By the time Fosdick was in full swing, Archibald Alexander Hodge had long since died. Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield too had passed. But the mantle they bore had not fallen by the way altogether. It had been picked up by J. Gresham Machen. Actually Warfield essentially placed it on Machen just before he died. Machen, perhaps a little reluctant, was nevertheless well qualified for the task. Like Fosdick, Machen knew his way around words. He had also been well trained at Princeton and at Germany. But unlike Fosdick, Machen did not see the teaching of Scripture and historic creeds as cause to blush. He didn't look for the abiding truths hidden on the surface of the historic words of the text.¹²

Machen offered a full reply to Fosdick in Christianity and Liberalism (1923). In sum, Machen charges that Fosdick's view of authority boils down to individual experience. According to Machen, one's view of inspiration and consequently of the text of the Bible itself has to do with one's starting point. If you start with the supposition that God has revealed himself in all of the words of Scripture, then you submit to the teachings of Scripture, however hard they may be for a modern person or however seemingly challenging they are. If you start with the legitimacy of modern sensibilities, then you can conveniently overlook and downplay those difficult elements. Machen did not deny Fosdick the right to his view of Scripture. Machen just had problems with Fosdick claiming that his view was Christian.

What's Barth Got to Do with It?

Fosdick had packaged German liberalism for American popular audiences. In the main, he was quite comfortable with such liberalism. Not so with Karl Barth. Barth felt that the old liberalism, in which he had been schooled, suffered two fatal flaws: it didn't preach well, and it was too tame. The old liberalism didn't preach well because it taught biblical interpreters to tease out the strands of authorship. One is left with a dissected text, with pieces strewn about. How one goes from that to a meaningful sermon is a difficult (if not impossible) task indeed. Barth also thought liberalism's view of the Bible to be too tame. The Bible was domesticated or gentrified, made more palatable to modern tastes.

Instead, Barth advocated a position that has the Bible encountering us, standing over us. There is central to Barth's view of Scripture the notion of mystery. It is a mystery how the living God confronts us in the human words of the text. It is this mystery that is missing in liberalism. It is also this mystery that causes Barth to be suspect in the minds of orthodox biblical scholars and theologians, especially on the American side of the Atlantic. Barth's view of inspiration stops short of ascribing the finished product, the sixty-six books of the Bible, as inspired. Instead inspiration is a more active dynamic in Barth. Donald Bloesch, sympathetic to Barth, observes, "For Barth inspiration rests on God's decision to speak his Word ever and again in the history of the church and throughout the text of the Bible."¹³ Again, it is this dynamic understanding of inspiration that gave Barth a bad reputation among conservative American theologians such as Carl F. H. Henry, Cornelius Van Til, and Charles C. Ryrie. All three weighed Barth's view and found it wanting.

These days, however, there is a change toward Barth in American evangelical circles. The chilly reception of a generation ago has been exchanged for more welcoming treatments. We are likely too close to see how this paradigm shift will fully impact the American evangelical doctrine of Scripture. For now, however, it is likely safe to venture two comments. One is that it is highly likely that Warfield and the Princetonians will not feature so prominently vis-à-vis Barth. Barth has moved from the margins to a place at the center. He has moved from being a figure who is at best suspect to becoming one who is well-regarded. Secondly, and building on this paradigm shift, evangelical doctrines of Scripture will likely shift toward the Barthian understanding of inspiration. The Barthian view moves away from emphasizing and focusing on a static view of the text toward a more dynamic view of the text. Inspiration is more of a dynamic concept, something that happens as the word is proclaimed in the living Christian community of the church. This latter point reflects a broader epistemological shift occurring culturally from a more objectivist epistemology of modernity to a more community-based epistemology of postmodernism. The work of John Franke and the late Stanley Grenz indicates that this may become more the case for evangelical doctrines of Scripture. Again, time will tell.