Journal: Grace Theological Journal
Volume: GTJ 03:2 (Fall 1982)
Article: The Inerrancy Debate and the Use of Scripture in Counseling
Author: Edward E. Hindson

---

GTJ 3:2 (Fall 82) p. 207

The Inerrancy Debate
and the Use of Scripture in Counseling

Edward E. Hindson

In attempting to side-step the crucial implications of the current inerrancy debate, many evangelicals have tried to suggest that the controversy is nothing more than a semantical battle of terminologies and definitions. In this article, the inerrancy debate is viewed as it affects the role of pastoral counseling. In particular, the author examines the issues of “Christian” feminism and homosexuality, concluding that a weak view of the Scripture will always lead to a weak view of morality. Serious problems result from allowing cultural hermeneutics to redefine clear biblical revelation.

* * *

The vast majority of Fundamentalists and Evangelicals alike hold to a belief in the inerrancy of the Scriptures in their original autographs as the proper view of biblical inspiration.1 Most conservatives base their position on the teaching of the Scripture itself and trace the formulation of the plenary-verbal inspiration concept to the crystalization of that position by Warfield and the Princeton theologians of the nineteenth century. To Fundamentalists, the inerrancy of Scripture is ultimately linked to the legitimacy and authority of the

GTJ 3:2 (Fall 82) p. 208

Bible.2 We view the Bible as being God-breathed and thus free from error in all its statements and affirmations. However, today there is a debate raging within Evangelical circles regarding the total inerrancy of the Scriptures.3

I. The Inerrancy Debate

The recent and explosive evaluation of the left-wing Evangelical capitulation to limited errancy by Harold Lindsell has raised strong objections to the drift away from inerrancy by many whose historical roots go back to the birth of Fundamentalism.4 In commenting on this drift within Evangelicalism from another perspective, Richard Quebedeaux observes that the old concepts of infallibility and inerrancy are being reinterpreted to the point that a number of Evangelical scholars are saying that the teaching of scripture, rather than the text, is without error.5 Some have gone so far as to recognize and even categorize the marks of cultural conditioning on Scripture.6 It is the latter issue which has such strong implication in relation to the use of scripture in counseling.

GTJ 3:2 (Fall 82) p. 209

In current European theology we are ...

visitor : : uid: ()