Re: question

On 6/5/06, Janice Matchett <janmatch@earthlink.net> wrote:
> The 'accomodation' argument is very weak to me. Quoting Holdings' debate
> with Seely: "It does not do to say that 'God has sometimes allowed his
> inspired penman to advert to the scientific concepts of their own day.'
>
> Seely confuses adaptation to human finitude with accommodation to human
> error ­ the former does not entail the latter. As I know all too well,
> having spent several years confronting critics of the Bible, such
> 'allowances' as Seely asserts easily open the door to ridicule of the
> inspired Word, and the critics are correct to see such rationalizations as
> Seely's as totally invalid.
>

This betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of accomodationism. The
purpose is to understand Scripture in its totality and not to make
"allowances". Note what Terry Gray said in 2002:

Some of us hear scripture's teaching about itself--"Thy Word is
truth"; "All scripture is God-breathed..."; "For prophecy never had
its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God..."; "His
letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which
ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other
Scriptures, to their own destruction."--and do not feel so free
simply to say that the Bible contains errors or that parts of the
Bible are sub-Christian. Thus we put more effort into understanding
how these things might be consistent with the totality of God's
revelation of himself--the result is ***accomodationism***, intrusion
ethics, the framework hypothesis, etc. [emphasis mine]

The ASA statement of faith sets forth a view of scripture which
members have assented to: "We accept the divine inspiration,
trustworthiness and authority of the Bible in matters of faith and
conduct." This statement is broad enough to cover most (but not
necessarily all) of the views being expressed on this list. The
debate over inerrancy was carried out in the ASA several decades ago
and the inerrancy view did not prevail--this is obvious from the
wording of the Statement of Faith. I will readily admit that my view
is narrower than the ASA's view. However, I will also assert that the
view expressed in the ASA statement of faith leans toward the
evangelical right rather than toward the liberal left. A study of the
history of the ASA will bear this out.

I would argue that dismissing the various Old Testament passages that
pose certain ethical problems does not even conform to the broader
ASA statement of faith concerning scripture. Thus, efforts such as
the one I share below continue to be necessary. At the same time I
will count myself among those who admit that some of these issues are
difficult. Perhaps we can't come up with a good solution. For myself,
I would rather say "I don't know how to explain that" than to say
that scripture is any less than what it says about itself or to
compromise the clearer ethical teachings.

-------------

Accomodationism is a long standing position within Reformed theology
going back all the way to Calvin who said (Institutes I:13:1):

"The Anthropomorphites also, who dreamed of a corporeal God, because
mouth, ears, eyes, hands, and feet, are often ascribed to him in
Scripture, are easily refuted. For who even of slight intelligence
does not understand that, as nurses commonly do with infants, God is
wont in a measure to 'lisp' in speaking to us? Such modes of
expression, therefore, do not so much express what kind of a being God
is, as accommodate the knowledge of him to our feebleness. In doing
so, he must, of course, stoop far below his proper height."

Furthermore, in Scripture we find accomodation not only to factual
error but also accomodating for the noetic influence of sin in Jesus'
explanation of Deuteronomy 24:1 in Matthew 19:7-8a:

"Why then," they asked, "did Moses command that a man give his wife a
certificate of divorce and send her away?"

Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your
hearts were hard."

If errors concerning the nature of marriage caused by our sinful
nature was accomodated and thus God was not merely accomodating our
finitude, then accomodation of errors of a lesser sort concering how
God created the Universe would follow a forteriori.
Received on Tue Jun 6 11:40:19 2006