The Legacy of B. B. Warfield

Part One –The Legacy of B. B. Warfield

(Note:  This is the first in a new series on B. B. Warfield, taken from my Ph.D. dissertation, "The Lion of Princeton")

_____________

 

During his thirty-four year reign as the ranking theologian at Princeton Theological Seminary, Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield (1851-1921) exerted tremendous influence upon much of American  Presbyterianism.  With his lucid pen and his passion to defend the Westminster Standards, there was little doubt about where Warfield stood on most every subject he addressed.

Even some eighty years after his death all one need to do is but mention his name in certain circles and you are sure to get a reaction, pro or con.  A number of those who have interacted with Warfield view him as a kind of brilliant but nevertheless obscurantist fundamentalist (cf. James Barr, Beyond Fundamentalism, Westminster, 1984, 141) or a thorough-going rationalist , who supposedly invented the notion of biblical inerrancy (Alister McGrath, A Passion for Truth: The Intellectual Coherence of Evangelicalism, InterVarsity, 1996, 169).  When viewed from this perspective, Warfield's most enduring legacy is to be seen in his important but misguided efforts in the heated controversy over the nature of biblical authority that dominated American Presbyterian circles in the latter part of the nineteenth century. 

To read the rest of this article, Click here: Riddleblog - The Legacy of B. B. Warfield

Comments

[Phil Rich]

The first classroom at Knox Seminary was called the Warfield Room.

[John Lofton, Recovering Republican]

Warfield-admiring site. Visit us, pls, and comment.

John Lofton, Editor
TheAmericanView.com
JLof@aol.com

[John Yeazel]

I have read the entire 380 pages and it clarified a lot of controversies about the man. Warfield has been misinterpreted by Van Til, Marsden, Noll, and many others and Pastor Riddlebarger makes a clear and compelling case that Warfield was more in line with the reformed tradition than many of his critics were. He traces this back to the Scottish Presbyterians and Warfield's drawing from them rather than from Enlightenment thinkers, Romanists or Arminians. It is well worth the effort to read the entire work. I benefited greatly from it. The appendix on Scottish Common Sense Realism is profound and extremely enlightening.

[Rich B.]

Thanks for the roaring post on the Lion!