9
view of the divine sovereignty-freedom relationship as it relates to the doctrine of inspiration.
Second, I want to investigate the openness proposal regarding divine omniscience in relation to
the subject of predictive prophecy.
Divine Sovereignty, Human Freedom, and the Concursive Theory of Inspiration
Does the openness proposal regarding the sovereignty-freedom relationship make any
difference in what we may affirm about Scripture? An excellent place to begin our evaluation is
with a short but very insightful article by David Basinger and Randall Basinger entitled
"Inerrancy, Dictation, and the Free Will Defence."
30
What is significant about this article, at
least for our purposes, is the Basingers' argument "one cannot consistently affirm the total
inerrancy of Scripture and yet also utilize the Free Will Defense as a response to the problem of
evil."
31
Now at first sight this argument might seem somewhat removed from our investigation
regarding whether the open theist construal of divine sovereignty makes any difference in what
one may affirm about Scripture, but it is really not. In fact, if we carefully unpack the
Basingers's argument, we will soon discover that it has a direct bearing on our investigation.
The Basingers begin their article by observing that "one of the stock arguments employed
by the challenger to the inerrancy position is that inerrancy implies a dictation theory of
inspiration."
32
That is, in order to obtain a verbally inspired and inerrant Scripture, one must
affirm, so says the critic, that the human authors were reduced to impersonal instruments, and as
such, in the writing of Scripture their freedom was taken away.
In response to the critics, the Basingers rightly acknowledge that modern proponents of
inerrancy emphatically deny that dictation is necessary in order to accept the inerrancy
position.
33
In reply, proponents of inerrancy insist that the reason one can affirm verbal
inspiration and inerrancy is precisely because the Scriptural writers' "thinking and writings were
30
David Basinger and Randall Basinger, "Inerrancy, Dictation, and the Free Will Defense," Evangelical Quarterly
55 (1983), 177-80. See also the exchange of articles that the Basingers' article has generated between themselves
and Norman Geisler. See Norman Geisler, "Inerrancy and Free Will: A Reply to the Brothers Basinger,"
Evangelical Quarterly 57 (1985), 349-53; Basinger and Basinger, "Inerrancy and Free Will: Some Further
Thoughts," Evangelical Quarterly 58 (1986), 351-54; Geisler, "Is Inerrancy Incompatible with the Free Will
Defence?" Evangelical Quarterly 62 (1990), 175-78.
31
Basinger and Basinger, "Inerrancy and Free Will: Some Further Thoughts," 351.
32
Basinger and Basinger, "Inerrancy, Dictation, and The Free Will Defence," 177. For two contemporary examples
of the charge of dictation see William Abraham, The Divine Inspiration of Holy Scripture (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1981), 28-38, and James Barr, Fundamentalism (London: SCM Press, 1981), 290-93.
33
For denials that the traditional view of Scripture implies a dictation theory of inspiration see Carl F. H. Henry,
God, Revelation and Authority, vol. 4 (Waco: Word Books, 1979), 138; J. I. Packer, `Fundamentalism' and the
Word of God (London: InterVarsity Fellowship, 1958), 78-79; B. B. Warfield, "Inspiration," in Selected Shorter
Writings, vol. 2. ed. John E. Meeter (Nutley: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1973), 614-36. For a discussion as to why
the dictation theory of inspiration is contrary to the biblical evidence and thus why it should be rejected see I. H.
Marshall, Biblical Inspiration (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 32-33.