RE: [asa] Question on inerrancy

Merv,

I think this is a great email. This captures precisely what my thought
process has been since I became a TE. And in fact I contend that wanting to
avoid the obvious conclusions of this analysis is the primary reason why
most evangelicals resist TE. They don't want to accept the thought that
maybe the Scriptures weren't intended to be the scientific textbook with all
the easy answers we tend to want it to be. And thus my aversion to the more
strict definitions of sola Scriptura and inerrancy as well. In my opinion,
they just can't be defended honestly as you aptly point out and they seem to
send the wrong message to the unbelieving seekers.

But I think your closing paragraph including Christine's analogy is the real
masterpiece because in my opinion that is what it alls boils down to, we as
Christians instead of trying to elevate the Scriptures to a form other than
they were originally intended to be, need to just focus on what we know of
the Truth through them and resist the temptation of dogmatically
interpolating the remaining unknowns which are in fact truly distractions.

Thanks

John

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Merv
Sent: Friday, May 09, 2008 11:37 PM
To: David Heddle; asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] Question on inerrancy

It's probably safe to say that we (Christians) are all in agreement here
that God cannot lie. And while this is an indispensable foundation of
our own faiths, it isn't much more than an obvious tautology to a
skeptic, since he only sees us applying a definition: (I.e. any
indisputable falsehood I discover obviously can't be from God since God
cannot lie.) But it is interesting for those of us from within the
faith perspective to reflect on where we throw down the gauntlet
defining "inerrancy". There is a continuum on this. Some would only
claim it for the pure Word from God (or Jesus) before it was put in
writing. This is an easy claim to make since we have no access to that
except through writings. Others a bit more strictly claim God
supervised the original autograph so that those human hands uniquely
recorded His Word in its perfection, but then the subsequent
translations introduced errors. This also avoids any direct challenge
since we can only access the later translations. But what is the point
of God delivering a perfect original transcript if He isn't willing to
see it through to the generations that need it? Accordingly, many would
claim that God also did just that, and the (major?) translations remain
faithfully perfect. And why shouldn't the God have providentially made
sure that the correct books were brought into the canon and false ones
rejected? Many Christians through history would go all the way on
this, and then voila! We get the King James Version which then may as
well have been dictated by God himself! I gather most of us here are
somewhat convinced he didn't. But we each have different places along
the way that we get off the boat. Either it "went wrong" somewhere
between then and now, or else we're pursuing entirely the wrong
questions about things like "inerrancy" in the first place.

Despite our modern obsession with facthood, I believe that most of our
major permutations of Scripture point to Him in every important way that
we need ---even every imperfect modern translation of it. I think
Christine made a great analogy using the manger. To continue in that
vein, if God can be fully present in the likeness of a man, one who is
humanly vulnerable to abuse, and even murder, then why can't God's Word
(the same person, after all) enter into frail human language with its
abuses, limitations and errors, and yet still be fully and
unapologetically present in it as his Word to us? I've probably
quoted this before -- but I resonate with Twain's sentiments on this:
"It isn't the parts of the Bible I don't understand that bother me.
Rather --it's the parts I understand perfectly well." We have plenty to
work on. The rest is just our wanting to find distractions.

--Merv

p.s. do we moderns consider journalism or documentary to be higher
forms of truth than poetry and narrative? What intellectual malaise
have we contracted that all "inspiration" is forced to take the form or
appearance of flat factual regurgitation before we give it our "truth"
stamp of approval? I can already see the new Jeffersonian Bible on the
horizon. Only instead of cutting out all the miracles, we cut out all
the parables as fairy tales beneath our consideration.

  David Heddle wrote:
> Joe Tandy,
>
> That's true, all you have to do is demonstrate an error in scripture.
> You are confident that you could--but I don't share your confidence.
> And you cannot be responsible for my fall from grace--because of
> course we Reformed types don't believe such a thing is possible.
>
> I actually meant to write "Sola Scriptura" not "Sola Fide" that was a
> mistake. The point is, believing scripture is inerrant is quite
> different from believing the canon is inerrant. There was debate
> regarding Hebrews, James, Jude, Revelation, 3 John, 1 Clement,
> The Shepherd of Hermas, and maybe a few others. Its possible a book
> was added that shouldn't have been, or (less likely it seems)
> was inadvertently omitted. The disntinction is sometimes put this way:
> The Catholic Church, can self-consistently claim an infallible
> collection of infallible books, while we Protestants can only
> self-consistently claim a fallible collection of infallible books.
>
> David Heddle
>

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Received on Sat May 10 07:40:48 2008