The Chicago Statement on Inerrancy
Summary Statement
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 of 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.
Articles of Affirmation and Denial
Article I
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 II
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 III
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 IV
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 V
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 VI
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 VII
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
VIII
We affirm that God in His Work of inspiration utilized the distinctive
personalities and literary styles of the writers whom 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 IX
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 X
We affirm that inspiration, strictly
speaking, applies only to the authographic 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 XI
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 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 XII
We affirm that Scripture in its entirety is
inerrant, being free from 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 XIII
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 standards 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 XIV
We affirm the unity and internal consistency of Scripture.
We deny that alleged errors and discrepancies that have not yet been
resolved vitiate the truth claims of the Bible.
Article XV
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 XVI
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
XVII
We affirm that the Holy Spirit bears witness to the Scriptures, assuring
believers of the truthfulness of God written Word.
We deny that this witness of the Holy Spirit operates in isolation from
or against Scripture.
Article
XVIII
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 XIX
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.
Exposition
Our understanding of the doctrine of
inerrancy must be set in the context of the broader teachings of Scripture
concerning itself. This exposition gives an account of the outline of
doctrine from which our Summary Statement and Articles are drawn.
Creation, Revelation, and Inspiration
The God, who formed all things by his
creative utterances and governs all things by His Word of decree, made
mankind in His own image for a life of communion with Himself, on the model
of the eternal fellowship of loving communication within the Godhead. As
God’s image-bearer, man was to hear God’s Word addressed to him and to
respond in the joy of adoring obedience. Over and above God’s
self-disclosure in the created order and the sequence of events within it,
human beings from Adam on have received verbal messages from Him, either
directly, as stated in Scripture, or indirectly in the form of part or all
of Scripture itself.
When Adam fell, the Creator did not abandon
mankind to final judgement, but promised salvation and began to reveal
Himself as Redeemer in a sequence of historical events centering on
Abraham’s family and culminating in the life, death, resurrection, present
heavenly ministry and promised return of Jesus Christ. Within this frame God
has from time to time spoken specific words of judgement and mercy, promise
and command, to sinful human beings, so drawing them into a covenant
relation of mutual commitment between Him and them in which He blesses them
with gifts of grace and they bless Him in responsive adoration. Moses, whom
God used as mediator to carry his words to His people at the time of the
exodus, stands at the head of a long line of prophets in whose mouths and
writings God put His words for delivery to Israel. God’s purpose in this
succession of messages was to maintain His covenant by causing His people to
know His name—that is, His nature—and His will both of precept and purpose
in the present and for the future. This line of prophetic spokesmen from God
came to completion in Jesus Christ, God’s incarnate Word, who was Himself a
prophet—more that a prophet, but not less—and in the apostles and prophets
of the first Christian generation. When God’s final and climactic message,
His word to the world concerning Jesus Christ, had been spoken and
elucidated by those in the apostolic circle, the sequence of revealed
messages ceased. Henceforth the Church was to live and know God by what He
had already said, and said for all time.
At Sinai God wrote the terms of His
covenant on tablets of stone as His enduring witness and for lasting
accessibility, and throughout the period of prophetic and apostolic
revelation He prompted men to write the messages given to and through them,
along with celebratory records of His dealings with His people, plus moral
reflections on covenant life and forms of praise and prayer for covenant
mercy. The theological reality of inspiration in the producing of Biblical
documents corresponds to that of spoken prophecies: Although the human
writers’ personalities were expressed in what they wrote, the words were
divinely constituted. Thus what Scripture says, God says; its authority is
His authority, for He is its ultimate Author, having given it through the
minds and words of chosen and prepared men who in freedom and faithfulness
“spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (I Pet 1:21).
Holy Scripture must be acknowledged as the Word of God by virtue of its
divine origin.
Authority: Christ and the Bible
Jesus Christ, the Son of God who is the
Word made flesh, our Prophet, Priest and King, is the ultimate Mediator of
God’s communication to man, as He is of all God’s gifts of grace. The
revelation He gave was more that verbal; He revealed the Father by His
presence and His deeds as well. Yet His words were crucially important ; for
He was God, He spoke from the Father, and His words will judge all men at
the last day.
As the prophesied Messiah, Jesus Christ is
the central theme of Scripture. The Old Testament looked ahead to Him; the
New Testament looks back to His first coming and on to His second. Canonical
Scripture is the divinely inspired and therefore normative witness to
Christ. No hermeneutic, therefore, of which the historical Christ is not the
focal point is acceptable. Holy Scripture must be treated as what it
essentially is—the witness of the Father to the incarnate Son.
It appears that the Old Testament canon had
been fixed by the time of Jesus. The New Testament canon is likewise now
closed, inasmuch as no new apostolic witness to the historical Christ can
now be borne. No new revelation (as distinct from Spirit-given understanding
of existing revelation) will be given until Christ comes again. The canon
was created in principle by divine inspiration. The Church’s part was to
discern the canon that God had created, not to devise one of its own.
The word ‘canon’, signifying a rule of
standard, is a pointer to authority, which means the right to rule and
control. Authority in Christianity belongs to God in His revelation, which
means, on the one hand, Jesus Christ, the living Word, and, on the other
hand, Holy Scripture, the written Word. But the authority of Christ and that
of Scripture are one. As our Prophet, Christ testified that Scripture cannot
be broken. As our Priest and King, He devoted His earthly life to fulfilling
the law and the prophets, even dying in obedience to the words of messianic
prophecy. Thus as He saw Scripture attesting Him and His authority, so by
His own submission to Scripture He attested its authority. As He bowed to
His Father’s instruction given in His Bible (our Old Testament), so He
requires His disciples to do—not, however, in isolation but in conjunction
with the apostolic witness to Himself that He undertook to inspire by his
gift of the Holy Spirit. So Christians show themselves faithful servants of
their Lord by bowing to the divine instruction given in the prophetic and
apostolic writings that together make up our Bible.
By authenticating each other’s authority,
Christ and Scripture coalesce into a single fount of authority. The
Biblically-interpreted Christ and the Christ-centered, Christ-proclaiming
Bible are from this standpoint one. As from the fact of inspiration we infer
that what Scripture says, God says, so from the revealed relation between
Jesus Christ and Scripture we may equally declare that what Scripture says,
Christ says.
Infallibility, Inerrancy, and Interpretation
Holy Scripture, as the inspired Word of God
witnessing authoritatively to Jesus Christ, may properly be called
‘infallible’ and ‘inerrant’. These negative terms have a special value, for
they explicitly safeguard crucial positive truths.
‘Infallible’ signifies the quality of
neither misleading nor being misled and so safeguards in categorical terms
the truth that Holy Scripture is a sure, safe and reliable rule and guide in
all matters.
Similarly, ‘inerrant’ signifies the quality
of being free from all falsehood or mistake and so safeguards the truth that
Holy Scripture is entirely true and trustworthy in all its assertions.
We affirm that canonical Scripture should
always be interpreted on the basis that it is infallible and inerrant.
However, in determining what the God-taught writer is asserting in each
passage, we must pay the most careful attention to its claims and character
as a human production. In inspiration, God utilized the culture and
conventions of his penman’s milieu, a milieu that God controls in His
sovereign providence; it is misinterpretation to imagine otherwise.
So history must be treated as history,
poetry as poetry, hyperbole and metaphor as hyperbole and metaphor,
generalization and approximation as what they are, and so forth. Differences
between literary conventions in Bible times and in ours must also be
observed: Since, for instance, nonchronological narration and imprecise
citation were conventional and acceptable and violated no expectations in
those days, we must not regard these things as faults when we find them in
Bible writers. When total precision of a particular kind was not expected
nor aimed at, it is no error not to have achieved it. Scripture is inerrant,
not in the sense of being absolutely precise by modern standards, but in the
sense of making good its claims and achieving that measure of focused truth
at which its authors aimed.
The truthfulness of Scripture is not
negated by the appearance in it of irregularities of grammar or spelling,
phenomenal descriptions of nature, reports of false statements (for example,
the lies of Satan), or seeming discrepancies between one passage and
another. It is not right to set the so-called “phenomena” of Scripture
against the teaching of Scripture about itself. Apparent inconsistencies
should not be ignored. Solution of them, where this can be convincingly
achieved, will encourage our faith, and where for the present no convincing
solution is at hand we shall significantly honor God by trusting His
assurance that His Word is true, despite these appearances, and by
maintaining our confidence that one day they will be seen to have been
illusions.
Inasmuch as all Scripture is the product of
a single divine mind, interpretation must stay within the bounds of the
analogy of Scripture and eschew hypotheses that would correct one Biblical
passage by another, whether in the name of progressive revelation or of the
imperfect enlightenment of the inspired writer’s mind.
Although Holy Scripture is nowhere
culture-bound in the sense that its teaching lacks universal validity, it is
sometimes culturally conditioned by the customs and conventional views of a
particular period, so that the application of its principles today calls for
a different sort of action.
Skepticism and Criticism
Since the Renaissance, and more
particularly since the Enlightenment, world views have been developed that
involve skepticism about basic Christian tenets. Such are the agnosticism
that denies that God is knowable, the rationalism that denies that He is
incomprehensible, the idealism that denies that He is transcendent, and the
existentialism that denies rationality in His relationships with us. When
these unand anti-Biblical principles seep into men’s theologies at
presuppositional level, as today they frequently do, faithful interpretation
of Holy Scripture becomes impossible.
Transmission and Translation
Since God has nowhere promised an inerrant
transmission of Scripture, it is necessary to affirm that only the
autographic text of the original documents was inspired and to maintain the
need of textual criticism as a means of detecting any slips that may have
crept into the text in the course of its transmission. The verdict of this
science, however, is that the Hebrew and Greek text appears to be amazingly
well preserved, so that we are amply justified in affirming, with the
Westminster Confession, a singular providence of God in this matter and in
declaring that the authority of Scripture is in no way jeopardized by the
fact that the copies we possess are not entirely error-free.
Similarly, no translation is or can be
perfect, and all translations are an additional step away from the
autograph. Yet the verdict of linguistic science is that English-speaking
Christians, at least, are exceedingly well served in these days with a host
of excellent translations and have no cause for hesitating to conclude that
the true Word of God is within their reach. Indeed, in view of the frequent
repetition in Scripture of the main matters with which it deals and also of
the Holy Spirit’s constant witness to and through the Word, no serious
translation of Holy Scripture will so destroy its meaning as to render it
unable to make its reader “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus”
(2 Tim. 3:15)
Inerrancy and Authority
In our affirmation of the authority of
Scripture as involving its total truth, we are consciously standing with
Christ and His apostles, indeed with the whole Bible and with the main
stream of Church history from the first days until very recently. We are
concerned at that casual, inadvertent and seemingly thoughtless way in which
a belief of such far-reaching importance has been given up by so many in our
day.
We are conscious too that great and grave
confusion results from ceasing to maintain the total truth of the Bible
whose authority one professes to acknowledge. The result of taking this step
is that the Bible that God gave loses its authority, and what has authority
instead is a Bible reduced in content according to the demands of one’s
critical reasoning and in principle reducible still further once one has
started. This means that at bottom independent reason now has authority, as
opposed to Scriptural teaching. If this is not seen and if for the time
being basic evangelical doctrines are still held, persons denying the full
truth of Scripture may claim an evangelical identity while methodologically
they have moved away from the evangelical principle of knowledge to an
unstable subjectivism, and will find it hard not to move further.
We affirm that what Scripture says, God
says. May He be glorified. Amen and Amen.