I have done a series on the Bible on the subjects below, inerrancy, infallibility and authority. Check it out here.
Sorry about the lack of posts over the past little while. It’s been quite hectic coming into the new semester with classes and volleyball. I also just finished writing and putting together the third issue of Canon 25, so that is always exciting. I am going home this weekend, so that is extremly exciting. Sarnia here I come!
I thought I would leave you something to think about. Something that I have been thinking about for quite sometime now. I am challenged in my belief in this quite often by other people (Christian and not) and also just be life experiences.
Why is the Bible considered the Word of God?
Is it inerrant? Infallible? Authoritative?
Ravi Zacharias said that if you ask most mainline evangelical leaders (tv-show hosts, event holders, pastors) why the Bible is the Word of God, they won’t have an answer for you. To be honest, I haven’t talked to many people, if any, who can give me a believable answer to why the Bible is this valuable.
I will post my thoughts on the subject soon, but I thought I would challenge you first. Think about that.
Perhaps part of the problem comes when we try and prove inerrancy/infallibility, etc. Perhaps it can be done, I really don’t see how.
Then again all is not a loss. Why can’t we presuppose that scripture is infallible/inerrant? After all, everyone presupposes certain things (ie: logic).
As Augustine (I think) once said, “seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.”
Ooops. What I meant to say was “Perhaps part of the problem comes when we try and prove inerrancy/infallibility evidentially”
Keith’s hinting at the right answer, I think. Why do we consider the Bible authoritative, infallible, etc? Because God cannot lie, and God has breathed out Scripture, and has declared within Scripture that Scripture is infallible. Now of course the modernist would say that is horribly circular. But here is where postmodernism comes into play. Of course it is circular, but then at the bottom of all worldviews there is a circular argument. We’re not foundationalists. Foundationalism itself is foundationless.
sometimes i view the bible as ‘merely’ recorded interactions between God and man, not some text book that needs to be disected and deconstructed…interactions that reveal to us aspects of our character aswell as God’s…either way, phil prendergast has got to be the coolest person i have ever met.
nathan and i have discussed this a number of times at our apartment…and during one of our discussions it kind of hit me that we take everything by faith when it boils down to it. the evolutionist when all is said and done has to take it by faith…and so am i saying just to take it by faith? the cliche of Christian cliches…not necessarily but i guess for me i have lost the necessity to have an evidential reason for it being inerrant/infallable and the such. so my question would be…if the bible is no longer our text book, no longer our evidentially proven work…does it take a different role in our lives?
Darryl,
By taking it “by faith” instead of believing it because it was evidentially verified to be God’s word, you are actually elevating it’s authority in your life. Think about it for a moment. If we believe the Bible because we can marshall evidential proofs that it’s true, that implicitly means that if we could provide proofs saying it was false we would have the right to disbelieve it. But in that case we have elevated our independent reason/evidence above scripture as an authority. By “taking it on faith” as a fundamental belief in your worldview, you are actually saying its veracity is beyond question. Very postmodern, but I think also much more honouring to the Bible.
Who can contend with the Lord, after all?
Almost all Christian doctrines are based on the New Testament of the Bible. But, how do Christians know that these 27 books are the inerrant, inspired words of God, as Christians tell us?
Answer: A bunch of fallible, scientifically illiterate Churchmen in the second, third, and fourth centuries said so! That’s it!
When and where did God say that a bunch of old Churchmen have the authority to determine what is and what is not his Word? When and where did God say that Saul/Paul of Tarsus was speaking on his behalf? Or the writers of the Gospels? Or James? Or Peter? Or any other writer of the New Testament? Even if the apostles themselves had voted unanimously for the 27 books of the current New Testament to be designated as the “Word of God”, that still would not prove that God had authorized them to do so. We have no evidence that the Eleven achieved a state of perfection and omniscience on Pentecost. They, like every other human being, were fallible. So where is the evidence that God left a list of what should and what should not be considered his Word in a new testament?
Answer: No where!
We have no evidence from the Bible or anywhere else that God gave Christians a list of what is and what is not his Word! Christians have created an “inerrant, inspired, you-are-damned-to-Hell-if-you-don’t-believe-it” Holy Book based solely on the opinions of men living almost 2,000 years ago.
Bombshell: Christians have zero evidence that proves the New Testament of the Bible to be the Word of God; the inerrant message of the Creator of the Universe to mankind. Zero!