A Resolution Adopted by the 55th Annual Meeting of the National Association of Evangelicals
In the current climate of postmodernism many argue that 1) all human interpretation involves error, and 2) as individuals or as interpretive communities, we interpret and understand everything, including the Bible, from our own perspective. This, it is argued, relativizes all claims to objective, culture-transcending truth.
While we acknowledge postmodernism’s exposure of the theories of autonomous reason, we cannot accept the currently politically correct relativism of postmodernism. We affirm that human beings, made in the image of God, can know some things truly, even if our finitude prevents us from knowing anything exhaustively.
More importantly, we affirm that God, who has chosen to act through mighty deeds such as creation, and supremely in the Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word, communicates His truth through the Scriptures. These words, however mediated by human beings, are finally reliable because they are God’s words, the words of a personal, sovereign, omniscient God. The original text of Holy Scripture preserves these words, which God, accommodating Himself to our limitations, has graciously given us for His glory and for His people’s good.
Though we may not hope to understand the sacred text exhaustively, we can understand much of it truly. By relying on the illumination of the Holy Spirit which will aid us in our reading and re-reading, in our careful study, in our self-consciously committing ourselves to strive against all domestication of Scripture that springs from much alleged or thoughtless biases, we can grasp and grow in the truth of what it says, and in our obedient conformity to it. All true Christian unity is grounded in unqualified and hearty submission to Scripture in its total context.
Whatever our culture, race, language, heritage, or time in history, as evangelical Christians, we joyfully bow to the complete authority of the Scriptures as embodied in the 66 canonical books of the Old and New Testaments. We affirm the Scriptures’ truthfulness, acknowledging that, while our’ knowing is culturally influenced, we may know the mind and thoughts of Him who inhabits eternity, by this written revelation He has graciously provided. Therefore, we are under His mandate to herald this good news to everyone.