An ideological dead end

In 1976 Harold Lindsell – whom we have met in this book as one of Fuller Seminary's founding faculty members and Carnell's colleague for sixteen years – wrote a book that touched off within evangelicalism a new round of hostilities over an old issue. In The Battle for the Bible he designated biblical inerrancy as “the crucial issue among evangelicals” (202) and declared that “once infallibility is abandoned, however good the intentions of those who do it and however good they feel their reasons for doing so, it always and ever opens the door to further departures from the faith.” (25)

Evangelicalism's left wing quickly mounted a counterattack. Biblical Authority, a collection of essays edited by Jack Rogers of the Fuller Seminary faculty, although affirming whole-heartedly the authority of scripture as the infallible “rule of faith and practice,” explicitly rejected Lindsell's notion of “total inerrancy” and cited both biblical and historical evidence in support of a broader, more flexible view.

We might be tempted to ignore this fraternal struggle as irrelevant to the life and work of Edward Carnell who, after all, had been dead nine years when Lindsell's book appeared in 1976. However, we cannot deal responsibly with Edward Carnell and ignore the inerrancy question, for it never ceased being a basic issue in his own thought. Moreover, Lindsell introduced Carnell's name into the current discussion by including him in the dedication to The Battle for the Bible: