We come now to one of the more “sensational” statements in Turretin’s Bibliology. It is sensational at least for the current ecclesiastical climate because of where he claims the purity of the Bible resides. Turretin’s argument here is very different than the standard argument for the originals. Take for instance the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy which reads in Article IV,

“We affirm that the whole of Scripture and all its parts, down to the very words of the original, were given by divine inspiration.”

Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, Article IV

Here the CSI means by original those documents written at the hand of the original penmen [e.g., Moses, David, Luke etc.] by immediate inspiration. This language is in keeping with B.B. Warfield and A.A. Hodge. Looking at Turretin I think you will notice the difference. Turretin says regarding the originals,

“By the original texts, we do not mean the autographs written by the hand of Moses, of the prophets and of the apostles, which certainly do not now exist. We mean their apographs which are so called because they set forth to us the word of God in the very words of those who wrote under the immediate inspiration of the Holy Spirit.”

Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology vol. 1, Second Topic, Q. 10, Sec. II.

So then to rephrase the question in the title, Turretin is asking, “Have the copies of the Old and New Testament come down to us pure and uncorrupted.” To which he answers, “Yes.” And why is this? Because the copies, the apographs, “set forth to us the very word of those who wrote under the immediate inspiration of the Holy Spirit.” So where the CSI speaks of the originals as those written by Moses, the Reformers clearly state above that “we do not mean the autographs.” Instead, Turretin speak of the copies as the originals because they have come down to us in the very words of the inspired penmen. On this point, Richard Muller observes a sundering between the way the Protestant orthodox argue for the originals and they way Warfield, Hodge, and the current evangelical academia argue for it. Muller writes,

“A rather sharp contrast must be drawn, therefore, between the Protestant orthodox arguments concerning the autographa and the view of Archibald Alexander Hodge and Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield. This issue must be raised because of the tendency in many recent essays to confuse the two views.”

Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: Holy Scripture, 414, n. 192.

Muller writes in another place,

“The orthodox do, of course, assume that the text is free of substantive error and, typically, view textual problems as of scribal origin, but they mount their argument for authenticity and infallibility without recourse to a logical device like that employed by Hodge and Warfield.”

Muller, Holy Scripture, 415.

In sum, the Standard Sacred Text position and those like it hold to a different view than the modern critical text evangelical. Where the former claim the original to be the apographa which gives to us the very words of the autographa, the latter claims the original to be the autographa and the autographa alone. We here at StandardSactedText.com hold to the former along with the Protestant church who held to this belief for hundreds of years amidst the rise and fall of critical theories (e.g., JEPD, The Search for the Historical Jesus, Form Criticism, Redaction Criticism, Lower Criticism, CBGM etc.] We are not looking for the original text nor are we looking for the initial text. This is because we believe we have the original in the apographa of the Greek and Hebrew. And from this apographa we get the King James Bible.

As part of our Bibliology Primer we now turn to Francis Turretin’s seventh question in which he asks, “Has any canonical book perished? We deny.” He goes on explain that the Scriptures can be spoken of as canonical in two respects: “either for the doctrine divinely reveled or for the sacred books in which it is contained.” In this question Turretin addresses the latter of the two. He does so by offering six arguments which we here at StandardSacredText.com believe are relevant even today in the modern western discussion of text and canon. Turretin’s first argument is as follows,

“Proof is derived. (1) from the testimony of Christ ‘it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail’ (Lk. 16″17; cf. Mt. 5:18).

Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology vol. 1, Second Topic, Q. VII, Sec IV.

Note Turretin’s marshalling of Like 16:17 and Matthew 5:18. We are told now-a-days that Jesus was speaking in an oriental hyperbole at this point. He could not have meant that literally. And yet it is the historical orthodox position that Jesus did indeed mean this literally. As asked in other posts, Were the Reformers aware of textual variants? Yes. Where they aware of differing manuscripts? Yep. Even with these facts before them they still took jot and tittle to mean jot and tittle. Turretin goes on to explain,

“But if not even one tittle (or the smallest letter) could fail, how could several canonical books perish.”

Turretin, Institutes, vol. 1, Second Topic, Q. VII, Sec IV.

Notice here how he moves from the parts to the whole. This is what we call a synechdochic relationship where the part speaks for the whole and the whole speaks for the part. Here Turretin, because of the testimony of Scripture, is so certain of the part that he is able to make a canonical claim. Who in modern Protestant academia would attempt such a feat? Currently the modern American church is not sure of the parts and that is why they speak in percentages – we are sure of 94% of the Bible or 98% of the Bible or the words of God are either in the text of the apparatus. These claims cannot begin with the parts and then conclude which books are canonical. Rather we live in a time where scholars begin with the canonical books and then tell us we have most of the parts.

Turretin goes on to his second arguments by writing,

“(2) From the declaration of Luke and Paul: neither could Luke have made mention of all the prophets and of all the Scriptures (Lk. 24:27), if any portion of them had perished.”

Turretin, Institutes, vol. 1, Second Topic, Q. VII, Sec IV.

He goes on.

“…nor could Paul have asserted that ‘whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning’ (Rom. 15:4), unless they supposed that all the writings of the Old Testament existed.”

Turretin, Institutes, vol. 1, Second Topic, Q. VII, Sec IV.

Here we see in both proof one and two that Turretin begins his argument by allowing the Scripture to tell us about itself. He does not first turn to the manuscript evidence of his time or the authority of the academic elites. He simply states what the Bible says and then believes and argues that. Kind of like what we do here at StandardSacredText.com? Note further that Turretin does no seem to be referencing here the LXX, a translation of the Old Testament. Rather it seems that he understands Luke and Paul to be speaking directly of the Hebrew Old Testament.

From the exegetical arguments Turretin then turns to the theological arguments beginning with the providence of God. Turretin writes,

“(3) From the providence of God perpetually keeping watch from the safety of the church (which cannot be conceived to have allowed her to suffer so great a loss).”

Turretin, Institutes, vol. 1, Second Topic, Q. VII, Sec V.

Interestingly enough here Turretin connects the preservation of the canon to the safety of the church. In modern terms, the work of higher and lower textual criticism is not merely a discipline unto itself as if these can be done apart from affecting the safety of the church. Indeed, it cannot. Textual criticism and the safety of the church go hand in hand. The atheist understands this. The Muslim understands this. But it does not appear that many Christian academics understand this. Is the church now safer and healthier because once they have been taught oldest, shortest, and hardest is best or that the CBGM is the answer? The burden of proof rests with the critical camp and they have yet to satisfy that burden.

“(4) From the duty of the church which is religiously to preserve the oracles of God committed to her and to search them diligently.”

Turretin, Institutes, vol. 1, Second Topic, Q. VII, Sec V.

All we are doing here is carrying on this centuries long belief that it is Spirit of God by the word of God speaking to the people of God by faith. Here Turretin puts that as God has given the church the duty to religiously preserve the Bible – not scholarship, not the academy, not the publisher. This is a God ordained church duty, a religious duty, a duty which demands theological a prioris. The moment textual criticism became an issue of evidence and manuscript traditions is the moment the discipline of textual criticism strayed from orthodoxy and from the teaching of Scripture (Is. 59:21).

“(5) From the purpose of the Scripture which was committed to writing as a canon of faith and practice even to the consummation of ages which could not be obtained, if (by the loss of some canonical books) a mutilated and defective canon (or rather no canon at all) has been left to the church.”

Turretin, Institutes, vol. 1, Second Topic, Q. VII, Sec V.

Here we see the potential catastrophes Turretin would not allow for. For Turretin and for us here at StandardSacredText.com, if the church lost a canonical book or if the canonical books were mutilated or defective then we, the church, could not obtain a canon of faith and practice. So while the missing of whole book would be catastrophic to Christian faith and practice it would be equally as catastrophic to Christian faith and practice if one book of the Christian canon were mutilated or defective i.e., the existence of doctrinally significant errors which average to about 14 per book of the New Testament.

Before moving to the sixth and final argument I think it is good to observe that Turretin here does not begin his presentation with evidence or the manuscript tradition or textual methodology. No, first he begins with what the Bible says about itself and then he moves to theological conclusions. Only after these does he employ historical evidence when he writes,

“(6) From the practice of the Jews; because no more canonical books of the Old Testament were acknowledge by them than by us, nor copied in the Targums, nor translated in the Septuagint.”

Turretin, Institutes, vol. 1, Second Topic, Q. VII, Sec V.

So here we have six proofs representing the historically orthodox arguments for the present existence of the very books penned by the original penmen: 2 exegetical, 3 theological, and 1 historical/evidential. This looks to be fair balance when discussing what is or is not Scripture, what is or is not canon, what is or is not the words of God.

Hopefully you have been following our treatment of the above question to this point. After laying a significant amount of groundwork Turretin now turns to a treatment of the canon of Scripture. If you have not already detected a polemic against the Roman Catholic assertion of ecclesiastical authority you certainly begin to see it here. For today’s post we are going to focus on Section XX. Turretin writes,

“It us one thing to discern and to declare the canon of Scripture; quite another to establish the canon itself and to make it authentic. The church cannot do the latter, but it does only the former.”

Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology vol. 1, Second Topic, Q. 6, Sec XX.

For Turretin and for us here at StandardSacredText.com it is not the bare institution of the church or the “will of the people” which canonize this book of Scripture and not that book of the Apocrypha. It is the Holy Spirit, the Author of Scripture, who canonizes His words. The church merely recognizes those words and promulgates them throughout the nations. Just as Columbus did not standardize North America, he simply discovered it and just as mathematics is not standardized by the human mind it is only discovered so also the Christian Scriptures are none canonized/standardized by church authorities or the bare will of the people or a handful of Church Fathers or the Easter Letter. It is the Holy Spirit who canonized/standardized His words. And only by faith does the believing community recognize them to be God’s words in whatever language they appear.

Turretin goes on to give an example,

“As the goldsmith who separates the dross from the gold…distinguishes indeed the pure from the adulterated, but does not make it pure, so the church by its test distinguishes indeed canonical books from those which are not and from apocryphal, but does not make them such.”

Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology vol. 1, Second Topic, Q. 6, Sec XX.

Again the same goes for modern biblical textual criticism. In fact, textual criticism is not even in view here. Did textual criticism happen during the Reformation? Yes. Was Turretin aware of the textual criticism happening at his time? Yes. Yet here said discipline is not even mentioned let alone in the door for consideration. All that is in view is the church and the Holy Spirit. The former recognizes and the latter canonizes. There is no third party and certainly no parachurch party. Neither the church nor textual criticism can make God’s word pure. It is already pure. All that the church needs to do is to recognize what is God’s words and what is not and they do this primarily by the leading of the Spirit through faith. Only after that is evidence employed to support the already strongly held belief of the Christian community.

Finally, Turretin concludes this section with the following words,

“Nor can the judgment of the church give authority to the books which they do not possess of themselves; rather she declares the already existing authority by arguments drawn from the books themselves.”

Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology vol. 1, Second Topic, Q. 6, Sec XX.

|Indeed, the Scriptures are authentic and have authority long before some scholar declares this or that reading is authentic. What is more, the arguments for a books authenticity and divinity are drawn from the books themselves. The Bible teaches us what is the Bible and what is not. Just as tasting a strawberry tells us that we are tasting a strawberry so also when a Spirit filled believing Christian by faith reads God’s words the very reading of God’s words tells that saint that he/she is reading God’s words. And when they are not reading God’s words then they know that they are not, just like when you are not eating a strawberry but something else [e.g., an orange] you know that you are not eating a strawberry simply by eating something else.