Bible preservation and Deism

It sadly has become quite popular in supposedly conservative Christian circles to claim that God’s inspired word has been preserved by natural causes no differently than the words of Genghis Khan, Hugo Grotius, or John Gill. Notice William W. Combs in the “The Preservation of Scripture” (pp. 9-10):

“…the preservation of Scripture is not different in method from any other ancient book God has determined to preserve, as, for example, Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War—both Scripture and Caesar’s work have been preserved providentially, by secondary causation, by essentially ordinary human means.”

Harry A. Sturz, in The Byzantine Text-Type and New Testament Textual Criticism (p. 38), wrote, “God…was under no special or logical obligation to see that man did not corrupt it.” Others like Daniel Wallace and Edward Glenny go further than Combs. For example, Wallace says, “I don’t hold to the doctrine of preservation.” The essential difference of Wallace and Combs is not in the historical process or end result, but rather the unwillingness or willingness to attach any theological significance to preservation (i.e., as a “doctrine”). Combs writes: “…we must distinguish between belief in a doctrine of preservation and, simply, belief in preservation” (pp. 6-7). It seems to me that the natural and incidental view of the preservation of Scripture has superseded the providential and supernatural view as the mainstream position among the conservative evangelical classes. Regretfully, we have allowed many foreign ideas to flood in and water down our once strongly-held absolute support of an inspired, infallible, and preserved Bible.

While listening to Jeff Riddle’s presentation on biblical preservation (How Has God Preserved His Word? at the 2023 Trinity and Text Conference of the Trinitarian Bible Society), something struck me about the natural view of the preservation of Scripture. It seems somewhat akin to Deism. In the religious theology or philosophical position of Deism, the Creator does not intervene or interfere in human affairs. In the naturalistic view of preservation, the Creator does not affect or intervene in the history of the transmission of his inspired word.

I meditated on this from my own standpoint as a sometimes “creator” of written records. Unlike God, I obviously cannot produce an errorless and infallible document. However, in the course of its transmission I take an interest in it. I try to correct any errors I find. When and where able, do not leave it to its own devices. When I find an error online, I correct it. If it is something in print, if able, I will correct when I reprint. On the other hand, we are led by the naturalistic and incidental view to accept that God is either disinterested or powerless in the face of the historical transmission of his word – or both! He does not care or is not able to care? Who can believe it?

Does not God rather by his infinite power and wisdom uphold, direct, dispose, and govern not only the inspiration, but also the preservation, of his Scripture by his wise and holy providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge and the free and immutable counsel of His own will: to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness, and mercy.