1871–1983

The Infallibility of Scripture: The Princeton School, Fundamentalism and the Evangelical Debate on Inerrancy

The Princeton theologians (Hodge, Warfield) defended the infallibility of the Bible against its critics. Warfield taught dual authorship: the Bible is wholly the Word of God and wholly the word of man, hence the "verbal inspiration" of every word, but not dictation. The five "fundamentals" proclaimed at Niagara Falls (1895) and the twelve volumes of The Fundamentals (1910–1915) made inspiration and infallibility the measure of orthodoxy for the conservative evangelical coalition. In the 1970s American evangelicals debated whether the Bible is also true in matters of science and geography; the Chicago Statement affirmed that Scripture is "true and reliable in all the matters it addresses." Carl Henry understood revelation as rational and propositional, while Bernard Ramm and G. C. Berkouwer shifted the emphasis to Christ and to the purpose of Scripture.