In my series, “Textual Variants, Preservation of Scripture, and the Westminster Assembly,” I have shown how people and groups outside of scripture changed a truth of scripture, namely the perfect preservation of scripture. You can trace this occurring. Churches and church leaders in alignment with the authority of scripture believed, taught, and wrote confessions stating the providential perfect preservation of scripture for hundreds of years. That’s all they taught. Then it started to change, first with silence. The language about scripture changed according to outside, non-scriptural and unscriptural influences.
What occurred to the biblical and historical doctrine of preservation can serve as a test case or paradigm of wrong change (also in accordance with my series on “Steps in the Right Process for Belief Change”). I can’t emphasize enough how serious this is. Despite this, I would also predict that people will ignore or try to defend varied means of changing doctrine, making it malleable to human wants and desires. This is tell-tale today and aligning with what the Bible teaches about apostasy (see Peter’s second epistle on this). Can you or will you please pay attention to this bad occurrence?
Test Case for “The Truth”
Using the doctrine of preservation as the test case for the truth, I would like us, you and me, to explore the destructive practice of treating biblical truth as less than truth. To start, as part of a thought experiment, I want to establish that the Bible is truth, God’s Word is truth, like Jesus said in John 17:17. By saying that the Bible is truth, I am also saying that it is “the truth,” sort of like what someone says as a witness in court, “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” This is how God presents His Word, except with His not having anything greater than Himself on which to swear.
Saying the truth, God says, directly from Jesus in this case in Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” Scripture gives many other statements like this about its own preservation, which altogether teach the truth about the preservation of scripture, as believed and then declared in various creeds or confessions of the faith through the centuries. Godly men then backed and still do back these confessions with their own statements in other of their written material. They take the truth of the providential perfect preservation of scripture from the Bible.
“The Truth” Staying The Truth
People of God glean the teaching of verbal plenary preservation of the original language text of scripture from the Bible. What they write about preservation then is “the truth.” “The truth” stays “the truth.” It is “the truth” because it is from scripture, which is “the truth.” They write the truth based upon the Bible, quoting appropriate, applicable passages, and then continue to agree with the truth of the verbal plenary preservation for centuries.
I remember in college days singing a hymn, “The Bible Stands,” which first verse reads (click on link and read other stanzas):
The Bible stands like a rock undaunted
‘Mid the raging storms of time;
Its pages burn with the truth eternal,
And they glow with a light sublime.
“The truth eternal” — and then later generations of men start to change “the truth.” What is the basis of this change? It is not scripture.
Men begin changing “the truth” based upon what I have called “outside forces or influences.” Other men have attacked the stated doctrine based upon naturalistic reasons. Let me give a parallel. Jesus fed the 5,000. That is in the Bible. I’ve never seen a small lunch turned instantaneously into that gigantic a meal or even something just twice the size of the small lunch, and then with twelve baskets of food left over from what started as a small lunch. Jesus’ feeding of 5,000 is “the truth” because it is in the Bible. But outside forces or influences contradict the story.
Contradiction of Outside Forces
One, no one can turn a small lunch into a greater meal like the story in the gospels about Jesus’ feeding the 5,000. Two, no one has seen such an event, occurrence, or practice since Matthew wrote the story in his gospel. Three, small lunches don’t turn instantaneously into large amounts of food. A process must occur first. Science says this. Larger fish reproduce by laying eggs. The baby fish hatch, they grow. It takes time. Someone catches that many fish. Much effort goes into accumulating that many fish at one time and transporting it to Jesus at His event.
I haven’t even gotten to the bread. Grain planted, watered, grows, harvested, turned into flour, then mixed into dough, and baked into bread. I’m not going to keep going with the process, but none of the fish and bread for such a large group occur simultaneously. The disciples themselves at these events make note of that, that no one has that amount of food to feed such a great amount of people. And yet, scripture says it happened.
Empirical Verification Trumps Scripture
Peer reviewed studies based on research about the simultaneous appearance of such a large amount of bread and fish reject the biblical story. People read the studies. They spread the information. It starts having an effect on what people think of the biblical account. Instead of saying that this feeding occurred, they call it a metaphor or a myth. These are meta-truth and archetypal stories that reveal profound truths about how humans should live and navigate chaos. They are not “the truth,” but representations of useful psychological lessons.
If I ask, “Did Jesus feed the 5,000?” Some under the influence of these outside forces or influence could say:
It depends on what you mean by that question. I mean, not literally. They possess a higher order, functional truth that transcends simple empirical verification.
What “The Truth” Means
So, people who once saw the feeding of the 5,000 as “the truth,” now don’t see it that way. Or they redefine what “the truth” means and usually use more ambiguous language to describe what really happened. This is the same type of effect of the appearance of textual variants and then contradictions between handwritten copies of the New Testament. Men apply their formulation of scientific criteria to the manuscripts, based upon naturalistic presuppositions, similar to the evaluation of the feeding of the 5,000 story. The outside forces or influences to scripture came up with these in contention with preservation doctrine:
- Antiquity of the Witnesses (Oldest is best): Earlier manuscripts are generally preferred over later ones because they are closer to the original, allowing for fewer opportunities for errors to accumulate.
- Diversity of Extraction (Geographical spread): Readings supported by manuscripts from different, independent geographical regions (e.g., Alexandria, Rome, Syria) are preferred over those limited to a single region.
- Multitude of Witnesses (Weighted, not counted): While early, high-quality manuscripts are preferred, a reading that has a wide variety of independent early witnesses is stronger.
- The Harder Reading is Preferable (Lectio Difficilior): A reading that is more difficult to understand, grammatically awkward, or obscure is more likely to be original. Scribes tended to “smooth” or clarify difficult texts, not make them harder.
- The Shorter Reading is Preferable (Lectio Brevior): A shorter reading is generally preferred over a longer, more verbose one. Scribes were more likely to add explanatory notes or harmonize passages (leading to expansion) than to remove text.
All of these sound very, very smart, highly intelligent. Scripture says something different about itself than what it says about a solely human writing. These writings are inspired by God and then preserved by Him. Do these newly formulated scientific laws, that are used for all literature, change the biblical and historical doctrine of the preservation of scripture? Weren’t those declarations of biblical doctrine, “the truth”?
Forces or Influences Not Operating as The Truth
None of the above measures, which represent outside forces or influences, operate as the absolute truth. Neither do they correspond to what the Bible says about the preservation of itself, either what, why, or how God said He would preserve His Words. I’m choosing to use the doctrine or the truth of perfect preservation of scripture, providential preservation of scripture, or verbal plenary preservation of scripture as a test case of the thesis of this essay. Some have enunciated, “If God says it (meaning in His Word), then that settles it.” This mirrors what Jesus prayed to the Father in John 17:17.
What I’m writing here is a worldview issue. People treat the truth, the Bible, as something other than the truth. It is truth, but not “the truth.” In her book Total Truth, Nancy Pearcey explains that modern society has fractured truth into a two-story building, which fundamentally changes how people treat the Bible. She describes a cultural “fact/value split” that separates truth into two levels.
The Two-Story Concept
- The Lower Story (Facts): This level contains objective, public knowledge like science and math. It is considered “true for everyone” and is the only realm allowed in the public square.
- The Upper Story (Values): This level contains subjective, private beliefs like religion, morality, and personal preferences. Truth here is seen as “true for you, but not for me”.
How People Treat the Bible
Because of the above described split, Pearcey argues that many people, including Christians, have moved the Bible to the Upper Story. She describes this occurrence in the following ways:
- Privatized Faith: Christianity is treated as a set of personal feelings or “meaningful experiences” rather than objective truth about reality.
- Cultural Captivity: By keeping faith in the “Upper Story,” believers unintentionally make the Bible publicly irrelevant, allowing secular worldviews to dictate science, law, and politics.
- Fragmented Living: Christians often live “double lives,” using their brains for “Lower Story” work (science/business) and their hearts for “Upper Story” religion.
“Total Truth” Teaching
Pearcey’s core teaching is that Christianity is not just “religious truth,” but Total Truth — a comprehensive worldview that explains all of reality. She encourages Christians to tear down the “two-story” barrier and recognize that the Bible provides a framework for every subject, including art, science, and history. To liberate Christianity, believers must learn to think Christianly about all areas of life, moving faith back into the realm of objective, public truth. I use what Pearcey wrote, because I believe she says it, represents it, very well.
I would contend, however, that Pearcey violates regularly her own principles and I could illustrate. She likely treats the historical and biblical teaching of the perfect preservation of scripture as a “value” on what Pearcey calls “the upper story.” Maybe not and I hope not. However, people now deny this doctrine like they would the biblical story of the feeding of the 5,000 and then many other biblical and historical doctrines. “The truth” or the Bible becomes a casualty in people’s lives, very often propagated by professing Bible teachers. This is not the only attack, and perhaps I will come back with a second part of this to talk about other ways that people turn “the truth” into only “truth.”
More to Come