(These are my own reflection on a topic that is not my specialty. But since it is quite possible that I don’t have a specialty, this seems all right. I may change my mind in a year or two.)
I was raised up in an Evangelical or perhaps Fundamentalist Church. There I learned that the Bible was the Word of God and that it was so through what was called Verbal Plenary Inspiration (VPI). The term is odd, to say the least, but essentially means that it came from God to mankind (Inspiration) that was His communication from beginning to end— Genesis to Revelation (plenary), and that this is the case down to each individual word (verbal).
When I worked at Summer Camp, our camp director would talk about this… but in a very different way than I had learned it in church. He believed that God gave the revelation as a completed package to individuals whose only job was to copy it down word-for-word. In this sense, he held to what some would call the Dictation Theory regarding Scripture. This is supposed to be different than VPI, and seems to me to be more at home in Islamic or Mormon theology than Christian theology.
VPI, as I understood it, recognized that the Holy Bible is a work of God AND Man. People write things down but do so such that the end result has God’s full and complete seal of approval. This kind of matters because there are many parts of the Bible (Nehemiah, Habakkuk, II Timothy, and… well… frankly most of Scripture) that gives a sense of human authorship. It is a bit hard to see God, for example, telling Habakkuk to write down his anger with God, followed by a psalm of praise to God that still contains an element of frustration with God. Could that be entirely God’s own words that he places in the mouth or pen of Habakkuk? Sure, I suppose… but that sure sounds deceptive and seems to go against another doctrine of conservative Christianity— the perspicacity of Scripture. A normal interpretation of Scripture would be that Habakkuk really had frustration with God, communicated with God, and wrote down his communication. This (under the mysterious process of inspiration) ended up being a part of Holy Scripture.
However, if one types in “verbal plenary inspiration” in one’s search engine, most of the nuance is missing. At least the ones I saw simply said that it meant that every word of the whole Bible is God’s chosen words and are equally Scripture. This may be perfectly fine but it makes no separation between what I believe VPI is supposed to entail and dictation.
Why would that be? After all, if one is so worried about having the correct nuance of concept to explain God’s role in the Holy Bible that one has to pull together three terms— each with a technical meaning that is much narrower than its normal meaning— one should not end up with explanations that are so vague.
My theory on this is that some Christian teachers/pastors/theologians are so worried about people not recognizing the canonicity or authority of Scripture that they just want to focus on God in it.
Well, I am not trying to trash this. I believe the Holy Bible is God’s words (noting that it is probably more accurate to say that Jesus is “God’s Word”). Verbal Plenary Inspiration, if properly utilized, is probably sound.
BUT AS IT IS USED, VPI IS SO MUCH LESS THAN HALF THE STORY
So suppose one accepts the Verbal Plenary Inspiration by God, there are some other things that are as important that need to be understood.
A. The Human Side of Scripture. Scripture is at the same time involves “Verbal Plenary Inspiration” from people. Every word (verbal) of the whole of Scripture (plenary) is chosen by human authors drawing from their own thoughts, feelings, and experiences (inspiration). This does not undermine the divine character of Scripture. It is the nature result of understanding that God did not dictate Scripture.
B. The Relational Side of Scripture. If God inspires humans to write down out of their own situations Scripture that is inspired by God, there is a back-and-forth quality to Scripture. Such writers almost always would recognize that they are acting in their saying and writing as guided by God. At the same time, they would also recognize that they are saying their own words. There is a give and take in the process. Consider something like the Gospel of John.
-John follows the leading of God.
-John hears God’s revelation and experience being a follower of Jesus.
-John reflects on these words and experiences
-John feels led to put down these words to serve as a blessing for the church.
-John’s words are authoritative as God’s revelation.
This sounds convoluted… yet if we see the Christian life as relational with God… I believe it is fair to say that much of what we do as a follower of Christ very much involves a complicated interaction with God.
C. The Cultural Side of Scripture. If God’s word comes through the complex interaction between God and humans who are culturally embedded, then Scripture is NOT supracultural, but is intimately cultural to the core. As such, one must address issues of culture in terms of people group, in terms of geography, in turms of time, in terms of class, caste, gender, and so forth. While some are uncomfortable with this, it is this very characteristic that allows us to experience God’s word in our culture. Otherwise, we must experience God’s word only through are becoming embedded in the culture the Bible existed in (2+ millennia ago). We continue to discover God today through his Word in our settings as a next step of the relational side of Scripture.
D. The Meaning Side of Scripture. While VPI focuses on the individual words of Sctipture, it is far more important (to me at least) that Scripture is inspired in meaning. The reason we can translate the Bible into different cultures and languages is because we can maintain the meaning in different settings, even though changing every single word in the process.
All of these four points are important and work together so that we are joined with the Bible, interacting with the stories of the Bible, and interacting with God in the process. This interaction does not require us to become a 6th century BC Jew, or a 1st century AD Hellenistic Gentile. It is important that the Holy Bible is a key form of Special Revelation for us… but the fact that it is authoritative in the original form because it has the words that God wants to be there… is far less than half the story.
