David,

I'm very interested in this topic. I look forward to the next installment.

I have several questions:

1. When the Bible makes a quotation (attributed to the Lord or anyone else) does the doctrine of inerrancy demand that the quotation be the exact words the speaker used, or can they just communicate the general idea?

2. Would the presence of copyist errors or later insertions disprove the doctrine of inerrancy?

3. Does the Bible claim to be inerrant? If there are any claims to inerrancy, are these a reference to the book in which they are found, or to the entire Bible?

4. Does the doctrine of inerrancy require that some miracle occurred during the compilation of scripture that Athenasius performed?

I'm sure I would have other questions if I thought a bit longer. I apologize if I'm jumping the gun, I'm just really curious.
Steve | Homepage | 11.28.05 - 2:19 pm | #

You said "For the most part, this argument will be for the believer. An atheist will accept no proof of biblical inerrancy just like he will accept no proof of God's existence. It is not just that he won't, but he cannot. (He of course interprets this inability as rational denial.) If he is not drawn by God, and not moved by the Spirit, he will, enslaved by his natural state, view the word of God as foolishness. "

In other words, if we don't accept your argument, it's because we are unregenerate sinners. It couldn't possibly be that your arguments don't work, could it?

This is especially rich since you have already said that our current scientific understanding of human evolution directly contradicts the veracity of scripture. Perhaps it's not the atheist who's in denial.
AR | 11.28.05 - 2:35 pm | #

Steve:

1. Quotations, at the time the bible was written, were meant to convey what was said rather than a literal transcription.

2. No. There are undoubtedly minor errors and redactions in the translations.

3. The bible claims to be inspired. That includes being inerrant, since it is unthinkable that God would inspire error.

4. The doctrine of inerrancy (for Protestants) does not include any absolute guarantee that the correct books made it into the canon. For Protestants, the choice is either an extra-scriptural belief that God guided the process or confidence in the selection criteria.
David Heddle | Homepage | 11.28.05 - 3:01 pm | #

AR,

To accept the bible as true is naturally to accept that God exists and also to accept the gospel message. So the answer is yes: you cannot accept the truth of the bible unless God has drawn you to Himself. Might I make fallacious arguments? Quite possibly. But that is a secondary issue.

“said that our current scientific understanding of human evolution directly contradicts the veracity of scripture.”

Did I say that? I don’t think so. I have said that in my opinion you could be a theistic evolutionist and a Christian.
David Heddle | Homepage | 11.28.05 - 3:07 pm | #

1. You have said "I believe Adam and Eve were the first humans. The New Testament refers to Adam, and Jesus' genealogy is traced back to Adam. The veracity of the bible depends on the existence of an historic Adam and Eve."

Now evolution says that we and the great apes share a common ancestor. How is this consistent with a historic Adam and Eve?

2. The bible doesn't say that the bible as we know it is inspired, it says *Scripture* is inspired (I presume you are referring to 1 Timothy here.) You have to figure out what is meant by Scripture here. In fact, it might well refer to the Old Testament alone.

3. Inerrancy usually refers to the original manuscripts. Since we don't have the original manuscripts, of what use is the doctrine?
AR | 11.28.05 - 7:42 pm | #

I just have two questions; if the previous arguments were only for believers doesn’t that make them pointless? If the examples above only serve to convince the convinced then where is there validity?

Later
Frank | 11.28.05 - 7:46 pm | #

AR,

1) If you are a theistic evolutionist then of course you affirm common descent. You also (might/should) affirm Adam and Eve. There would be ways to reconcile the two, including God as the intervening genetic engineer.

2) You are correct that we have to determine what is scripture. You might have missed were I said (something to the effect) that it is possible, in principle, (based only on the Protestant doctrine of Scripture Alone) that the canon is missing something or contains something it shouldn't.

3) The doctrine would be useless if we had no confidence that the original text has been preserved reliably.



Frank,

If you believe in evolution, but don't really undestand it in detail, wouldn't you find it beneficial to study the theory to gain a deeper understanding? Same principle.

Now I said this is mostly of benefit to believers. Of course, some people have been regenerated but not yet come to believe. Apologetics is certainly of benefit to them. And even to unregenerated--the arguments are planted, but will be rejected.
David Heddle | Homepage | 11.28.05 - 8:12 pm | #

Ok gotcha,

But many people have been turned away from religion by arguments that actually make sense. Shouldn’t Christians be focused on something to counter those arguments, instead of preaching circular logic to the converted?
Frank | 11.28.05 - 8:25 pm | #

1. What way would you suggest to reconcile these two?

2. You said above (in your reply to Steve) "The bible claims to be inspired." I was just pointing out that that is not correct. The bible claims that *something else*, namely scripture, is inspired.

3. Of course we don't know that the original texts were preserved reliably if we don't have the original texts. Who knows how many additions were made? We know of a few such additions e.g. the long ending of Mark, and these should erode any confidence in the rest of the text.
AR | 11.28.05 - 9:16 pm | #

"The doctrine of inerrancy (for Protestants) does not include any absolute guarantee that the correct books made it into the canon. For Protestants, the choice is either an extra-scriptural belief that God guided the process or confidence in the selection criteria."

wow. that is why i could never be a protestant.
Daniel C. | 11.28.05 - 9:45 pm | #

AR,

We don't have the original texts, but we know a great deal of the process by which they were transcribed. We know that the differences, over centuries, are minor. We have writings of church fathers that quote scripture, and those quotes match what we have in modern bibles. We know that checksums were used in transcribing. We know that ancient manuscripts of Isaiah differ insignificantly from modern manuscripts. And so on and so forth.
David Heddle | Homepage | 11.28.05 - 10:06 pm | #

Frank,

Keep in mind I am not in any way shape or form arguing that witnessing is not something we should do vigorously. On the contrary. But there are certain activities that are primarily for building up the saints.
David Heddle | Homepage | 11.28.05 - 10:08 pm | #

Daniel C,

A Protestant is, of course, free to believe that the Holy Spirit guided the process, which is equivalent to the Roman Catholic view. In fact, I believe that to be the case. The difference is we don't call it sacred tradition on par with scripture. It is just a personal belief.
David Heddle | Homepage | 11.28.05 - 10:11 pm | #

After a particular point, the transcription was pretty accurate. But we are concerned with the *original* manuscripts. The earliest known manuscripts of the Old Testament date to 100 BC at best, which is centuries after the original manuscripts. It is also *known* that there were multiple redactions, which may well have erased all trace of the original manuscripts.

As for the New Testament, there are huge variations between the extant manuscripts. There are certain passages which occur in all the manuscripts and we can be confident of these, but the other passages must be considered disputed. And even these manuscripts are relatively late (~200 AD).
AR | 11.28.05 - 10:35 pm | #

David, some years ago I was debating Matt 16:18 with a Cath friend, and when I described the RC view of that passage as "The private interpretation to end all private interpretations -- just read it, and you can't deny it establishes an infallible papacy!", she replied that Matt 16:18 is not the RCC's only grounds for believing in an IP. However, she did not elaborate further (this was an email discussion) what these other grounds were. Any Catholics reading this: can you help fill me in? What is this century's meme going around Cathpologeticsland in the blogosphere, as to "Why I'd still be Catholic even if Matt 16:18 had Jesus telling Peter, 'You are Peter, and I Jesus am the chief cornerstone on which my Church will be built, and no one of you shall be called Father, because you are all brethren'..."?
Tom R | 11.28.05 - 11:08 pm | #

David,
I don't see how you can reconcile evolution with a historical Adam and Eve (with God as the genetic engineer). Jesus refers to Adam as a man with the attributes of modern men. He communicates through speech. He cultivates a garden. He gives rise to one son who grows crops and another that tends to animals. If he can do all these things, he doesn’t sound like he is a prehuman descending from the rainforest trees to the African savannah. He sounds like he is part of a culture with language and agriculture. Yet if Adam is the first man (which Scripture says he is), and also a product of evolution, what distinguished him from his father, who was not a man (but rather a pre-human)?
John | 11.29.05 - 1:01 am | #

John,

I don't want to develop the view too much, because frankly it is not what I believe. But one could, in principle, believe that God supernaturally modifed two humonoids to create the first humans. They would exhibit common descent, even though in fact there was a discontinuity. That is really no different than saying God created the first humans, but re-used aspects of pre-human species, giving the illusion of common descent. The point is, in my opinion, evolution need not be inconsistent with Adam and Eve.

I think that if you go so far as to deny Adam and Eve, then for reasons mentioned earlier, you are no longer in the pale of orthodoxy.
David Heddle | Homepage | 11.29.05 - 5:35 am | #

AR,

There are not a large number of disputed passages (and nothing significant wrt the gospel message). Furthermore, the later tranaslations, such as the NASB are based on earlier manuscripts. In the few places where the NASB (for example) differs from the KJV, I think the NASB is more reliable. Even so, the differences are not large, and theologians are careful not to base doctrine on the disputed passsages.
David Heddle | Homepage | 11.29.05 - 5:40 am | #

"A Protestant is, of course, free to believe that the Holy Spirit guided the process, which is equivalent to the Roman Catholic view."

But that would be saying the decision of a church council, which put together the canon, is infallible. If one council is, why not the others?

The Protestant position in this case is simply untenable.

After the council of Jerusalam, described in the Bible, the decision was annouced with, "It seems right to US and to the HOLY SPIRIT..." This indicates decisions of church councils are all guided by the spirit, all infallible. And if this is admitted in the case of the canon of scripture, it must be said of the rest of them.
Daniel C. | 11.29.05 - 1:23 pm | #

In the case of the Old Testament, we know that there were multiple redactions before it arrived at the form we have today. Yes, the current versions agree, but they certainly differ a great deal from the original manuscripts.

The whole question of whether baptism is required for salvation, as you well know, depends on a disputed passage. So it is simply not the case that no doctrines are affected by textual problems.
AR | 11.29.05 - 1:52 pm | #

Daniel,

I know that to my satisfaction church councils are demonstrably fallible. (The Council of Laodicea ca. AD 360 did not include Revelation in the canon.)

I’ll describe the formulation of the canon later.

There is a huge difference between a personal belief the Spirit guided the process and the Church infallibly declared the canon. We would say the church received the canon. Also, the process actually wasn’t very contentious—only a handful of books were contested, Jude, Hebrews, Revelation, 1st Clement, Shepard of Hermas, James, 3rd John—working from memory here so don’t quote me—and even for Catholics the councils more or less gave their seal of approval—what they called the canon was already treated as such long before being affirmed by any council.

This would be a more interesting debate if the Protestants and Catholics had a different New Testament canon—which they do not. The Apocrypha is another story—I’ll get to that too.

AR,

There is no dispute over whether or not baptism is required for salvation--the case of the Thief on the Cross is definitive. The issue is over whether baptism saves. That's a different matter.
David Heddle | Homepage | 11.29.05 - 2:03 pm | #

"If one council is, why not the others?"

So, Daniel, you really want to take the plunge and say that you acccept every decision of every council? (You want to be both Arian and Athanasian?)
Tom R | 11.29.05 - 5:17 pm | #

There will always be an irreducible kernel of doubt of anything spiritual that can only be completed by faith.

(Remember that many "theories" that are out there are called theories because there is inherent doubt -- evolution is a theory and hasn't been called a fact because there is not sufficient evidence to prove such.)

So does this mean that the infallibility of God's word is provable? It certainly will be at the end of time.

However, we Christians must remember to stay grounded in God's word. God is God -- our opinion of Him is not what makes Him God. We can neither add to Him nor take away from Him through our opinion.

But know this:

Jeremiah 8:13 - "The wise will be put to shame; they will be dismayed and trapped since they rejected the word of the Lord, what kind of wisdom do they have?"

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge but fools despise wisdom and discipline." Proverbs 9:7-9

"The righteous will live by faith." Hab 2:4

Notice, we do not live by proof -- or argument for that matter -- but by faith.

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Hebrews 11:1

There is a clear line of demarkation -- there is an obvious dislike in many of these posts from those who feel Christians condemning them. Criticism has never really bothered me -- perhaps it wouldn't bother folks so very much if the condemnation didn't emerge from their very own soul. I don't condemn anyone because I am chief among sinners -- I'm so glad I'm forgiven!

We must be careful not to be too wise in our own eyes but rather to be as little children.

In the spectrum of such obvious intellect and grandious treatises, I guess I am just simply trusting in the Shepherd.

Keep up the good work David but do not be distracted by those who want to debate something that their beliefs will never allow them to accept.
BrightIdeaguru | Homepage | 11.29.05 - 7:28 pm | #