Path: christian Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian From: Stan Reeves Subject: What is inerrancy? Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu The following posting is a slightly revised version of a post authored by Richard Blinne (formerly rblinne@ncrwic.wichita.ncr.com and later ricardo@ftcollins.ncr.com --- I don't think he has access to email anymore) in April 1989. The original posting is a good statement about inerrancy. It comes close to being a candidate for an FAQ post, but it probably needs a little more work before being treated as a standard answer. I felt that this posting would answer many of the questions that have been raised recently concerning the nature of inerrancy. Stan Reeves [I've slightly modified my original comment at the end to clarify it. I've saved the message in my FAQ file. If anyone else who believes in inerrancy would like to suggest modifications, please feel free to do so. --clh] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- There seems to be much confusion about what inerrancy is (both from proponents and detractors). What I plan to do in this post is to describe what inerrancy is based on and what it is not. WHAT IS THE MOTIVATION OF INERRANCY? Foremost inerrancy is the attempt to describe and theologically systematize the statements of Scripture about itself. (At this point I won't go into why that's not tautological but just describe what inerrancy is). [This will be explained in a subsequent post. -- Stan] Jesus makes statements about David speaking by the Holy Spirit. He also states that Scripture cannot be broken and he had come to fulfill it. Paul states that scripture is theopneustos or God-breathed. From this and other statements of Scripture it appears that Scripture claims to have come ultimately from God. And since God is without error, Scripture should be without error in some sense. The sense in which Scripture is without error requires some more examination. At this point, it is fruitful to explore what inerrancy is not. INERRANCY IS NOT PERFECT TRANSMISSION OR TRANSLATION Jesus did not say that the people who translated or copied Scripture spoke by the Holy Spirit. Since people without divine assistance cannot be inerrant, it follows that transmission or translation would not be perfect. Most inerrantists at this point would say that the transmission is nonetheless fundamentaly accurate. This argument is a philosophical one based on God's providence. Obviously, this is not as strong as the argument for inerrancy of the original document. But, textual evidence shows that fundamental accuracy of the text is a reasonable position. Until I did research for this post I had assumed that the distinction between the autographs and the manuscripts was a modern one coming mainly from the work of B. B. Warfield (a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary around the turn of the century and an early systematizer of the doctrine of inerrancy). After reading some of Warfield's work I found I was mistaken. Warfield showed how the distinction went back to the Patrician period. He quoted Augustine who said that if there was an apparent contradiction in what he was reading Augustine would assume one of the following: 1. Transmission error. 2. Translation error. 3. Interpretational error. By this Warfield showed that Augustine believed in original copy inerrancy. Warfield also extensively showed how the Westminster Assembly had the same view also. INERRANCY IS NOT IS NOT IS NOOOOT LITERAL INTERPRETATION (Jumping up and down and getting red in the face :-) This is the biggest misconception about inerrancy. This is the result of the combination of Luther's dictum and an over-reaction to Liberalism and Modernism by the Independents in the Fundamentalist camp taking on an anti-intellectual stand. (This is basically the "nothing but Christ group".) Luther's dictum is literal wherever possible. The problem with this dictum is a priori approach to hermeneutics. The Reformed approach of letting Scripture interpret Scripture is more in line with inerrancy. If Scripture is really inerrant it should also dictate its own method of interpretation rather than have a priori rules applied to it. The biggest offenders currently of over-literalizing the Bible are of the Dispensational camp. Their version of estachology depends on the literal interpretation of the prophetic portions of Scripture. This is not in accord with Scripture interpreting prophesy. When the New Testament deals with fulfilled prophesy roughly one third of it is in a "literal" fashion. For example, the OT prophesy stated that Elijah would precede the Messiah. Luke reports that John the Baptist came in the spirit of Elijah. This type of "symbolic" fulfilment is common in the New Testament. So, if we want to be true to inerrancy we must be suspicious of overly literal interpretations of prophetic sections of Scripture. While most fundamentalists might miss the letter of inerrancy they do have an important point about emphasizing the literal nature of Scripture. I think the historicity of Scripture is a better term. That is, when Scripture reports an event in a historical fashion it is history and not some subconscious myth being expounded. The fundamentalists were responding to the works of Rudolf Bultmann and others that make Scripture into Bulfinch's mythology. WHAT ABOUT GENESIS Here is an interesting turn of events. Most inerrantists who are specialists in the field (and particularly OT scholars) do not hold to the "literal" six-day creation. An example of this thought is Gleason Archer. It seems that inerrantists and six-day creationists are thought to be one and the same, but from what I can tell six-day creationists are only a small subset of inerrantists. WHO WROTE SCRIPTURE MAN OR GOD? Yes. Scripture states that both agents were involved. This is verified by the lack of uniform style across Scripure. While styles vary the message remains constant. This is consistent with the dual nature of authorship. But since God is the ultimate authore (Scripture is the Word of God not the Word of Men) then the source is inerrant but still in the style and reflecting the personality of the human author. Mechanical dictation is a false issue. I know of no one currently or historically who held to the mechanical dictation view of inspiration. To argue against mechanical dictation is to set up a straw man. WHY AM I AN INERRANTIST It may sound trite, but I am an inerrantists because I seek to follow Jesus and I am a trinitarian. Jesus talking about David speaking by the Holy Spirit and Scripture cannot be broken implies its Divine nature. Since I hold that Jesus is God (which is demonstrated by his resurrection), then Jesus should know the nature of the OT. Therefore, I believe in the Inspiration of the OT. Jesus also promised the apostles that they would be able to remember what would happen and because of the philosophical argument that if the prediction is written of God the fulfilment should also it follows that the NT is of God also. Once we have established the ultimate author then inerrancy of the autographs is established. Rich Blinne, NCR E&M Wichita These moderatorial notes are from the original post. I have left them in because I think they provide a needed clarification concerning the nature of "literal interpretation": [Thank you for the clarification. I'd like to add to your comment on "literal interpretation." One of the reasons it tends to be misleading is that it has been used in so many different ways. Here are some of them: - to characterize an approach based on the meaning of the original author, as opposed to figurative or allegorical methods of interpretation. The latter methods are not very common now, but at various times in the history of the Church they were. In this sense, almost all modern interpretations are literal. - to characterize interpretations of specific passages, as not based on metaphor, etc. E.g. when Jesus says "this is my body" the literal interpretation leads to the traditional Roman Catholic view of the Mass. I don't know of anyone who takes the whole Scripture literally in this sense, or we'd have a very interesting time with John 10:7 "I am the door." - to characterize an acceptance of what Scripture is saying as being directly applicable to us, without making allowances for its alleged "mythological" character or for the alleged intermixing of revealed truth with ideas that the Biblical authors took from their culture. This is the primary issue in discussings Paul's comments about homosexuality and the role of women. While it's very closely related to inerrancy as discussed above, it isn't precisely the same. "literal interpretation" is almost certainly the wrong term to use here, since the actual meaning of the text is not at issue. However in many cases inerrancy isn't reallly the right term either, since the issue isn't exactly errors. Rather the issue is the extent to which things said to people in Biblical times can be applied directly to us, or whether we need to adjust them due to cultural differences or other differences in perspective. I have sometimes referred to this as "direct applicability". --clh] Path: christian Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian From: Stan Reeves Subject: Re: What is inerrancy? Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu I would like to respond to an objection raised to Rich Blinne's original posting on inerrancy. The objection was raised by Charley Wingate (currently mangoe@cs.umd.edu) in an April 1989 posting. Bet you never thought two-year-old postings would come back to haunt you, did you, Charley? :-) Ah, the wonders of modern magnetic media! ;-) I felt that it would be best to resurrect the original objection with the original post and possibly save some bandwidth (and effort) on similar, duplicate objections. >Inerrancy as a doctrine has trouble at all because of the contradictions >and internal consistency problems which, at the very least, require some >response from the reader. Traditionally we have three believer's responses. >First, we have the group which simply states that the textual difficulties >aren't there and "literally" interprets them away. I think I need not >belabor my objections to this method. The second group, which contains the >inerrantists of which Richard speaks, invokes Inerrancy of the Autographs. >The third group, the "liberals", invokes a variety of principles. >It's pretty clear that if you are going to have inerrancy, you must somehow >defend it against the manifest problems in the texts as we have them. This >is done, in RIchard's scheme, by assigning inerrancy to a text which has >been imperfectly transmitted. The problem is, to *have* inerrancy you have >to have it, which is a peculiar way of saying that in Richard's scheme we no >longer have the inerrancy where we can get at it. The surviving texts >perhaps retain some of the inerrant text, but objectly they do so >imperfectly. We simply don't know to what degree they do retain the >"original" texts (assuming that such a thing ever really existed), and >hence, one cannot appeal to inerrancy, because it has been lost. This is a serious oversimplification of the inerrantist approach to difficulties in the text. According to Rich's posting, Augustine (and modern-day inerrantists) would assume one of the following in the face of a difficulty: 1. Transmission error. 2. Translation error. 3. Interpretational error. Given the number of documents available and the amount of study that's been put into reconstructing the original text, I would say that in about 99% of passages, #1 is not an option. We can't just retreat into claiming a transmission error when there is no grounds for such a claim. #2 can be more of a problem, but in most passages, the meaning can be narrowed considerably without relying on interpretive principles. Thus, in most situations, an inerrantist must deal with #3. >The claim that some person >does not speak for himself, but only says what the bible says, is almost >always suspect; few passages of scripture yeild meaning without some >interpretation. This is particularly, true of the most controversial >passages: the Pauline moral teachings. Everything we read of Paul was >written to a specific group of people for a specific place and time; it >requires interpretation to uphold the claim that they have any relevance to >us at all. I agree totally. A good inerrantist believes proper interpretation to be of utmost importance, and we inerrantists are usually willing to discuss doctrinal differences derived on that level. Where we begin to get bent out of shape is when non-inerrantists add another option to Augustine's three: 4. Error in the original. As I've said, this is not an option for inerrantists. However, it is an option that is not only hypothetically open to non-inerrantists but one that is used quite often. Thus, the doctrine of inerrancy *does* make a profound difference in the way in which passages of Scripture are approached. Very rarely will you find an inerrantist "hiding" behind possibility #1. We almost always deal with #3 and occasionally #2. >The inerrantists seem to favor these principles. But their defense needs no >inerrancy. I frankly don't see that claims of inerrancy do any good at all, >because they don't seem to be applicable without some confusion of what is >real with what is hypothetical. Since the texts as we have them can be reconstructed to a level of reliability that practically guarantees that we have the original before us, then inerrancy is indeed an important consideration in the way we approach textual difficulties. A very real example is the issue of the role of women in the church. Many liberals take the view that Paul was just wrong. Charley himself has said in the past that he does not accept some of Paul's arguments concerning what nature teaches about the woman's role. An inerrantist refuses to take this route. He doesn't try to claim that Paul's statements are a transmission error or even a translation error. He believes that they are a reliable statement of truth. Thus, he must wrestle with the implications of that truth and be obedient to it regardless of whether the implications are personally palatable. Over and over in this newsgroup we see doctrinal and moral issues come to an impasse simply because one side accepts the authority of a set of passages on the issue, and the other side does not. I find it hard to understand how one could think that inerrancy makes no practical difference. Stan Reeves [Let me point out again, as I did in my response to the first posting, that the primary issue between liberals and conservatives is not over errors, but over what (if any) changes need to be made due to differences in culture. Those who advocate full equality for women need not (and often do not) believe that Paul was wrong. Rather, they believe he made a reasonable application of the Gospel within his culture, but that in our situation the Gospel calls for a different response. In this particular issue (though this is fairly unusual) there are also issues of textual criticism and authorship, since some people believe that I Cor 14:34-35 is a later addition, and that Tim and Titus are not from Paul. (I'm not sure the exact significance of the latter. Although I've never heard it stated in so many words, I think many liberal Christians consider Tim and Titus to be less authoritative than the other Pauline letters.) I believe in order to fully characterize the way conservative Christians work, we need to add to inerrancy: - that advice given by Paul in his letters is not culturally bound, and applies in the 20th Cent. unless it was very clearly based on specific local circumstances - that I Cor 14:34-35 is part of the original text - that all of the books in the traditional canon were written by their claimed authors, and carry full authority --clh] Path: christian Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian From: Stan Reeves Subject: Inerrancy II Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu The following posting is a slightly revised version of a post I authored in April 1989. It attempts an explanation of the fact that we can infer the doctrine of Scripture from Scripture itself. Several people have objected to inerrancy on the grounds that for Scripture to claim inerrancy for itself is circular reasoning. My answer is intended for those who admit that Scripture contains divine revelation. A more general defense of inerrancy (and revelation) would be much more than I could do justice to in a single posting. For those who really want to dig deeply, see Carl F. H. Henry's six-volume work _God, Revelation, and Authority_. This work is considered by many to be "the most important work of evangelical theology in modern times." (Quote from religious editor of the New York Times) Stan Reeves --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rich Blinne's explanation of inerrancy is excellent, and I'd recommend it to anybody who wants clarification on that issue. I would like to expand on one point that Rich makes. He says: >Foremost inerrancy is the attempt to describe and theologically >systematize the statements of Scripture about itself. This statement is central in understanding why inerrantists believe that the doctrine is so important. Virtually all Christians agree that the Bible contains supernatural revelation. It gives us information on topics that we could not discover for ourselves. It speaks of the deity and the humanity of Christ; it speaks of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility; it also tells us of the significance of the crucifixion and the resurrection. We are given these facts in the Bible as revelatory truth from God. The Bible makes revelatory claims about God, man, and salvation. However, it doesn't stop there. The Bible also makes claims about its own nature -- its origin, its power, and its trustworthiness. Inerrantists believe that these statements in combination yield a doctrine of the Bible which has been labelled "inerrancy." (See Rich's posting for a good explanation of the doctrine.) The doctrine of inerrancy is as much a part of the revelation contained in the Bible as is the deity of Christ or the reality of forgiveness. (That's not to say that the doctrine is as central as other doctrines, only that it fits into the category of biblical revelation as much as the others.) If the authors of the Bible were not qualified to speak of the Bible's authority, then why should we think that they were trustworthy in communicating these other doctrines of Christianity? If we are going to admit that Christianity is a revealed religion, then we must accept this doctrine as part of that system of revelation. Once we recognize that inerrancy is part of the "faith once delivered to the saints", then we have theological justification for seeking to reconcile passages that seem to contradict one another. We are told on good authority that the passages don't contradict; thus, we are not at liberty to interpret them in such a way that they do. Of course, we must at all times maintain a proper humility in our interpretation of Scripture. When we speak of the person of Christ, we seek to show that his deity does not contradict his humanity; however, at some point we must admit that we don't have all the information and leave it at that. In our wrestling with difficult passages, we should take the same approach. We see the trustworthiness of Scripture clearly revealed, and we use that as a presupposition in our interpretive efforts. For many passages, however, we must be satisfied to say that we don't have all the information and will simply have to wait for further light to elucidate the difficulties. An example should clarify the matter. In a recent posting, our moderator quotes some of Paul's statements on the law. At first glance, these statements appear contradictory. However, the inerrantist is not willing to take that interpretation b/c to do so would be to take an approach counter to the revelatory claim of Scripture. If Paul's claims about Scripture aren't trustworthy, then why should we care what he thought about the law? The inerrantist seeks to understand these disparate statements about the law in a complementary way rather than a contradictory one. Only then are we in a position to come to grips with the full-orbed truth about the Christian view of the law. This treatment is rather brief but hopefully not too simplistic. I would be the first to admit that the doctrine of inerrancy has its problems -- both theological and practical -- but that is also true of major doctrines that virtually all Christians agree upon. In my view, inerrancy is the most faithful representation of what the Bible teaches about itself and the best safeguard for what it has to say on all other matters. Stan Reeves These moderatorial comments are from the original posting: [I hope it was clear that I was not accusing Jesus or Paul of an actual inconsistency in their treatment of the Law. I happen to think that there is a consistent NT view on the subject. You may want to cite the specific passages in which you believe the Bible teaches that it is inerrant. I have yet to see anyone produce such a passage. Normally the statements turn out to be things like II Tim 3:16. This certainly says that Scripture is inspired by God. But it doesn't deal with inerrancy specifically. Those who believe that God put his inspiration into the hands of fallible human beings can accept II Tim 3:16, but still reject inerrancy. As far as I can see, the inerrantist interpretation of that passage is (1) God inspired Scripture (2) we know that he wouldn't allow any error to creep into something that he inspired, therefore (3) there is no error in Scripture. (1) is certainly Scriptural. However I see no evidence for (2). I believe it is very dangerous to believe we know what God would or wouldn't do (unless of course he has told us). Many of Jesus' contemporaries rejected his messiahship on similar grounds: they knew that God wouldn't do something like that. --clh] And my previously unposted response to the original moderatorial comments: As has been argued in a piecemeal fashion in previous postings, God did not simply "inspire" the Scriptures in the way that a great hero might inspire a biography from someone else's pen. The Greek term is literally "God-breathed". Since this implies that the words of Scripture come directly from the mouth of God, we can say that in a very real sense that what Scripture says, God says. (This does not deny the role of the human authors. We believe that God can use human writers with their own particular viewpoints and styles to communicate exactly what God intended to communicate.) Thus, if the Scriptures are in error, then God is in error. Since Scripture clearly reveals the full trustworthiness of God, we must believe that God cannot err in his statements. Thus, Scripture cannot err. And therefore, (2) is not only suggested but demanded by the Scriptural evidence. [This is putting a very heavy load on one word. "God-breathed" is certain its etymology. It's not clear to me that it's any more the actual meaning than "God be with you" is what people really mean when they say "goodbye". --clh] Path: christian Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian From: Stan Reeves Subject: Inerrancy statement II Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu To further clarify what evangelicals mean by inerrancy and to ward off some of the common misconceptions about inerrancy, I am posting an excellent statement on inerrancy called "The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy." See Part 1 for more details. This is Part 2 of 3. THE CHICAGO STATEMENT ON BIBLICAL INERRANCY II. ARTICLES OF AFFIRMATION AND DENIAL Article I. We affirm that the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the authoritative Word of God. We deny that the Scriptures receive their authority from the Church, tradition, or any other human source. Article II. We affirm that the Scriptures are the supreme written norm by which God binds the conscience, and that the authority of the Church is subordinate to that of Scripture. We deny that church creeds, councils, or declarations have authority greater than or equal to the authority of the Bible. Article III. We affirm that the written Word in its entirety is revelation given by God. We deny that the Bible is merely a witness to revelation, or only becomes revelation in encounter, or depends on the responses of men for its validity. Article IV. We affirm that God who made mankind in His image has used language as a means of revelation. We deny that human language is so limited by our creatureliness that it is rendered inadequate as a vehicle for divine revelation. We further deny that the corruption of human culture and language through sin has thwarted God's work of inspiration. Article V. We affirm that God's revelation in the Holy Scriptures was progressive. We deny that later revelation, which may fulfill earlier revelation, ever corrects of contradicts it. We further deny that any normative revelation has been given since the completion of the New Testament writings. Article VI. We affirm that the whole of Scripture and all its parts, down to the very words of the original, were given by divine inspiration. We deny that the inspiration of Scripture can rightly be affirmed of the whole without the parts, or of some parts but not the whole. Article VII. We affirm that inspiration was the work in which God by His Spirit, through human writers, gave us His Word. The origin of Scripture is divine. The mode of divine inspiration remains largely a mystery to us. We deny that inspiration can be reduced to human insight, or to heightened states of consciousness of any kind. Article VIII. We affirm that God in His work of inspiration utilized the distinctive personalities and literary styles of the writers whom He had chosen and prepared. We deny that God, in causing these writers to use the very words that He chose, overrode their personalities. Article IX. We affirm that inspiration, though not conferring omniscience, guaranteed true and trustworthy utterance on all matters of which the Biblical authors were moved to speak and write. We deny that the finitude or falseness of these writers, by necessity or otherwise, introduced distortion or falsehood into God's Word. Article X. We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original. We deny that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant. Article XI. We affirm that Scripture, having been given by divine inspiration, is infallible, so that, far from misleading us, it is true and reliable in all the matters it addresses. We deny that it is possible for the Bible to be at the same time infallible and errant in its assertions. Infallibility and inerrancy may be distinguished but not separated. Article XII. We affirm that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from all falsehood, fraud, or deceit. We deny that Biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields of history and science. We further deny that scientific hypotheses about earth history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture on creation and the flood. Article XIII. We affirm the propriety of using inerrancy as a theological term with reference to the complete truthfulness of Scripture. We deny that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according to standards of truth and error that are alien to its usage or purpose. We further deny that inerrancy is negated by Biblical phenomena such as a lack of modern technical precision, irregularities of grammar or spelling, observational descriptions of nature, the reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyperbole and round numbers, the topical arrangement of material, variant selections of material in parallel accounts, or the use of free citations. Article XIV. We affirm the unity and internal consistency of Scripture. We deny that alleged errors and discrepancies that have not yet been resolved violate the truth claims of the Bible. Article XV. We affirm that the doctrine of inerrancy is grounded in the teaching of the Bible about inspiration. We deny that Jesus' teaching about Scripture may be dismissed by appeals to accommodation or to any natural limitation of His humanity. Article XVI. We affirm that the doctrine of inerrancy has been integral to the Church's faith throughout its history. We deny that inerrancy is a doctrine invented by scholastic Protestantism, or is a reactionary position postulated in response to negative higher criticism. Article XVII. We affirm that the Holy Spirit bears witness to the Scriptures, assuring believers of the truthfulness of God's written Word. We deny that this witness of the Holy Spirit operates in isolation from or against Scripture. Article XVIII. We affirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico-historical exegesis, taking account of its literary forms and devices, and that Scripture is to interpret Scripture. We deny the legitimacy of any treatment of the text or quest for sources lying behind it that leads to relativizing, dehistoricizing, or discounting its teaching, or rejecting its claims of authorship. Article XIX. We affirm that a confession of the full authority, infallibility and inerrancy of Scripture is vital to a sound understanding of the whole of the Christian faith. We further affirm that such confession should lead to increasing conformity to the image of Christ. We deny that such confession is necessary for salvation. However, we further deny that inerrancy can be rejected without grave consequences, both to the individual and to the Church. Path: christian Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian From: REXLEX@linac.fnal.gov Subject: Inerrancy Defined Organization: Fermi Lab Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu PLENARY AND VERBAL INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES Definitions: Maybe we are going around this simply because we don't understand each others definitions of the words that we are using. Therefore, if I may, let me put forth what I have been taught to believe the definitions are. Q. What do we mean by *plenary* and *verbal* inspiration? A. We believe that in the composition of the original manuscripts, the Holy Spirit guided the authors even in their choice of expressions- and this throughout all the pages of the Scriptures-still without effacing the personalities of the different men. Frank E. Gaebelein states: "The Church has held from the beginning that the Bible is the Word of God in such a sense that its words, though written by men and bearing indelibly impressed upon them the marks of their human origin, were written, nevertheless, under such an influence of the Holy Ghost as to be also the words of God, the adequate expression of His mind and will. It has always recognized that this conception of co-authorship implies that the Spirit's superintendence extends to the choice of the words by the human authors [verbal inspiration, but not a mechanical dictation!] and preserves its product from everything inconsistent with a divine authorship-thus securing, among other things, that entire truthfulness which is everywhere presupposed in and asserted for Scripture by the biblical writers' [inerrancy].l The doctrine of plenary inspiration holds that the original documents of the Bible were written by men, who, though permitted the exercise of their own personalities and literary talents, yet wrote under the control and guidance of the Spirit of God, the result being in every word of the original documents a perfect and errorless recording of the exact message which God desired to give to man." According to Louis Gaussen, in "The Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures," the theopneustia (2 Tim 3:16, "breathed by God") is the mysterious power which the divine Spirit put forth n the authrs of the Scriptures of the OT & NT, to enable them to compose them as they have been received by the church of God at their hands, a guidance extending to the very words employed and preserving the writings in this way without error. Of course when we speak of plenary inspiration, it of necessity extends to the words (Latin, "verbum," word). Words are inseparable from the message. The sense of the divine revelation is inextricably tied in with the language of the Scriptures. i.e. their content cannot be expressed apart from words. So what do we have? If we cannot say that the words of Scripture are given by God, we cannot affirm that the Scripture is inspired either, for it consists of words. (Is this what you were referring to M.M.?) If you press this to be true, then the conclusion is that we shall never feel certain of what the Spirit of God means in the Scriptures unless we can be sure that the words of the text were expressly given by God Himself. Hammond comments: "The only method of communication of ideas which we c; understand as rational beings is that which achieves its purpc by the awakening of similar ideas in the object to whom t communication is made. The most universal form of such co munication is by means of language. While language in primitive form does not exclude other signs, it has gradually confined itself to sounds and their visual symbolic expression written characters. If the story of the Incarnation and the voice of the prophet convey any true message from God, then God has employed the media of spoken and written words, the universal characteristic of language, to reveal His will to man.... The success of any communication, moreover, depends upon adequacy of the expression. Where the mode of expression is defective, the apprehension of the original idea or though imperfect." ( T.C. Hammond, "Inspiration and Authority.") Regarding the expression "verbal inspiration," Hodge says that for many theologians this implies the idea of a mechanical dictatition. He declares: "This view we repudiate as earnestly as any of those who object to the language in question. At the present time the advocates of the strictest doctrine of inspiration, in insisting that it is ve~ do not mean that, in any way, the thoughts were inspired by means of the words, but simply that the divine superintendence which we call inspiration extended to the verbal expression of the thoughts of the sacred writers, as well as to the thoughts themselves, and that, hence, the Bible considered as a record, an utterance in words of a divine revelation, is the Word of God to us." (cited in E Young's "Thy Word Is Truth") Let us summarize the opinion of Erich Sauer: "We believe in full inspriation because of the inner connection of thought and word. For the unmistakable expressing of thought there is necessary a careful choice of corresponding words . . . The thinking of man arises from indistinct notions, sensations, and conceptions. But this does not contradict the fact that everything spiritual, if it is to attain to *clear* unfolding of a real thought or "idea," reveals itself in *words.* A thought only becomes properly a conscious thought if out of the subconscious realm of sensation and the indeterminate impression of will and feeling a word is born . . . The word may be regarded as the body of the thought, giving the spirit "visibility" and form. Therefore if the word is blurred, the thought is blurred; and all becomes foggy and indistinct." ("From Eternity to Eternity") If then the thoughts are inspired, the words must also be so. Luther justly said: "Christ did not say of His thoughts, but of His words, that they are spirit and life." (Cf. John 6:63.) J.A. Bengel declares, speaking of the prophets: "With the ideas God at the same time gave them the words." Spurgeon, that prince of preachers, said: "We contend for every word of the Bible and believe in the verbal, literal inspiration of Holy Scripture. Indeed, we believe there can be no other kind of inspiration. If the words are taken from us, the exact meaning is of itself lost." In the case of the men in Bible days-for example, Jeremiah-none of these matters aroused the slightest doubt. Had not God declared: "Whatsoever I shall command thee thou shalt speak. Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. Thou shalt be as my mouth. Speak . . . all the words that I command thee to speak unto them; *diminish not a word.* Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken . . ., even unto this day" (Jer. 1:7, 9; 15:19; 26:2; 36:2). The Lord had Ezekiel eat, symbolically, the scroll of His revelation. Then He said to him: "When I speak with thee, I will open thy mouth [not merely "thy thought" or "thy mind"], and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah" (Ezek. 2:9-3:3, 27) . According to Paul, the Holy Spirit taught God's spokesmen a spiritual language, the words of which (Greek, logoi: discourse, words in their proper sequence in quick succession in the sentences) corresponded to the supenatural message to be transmitted, the very thought of Christ (I Cor. 2:13, 16). "Thus we constantly see some revelation burst forth from a particular expression, or we find some author pasing his whole argument on a single word. . . We may say in resume that very often the meaning of a whole passage rests entirely on one word, a singular or a plural number, the tense of a verb, the details of a prophecy, the precision of a promise and the silence of the text on a certain point.." (Rene Pache, "Inspiration & Authority of Scripture") Lets take a look at I Jn 5:13 again. On what does our assurance of salvation rest? John [the Lord's beloved disciple] said: "These things have I *written* [not just said] . . . that ye might *know* [not hope, feel, suppose] that ye *have* [now, not later, or in heaven] *eternal life* [the only reason for our existence], even unto you that *believe *[the only condition for receiving grace] on the name of *the Son of God* [the only name given among men]." What assurance, what certitude could we have if every time we read such marvelous texts we had to wonder: 1) Was the author exaggerating here? 2) Wasn't he going beyond the divine thought? 3) Wouldn't it be better to substitute another wording for the one given? If the biblical text were actually uncertain, would we not have to cry out with Jeremiah: "Wilt thou indeed be unto me as a deceitful brook, as waters that fail?" ( 15 :18) . What despair, then, would creep into our hearts before a revelation which claims to be divine, since we have no other light to guide us on the way everlasting! To doubt the Word of God-what a tragedy! Not to know where it is to be found, to have nothing of it available except little hints from the pens of authors wholly open to error- this would certainly keep us mourning in the dark. As Erich Sauer again says, "Full inspiration is necessary because of the fall of man. Were the Bible a mixture of truth and error, we would have to try to decide by ourselves what should be acknowledged as of divine origin or rejected as containing the alloy of human error. If man has not received from on high an exact standard, how can he distinguish between what is divine and what is human? How could we have the audacity to analyze, or even to dissect, God's Book, for the most part simply on the basis of impressions, subjective feelings or insufficient historical knowledge?" What fallen man thinks about God is largely erroneous and generally untrustworthy; it is only "religion." Man must, on the contrary, find out what the Most High thinks about him and what He testifies concerning Himself and His plan of redemption. This essential objective really is a Person, not a book. Jesus Christ incarnate, crucified and raised again is THE truth, THE light, and THE source of all knowledge. The revelation of Him to men, and this through the intermediary of men of darkened intellect (Eph. 4:18; I Cor. 2:14), required a supernatural inspiration fully adequate and worthy of confidence. Even as we need grace because of our moral incapacity, we need inspiration because of our intellectual and spiritual incapacity. From daemon@linac.fnal.gov Fri Aug 7 13:53:27 1992 Received: from linac.fnal.gov by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.4/3.08) id AA13210; Fri, 7 Aug 92 13:53:27 EDT Received: by linac.fnal.gov (5.65c/IDA-1.4.3); Fri, 7 Aug 1992 12:53:24 -0500 Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Path: newsaintmail From: REXLEX@linac.fnal.gov Subject: Inerrancy & Inspiration Message-Id: <91ZAXR83!@linac.fnal.gov> Sender: daemon@linac.fnal.gov (The Background Man) Nntp-Posting-Host: admec1.fnal.gov Organization: Fermi Lab Distribution: USA Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1992 17:53:16 GMT Lines: 194 Apparently-To: soc-religion-christian@linac.fnal.gov INERRANCY AND INSPIRATION DEFINITION AND GENERALITIES The definition of verbal, plenary inspiration implies that in drawing up the original manuscripts, the sacred authors were guided in such a way that they transmitted perfectly, without error, the exact message which God desired to communicate to men. "The terms "inerrancy" and "infallibility" seem to us practically interchangeable. There are those who think that the word "infallibility" smacks too much of the idea of papal authority, a treatment of the Bible as a piece of paper that automatically settles every question. The fact is that if Scripture is infallible, it cannot err; and if it is inerrant, this is because it contains no mistakes." (Pache) "Inerrancy is the point of the theopneustia: it delineates sharply that which separates evangelical biblicists, on the one hand, from liberals and dialecticians (men who deny it) on the other. While faith rests on an ineffable and spiritual plane, the doctrine of inerrancy, on the level of observable facts, is the one more open to the attacks of unbelief." (suggested by H. Blocher in a message given at Morges, Switzerland, in 1964). We are not inventing this doctrine, as you have already consented to being the traditional understanding. [Because there is too much evidence to say other wise] It is found in the great confessions of the church. Our fathers in the faith, in fact, considered the Scripture as "the criterion of all truth" (la Rochelle), "the very Word of God" (2d Helvetic Confession)-, and "divine and canonical" (Waldensian churches of Piedmont). The Westminster Confession adds: ". . . our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit. . ." "The Old Testament in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek, being immediately inspired by God, and by His singular care and providence kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical. . ." (Ch 1, art's. 5 & 8) [you should go back and read this clh] "As for Calvin, he goes so far as to say: 'It obtains the same complete credit and authority with believers, when they are satisfied of its divine origin, as if they heard the very words pronounced by God himself.'" (Pache) What is the source of the doctrine of inerrancy? It arises for us out of the nature and declarations of the Scriptures themselves. They everywhere present themselves as being the Word of God. When the Lord speaks, He cannot lie; neither can He teach truth by means of error. His veracity as well as His power is at stake. Answer these points, those who hold to errancy: *1) If He spoke erroneously at the beginning or mingled the true with the false, what could we think of Him? *2) With our etenal salvation standing or falling on it, what certainty could we find in a revelation like that? *3) If God, after giving to the sacred authors a message exact in every detail, had showed Himself unable afterward to effect its transmission in a way worthy of confidence, would this not mean that He had deceived us? And in that case, what would have been the use of His initial revelation? It seems to be evident that the writer of the original text had before him a task infinitely more difficult and more crucial than was the work of any copyist or translator afterward. Following Louis Gaussen, let us first of all consider the original text in relation to the translations made of it through the centuries. 1. "The sacred authors had to give a human form to the divine message, an operation mysterious, delicate and open to error (if ever there was one); and for this responsibility the full assistance of the Spirit was needed. The mind of the Lord having been in a sense incarnated in human language, it was no longer a question, in translating, of giving it a body, but simply of changing its clothing, so as to make it say in our own language what it had said in Hebrew and Greek-that is, to modestly replace each word by an equivalent expression. This is an operation far inferior, comparatively, to the pre ceding one; it could conceivably be done even by a scrupulous unbeliever if he knew perfectly the languages in question. 2. "The author of the original text, without entire inspiration, would have been far more in danger of error than the translators. The translators' work was done by a great many men, of every tongue and country, who could devote all their time to it and all their care, who were disciplining themselves through the centuries, and who were instructing and correcting one another. The original text, on the other hand, had to be written at a given time, by a single man, and once for all. No one was with that man except his God to hold him to the line and to furnish him with better expressions when his were faulty. If God had not done it, then nobody could have done it. 3. "Whereas all the translators of the Scriptures were cultured people and specialists in the study of languages, many of the sacred authors were ignorant men, scarcely fluent in their own language. They would have been incapable of putting the divine revelation together with impeccable artistry all by themselves. 4. "God's thought flashed like lightning across the mind of the prophet. It can be discovered again in our times only in the same rapid expression he gave to it as he wrote it down. If his transmission of it was inexact, how could the divine message ever be recaptured in all its pristine purity? The fault would be irreparable, for it would have hopelessly marred the eternal Book." The situation is quite different for the translations. Since we have today a biblical text extremely close to the original our versions can be ceaselessly corrected and recorrected, with a view to conforming them to it with ever increasing precision. This work goes on from one century to another; and one can still revise today the Vulgate of St. Jerome after 1,500 years, Luther's translation after 450 years, and the English Authorized Version after 350 years. How important it was for the original to be without error and for it to have been transmitted to us with rigorous fidelity! Apropos of this, let us again consider a thought of Gaussen's. "A book is from God, or it is not from God. In the latter case, it were idle for me to transcribe it a thousand times exactly-I should not thereby render it divine; and in the former case, I should in vain take a thousand incorrect copies; neither folly nor unfaithfulness on my part can undo the fact of its having been given by God.... If then the Book of Maccabees was a merely human book in the days of Jesus Christ, a thousand decrees of the Roman Catholic Church could not have any such effect thereafter as that, in 1560, becoming what it had never been till then, it should be transubstantiated into a divine book." 5. "If the original text was faulty, the streams of potential error flowing out from it would only tend to increase constantly. On the other hand, if it was inerrant, the possibility of error in the copies and in the translations would constantly diminish. The painstaking study of the innumerable copies of the Scriptures in our possession; the discovery of new manuscripts, such as those of Sinai and the Dead Sea; the progress in exegesis and philology; and the ceaseless revision of the translations-all these means have contributed in a wonderful way to confirm the basic text and to increasingly eliminate such mistakes in copying and translating as occurred through the centuries. Once again, such progress presupposes a dependable original manuscript as the source from which all the rest has proceeded, however far from it are the times in which we are living." L. Gaussen concludes like this: "Who now can fail to perceive the enormous distance interposed by all these considerations between these two texts [that of the Bible and that of the translations], as respects the importance of verbal inspiration? Between the passing of the thoughts of God into human words and the simple turning of these words into other words, the distance is as wide as from heaven to earth. God was required for the one; man sufficed for the other. Let it no longer be said, then, What would it avail to us that we have verbal inspiration in the one case [the original manuscript] if we have not that inspiration in the other case [the subsequent translation], for between these two terms, which some would put on an equality, the difference is almost infinite." Now let us consider a more recent voice, that of Dr. J. I. Packer. "It is sometimes suggested that we can have no confidence that any text that we possess conveys to us the genuine meaning of the inspired Word.... But faith in the consistency of God warrants an attitude of confidence that the text is sufficiently trustworthy not to lead us astray. If God gave the Scriptures for a practical purpose-to make men wise unto salvation through faith in Christ-it is a safe inference that He never permits them to become so corruptecl that they can no longer fulfill it. It is noteworthy that the NT men did not hesitate to trust the words of the OT as they had it, as a reliable indication of the mind of God. This attitude of faith in the adequacy of the text is confirmed, as far as it can be, by the unanimous verdict of textual scholars that the biblical manuscripts are excellently preserved; and no point of doctrine depends on any of the small number of cases in which the true reading remains doubtful. Professor F. F. Bruce expresses the verdict of scholarship as well as of biblical faith when he writes: 'By the singular care and providence of God the Bible text has come down to us in such substantial purity that even the most uncritical edition of the Hebrew or Greek . . . cannot effectively obscure the real message of the Bible or neutralize its saving power.'" ("Fundamentalism & The Word of God") Since we are deprived of the original manuscripts, we are all the more led to study the existing documents to compare them and to keep bringing them back to the primitive text, which, after all, is not so far from us. Having been laid hold on by the powerful message of Scripture, and feeling ourselves overwhelmed by its revelation of the living God, we can do no other than to cling to it wholly by faith. It is possible for us to adopt such an attitude, even if we are not able fully to explain, demonstrate and harmonize the little which still seems obscure to us. We are certainly obliged to accept in this same way all the great biblical doctrines: the Trinity: God revealed in three Persons the incarnation: Jesus Christ, at once God and man the fall: man incapable of doing good, yet responsible justification: the believer at the same time a sinner and declared righteous predestination: the eternal election of man, who yet possesses free will resurrection: a new body-"body," but at the same time something spiritual eternal perdition: the question of reconciling this concept with the love of God. We accept all these things by faith in the Scriptures, being fully convinced of its witness to the truth, even if we cannot explain every detail in it. Likewise, it is possible for us to take by faith the doctrines of inspiration and inerrancy: the Word wholly of God and at the same time of man, preserved from error to reveal the truth to us in no uncertain way. This being said, faith in inerrancy is not at all conducive to an obscurantist attitude, which would blind us to plain problems or make us disparage the light that emanates from true science. THe Evangelical/Fundamentalist faith knows how to distinguish between positive and negative criticism. It endeavors to examine all things so as to retain that wh is good. On the other hand, the thing that seems positively antiscientific to us is the flat rejection of the testimony to the integrity of the Scriptures which Christ Himself gave and which the apostles and an impressive number of real facts substantiate. From netnews@ulysses.att.com Tue Aug 11 20:05:31 1992 Received: from att-out.att.com by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.4/3.08) id AA24815; Tue, 11 Aug 92 20:05:31 EDT To: soc-religion-christian@att.uucp Path: ulysses!vek From: vek@allegra.att.com (Van Kelly) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Observations on the whole Inerrancy Brouhaha Message-Id: Date: 12 Aug 92 00:01:11 GMT References: Sender: netnews@ulysses.att.com Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, USA Lines: 107 In-Reply-To: RexLex@linac.fnal.gov's message of 10 Aug 92 04:57:59 GMT Cc: vek@ulysses.att.com, RexLex@linac.fnal.gov I've had an unusually intense personal reaction to recent net discussions of inerrancy. My own heritage is Baptist, pretty strongly from the inerrantist camp. I remain very comfortable with evangelical traditions of piety, spirituality, and theology, but I am increasingly bothered by modern inerrantism. Part of this may be that my view of language has evolved, largely due to research I have encountered in my work. But what finally convinced me that I could no longer hold to the version of inerrancy held by most conservative American Protestant theologians (please note carefully the above qualification), was a careful study of the full text of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy ("CSBI"), which also appeared in this newsgroup a while ago. For now, I just want to clarify some bothersome points, both from CSBI and from some recent RexLex postings. I intend neither an attack on RexLex, nor a point-for-point debate with him. These are, by my intention, simply observations about some limitations in the arguments he, among others, has quoted. Problem #1: Dichotomizing between inerrancy and errancy. I personally think that a precise and properly qualified statement of inerrancy requires a document at least as long and complex as the CSBI; it's not just one atomic proposition. Now, I agree with some conclusions made in CSBI, disagree with others, and consider still others either open hypotheses or just too vague. Does disagreeing with, say 4, major points of CSBI mean I hold to errancy? What if I just want to substantially qualify one or two of its statements? Bluntly, who decides how much I get to muck with a particular version of inerrancy before it is no longer inerrancy? How tiny does a g-string have to be before the emperor is *effectively* naked? Problem #2: Dichotomizing inerrantISTS and "errantISTS" [sic]. Even if you accept a dichotomy between inerrantism and errantism, that doesn't mean an individual is logically obligated to hold one or the other. Suppose P stands for some (any) proposition, and not-P its negation. Modal logics of belief in which "Joe believes not-P" follows from "Joe does not believe P" are special cases reserved for describing theoretical beings with near-omniscient powers of introspection. Thus, doubting inerrancy does not make me necessarily a fellow-traveller with Col. Ingersoll, any more than failing to immediately believe that "God is washable" forces me to believe that "God is non-washable". [n.b., I realize I've overlapped a couple different issues here] Problem #3: assertions that God can't communicate his message accurately without error-free inspiration. Baloney! Any communication engineer who believes ordinary humans, or even idiot computers, (let alone God) can't communicate almost perfectly using lossy, error-prone channels needs to go back to school. Redundancy fixes things quite nicely, thank you. Information theory works! In the Bible you have both the normal micro-redundancy of human languages plus the macro-redundancy of multiple witnesses, eras, and cultures. Minor errors cropping up at the time of inspiration are no more serious than those occurring later (i.e., during canonization, copying, or translation) *UNLESS* you assume that inspiration is not sufficiently redundant to sort these matters out at interpretation time. To its credit, the CSBI emphasizes the importance of "comparing Scripture with Scripture" as a bedrock hermeneutical principle; but paradoxically, if you go one step further and *define* the outcome of this hermeneutic process to *be* the message of Scripture, you undercut one of the major arguments for "verbal" inerrancy. This leads to... Problem #4: adducing notions of truth and error independent of a scheme of hermeneutics. In the CSBI, the hermeneutic process seems to appear or vanish wherever convenient. There seems to be an underlying assumption that some objective meaning exists in the text itself and the proper role of a hermeneutic is to be as simple and transparent as possible. To anyone even vaguely familiar with the last 25 years of struggles in computational linguistics, that notion smells like one extremely ripe positivist fish left over from the Scottish 18th century. Problem #5: attributing good hermeneutics to inerrancy. Part of the modern development of inerrantism is undoubtedly reaction in part against suspect speculative hermeneutic methods of certain hardcore "errantist" Higher Critics; the CSBI itemizes some of these "excesses" in detail. Holding inerrancy is supposed to safeguard against these, at least, if not to actively encourage sound scholarship. First of all, this smacks of a modern-day "hedge about the Law" argument; I'm not as adamant on this point as Kilroy was, but I do squirm. Second, it borders on argument from correlation, which is very hard to do correctly. Third, it does not deal with inerrantists who are heterodox, or even cultists. IMHO, if you want to argue hermeneutics, then well and good, but invoking inerrancy as your solution is _non sequitur_. Problem #6: backdoor rationalism. I don't know who coined the phrase "propositional revelation", but Francis Schaeffer sure popularized it. Now a whole generation of American fundamentalists seems wedded to the idea that the intelligible content of God's revelation to humans can be conveyed by a finite set of axioms found verbatim in Holy Writ. Part of being a Christian (or at least a teacher/theologian) is learning these axioms, believing them, and deducing sound doctrine from them. This attitude, IMO, entails a fairly strong, if backhanded, rationalism underlying North American fundamentalism. [Further anecdotal evidence of closet rationalism may be found at the "philosophy" track at any Evangelical Theological Society convention.] But "propositionalism" is by no means necessary for a high view of Biblical authority (e.g., Carnellian evidentialism), nor does such rationalism deal sufficiently with the fallenness of human reason, IMHO. Have we Yanks suckered ourselves into "needing" inerrancy just to support rationalism? Van Kelly The preceding opinions are (barely) my own, not those of AT&T.