[N. T.] Wright affirms that the faith to which he subscribes is naturalistic, working within ordinary human processes and caring nothing for “doctrinal permits or passports to salvation.” It would also seem that Wright has come to the same conclusion as Enns—doctrines such as plenary inspiration and special creation are not inconsequential side issues, but are fundamentally incompatible with the God he follows.

Former Biologos fellow Pete Enns has recently written a blog post entitled, “You and I Have a Different God, I Think.” Enns relates how he has come to the conclusion that the differences between himself and his conservative counterparts extend far beyond minor issues in biblical interpretation. He has come to see that these differences have at their root two distinct and mutually incompatible ideas of God. Could he be right?

Consider Enn’s statement:

I think we have a different God. […] That God does not hesitate to participate in the human drama, to encounter humanity within the limits of the human experience. That means that biblical writers wrote about the God they encountered as they understood him within their cultural limitations. True encounter with God, expressed in truly human, cultural, terms).

The God Enns believes in “does not hesitate to participate in the human drama, to encounter humanity within the limits of the human experience.” This would seem to indicate he doesn’t believe in a God who supernaturally inspired his penmen in ways transcending their cultural limitations in order to produce a unified, inerrant Scripture.

Enns explains more of his position a couple of paragraphs later: [Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]

And the Gospel certainly does not teach me that God is up there, at a distance, guiding the production of a diverse and rich biblical canon that nevertheless contains a single finely-tuned system of theology that he expects his people to be obsessed with “getting right” (and lash out at those who don’t agree).

Enns bases his concept of revelation on “the Gospel.” This could refer to the ideas in his book Inspiration and Incarnation, in which he sets up an analogy between these doctrines resulting in an “inspired” Scripture that is nonetheless laced with flawed ANE mythology. Sadly, Enns never quite does justice to the reality that, thanks to an unprecedented miracle, the eternal Son of God took on sinless human flesh; likewise, supernaturally-inspired Holy Scripture is entirely without error.

Or, Enns might be speaking more generally of “the Gospel” as an ill-defined trump card that can be used to validate ideas without having to harmonize them with the whole counsel of God. If so, he would not be the first left-leaning evangelical to do so. As a random example,

“evangelical” LGBT advocacy group Affirmation Scotland holds “the essence of the Gospel” as the basis for their championing of homosexual ministers in the Church of Scotland, while at the same time warning that “…the literal imitation of Biblical injunctions has caused mayhem in history”

Such a maneuver is only possible if you already assume that the Bible does not contain a unified system of theology by which the gospel is itself defined and its implications clearly spelled out.

In any case, Enns explains that “the Gospel” of his religion does not teach him that “God…expects his people to be obsessed with ‘getting right’ (and lash out at those who don’t agree).” Enns’ God is not overly concerned whether his people get it right or wrong, and would never condone things like robust polemic discourse or disciplining those who teach erroneous doctrine. The God of the Bible, however, speaks in rather different terms:

“…there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies” (2 Pet 2:1).

“…rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith” (Tit 1:13).

“…you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate. Repent, or else I will come to you quickly and will fight against them with the sword of My mouth” (Rev 2:15-16).

“I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith” (Jude 1:3).

“O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge” (Tim 6:20-21).

There is a vast difference between these two attitudes towards truth, and it supports Enns’ larger thesis—the same God could not possibly be the author of both.

The Biologos website also has some recent commentary by N. T. Wright that reasons along similar lines:

God is not a celestial information service to whom you can apply for answers on difficult questions. Nor is he a heavenly ticket agency to whom you can go for moral or doctrinal permits or passports to salvation. He does not stand outside the human process and merely comment on it or merely issue you with certain tickets that you might need. Those views would imply either a deist’s God or a legalist’s God, not the God who is revealed in Jesus Christ and the Spirit. And it must be said that a great many views of biblical authority imply one or other of those sub-Christian alternatives

Wright affirms that the faith to which he subscribes is naturalistic, working within ordinary human processes and caring nothing for “doctrinal permits or passports to salvation.” It would also seem that Wright has come to the same conclusion as Enns—doctrines such as plenary inspiration and special creation are not inconsequential side issues, but are fundamentally incompatible with the God he follows.

We should work through these implications at least as carefully as Enns and Wright. What if our God acted immediately in special creation and speaks transcendently through inspired Scripture, whereas the god Biologos proclaims worked through uniform natural causation in theistic evolution and speaks through a culture-bound collection of fallible human writings?

I suppose we would have to admit that Enns is right: these must be two different gods we are talking about. If so, it would be disastrous to allow the teachings of the wrong one to infiltrate our church. We would therefore do well to heed J. Gresham Machen’s sound counsel in Christianity and Liberalism: “Every man must decide upon which side he will stand. God grant that we may decide aright!” (p. 150).

Dr. William M. Schweitzer is a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America and is the church planting minister of Gateshead Presbyterian Church in England. He is the author of God is a Communicative Being: Divine Communicativeness and Harmony in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards (T&T Clark, 2012).