As it is difficult and time-consuming to write an entire post on every interesting idea that one of us comes across in our reading of various authors, we will begin posting occasionally to simply relay longer quotations which we feel convey interesting or thought-provoking ideas. The following quotation was written by B.B. Warfield, on how hard it is to deny that the Bible itself teaches the doctrine of plenary inspiration.
The effort to explain away the Bible's witness to its plenary inspiration reminds one of a man standing safely in his laboratory and elaborately expounding-- possibly by the aid of diagrams and mathematical formulae-- how every stone in an avalanche has a defined pathway and may easily be dodged by one of some presence of mind. We may fancy such an elaborate trifler's triumph as he would analyze the avalanche into its constituent stones, and demonstrate of stone after stone that its pathway is definite, limited, and may easily be avoided. But avalanches, unfortunately, do not come upon us, stone by stone, one at a time, courteously leaving us opportunity to withdraw from the pathway of each in turn; but all at once, in a roaring mass of destruction. Just so we may explain away a text or two which teach plenary inspiration, to our closet satisfaction, dealing with them each without reference to its relation to the others: but these texts of ours, again unfortunately do not come upon us in one solid mass. Explain them away? We should have to explain away the whole New Testament. What a pity it is we cannot see and feel the avalanche of texts beneath which we may lie hopelessly buried, as clearly as we may see and feel an avalanche of stones! Let us, however, but open our eyes to the variety and pervasiveness of the New Testament witness to its high estimate of Scripture, and we shall no longer wonder that modern scholarship finds itself compelled to allow that the Christian church has read her records correctly, and that the church-doctrine of inspiration is simply a transcript of the biblical doctrine; nor shall we any longer wonder that the church, receiving these Scriptures as her authoritative teacher of doctrine, adopted in the very beginnings of her life, the doctrine of plenary inspiration, and has held it with a tenacity that knows no wavering, until the present hour (B.B. Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, 1948, pp. 119-121).
The effort to explain away the Bible's witness to its plenary inspiration reminds one of a man standing safely in his laboratory and elaborately expounding-- possibly by the aid of diagrams and mathematical formulae-- how every stone in an avalanche has a defined pathway and may easily be dodged by one of some presence of mind. We may fancy such an elaborate trifler's triumph as he would analyze the avalanche into its constituent stones, and demonstrate of stone after stone that its pathway is definite, limited, and may easily be avoided. But avalanches, unfortunately, do not come upon us, stone by stone, one at a time, courteously leaving us opportunity to withdraw from the pathway of each in turn; but all at once, in a roaring mass of destruction. Just so we may explain away a text or two which teach plenary inspiration, to our closet satisfaction, dealing with them each without reference to its relation to the others: but these texts of ours, again unfortunately do not come upon us in one solid mass. Explain them away? We should have to explain away the whole New Testament. What a pity it is we cannot see and feel the avalanche of texts beneath which we may lie hopelessly buried, as clearly as we may see and feel an avalanche of stones! Let us, however, but open our eyes to the variety and pervasiveness of the New Testament witness to its high estimate of Scripture, and we shall no longer wonder that modern scholarship finds itself compelled to allow that the Christian church has read her records correctly, and that the church-doctrine of inspiration is simply a transcript of the biblical doctrine; nor shall we any longer wonder that the church, receiving these Scriptures as her authoritative teacher of doctrine, adopted in the very beginnings of her life, the doctrine of plenary inspiration, and has held it with a tenacity that knows no wavering, until the present hour (B.B. Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, 1948, pp. 119-121).
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