1. ETS Has Lost Its Doctrinal IntegrityDuring private discussions at the 2002 meeting, the point was made that many in ETS lost their stomach for a battle of this nature during the ouster of Dr. Robert Gundry a decade prior. The prediction was made that Pinnock and Sanders would survive, albeit in a close vote. This turned out to be prescient, despite the overwhelming evidence that Pinnock's scholarship was at odds with the original position of ETS (see Pinnock quotes collected by Geisler at http://www.acts1711.com/etsinerror.htm).
2. ETS Has Adopted a Revisionist Interpretation of Its Own Doctrine
3. ETS is Now Operating Contrary to Its Own Historic Precedent
4. ETS is Logically Inconsistent with Its Own Doctrinal Basis
5. ETS Acted Inconsistently with Its Long-Standing Journal Policy
6. ETS Has Acted Contrary to Previously Approved Presidential Decisions
7. ETS Refused to Consider Pinnocks (sic) Major Work on the Topic
Thank you for an amazingly detailed response.
I therefore decided that I would hold a reasonable number of meetings at good restaurants in the Chicago area, so that I could at least get something out of the assignment.
Wonderful sentence! Redeeming the time, for the days are evil...
Pinnock was allowed to stay, but Sanders was removed, if I remember it correctly. Pinnock agreed to change a challenged portion of his book.
Actually 37% of the 2003 vote favored Sanders, and since anything over 33.4% would defeat the necessary 2/3 majority needed to remove him, he survived. I was quite surprised that Pinnock backed down. He had been quite fiery in his statements the prior couple of years.
I suggest to all apologists and defenders of inerrancy that they read my paper "Inerrancy Defiled; the Place of Ethics in Inerrancy", my Presidential address for the Evangelical Philosophical Society. It was published in their bulletin, but I forget the year. I know it's in the archives of the ETS in Wheaton on tape.
Yes, Wheaton has "Inerrancy Defiled: Relation of Ethics to Inerrancy" on side 2 of tape 4 from the December 1982 meeting which took place in Essex Falls, New Jersey. I will attempt to track down a copy.
I am not familiar with Geisler's hierarchicalism, but I do recall "Alleged Discrepancies" from my college days.
What to say.....
I was a student of both Dr's Geisler and Pinnock at TEDS between 1970 and 1973. I count both of them as friends. I was also the chairman of ad hoc committee of ETS that dealt with Robert Gundry in 1983. Our committee was commissioned with coming up with a recommendation regarding Gundry for the national meeting in Dallas. I was the only non-NT scholar on the Committee. I was a professor of theology (apologetics) at Moody at the time. After the first meeting I realized that Grant Osborne from Trinity and the Wheaton Prof, would counter George Knight of Covenant and the Grand Rapids Baptist prof would remain neutral, and we would get nothing of substance done. I therefore decided that I would hold a reasonable number of meetings at good restaurants in the Chicago area, so that I could at least get something out of the assignment. It was my idea to make each of the three proposals that were ultimately offered at the Dallas convention. They were based upon logic and fairness. I realized that attempting to deal with Gundry without first coming to a conclusion regarding redaction criticism was putting "the hearse before the horse", so "we" recommended that a committee be established to do that groundwork. I then tackled the next obvious matter: the meaning of the ETS's doctrinal statement. We all knew what the founding fathers intended, since Roger Nicole had raised the issue of Gundry's membership. But in fairness to Gundry's right to a clear standard by which to be judged, and for future generations, it was only reasonable that the society clarify the meaning of its rather bald creed. Since this unlikely to occur in the atmosphere of a witchhunt for Gundry, I suggested that we adopt TEMPORARILY the Chicago Statement of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. This seemed appropriate, since most of the ETS members had been members of that Council. Finally, also in view of the heated spirits involved, I suggested that Robert's Rules of Order for the judgment of members of a society be adopted, since the ETS had no such a mechanism. Now all this seemed to be logical and fair. How could you claim that Gundry was out of sync with the doctrinal statement if you had no consensus of how redaction criticism related to ETS's inerrancy creed. How could you hold trial over a member if you had no acknowledged method for doing so. But....thanks to the efforts of Geisler and Knight, the "hunt" had to go on, and logic and fairness were resounding relegated to the dung pile. Knight's own proposal for a standard by which to judge Gundry, in the place of the ICBI option, was itself inadequate. I was sitting next to R. Laird Harris, another founding father, when Knight's "standard" was suggested. I asked him how Matthew himself could be a member of the society if it insisted that: "ETS go on record as rejecting any position that states that Matthew or any other biblical writer materially altered and embellished historical tradition or departed from the actuality of events." Wasn't a change in the historical order of events (as known by Luke) a "departure from the actuality of events"? I think that most Evangelicals admit that both Matthew and Mark changed the actual, historical order of events. Harris shrugged off the question.
The fact is that Geisler wanted blood "NOW" to use his term. And that was sad. Had proper homework been done by the Society in 1983-84, and voted on Gundry a year later than it did, the problems with Pinnock and Sanders in the next century might have been easier to deal with. Incidentally, Pinnock was allowed to stay, but Sanders was removed, if I remember it correctly. Pinnock agreed to change a challenged portion of his book.
But I have something else to say. Though I greatly respect Geisler, I suggest to all apologists and defenders of inerrancy that they read my paper "Inerrancy Defiled; the Place of Ethics in Inerrancy", my Presidential address for the Evangelical Philosophical Society. It was published in their bulletin, but I forget the year. I know it's in the archives of the ETS in Wheaton on tape. In that paper, I believe I show clearly that Geisler's strange ethical position, called Hierarchicalism, is itself utterly incompatible with the ETS's doctrine of Inerrancy. Hierarchicalism teaches that God's laws come into conflict in a fallen and finite world. For those who remember the classic work "Alleged Discrepancies in the Bible", you should recall that a third of the content section of that work deals with allegations that the ethics of the Bible involve contradictions or conflicts. Ethical contradiction is just as damaging to Inerrancy as historical or doctrinal contradictions. If this is the case, then maybe the ETS should have had a heresy trial for Norman in 1972 subsequent to the publication of his Ethics, Alternatives and Issues, and he could have resigned much earlier than he did.
The fact is that some times people really do believe in inerrancy and yet make statments or hold positions incompatible with it. At times like that we need to go slowly and with considerable love. Norm was never one to allow that for others. In any case, ETS is the poorer for his leaving.