Back on June 28th Terry wrote, in part: "... I never argued that science
shows definitively that humans have animal ancestors and thus we must revise
our interpretation of Genesis in order to "accomodate" that truth, but
rather, our traditional interpretations may be in error
and the scientific theories may enable us to see a correct interpretation
that is not in conflict. "
A couple of years ago I read about that heresy trial. I thought you done
good, my friend. I would be in total agreement with the above.
Terry: >>Finally, I must echo Michael Roberts' distinction between the
fundamentalist doctrine of inerrancy (Lindsell for example) and the Old
Princeton/Westminster doctrine of inerrancy. We may not like the word
inerrancy because of what Lindsell et al. have done with it, but it doesn't
necessarily make it a bad word--in the theological circles I roam in it is
nearly synonymous with infallibility (although some small distinctions are
made--for example, J.I. Packer writes "Infallibility signifies the full
trustworthiness of a guide that is not deceived and does not
deceive...Inerrancy signifies the total truthfulness of a source of
information that contains no mistakes." New Dictionary of Theology>>
OK. You are ahead of me here on understanding the term. JI Packer, a man I
respect a lot (see his KNOWING GOD, which is a keeper in my personal
library) seems to state a definition (above) I can accept, at least
provisionally. On that basis, I would deny inerrancy of the scriptures as we
have them today, since mistakes clearly do exist in them, and whether (or
not) the originals are inerrant seems to be irrelevant. I would accept
infallibility, but note that while the scriptures "do not deceive," it is
still quite possible to be deceived in one's interpretation of the
scriptures.
Are we at all together on the above? Or still miles and miles apart?
Terry: "The Old Princeton/Westminster doctrine has little difficulty with
the concept of accomodation or phenomenological language. They would NOT
call these errors. "
Neither would I. I have seen several web sites operated by atheist
organizations that do so, but reading them sometimes gives me heartburn. < G
>
JWB
www.burgy.50megs.com
_________________________________________________________________
Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 18 2002 - 00:20:02 EDT