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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: biblical inerrancy
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
The writing was inerrant.
Then surely at the very least, its selection (or, if you like, the recognition of their canonicity - I don't see the difference) must have been, too. Otherwise the Bible may contain books that are not inerrant and there may be lots of other inerrant Holy Scriptures around that they wrongly rejected.
How can this be since the Church/es (delete as appropriate) has/have never agreed for example on the inclusion of the Apocrypha? Back to faith position...
Yours in Christ
Matt
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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dyfrig
Blue Scarfed Menace
# 15
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Some here are saying that they think the Church (however one defines that) is inerrant,
Nope. Nobody's saying that. What is being asked - by me, anyway - is this: if it possible for human beings (the prophets of Israel, the apostles, the evangelists) to produce an "inerrant" scripture, why aren't other things the Church created - the forms of the sacraments, its hierarchies, its "tradition" - not inerrant? If a book of the Church can be inerrant, why not an icon or a dogma or liturgy?
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"He was wrong in the long run, but then, who isn't?" - Tony Judt
Posts: 6917 | From: pob dydd Iau, am hanner dydd | Registered: Apr 2001
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
I guess it comes down to a faith position, as I've said earlier. Some here are saying that they think the Church (however one defines that) is inerrant, others like me that Scripture is inerrant. Each to his own...
My italics. I must have missed that part of the thread.
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
They can. I just don't believe that they are .
Yours in Christ
Matt
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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dyfrig
Blue Scarfed Menace
# 15
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
They can. I just don't believe that they are .
By what criteria are you making that judgment?
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"He was wrong in the long run, but then, who isn't?" - Tony Judt
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
How can this be since the Church/es (delete as appropriate) has/have never agreed for example on the inclusion of the Apocrypha?
I don't understand what the Apocrypha has to do with it, so leaving that aside...
Why do you trust the Church to have chosen/recognised the correct scriptures? If you accept that they did (Apocrypha aside), was it by accident? By inspiration? Was it, therefore, inerrant, or are we just lucky they got it right?
If you have a faith position that the writing was inerrant, how can you be certain that the writings that were chosen/recognised as the canon were the correct ones unless you also believe in the inerrancy of the selection process?
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
FishFish: quote:
I am just pointing out the irony, that if we abandon inerancy because of the tricky passages (called in many posts "genocide"), then we have a new problem to wrestle with - 2-3000 years of the church accepting these passages in the canon. It would be very much "johnny comes lately" to try and get rid of them now.
With the best will in the world, no you're not. You're arguing that these genocidal episodes of the Old Testament are a revelation of the character of God on a par with Jesus Christ.
quote:
Many erantists are arguing that the church is the arbiter of truth,
I'm not... quote:
... and yet the church has accepted these passages as truth.
Er... no! The Church has accepted these passages as being in the Scriptures. Which is a very different thing.
quote:
So, getting rid of inerancy does not get rid of the "problem".
Well it depends on what you see as the problem. I happen to see God-sanctioned genocide as a considerable problem.
quote:
If, however, you take the Bible as inerant, and these passages as accounts of judgment on wicked sinful people, and thus a Biblical revelation from God, then a lot of the problem is resolved.
Oh, really? And at what cost? At the cost of allowing the Bible to eclipse Christ. Which is the still-unanswered charge against inerrancy.
And also of perverting Christianity into a religion which sanctions mass murder as long as God blesses it.
I'm not aware that anyone wants to cut these episodes out of the Old Testament. They are part of the humbling and human truth of how faith in God emerges out of the awfulness of human history - a history (and this is an odd reassurance) which is no less awful, no less blood-spattered, and therefore no less real than ours today. But can you not understand the revulsion which such things generate? And could you not concede that a large part of that revulsion actually derives in considerable part from what our culture knows and understands of love and goodness as Jesus Christ has revealed it? The conflict between Old and New here is part of revelation. It shows how Christ supersedes.
But inerrancy doesn't let Christ supersede. Inerrancy makes the whole Bible on a level with Christ. And then it says that all this din is really speaking with one voice.
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by dyfrig:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
They can. I just don't believe that they are .
By what criteria are you making that judgment?
I already said. By faith.
Yours in Christ
Matt
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
How can this be since the Church/es (delete as appropriate) has/have never agreed for example on the inclusion of the Apocrypha?
I don't understand what the Apocrypha has to do with it, so leaving that aside...
Why do you trust the Church to have chosen/recognised the correct scriptures?
I don't. The relevance of the mention of the Apocrypha was to illustrate precisely that - that I cannot trust the Church to correctly pick and choose Scripture since she has never agreed on what Scripture is -does it include the Apocrypha or not?
(Will be unavailable until tomorrow am GMT so not being rude by not responding further!)
Yours in Christ
Matt
[ 15. March 2004, 16:47: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
Fish fish - the issue is not God acting in ways "we don't like", and I rather think (like putting "genocide" in inverted commas, when that's exactly what it is) that you are being disingenuous expressing it that way.
The problem is rather God acting in ways that are unspeakably evil - doing the sort of thing Al Qaeda or the IRA do - killing, indiscriminately, whole swathes of people at once.
The only way to put this down to our sense of right and wrong being at fault is to also suggest we are wrong to be appalled by the aforementioned groups actions. If Al Qaeda's actions are evil, so were those committed by Joshua. Trying to get out of this smacks of exactly the sort of intellectual gymnastics that made inerrancy untenable for me in the first place. It's funny - creationists often accuse me of rejecting inerrancy because of Genesis 1-11 - they couldn't be more wrong. Joshua 1-11 etc. is far more of a problem. But I digress.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
KLB: quote:
But I digress.
Actually - you don't. And the interesting thing is that the ground of a Christian moral critique of Joshua 1-11 is God as revealed in Jesus Christ.
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
Why do you trust the Church to have chosen/recognised the correct scriptures?
I don't.
So, then, how can you possibly claim the Bible is inerrant? You've ruled out, as far as I can see, every means of confirming the canonicity of its contents (of the undisputed 66 if you like) other than your own reason.
Could you, without the Church, have picked these 66 from the 100s? 1000s? of documents that were candidates?
You *really* have me confused now.
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Atmospheric Skull
Antlered Bone-Visage
# 4513
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Originally posted by dyfrig:
By what criteria are you making that judgment?
I already said. By faith.
You have "faith" that the church is fallible? That seems an odd usage of the word.
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Surrealistic Mystic.
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Fish Fish
Shipmate
# 5448
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Fish fish - the issue is not God acting in ways "we don't like", and I rather think (like putting "genocide" in inverted commas, when that's exactly what it is) that you are being disingenuous expressing it that way.
The problem is rather God acting in ways that are unspeakably evil - doing the sort of thing Al Qaeda or the IRA do - killing, indiscriminately, whole swathes of people at once.
The reason I use parenthasis around "Genocide" is becuase I don't belive it to be genoiced in the way you mean - the Bible describes it as judgement from God - (a fortaste of the mass genocide at the final judgement!)
About 6 pages ago I posted this - no one really responded to it, so I think I'll quote it in full:
quote:
I guess we'd all agree that God is loving and patient. The assumption is that, because he is loving and patient, he is thus incapable of the actions against nations such as the Amalekites.
But what does it mean for God to be patient? If God's patience never runs out, and if he is never provoked into action by sinful nations, then is God patient at all? If God never loses his patience with a sinful nation, then its not patience - its indifference. Indifference at their sin, their total and constant rebellion against him, their child sacrifice etc.
ISTM that God is not indifferent to these people's sins - "He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." as Peter puts it.
But eventually, if after warning and prophets etc, God choses to act against a people who are so abhorant to him, why should that suprise or offend us? For in the end God will judge all people, and perhaps cast people into hell (as Jesus frequenlty affirms). If this is the case, then why is it wrong for God to sometimes bring that judgement forward to judge people on earth.
The OT is full of "natural" disasters being used by God to judge nations, including his own people. Why is it so much worse for him to use his people to be his agents of judgement instead of fire, the weather, locusts etc?
And since Jesus talks of God judging, casting people into hell etc - and since in the end these "genocide" passages are claiming to be about God's judgment - is the OT at all inconsistent with Jesus message of a patient and loving God who also is a judge?
Just a final thought about the indiscriminate nature of the judgment of a whole nation - a similar thing is described against God's own people Israel (for they have forsaken him totally) in Amos. Amos 9 talks of the total destruction, but also of God's ability to sieve out those undeserving of judgment - quote:
"For I will give the command, and I will shake the house of Israel among all the nations as grain is shaken in a sieve, and not a pebble will reach the ground. All the sinners among my people will die by the sword, all those who say, 'Disaster will not overtake or meet us.'
Amos 9:9-10
So if there were any innocent victims of Gods judgment, he will know, and has all eternity to make it up to them!
I hope this clarifies my position on these passages, and why I wish to preserve them in the Bible, for they reveal the wrath of God on sin - which makes me even more grateful for his grace shown to me in taking that wrath on himself on the cross.
nb (This is not meant to provoke a discussion on Penal substitution - simply an explanation of this theology followed through.)
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Thought about changing my name - but it would be a shame to lose all the credibility and good will I have on the Ship...
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Fish Fish
Shipmate
# 5448
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ...psyduck...:
]With the best will in the world, no you're not. You're arguing that these genocidal episodes of the Old Testament are a revelation of the character of God on a par with Jesus Christ.
psyduck - hope the above comes some way towards answering your points as well...
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Well, I have to take it that the answer is "Yes..."
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
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Fish Fish
Shipmate
# 5448
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ...psyduck...:
Well, I have to take it that the answer is "Yes..."
A sort of qualified "yes" I think! But I don't see that the passages eclipse Christ - they point to Jesus as the solution - and so promote his glory even more.
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Thought about changing my name - but it would be a shame to lose all the credibility and good will I have on the Ship...
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
Why do you trust the Church to have chosen/recognised the correct scriptures?
I don't.
So, then, how can you possibly claim the Bible is inerrant? You've ruled out, as far as I can see, every means of confirming the canonicity of its contents (of the undisputed 66 if you like) other than your own reason.
Could you, without the Church, have picked these 66 from the 100s? 1000s? of documents that were candidates?
You *really* have me confused now.
I don't *claim* this. I believe it. Athanasius was correctly guided as an individual to discern the NT Canon decades before Carthage. There is no reason to not suppose that others had not been similarly guided from the time of Revelation onwards. Otherwise the anathema pronounced in Revelation against those not accepting its inspiration is a nonsense if we are saying that not until 300 years later was it fully accepted by the church.
Yours in Christ
Matt
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Godfather Avatar:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Originally posted by dyfrig:
By what criteria are you making that judgment?
I already said. By faith.
You have "faith" that the church is fallible? That seems an odd usage of the word.
It is clear from Scripture that the churches even in the 'pristine' NT were in error - one only has to look at Paul's rebukes to the Galatians and Corinthians or Jesus' rebuke to the Asian churches in Revelation to see this. So I cannot see how the churches can be anything other than fallible
Yours in Christ
Matt
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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AB
Shipmate
# 4060
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Posted
Fish Fish,
quote:
So if there were any innocent victims of Gods judgment, he will know, and has all eternity to make it up to them!
I hope this clarifies my position on these passages, and why I wish to preserve them in the Bible, for they reveal the wrath of God on sin - which makes me even more grateful for his grace shown to me in taking that wrath on himself on the cross.
"God loves you, unless you don't love him back in which case he'll kill you all brutally and torture you for eternity!"
(but if he gets it wrong, he can make it up to you)
Christlike love?
AB
[ 16. March 2004, 09:14: Message edited by: AB ]
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"This is all that I've known for certain, that God is love. Even if I have been mistaken on this or that point: God is nevertheless love."
- Søren Kierkegaard
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Here's a preliminary response. We have a world in which things like this - genocidal things, awful things - happen. We have a collection of books - τα βιβλια - the Bible - which reflects very faithfully the life and experiences of an ancient community, an ancient people, in the real world of their times. (Keep your hats on! I'm not saying that's all the OT is!) Out of that collective experience of gritty reality - and their encounter with God in the midst of it - this community distils provisional understandings of what's going on in their existence. (It's worth noting the utter difference in social terms between the twelfth and eighth centuries, or even the ninth and eighth, by the way, just to see how rapidly things move on and change. Amos lived in a different world to Elisha, let alone Samuel.)
This developing framework of meaning, some of which is incompatible with other bits of it, a framework of understanding begins to develop. But it's all provisional, from a NT, Christian, point of view until all these bits are reassembled around something which is in some ways profoundly continuous, in others profoundly discontinuous.
The relationship of OT and NT is incredibly complex, involving selection, carrying forward, rejection - and some things moving to centre-stage, and others moving to the margins.
But what the Christian faith - Biblical faith in our sense - simply isn't is a metanarrative. And yet the constant pull in the direction of metanarrative - a story that over-arches and integrates everything - is always there. (Augustine! As contrasted with Irenaeus...?) In a sense, Christianity invented metanarrative, just as Christianity invented modernity. But in modernity, metanarrative takes off. Everything has to be explained in complete consistency, on 'scientific', all-embracing models.
I think that inerrancy approaches are deeply indebted to metanarrative thinking. They try to integrate everything into a grand 'story of everything'. The possibility that some things just don't fit any more can't be entertained.
But some things just don't fit. That God prepares for us a home and leads us to it - which is one of the narrative engines of Joshua - is transformed in Christ into John 14.
And for what it's worth, I agree that some of the 'genocidal' stuff is (only partially) sublimated into visions of the Last Day. And it all gets unsublimated again by that genius and headcase Augustine, who tells us that the joys of the saved are increased by the contemplation of the sufferings of the damned. I have no compunction in holding up such sentiments to the light of Christ and rejecting them as utterly unworthy of Him. His warnings about the danger of lostness - which are a serious component of the Faith - are utterly different in tone.
(And yes, the wrath of God against sin is deeply Biblical and needs to be taken seriously.)
But the point is this. If you make the whole of Scripture revelatory in the same way - if you turn the Bible into your metanarrative - you actually miss what God is saying in Christ. The new thing. And you foist yourself with genuine, honest-to-God barbarisms, that were barbaric even then - in an age that had to try to discover God in the awful realities of its own existence. Revelation in the Old and New Testaments is not the same. Christ's coming is the watershed. It seems to me that you don't allow Christ to make any sort of a difference.
The times are thawing, and metanarrative is fast melting. We don't think like that any more - which I'd argue leaves us freer to think more Biblically, and to attend to what the Bible is actually saying, and how it says it.
And I still haen't seen a convincing demonstration that the Bible says anything in the language of inerrancy.
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
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Fish Fish
Shipmate
# 5448
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by AB:
Fish Fish,
quote:
So if there were any innocent victims of Gods judgment, he will know, and has all eternity to make it up to them!
I hope this clarifies my position on these passages, and why I wish to preserve them in the Bible, for they reveal the wrath of God on sin - which makes me even more grateful for his grace shown to me in taking that wrath on himself on the cross.
"God loves you, unless you don't love him back in which case he'll kill you all brutally and torture you for eternity!"
(but if he gets it wrong, he can make it up to you)
Christlike love?
AB
Well, since Jesus said "But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him." So, yes, it is Christlike.
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Thought about changing my name - but it would be a shame to lose all the credibility and good will I have on the Ship...
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
"Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out" eh, FishFish?
I'm not going into PSA on this thread but I can see how you have no problem with genocide if you believe that the Father wants us all to suffer eternal torment.
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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Fish Fish
Shipmate
# 5448
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
"Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out" eh, FishFish?
I'm not going into PSA on this thread but I can see how you have no problem with genocide if you believe that the Father wants us all to suffer eternal torment.
God DOES NOT want us to suffer eternal punishment. Of course not. But
- Jesus teaches that if we reject him, he'll accept that and reject us (Mark 8:38)
- Jesus teaches about Hell more often than heaven
- Jesus calls us to repent and believe the gospel (Mark 1:15)
- Peter says "He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."
So of course God doesn't want us to perish. But he warns that we will perish if we reject him. Can anyone honestly argue that is not what the Bible teaches?
If it is what you think the Bible teaches, then lets make sure each of us repents and follows Jesus.
If it isn't what you think the Bible teaches, then you have gone way down the road of picking the nice bits you like. And that's a road I wouldn't feel comfortable on for one minute.
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Thought about changing my name - but it would be a shame to lose all the credibility and good will I have on the Ship...
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AB
Shipmate
# 4060
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
Well, since Jesus said "But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him." So, yes, it is Christlike.
God is Fear, eh?
Since when was it christlike to pride your self and soul (as a reaction driven by fear must be) over how you love others?
I'm sorry but I would rather be wrong and serve a false God who is Love and live to serve others out of Love and thus suffer an eternity of torture, as a martyr to Love, than worship such a monster for the sake of my soul.
AB
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"This is all that I've known for certain, that God is love. Even if I have been mistaken on this or that point: God is nevertheless love."
- Søren Kierkegaard
Posts: 513 | From: not so sunny Warwickshire | Registered: Feb 2003
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Athanasius was correctly guided as an individual to discern the NT Canon decades before Carthage.
So you have faith that Athanasius's selection was inerrant, based on... nothing in particular.
But you don't trust the Church. All I can see is that you have faith in the inerrancy of the Bible and everything else is argued backwards from this position, avoiding the possibility of any rival authority. I don't mean that in an insulting fashion - would you say that was fair?
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Fish Fish
Shipmate
# 5448
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
[[*]Jesus teaches about Hell more often than heaven
Sorry - not necessarily statistically true! - but he certainly teaches about hell a lot.
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Thought about changing my name - but it would be a shame to lose all the credibility and good will I have on the Ship...
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Athanasius was correctly guided as an individual to discern the NT Canon decades before Carthage.
So you have faith that Athanasius's selection was inerrant, based on... nothing in particular.
But you don't trust the Church. All I can see is that you have faith in the inerrancy of the Bible and everything else is argued backwards from this position, avoiding the possibility of any rival authority. I don't mean that in an insulting fashion - would you say that was fair?
Perfectly fair. ![[Biased]](wink.gif) I hope I've been consistent in saying that for me this is a position of faith - a deliberate decision to believe this.
Yours in Christ
Matt
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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Fish Fish
Shipmate
# 5448
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by AB:
I'm sorry but I would rather be wrong and serve a false God who is Love and live to serve others out of Love and thus suffer an eternity of torture, as a martyr to Love, than worship such a monster for the sake of my soul.
AB
2 Timothy 4:3-4
"For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths."
Sorry for proof texting!
Doesn't your attitude show up exactly what Lep has been saying. If you reject innerancy, you can end up rejecting whole chunks of teaching - in your case the Bible's teaching and Jesus' teaching that God is a judge. How on earth do you cope with every time Jesus talks about judgment? Just wipe it out of the Bible? Well, lets just pick and choose the nice fluffy bits we like, and rip out the bits we don't like, and stick our heads into the sand to deny that God says he will judge, and think that will make us safe.
No thanks!
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Thought about changing my name - but it would be a shame to lose all the credibility and good will I have on the Ship...
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
So of course God doesn't want us to perish. But he warns that we will perish if we reject him. Can anyone honestly argue that is not what the Bible teaches?
I believe that wholeheartedly. PSA is not required to believe that.
If God does not *want* to torture some of us for eternity, why would he?
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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Fish Fish
Shipmate
# 5448
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
So of course God doesn't want us to perish. But he warns that we will perish if we reject him. Can anyone honestly argue that is not what the Bible teaches?
I believe that wholeheartedly. PSA is not required to believe that.
If God does not *want* to torture some of us for eternity, why would he?
Sorry, much as I want to answer that, that is PSA, and another issue. The issue here is that God does say he will, and whether we're going to accept that as part of an innerant scripture, or rip out the nasty bits we don't like.
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Thought about changing my name - but it would be a shame to lose all the credibility and good will I have on the Ship...
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
How on earth do you cope with every time Jesus talks about judgment? Just wipe it out of the Bible? Well, lets just pick and choose the nice fluffy bits we like, and rip out the bits we don't like, and stick our heads into the sand to deny that God says he will judge, and think that will make us safe.
No thanks!
I'm trying to avoid the temptation to drag you into Hell for a proper "discussion" over this.
Oh sod it, I give in.
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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AB
Shipmate
# 4060
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
Doesn't your attitude show up exactly what Lep has been saying. If you reject innerancy, you can end up rejecting whole chunks of teaching - in your case the Bible's teaching and Jesus' teaching that God is a judge. How on earth do you cope with every time Jesus talks about judgment? Just wipe it out of the Bible? Well, lets just pick and choose the nice fluffy bits we like, and rip out the bits we don't like, and stick our heads into the sand to deny that God says he will judge, and think that will make us safe.
No thanks!
I have much to explain about my theology here, but it would take us too far off topic. So suffice to say, my theology does not remove Jesus as judge, nor heaven, nor hell, nor God's displeasure at sin. At it's heart is Love though, as I believe God, Jesus and the Bible teaches, I just read the Bible differently in light of that.
I do not believe God wants to force us into a loving relationship, nor for us to turn to him out of fear. I believe he wants us to turn to him in Love.
If I'm wrong - I'll gladly accept my fate. I don't give myself an easy ride - I die to self continually for my desire to love and serve others and God. And if Hell is thus my destination, I'll accept that me and God, just don't see eye to eye - that doesn't scare me, I'll go willingly.
AB
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"This is all that I've known for certain, that God is love. Even if I have been mistaken on this or that point: God is nevertheless love."
- Søren Kierkegaard
Posts: 513 | From: not so sunny Warwickshire | Registered: Feb 2003
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
quote:
Originally posted by AB:
I'm sorry but I would rather be wrong and serve a false God who is Love and live to serve others out of Love and thus suffer an eternity of torture, as a martyr to Love, than worship such a monster for the sake of my soul.
AB
2 Timothy 4:3-4
"For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths."
Whilst I sympathise, I think that's a bit ad hominem. <Soliloquy> Oh no, the inerrantist evangelicals are disunited! ![[Eek!]](eek.gif) Nothing new there, then ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) <Soliloquy off>
Yours in Christ
Matt
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
What I don't accept is the higher-critical 'creation by a community of faith and therefore subject to that community' theory.
Well, I think that's what happened. The development of the Church and the Bible can be roughly summed up thus (all dates approximate):
BC 1800: Abraham extant
BC 1200: Moses extant
BC 900: Origins of Pentateuch (conservative theory)
BC 500: Origins of Pentateuch (radical theory)
BC 250: Septuagint
BC 164: Book of Daniel written
AD 33: Pentecost
AD 51: First NT book (1 Thess.) written
AD 100: Rabbinic Judaism establishes Canon of OT
AD 110: Last NT book (2 Peter?) written
AD 397: Council of Carthage - NT Canon fixed
AD 1517: Start of Reformation. Beginning of process of rejection of Apocrypha by Reformed Tradition.
So the community is prior to the scriptures, wrote the scriptures and decided which bits were canonical and which were not. You can argue about the extent to which the scriptures are subject to the authority of the Church - for example, the German Christians in the 1930s fell catastrophically away from orthodoxy (and from basic moral decency) and it was left to the Confessing Church to witness to the Gospel which is revealed in Scripture. But as Dyfrig says it makes no sense at all to posit a platonically existing Bible separate from the community which called them into being. (I'm using 'community' as shorthand for 'Israel' and 'The Church' depending on context, btw. My understanding is of a community in a faithful relationship to the God who called them, not a community whose practices are their own validation). The contents of your NIV developed over a period of millenia. To say 'this is the revealed word of God' as if the words 'revealed' or 'word of God' were unproblematic is ever so slightly disingenuous.
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
quote:
Interesting - cos if the church is the final arbiter of scripture, then for 2000 years the church has decided the so called "genocide" passages are a true revelation of God's character! So even if we do all become errantists, we must still accept that God acts in ways we do not like.
I think there is a difference between, say, the book of Joshua is not inerrant and the book of Joshua should not be part of the Canon. [smug mode] Catholics do not make unilateral decisions as to what is or is not in Holy Scripture. We leave that to sola scriptura types. [/smug mode] We are not, however, obliged to insist that it is inerrant.
And for what it is worth, as a sinful mortal there are often ways in which God acts which I do not 'like'. That's His call. It doesn't mean that I can't object when other sinful mortals seek to countenance genocide in His name.
[ 16. March 2004, 10:15: Message edited by: Callan. ]
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Fish Fish
Shipmate
# 5448
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
How on earth do you cope with every time Jesus talks about judgment? Just wipe it out of the Bible? Well, lets just pick and choose the nice fluffy bits we like, and rip out the bits we don't like, and stick our heads into the sand to deny that God says he will judge, and think that will make us safe.
No thanks!
I'm trying to avoid the temptation to drag you into Hell for a proper "discussion" over this.
Oh sod it, I give in.
Having just turned down the generous invite for a hellish argument, I now offer my appologies for all offended by my caracature of non-PSA theology above. I was simplistic, and I'm sorry.
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Thought about changing my name - but it would be a shame to lose all the credibility and good will I have on the Ship...
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
Doesn't your attitude show up exactly what Lep has been saying. If you reject innerancy, you can end up rejecting whole chunks of teaching - in your case the Bible's teaching and Jesus' teaching that God is a judge. How on earth do you cope with every time Jesus talks about judgment? Just wipe it out of the Bible? Well, lets just pick and choose the nice fluffy bits we like, and rip out the bits we don't like, and stick our heads into the sand to deny that God says he will judge, and think that will make us safe.
No thanks!
Er yes. Much as I agree with the underlying argument of FF's sentiments, I would like it noted that this isn't exactly what I said or how I said it. And when I did stray into that territory I was rightly told off and apologised. Sorry to back down on you FF old man, but I'm not sure I want to get into this.
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Ah, but you see, I have a problem with the community 'determining' the Scriptures (whether you call that '"fixing the canon" or some other metaphor) in the manner suggested by Callan: if as I do one believes Scripture is inerrant then the faith community must also be inerrant (at least at the point that it is writing Scripture or fixing the canon) and, as I have said above, Scripture says the communities were far from inerrant.
Yours in Christ
Matt
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
Thanks for the apology FF.
Maybe I was a bit hasty calling you down there without giving you a chance to retract here first, and I apologise for the nasty unfluffy name-calling in Hell.
![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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Fish Fish
Shipmate
# 5448
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
Thanks for the apology FF.
Maybe I was a bit hasty calling you down there without giving you a chance to retract here first, and I apologise for the nasty unfluffy name-calling in Hell.
![[Axe murder]](graemlins/lovedrops.gif) Hugs and kisses all round
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Thought about changing my name - but it would be a shame to lose all the credibility and good will I have on the Ship...
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Atmospheric Skull
Antlered Bone-Visage
# 4513
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
So I cannot see how the churches can be anything other than fallible
That they failed in this regard, then. How does "faith" come into that belief?
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Surrealistic Mystic.
Posts: 371 | From: Bristol, UK | Registered: May 2003
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Ah, but you see, I have a problem with the community 'determining' the Scriptures (whether you call that '"fixing the canon" or some other metaphor) in the manner suggested by Callan: if as I do one believes Scripture is inerrant then the faith community must also be inerrant (at least at the point that it is writing Scripture or fixing the canon) and, as I have said above, Scripture says the communities were far from inerrant.
The answer to your conundrum is that the scriptures are not inerrant.
I think that Christ gave the Church authority (the bit about binding and loosing) and told us that the gates of hell would not prevail against her. That doesn't mean (IMV) that the Church gets everything right. I think infallibility is reserved for God alone. It does mean that I am under her authority and I trust her to come up trumps on the stuff that's important for my salvation.
OTOH how do you think that the Scriptures got here if they weren't written by the Church (in the persons of Paul, John, Luke et. al.) and how do you think the canon was set if it was not set by the Church?
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Godfather Avatar:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
So I cannot see how the churches can be anything other than fallible
That they failed in this regard, then. How does "faith" come into that belief?
The primary starting point for me is my faith in the inerrancy of the scriptures. Based on that, the scriptures themselves attest to the fallibility of the NT churches. So that's the faith bit. Yes, you can add in the historical fact that the churches have not been able to agree on the canon in its entirety, but the primary starting point for me is my faith in the scriptures - the evidence from church history merely backs that up
Yours in Christ
Matt
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Fish Fish
Shipmate
# 5448
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Posted
Now then having strayed and offended, it reminds me of the root of the problem I have with errantism.
I've given reasons for believing the Bible innerant, (I believe Jesus teaches it, other places in the Bible IMHO do, God breathed etc). But it seems to me one of the best reasons for accepting innerancy is this issue of authority. I know we've banged on about this for a long time, but I still haven't had a good answer from anyone as to this problem I posted a few pages back:
Rejecting inerrancy wrecks the Bible as an authoritative revelation of a perfect God because one becomes the arbiter of truth instead of God in his revelation. And, as I said before, that is to impose our flawed understanding on the Bible, correct it or change it or amend it or reject it (or bits of it at least), and thus our understanding is not challenged by a supreme authority.
The supreme authority of scripture teaches us things we may not like ("genocide") but also things we do not fully understand (Trinity). If we assume the authority to determine what is right or logical in scripture, then we can logically abandon the concept of trinity as we lose God's judgement in "genocide".
I know some have argued the church is the discerner of truth - but as has been pointed out above, the church strays too often to be a good arbiter of truth!
So, how do errantists answer the accusation that they are the authority over the scriptures and thus God's revelation of himself, rather than submissive to them.
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Thought about changing my name - but it would be a shame to lose all the credibility and good will I have on the Ship...
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan.:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Ah, but you see, I have a problem with the community 'determining' the Scriptures (whether you call that '"fixing the canon" or some other metaphor) in the manner suggested by Callan: if as I do one believes Scripture is inerrant then the faith community must also be inerrant (at least at the point that it is writing Scripture or fixing the canon) and, as I have said above, Scripture says the communities were far from inerrant.
The answer to your conundrum is that the scriptures are not inerrant.
I think that Christ gave the Church authority (the bit about binding and loosing) and told us that the gates of hell would not prevail against her. That doesn't mean (IMV) that the Church gets everything right. I think infallibility is reserved for God alone. It does mean that I am under her authority and I trust her to come up trumps on the stuff that's important for my salvation.
OTOH how do you think that the Scriptures got here if they weren't written by the Church (in the persons of Paul, John, Luke et. al.) and how do you think the canon was set if it was not set by the Church?
It's only a conundrum if you think the church determined the canon - my quoted post was based on that assumption.
How did the scriptures get here - I think I already gave my position on that one with the II Peter 1:21 reference, without conflating the individual writers of Scripture with a 'community'
Yours in Christ
Matt
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
I know some have argued the church is the discerner of truth - but as has been pointed out above, the church strays too often to be a good arbiter of truth!
So, how do errantists answer the accusation that they are the authority over the scriptures and thus God's revelation of himself, rather than submissive to them.
I don't believe anyone or anything but God can be relied upon for inerrancy. In that I include the Bible and the Church.
I have no problem with the Church having authority over the Scriptures because I don't believe the Scriptures are God's inerrant revelation of himself in the sense you mean - which it seems to me, is that the books that look like history are always historically accurate in every word when they describe what God did. I believe Jesus Christ is that perfect revelation and that's a faith position.
As I said before, I think this comes down to whether you believe the Holy Spirit went home after Carthage (or for Matt, when Athanasius died) or whether he continues to work through the Church. I suppose another option is that he works through some people and the Church is a corrupt unreliable body, but remember whose Body Scripture claims it to be.
The faith I have doesn't require inerrancy in either Bible or Church, nor does the lack of inerrancy proclude them being able to teach everything necessary for salvation. Which, I believe, is the official position of the CofE when it comes to the Bible. Nor does it mean that I view the Bible as just another book, far from it.
Is this argument going anywhere? The horse is dead, I think.
Oh... sorry ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
[QUOTE]
As I said before, I think this comes down to whether you believe the Holy Spirit went home after Carthage (or for Matt, when Athanasius died) or whether he continues to work through the Church. I suppose another option is that he works through some people and the Church is a corrupt unreliable body, but remember whose Body Scripture claims it to be.
I certainly don't believe that the HS "went home" in the 4th century; the HS is still active today! What I don't accept is that that has ever given the churches infallibility outwith the creation of scripture.
Yours in Christ
Matt
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
And furthermore...
I think that this question of who has authority over what is a bit of a red herring.
I trust God not to let the Church as a whole fall into irreparable heresy, and I believe one of the mechanisms used to prevent that is the authority of the Scriptures.
So, for example, if a Protesting-At-The-Catholicity-Of-Protestants group goes off the rails and decides that genocide.. erm, no, better use a different example... child-molesting is acceptable, and all appeals to reason and love and the teaching of the rest of the Church fail, I can use a steel-plated Bible to bash over the head of the cult leader (perhaps not metaphorically) with the notion that this can't be done in Jesus' name unless you abandon God entirely.
On the other side of things I have no problem with the Church as a whole happily declaring that the creation myths in Genesis are not necessarily literally true in every detail, even though they are presented as historical fact. And they are. You can argue genre all you like, but it's the Church's judgement that this is the case and you'll not be able to convince a fundamentalist that you haven't rejected the truth contained in the Bible and on this basis I "accuse" you, in a positive sense, of not being an inerrantist at all.
Let me give a little example. In the local free advertising paper we have a slot for a few words from local ministers that's shared round the denominations. I kept tabs on it over the last few months. The Anglicans, Catholics and Methodists spoke about the love of God for us. The independent evangelicals spoke about the need for holy living. Well and good so far. A certain pastor from a denomination who shall remain nameless spoke about how the world was going to pot because we'd all rejected God by not believing in his revelation of how he created the world in six days. I know you don't side with him on this one, so you must accept that the Bible contains errors if you look at it too literally.
But getting back to the point, I accept the authority of the Church, meaning its current incumbents and all its members previously living on this earth, to interpret Scripture and to teach me about God. None of this requires Scripture to be inerrant in the way you present it.
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
Originally posted by dyfrig:
You're confusing "Word of God" and "Bible" again, I'm afraid.
As I have said many times, there is no reason to even discuss inerrancy if you don't believe the Bible to be the word of God.
Sorry to jump back to a point a page back (but it was only posted yesterday). This exchange was initiated by Lep quoting "you have been born again..through the living and enduring word of God" with the implication that "word of God" = Bible. Now, the confusion arises because, IMO, the Bible is the word of God ... but that certainly doesn't mean every time the Bible talks about the word (of God) that it's refering to itself. Some times it clearly doesn't (eg: John 1, where the Word is clearly Christ).
Now, the quote comes from 1 Peter 1:23 ... which goes onto to say that this is the word that was preached. Now, unless Peter evangelised by simply reciting Scripture at people, it seems that this word is not Scripture but the gospel message.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
Alan,
Good point. But as I have said, I believe the whole Bible is about Jesus, and it all reveals the Gospel. I believe that is the very reason that the word "word" is used to describe all three interchangeably.
I think there's other stuff - its the apostolic message the Peter preached that we have preserved in the Bible IMO, and it is this whole message revealed in Scripture that leads to new birth.
My point to Dyfrig was that it is the message and its source that give birth to the church, rather than, as he would have it, the church deciding the content of the message.
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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