Evangelical Theological Society to adopt Chicago Statement on inerrancy_122004

Posted: 12/10/04

Evangelical Theological Society to
adopt Chicago Statement on inerrancy

By Jeff Robinson

Baptist Press

SAN ANTONIO (BP)—Members of the Evangelical Theological Society passed a resolution to consider using the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy to clarify the organization’s position on the inerrancy of Scripture.

Adoption of the Chicago Statement would allow the society to exclude members or potential members who hold theological positions, such as open theism, that they believe undermine biblical inerrancy.

Members attending the 56th annual society meeting in San Antonio voted 234 (78.5 percent) to 58 to accept the resolution put forth by the society’s executive committee.

Greg Beale, the outgoing president of the society, said many members felt a more precise definition of inerrancy is needed in the wake of the recent challenge presented by open theism.

At the 2003 annual meeting in Atlanta, society members voted against revoking the membership of two theologians who hold to open theism or the openness of God, a position that teaches God does not know perfectly what will happen in the future.

The two theologians—Clark Pinnock and John Sanders —were acquitted largely because society members could not agree on a precise definition of the term “inerrancy” in the organization’s statement of faith.

To join the Evangelical Theological Society, one must sign a statement of faith that affirms belief in two doctrines—inerrancy of Scripture and the Trinity.

This year’s vote on the Chicago Statement does not automatically enact it as a society bylaw but allows the executive committee to examine the resolution further at its next meeting in August.

The committee will take feedback from society members and then decide whether to recommend adopting the Chicago Statement as a proposed bylaw at the 2005 Evangelical Theological Society national meeting in Valley Forge, Pa. Beale said the committee could bring the resolution before the society membership for adoption or could recommend further discussion.

If members vote to adopt the Chicago Statement, it will not become a part of the society’s statement of faith but will serve as “a useful instrument for interpreting” the article on inerrancy, Beale said.

If adopted as the interpretative instrument, the Chicago Statement then could be used for excluding members who hold aberrant views of Scripture, Beale said. One of the aspects of openness theology the resolution seeks to address is its teaching that some biblical prophecies will not actually be fulfilled in reality, a teaching many evangelicals believe undermines biblical inerrancy.

Society founder Roger Nicole, who brought the charges last year against Pinnock and Sanders, said adoption of the Chicago Statement would set forth precisely what the charter members of the society intended when they included the term “inerrancy” in their statement of faith.

“In my judgment, (adoption of the Chicago Statement) eliminates the claim by anyone that inerrancy is a vague term,” Nicole said. “The meaning of ‘inerrancy’ is clarified, and if there is any member who does not agree with that definition, he should resign … or be disciplined.”

The Chicago Statement was produced in the fall of 1978 during an international summit conference of concerned evangelical leaders. It was signed by nearly 300 evangelical scholars such as Nicole, Norman Geisler, Carl F.H. Henry, Harold Lindsell, J.I. Packer, Francis Schaeffer, R.C. Sproul and James Montgomery Boice.

It contains five short statements that define inerrancy, followed by 19 affirmations and denials that further define the doctrine. For example, the first article reads: “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.”

One of the brief opening statements says of Scripture: “Being wholly and verbally God-given … (it) 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.”

By contrast, the society’s statement on Scripture is brief. It reads, “The Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety, is the word of God written, and therefore inerrant in the autographs.”