Glenn responded,
My view is that God is a God of truth. If He doesn't tell the truth about
things, then how do I know that He is telling the truth about the way of
salvation? I have no satisfactory answer to that question
>>
I thought this was the answer Glenn would give; and it is certainly the
answer that the majority of evangelcial theologians who have framed the
dominant doctrine of biblical inspiration would give. Read any evangelical
book on biblical inspiration and it will always finally hang its conclusion
on this syllogism:
God cannot lie
The Bible is God's word
Therefore, the Bible cannot contain any lies and is hence inerrant in all
that it says including its science and history.
That is the syllogism that holds Evangelicalism in its grip. It is the
syllogism that supplies the foundation for creation science. And, it is the
syllogism that makes many evangelicals look upon those of us in the ASA as
less than solid Christians.
The way out of this dilemma is to recognize through the teaching of Jesus
that the divine inspiration of Scripture can encompass temporary CONCESSION
to cultural beliefs that are contrary to God's perfect knowledge, contrary,
as one scholar put it, to God's personal opinion. The proof of this is in
Matthew 19:8 (Mk 10:5) where Jesus points out that Deut 24:1-4 encompassed
concession to the culturally acceptable practice of the times of divorcing
wives for reasons other than adultery. (The law could not refer to adultery
because in cases of adultery the wife was stoned.)
Note that this divine concession is a concession to sin ("hardness of heart"
in the words of Jesus). It is a concession in the area of faith and morals.
How much more then can divine inspiration encompass concession to the
cultural beliefs of the time about science and history.
When then I _observe_ (I threw that in for Glenn) that the references to
scientific matters in the Bible regularly reflect the science of the times
(indeed I have never seen a reference to a scientific item in Scripture which
reflects any higher understanding of that science than was known by other
peoples of that time), I have the right in the light of the teachings of
Jesus about inspiration to conclude that God is NOT REVEALING science, but
conceding to the views of the time. God has left (in accordance with Gen
1:26-28) the discovery of scientific truth to humankind as his
under-sovereigns.
The same thing is true of history in the Bible, the only difference being
that the Bible indirectly tells us that its history is dependent upon human
investigation and human sources (Luke 1:1-4), the OT books often documenting,
as it were, their statements by referral to human sources such as "the book
of Jasher." And the biblical historians, unlike the prophets and psalmists,
never say or imply that they are receiving their historical information by
revelation. Even Genesis 1, as evidenced both by its order of events and by
its reference to the splitting of the primeval waters (something no other
creation story has) as well by its acceptance of the cosmology of the times
testifies that its science and history is coming from the same tradition that
is found in the Babylonian epic Enuma elish, not from divine revelation.
Based upon the empirical data of the Bible as well as the revelation of which
Jesus has given, it is a perfectly biblical position that the science and
history in the Bible is inspired by God in the sense that the writers were
endowed with the Spirit so as to produce the best possible product for their
times, but not given revelation except with reference to spiritual truths.
All one has to do is read the theology of Enuma elish and compare it to the
theology of Gen 1 to see the contrast and the bright light of the divine
revelation given in Gen 1. But, the science and history is not a divine
revelation, but a concession, and hence God cannot be accused of lying even
though the sky is not really solid, there is no ocean above the sky, the
earth is not flat, the universe is older than 6000 years, etc, etc.
I will only add that even with reference to the resurrection of Jesus, which
is where the NT makes its ultimate apologetic stand, Paul builds his case in
I Cor 15 for the resurrection as a historical event upon references to human
testimony, human sources, not divine revelation (except as prophesying that
it would happen); and all the apostles do the same thing.
The doctrine of the Bible as inerrant in science and history rests not upon
divine revelation but extra-biblical rationalism. Let us not accuse God of
lying just because for reasons of his own he gave temporary CONCESSIONS in
Scripture to some cultural ideas. Indeed I find myself offering praise to
him that he left to us humans the joys of discovering the truths of science
and history.
Paul S.