Biblical Authority Link

I put out 6 pages of my 25 page paper this afternoon, and its quite interesting how the free will and determinism debate started with the philosophers, went to the religious thinkers and is now in the hands of scientists. My goal is to show how Science and Religion are trying to answer the same questions many of the times, they just have different ways of going about it. More to come on that.

Here are some great posts on Biblical Authority, here (part 1) and here (part 2). Here are some quotes from it. It’s quite long, but worth the read I think.

the Bible needs to be understood as a participant in God’s plan of salvation and that its role is one that develops over the course of time, as God’s purposes gradually come to fruition. As one aspect of this position, I will argue that the role that the Scriptures played in the OT era differs from the role that the Scriptures play in the new covenant era.

The same holds true when we try to develop a doctrine of Scripture itself. When developing a doctrine of Scripture, far too often the Bible is treated as if it were a document that fell down from heaven in a complete form. Even when it is not, its role in bringing about God’s purposes in maturing and saving humanity is downplayed. Many of the doctrines of Scripture that one encounters treat the Bible as the deposit that was gradually laid down after events in which God revealed Himself in redemptive history. Instead of seeing the Scriptures chiefly as an actor in God’s purposes, the Scriptures are regarded merely as a commentator or spectator on those purposes.

The text gradually moves from being a text that places us under its authority to being a text that authorizes us to act with its authority.

The Scriptures are not to be conceived of as a finished and closed story, but as something that we must live within and bring to completion. The story of Scripture is one in which the Church finds itself. This ought to powerfully shape our understanding of what it means to interpret the Scriptures. We interpret the Scriptures from within the world of the Scriptures, not as people objectively examining a closed text from without and seeking parallels with our own experience.