Over at Green Baggins (one the best blogs on the web) is having a very helpful discussion on the issue of inerrancy. Check it our HERE.
Pay special attention to the comments by Rick Phillips. Pastor Phillips is one of my favorite preachers. His books are terrific as well.
Also, check out this post dealing with inerrancy over at Ref21.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
12 comments:
Re: I liked the following quote from the comments section of the post:
"As J. C. Ryle said, “Give me the plenary, verbal theory of biblical inspiration with all its difficulties, rather than the doubt. I accept the difficulties and I humbly wait for their solution. But while I wait, I am standing on rock.”"
Kim,
thanks for the quote from Ryle...I think this kind of statement is helpful for those of us who struggle with the doubt...my only comment is that, unlike Ryle, I have come to accept the doubt as part of my "rock". Once I am able to accept it and make peace with it, it is not so upsetting or scary.
Hi Mike,
Thanks for your note. What this quote says to me is that because God is infinite and I'm not, I may never fully understand everything. However -- while I'm waiting for answers or solutions, I can be at rest -- knowing the One in whom I trust for revelation and illumination of truth, is the infinitely wise, all-knowing God of the universe (my rock).
"As a follow-up, what I am saying is that when it comes to conflicts between Bible history and secular history, I neither a) feel a need to prove the Scriptures against the secular source (although interaction can sometimes be fruitful) or b) declare the Scriptures in error based on the secular authority. Taking FTH’s declarion of the errancy of Dan. 9:1 with respect to Darius/Xerxes, I respond this way: 1) I have no access to the relationship between these two men other than historical records. The historical record I trust most is the Bible, since I am operating under a presupposition of its divine authorship, which always trumps human authorship when it comes to veracity and authority; 2) there may be a way in which Dan. 9:1 is interacting with the “actual history” of which I am not presently able to be aware. A good example is the situation in Daniel 5, where liberal scholarship derided the Bible as errant because at that time archaeology declared that Nabonidus, not Belshazzar, was the last of the Babylonian kings prior to the Persians. So Daniel 5 was wrong: there was no King Belshazzar, and all the known tablets proved it. But the archaeologists kept digging, and they found the cylinder scroll from Nabonidus to the previously unknown Belshazzar, who was serving as Nabonidus’ regent while Nabonidus was worshiping moon gods in the desert. It turns out the Bible wasn’t so errant on Den. 5 after all. Similarly, I believe that were all the data in, all the Bible’s supposed errors would be resolved (I say this acknowleding that many of the Bible’s errors are not errors but literary issues like hyperbole). In the meantime, I believe that God has all the data, so I prefer his version as more authoritative than the version of the scientists and their combination of human error, sin, and limited evidence."
- Rick Phillips from the thread at Green Baggins
Kim,
I hope to be where you are some day. I suspect that will probably not be the case. I think my "season of doubt" as some of my friends like to call it is more like a one-day door that once passed thru there is no turning back. This is why I have to make peace with it.
I would not presume to compare myself to Mother Teresa but I can certainly identify with her doubts. I think this may be a similar lot for me.
Todd, sorry for hijacking your blog for this conversation...thought it was worthwhile.
Mike,
You didn't hijack the blog at all. Issues of faith and doubt are very much in play when we talk about inerrancy. Besides you are usually very much a gentleman (probably more than I am). Don't know if you've noticed or not but I can get a little grumpy from time-to-time.
I wanted to add an additional thought or two on the topic of inerrancy. This is one area I'm very black and white about -- for me, there's no gray here. Once we start hinting that scripture is errant, it becomes a slippery slope. What part's true? What part's not? What's sin? What's not? It's a very dangerous road to go down and anyone who does is in grave danger of misleading people (extremely dangerous).
(I believe this was the essence of the original dicussion/posting you referenced, Todd. Correct?)
Agree Kim it is a very slippery slope...you could not be more right...but where I must be right now.
Mike,
I appreciate your transparency and willingness for open, civil dialouge about matters upon which there is disagreement.
If I may ask -- what has caused you to doubt the inerrancy of scripture? You refer to a "one-day door that once passed thru there is no turning back." Just curious..
Kim,
In answer to your question it has been a process over time and not one particular book I read or event I attended. BTW, I made a typo in one of my responses. It should have said "a one-way door" "not one-day door".
I cannot say that I have not been affected by some of the post-moderns (or as probably Todd might call them neo-post-moderns). That would include McLaren, McKnight and others. That is not to say that I agree with everything they espouse. I am still discerning...but they raise good questions to which I find more traditional evangelical scholars like Carson, Mohler, McDowell and others do not provide satisfactory answers for me. In fact I would say that this long slide towards rejecting inerrancy has been driven more by reading the arguments of traditional scholars and being unconvinced by their points. It seems to me that most of their arguments can be summed up by saying that "scripture is inerrant because that is our doctrine of scripture". Before I get too much flack for that last statement let me say that I know it is an over-simplification...but that it how it appears to me.
Of course I have read Enns and Sparks and have found their writings intriguing and thought provoking. I have read their critics as well so this is not all one-sided. I seek to listen to and understand all POV.
This combined with personal struggles of my own with regard to faith besides scriptural inerrancy has led me to question much. I do believe evolution is true (I am, by training, a biologist) so again if we say the Bible's version of creation is true this creates a problem for me. Evolution does not lead me to atheism though like Dawkins. I think evolution is beautiful, not godless.
This of course is a very brief synopsis of some of what makes me question a traditional inerrancy POV. I hope I have not offended anyone who may read this. I am not trying to convince others of my POV. It is just an honest assessment of where I am and how I got here. It is, no doubt, a slippery slope. But I can't live in the land of inerrancy anymore.
Mike,
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my question.
Kim
FYI There's a very good but pretty technical audio lecture on this subject by Greg Beale on the home page of www.wts.edu (to the left).
Post a Comment