We clarify this through historical analysis: Princeton Theology’s doctrine of verbal inspiration was itself a deviation from Reformation faith, as expressed in the Westminster Confession. Calvin taught that Scripture is the infallible rule of faith and practice on matters pertaining to salvation, not a perfectly errorless revelation in all incidental details.[1]
The Westminster Assembly composed the Confession to uphold Reformation doctrine against an ascending scholastic trend. Luther and Calvin recognized that the Bible contains errors, whereas Reformed scholasticism extended the test of infallibility to matters of science and historical details, jeopardizing Christian belief in the name of defending it.[1]
The critical distinction lies in what “preservation” meant to Westminster’s framers versus what VPP advocates claim today. The Westminster divines described the Scriptures as lamps or vessels of the Word, not the Word itself. Resting the authority of Scripture on the denial of a single error denies the Confession of Faith.[1] This means Westminster affirmed Scripture’s functional authority for salvation without requiring textual perfection.
VPP, by contrast, insists on the inerrancy of preserved manuscripts—a position that imperils the doctrine of inspiration by bringing it into conflict with objections along the whole line of Scripture and History.[1] The doctrine developed later through figures like Warfield, not from Westminster itself.
A college adopting VPP is therefore not extending Westminster’s principles but rather embracing a 19th-century scholastic development that earlier Reformed theology explicitly rejected. The confusion arises because later theologians equated their innovations with Westminster’s teaching, but the historical record shows Westminster was more modest in its claims about textual perfection.
[1] Gary Dorrien, The Spirit of American Liberal Theology: A History (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2023), 165.
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