The Burning Bush - Far Eastern Bible College

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The Burning Bush 16/1 (January 2010)God did not inspire other books not in the Protestant Canon if we acceptthe premise that all God did was inspire the Words, leaving the rest tohumanity to determine autonomously from God. With thispresuppositional approach, we lose any ability to determine what isinspired and what is not. Indeed, if we believe God was involved how dowe determine how much He was involved and if He stopped beinginvolved or was only imperfectly preserving, when did He stop beingfully involved? The Scriptures teach that God sovereignly works in timeto control revelation (Gal 4:4; Eph 1:10). The God of history andScripture is not an absentee landlord. He alone gets the glory forpreservation and no liberal scholar.With respect to an evidential approach, all McCune, at best, can becertain about is that his reconstruction of a text replicates the majorityopinion of a group of third century manuscript copies. Beyond that he isas uncertain and lost as anyone else. His supposed objective scientificapproach represents a serious mischaracterisation of reality. Neither theCT advocates, nor the TR advocates, have extant manuscripts that bridgethe first three to four hundred years of the Church. Unless McCune andhis colleagues at DBTS have dug up the originals in Michigan, they arealso left to adopt a faith-based presuppositional approach. The essentialdifference is that they base their bridging presuppositions on rationalisticones; independent of biblical promises. As Reformed writer, DouglasWilson opines,But when we consider the facts carefully, nothing is more apparent than thatthis is actually a battle of the paradigms. In some respects, this is very muchlike the reconstruction of the evolutionary fossil tree, 98 percent of which ismissing. When we consider all the manuscripts we possess, we must stillcompare them to the number of all the manuscripts ever written—which wedo not have. This is a scholarly task outside the competence of science, andany attempt to submit the task to scientific canons will only result inincreasing confusion. A process of scholarly reconstruction here makessense only when undergirded with faith in the living God who controls theflow of all historical events. If, in order to be “scientific,” we eliminate thisGod from our considerations, the end of the road will be no text at all, orradical confusion about the text. The autonomous text critic is someonewho believes that this problem of the original text is one which admits of ascientific solution. But the real solution to this problem is faith in God, andin His providential care for His Word. 350
ROLLAND MCCUNE’S TEACHING ON BIBLE PRESERVATIONMost CT advocates, like McCune, believe that the key doctrines orthe original text are preserved somewhere among the variants, but theyhave no logical or scientific reason to believe so. No matter how theyfinesse it, their belief is predicated more on sentimentality as they haverejected any Biblical exegetical basis for assuming perfect preservation.No accumulation of sardonic putdowns or intellectual gymnastics canconceal this fact from the discerning reader. Textual critical argumentspresuppose that man can approach the knowledge of God’s Words as ifman is morally neutral. It is predicated on the idea that man has anunaided intrinsic ability to reach knowledge of God’s Words in makingtextual choices and conjectural emendations. However, any attempt toseparate faith and reason is doomed to failure, as this constructionviolates Scripture (Rom 1:18; 1 Cor 10:31).Since no one is viewpoint neutral and everyone has presuppositions,why does McCune want to exclude Biblical presuppositions on the issueof the preservation of the text? Does he really believe in the myth of a“secular, academic, religiously-neutral hermeneutic” in criticism?Unbelief in the promises of Scripture is a sin and even believers can beguilty of it by being “fools, and slow of heart to believe all that theprophets have spoken” (Luke 24:25-27). The devil managed to persuadeEve that God’s Word was not to be trusted over our autonomous reason.It should be noted he came professing to offer a way to “real” truth andhappiness. All attempts to be wise outside of God’s Word hasshipwrecked many seminaries and churches. McCune (and DBTS) needto return to the biblical presupposition that the Church, as the pillar andground of the truth, is entrusted with the New Testament Words, as theJews were with the Old Testament oracles of God. We must hold theBiblical worldview without reservation or we are doomed to perpetualuncertainty. McCune has sought to blunt the Sword of the Spirit by hisnon-acceptance of its sufficiency for all truth. Instead, we should followthe approach of men like A W Pink who commented,Man craves for certainty. Speculations and hypotheses are insufficientwhere eternal issues are at stake. When I come to lay my head upon mydying pillow, I want something surer than a “perhaps” to rest it upon. Andthank God I have it. Where? In the Holy Scriptures. I know that myRedeemer liveth. I know that I have passed from death unto life. I know thatI shall be made like Christ and dwell with Him in glory throughout the51
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