"Fundamentalism" and the Word of God.

Packer is writing from the 1950s when Christian Liberalism was raging and a common accusation against "Fundamentalists" was that they were obscurantists--they submitted reason to the dictates of a book, blindly accepting the authority of the Bible. He is careful in building his argument that Evangelicalism is the historical, orthodox Christian position and is rationally defendable. Although ultimately he parts ways with the term "Fundamentalist," opting for Evangelical, he acknowledges the champions of Biblical authority that Fundamentalists have been. Of course there are many issues with Fundamentalist ideas, but if all that is meant by Fundamentalist is ceding ultimate authority to Scripture, then Packer is on the same side as them.

Packer is intent on showing three things: (1) the Bible attests itself to be the Word of God, (2) Liberalism is not Christian, (3) Reason and faith are not in tension; some practice reason without faith, and others practice faith with reason.

A good companion to this slim volume would be J. Gresham Machen's Christianity and Liberalism, which spends cover to cover undercutting Liberal claims to the label Christian. Packer's discussion of faith and reason sounded vaguely Van Tillian; I'm not sure if he interacted much with Van Til's work or those of his successors, but the description of "reason" runs on the same path. Reason should not be construed as the final court of appeal, but instead as an instrument of our presuppositions. In more philosophical terms, our epistemology flows from our metaphysics. If we are to subject the authority of the Bible to reason, requiring that the Bible prove itself to be the Word of God using rational argumentation, then the authority of the Bible rests on the authority of reason and reason is in fact our ultimate authority. Not to say that evidentialist apologetics, like archeology or philosophical arguments, are useless, but they are lacking without a presuppositional anchor that makes sure they are being, in Van Til's words, "epistemologically self-conscious" Christians. The way we think about thinking is in fact a moral issue. If we are to surrender all things to God's Word and authority, our epistemology is an issue of submission as well.

I'll stop before this becomes a short article on presuppositional apologetics. Packer's historical contextualization of the differences between US and UK Evangelical landscapes, as well as a brief overview of the history of Liberalism, were useful. He does a good job showing how the Old Testament is considered the Word of God by the New Testament, but fails to do a very thorough job in regards to showing that the New Testament is also to be considered divinely inspired, without going into historical arguments based on pre-Nicene patristic sources. There is definitely a lot of holes to be filled, but at the same time the books is meant to be readable and accessible, and in terms of balancing readability and substance he has chosen the limits of his material well.

General Updates:

• Grabbing what has become a weekly lunch with Strasle at Metro Center.
• Brandon's in town for CI, staying with us at the Batcave, so I'll be hanging out with him this afternoon.
• All the staff are gone to the SBC this week, so the lay elders are hosting a Q&A time again instead of a bible study.
• You can actually watch the SBC live streaming online at http://www.316networks.com/sbc10/. I've found it fascinating.