Creation Without Compromise

Signing the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978)

November 3, 2015November 3, 2015tvanraalte

Did they really sign it? That was my question.

What am I talking about? The question is: back in 1978 did the faculty of the Theological College of the Canadian Reformed Churches (now known as the Canadian Reformed Theological Seminary) actually sign the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy or not? Readers of this blog and of the Reformed Academic blog will realize that the matter of inerrancy was put back into debate last week. Some discussion occurred over at Reformed Academic, with the author now acknowledging graciously that some corrections were in order.

One of the blog comments that gave rise to the corrections stated that the faculty of CRTS had, back in 1978, signed the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. This statement put the words infallible and inerrant side by side, and stated, “We affirm the propriety of using inerrancy as a theological term with reference to the complete truthfulness of Scripture” (art. 13). Relevant to the topic of God’s creating work, the Statement also included this denial,

We deny that Biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields of history and science. We further deny that scientific hypotheses about earth history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture on creation and the flood (art. 12).

My question was whether the professors Jelle Faber, Heinrich Ohmann, and Lubbertus Selles actually signed the Statement. Here’s why: If you consult the online documents, the typed list of signatories includes these three names, but if you peruse the copies of signatures you cannot find theirs.

In the interests of good scholarship, I decided to pursue the matter further. Counting, I found approximately 240 signatures compared to about 350 typed names. With this information in hand, I emailed the archivist where the documents are stored—the library at Dallas Theological Seminary.

This kind librarian, Lolana Thompson, replied to me the same day. She explained that only the original signing sheets, signed by those who were present at the meeting in the Fall of 1978 at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare in Chicago, were included with the online scans. Those who signed later also sent in their signatures, but many of these pages were not scanned and put online, perhaps because some of them include only one signature. In January 1979 a typed list was made of all the signatories up to that time. This list included Faber, Ohmann, and Selles. She also kindly sent me a scan of their signatures, which we are hosting here. Now, without question, you can see the signatures for yourself.

It’s remarkable that all three full-time faculty members signed the statement. None of them thought that the term “inerrancy” was contrary to their own confession’s term “infallibility.” All of them were educated in the Netherlands, where debate about the historicity of Genesis 2–3 had occurred (the historical reality of the events and figures in these chapters was confirmed as a teaching of the Reformed Churches when J. G. Geelkerken was deposed in keeping with the decision of Synod Assen 1926). They weren’t ignorant of the implications of their signatures. Finally, all of them signed under the typed heading, “Theological College of the Canadian Reformed Churches.” In other words, they didn’t merely sign as individuals, but as faculty teaching at the churches’ institution. I’m thankful for their commitment and ours.

Hebrews 11:1-3 on Six-Day Creation

November 2, 2015October 26, 2015Jon Dykstra

This article, by Rev. Williamson, is reblogged with permission from The Aquila Report.

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Hebrews 11:1 gives us an inspired definition of true (saving) faith. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” According to this definition true faith (faith as God has defined it) is concerned with two categories of things: Hebrews 11 on 6 day

“things hoped for” and
“things not seen.”

Furthermore, according to this definition, faith is the source of assurance and conviction concerning both of these categories of things.

THINGS HOPED FOR

What, then, are some of the “things hoped for” in our Christian faith? To name a few:

The visible bodily return (parousia) of Jesus Christ.
The bodily resurrection of the dead.
The judgment of the whole human race.

Since God alone knows the future it is obvious that three these things (and any other future things) can be known by us in only one way. That way is by God telling us in words what is going to happen in the future. The most brilliant scientist cannot know anything at all about any of these three things in any other way than the way you and I can know them. Therefore he cannot speak with any more authority on these things than you or I can as Bible believing people

THINGS NOT SEEN

Parallel to “the things hoped for” which can only be known by faith, are “things not seen.” One such thing of great importance is the creation of the universe. Creation was not “seen” by human eyes. Adam was created last, on the sixth day, so even he wasn’t an eye-witness of these acts of creating. Therefore Adam himself — and all the rest of the human race — could only have reliable knowledge about God’s work of creation if he revealed such information to them in words.

He has revealed them to us in Genesis 1-2.

The most brilliant scientist has no access to information about creation beyond what God has said in the Bible. That is why Hebrews 11:3 says “by faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”

In other words, in both instances — with respect to future things and past things unseen by human observers — there is only one source of knowledge or understanding. That source is what God says in words in the Bible.

The most brilliant scientist is therefore brought down to the same humble level as any other person when it comes to assured knowledge of creation.

TWO THINGS TO REJECT

Since the truth about creation is found in the Bible alone, two things that are often said to stand in the way of believing in six-day creation must be firmly rejected. One is the claim that scientific evidence in the world itself proves that it is old (meaning that it took a long time to make it). The other claim is that one can hold on to biblical faith and yet allow for evolution.

1) We must reject claims that the world is old

When something is created instantly it has the appearance of age. This clearly seen in two of the miracles of Jesus: creating wine at the wedding feast at Cana, and creating food to feed the 5,000.

If it were possible to go in one of our imaginary ‘time machines’ to visit that wedding feast in Cana, and if a sample of that newly made wine could be taken and whisked back to the famous FBI forensic lab in Washington D.C., those world-renowned scientists would surely say that ‘it took at least 100 years to make wine of this quality.’

And they would be right if they were thinking it was wine made by the usual process! But that is just the point: this wine was not made by ‘the usual process’—it was made by the supernatural power of Jesus, with the appearance of age.

2) We must reject that evolution and the Bible are compatible

Evolution teaches us to believe that the things we see in the world today have evolved out of other things. It teaches that one thing can evolve out of another thing. But God says “that which is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”

When Paul stood on Mars Hill in Athens he knew he was facing a people who had once known the true God, but he also knew they did not like the God they originally knew. So they became foolish: turning away from God to worship and serve the creature instead of the creator (Rom. 1:25).

The Greeks had once honored a supreme God whom they called Zeus. But, as Aristophanes put it, “vortex drove out Zeus and came to reign in his place.” Vortex was a Greek name for ever-swirling change. I also read somewhere of a later Greek Philosopher who already said—2,000 years ago—that “the worm, striving to become man, mounts up through all the spires of form” (the equivalent of the modern idea of evolution). How true the wise words of Solomon who said “there is nothing new under the sun!” (Eccles. 1:9) What we face today, in our American culture, is the very same God-denying apostasy, in principle, that Paul faced on Mars Hill.

What we need today in Presbyterian and Reformed Churches is a new surge of faith as God himself has defined it—faith created in us by the word of the wonder-working God of creation as well as redemption.

Is this not the message of Psalm 33?

Let all the earth Jehovah fear
Let all that dwell both far and near
In awe before him stand.

For, lo, he spoke and it was done
And all, with sovereign power begun,
Stood fast at his command.

Conclusion: there is no good reason to abandon—or to qualify by ingenious means so as to water down or weaken—the straight-forward confession of the Westminster divines who said in the Westminster Confession of Faith 4:1, Larger Catechism Q/A 15, and Shorter Catechism Q/A 9, that God “created all things of nothing, in the space of six days, and all very good.”

G. I. Williamson is a retired minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, living in the Orange City, Iowa area. He is the author of study guides on the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Westminster Shorter Catechism, and the Heidelberg Catechism.

Knocking Down Straw Men is Too Easy

October 31, 2015October 31, 2015Wes Bredenhof

It has been some time since we have heard from the bloggers at Reformed Academic. Last week, however, a post finally appeared from Dr. Freda Oosterhoff. In this post, she is interacting with an article in Clarion written by Rev. Klaas Stam. She claims that Clarion refused to publish her response and so it now appears on Reformed Academic. The focus of her article is a critique of Henry Morris. Certainly some of what Morris writes is worthy of critique and my goal here is not to defend Morris. Instead, I want to interact with the last of her conclusions.

Dr. Oosterhoff writes, “It is high time, I am convinced, to issue warnings against an inerrantist view of the Bible, one that has, unfortunately, been much promoted among us in recent years.” Naturally, as one of those who has been promoting biblical inerrancy, I take note of her burden to warn against this. Dr. Oosterhoff and I will agree on this point: biblical inerrancy is at the heart of the present controversy in the Canadian Reformed Churches over whether there should be room for those who wish to hold to an explanation of man’s origins that might or does include biological evolution. Deny biblical inerrancy and the room is more likely to be created. Affirm biblical inerrancy and the room is not likely to be there for creation compromisers. Find out where someone stands on inerrancy and you can predict where they will likely fall on what can be taught or tolerated in terms of origins. This is obviously a vitally important issue.

Another point where I can agree is Dr. Oosterhoff’s last sentence in her article. She states there that we should not ignore the difficulties in this discussion nor cover them up with fallacious arguments. To do so is dangerous – and I absolutely agree. Because we are united to Jesus Christ (who is the Truth, John 14:6), it is incumbent on us to conscientiously avoid fallacious reasoning.

The irony is that Dr. Oosterhoff’s warning against “inerrantism” (as she calls it) employs a common informal fallacy: the fallacy of the straw man. She offers an extreme and uncharitable portrayal of inerrancy and then knocks it down with the “the traditional Reformed belief” in a Bible that is infallible (but not inerrant). She even says that infallibility is what “the traditional Reformed belief has always been,” implying that inerrancy has never featured in traditional Reformed theology. This is the way she defines the problem she is warning against:

Inerrantism on the other hand teaches the Bible is without any factual errors in the modern-scientific meaning of that term; that it contains no ‘mistakes’ in quotations, no ‘discrepancies’ in for example genealogies, and no ‘errors’ of memory, of grammar, of word choice, of historical information and description, and so on. According to inerrantists, the Bible can be proven to be accurate, again in the modern-scientific meaning of that term.

Dr. Oosterhoff provides no source for that description. She refers to no specific “inerrantist.” There are no footnotes to support these claims. She appears to be providing her own description of what proponents of inerrancy believe.

Now perhaps Dr. Oosterhoff can find some example of someone defining inerrancy in the sloppy way she described. However, I’m sure that Dr. Oosterhoff is aware of the Chicago Statement produced in 1978 and signed by over 200 theologians, including several from the CanRC. The Chicago Statement is still widely-recognized as the most precise and helpful definition of biblical inerrancy. In view of Dr. Oosterhoff’s portrayal of inerrancy, it is worthwhile to read carefully Article XIII of the Chicago Statement:

We affirm the propriety of using inerrancy as a theological term with reference to the complete truthfulness of Scripture.

We deny that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according to standards of truth and error that are alien to its usage or purpose. We further deny that inerrancy is negated by Biblical phenomena such as a lack of modern technical precision, irregularities of grammar or spelling, observational descriptions of nature, the reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyperbole and round numbers, the topical arrangement of materials, variant selections of material in parallel accounts or the use of free citations.

Dr. Oosterhoff’s portrayal of “inerrantism” simply does not line up with this – in fact, I would expect her to be able to agree to what the Chicago Statement says here about Scripture. Moreover, if you are compelled to warn people against inerrancy, you need a good definition of inerrancy, and what better place to find one than in the Chicago Statement?

But there is not only a problem with her portrayal of inerrancy. There’s also a problem on the other side of the equation, with her portrayal of “the traditional Reformed belief.” She says that our traditional belief is infallibility, and not inerrancy. Now I could multiply historical examples to prove that she is wrong. However, let me only refer to a highly-respected Reformed theological textbook from the seventeenth century, the Leiden Synopsis. The first volume of this has recently appeared in English translation, so readers can check it for themselves. We find Antonius Walaeus writing, “It is made clear to us that the authority of Holy Scripture is much greater than that of the Church by the fact that the Church is capable of erring while Scripture cannot” (71). Sometimes it is claimed that biblical inspiration or inerrancy only extends to doctrines. In other words, the core teachings of Scripture are inspired and even inerrant, but this does not apply to “peripheral” matters. This notion existed in the days of the Leiden Synopsis already and Walaeus had a ready answer in thesis 28:

And here one ought not to pay heed to Socinus and several other Christians who grant that Holy Scripture is divinely-originated in issues of special importance, but that its authors in situations and circumstances of lesser importance were abandoned by the Holy Spirit and could have erred. Because this opinion paves the way for contempt, and expressly contradicts Scripture which testifies that “everything that was written was written for our instruction (Romans 15:4), and “all Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16). Likewise, “no Scripture is of one’s own interpretation” (2 Peter 1:20); indeed, “not even one iota will disappear from the Law” (Matthew 5:18). “And it is not permitted for any man to add or to remove from it” (Deuteronomy 4[:2], Revelation 22[:18-19].” (69)

In a footnote, the editors of the Synopsis point out that besides Faustus Socinus, Walaeus noted elsewhere that Erasmus displayed “the same pernicious view.” We can do away with the flawed notion that biblical inerrancy has been smuggled into Reformed theology from fundamentalism. The traditional Reformed belief has long been an inerrant Bible. Yes, yes, I know about Rogers and McKim and their efforts to say otherwise. Their flawed research has been quite adequately answered by Richard Muller (in his Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics) and many others (see here for a bibliography).

This response has already become too long, but I need to raise one more point. Dr. Oosterhoff says that “According to inerrantists, the Bible can be proven to be accurate, again in the modern-scientific meaning of that term.” Here she paints with a broad brush. To which specific inerrantists is she referring? All of them? Some of them? Which ones? Certainly, I would grant that there are proponents of inerrancy who take such an approach, but they would generally not be Reformed. Reformed proponents of inerrancy like Dr. Greg Bahnsen have argued for a presuppositional approach. We do not prove the Bible to be accurate, but we believe it to be accurate because this is the way God himself describes it to us, it is the self-attestation of Scripture. Inerrancy is never a matter of proof, but of faith. It is not a matter of a conclusion reached by our reason, but a matter of faith accepting what God’s Word says about itself as our starting point. As I have pointed out before, even some Lutheran theologians have taken this approach to biblical inerrancy. Dr. Oosterhoff does not acknowledge that this presuppositional approach even exists and that again puts inerrancy in the worst possible light.

If Dr. Oosterhoff and her colleagues at Reformed Academic feel a burden to warn the Canadian Reformed Churches against biblical inerrancy, they will need to at least become familiar with the best arguments for biblical inerrancy, especially from Reformed theologians. Taking the weakest and sloppiest statements of inerrancy and demolishing them is easy and it scores points with sympathizers. However, we are those who are to “take every thought captive to Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5) and certainly that means we have to forsake all fallacious reasoning.

What I Learned From My Dutch Reformed Brethren

October 28, 2015October 26, 2015Jon Dykstra

In the Canadian Reformed Churches the question has come up, “Can we change our confessions?” and many assume the answer must be and emphatic “No!”
because the confessions must be unchangeable. But as this post, by Rev.Williamson, shows, that is not how the earlier Presbyterian churches viewed their confession.

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It was my privilege to serve as a pastor for nearly two decades with the Reformed Churches of New Zealand (or RCNZ). And it was during this time that they adopted the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) as one of the doctrinal standards of their Churches having authority equal to that of the Three Forms of Unity. And what has impressed me more and more over the years is not only the fact that these Dutch immigrants did this rather remarkable thing, but also showed quite clearly by their actions the integrity of that adoption.

It was not long after the WCF was adopted that one of the pastors who came from the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands lodged what they called a gravamen against Chapter 2
1:7-8 of the WCF. The pastor who brought that gravamen to his Session, then Presbytery, and finally Synod, was a man of integrity. He did not start publicly preaching or teaching ‘his’ view of the Lord’s Day/Sabbath. No, he had too much respect for the integrity of Confessional Subscription.

What he wanted was either the removal of 21:7-8, or a newly written replacement for that section of the WCF. So he sought it by refraining from publicly teaching or writing anything contrary to the Church’s adopted Confessional Standards, while working within the assemblies of the elders of the Churches to effect a change that he could agree with. I was opposed to his gravamen, but I respected very much the way that he dealt with this matter. We remained good friends during the time when this was adjudicated – and also after he left New Zealand to serve in a different Confessional context in Australia.

One of the things that left a deep impression on me was the fact that even though this was an issue that could have become a serious source of conflict, it did not. The reason was that an orderly course had been followed. And when the Synod (or what I would call the broadest assembly of the elders of the RCNZ) determined that the churches wished to uphold WCF 21:7-8, my friend did not even want to publicly teach or preach what was contrary to this. He sought, instead, a place in a church that had not adopted the WCF as the RCNZ had. And it is my conviction that we Presbyterians would profit by learning from this example.

In our earlier history, as I understand it, we Presbyterians had a similar concept and conviction. Let me give two examples:

The original text of the WCF 25:6 said “There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ. Nor can the Pope of Rome, in any sense, be head thereof: but is that Antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalteth himself, in the Church, against Christ and all that is called God.” I hope that everyone who reads this will understand that I am in complete agreement with the first part of this section of the WCF. But I am also thankful that the part which I have underlined, above, has been changed.I certainly believe that what the Scriptures say about the Antichrist has a valid application to the false claims of the Papacy. I also believe what II Thessalonians says about “the man of sin [or lawlessness]” can be applied—by the principle of analogy—against the Papacy. But I do not believe (as the authors of the WCF did) that the Papacy is what the apostles Paul and John specifically intended us to understand their words to mean. I am therefore in complete agreement with the deletion of the underlined words in the OPC and PCA version.
The original text of WCF 25:4b said “The man may not marry any of his wife’s kindred, nearer in blood than he may of his own: not the woman her husband’s kindred, nearer in blood than of her own.” It is my recollection that Professor John Murray defended this original section of the WCF. But my interest here is to point out that in earlier times Presbyterians saw it as important to either agree with their Confession or change it so that it says in plain, understandable words, what the church actually believes. When they no longer held this view it too was deleted. And it is this integrity that I wish we could recover.

I have noted several instances, lately, in which the great Herman Bavinck has been cited in support of the assertion that no creed has as yet made six-day creation a confessional doctrine. And it is true that Dr. Bavinck not only admitted that historically “Christian theology, with only a few exceptions, continued to hold onto the literal historical view of the creation story” but then went on to say “not a single confession made a fixed pronouncement about the six-day continuum…” I have the highest respect for Herman Bavinck and am thankful, at last, to have my hands on his great work of Dogmatics in English. But even great men make mistakes. And the fact is that on this he was not correct. The Westminster Assembly of Divines did make a fixed pronouncement about the six-day continuum. They said in the WCF, and again in both the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, that God—by the word of his power—created “all things visible and invisible, in the space of six days.” And that they intended this to mean what our children take it to mean when they learn the shorter catechism, has been clearly demonstrated by Dr. David Hall.

I (and other six-day creation people) have been accused of wanting to excommunicate Hodge, Warfield and Machen because of their willingness to tolerate views such as the day-age view. This is a false charge. Did Luther and Calvin want to excommunicate Augustine because they found error in his teaching? Wasn’t the Reformation itself a liberation from blind obedience to false tradition—even if that false tradition was sometimes embraced by truly great men? I therefore refuse to be silenced by this sort of tyranny, and insist on my right to say that a serious mistake was made in the way this issue was handled by some truly great men. I think it should have been handled in the same way the two examples cited above [1 and 2] were handled.

Men who did not hold to the six-day view (so clearly expressed in the three Westminster Standards) should have been required to refrain from public teaching or preaching their different views unless and until those sections of the WCF and Catechisms were either removed or rewritten. I say this because I think it is a serious failure on the part of the eldership of the church to teach our children one thing (in the catechism) while the preacher teaches another thing. Had this restraint been required those who do not agree with six-day creation would have seen it as their duty to remain silent (in public utterance and writing on the subject) while they made diligent study in order (in private) to formulate what they had come to believe to be the truth in order to bring it before their Session, Presbytery and General Assembly, seeking a change in the Westminster Standards.

Had this been done it is possible that the church would have finally been persuaded that one or another of the various views was correct. Then the doctrinal standards could have been changed to clearly state the other view. Or at least it might have resulted in the church simply removing the sections of the WCF and Catechisms that say God created the world “in the space of six-days.”

As it is at present we have, in effect, taken on a new method of Confessional revision. We no longer insist that our Confession and Catechisms unambiguously state what we as a church unitedly believe, so that the words of our confession themselves are subordinately authoritative (meaning that while they can be changed when appropriate, as Scripture cannot, they nevertheless must be adhered to unless changed by due process). Now the doctrinal authority seems more and more to reside in whatever the majority is willing to allow, rather than in the words of the Confessions and Catechisms taken according to their intended and long-received meaning.

I think the brethren who brought the Dutch Reformed heritage to New Zealand exhibited something better than ‘our way’ of dealing with our subordinate standards, and we would do well to learn from their example.

Concerning the Genetic Fallacy

October 26, 2015October 26, 2015Rev. Jim Witteveen

Logical fallacies abound in public discourse. Spend a bit of time watching or listening to political discussions. If you have some knowledge of logic, and logical fallacies, you may near the point of doing violence to yourself or others due to your frustration at the lack of simple logic that is often evidenced in such conversations. And due to a widespread ignorance of the basics of logic, these fallacies often go completely unnoticed.

The same holds true for the issue of origins, and the ongoing discussion about creation and evolution, the relationship between Scripture’s account and the findings of science. One logical fallacy continues to rear its ugly head, being raised again and again, as if repeating the argument will make it less fallacious. This fallacy is known as the genetic fallacy.

What is the genetic fallacy? When someone points to the origin of an argument or arguer, and draws the conclusion that the argument must be right, or wrong, based on its origin, the genetic fallacy is being committed. For example, we could argue in this way:

That man told me that the sun is shining.
That man was once committed to a psychiatric institution because of delusional thinking.
Therefore, that man must be wrong, and the sun is not in fact shining.

The genetic fallacy has become evident in a couple of ways in the current discussion. First of all, the claim is made that the modern “creationist” movement has its roots in Seventh-Day Adventism. Of course, this is not the sole argument that is employed to encourage suspicion of “creationists” among people who are not Seventh-Day Adventists. But it is an argument that is used to buttress the idea that “creationism” is not “Reformed.” Obviously, this argument only makes sense when it’s being addressed to people who are members of Reformed churches; it would make no sense to use this argument when speaking with, say, a Seventh-Day Adventist! Here’s the argument:

The “creationist” movement was begun by Seventh-Day Adventists.
Seventh-Day Adventists are not a reliable source of theological truth.
Therefore, as Reformed Christians, we must reject anything that smacks of “creationism.”

The second way in which the genetic fallacy has been employed in the discussion has happened when well-known and respected Reformed theologians have been cited as allowing for varying interpretations of the Genesis account of creation, and granting room for people to believe that God used an evolutionary process to form the universe. Again, this is one of several arguments that are often used in tandem. But the intended impact of this combination of arguments is to cast doubt on the “Reformed-ness” of a denial of evolution (be it theistic evolution, Darwinian evolution, or “progressive creation”). Therefore, the argument goes like this:

Dr. Johannes VanHolland, the famous Reformed theologian (or, Dr. Angus McDuncan, the famous Presbyterian theologian) allowed that belief in evolution is not incompatible with belief in Scripture, and that the correct interpretation of the Genesis account does not necessarily mean we must reject the idea that the universe came into existence through a long process of gradual change.
Dr. Johannes VanHolland (like his eminent and renowned Scottish counterpart) is a respected Reformed theologian, whose work has greatly impacted the Reformed Church until this very day.
Therefore, arguing that evolution is absolutely incompatible with Scripture and should be wholeheartedly rejected is not Reformed.

What’s wrong with these arguments? First of all, they are not necessarily true. Long before there was even such a thing as a Seventh-Day Adventist, Reformed and Presbyterian theologians strongly upheld the understanding that the correct understanding of Scripture requires us to hold to a literal creation week and a historical Adam and Eve. While Seventh-Day Adventists may have been active in the Twentieth-Century “creationist” movement, they are far from being the originators of the movement. Furthermore, it has been shown repeatedly that the Reformed theologians whose arguments are often used by those who wish to allow for evolution have often been misunderstood and misrepresented.

In the second place, when it comes right down to it, while the origin of an argument will have some bearing on our personal inclinations to accept or reject it, it has nothing whatsoever to do with its truth or falsity!

As a minister of the Word, I write sermons. When I write sermons, I use commentaries as part of my research. Those commentaries vary in quality and usefulness, and they also vary widely in terms of their origin. For example, I am currently preaching a series of sermons on 1 Corinthians. For this series, I’m using commentaries by David E. Garland (who received his Ph.D from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), (Richard Hays, an ordained United Methodist minister), Ben Witherington III (also a United Methodist minister), Craig Blomberg, who teaches at Denver Seminary in Colorado, and is involved in something called the “Scum of the Earth Church”(!), and John Calvin, who you may have heard of.

My point is this: if I were to succumb to the genetic fallacy, I would reject what most of these men write out-of-hand. What have I, as a Reformed pastor, to do with Southern Baptists, United Methodists, and non-denominational churches with strange names? But the fact is, to varying degrees, the commentaries written by each of these men are all very helpful in their own way. While I reject a number of these New Testament scholars’ theological views, they offer some very helpful insights into the passage of Scripture. To reject their conclusions outright based upon their point of origin (or, conversely, to accept all of John Calvin’s conclusions uncritically because I am, after all, a Calvinist) is to commit the genetic fallacy.

The key is to read, and listen, critically. Sure, when you’re listening to a friend, you will not be as “on guard” about what they’re telling you as you would if you were listening to a stranger. But when it comes to theological matters, we always have a foundation to go back to – God’s Word. If John Calvin (or any other theologian, for that matter) said something, it may or may not be correct; all theologians are human after all. But God’s Word is true and trustworthy, and what matters most is not the person who made a particular argument, but whether or not it agrees with God’s Word.

Let’s be on guard against logical fallacies. When the genetic fallacy is used, we should be aware of that use, and make our judgments about the arguments we hear using Scripture as our final and ultimate authority.