In A Generous Orthodoxy, Brian McLaren has defined orthodoxy as the truth that God knows and that human beings can only approximate (go to my comments here). He has further said that orthodoxy is only valuable if its teachings produce right actions, or orthopraxy (my comments here). This schema leaves unaddressed the issue of how God reveals his truth. How does orthodoxy get from his mind to ours?

McLaren addresses this question in the chapter, "Why I Am Biblical." He believes the revelation we need is in the Bible, but, as usual with McLaren, we have to work through his redefinitions of terms.

What does 2 Timothy 3.16 mean when it says the Scriptures are God-breathed? Well (p 161), the term is like God saying, "Let there be . . ." in Genesis 1. He breathes out the possibility of life. "To say Scripture is God-breathed is, then, to elicit this primal language of creation. Think of the difference between a corpse and a living, breathing body, and you'll understand the difference between a bunch of words and words vitalized with God's breath."

What is the purpose of Scripture? McLaren says (p 164), continuing with 2 Timothy 3.16-17, "The purpose of Scripture is to equip God's people for good works." This is consistent with his view of the value of orthodoxy: the value of truth is measured by right actions.

I wouldn't question that the Scriptures have life-giving power, though I think McLaren's connection between God-breathed and Genesis 1 is a bit, shall we say, intuitive. I wouldn't question the way McLaren treats 2 Timothy 3.16-17. The plain teaching of Paul is that Scriptures are for equipping.

But I do have these questions: What properties must the Scriptures have in order to be life-giving and useful for equipping believers? Wouldn't the Scriptures have to have "authority" and "inerrancy"? Wouldn't these terms necessarily adhere to any word that was breathed by God? What life or usefulness could Scripture have without these properties?

According to McLaren (p 164), the doctrines of the authority and inerrancy of Scripture, among other doctrines, are important because of the context of "the stories of Sir Isaac Newton, Rene Descartes, the Enlightenment, David Hume, and Foundationalism." McLaren seems to say that these doctrines arose because of important, but temporary, philosophical squabbles, not because the Bible itself teaches them. McLaren (pp 164-165) calls terms like authority and inerrancy "foreign to the Bible's vocabulary about itself."

This is a standard emergent line, one that is no less absurd for being standard. In short, another of McLaren's bluffs (comments here).

Like Luther didn't care about the Scriptures' authority. You know, pre-Enlightenment, pre-Descartes Luther? Like Paul ever held out the possibility that the Scriptures said something inaccurate. Like Jesus wasn't talking about Isaiah's truth and authority when he applied his prophecy to the Pharisees (Matthew 15.7-9), that they were "teaching as doctrines the precepts of men."

McLaren is either embarrassed by the doctrines of the Scriptures' authority and inerrancy and wants a way to talk about the Bible that avoids them, or he is fleeing accountability for not holding those doctrines at all. I can't determine which from this book.

And the more often I find his pretence that theological questioning and probing is unloving, the less I care to know about his positions. I wonder whether he doesn't seek spiritual authority without any concern for spiritual legitimacy - the legitimacy that comes from answering questions.

As to our original question (How does God's truth move from his mind to ours?), I'm still not sure what role McLaren would have the Bible play.