Re: Questions for Glenn & Howard

On 10/8/04 7:43 PM, "ed babinski" <ed.babinski@furman.edu> wrote:

> Before you [Glenn] and Howard [Van Till] discuss "philosophy" and
> "theology" and "internal consistancy" further, I would like to hear each
> of your views on how you determine "good" and "bad" using the Bible.
> (Isn't that what you should be discussing? You both place stress on the
> Bible, don't you, to differing degrees?)

Hi Ed. It's been a long time since we corresponded.

Let me correct the assumption on which your invitation rests. Glenn and I
make very different assumptions about the nature and authority of the Bible.

Glenn can state his own assumptions as he wishes, but what he has said on
this list over the years leads me to believe that he assumes the following:
that the information content of the Bible (something that we should be able
to discern with some serious effort at responsible and well-informed
interpretation) was communicated directly by God to the Bible's numerous
human writers over a thousand-year period, thereby giving the Bible factual
accuracy and divine authority unequalled by any other human literature.

My own description of the Bible is quite different. I value and accept the
Bible as a collection of thoroughly human accounts (specifically the ancient
Hebrew and early Christian accounts) of the authentic human experience of
the presence of the Sacred (God). As such, the Bible should not be expected
to be infallible, inerrant or even totally consistent. Neither should its
portrait of God be expected to be faultless or complete.

Howard
Received on Sat Oct 9 15:59:38 2004