Interaction With Peter Enns -- By: Bruce K. Waltke

Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 71:1 (Spring 2009)
Article: Interaction With Peter Enns
Author: Bruce K. Waltke


Interaction With Peter Enns

Bruce K. Waltke

I. Introduction

First, my sincere thanks go to Professor Enns for both correcting me in my response to his argument regarding 2 Cor 6:2 and in prompting me to think and to express myself more clearly on many other matters in our interchange. Second, I do not doubt that Enns intends to stay true to the Westminster Standards. The question is, “Does he?”

Third, apparently I put more weight on logic than does Enns. True, it remains an a priori of mine that doctrine is based on the conviction that God does not contradict himself; speak nonsense; represent as ostensive fact on the plot level (i.e., the human author’s representation of the event) what in fact is fiction on the story (i.e., “the event”) level; and other human “mistakes.” Admittedly, I am not a professional systematic theologian nor a scholar of the Westminster Standards in particular, but if the Westminster divines thought that Scripture contains what is commonly understood as human error, why would they and how could they have defined God with respect to his revelation in Holy Scripture as “truth itself “(WCF 1.4)?

Finally, my concerns in this essay are twofold: to clarify the distinction between theological assumptions and exegetical method, and to clarify my exegesis of passages that Enns uses to derive his model of inspiration. Since the former is at the heart of Enns’s response, I address this important distinction in Part I. I address my second concern in Part II.

“Tensions,” the balancing of opposing truths that prompt one to extend understanding to embrace both, do not trouble me. Paradoxes mirror the messiness of life and are the grist for profitable theological reflection. The Semites have a saying, with which I tend to agree: “You do not have truth until you have paradox.” Like most people, I seek to resolve tensions with the same unflinching honesty as Enns, while admitting that the finite mind can never come to infinite truth. But Enns’s approach generates tensions between the inspiration of the Bible by an inerrant Source and human foibles such as contradictions, mistaken teachings, semantic impertinence, and doctrines based on Qumran pesher and on sharp but inappropriate and unaccredited exegesis that is called pilpul in Talmudic hermeneutics. In Enns’s response he does not correct my statements that his book implies these foibles.

Admittedly, psychologically I would rather not upset my assumptions, but if I am persuaded they are wrong I will move—literally, as in the case of my leaving

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