Warfield was eager to go deeper and uncover the length and depth of the teaching of Christ and the biblical writers. It is here in particular that we are treated to a gold mine of exegetical grist for our theological mill. He scours the claims of the prophets and the teaching of Jesus and his apostles to demonstrate a robust confidence in Scripture as (as Warfield enjoyed stating it) “God’s word written.” He demonstrates at length that the famous cumulative assertions of 2 Timothy 3:16–17 and 2 Peter 1:19–21 (chapter 6) are but condensed summaries of a doctrine we would be forced to embrace even without them.

The leading doctrines of the Christian faith each have become identified with historical figures who provided definitive statement. The doctrines of the Trinity and the two natures of Christ, for example, are forever linked to the Nicene fathers. The doctrine of sin is likewise linked with Augustine, the doctrine of atonement with Anselm, and so on. In each case these theologians made no claim of originality, but they did provide the church with explications of their respective doctrines that have proven of lasting value. These were watershed moments. In this same way, for more than a century all discussion of the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture has inevitably been linked with Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield. All sides acknowledge that no investigation of the doctrine is complete without due consideration of the works of this giant of old Princeton Seminary. Indeed, for all the countless volumes that have been written since Warfield, little new has been added.

Warfield wrote no single book on the subject. His voluminous works are scattered over scores of essays in theological journals and Christian periodicals of various sorts, the most important of which are collected and published in P&R’s Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (IAB). Here we are treated to Warfield’s landmark exposition and defense of “the church doctrine of inspiration.”

“The Church Doctrine”

That Warfield’s doctrine was, in fact, “the church doctrine” of inspiration was a point he was eager to press. He offered nothing new, simply an unprecedentedly thorough articulation of what the church had always believed. Warfield’s career landed in the heyday of old liberalism’s higher criticism, and it was to this new undermining of Scripture’s trustworthiness that Warfield rose to respond—at great length and with much vigor, I might add. But given this prevailing context of unbelief, some had charged that the high doctrine of inspiration that Warfield (and old Princeton Seminary generally) defended was one he had in fact invented. As you will read in chapter two of IAB, Warfield amassed the evidence to demonstrate that his was “the church doctrine,” the shared conviction of the church in all its branches from the very beginning.

Indeed, Warfield presses the question further. Just how do we explain the fact that this doctrine was held by all Christians from the beginning?

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