission of errors in the Scriptures, Carnell added, “This is a problem for me too, I cheerfully confess.”  That was it!  He admitted he had a problem with inerrancy, even cheerfully!  Upon his return to Fuller, Carnell again would have to answer for his seemingly deviant behavior.  In a chapel assembly, he tried to reassure everyone that he was orthodox in his stand on inerrancy, after all, he signed the Statement of Faith every year with a clear conscience.^[13]  Carnell then defended Barth as an “Inconsistent Evangelical” though he admitted that the interview experience did not leave “nothing wanting.”  He felt that Barth skirted the intent of the question.  He did not, however, wish to crucify the “colossus from Basel,” as others would.^[14]  Carnell’s defense certainly never repaired the damage done by the Barth seminar participation.  Indeed, it fueled the fire.  It is sadly ironic that the event that Carnell may have seen as his greatest academic honor may have been the event that finally alienated him from all those around him.

Carnell & Inerrancy

Despite his protests it is no easy task to determine exactly what Carnell believed concerning the doctrine of inerrancy.  There are times that he seemed to champion the cause, and yet there are times where he seemed, at best, to fudge on the issue.  The remainder of this paper will try to unlock what Carnell believed in regard to inerrancy, finally comparing that to the opinion of Harold Lindsell on the same matter.

 

First, it must be admitted that Carnell confessed to at least some level of difficulty with the text of Scripture both in what he wrote and in what he said.  In The Case for Orthodox Theology he plainly wrote, “There are problems inherent in the Biblical text itself.”^[15]  There is an entire chapter, entitled “Difficulties,” where Carnell explores this very topic.  This book, far more than any other of his published works, expresses Carnell’s own view of Scripture and especially that of inerrancy.

Scripture is central to what Carnell called “Orthodox” theology.  “Orthodoxy is that branch of Christendom which limits the ground of religious authority to the Bible.  No other rule of faith and practice is acknowledged.  It is friendly toward any effort that looks to Scripture; it is unfriendly toward any that does not.”^[16] (Italics his)  The key word for Carnell is “limits.”  Though other branches of Christendom revere the Scriptures in one way or another only “Orthodoxy” limits authority to the Scriptures.  For Carnell, it was Scripture, and sola Scriptura, that reigned supreme as the rule for faith and practice.

 

Carnell, like so many others, defended the authority of Scripture.  Yet, he deviated from others in the Evangelical camp in that he did not use the inerrancy of Scripture as a proof for its authority.^[17]  Some assume that if one can show that the Scripture is inerrant then its authority logically and naturally flows from there.  Though inerrancy and authority are related, Carnell did not base the authority of Scripture on its inerrancy.  Even if it were errant, it would not cease to bear authority.  Rather, for Carnell, Scripture’s authority rests not on inerrancy but on the testimony and endorsement of Jesus and the Apostles.^[18]  It’s inspiration was sure because they said it was, inconsistencies or none.

Though Carnell admitted to a few difficulties within the corpus of Scripture, he also defended its general harmony.  A few difficulties did not inordinately unbalance the whole of Scripture.  It is not that all the difficulties are easily answered.  They are not.  Carnell asserted that it was impossible to “coax all the Biblical data into neat harmony.  Yet this want of precision in no way affects the substance of the Biblical system.”^[19]  There is a systemic consistency to the whole of the work despite any problems within the text.  Scripture, as a whole, is trustworthy. 

Carnell contended that there are two primary schools of thought within Evangelicalism on the doctrine of inspiration.  The first of these two schools he calls the Princeton school.  It is represented by Charles Hodge and especially by B. B. Warfield.  The second school is epitomized by James Orr.   It is in his analysis of these two schools in The Case for Orthodox Theology  that we have the best opportunity to understand Carnell’s own understanding of this doctrine.

Carnell maintained that the thrust of the Princetonians was to see inspiration as a means to communicate truth on divine authority.  In quoting Warfield, Carnell wrote:

Inspiration is that 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. (Italics his)^[20]

 

 

Every word of Scripture is also the word of God.  Because every word of Scripture is the word of God, and since God cannot lie, every word of Scripture is true.  Such inspiration is displayed in the veracity of the texts and the harmony of the Scriptures.  All objective and informed observers can see the truth inherent in Scripture.  Carnell affirmed that there are many texts teaching this idea of inspiration and that they cannot be ignored.

Carnell felt that Orr’s affirmation was that the goal of inspiration is not the communication of divine truth.  Rather, he said that for Orr, “[the] communication of life, not knowledge, is the goal of inspiration.”^[21]   Those who will read the Scriptures will be changed in their reading of it.  Carnell describes Orr as not as willing to fight for the divine veracity of each word in every portion of the “record through which revelation has come to us.”^[22]  Inspiration is displayed not so much in what Scripture says but in what it produces.  Carnell labeled this disagreement on the nature of inspiration and inerrancy the continuing “cleavage in orthodoxy.”^[23]

 

Carnell believed that there were weaknesses in both camps.  He said that the Princetonians linked the verbal and plenary inspiration of Scripture to its trustworthiness.  If Scripture is not absolutely true as they define it, the entire testimony of Scripture falls apart and nothing is left.  Carnell believed that there are some such irresolvable problems and that Warfield illegitimately dodged these.  The Liberals had painfully pointed this out.^[24]  In his stance, Carnell felt that Orr met the challenge.  He did not fight for something that cannot be defended.  However, Orr’s weakness was that he too quickly bowed to the admission of “errors” in Scripture, too often surrendering before it proved necessary to do so. 

For Carnell, this second position is no more desirable than the first. He felt that this “cleavage” within Evangelicalism was never successfully repaired.  Carnell admitted, “The problem of inspiration is still a problem.”^[25]   Neither Princeton nor Orr successfully solved the problem.  As a result, Carnell would argue that while there is a general Evangelical acknowledgment that inerrancy and inspiration exist, there is no mediated, final or authoritative definition or either inerrancy or inspiration.  Carnell did not doubt the existence of inspiration or inerrancy.  Rather, he believed that both are impossible to accurately define well. The danger Evangelicalism faced, he said,  is in too readily “accepting the doctrine of inerrancy without carefully defining it.”^[26]

 

Carnell summed up his own thinking on inspiration and inerrancy in three major points. 1) The doctrine of inspiration rests on the testimony of Christ and the Apostles.  The Scriptures are inspired, Christ and the Apostles have told us that they are.  We must not abandon it because there are difficulties.  2) Biblical inerrancy is not demolished by the discrepancies in Scripture.  We must consider the purpose, sources and genres of each passage.  3) Even though difficulties may not be overcome, orthodoxy will not change.  The Scriptures have given us sufficient evidence to consider them trustworthy despite our insecurity.  He thought it “cultic” to believe that “intramural debate” on inerrancy disturbed the truth of the gospel.^[27]  Carnell believed in the doctrine of inspiration and inerrancy but it was a mediated understanding falling somewhere between that of the Princetonians and Orr.  Should anyone hold that either the Princetonians or Orr were fully correct, he/she must then not include Carnell fully within their camp.

The Strange Case of Harold Lindsell

In The Battle for the Bible, Harold Lindsell argued against what he sees as the increasing movement of Evangelicalism away from the Princetonian view of inerrancy.  In this polemic work, he lists four dedicatees honoring their steadfastness in standing for inerrancy.  Carnell is one of these dedicatees.^[28]  Lindsell defended Carnell as being thoroughly Princetonian, which to Lindsell means orthodox.  In a letter to Rudolph Nelson, author of the Carnell biography The Making and Unmaking of an Evangelical Mind, Lindsell says that Carnell’s questioning of the Princetonian formulation in The Case for Orthodox Theology is an aberration of Carnell’s overall life and theology and is understood as such if one knows the whole story of Edward John Carnell.^[29]  Lindsell points to a letter that Carnell wrote to the editor of Christianity Today  just six months prior to his death as proof that Carnell had returned to a Princetonian stand, a change from his opinion in The Case for Orthodox Theology. 

 

Carnell’s fudging on a whole-hearted Princetonian view of inerrancy, however, was not simply a temporary aberration as Lindsell would have us to believe.  Part of Lindsell’s overall reaction to the challenge to inerrancy seems to be a bemoaning, evident in almost all of his writing on the subject, of the drift of Fuller Seminary (and Evangelicalism more broadly) from the memory that Lindsell carried of the earliest days of the institution.  Lindsell said that Fuller was founded in an effort to maintain and propagate the Old Princetonian understanding of this particular subject.^[30]  Over and over again, Lindsell identifies the problem of inerrancy as a drifting from the secure mooring,  not established, but concretized by Charles Hodge and, more particularly, B. B. Warfield.  Following from this veneration of Hodge and Warfield, most particularly for their foundational stand on inerrancy, comes equally high praise for the contributions and the steadfastness of J. Gresham Machen.  Machen’s founding of Westminster Seminary is understood as a self-conscious effort to save Old Princetonianism in the face of the contemporary thought of his Princeton Seminary faculty colleagues.

 

Though it would be incorrect to say that Carnell disparaged of Warfield and Machen, it would be even more inaccurate to say that he lauded their every activity or that he wholly endorsed their views of Scripture and inerrancy during any period of his time at Fuller.  Though falling in the theological wake of Warfield and Machen, Carnell was not capsized by their thought.  Yet, Lindsell goes to great pains to have Carnell agree with Warfield on Scripture.  Lindsell’s errant move is in assuming that agreement in part means agreement en toto.  It must be remembered that even in his most scathing critique of Warfield, Carnell did not wish to throw out the baby with the theological bathwater.  He pointed to the strengths as well as to the weaknesses of Warfield’s view.   Carnell, though endorsing Warfield’s definition of inerrancy as the better of two inadequate models, still identified what he perceived to be real inadequacies in that definition. Carnell found no single doctrinal statement on inspiration and inerrancy adequate.  What is more, in The Case for Orthodox Theology Carnell while at once critiquing Warfield still  defended his view as “the definitive orthodox apologetic” on the doctrine of inerrancy and recommends him as reading for further study.^[31]   The fact that Carnell later defends Princetonianism in a letter to Christiainity Today, even shortly before his death, then, does not seem to be the return from aberration that Lindsell makes it out to be.  Though Carnell recommended Warfield, he would not have said that the Princetonian model was without serious difficulties and shortcomings.  It was certainly not absolute.  Carnell saw Warfield’s as the better of the imperfect definitions.^[32]  Therefore, Lindsell’s identification of Carnell wholly in line with Warfield is at best a clear case of misinterpretation and at worst a case of determined misrepresentation.

 

What I find even more baffling is Lindsell’s equation of Carnell with J. Gresham Machen.  In outlining the mostly Reformed historiography of great champions of Lindsell’s view of inerrancy, he placed Machen and Carnell not only on the same list, but side by side.  Lindsell said of Machen, though he was certainly theologically fundamentalistic, “[at] not time can the Machen movement be called sociologically fundamentalistic . . ..”^[33]  This is certainly not Carnell’s opinion of Machen.  Carnell, too, would agree to Machen’s overall theological orthodoxy.  He, however, is anything but sympathetic for Machen’s “cultic” behaviour ecclesiologically and, therefore, sociologically.  His use of the strong term “cultic” in reference to Machen is hardly respectful, let alone hagiographic.  Carnell portrays Machen as someone near criminal and certainly not as a hero of the faith.  Carnell left little upon which to build the impression that he was either fully a disciple of Warfield or Machen.

At the heart of Lindsell’s campaign to defend a Princetonian definition of inerrancy is the foundation of the authority of Scripture.  Inerrancy is seen as “a subject that is intrinsic to the question of biblical authority.”^[34]  Lindsell believed that should one grant that there are errors in the biblical text, whether errors of history or science or whatever, then the authority of Scripture is lost.  The foundation of Scripture’s authority leans wholly on its inherent and exact veracity.  If there is no inerrancy, as Lindsell defines it, then Scripture has no authority.  The two concepts are inseparably wed together.  For Lindsell, any “difficulties” are only apparent difficulties at best, ones that can be resolved given the right insight into the particular situation.  The reason that the Scripture has an internal and thorough harmony is because it  precisely and thoroughly represents all to which it refers.  It is not merely a general harmony, as Carnell put forward, but it is strictly harmonious based on the exact accuracy of all its component parts.  Lindsell felt that to abandon the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture is to abandon the authority of Scripture.

 

Lindsell identified inerrancy as the pressing doctrine of the age.  At the given time, he felt that there was no doctrine more often challenged and, therefore, more in need of defense than that of inerrancy.  To a great degree, Lindsell made inerrancy the Evangelical shibolleth (or is that sibolleth?) of the day.  But, as with the Hebrew term, it is not the word, but the “pronunciation,” or understanding of the word in this case, that makes all the difference.  Both Carnell and Lindsell undoubtedly hold to a doctrine of inerrancy — that much is true.  The question is, “Is it the same definition?”  The answer, I believe, is an unequivocal, “No!”

Though Carnell was an inerrantist, he is no “bedfellow” of Lindsell.  What must be remembered is that one of the reasons Carnell took the appointment as president was to keep the presidency out of the hands of the faction of which Lindsell was a member.^[35]  And after his inaugural speech, where he did not say all the right things, one of the people there to confront him was Harold Lindsell.  Like Carl F. H. Henry, I do not think that E. J. Carnell can be placed in the same inerrancy camp as Harold Lindsell.^[36]

 

What is most interesting about Lindsell’s chapter on Fuller is that at no point does he even mention Carnell’s own questioning of the Princetonian formula of inerrancy.  In fact, Lindsell says that when Daniel Fuller questions the Princetonian formula in 1967 “[so] far as I know, this was the first time that a Fuller faculty member went on record in print, declaring that he did not believe the Bible to be free from all error in the whole and in the part.”^[37]  Though Carnell’s language may not have been as strong as Daniel Fuller’s was, Lindsell would have to radically misread, suppress or misrepresent Carnell’s The Case for Orthodox Theology (and his Barth interview comment) to deny that, at the least, he questioned any existent formulations of the doctrine.  Lindsell’s chapter is incomplete and misleading due to its suppression of the story of E. J. Carnell.

Conclusion

In his treatments on inerrancy E. J. Carnell questioned what he felt were the inadequate formulations put forth by Warfield and Orr, those two representatives on both sides of the “cleavage of orthodoxy.”  Yet, for Carnell, as opposed to Lindsell, both camps sat squarely within the borders of Evangelicalism.  As he stated, neither side had ever received a general, authoritative stamp of approval making their formulations the official or authorized versions for “Protestant Orthodoxy.”  “Protestant Orthodoxy” or Evangelicalism, as the amorphous movement that it has been, has never had the consensus or the organizational structural ability to come up with an authoritative statement on anything, let alone inerrancy.

 

^[1]This quote is from the dedication in The Battle for the Bible, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1976, p. 4.

^[2]L. Joseph Rosas III, “The Theology of Edward John Carnell,” Criswell Theological Journal, 4:2, (Spring 1990): 351.

^[3]Though the term “cult” may be a technical term that could properly fit the Fundamentalist separation that Carnell accused them of, I doubt that he could not see it as a word that would not be taken lightly.  It was an insult and connoted something close to heresy.

^[4]In reviewing an article on twentieth century religion, Carnell points out that the author avoids “Protestant orthodoxy” and one of its men of “firmly established scholarly reputation,”

J. Gresham Machen.  Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Winter 1964, “Twentieth - Century Religious Thought” by John Macquarrie.  Page 132.

^[5]Carnell, Case for Orthodox Theology, p. 115.

^[6]Carnell, “Orthodoxy: Cultic vs. Classical,” p. 378.

^[7]It is said that Clark told Carnell that his attack on Machen was unforgiveable.  Nelson, Making and Unmaking of an Evangelical Mind, p. 112.

^[8]It is ironic that Carnell was in charge of the draft the seminary’s Statement of Faith.         Sims, Missionaries to the Skeptics, p. 97.

^[9]These four faculty members were Henry, Lindsell, Smith and Woodbridge.  

Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism, p. 149.

^[10]He certainly would have seen this invitation as a reward for his pursuit of tolerance and dialogue amongst various academic traditions.  Carnell had made deliberate moves to enter dialogue with the “Liberals” including regular articles to the journal Christian Century.

^[11]From an audio recording of the proceeding quoted in Nelson, Making and Unmaking of an Evangelical Mind, p. 188.

^[12]It may be worthwhile to note that Carnell deferred to the next panelist after using 29 minutes of his 30 minute allotment.  One may wonder if there had been more time if Carnell would have pursued the question further.

^[13]Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism, p. 195.

^[14]In fact, Carnell viciously attacked his former Westminster professor, Cornelius Van Til, for his condemnations of Barth in Time magazine, saying that Van Til, “an extreme fundamentalist,” needed to seek forgiveness from God. Carnell, “Barth as Inconsistent Evangelical,” p. 713-714.

^[15]Carnell, Case for Orthodox Theology, p. 98.

^[16]Carnell, Case for Orthodox Theology, p. 24.

^[17]Rosas, “The Theology of Edward John Carnell,” p. 364.

^[18]Carnell, Case for Orthodox Theology, p. 36ff.

^[19]Carnell, Case for Orthodox Theology, p. 99.

^[20]Carnell, Case for Orthodox Theology, p. 100.

^[21]Carnell, Case for Orthodox Theology, p. 100.

^[22]Carnell, Case for Orthodox Theology, p. 101.

^[23]Carnell, Case for Orthodox Theology, p. 101.

^[24]Carnell, Case for Orthodox Theology, p. 106.

^[25]Carnell, Case for Orthodox Theology, p. 109.

^[26]Carnell, Case for Orthodox Theology, p. 110.

^[27]Carnell, Case for Orthodox Theology, p. 110-113.

^[28]Harold Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1976), p. 5.

^[29]Nelson, Making and Unmaking of an Evangelical Mind, p. 180.

^[30]Harold Lindsell, “Whither Southern Baptists?” Christianity Today, 24 April 1970, 3.

^[31]Carnell, Case for Orthodox Theology, p. 49.

^[32]  I also found it interesting that Carl F. H. Henry, another of Lindsell’s dedicatees’s, contrasts the inerrancy views of Lindsell and Carnell in a work published after the release of The Battle for the Bible. Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, Volume 4, “God Who Speaks and Shows: Fifteen Theses, Part Three,” (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1979), p. 362.

^[33]Harold Lindsell, “A Historian Looks at Inerrancy,” Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society, 8:1 (Winter 1965): 9.

^[34]Lindsell, “A Historian Looks at Inerrancy,” 3.

^[35]Nelson, Making and Unmaking of an Evangelical Mind, p. 180.

^[36]Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, Volume 4, p. 362.

^[37]Nelson, Making and Unmaking of an Evangelical Mind, p. 113.