(Part Four)

(Adapted from chapter one of ‘Recent Trends Among Evangelicals’ by Rowland C.Croucher, John Mark Ministries 1986/1995.

The whole issue [of biblical authority/inerrancy] has become very complex. One of the problems with the inerrancy position is that it is but a short step away from validating biblical statements about the cosmos from contemporary science. Both Hodge and Warfield, for example, believed that the Bible specifically predicted the results of nineteenth-century science. Very few inerrantists would now agree with them. But might not some aspects of today’s ‘creationism’ become similarly dated (foolish?) in a few years?

Some other concerns with the inerrancy position include the following:

* Inerrancy, in its modern form, is not spelt out like this in the Bible itself. It would be ironic to claim something for scripture which it does not claim for itself. Nowhere do words like ‘infallible’ or ‘inerrant’ occur in scripture. Indeed, such a negative, abstract form of thinking was quite alien to the biblical writers. They preferred concrete concepts like ‘inspired’ (God-breathed). Jewish rabbinical thinking in Jesus’ day was ‘inerrantist’: they viewed every word of their scriptures as equally revelatory. But Jesus rejected this position, contending that some scriptures reveal the will of God more perfectly than others (see for example Matthew 23:23, Mark 10:4-9, John 7:22).

* Historically, the major creeds of the church have not included any notion of biblical inerrancy nor, in pre-Reformation creeds, any statement at all about scripture. Throughout most of its history, the Christian church has looked upon the Bible as a source rather than as an object of belief.

* No one has a copy of the ‘original autographs’, so any notion of these being inerrant is a matter of theory rather than reality. Certainly we have a remarkably reliable Bible in our hands today, but no one believes that the text/s from which these scriptures are translated into English are errorless. Look at the footnotes in all our modern translations for verification of that fact! Scribes are fallible and always have been. In any case, such inerrant originals would be mostly in Hebrew and Greek; as soon as translators get on with their job, we have variations in our texts.

* For some, irreconcilable difficulties in our Bibles preclude any belief in inerrancy. However, just as we believe in the love of God as incarnated in Jesus in spite of the problem of evil, so we might also believe in the Bible as God-breathed in spite of its apparent contradictions. To suspend commitment to one or the other until all our questions are answered would be naive and faithless. And yet, even if all these problems were resolved, many argue, this would not necessarily prove inerrant originals.’

There are many other issues, e.g. the pros and cons of ‘propositional revelation’, which are relevant. Let us conclude this discussion with the most important issue of all. We can only state it briefly – another book would be needed to do it justice.

In essence, I believe, the inerrancy debate is a function of two important and more fundamental issues. First, logic can be the enemy of truth. Every logical/rational human system will have its day. That’s why, as Henry Ford said, ‘History is bunk’. The problem with all our explaining the Bible – about any doctrine – is that we can be tempted to become wiser than God. One of the axioms of theological thinking, of thinking about God, is that because God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts, we will always have to live with antimony or paradox. We will never resolve all the theological riddles in our minds – nor are we meant to! This temptation to become ‘like God’ could be called the ‘A,B,C, therefore D’ approach. If the Bible is clear about A, B and C, who gives anyone a mandate to add ‘therefore D’? A case could quite easily be made to support the idea that this kind of rationalising is at the root of every issue that divides biblical Christians.

Now to the second issue. Whoever would have a vested interest in causing Christian people to fight one another, usually over partisan interpretations of our most important doctrines? A further question: Which two books of the Bible are evangelicals most prone to argue about? Genesis and Revelation – the proton and the eschaton. What are these two books mainly about? The triumph of God and his Christ, and the downfall of Satan and evil. I believe there’s a clue there somewhere.

Of course, in the final analysis, the practical question for Christians is not so much what we say about the Bible, but what we do with it. As John Stott [sorry, source unknown at this stage]

puts it:

Our treatment of scripture must be consistent with our view of it. To me, one of the great tragedies in evangelicalism today is that we say we believe in the word of God, but we don’t demonstrate our belief in it by our treatment of it. Our knowledge of scripture is so superficial. I urge you to become a life-long diligent student of the word of God. Believe its promises, obey its commands and communicate its message. If we say we believe that scripture is the word of God, we must seek to live according to scripture. We must live under its authority, just like our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ did.

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