"I was led to conclude and most firmly believe that every word
that you ever spoke in public or private, that every letter you wrote
under any and all circumstances, was as inspired as the ten
commandments. I held that view with absolute tenacity against
innumerable objections raised to it by many who were occupying prominent
positions in the [Adventist] cause," wrote Dr. David Paulson to Ellen White
on April 19, 1906. Deeply concerned over the nature of Ellen White's
inspiration, Paulson wondered whether he should continue to hold such a rigid
view. In the process he raised the question of verbal inspiration and the
related issues of infallibility and inerrancy. Since a correct understanding of
such issues is of crucial importance in reading Ellen White and/or the Bible, we
will examine each of them in this section.
Mrs. White replied to Paulson on June 14, 1906. "My brother," she
penned, "you have studied my writings diligently, and you have never found
that I have made any such claims [to verbal inspiration], neither will you find
that the pioneers in our cause ever made such claims" for her writings. She
went on to illustrate inspiration in her writings by referring to the
inspiration of the Bible writers. Even though God had inspired the Biblical
truths, they were "expressed in the words of men." She saw the Bible
as representing "a union of the divine and the human." Thus "the
testimony is conveyed through the imperfect expression of human language, yet it
is the testimony of God" (Selected Messages, book 1, pp. 24-26).
Such sentiments represent Ellen White's consistent witness across time. "The
Bible," she wrote in 1886, "is written by inspired men, but it is not
God's mode of thought and expression. It is that of humanity. God, as a writer,
is not represented. . . . The writers of the Bible were God's penmen, not His
pen. . . .
"It is not the words of the Bible that are inspired, but the men that
were inspired. Inspiration acts not on the man's words or his expressions but on
the man himself, who, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, is imbued with
thoughts. But the words receive the impress of the individual mind. The divine
mind is diffused. The divine mind and will is combined with the human mind and
will; thus the utterances of the man are the word of God" (ibid., p. 21).
We see the problematic nature of the issue of verbal inspiration illustrated
in the life of D. M. Canright, at one time a leading minister in the
denomination, but its foremost critic between 1887 and 1919. Canright bitterly
opposed Ellen White. His 1919 book against her asserted that "every line
she wrote, whether in articles, letters, testimonies or books, she claimed was
dictated to her by the Holy Ghost, and hence must be infallible" (Life
of Mrs. E. G. White, p. 9). We have seen above that Ellen White herself took
just the opposite position, but that didn't stop the damage being done by those
with a false theory of inspiration.
Before we go any further, perhaps we should define our terms. Webster's
New World Dictionary describes "infallible" as "1. incapable
of error; never wrong. 2. not liable to fail, go wrong, make a mistake, etc."
It renders "inerrant" as "not erring, making no mistakes."
It is essentially those definitions that many people import into the
realm of the Bible and Ellen White's writings.
As to infallibility, Mrs. White plainly writes, "I never claimed it;
God alone is infallible." Again she stated that "God and heaven alone
are infallible" (Selected Messages, book 1, p. 37). While she
claimed that "God's Word is infallible" (ibid., p. 416), we will see
below that she did not mean that the Bible (or her writings) were free from
error at all points.
To the contrary, in the introduction to The Great Controversy she
sets forth her position quite concisely: "The Holy Scriptures are to be
accepted as an authoritative, infallible revelation of His will" (p. vii).
That is, she did not claim that the work of God's prophets is infallible in all
its details, but that it is infallible in terms of revealing God's will to men
and women. In a similar statement Ellen White commented that "His Word . .
. is plain on every point essential to the salvation of the soul" (Testimonies
for the Church, vol. 5, p. 706).
W. C. White treats the same issue when he observes: "Where she has
followed the description of historians or the exposition of Adventist writers,
I believe that God has given her discernment to use that which is correct
and in harmony with truth regarding all matters essential to salvation. If
it should be found by faithful study that she has followed some expositions of
prophecy which in some detail regarding dates we cannot harmonize with our
understanding of secular history, it does not influence my confidence in her
writings as a whole any more than my confidence in the Bible is influenced by
the fact that I cannot harmonize many of the statements regarding chronology"
(Selected Messages, book 3, pp. 449, 450; italics supplied).
In summary, it appears that Mrs. White's use of the term infallibility
has to do with the Bible being completely trustworthy as a guide to salvation.
She doesn't mix that idea with the concept that the Bible or her writings are
free from all possible errors of a factual nature.
Thus the faithful reader's belief is not shaken if he or she discovers that
Matthew attributed a Messianic prophecy, written centuries before Christ's
birth, to Jeremiah when it was actually Zechariah who inferred that Christ would
be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver (see Matt. 27:9, 10; Zech. 11:12, 13). Nor
will one be dismayed over the fact that 1 Samuel 16:10, 11 lists David as the
eighth son of Jesse, but 1 Chronicles 2:15 refers to him as the seventh. Neither
will faith be affected because the prophet Nathan wholeheartedly approved of
King David's building of the Temple but the next day had to backtrack and tell
David that God didn't want him to build it (see 2 Sam. 7; 1 Chron. 17). Prophets
make mistakes.
The same kind of factual errors can be discovered in Ellen White's writings
as are found in the Bible. The writings of God's prophets are infallible as a
guide to salvation, but they are not inerrant or without error. Part of the
lesson is that we need to read for the central lessons of Scripture and Ellen
White rather than the details.
What is important to remember at this point is that those who struggle over
such problems as inerrancy and absolute infallibility are fighting a human-made
problem. It is not anything that God ever claimed for the Bible or Ellen White
ever claimed for the Bible or her writings. Inspiration for her had to do with
the "practical purposes" (Selected Messages, book 1, p. 19) of
human and divine relationships in the plan of salvation. We need to let God
speak to us in His mode, rather than to superimpose our rules over God's
prophets and then reject them if they don't live up to our expectations
of what we think God should have done. Such an approach is a human invention
that places our own authority over the Word of God. It makes us the judges of
God and His Word. But such a position is not Biblical; nor is it according to
the way Ellen White has counseled the church. We need to read God's Word and
Mrs. White's writings for the purpose for which He gave them and not let our
modern concerns and definitions of purpose and accuracy come between us and His
prophets.