Re: Questions for Glenn & Howard

Brief comments below.

On 10/13/04 6:40 PM, "jwburgeson@juno.com" <jwburgeson@juno.com> wrote:

> Howard commented, in part:
>
> "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."

Burgy's response:
 
> I am not terribly comfortable with either of these options;

Burgy,

I would think that the first of these options is representative of a very
large portion of the Protestant Christian community -- the (conservative)
evangelical portion.

Glenn's comments would be helpful here.

> I probably
> would tend more towards the first if these were the only two;

That would probably be the choice of an even larger portion of the Christian
community in North America.
 
> yet I would agree with Howard's last two sentences.

Now you've sided with a minority position. Watch out!

> But I think there is a middle
> ground. The link below points to one with which I have resonance.

Stephen T. Davis is there summarized by Burgy: ³Infallible² means that
scripture never misleads us on matters that are crucially relevant to the
faith. this is not my a priori position, I have come to it as a result of
study and reflection. it is simply a good term to describe the Bible.

That's close to what I was taught from childhood on. At the moment, however,
it strikes me as a choice to make a commitment with very tenuous support at
best.

Howard
Received on Thu Oct 14 10:10:36 2004