Matt Flanagan’s Inerrancy and Biblical Authority discussed Glenn Peoples’ Inerrantly Assuming Inerrancy in History. There are so many things I disagree with in the latter post that it was very hard to pull myself away from my desire to write a detailed response, but I didn’t have the time.
I actually agree with much of what Matt says, if you frame it as a hypothetical, which he does: If Peoples is right that inerrancy as currently held by contemporary interrantists is not the historical doctrine of scripture throughout church history, then it’s still possible to claim that the Bible is true in all God intended it to teach us. I think you lose much of what God actually did intend the Bible to teach us, but you can hold a view that God intended it to teach us less than that and still think the Bible teaches all those things.
I’ve written before about historical figures’ attitudes toward scripture, including the biblical authors’ own attitudes, and I’ve concluded that the mainstream Christian attitude toward scripture throughout church history has not been mere inerrancy but the stronger claim that scripture is infallible. [There are those historical revisionists today who claim that they hold to infallibility but not inerrancy, but that's logically impossible without contradiction given what these terms have historically meant. What such people are calling infallibility is not infallibility of scripture but infallibility of certain claims of scripture and not others. Inerrantists hold to the infallibility of all scripture, which entails the inerrancy of all scripture on all matters that it speaks of.]
As I was looking through the text file I keep of things to blog about, I came across a link the Daniel Akin’s Bart Barber’s An Errant Bible: The Gateway Heresy (ht: Russell Moore), which I never got around to posting about, but I’m using Matt’s recent post as an occasion to do so. Akin’s Barber’s piece is excellent for a number of reasons, but one thing that struck me especially was his response to the first argument he presents from Jim Denison. Denison thinks inerrantists, in responding to objections, have brought inerrancy to the point of death by a thousand qualifications, where the view is so thin that it means hardly anything anymore. In response, Akin Barber says the following:
Actually, Denison’s argument works against him, not for him. Yes, many different people have defined “inerrancy” in different ways. And yes, several inerrantists have offered a number of qualifications of the term “inerrancy” in order to forestall misunderstanding regarding the meaning of the term. Denison has suitably demonstrated that people with an impressive array of varied beliefs about the precise nature of the Bible can all claim to be an “inerrantist” in some fashion or another. Denison’s suggestion is that this complex state of affairs makes it not very meaningful for one to affirm that he is an inerrantist.
Yet even if this fact makes it mean less when someone affirms that he is an inerrantist, then it necessarily makes it mean more when someone cannot affirm that he is an inerrantist. The denial of inerrancy then means that, out of all the various definitions of inerrancy and with all of the various reasonable qualifications of inerrancy applied, a person still cannot find a way with all of that flexibility to affirm the word in any sense.
I hadn’t quite thought about it that way, but I think Akin is right. I myself have argued for a lot of these qualifications. (See my The Broadness of Inerrancy and Longman, Literalism, and Genesis 1.) I don’t think inerrancy really is as strong a claim as a lot of people make it out to be. There are several other things a doctrine of scripture will need to affirm to be as conservative as I think fits with what most inerrantists do believe about scripture, and inerrancy itself is only one part of that. I think Akin Barber is right to notice that those who do end up denying inerrancy, as thin as it is given all the qualifications inerrantists bring in, says something about those who do. Their view of the authority and trustworthiness of scripture is even thinner.
January 27th, 2010 | 12:35 am | #1
Jeremy, the view that I affirmed as actual, Matt Flannagan posed as hypothetical, and you dismiss, namely that two-level view (as you call it), is pretty mundane. I think you summed it up reasonably well: “If you believe the Bible is unreliable in matters of fact that it affirms (but on the view we’re considering somehow doesn’t teach)…” Yes, that’s more or less it. There are some statements in Scripture that are not part of its teaching. They are, to use Luther’s analogy, the “swaddling” in which the Christ child (the message of Scripture) is couched. I must say, however, that your complaint about where this supposedly leads is somewhat disappointing:
Jeremy, I really wish people – Christians of all people – could simply disagree without making up uncharitable stories like this about people – brothers in Christ, in this case – with whom they disagree.
As I see it, apart from this slip in wisdom, your concern is that this view leads to a problem “in figuring out which things it affirms but doesn’t teach.” But why should this be a fatal objection? All you’re really complaining about is that rejecting a flat inerrancy might make hermeneutics a bit more involved and demanding. Indeed it might, but since when is that sufficient to make an approach wrong?
What’s more, you comments about “infallibility” just are not true. There is no contradiction at all involved in saying that Scripture is not fully inerrant, but it is infallible in what it teaches. There’s no contradiction because the person who would make this claim doesn’t believe that everything contained in Scripture is part of the essential biblical message. While not all of your phraseology in the following is fair, you still show that you yourself agree that there is no contradiction here:
If you are prepared to grant this hypothetical, then you must surely see that the contradiction does not exist.
You fellow servant
Glenn
January 27th, 2010 | 2:31 am | #2
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January 27th, 2010 | 9:28 am | #3
I am not sure Danny Akin’s thesis is correct. Let’s again consider his words,
But why is this necessary? The argument seems to go like this:
(1) It is a fact that the doctrine of inerrancy is many and varied by multi-level qualifications which obscure it’s the meaning
(2) To affirm inerrancy means less than what it might mean to an inerrantist (from 1)
(3) Inerrancy is a flexible term (from 2)
(4) Necessarily, to deny inerrancy because it is not a meaningful term entails a more meaningful denial of the truthfulness of Scripture
It is far from obvious that (4) follows contingently, much less necessarily. One could have a high view of Scripture but search for word that is more inflexible than inerrancy.
Moreover, missing from Akin’s argument is the a premise that would have to fit between 3 and 4 (which I will label 5)
(5) Using the word “inerrancy” to describe our views is still a stronger affirmation of the truthfulness of scripture than not using it.
However, that is precisely what is under debate! It seems to me that Akin begs the question in favor of a cherished word that is meant to connote inflexibility rather than flexibility. Yet, that is precisely the problem with the term! It is becoming so flexible that it is no longer distinguishing the differences between those who use the word and those who don’t.
January 27th, 2010 | 10:31 am | #4
Adam,
It depends on whether the person in (4) is simply declining to use the term “inerrancy”, or whether they reject all varieties of the doctrine of inerrancy.
If a “non-inerrantist” says to an “inerrantist”, “I agree with your understanding of the truthfulness of Scripture, but I think ‘inerrant’ is a poor term to summarize it”, then there’s no disagreement over the substance. And in that case, Akin’s thesis is flawed, like you say.
But it looks like Akin is talking about people who cannot affirm the content of any variety of “inerrancy”.
January 27th, 2010 | 11:57 am | #5
Glenn, I’m not making up stories. I think it’s a pretty obvious fact of human nature that we will want things to be true that make life easier for us and will allow us to try to excuse or justify the things we do and would prefer to be true. I suspect that it happens in many case when we don’t have any good grounds for preferring one interpretation over another in interpreting the Bible. Why wouldn’t it also happen in cases where we have no principled reason for selecting certain things as inerrant within the Bible and others as not?
I’m not saying it’s a fatal object, just that it adds to the temptation to pick and choose according to what we’d like to be true. That doesn’t mean the view is inconsistent or impossible to be correct. It just means there’s something behind the complaint that some people give that denying errancy means giving yourself the final authority. I’ve tried to explain why I don’t think that result necessarily follows while also explaining why some people are tempted to think it does, because the chances of that happening are much stronger if you deny inerrancy. (It’s not hermeneutics that becomes more difficult, either. It’s at a much earlier stage than that. It’s at a stage of figuring out which things even to believe from the Bible. You can interpret however you like if that aspect isn’t really from God. Hermeneutics only matters with the elements of the text that are really divinely-inspired.)
As for infallibility, my point is that the people who see infallibility as a weaker position are wrong. Infallibility is stronger. Inerrancy is the view that there are no errors. Infallibility is the view that the process involved is such that there could be no errors. The second is a modal claim about the nature of the process. Something God is inspiring couldn’t have errors. Mere inerrancy could be achieved (but is not likely to be achieved with a book this size) by mere human authors. Infallibility requires some special connection with a source that couldn’t be wrong.
So those who say that it’s not inerrant but only infallible are not using the terms correctly. What they ought to say is that it’s infallible (and thus inerrant) in the matters that they think it teaches (to use your view) or matters of faith and practice (to use the Fuller view) but that it’s errant and fallible in other matters.
When you say that the Bible is infallible in all it teaches but not inerrant (when the second term covers a broader range than just what the Bible teaches), you haven’t contradicted yourself. But I do think it’s misleading unless you’ve clarified that implied but not stated qualification: that it’s inerrant and infallible about one sort of thing but errant and fallible about another. The fact that you switch your terminology mid-way gives a false impression that some will take to be saying the thing that is contradictory, even if that’s not what you’re actually saying.
January 27th, 2010 | 12:15 pm | #6
Jugulum is right, I think. Those who actually deny inerrancy with all the ways people who to inerrancy but qualify it (and I think the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy offers a number of good examples of such qualifications) are holding to a thinner doctrine of scripture than what seems to me to have been the dominant view for the bulk of church history, including most of the figures quoted by Glenn who he says should not count as inerrantists. There are those who claim to deny inerrancy but who do not, in my view, actually do so. I’m not talking about them. I’m actually talking to them, encouraging them to recognize that the view they hold is fully compatible with what inerrantists insist inerrancy allows for.
Adam, I think you’re also misconstruing my argument. I’m not drawing any conclusions from the flexibility of the term. I’m drawing conclusions from the fact that you can be an inerrantist and still hold to a number of qualifications, indeed many of the things people say when they think they’re denying inerrancy.
So if someone rejects inerrancy because they think you can’t be an inerrantist and hold to (for example) common descent with animals, the three-author view of authorship of Isaiah, or the view that Jonah is a parable, then I think they’re just wrong for rejecting inerrancy on those grounds. The inerrantist view can allow for any of those positions, provided some other view on scripture or on the issue in question is also present (in those cases the view that “according to their kinds” can describe a divinely-guided evolutionary process, the view that there’s no affirmation of authorship of the entire book in Isaiah 1:1 but just the authorship of the first part, and the view that Jonah doesn’t purport to be a historical chronicle of actual events).
The view that the Bible is inerrant will affirm that the original manuscripts were produced by human authors, using their human faculties, under the infallible guidance of the Holy Spirit, in a way that produced nothing that says anything false by the standards of the kind of literature in the historical context and cultural setting each book was produced in. It’s not inerrancy that’s being denied in any of the cases I just discussed. It’s something else. Some of them perhaps may be worth resisting. I’m not commenting on whether such views are true, just that they’re compatible with the basic doctrine of inerrancy, which doesn’t say as much as a lot of people want to say it does. There’s a movement to reject the term but affirm the content of the view, and there’s a movement on the other end to expand the term to cover everything a more expansive conservative doctrine of scripture might entail, and I’m resisting both of those movements to insist on what those who first used the term really meant (which I think is pretty close to what the Chicago Statement says).
January 27th, 2010 | 12:28 pm | #7
Jeremy,
Do you think it possible to avoid the inerrancy/infallibility type questions by approaching Scripture as authoritative? The text itself, nor the development of canon, do not suggest infallibility or inerrancy for itself, correct?
January 27th, 2010 | 1:04 pm | #8
Mark Olson
“Do you think it possible to avoid the inerrancy/infallibility type questions by approaching Scripture as authoritative? The text itself, nor the development of canon, do not suggest infallibility or inerrancy for itself, correct?”
If you think Scripture is errant to some degree, then are Scriptural errors still authoritative errors? Is error authoritative? Or should we reserve authority for true assertions?
Put another way, if you deny inerrancy, is it your position that Scripture is more-or-less authoritative, but not in cases where Scripture is mistaken?
January 27th, 2010 | 1:13 pm | #9
Jeremy,
I was focusing more on Akin’s words than yours, but in response to you I have always found the word “trustworthy” to be more accurate and compatible with multi-level qualifications. It is broad enough to include them, while I believe “inerrancy” is unnecessarily wooden and leads to all the interpretive bullying you mentioned. Many people think inerrancy entails YEC, complementarianism, and Jonah as history.
January 27th, 2010 | 1:27 pm | #10
Adam Omelianchuk
“…I have always found the word ‘trustworthy’ to be more accurate and compatible with multi-level qualifications.”
But that simply conceals the issues or pushes them back a step. Presumably, Scripture is trustworthy insofar as Scripture is true.
If, however, you think Scripture is untrue in various respects, then to that extent it cannot be trustworthy.
January 27th, 2010 | 1:31 pm | #11
Mark Olson
“The text itself, nor the development of canon, do not suggest infallibility or inerrancy for itself, correct?”
The double negation (“nor…not”) leaves it a bit unclear what you intend to affirm or deny.
But assuming your intention to deny that either text of Scripture or the history of the canon supports inerrancy and/or infallibility, what specific examples were floating in the back of your mind?
January 27th, 2010 | 1:32 pm | #12
Jeremy, two things:
Well if this is merely, as you say, an expression of a human tendency, then surely to be fair you’ll agree that it’s a temptation that exists no less for the inerrantists. I have seen plenty of tortured exegesis coming from inerrantists to defend whatever theological or moral belioef they happen to hold. Why say that it’s something to associate with those who are not inerrantists?
Secondly, you are still mistaken about inerrancy vs infallibility, and it’s because you’re misconstruing those who deny inerrancy but affirm infallibility. Those who do this are affirming the infallibility of the teaching of Scripture. The issue of “stronger” or “weaker” claims doesn’t even arise. This claim is just obviously compatible with the claim that the Bible might contain minor errors of fact, provided one doesn’t think that those fact statements are any integral part of biblical teaching.
January 27th, 2010 | 2:40 pm | #13
I’ve never understood how anyone can believe that something that is “God-breathed” can contain errors.
The Bible is by it’s own definition, “God-breathed” and therefore it must be perfect. In every, teeny-tiny way, in it’s original autographs.
The issue isn’t whether or not that Bible can contain insignificant errors and still teach what it teaches. The issues is that any error at all (in the autographs) teaches something about the character of God that just isn’t true. It teaches that God can’t get it quite exactly right.
It seems to me, at least, that denying inerrancy, or perfection or infallibility, or whatever you’d like to call it, is blasphemy on its face.
January 27th, 2010 | 3:09 pm | #14
Steve,
I guess what I meant to ask was by what Scriptural verses do you use say that Scripture itself is either inerrant or infallible?
I am neither affirming nor denying infallibility or inerrancy, I’m asking if calling it authoritative might be a means to sidestep the issue.
January 27th, 2010 | 4:04 pm | #15
“It teaches that God can’t get it quite exactly right.”
No, this isn’t right at all. it teaches, instead, that not every single word in the Bible, warts and all, is a material part of the message that God wants to give us. It’s not that God gives us a message but got parts of it wrong. That’s a misrepresentation.
For example, when a couple of the evangelists make a citation error, referring in one case to Isaiah and in a different case to Jeremiah, when actually their quotes came from different prophets (i.e. they made a slip up), that error is not what God is communicating. The message of those passages can still be understood in spite of those errors.
A fair representation is the first step in these discussions, yet it seems to be a very difficult hurdle to clear.
January 27th, 2010 | 4:06 pm | #16
Mark,
1. In terms of prooftexting, some of Warfield’s classic articles furnish a frame for reference for many conservative evangelicals. For example:
http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/ipaper/isbe_inspiration_warfield.html
2. However, without going too deep into the weeds (as it were), there is also a more abstract way of approaching the issue from a consideration of Christianity as a revealed religion, and what propositional revelation entails.
I could say more, but that’s a place to start.
January 27th, 2010 | 4:09 pm | #17
Glenn
“For example, when a couple of the evangelists make a citation error, referring in one case to Isaiah and in a different case to Jeremiah, when actually their quotes came from different prophets (i.e. they made a slip up), that error is not what God is communicating. The message of those passages can still be understood in spite of those errors.”
You’re raising stock objections to inerrancy without bothering to even acknowledge the existence of, much less interact with, available responses to such objections. So your objection does nothing to advance the argument.
January 27th, 2010 | 5:46 pm | #18
Mark,
Here’s another overview which sketches an answer to your question:
http://jimhamilton.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/scripture-the-evangelical-view.pdf
January 27th, 2010 | 7:24 pm | #19
good discussion, i take issue with Jeremy here:
http://xenos-theology.blogspot.com/2010/01/no-you-dont-just-pick-and-choose.html
January 27th, 2010 | 8:04 pm | #20
Glenn,
Your argument only works if you take 2Tim3:16 out of you Bible.
As long as that’s in there, every word of the autograph’s must be perfect of God can’t keep His stories straight.
It’s not about misrepresenting the “other side” is about acknowledging what “God-breathed” must mean.
Therefore, since anything breathed out by God must be perfect, any imperfections are either a copyist error (and “copyist” does not include a NT writer quoting the OT) or a misunderstanding on our part.
Otherwise, what are we saying about God?
January 27th, 2010 | 9:33 pm | #21
Let’s put this discussion into practical terms. How would you describe the difference in viewpoints regarding the Noah and the Great Flood? If one believes that the scope of the flood (and the people and animals affected) was local, where does that place one in the spectrum of inerrancy and infallibility?
January 27th, 2010 | 10:46 pm | #22
Daryl, you are actually begging the question, by supposing that 2 Timothy 3:16 does not mean that the message of Scripture is God breathed. It actually sounds like you’re arguing for some sort of word-for-word dictation theory of inspiration.
Since I do not hold that view or anything like it, I see no reason to grant the force of your appeal to this verse.
R Hampton, given that there are a range of views that go by the name “inerrancy,” it depends. Someone could, in theory, believe that early Genesis has a genre that was not intended as history (I neither affirm nor deny this view here, I’m just trying to explain). Given that inerrantists accept that some genres shouldn’t be read at face value, one could actually disbelieve the flood story altogether as a matter of history and still be an inerrantist.
At the other end, some inerrantists also seem (to me, at least) to continually imply that the less literally you read parts of the Bible, the less of an inerrantist you are.
There’s a continuum in between these two, which is part of the reason why I shun the terribly unhelpful label altogether, in my article that Jeremy took issue with. The answer to your question, therefore, depends on the inerrantist that you’re talking to, as it will be quite a subjective judgement.
January 28th, 2010 | 2:05 am | #23
Glenn,
Two problems.
One, Paul doesn’t actually say that the message is what it God-breathed, but Scripture itself.
Two, given how often the theology being taught can be so different if one gets little things like participles, tenses and syntax, wrong, it becomes more and more clear that infallibility or authority depend as much on every word being God’s as it does on the message in general being God’s.
None of this depends on dictation. I’m sure they are out there, but I don’t know of a single inerrantist (meaning everything the Bible addresses or mentions, it does so exactly correctly) who believes that.
I you don’t believe that every word of Scripture is inspired, you end up with the impossible task of sorting out which words are for real.
And this is exactly where the errant view eventually goes. Sooner or later science or psychology or some other area of study conflicts with Scripture and out come the errantists, claiming that they can believe that even though the Bible calls homosexuality a sin, those writers didn’t mean THAT, and so we still believe the Bible, but we accept the gay lifestyle as A-OK (or whatever other issue about which people don’t like what the Bible has to say).
Incidentally, with this:
“Since I do not hold that view or anything like it, I see no reason to grant the force of your appeal to this verse”
you give yourself away. You at least appear to say that “since I have already adopted this view, the Scripture can’t mean THAT”, which is exactly backwards to how we should interact with Scripture.
January 28th, 2010 | 3:16 am | #24
Daryl, in all seriousness, please back off and reconsider the way that you have pigeon-holed me. Your initial – and mistaken – impression that you have quickly formed is colouring the comments that you are now making.
I realise that you make different assumptions from me about what Paul meant when he said that the Scripture is God breathed. I say that what Paul is talking about is the message of Scripture, you say that Paul really meant every single word and assumption, including scientific, geographical – and everything else – assumptions. We clearly cannot settle this just by quoting the verse at each other, and it is obviously circular to just assume that yours is the view that we should start with as the obvious or basic one.
You want to distance yourself from the dictation view, yet your argumetn about all Scripture being God-breathed, interpreted the way that you are interpreting it, simpy results in that dictation view. If not, then what? If you do not hold a dictation view, what do you say – that God didn’t inspire the exact words but rather he inspired the teaching that the writers were expressing? You can surely see that this is exactly what I have said. Perhaps then you hold a third view. If so, please explain.
Are you making the claim that the Bible doesn’t teach that homosexual conduct is wrong? If it does teach this, then how, pray tell, could I conclude otherwise? Are you absolutely sure you’re fairly representing your fellow believers here?
No, in fact I am explaining that I have not accepted your interpretation of this passage, and therefore I am not moved by your claim as to how it should affect my view.
Please, calm down, back down, and try actually listening to what people are saying to you, rather then trying to – as hastily as humanly possible – dismiss views that you do not already share.
January 28th, 2010 | 8:22 am | #25
Glenn,
I’m sorry if I come of as all huffy and not calm, that is certainly not my intention.
Your claim about dictation is simply not true. Verbal plenary inspiration means exactly what I’ve said. That God inspired every word, without dictation even being in the picture (although that doesn’t rule out the possiblity of some dictation, clearly that exists in Scripture as well. What it rules out is simply the necessity of dictation, God is bigger than that).
I suspect our difference lies somewhere around our understanding of God’s sovereignty. That is, I believe that the Bible teaches that God sovereignly controls all of life, down to each word I say and thought I think and where and when each sparrow falls. And all of this without eliminating my chosing, my responsibility and what I will do moment by moment.
I’ve honestly not encountered anyone who thought that the only way for every word of Scripture to be exactly as God intended, was through dictation.
But I stand by my earlier comments. I’m not saying that you are caving on what the Bible teaches, I’m saying that accepting that the Bible can contain any error of any kind, leads there and that once an error is thought possible, it logically calls everything into question.
Because we could not possibly identify every error in Scripture, the view there are errors at all naturally leads to mistrust of every line.
Again, I’m not saying that you distrust Scripture, only that the logical out-working of that view is the necessity of determining when we can trust Scripture and when we can’t.
BTW, I’m not saying that I believe that the Bible doesn’t teach that homosexuality is wrong. It clearly does. I’m saying that view (and its out there, a lot) that the Bible doesn’t teach that, begins with the idea that there could be some error, somewhere in Scripture.
Starting there makes it easy for those who believe that homosexuality is a genetic issue, to ignore the Scriptures that say otherwise.
Incidentally, this is why disagreements about what Scripture teaches can only be solved by thorough exegesis, not magesterial pronouncements or by appealing to tradition.
January 28th, 2010 | 11:06 am | #26
Mark, I don’t see how that does anything but dodge the issue. The question is whether it’s authoritative in just matters of faith and practice, whether it’s authoritative in what it “teaches” (in Glenn’s diluted sense of what it teaches), whether it’s authoritative in everything it says, etc. So it’s just another term that needs qualification, just like the terms “inerrant” or “infallible”. The question is what aspects of it are inerrant, infallible, authoritative, trustworthy, true, and so on. These words are all in the same category, and the question isn’t which word you use but how far you extend it with whatever word you use.
As for what passages give a good indication on this, I’d have to say Psalm 119 is one of the strongest. It’s got such a high view of how precious God’s word is, down to the very words, that I don’t know how it’s possible to come away from it thinking God could produce scriptures that have errors.
Adam, the problem isn’t that there’s something wrong with the word “inerrancy” just because some people think it implies something it doesn’t. The problem is with their false view of what it implies. It doesn’t imply any of those things. It, together with some other claims (some of them true and some of them false), would imply those things.
Glenn, I’m not denying the temptation for inerrantists. My argument is that it occurs on the level of interpretation for inerrantists, but there are objective principles of interpretation to follow to safeguard against that, whereas if you deny inerrancy you still have that problem in the cases where you do think the Bible has no errors, but you have it at another level in determining which things are errors, and it’s hard to figure out what the objective principles will be for whether something counts as inerrant if you don’t already know which parts of scripture count as inerrant. That’s the argument. I’m not arguing that it doesn’t occur with inerrancy but that it occurs in a separate place without it, one where it’s harder to figure out objective principles to settle such matters.
As for infallibility and inerrancy, take a look at the Wikipedia page on inerrancy, particularly the section currently labeled Limitations of inerrancy. It does exactly the thing I’m complaining about. So does the first definition in the entry on Infallibility.
Daryl, I think that’s a pretty decisive argument against the claim that the Bible can say something but not teach that same thing.
R Hampton, that doesn’t place you anywhere in the spectrum of views in this debate. Views about whether the flood was local or global are views about what actually happened, not views about how it fits with scripture. There are a number of views you could take in your doctrine of scripture. One is that the Bible is inerrant but that it doesn’t imply a worldwide flood because the language it uses is legitimately exaggerated or that “the whole world” simply means the whole known world (or some such thing). Another view is that the Bible gets some facts wrong but teaches reliable spiritual truth (the Fuller view), and thus the Bible says it was global, but it was actually local. A third is that the Bible teaches it was global, and it was global, and that’s a view compatible with both inerrancy and the denial of inerrancy (because even non-inerrantists don’t think the Bible is wrong about everything). So you’ve chosen an issue that doesn’t affect the inerrancy debate unless you add some other view about what the Bible teaches and another view about what actually happened (and even then it might not settle the inerrancy question, as with the last possibility I listed).
January 28th, 2010 | 11:42 am | #27
Glenn, you are confusing a dictation view from a plenary inspiration view. A dictation view holds that God dictated the words of scripture and did not use human authors’ own internal creative processes. One might hold that a dictation view is true of some prophetic utterances that don’t go through the prophet’s own mind but just come out, but even those might rely on the prophet’s own subconsious mind, including the language centers. A dictation theory is just stupid, and no one really holds it.
A plenary view, on the other hand, allows for God’s inspiration by means of the person’s creative mind. God’s sovereignty extends to cover the free acts of human beings on most views of providence. It’s easy for Calvinists to say this, but as long as your view of providence allows God to be able to anticipate what people will do and to set up events to get the right result you can make sense of God controlling every single event, with or without Calvinist compatibilism about predetermination. That’s the historic view of the church, and it explains the historic view of inspiration, which holds that God controls all the details of what the scriptures say but that human authors’ own creative processes were the means of God’s generation of scripture. It is nothing like the dictation theory.
Daryl, I’ve never seen a discussion of genetics in the Bible, with the possible exception (but I think close study of the text makes me hesitate) of Jacob’s breeding practices when he worked for Laban. I’m not sure why you think the Bible says homosexuality is not genetic. There’s certainly enough on same-sex sexual acts to say that it teaches that they are sinful, and there’s certainly enough to indicate that the ultimate cause of homosexuality (along with most sins) is God giving human beings over to sin in general. But none of that tells us whether the means of homosexuality’s occurrence is in part or whole from anything genetic as opposed to from social circumstances during upbringing (which, I note, are also beyond the control of the children being affected by them). The issue of the cause of homosexuality is completely irrelevant to whether same-sex sexual acts are sinful. One is a factual question of what brings about the desire. The other is a moral question of what people ought and ought not do.
January 28th, 2010 | 11:59 am | #28
Jeremy,
I was unclear in my argument about homosexuality. I’m not arguing genetics (I probably should have left that out entirely).
I’m simply saying that there are many who hold to a view that the Bible doesn’t really condemn homosexuality exactly because they hold to an errant view of Scripture.
That view allows them to say (and many do)that when the Bible addresses homosexuality, the writers didn’t know what we have since learned about how normal and loving and blah blah blah ad nauseum, homosexuality is, so the overall message of Scripture still stands, but on homosexuality it is wrong.
I was just trying to use a concrete example of what actually happens when inerrancy is denied, I just did it badly.
By the way, instead of infallible and inerrant etc…how about perfect. Surely that one can’t be hi-jacked like all the others have been.
On the other hand…no doubt it would.
January 28th, 2010 | 12:12 pm | #29
Daryl,
You say,
I think this line of reasoning is false. Here’s why. Inerrancy applies only to the original autographs, things we do not have. The Bible we read today is translated from extant copies of those original manuscripts, and they reach a sufficient degree of accuracy. Nevertheless, those copies contain small errors. Therefore, according to your reasoning, we cannot logically trust anything we read in our Bibles today because they are not produced from inerrant materials.
But this is absurd. We are able to trust what our Bibles say today while we continue to translate from errant extant copies. This is because we have sufficient reason to distinguish truth from error (something you deny).
Take this reductio ad absurdum argument one step further. The objection that we deny the authority of Scripture by elevating our human reason over and against it in order to distinguish truth from error is invalid since this is the best we can do in the practices of textual criticism, translation, and biblical interpretation. We can still appropriately place ourselves under the authority of Scripture in function without affirming absolute inerrancy.
With that said, however, we must affirm the inerrancy and infallibility of whatever God inspires (breaths out). On that we agree.
January 28th, 2010 | 12:27 pm | #30
Adam,
You make a good point. However, what textual criticism has allowed scholars to do, is to reduce or eliminate mistranslations almost entirely.
That is, almost all variants are spelling or word order issues, not in anyway related to understanding even the details of what has been written.
The are some fewer variants which vary more than spelling, however we know what those are (and most bibles note them) and are able to consider them in study. But even those are not things which would change our belief about anything the Scripture even mentions.
What we clearly don’t have is any variant that, for instance, claims that Paul said “I do permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man.” or “he gave them over to natural desires, man with women…” or “Joshua was the son of Moses” or any such thing in total opposition to what our current translations say.
What textual criticism has given the translators, is the ability to identify with 99.99% certainly, what the original autographs actually said.
I’m not sure where I denied that we have sufficient reason to distinguish truth from error. We do have a means to distinguish truth from error, while dealing with individual manuscripts, but not a means to distinguish truth from error while sitting at home with a NASB or whatever, trying to understand the Scripture.
And, yes, on your last sentence, we agree that what God breathed out, that is, the Scripture, is perfect and authoritative in every way.
January 28th, 2010 | 12:32 pm | #31
” but not a means to distinguish truth from error while sitting at home with a NASB or whatever, trying to understand the Scripture”
should say
” but not a means or a reason to distinguish truth from error while sitting at home with a NASB or whatever, trying to understand the Scripture”
January 28th, 2010 | 2:33 pm | #32
Jeremy Pierce,
In my estimation the implications of the Flood being a local event are profound. Because we know this event occurred after the Stone Age we also know that other civilizations (e.g. the Chinese) were not swept away for being wicked. As a consequence, Noah is only the savior of the Jews, not of Mankind. That makes God very small and the rest of humanity inconsequential; only a narrow lineage had eternal meaning or importance to God in that only they were worthy of judgement and redemption.
So I would conclude that the scope of the flood has great relevancy in matters of infallibility and inerrancy.
January 28th, 2010 | 6:03 pm | #33
Jeremy and Daryl.
The problem is not that I am confusing a dictation view with plenary inspiration. I am aware of the distinction that people draw. The problem is that if we use 2 Tim 3:16 in the way that Daryl used it, namely to reject my view and to say that not just the teachings, but every word of Scripture is God breathed, then how do we not end up with a view that is indistinguishable from the theory that God literally gave the writer every single word, in just the same way that someone might dictate a letter?
It seems to me that the only way to reject that interpretation of 2 Timothy will involve concessions that remove the objections to my view. I really don’t see what all the fuss is about.
January 28th, 2010 | 7:07 pm | #34
Adam, you’re right that evaluating scripture in a fallible way is the best we can do with textual criticism, translation, and biblical criticism. What inerrantists insist on is that human beings can do better when actually being inspired by God to write scripture.
Daryl, you could say that certain aspects are perfect but not others, so that term seems to me to be in the same category.
R Hampton, again I disagree. If there are profound consequences of the flood being local as you say, then those are profound consequences of whether the flood was local, not profound consequences of inerrancy, which is a separate issue. As I explained, someone could affirm inerrancy but disagree with you about those profound consequences and thus accept a local flood, and someone could deny inerrancy but accept the global flood.The consequences of the local/global flood issue are not about inerrancy but about other issues that are important but come up at a different point in the overall approach to scripture.
Glenn, Daryl’s statement implies that God gave every word. It doesn’t imply that God dictated a letter for Paul to write verbatim without it going through Paul’s mind and letter-writing process. Both the dictation view and the plenary view involve God giving every word, but they do so in very different ways.
January 28th, 2010 | 7:19 pm | #35
Jeremy Pierce,
Well then, how is that any different then rejecting the virgin birth of Christ? If you believe his spirit was divine, does it even matter who were the biological parents? In essence, do any of the “facts” presented in the the Bible matter (in regards to inerrancy) as long as the moral teaching is understood and believed?
January 28th, 2010 | 10:30 pm | #36
R Hampton,
You’re right there. The facts are what forms the teaching.
For instance, one needs a literal actual Adam and Eve to explain our sin nature, our need for a Saviour, and essentially the whole message of Scripture.
That’s why details matter.
I think Jeremy is just postulating that the story of the flood could be understood to be local without altering the truth of what is there. The whole world, for instance, could be like the whole world in Matthew, being taxed. Not the whole world, just the writer’s world.
I don’t think it works for the flood story to be taken as local, but I think that’s his point.
Glenn,
Your last post shows that you really don’t understand plenary inspiration or maybe it’s God’s sovereignty that you’re not getting.
Basically it involves every word coming from God, a la 2Tim 3:16, so while it’s a different way of doing things, it ends up looking a lot like dictation.
January 28th, 2010 | 11:15 pm | #37
Daryl, rest assured that the problem isn’t my failure to understand what plenary inspiration is. You even grant that it ends up looking “a lot like dictation.” Indeed it does, that was my point.
But you can’t say “al la 2Tim 3:16,” since that is not exactly what that verse says. That is an intepretation of that verse, and it is not an interpretation that I accept.
January 28th, 2010 | 11:22 pm | #38
Jeremy, here’s what you’re distinguishing between:
1) God gave every single specific word by implanting it in the writer’s mind in such a way that the writer thinks about it before writing and might not be aware of where the word came from (in at least some cases thinking that he came up with it himself). You are calling this plenary inspiration.
2) God gave every single specific word by implanting the word into the writer’s mind in such a way that the writer was directly aware that the word had been given by God. You are calling this the dictation view.
I know what this distinction amounts to. My position is that it really amounts to virtually nothing and if I felt compelled to hold the view of 2 Timothy 3:16 that Daryl has advanced, I would have no way of deciding between these two theories because they are so similar.
January 29th, 2010 | 5:58 am | #39
[...] Inerrancy and its denial Jeremy Pierce discusses why inerrancy should be the starting point for our doctrine of Scripture and some of the implications of its denial. [...]
January 29th, 2010 | 2:31 pm | #40
Glenn,
Out of curiousity, how do you exegete 2Tim3:16 in order to arrive at your conclusion?
I guess my question kind of leads to, what do you find “all Scripture” to mean and why?
I ask because you’ve said that you reject my interpretation of that verse, I’m interested as to why.
Thanks.
January 29th, 2010 | 4:17 pm | #41
Daryl Little: “The facts are what forms the teaching.
For instance, one needs a literal actual Adam and Eve to explain our sin nature, our need for a Saviour, and essentially the whole message of Scripture.
That’s why details matter.”
Here’s a post titled “Was Adam Real?” where Steve Hays (and myself) interact with Jeremy Pierce.
January 29th, 2010 | 8:48 pm | #42
Daryl, I suppose I might ask the same of you. Why do you think that Paul meant the wording, worldview and scientific beliefs of the writers of all Scripture rather than the teaching of all Scripture?
I suppose part of my answer would be that we should the most economical of theories, all things considered. Paul’s claim doesn’t require the larger claim that you make, so I don’t choose to add the larger claim.
January 29th, 2010 | 9:36 pm | #43
Back to Noah and the Flood –
My point was to illustrate that God’s Creation does not agree with God’s Word (that is, how some people interpret it). There was not a global flood at any point in the history of Man nor a biological bottle neck wherein modern humanity can trace its origins to eight individuals. We know this because God’s Creation has revealed this truth to us through Geology, Chemistry, Genetics, etc.
This is where the precise definition of inerrancy and the respect one gives the revelatory truth of God’s Creation can be tested. If one can not harmonize the truth as discovered by Science and the truth as told by the Bible, then one fails to understand God on God’s terms.
January 29th, 2010 | 11:33 pm | #44
Glenn,
If Scripture being God-breathed doesn’t mean the words of Scripture, then what exactly was God-breathed?
I’d also suggest that God’s character lends itself to that understanding. God always says what He means and if Scripture isn’t God’s Words then what is it?
I’m adding nothing, I’m just repeating God.
R Hampton, soooo creation is God’s authoritative Word? Not hardly.
January 30th, 2010 | 2:36 am | #45
Daryl Little,
From Aristotle to St. Thomas Aquinas to Pope John Paul II, the idea that Man can use reason to understand Creation – the authoritative word of God – has been a central truth in the Christian tradition.
January 30th, 2010 | 2:37 am | #46
Daryl, I understand that you personally believe that your beliefs about inspiration are the same as the beliefs that Paul was trying to express. But you are clearly not “just repeating God.” You’re telling everyone what you think these words in 2 Timothy mean. So am I.
As tot he question of what was God-breathed, my answer is that the message is God breathed. And yes of course God means what he says. The message is what he says.
January 30th, 2010 | 8:23 am | #47
R Hampton, I’m not sure what you’re getting at. I never said these issues weren’t important, just that they’re not issues of inerrancy. There’s a lot more to an orthodox doctrine of scripture than inerrancy. That was my whole point. It’s a basic starting point, without which you have an unorthodox doctrine of scripture, but it doesn’t get you as much of what most inerrantists want as they often think it does. To rule out all possible ways of denying the virginal conception of Christ, you can’t just affirm inerrancy. You also have to affirm that the gospel accounts about Jesus’ virginal conception are intended to report historical fact. And I do think it’s important to affirm that for an orthodox view of scripture (for that issue; I’m not convinced you need to affirm that for an orthodox view of Job or Jonah, for instance, since those aren’t as central issues; I do think it should be affirmed for the most likely correct view of Job, but that’s not a conviction I’d die for).
You say, “If one can not harmonize the truth as discovered by Science and the truth as told by the Bible, then one fails to understand God on God’s terms.” I disagree. Harmonization is not necessary, just possible harmonization. It might be that the most likely exegesis conflicts with the most likely determination of science, so both can’t be right. But both are merely likely. Taken together, the combination is highly unlikely. That means something less likely has got to be true in at least one of the two fields of inquiry, either the more likely exegesis or the more likely scientific conclusion. But one can remain agnostic about which without undermining God’s revelation. There are a lot of things in scripture that aren’t 100% clear. Adding one more because the most likely result of science conflicts with the most likely exegesis of scripture does not end the inquiry. It just means we don’t have 100% certain answers.
Daryl, I do think you need an actual Adam and Eve to get the intent of the Genesis narrative right. Whatever else is true about Gen 1-11, I think it’s out of touch with the genre of literature to think the actual people narrated in those chapters are, say, mere symbols of general truths about humanity. But I’m insisting that inerrancy isn’t going to get you that by itself.
I disagree about sin nature being explainable without Adam and Eve as an actual couple, though. Sin nature could just as easily be explained by Peter van Inwagen’s suggestion of an entire generation of human beings who fell at once. On the theological question, less rides on Adam and Eve being two people than you claim. But Paul seems to take them as two. The parallel between the one first Adam and the one second Adam does seem to me to require an actual individual Adam. So I don’t think inerrantists can easily dismiss historical Adam and Eve if they take into account the whole Bible. But they would have to say more than just inerrancy to get it absolutely clear from just the Genesis narratives.
You’re right about my stance on the flood. I don’t think it’s the best interpretation of the narrative, and I certainly don’t think the local flood fits well with what other scriptures say about the flood outside of Genesis, but you could maintain the truth of the narrative in Genesis with a local flood, so it’s not inerrancy of Genesis alone (and maybe not even just inerrancy of the entire Bible, but I’d have to look more closely at the texts). You need other plausible exegetical and hermeneutical principles to guarantee the global flood.
Glenn, I think you just reject compatibilism about divine sovereignty and human freedom. If so, then there’s no further place to go. You’re insisting that if God inspires me to come up with something then it wasn’t me who came up with it. This flies in the face of too many scriptural statements for me to accept it. The scriptures make some pretty clear statements that God stands behind everything that happens at least in some sense, and yet it takes those who are the immediate causes to be immediately responsible for what they do, e.g. the king of Assyria in Isaiah 10, David in conducting the census that God incites him to do (by means of Satan’s incitement, given the other account of it), Judas’ betrayal of Jesus (by means also of Satan’s entering him), and numerous other places. The prophets regularly give speeches that are presented as God’s word to the point where if they get something wrong they’re deemed false prophets, and yet it’s clear that the language of individual prophets is unique to their own style and so on. How can it be guaranteed never to be false if God isn’t careful about the details of how they creatively arrive at their prophecy? Your view just doesn’t fit with how the Bible describes God’s means of communicating through human beings.
I think your statement of the dictation view is wrong, though. The key there is that the person is not engaging in any creative activity. The words just appear as if from someone else.
I’m also unsure why you think inerrancy requires correctness of “the wording, worldview and scientific beliefs of the writers of all Scripture”. The wording, yes. The worldview and scientific beliefs of the writers, no, because not all of those affect the truth of what’s written. If Obadiah happened to think the sun is smaller than the earth, how could that possibly affect the truth of what he wrote? If the author of Hebrews had read some Greek philosophy and had become convinced of ancient Greek atomism, and there are no such things as what the ancient Greeks took to be atoms, how could that possibly affect the truth of the book of Hebrews?
January 31st, 2010 | 12:47 am | #48
Interesting discussion here; let me make three points:
1. I wonder what the difference is between God inspiring me so that I write the exact words he wants me to write and God dictating to me the exact word he wants me to write?
It seems that the verbal plenary view could be described in terms of God inspiring scripture, in such a way, that the text is exactly the way it would have been if he had dictated it (although he did not dictate it).
It is hard to see whether the denial of dictation really amounts to much.
2. Many of those who have commented mention God’s sovereignty and note that God’s sovereignty extends to every word a person says. It is true that God’s sovereignty extends to every word a person says but I do not think that appealing to this helps here. After all, God’s sovereignty functions in this way for every piece of writing that exists. For example, Hitler’s Mein Kampf, Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Homer’s Odyssey were all composed under God’s sovereignty, so that, in the sense of his sovereign will these writers wrote exactly what God wanted them to, in exactly the words he wanted them to use. However, no one would suggest that these words are inspired in the sense that these authors speak for God.
This clearly shows that inspiration requires more than just sovereign guidance. I see no reason why a person could not hold that inspiration extends to the teaching or message of the text while normal providence applies to the exact words used. On this model the author’s literary style and exact words would be no more inspired than Shakespeare’s but what he or she teaches with these words would be.
3. Daryl cites 1 Tim 3:16, “All Scripture is inspired by God” and suggests that this means that the exact words of the autographs are inspired by God. However, this follows only if one assumes that the word “scripture” in this passage refers to the exact words of the autographs.
This assumption is false. If the word “scripture” in 1 Tim 3:16 is referring to the exact words of the autograph then it must have the same meaning when Paul refers to the same scriptures in 1:Tim 3:15 where he states “from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” This would mean that Paul is stating that Timothy has been reading the exact words of the autographs from infancy but, Timothy clearly had not read the original autographs of the Old Testament, he had read translations that existed in his time which are verbally errant. It was these verbally errant scriptures that Paul said were inspired.
January 31st, 2010 | 5:00 pm | #49
1. I wonder what the difference is between God inspiring me so that I write the exact words he wants me to write and God dictating to me the exact word he wants me to write?
If God were dictating, the writer would not have to use sources for information. He would not have to think the issues through and develop arguments. He would not write in his own style and use his own vocabulary. He would not choose what points to emphazise. The only human agency involved would be as a sort of secretary or reporter for God—taking down his dictated “letter” or transcribing his “speech”, so to speak.
It seems that the verbal plenary view could be described in terms of God inspiring scripture, in such a way, that the text is exactly the way it would have been if he had dictated it (although he did not dictate it).
Not necessarily, because the process involved human beings speaking (or writing) as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. The personality of the writers shows through. Some are better writers than others, for instance.
God so superintended the process of the writing, however, that every word is completely satisfactory to express what he desired to reveal. None of the words (and nothing of the meaning those words express) is wrong or untrue.
It is hard to see whether the denial of dictation really amounts to much.
It doesn’t make the words any less “God-breathed”, if that’s what you’re getting at. Or any less “perfect.”
I see no reason why a person could not hold that inspiration extends to the teaching or message of the text while normal providence applies to the exact words used.
The teaching or message of the text is inspired, but the teaching and meaning is expressed in words. Wrong words would express false meaning, so inspiration must extend to words as well in order for the teaching and meaning to be true. There might have been different words the author could have used that would also have expressed the teaching and meaning, and had the author thought of them, perhaps the Holy Spirit would have approved them. But that’s neither here nor there, really. What we can be assured of is that the words that are there are approved by the Holy Spirit.
Daryl cites 1 Tim 3:16, “All Scripture is inspired by God” and suggests that this means that the exact words of the autographs are inspired by God. However, this follows only if one assumes that the word “scripture” in this passage refers to the exact words of the autographs.
“Breathed out by God” refers to the process by which scripture came. That “breathed out” process resulted in what the authors wrote down—or the autographs.
January 31st, 2010 | 9:29 pm | #50
‘From Aristotle to St. Thomas Aquinas to Pope John Paul II…”
R Hampton, who said we couldn’t use reason to understand creation? No one on this blog.
Who said creation is an authoritative word of God? No one here, I hope.
And as for your 3 “experts”…let’s just say that they leave a lot to be desired.
Go to Paul in Romans 1 and you’ll see that creation is sufficient…to condemn you.
Besides all that, where does Scripture ever call creation an authoritative word of God?
Matt,
your bit about Timothy and the Holy Scriptures? Sorry, but that dog won’t hunt. It’s a bit like you saying “Plato said” and me saying “Clearly Matt spoke personally with Plato…”
Jeremy,
I agree, that inerrancy doesn’t get you everywhere, but I think you are presenting a pretty surface view of inerrancy. For instance, Jonah ,Adam and Job. You say that an inerrantist could conclude that they are just stories, not real. Except that Jesus and Paul and James took them as real. My point is that the view that the other people in and writers of Scripture have of certain passage, also must be included in the discussion.
When Paul says “For it was Eve who was decieved and not Adam” means, I think pretty plainly, that he’s writing as if they are real people. When Jesus talks about Jonah as a real guy, it means he’s a real guy (why would the man of Nineveh stand up and condemn this generation if they only repented in a made up story about a made up guy and a fish?)…and when Ezekiel and James talk about Job as a real guy…he’s a real guy.
I think that’s most often what gets missed. While inerrancy doesn’t magically fix everything, it does a lot more than I think you are willing to give it credit for.
(The arguments against 6 day creation also typically ignore NT passages which treat it as fact.)
Glenn,
I think you’re missing God-breathed pretty badly. Is Scripture just a message? Or is it the written record of the message?
When Jesus opened the Scriptures to teach, did he open an idea or the inspired words that God chose to use to transmit the message.
At the least I think you’re misusing the word “Scripture” to get past this.
January 31st, 2010 | 9:35 pm | #51
Where does the NT teach a six-day creation?
After teaching Biblical lit for six years I have come to see that we have to try to understand the literature from the perspective of the author and the original hearers. Imposing questions that the Scriptures were not intended to answer can lead to some silly concepts.
January 31st, 2010 | 9:54 pm | #52
Oops, sorry Ortho, I should have said “Other Bible passages”.
I would argue that Exodus 20 (and the parallel passage in Deuteronomy) Make a good case as well, talking about the 6 say creation as the basis for the sabbath day.
But you’re right, I was writing and erasing and re-writing…and missed that one.
…although…I think that the NT treatment of Adam and Eve as real people and the cause of the fall of the human race, make a good case that the NT assumes the reality of a 6 day creation, you’re right, I don’t think the NT explicitly says so.
I do think Genesis 1 and Exodus are plain enough, but that’s not the issue here.
February 1st, 2010 | 1:49 pm | #53
I think some are confusing what necessarily entails verbal plenary inspiration.
When I am in NYC, I am really in NYC. I might have gotten there any thousand ways, but the fact I’m there doesn’t mean that I either built a teleporter or I wandered into one by accident.
Inerrancy looks at the end result, and verbal plenary inspiration looks at how it applies to the words. How that wound up happening doesn’t necessarily involve words popping into the author’s head while the author thinks it’s his own words. (It might, but it doesn’t necessarily entail that: I’ll call this (1).
It could be that (2) the author is picking words which God approves and allows before hand via foreknowledge; (3) God orchestrates events so that the author is influenced by his surroundings–God working all things together for good–and those surroundings resulting in the right words; (4) there’s infinite possible worlds that God selected the world where the text was how he wanted it. Heck it could be (5) all previous 4 together.
It still results in God superintending the words he wants written (verbal plenary inspiration) without using the vehicle of direct dictation.
A few links to add to the pile for the sake of the search engine:
William Lane Craig with a Middle Knowledge view of Inerrancy
Video of D.A. Carson
B.B. Warfield
Roger Nicole on Calvin’s Belief of Inerrancy
J P Moreland on the Rationality of Inerrancy
February 1st, 2010 | 4:26 pm | #54
Matt: while you’re correct to point out that all the writings in human history were written by God’s sovereign will, you’ve neglected to mention the elephant chillin’ in the room: namely, that not all writings in human history are claimed by God to be his word.
If God has sovereign control over every word ever written, then he has sovereign control to ensure that every word written in Alice in Wonderland is acid-induced crazy, and he has sovereign control to ensure that every word written in the Bible is exactly true.
It also goes without saying that, even under incompatibilist views of human freedom, God does have sovereign control over every word written in Scripture. He chose to instantiate this world, in which Scripture is as it is, rather than a world in which Scripture is different by even a stroke or a serif. Only by denying God’s perfect definite foreknowledge can we arrive at a view where Scripture isn’t exactly as God intended.
With that in mind, I think there’s a good argument to be made for the antecedent improbability of God’s permitting errors (as defined by, say, the Chicago Statement) in the writings which he calls his word.
February 2nd, 2010 | 3:26 am | #55
Dominic, that elephant isn’t something Matt “neglected.” If you’ve understood him, you’ll realise that he sees God’s general sovereignty over everything written in the Bible (as over all other things) is compatible with views that consider the Scripture to be unique and yet not inerrant.
It seems to me far too common for folk to assume that unless someone else agrees with them, that other person must simply be missing something or neglecting something. Maybe they’re not. Maybe they actually disagree with you.
Daryl, i realise that you think I am missing what 2 Timothy means badly, since you clearly have adopted an interpretation that differs from my own. I don’t have a reason to adopt yours, so I’m comfortable with you thinking mine is wrong, as long as you realise that you haven’t given me a reason to change my mind. I think that you are trying to shoehorn more into it than is required, and are thus teaching a doctrine of man in God’s name.
February 2nd, 2010 | 3:37 am | #56
Jeremy, you say “Glenn, I think you just reject compatibilism about divine sovereignty and human freedom.”
I see why you make this incorrect inference: “You’re insisting that if God inspires me to come up with something then it wasn’t me who came up with it. ”
Actually I haven’t insisted on this at all. That’s an inference you’re drawing for what I have said. What I have said is that if I endorsed the view of 2 Timothy that Daryl advanced, then I would have no way of choosing between a dictation view or the word-for-word inspiration theory. Now fo course, in both of those scenrios there is no injury to free will, and the author can choose whether or not to record the words as inspired/given or not. So the issue of free will just doesn’t arise in what I have said. The issue is just whether the words are given “externally” as in handed to the author int he final form, or “internally” where they arise within the author in the way I described.
I’ve said nothing with important implications one way or the other on free will or compatibilism.
Well I agree that they do not affect the truth of the message, but they do affect the literal truth.
It might be somewhat soothing for inerrantists to think that for the ancients, “ends of the earth” and “windows of heaven” were just figures of speech. They may be figures of speech to us, but they were taken quite literally at the time, and we know that they express falsehoods.
But somehow, we all recognise that the message of Scriopture is nor affected by these mistakes. It’s almost as though the infallibility of the teaching of Scripture doesn’t require inerrancy. ;)
February 9th, 2010 | 6:33 pm | #57
The difference between a dictation theory and verbal, plenary inspiration is like the difference between hard determinism and compatibilism. In both cases God is fully responsible for what occurs. In only the second case of each pair does the human being play a significant role in what happens.
Of course inspiration requires more than that God ensures a certain outcome as to what gets said. It requires that God endorses the content as well. God doesn’t endorse the content of Shakespeare’s plays. He does endorse the content of the Bible.
The difference between inspiration and non-inspiration is on the divine end. The difference between verbal, plenary inspiration and a dictation theory is over what the human role is.
For Paul to have meant the original words, it doesn’t require that he meant Timothy had the original documents, just that Timothy had been reading the original words. Even with copyist errors, that would be true. The only way it wouldn’t would be is if every single word in Timothy’s copy of the scripture had been altered.
It’s not clear to me that Jesus, Paul, and James had to have taken Jonah or Job as a real person. Even Adam I wouldn’t say of 100% certainty, although I think that’s extremely likely. Imagine a pastor using Luke Skywalker as a sermon example without mentioning the background assumption that all in the congregation would share — that there was and never will be a Luke Skywalker. That’s the usual evangelical approach to Jude’s use of apocryphal and uninspired books, e.g. about Enoch and the body of Moses. It doesn’t conflict with inerrancy. (Whatever you say about that, though, there’s no arguing from someone treating Adam as real to the conclusion that Gen 1 must involve actual 24-hour days.)
Glenn, I’m afraid I completely don’t understand your argument, then, if it’s not what I thought it was.
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