Marty (aka JohnOwen007),
Those are good questions, i.e., "what are the doctrines that change, and how does it affect people's godliness?"
I would answer them like this: the primary doctrine that is obviated is the providential preservation of Scripture. Seeing as you teach church history you are likely aware that this doctrine was the foremost weapon of the post-Reformation theologians (John Owen, Francis Turretin) contra the Counter-Reformation assault of Rome against the fledgling Protestant (Reformed) churches. The doctrine of God's providential preservation of His word is summed up in a number of confessional statements, a primary one being the Westminster Confession of Faith's Chapter 1, Section 8,
The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek (which, at the time of the writing of it was most generally known to the nations), being immediately inspired by God, and, by His singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical....
This, Marty, is a key doctrine that has been changed. This change began in the nineteenth century; here's a note on it excerpted from another post:
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Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield “drew first blood,” as it were, in the text-critical controversies within the Reformed communions when he wrote to the general Christian public in
Sunday School Times 24 in 1882, that Mark’s long ending was “no part of God’s word,” and therefore “we are not to ascribe to the verses the authority due to God’s Word.” [Cited from Theodore P. Letis’
The Ecclesiastical Text: Text Criticism, Biblical Authority and the Popular Mind, p. 53]. In naming him thus be it understood I mean not at all to demean “the mighty Warfield,” as other than in the area of text criticism I honor and love him. But when a man is wrong we sin if we do not decry that error which causes harm to the flock of God.
To his credit, Warfield’s intentions were good; he hoped to disarm the threat posed by text criticism in the hands of liberal and unbelieving scholars by redefining the Westminster Confession’s statement on Scripture to refer to the inerrant autographs (anciently lost and beyond reach) instead of the apographs (the copies; texts in the hands of the Westminster divines). I quote from Letis’ essay “B. B. Warfield, Common-Sense Philosophy and Biblical Criticism” (in
The Ecclesiastical Text, pp. 26-27):
Only eight years after Warfield’s death [in Feb 1921], the higher criticism entered Princeton and the seminary was reorganized to accommodate this. The facile certainty that Westcott and Hort’s system seemed to offer Warfield evaporated. Later text critics abandoned the hope of reconstructing a “neutral” text and today despair of ever discovering an urtext, the final resting ground of Warfield’s doctrine of inspiration and inerrancy. Warfield had given earnest expression to his hope that,
The autographic text of the New Testament is distinctly within the reach of criticism….we cannot despair of restoring to ourselves and the church of God, His book, word for word, as He gave it by inspiration to men. [“The Rights of Criticism and of the Church”, The Presbyterian (April 13, 1892):15]
Fifty years later, the Harvard text critic, Kirsopp Lake, offered a more modest assessment:
In spite of the claims of Westcott and Hort….we do not know the original form of the Gospels, and it is quite likely that we never shall. [Family 13 (The Ferrar Group (Phila., The Univ. of Penn. Press, 1941), p. vii]
Warfield’s Common Sense adoption of German methods would be more fully developed by others at Princeton who would no longer find his appendage of the inerrant autographs theory either convincing, or any longer relevant for N.T. studies.
Make no mistake about it, Warfield’s textual theories, taken in good faith from Westcott and Hort – which he was open to after his studies in German criticism at the University of Leipzig in 1876 – almost single-handedly turned the Reformed Communities from their former view of the WCF and its prizing the texts-in-hand to the (what turned out to be) never-to-be-found-or-restored autographic texts. This was the watershed. And today men of good intentions seek to make the best of it, developing theories and stances so as to defend what they say is a trustworthy Bible.
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[end excerpt]
The second of your questions, Marty, regarding such a change in doctrine, "how does it affect people's godliness?", I would answer in this wise:
When I was a young believer around 39 years ago (I was 26 or 27 then), coming out of the 60's counter-culture with its drugs and occult spiritualities, I realized early on that in order to stand against my adversary the devil (& his cohorts) I needed absolute certainty in my mind as regards the trustworthiness of my God and His word.
When I told the demons to depart from me I needed to know exactly where such authority was granted to me in Scripture (chapter & verse),
and that these Scriptures were reliable, and not just these, but
all Scripture. It was a matter of being able to stand against spiritual opponents who had access to my mind -- relentless opponents, I might add -- and to resist them as directed by the Lord. I needed to know within myself with utmost certainty that the "sword of the Spirit" I wielded was sure...could not be broken.
If I did not have the complete assurance that my sword was sound, I could not stand in the combat. This being able to "withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand" (Eph 6:13), was prerequisite to my being able to live a godly life.
When I would look at the margin notes in some of the Bibles I had I knew that the text of Scripture was contested in some quarters. I needed to get to the bottom of that. It was a matter of life and death to me. Coming from the depths of darkness the Savior rescued me from, I had to develop the wherewithal -- by His Spirit and Word -- to repel the denizens of the spirit-world I (and all my generation with me) had opened my being to. Certainty of mind is essential to stability of mind. And this certainty had to be based on God's word.
I find God has met this need. I am able to stand in Him, and to live godly (given the remaining corruption I must seek His help in constantly keeping crucified; when I fail, I have cleansing by His precious blood).
Perhaps the warfare is not so immediate or intense for some, nor their awareness of need so great. There are some of us who are Christ's desperados; in the instant we cleave to Him or fall. We need a word such as this,
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. (Matthew 24:35)
In
His sure word, and in Him, is perfect rest.
Steve
P.S. Regarding the origin of my username,
In John Bunyan's classic,
Pilgrim's Progress, Mr. Great-heart is questioning newly-met Mr. Valiant-for-truth concerning his adventures, and asks why he did not cry out for help when overwhelmed. Valiant answers, "So I did to my King, who I knew could hear, and afford invisible help, and that was sufficient for me." Then said Great-heart to Mr. Valiant-for-truth, "Thou hast worthily behaved thyself; let me see thy Sword;" so he shewed it him.
When he had taken it in his hand, and looked thereon a while, he said, "Ha! It is a right Jerusalem blade." And Valiant, "It is so. Let a man have one of these blades, with a hand to wield it, and skill to use it, and he may venture upon an Angel with it. He need not fear its holding, if he can but tell how to lay on. Its edges will never blunt. It will cut flesh, and bones, and soul, and spirit and all."