Scripture
The basis of Historical Criticism

It is very important to understand that historical criticism of Scripture comes with its own presuppositions. J. Barton Payne, in his article “Higher Criticism and Biblical Inerrancy”, puts it thusly:

They interpret the Bible within the presuppositions of contemporary scientific world view. Such world view assumes that all historical events are capable of being explained by other known historical events….the supernatural is not the immediate activity of the living God; for it belongs to the area of legend and myth not to the area of historical reality. The real issue: Which will we choose: to limit the Bible and thus also the Christian faith, along with God Himself, or to limit the critic?
Inerrancy, edited by Norman Geisler, [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1980], pp. 90-91

One historical critic of the Bible, R.N. Soulen, refers to historical criticism in the following terms:

The term Historical Critical Method refers to the principle of historical reasoning…that reality is uniform and universal, that it is accessible to human reason and investigation, that all events historical and natural occurring with it are in principle comparable by analogy, and that man’s contemporary experience of reality can provide an objective criteria by which what could or could not have happened in the past is to be determined.
Soulen, R.N., Handbook of Biblical Criticism, [Atlanta, GA: John Knox. 1976],
p. 62

Soulen makes three basic points: [1] that reality is universally apprehended by human reason; [2] that all historical events are comparable by analogy and [3] that the experiences of man represent objective criteria by which to judge the past. With such standards, what is stated in Scripture is treated in the same manner as every other book. The idea of the supernatural or of divine inspiration is out of bounds. Scripture is in the first instance discredited. The proper analysis is “what it really means based on human reason” and what we “know” can happen is based on our own experience.

The result of historical criticism on the pattern established by Soulen is discrediting Scripture and faith. Another historical critic, S.T. Davis frankly admits the result of applied historical criticism:

It is true that no Christian who believes that the Bible errs can hold that the Bible alone is his authority and practice. He must hold to some other authority and criterion as well. That authority, I am not embarrassed to say, is his own mind, his own ability to reason…I am the final judge of what I will believe.
Inerrancy, p. 109 citing, S.T. Davis, The Debate About the Bible, [Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1977], pp.71, 75.

This is a candid acknowledgement that historical criticism is about what man thinks about Scripture. Where Scripture is not treated as the inerrant Word of God, there is admitted another authority, the reason of man. We have the circumstance then of man judging God. There is no attempt to see how criticism can deepen our understanding of Scripture. It is a discrediting process whereby the judgment of man is substituted for that of God. J.I. Packer, the leading Reformed scholar of the 2nd half of the 20th Century says this about such an approach:

Any view that subjects the written Word of God to the opinions and pronouncements of man involves unbelief and disloyalty to God.
Inerrancy, p.110.

While Biblical critics like to pass themselves off as objective scholars, they are not. As honest critics, like S.T. Davis, admit, it is personal preference based on individual reason that is the basis of what they believe. It is all about substituting the judgment of man for the judgment of God. What we can “know” is based solely on human reason and human experience. Either the Scripture is inerrant as God breathed or its validity is determined by man. Let’s rephrase Payne’s question: Whom do we limit, God or man?