Re: [asa] Glenn's views

I think it's a mistake to argue for or against inerrancy based on
hermeneutics. After all, you could argue against *any* doctrine of
scripture as trustworthy and authoritative based on the fact that
interpretations can reasonably differ with respect to many passages. If we
affirm that scripture is trustworthy and authoritative for the faith and
practice of the Church, as the Church has done throughout history, it seems
to me that we must also affirm that scripture is capable of being understood
and applied by/within the Church, at least to the degree necessary for the
Church to carry out the mission God assigns to it. The Reformed
understanding of the perpiscuity of scripture, it seems to me, captures this
pretty well, while acknowledging that matters not central to salvation might
be less clear.

I prefer to think of inerrancy, as John Stott and Millard Erickson do, as a
secondary affirmation to the primary affirmations that God is truthful and
that scripture is God's authoritative revelation to the Church given for
instruction, correction, etc. We expect scripture to be perpiscuous on
central matters because of the primary affirmations about God's truthfulness
and scripture's authority and purpose, not because of the secondary
affirmation of inerrancy.

On 1/17/07, David Campbell <pleuronaia@gmail.com> wrote:

> > Inerrancy would be important only if the messages were always so clear
> that
> > diverging interpretations would be an exception rather than the
> rule. That
> > is, what good is inerrancy if you don't really know what the text means?
> > The notion of total inerrancy IMO betrays too strong an emphasis on the
> text
> > relative to the relationship.
>
> Inerrancy can be important if the important messages are clear, even
> if not all messages are clear. Divergent interpretations can reflect
> unclear messages or clear messages that we don't want to heed. In the
> case of unclear messages, inerrancy establishes the principle that
> agreement with Scripture as a whole should guide interpretation.
> Inerrancy many not be a sufficient principle to figure everything out,
> but it is relevant in figuring things out.
>
> --
> Dr. David Campbell
> 425 Scientific Collections
> University of Alabama
> "I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
>
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David W. Opderbeck
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