The principle of flexibility or “variation” in language is important. It steers us away from expecting or demanding artificial precision when we come to the Bible. In the previous chapter we included quotes from Augustine, Calvin, and Hodge. These saints—and many others—have understood that the Bible speaks according to what Hodge called “common usage.” God knows completely the resources of language, since it is his gift to human beings. He has fashioned language with contrasts and with flexibility. He speaks using those resources.
That means that according to his own infinite wisdom he may speak truth and still choose not to adopt a kind of pedantic precision. He gives us truth that is indeed fully true without giving all truth. He is omniscient while we are not.
It is worthwhile to underline this principle with some further quotes from past generations of saints. These quotes, of course, are not themselves infal-lible. They are nevertheless valuable because they reexpress in a variety of words the fact that the Bible is infallible and at the same time not precisionistic.
Reflections from Ned B. Stonehouse
In his book Origins of the Synoptic Gospels Ned B. Stonehouse discusses at some length difficulties about the incident with the rich young ruler.1 In that
1 Ned. B. Stonehouse, Origins of the Synoptic Gospels: Some Basic Questions (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963), chap. 5, pp. 93–112. Stonehouse was president of the Evangelical Theological Society in 1957. See also the discussion of the rich young ruler in chap. 27 of the present volume.
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context he offers broader principles for dealing with difficulties. His words are worth quoting at length.
Various tendencies in the history of harmonization of the Gospels may be recalled.
One tendency, that is both conservative and simple, has been to join divergent features and to seek to weave them together into a harmonious whole. Where, however, the divergent elements are exceedingly difficult to combine in that way, it is insisted that the narratives must be regarded as reporting different events or different sayings. This approach is indeed one that I regard as fundamentally unobjectionable in principle; and at times its application leads to satisfactory results. And in general it certainly is to be preferred to the tendency, which seems to be characteristic of many modern writers, to cry “discrepancy!” at the presence of even minor linguistic differences. Or in the same spirit it may be declared dogmatically, without the benefit of any objective evidence, that two highly divergent narratives or records of teaching necessarily must be envisioned as the result of radical editorial modifications of a single source. Nevertheless, there is, in my judgment, a sounder attitude to most problems of harmonization than that which was characterized above as conservative and simple. It is marked by the exercise of greater care in determining what the Gospels as a whole and in detail actually say as well as greater restraint in arriving at conclusions where the available evidence does not justify ready answers. In particular, there is the possibility of genuine progress if one does not maintain that the trustworthi-ness of the Gospels allows the evangelists no liberty of composition whatsoever, and does not insist that in reporting the words of Jesus, for example, they must have been characterized by a kind of notarial exactitude or what Professor John Murray has called “pedantic precision.” Inasmuch as this point seems constantly to be overlooked or disregarded in the modern situation it may be well to stress again that orthodox expositors and defenders of the infallibility of Scripture have consistently made the point that infallibility is not properly understood if it is supposed that it carries with it the implication that the words of Jesus as reported in the Gospels are necessarily the ipsissima verba [exact words]. What is involved rather is that the Holy Spirit guided the human authors in such a way as to insure that their records give an accurate and trustworthy impression of the Lord’s teachings.2
Reflections of John Murray
We continue by quoting from the footnote that Stonehouse appends to the quotation just given.
John Murray, Calvin on Scripture and Divine Sovereignty (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1960), p. 30, declares: “It must be emphatically stated that the doctrine of
bibli-2 Ibid., 109–10.
cal inerrancy for which the church has contended throughout history, and for which a great many of us still contend, is not based on the assumption that the criterion of meticulous precision in every detail of record or history is the indispensable canon of biblical infallibility. To erect such a canon is utterly artificial and arbitrary and is not one by which the inerrancy of Scripture is to be judged . . . . The Scripture abounds in illustrations of the absence of the type of meticulous and pedantic precision which we might arbitrarily seek to impose as the criterion of infallibility. Every one should recognize that in accord with accepted forms of speech and custom a statement can be perfectly authentic and yet not pedantically precise. Scripture does not make itself absurd by furnishing us with pedantry.” Quoted by permission.
The view presented here is that which has been maintained by lead-ing Reformed theologians. Cf., e.g. Murray, ibid., pp. 11ff., 29ff., 35ff.; B. B.
Warfield, Revelation and Inspiration (New York: Oxford, 1927), pp. 205f., 420; Christology and Criticism, pp. 108f.; A. Kuyper, Encyclopaedie der Heilige Godgeleerdheid, 2nd ed. (Kampen: Kok, 1909), II, 505f. (Eng. trans., Principles of Sacred Theology [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954], p. 550); H. Bavinck, Gereformeerde Dogmatiek, 3rd ed. (Kampen: Kok, 1918), I, 469ff.; L. Berkhof, Introduction to the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans-Sevensma, 1915), p. 42. Particular attention may also be directed to the statement of A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield, in their famous article on “Inspiration” in The Presbyterian Review, II (April, 1881): “There is a vast difference between exactness of state-ment, which includes an exhaustive rendering of details, an absolute literalness, which the Scriptures never profess, and accuracy, on the other hand, which secures a correct statement of facts or principles intended to be affirmed”
(p. 238; cf. pp. 229ff., 237, 242, 244ff.). Cf. also A. Kuyper’s conclusion, loc. cit.,
“When in the four Gospels Jesus, on the same occasion, is made to say words that are different in form of expression, it is impossible that He should have used these four forms at once. The Holy Spirit, however, merely intends to make an impression on the Church which wholly corresponds to what Jesus said.”3 Stonehouse comments further on the issue of harmonization.
We confess that much that has been attempted in the interest of demonstrat-ing the unity of the gospels has been extreme and far-fetched, not because of any positive proof of actual disunity, but because it has proceeded from a fundamentally false conception of the aim of the evangelists and the distinctive character of the gospels. To make this confession is, to be sure, not a late and regretful acknowledgment of the faults of all orthodox scholars in the past, for no less an exponent of the authority and unity of the Scriptures than John
3 Ibid., 110n17.
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Calvin protested in his day against the faulty approach of Osiander.4 If the evangelists aimed to compose a history or biography of Christ, as complete in detail as possible, with scrupulous attention to itinerary and chronologi-cal sequence, and to report the words of Jesus with stenographic accuracy, there would be very little in one gospel that could be regarded as finding its counterpart in any other. Since, however, none of these features is supported by the evidence, and since particularly none of the evangelists aims to supply a complete historical framework [chronologically] of the life of Christ, it fol-lows that much of the disparagement of “harmonistics” is based upon radically erroneous conceptions of the character of the gospels. The defender of the truth and authority of the gospels does not face the necessity of fitting all the details of the records into a continuous [chronological] framework. The evangelists do not provide sufficient data for such an effort, and did not intend to do so.5 I agree with Stonehouse’s sentiments. Others must judge how well I suc-ceed in carrying them out in my own reflections on harmonization.
4 Stonehouse adds a footnote here: “E.g., in his comment on Mt. 20:29” (Ned B. Stonehouse, The Witness of the Synoptic Gospels to Christ: One Volume Combining The Witness of Matthew and Mark to Christ and The Witness of Luke to Christ, 2nd ed. [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979], 163n5).
5 Ibid., 163–64.
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