Andrew McGowan visit

Andrew McGowan will be at PTC next week and it should be fun. He has been in Australia for a week or so now enjoying some R&R. Next week he will be teaching an MA intensive on Covenant Theology. He wrote his dissertation on Thomas Boston and I expect Boston and the Marrow controversy will get a good run as well as the Torrance critique of covenant theology (which I know Andrew rejects). I am hoping to sit at the back of the class for most of the week and listen  in.

Covenant Theology is a strange beast for many people in Sydney evangelical circles. In my undergraduate training I was never exposed to it in depth, but rather to "Biblical Theology" (à la Graeme Goldsworthy). I value that approach and make constant use of it. But I never had sufficient exposure to classic covenant theology to be able to compare the two and think about their relationship. It has taken me quite a few years of working on all this to start to put it together in my own mind in a way which gives me some satisfaction. I feel like I can explain it in class sufficiently now days, and I have tried writing some pieces (none have seen the light of day yet). What I'll be interested to see the week is how students interact with Andrew's presentation and what biblical questions they raise and how he deals with them.

On Wednesday night Andrew will give the annual Ferrie Lecture. He will be looking at Charles Spurgeon and asking what lessons we can learn from this great preacher and pastor. It should be an interesting evening. It is on at St James Presbyterian Church Burwood starting at 7:30pm.

There has been a fair bit of controversy about Andrew's recent book The Divine Spiration of Scripture. Ian was positive about it when he read it a few months ago but there have been plenty of negative reviews. Rowland Ward gave a balanced but critical review and Guy Davies has a more positive though still wary approach. Doctrine of Scripture is not going to be the focus of the week, but I expect that we will hear a bit about Andrew's motivation for writing and his reflections on the responses.

The Divine Spiration of Scripture

Over this Easter weekend I was able to find some time to do some reading, and thoroughly enjoyed reading Andrew McGowan's new book "The Divine Spiration of Scripture". As one who spends most of his time in Biblical Studies, it was a pleasant change to spend some time in Systematics. The basic thesis of the book is that some of the traditional "i" words regarding the authority of Scripture are unhelpful. Instead of "inspiration" which is often interpreted as referring to the author, McGowan suggests "Spiration" may be a better term as it refers to the text. At one level I agree with the thesis, but as my Oxford Dictionary is not big enough to have the word "Spiration" it may not be the most user friendly word to use. The book also claims that the word "inerrancy" is unhelpful, as it is a category that "inerrantists" apply to Scripture and thereby to God, which to say the least is a bit presumptive. God is free to work in the ways he chooses, not in the ways that conform to our logical deductions. A more helpful term, according to McGowan, is "infallibility".

There are a couple of things that really excited me about the book:
1. McGowan places the Doctrine of "Spiration" of Scripture as an outworking of the Doctrine of God. He notes how the Westminster Confession commences with Scripture (rather than God) - and argues that we should be careful not to bind God in ways he (and Scripture) have not bound him.
2. The book has a very helpful survey of the arguments concerning the authority of Scripture. It gives insights into the rise of liberalism, neo-orthodoxy and fundamentalism. It helps the reader to understand why issues of "inerrancy" are discussed with greater vigour in North America than is the case in Europe.
3. Without going down a neo-orthodox line, McGowan shows the role of the Holy Spirit - not only in the writing of Scripture, but in recognition (which is a better word than illumination) and in comprehension (which is a far better word than perspicuity). There is something very liberating about this discussion of the Spirit's work in regard to Scripture, especially in the realm of preaching. It is as though the Bible is being rescued from the empirical world of Newtonian science and that life is being breathed into it - indeed the Spiration that has always been there. And yet in all of this, the authority of Scripture is always upheld. In fact, grounding it in the doctrine of God, I think it is actually stregthened.

One of the reasons I read this book is that Andrew McGowan is giving a series of lectures at PTC in August this year (see the PTC website for details). Having read this book, I am sure that the lectures will be worth attending.