Did the Reformers and Post-Reformation Orthodox hold VPP in the modern sense?

Did the Reformers and Post-Reformation Orthodox hold VPP in the modern sense? Figures like Turretin and Owen affirmed providential preservation but still engaged in text-critical work — suggesting a more nuanced position.

No—the Reformers and Post-Reformation Orthodox did not hold VPP in the modern sense. The historical evidence reveals a far more nuanced and text-critical posture than contemporary VPP advocates acknowledge.

Even the authors of the Formula Consensus Helvetica, Turretin and Heidegger, had moved well beyond Owen’s fierce denunciation of the Masoretes to a positive appreciation of their work in preserving the copies of Scripture.[1] This shift is crucial: they affirmed preservation while simultaneously valuing scholarly analysis of textual transmission.

The critical distinction concerns what drove their positions. Like Turretin and the other orthodox, Owen assumed the authority, infallibility, and integrity of the text on doctrinal grounds and then predicated his attack on the new text-criticism on his doctrine.[1] Their doctrine of Scripture was not derived from proving textual perfection; rather, they worked in the opposite direction—starting with theological commitments and then defending the text accordingly.

Importantly, after the Formula, the theological debate lessened considerably, and most theologians were willing to leave the issue to the philologists.[1] This represents a conscious decision to separate doctrinal affirmations from text-critical conclusions. Quite a few Reformed writers (none of whose orthodoxy was ever impugned) assumed the Masoretic invention of the vowel pointing system—notably Drusius, Ussher, John Prideaux, Weemse, and Rivetus. Walton, whose views on the late origin of the vowel points was so angrily disputed by Owen, was himself an advocate of a high doctrine of scriptural inspiration and authority.[1]

The problem with modern VPP is precisely what Owen initiated: Owen indicated a direct relationship between the revelatory character of the text and its perfect preservation in the smallest detail. His close linkage of these issues would provide a source of profound difficulty and embarrassment for orthodoxy in the next two centuries.[1] Contemporary VPP has inherited Owen’s conflation rather than Turretin’s measured separation of doctrine from philology.

[1] Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy; Volume 2: The Cognitive Foundation of Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 133, 412–413.