RE: [asa] Question on inerrancy

David,

The statement "If an error is discovered, the teacher falls harder than if
he hadn't boasted" is indeed the problem with extrapolating literal
inerrancy to scripture from more modest statements from the Bible itself, as
Bernie is pointing out. All I have to do to destroy your faith, then, is to
point out some obvious errors, and (by your argument) you have to disbelieve
the whole Bible. I could do this, but I wouldn't want to be responsible for
your fall from grace. Or, one has to seriously reinterpret what is meant by
the passages in question, or backtrack on what is meant by scriptural
inerrancy, which are the usual means of dodging the obvious problems.

Which is where your later statement doesn't make much sense to me:
"Sola-Fide Protestants (that includes me) have to accept that the canon
might contain errors." How can scripture be inerrant, but the canon might
have errors?

This argument has been made before, but let me state it with an explicit
example. The heavens declare the glory of God (or more generally, creation
is described as "good" by God.) Does that mean that if we find errors in
nature, that God was not so glorious or not such a good creator after all,
or that God is not perfect? Or is God able to speak through and witness His
glory through aspects of creation that have all appearance of being
imperfect?

In the same way, if scripture is received by, written by, and transmitted
through fallible humans, and if (hypothetically speaking) errors were
discovered in written scripture, was it God's fault or man's? And if this
were the case, would it still be possible for God to show through scripture
sufficient truth of Christ for us to put our trust in Him, and to be led to
the truth of all things by His living Spirit? I realize these questions may
be unsettling to those who place trust in the infallible written form of the
Word.

Jon Tandy

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of David Heddle
Sent: Friday, May 09, 2008 3:36 PM
To: Dehler, Bernie
Cc: AmericanScientificAffiliation Affiliation
Subject: Re: [asa] Question on inerrancy

Bernie,

They have to, it seems to me, go together (inerrancy and inspiration). If
the bible is not inerrant, then first of all there is no reason to believe 2
Tim. 3:16. Secondly, if we magically knew that 2 Tim 3:16 was true, but that
the bible was (pardon the double negative) not inerrant, then only verse we
could trust is 2 Tim. 3:16.

I think in general biblical inerrancy is demonstrated by stating that 2 Tim.
3:16 sets an extremely high standard--like a teacher who claims "I am never
wrong." The statement by itself proves nothing--but every time the teacher
speaks, we measure it against the lofty claim. If an error is discovered,
the teacher falls harder than if he hadn't boasted. So it is with scripture.
We bootstrap ourselves into biblical innerancy by weighing scripture against
the standard set by 2 Tim. 3:16.

That's my take.

Of course, even with inerrancy and inspiration affirmed, there is still the
question of "what is scripture." Catholics have sacred tradition, but
Sola-Fide Protestants (that includes me) have to accept that the canon might
contain errors. Unless we assume that the Holy Spirit guided the selection
process--giving us one Sacred Tradition.

David P. Heddle
Associate Professor of Physics
Christopher Newport University, &
The Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility
http://helives.blogspot.com

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Received on Fri May 9 18:38:10 2008