The doctrine of the divine inspiration of the Scriptures is a contentious issue these days. It insists, to put it succinctly, that the Bible was produced under the influence of God and thus is authoritative in matters religious. How that is to be understood is, of course, the issue of contention. In the light of the helpful insights gained by modern biblical criticism, evangelicals have been seeking a clear understanding of this doctrine, and the results have varied. The issues involved are complex, but one important element is our view of what Scripture itself is and does. Some consider the Bible primarily as God's word to humanity, whereas others see it as being that and more than that. It is the contention of this paper that the latter view is truer to the way Scripture presents itself, and this recognition puts us in a better position to understand what the doctrine of biblical inspiration does and does not mean.

The basic difficulty faced by most theories of inspiration is the question of the human element in the process. That the Bible should be authoritative in the Church is predicated, at least in evangelical churches and in most strains of Christianity in the past, upon its being inspired by God.⁽¹⁾ However, it is an empirical, undeniable fact that human hands wrote the biblical texts. This fact raises questions and creates difficulties in our understanding of the nature and process of inspiration and of biblical revelation generally. What role do human beings play in the creation of the Scriptures and their message? How can texts written by human hands be divinely inspired? What does the term "inspired" actually mean, anyway? The implications of our answers to these questions are significant, and the issue cannot be taken lightly. It is necessary, then, to consider carefully how our answers are formulated, and to scrutinize the ideas and assumptions contributing to them. One of the most fundamental such assumptions regards our view of the nature and purpose of the Scriptural revelation.

In the various discussions of Scripture's inspiration and authority, it seems that the common denominator of most participants is the belief that the purpose of the biblical revelation is to reveal God to us. That revelation may be seen as personal or cognitive or both, but it nevertheless remains true, by this understanding, that Scripture's function is to show God to us. In more traditionally conservative evangelical views, such as those of J. I. Packer, divine inspiration is equivalent to God's speaking, and thus Scripture exists to convey this speech.⁽²⁾ William Abraham rightly identifies the error of restricting inspiration to God's speech, but nevertheless continues to assume a Scripture is inspired only insofar as God is shown to us through it.⁽³⁾ Paul Achtemeier raises his communitarian conception of inspiration against the "solitary prophet" model of both these former positions, but even here the assumption that Scripture's full purpose is God's communication with us remains intact.⁽⁴⁾ It is my contention that this is not entirely true to the way Scripture presents itself.

It is certainly true that the Bible reveals God to us via its written word. God speaks to us through the Bible, coming to us through it, meeting us and showing himself to us. It is through the Bible that we gain most of our knowledge about God, as well as our introduction to him. This is the truth so rightly recognised by those who discuss inspiration, and the reason for all the fuss in the first place.

But that is not the end of the story for biblical revelation. Howard Marshall finds the key to expanding our understanding when he writes

An understanding of the Bible as 'truth from God' may also lead to a failure to appreciate passages where God is not speaking to man. There are records of man speaking to God. He may be posing his questions to God, or he may be puzzling over them in his own mind, as in the case of Job, or he may be expressing his praise, thanks and petitions to God. Much of the Psalms is human response to God, human response that may have been providentially recorded as a pattern for us to imitate, but human response nevertheless. There are even passages which contain the words of the wicked and ignorant ... Are the closing words of Psalm 137 meant to give a form of human response in a tough situation that we ought to copy, or are they merely the accurate report of the wrong response of some Jews to their captors?⁽⁵⁾

The revelation of God takes place almost entirely in the context of his interaction with humanity, and we could do well to say that fundamentally it is that interaction which is revealed to us in the Bible's pages. But of course it is necessary that in the course of interaction humanity should respond to God, and so the Bible records this equally as much as it records God's part in the story, if not more so. Thus, Scripture seems to present itself as showing the divine-human interaction and not merely the divine speaking, however narrowly or broadly that is understood, to the human. It reveals the fullness of the divine-human interaction and gives us examples of how it has gone in the past and thus lessons on how it should go with us today.

This assertion is based in an approach to Scripture through what one might call the principle of transparency and trustworthiness: Scriptural texts are what they present themselves to be and do what they present themselves as doing. If we wish to understand what the Bible is doing, we would be well advised to let the Bible speak for itself, and engage the texts on their terms. When we turn to a Psalm, for example, we will almost inevitably find ourselves reading a text which presents itself as a song of praise and petition from man to God, not a word from God to man. We can see something of God through the Psalm, perhaps, but the Psalms fundamentally teach about human response to God rather than about God's proactive movement towards humanity. The histories in Joshua, or the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles likewise are documents of the interaction between Israel and God, and as concerned with the human as they are with the divine, if not more so. God is one player in these histories, and the greatest one to be sure, but not necessarily even the primary character. 2 Samuel, for example, puts David in the star role and records his actions in relation to his world and to God. The text is far more concerned with the response of David and his interaction with God than it is with God's word to David, and it does not do justice to the text to treat only that one side of the coin.

This, of course, is a truth of which we are well aware when it comes to exegesis of the text, and we naturally treat it as our fundamental assumption in that context. That is why I find it so remarkable that when discussion turns to the inspiration of Scripture, we forget that it reveals the interaction between the divine and the human, and not the divine only.

So what then does this mean for inspiration? How might our view of inspiration be affected by a view towards Scripture as revealing the divine-human interaction and not the divine element only? Is it of any potential help? To answer that, let us turn to the great difficulty that has dogged the doctrine of inspiration and made it a contentious issue: the role of the human element in the inspiration of Scripture.

The usual evangelical understanding of inspiration finds that one of its major problem areas is finding how to integrate properly the human element into the process of inspiration. It is in regard to this difficulty that Packer and Marshall take their stand for the traditional conception, and which prompts Abraham and Achtemeier to seek out and propose their alternative understandings of inspiration. The question is worrisome because of concerns to safeguard the Bible's special revelation and authority, which are jeopardized unless the human contribution to the writing of the Scriptures does not negate the divine aspect.⁽⁶⁾ So long as Scripture is the word of God to man, and not the interaction between God and man, man's place in the process is problematic. The dictation theory of inspiration illustrates this quite well, trying to expunge the human element entirely and rendering the human beings involved as nothing more than God's stenographs. Evangelicalism denies the dictation model, but the shadow of it has remained cast over all further discussion.⁽⁷⁾ When our understanding of Scripture's purpose is merely that of God communicating to humankind, it seems that if the Bible had simply fallen "as a stone from the sky" life would have been much easier!

But it is our argument that this conception of Scripture and its intentions is a misunderstanding. The principle of transparency and trustworthiness asserts its value here. We must start with what a Scripture is trying to accomplish, and let it determine our understanding of its inspiration, and not the reverse. And it seems that in most Scripture, the intention is to reveal some aspect of the interaction between God and man, whether God's word to us, or our direct or indirect response to God, or both. Returning to our example of the Psalms, our understanding of their inspiration will have to be based upon their self-presentation as songs from man to God, and not try to force them into "really" being God's songs to God. The latter course of action is to deny the Scriptures our trust, for we are contradicting what they say of themselves.

So what then is an inspired Scripture? What I am about to suggest is a thought arrived at by continuing along a trajectory suggested by a combined reading of Achtemeier, Froehlich, and a single quote from C. S. Lewis by Michael Christensen: "The Bible ... 'demands incessantly to be taken on its own terms,'"⁽⁸⁾ and almost anticipated by Howard Marshall. Achtemeier, as noted above, is concerned primarily with the means by which Scripture was created, arguing that inspiration has to happen in all points of the creation of the biblical material, not just a the moment of its penning, and that process involved the action and interaction of the faithful community.⁽⁹⁾ In a single paragraph Froehlich writes "We want to say that it is God who speaks in Scripture," but also that Scripture is "a record of past experience with God" and "Biblical language in all its various forms is an invitation to out faith--nothing more, but also nothing less."⁽¹⁰⁾ Marshall strikes close to the target when he writes "The purpose of God in the composition of the Scriptures was to guide people to salvation and the associated way of life."⁽¹¹⁾

Taking the Bible on its own terms, which is to say by following the principle of transparency and trustworthiness, we find that Scripture's intent is to reveal, at least in example, the fullness of the interaction between the divine and the human. When we start from this understanding of Scripture's we come to this conclusion: an inspired text, one through which the Holy Spirit "breathes," is a text by which we are illumined about some facet of our interaction with God.

A Scripture may teach us about this interaction, or itself be an example of it, or both. The multiplicity of genres among the Scriptures goes hand in hand with the multiple facets of Scriptural revelation--different texts show us different aspects of the divine-human interaction. The Gospels primarily record the actions and words of God in the person of Jesus. Ecclesiastes presents itself as the musings of its author, and not as a word from God at all (indeed, its nihilism seems to demand an answer from God). Abraham's and St. Paul's stories give us examples of how the interaction between God and human beings has gone in the past, and thus teach us about how it ought to go with us today. Saul's story teaches us how it ought not to go. In all of these examples we can see one or more facets of God's interacting with us, and in these we recognize inspiration because through them the Holy Spirit teaches us about that interaction.

It is not my intention here to say that inspiration is illumination, but it is truth that those Scriptures which are regarded as inspired are those which are recognized by the Church as being those which the Holy Spirit illumines us by.⁽¹²⁾ That classic text inevitably cited in a discussion of inspiration of Scripture, 2 Ti 3:16, demonstrates this indissoluble link between inspiration and teaching well. "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness," the verse says. The issue of inspiration arises only in the context of illuminating authority. Scripture may be inspired whether recognized or not, but the purpose of inspiration is illumination,⁽¹³⁾ and an attempt to disconnect the two results in a nearly useless understanding of inspiration.

It is also worth noting that one cannot make a general system about how inspiration occurs. The mechanics of the inspiration of any given text are as dependent on the nature of the text in question as is the aspect of God's interaction with us that it reveals. The process by which the book of Jeremiah was written is different from that of Pauline epistles and different again from that of the process of compilation of the Gospel of Luke.⁽¹⁴⁾ So while Achtemeier is right in insisting that the whole process of composition of Scripture must have been conducted under the aegis of the Spirit, one cannot make any generalization about that process.⁽¹⁵⁾ If the Scriptures are as varied as they appear in nature, the processes of their inspiration must also be as varied.

It may be asked what this view of Scripture's purpose and intention does to the idea of Scriptural infallibility and/or inerrancy.⁽¹⁶⁾ It seems likely that the question would not naturally arise for this view if taken on its own, but given the history of the debate the question may be very much present in the mind of the reader. Belief in plenary inspiration has typically been seen to necessitate a strong doctrine of Scriptural infallibility, for if the Bible is the word of God, how could it contain error?⁽¹⁷⁾ In keeping with the principles and approach followed so far in this essay, we will consider what infallibility means from this perspective.

It should of course be immediately clear that the infallibility of Scripture does not entail scientific accuracy in such areas as geology, cosmology, or even mathematics. The Bible offers us little in this regard, being rather more concerned with other things. There are those who insist on the absolute reliability of Scripture in these areas, and these defenders of inerrancy are forced to do serious logical gymnastics to defend their position, especially in the face of such passages as 1 Ki. 7:23-24, in which the Bible is quite happy to equate p with 3 for the calculation of the circumference of a circle. This example may be trivial, but telling nonetheless. The Bible was never intended to be a science text.

Does infallibility entail historical accuracy? There are two sides to that question: defining what historical accuracy is, and whether a given Scriptural text presents itself as historically accurate. First of all, history is an interpretive procedure, the forming of facts into a story to convey a thesis, and this is as true of the Bible as any uninspired writing, perhaps more so.⁽¹⁸⁾ Where the Bible presents itself as history it does so with the intention of illustrating the interaction between God and humanity as it has gone in the past. Just as with all histories, it is not a mute stringing together of facts, but tells the story of the events in order to further its intentions. Secondly, the question of whether a particular text is historically accurate depends on the text. The question is simply inapplicable for the book of Proverbs, as it is for Revelation or most of the text of Paul's epistles. Whether it applies to Job depends on whether the book presents itself as history or as a fictional theodicy. In accordance with our principle of transparency and trustworthiness, where historical accuracy is relevant to revelation of divine-human interaction we can assume historical accuracy; where it is irrelevant, it is irrelevant. Placing these two considerations together, we find that the Bible is to be taken as historically accurate insofar as historicity is relevant to Scripture's intention of showing the divine-human interrelation to us, and that the portrayal of the historical events will be in accordance that intention.

So what then do we mean when we say Scripture is infallible? Marshall puts it succinctly: "We may therefore suggest that 'infallible' means that the Bible is entirely trustworthy for the purposes for which God inspired it."⁽¹⁹⁾ In other words, Scripture is an infallible revealer of the divine-human interaction, and is given its authority by the witness of the Spirit.

As tempting as it would be to launch into matters of illumination, exegesis and interpretation in light of this new understanding of the purpose and intention of Scripture, we must conclude by addressing an objection to the view which quickly raises its head. The objection is a question of limits: if Scripture is that which reveals the divine-human interaction and inspiration is so intimately connected with illumination, what is to say where the boundaries lie for authoritative Scripture? If inspiration a matter of showing us the divine-human interaction, what makes these and only these books authoritative? Many people have found non-biblical sources to fulfill these functions. Does this view not leave us open to Montanism? I believe the answer to this objection lies in emphasizing a point mentioned only briefly up until now: the witness of the Spirit to the Christian community. Achtemeier's thesis will serve us well here, for he demonstrates well how the formation of the canon was indeed a community affair of the Christians, arising from their agreed recognition of the inspiration of these texts via their illumination by the Spirit.⁽²⁰⁾ These texts are authoritative because the witness of the Spirit has shown them to be so in the hearts of the Christian community.⁽²¹⁾ All other legitimately Christian "personal revelations" happen in the context of the authority of Scripture.⁽²²⁾ Thus, the Christian's position as a member of the larger Church body ensures the spectre of Montanism is avoided.⁽²³⁾

This paper has outlined an approach to the doctrine of inspiration based in an understanding of the Bible as presenting the interaction between God and humanity and not merely God's speech to humanity. It has been argued that this view of Scripture's own self-presentation and intentions puts us in a better position to understand the nature of inspiration and how both the human and divine elements are present in it. We considered the meaning of Scriptural infallibility in this light, and found that infallibility does not mean total factual inerrancy on all matters whatsoever. Such inerrancy not part of the intention of Scripture, and trying to force Scripture to do so is to be unfaithful to its own purposes (it may even contradict them). Finally, we considered a concern that might be raised against the view proposed, and attempted to answer it. This paper by absolutely no means is seen as the resolution of the question of inspiration, but represents my own wrestling and interaction with the issue and charts my own forward movement. It is indeed my hope that this view will be further challenged so that my views on this subject will be made clearer and stronger.

1. Questions regarding what else might or might not be authoritative in the Church are not the issue here, but only what makes the Bible authoritative. Tradition or special revelations from the Holy Spirit may or may not have their own authority, but such matters are discussions of their own.

2. Thus Packer writes "Of this revelatory process [God's speaking] the sixty-six books of the Bible are both the product and the proclamation" (Packer, Spoken, 46), and it becomes quite clear in the course of the book that this is the full function of Scripture for Packer. In effect, Packer apparently collapses inspiration into the category of divine revelation.

3. For example, Abraham speaks of degrees of inspiration on the assumption that the more closely a text reflects the actual revelation of God from God, the more inspired it is (Abraham, Inspiration, 68 ff.). Abraham is thus not successful in satisfactorily expanding inspiration while safeguarding the fully inspired authority of all Scripture.

4. Achtemeier is primarily concerned with the process and mechanics of inspiration, rather than its ontological status. This focus at times brings him towards the proposal outlined in this paper, but nevertheless "Scripture, through the internal testimony if the Holy Spirit, [functions] for us as the revelation of the will of God for us, and for his world" (Achtemeier, I&A, 141). Scripture is created through the divinely guided response of humanity to God's word and deed, but its purpose remains merely the showing of those words and deeds to us.

5. Marshall, Inspiration, 56.

6. Froehlich, Karlfried, "The Inspired Word of God: Authority and Inspiration", Bible, 19.

7. Abraham, Inspiration, 2 ff.

8. Christensen, Lewis, 93.

9. Cf. Achtemeier, Inspiration, chapter 5.

10. Froehlich, "The Creative Word of God: Tradition and Interpretation," Bible, 45-46. Emphasis his.

11. Marshall, Inspiration, 53.

12. Cf. Froehlich, "The Inspired Word of God: Authority and Inspiration," Bible, 26.

13. Cf. Marshall, Inspiration, 25-26.

14. Cf. Marshall, Inspiration, 43-45.

15. Achtemeier reacts against what he perceives to be the weakness of traditional understandings of inspiration by positing his communitarian model against the prophetic model which blithely assumes all inspiration to have worked according to the same model as that of the prophetic books of Isaiah or Ezekiel (Achtemeier, Inspiration, 85 ff.). But in rejecting that model, Achtemeier sets up a new one which does not seem to do full justice to the texts either. When Paul writes his epistles, it would appear that the communitarian model is not an especially helpful one: even if we postulate later editing on the part of the community, which is unwarranted speculation, something very much like the prophetic model nevertheless was at work in the composition of the texts to begin with.

16. Following the suggestion of Marshall on pp. 50-51, I will use infallible to signify the "quality of being neither misleading nor mislead" and inerrant to signify the "quality of being free from all falsehood or mistakes."

17. Cf. Froehlich, "The Inspired Word of God: Authority and Inspiration," Bible, 19.