The California Collection/TheCaliforniaCollection.cdr/his101/chicago.arj/CHICAGO.TXT

Text File | 1990-05-15 | 9KB | 172 lines

                    CHICAGO STATEMENT ON INERRANCY

1.  God, who is Himself Truth and speaks Truth ONLY, has inspired Holy
Scripture in order thereby to reveal Himself to lost mankind through
Jesus Christ as Creator and Lord, Redeemer and Judge.  Holy Scripture
is God's witness to Himself.

2.  Holy Scripture, being God's own Word, written by men prepared and
superintended by His Spirit, is of INFALLIBLE DIVINE AUTHORITY in ALL
matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God's
instruction, in ALL that it affirms: obeyed, as God's command, in ALL
that it requires; embraced, as God's pledge, in all that it promises.

3.  The Holy Spirit, Scripture's divine Author, both authenticates it
to us by His inward witness and opens our minds to understand its
meaning.

4.  Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is WITHOUT ERROR or
FAULT in ALL its teaching, no less in what it states about God's acts
in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own
literary origins under God, than in its witness to God's saving grace
in individual lives.

5.  The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total
divine inerrancy is in any way limited or disregarded, or made
relative to a view of truth contrary to the Bible's own; and such
lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the Church.


Article 1:  We affirm that the Holy Scriptures are to be received as
the authoritative Word of God.  We deny that the Scriptures receive
their authority from the Church, tradition, or any other human source.

Article 2:  We affirm that the Scriptures are the Supreme Written Norm
by which God binds the conscience, and that the authority of the
Church is subordinate to that of Scripture.  We deny that Church
Creeds, councils, or declarations have authority greater than or equal
to the authority of the Bible.

Article 3:  We affirm that the written Word in its entirety is
revelation given by God.  We deny that the Bible is merely a witness
to revelation, or only becomes revelation in encounter, or depends on
the responses of men for its validity.

Article 4:  We affirm that God who made mankind in His image has used
language as a means of revelation.  We deny that human language is so
limited by our creatureliness that it is rendered inadequate as a
vehicle for divine revelation.  We further deny that the corruption of
human culture and language through sin has thwarted God's work of
inspiration.

Article 5:  We affirm that God's revelation in the Holy Scriptures was
progressive.  We deny that later revelation, which may fulfill earlier
revelation, ever corrects or contradicts it.  We further deny that any
normative revelation has been given since the completion of the New
Testament writings.

Article 6:  We affirm that the whole of Scripture and all its parts,
down to the VERY WORDS of the original, were given by divine
inspiration.  We deny that the inspiration of Scripture can rightly be
affirmed of the whole without the parts, or of some parts but not the
whole.

Article 7:  We affirm that inspiration was the work in which God by
His Spirit, through HUMAN WRITERS, gave us His Word.  The Origin of
Scripture IS DIVINE.  The mode of divine inspiration remains largely a
mystery to us.  We deny that inspiration can be reduced to human
insight, or to heightened states of consciousness of any kind.

Article 8:  We affirm that God, in His Work of inspiration, utilized
the distinctive personalities and literary styles of the writers who
He had chosen and prepared.  We deny that God, in causing these
writers to use the very words that HE chose, overrode their
personalities.

Article 9:  We affirm that inspiration, though not conferring
omniscience, guaranteed true and trustworthy utterance on ALL matters
of which the Biblical authors were moved to speak and write.  We deny
that the finitude or fallenness of these writers, by necessity or
otherwise, introduced distortion or falsehood into God's Word.

Article 10:  We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies
ONLY to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of
God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy.
We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the
Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original.
We deny that ANY essential element of the Christian faith is affected
by the absence of the autographs.  We further deny that this absence
renders the assertion of Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.

Article 11:  We affirm that Scripture, having been given by divine
inspiration, IS INFALLIBLE, so that, far from misleading us, it is
TRUE AND RELIABLE in ALL the matters that it addresses.  We deny that
it is possible for the Bible to be at the same time infallible and
errant in its assertions.  Infallibility and inerrancy may be
distinguished, but not separated.

Article 12:  We affirm that Scripture in its ENTIRETY is inerrant,
being free from all falsehood, fraud, or deceit.  We deny that
Biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual,
religious, or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields
of history and science.  We further deny that scientific hypotheses
about earth history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of
Scripture on creation and the flood.

Article 13:  We affirm the propriety of using inerrancy as a
theological term with reference to the complete truthfulness of
Scripture.  We deny that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according
to the stands of truth and error that are alien to its usage or
purpose.  We further deny that inerrancy is negated by Biblical
phenomena such as a lack of modern technical precision, irregularities
of grammar or spelling, observational descriptions of nature, the
reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyperbole and round numbers, the
topical arrangement of material, variant selections of material in
parallel accounts, or the use of free citations.

Article 14:  We affirm the unity and internal consistency of the
Scripture.  We deny that alleged errors and discrepancies that have
not yet been resolved vitiate the truth claims of the Bible.

Article 15:  We affirm that the doctrine of inerrancy is grounded in
the teaching of the Bible about inspiration.  We deny that Jesus'
teaching about Scripture may be dismissed by appeals to accommodation
or to any natural limitation of His humanity.

Article 16:  We affirm that the doctrine of inerrancy has been
integral to the Church's faith throughout its history.  We deny that
inerrancy is a doctrine invented by Scholastic Protestantism, or is a
reactionary position postulated in response to negative higher
criticism.

Article 17:  We affirm that the Holy Spirit bears witness to the
Scriptures, assuring believers of the truthfulness of God's written
Word.  We deny that this witness of the Holy Spirit operates in
isolation from or against Scripture.

Article 18:  We affirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted
by grammatico-historical exegesis, taking account of its literary
forms and devices, and that Scripture is to interpret Scripture.  We
deny the legitimacy of any treatment of the text or quest for sources
lying behind it that leads to relativizing, dehistoricizing, or
discounting its teaching, or rejecting its claims to authorship.

Article 19:  We affirm that a confession of the full authority,
infallibility, and inerrancy of Scripture is vital to a sound
understanding of the whole of the Christian faith.  We further affirm
that such confession should lead to increasing conformity to the image
of Christ.  We deny that such confession is necessary for salvation.
However we further deny that inerrancy can be rejected without grave
consequences, both to the individual and to the church.

                      -------------------------

The "Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy" was produced at an
international Summit Conference of evangelical leaders, held at the
Hyatt Regency O'Hare in the fall of 1978.  This congress was sponsored
by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy.  The Chicago
Statement was signed by over 300 noted evangelicals, including (in
alphabetical order) James Boice, Norman L. Geisler, John Gerstner,
Carl F. H. Henry, Kenneth Kantzer, Harold Lindsell, John Warwick
Montgomery, Roger Nicole, J. I. Packer, Robert Preus, Earl Radmacher,
Francis Schaeffer, R. C. Sproul, and John Wenham.

The ICBI has now disbanded, after having produced three major
statements: one in biblical inerrancy in 1978, one on biblical
hermeneutics in 1982, and one on biblical application in 1986.  You
can find the Statement on Inerrancy in Geisler and Nix's "General
Introduction to the Bible" (Moody Press, 2d ed. 1986), pp. 181-185.

Computers for Christ - Chicago