For those of you who are interested in evangelical scholarship, or who follow my blog regularly, Westminster’s recent agreement with
Peter Enns comes as no surprise.
Westminster Theological Seminary has agreed that Enns is still an evangelical, and Enns has agreed to
leave. As a confessional school, I don’t see that Westminster has much choice. But simply dismissing Enns will not end Enns’ legacy, nor change the vast numbers of evangelicals who either follow Enns, or agree in some respects with Enns’ views on inspiration. Now, we lack the time and space to again recount Enns’ ideas, especially those found in
“Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament”. But I would like to discuss something of the thinking framework behind Enns’ work.
It began with a conversation with my friend Daniel, who is a student at Westminster. We were discussing the Enns’ situation, and I commented that I did not think Enns’ thought-structure fit inside any of the evangelical epistemologies. (Side note: another discussion for another post, but there have been scores of differing, and sometimes conflicting, epistemologies within evangelicalism and broader Christianity. My argument was as follows:
1. All the decent seminaries are denominational or operate under strict confessions (TEDS maybe being the only odd-man out. Although Wheaton is not denominational per say, they remain one of the confessionally strictest schools), all of which presuppose a certain epistemic perspective to the exclusion or marginalization of others.
2. Enns does not fit in any of these epistemic camps.
3. Ergo, Enns will not teach at a decent seminary.
Dan doesn’t formulate arguments, he presents ideas (I tend to think like an engineer, Dan thinks like…nobody else I know. He presents idea shapes), and he proposed that Enns was part of a Kuhn-like scientific
revolution. An interesting perspective indeed. This conversation led me to examine Enns’ thoughts more deeply.
Now, most theologians, scholars, teachers, etc. are dogmaticians. That is to say, rather than think carefully about a theological proposition, they respond with their particular denomination’s canned answer. So, I have taken to analyzing theological positions on my own, using a simple formula that I learned in school. Take a person’s argument, and logic-program it. This creates a cascade of causality until eventually you reach a supposition that is sans-antecedent. These suppositions represent an argument’s foundation: they are the world-view from which an argument is born. This tactic yields interesting results.
Applying this method to Enns’ work revealed a certain presupposition about human development. Enns seems to presuppose that humans evolved, at least intellectually, culturally, and theologically, if not physically. His entire argument hinges on God accommodating himself to man to make His truth known. Now, don’t get me wrong. Enns’ work and argument is very good. Enns is a world-class scholar whom I have always enjoyed reading. But, his work is as limited as its perspective (as all works are). If we begin with a different presupposition, then Enns’ work comes crashing down, or at least sags a bit in the middle. And that is precisely why Westminster is dismissing him. Westminster, along with probably the majority of evangelicals, have a different worldview and presupposition. Here’s an interesting thought exercise: what if man
began more intelligent than he is now? What if the historical revelation of theology was rooted not in God reaching out more and more to a more highly evolved specie, but in God revealing more and more of Himself to an increasingly depraved and intellectually challenged race? What if we are devolving? Well, that would change theology. Drastically.
Ad Fontes!
