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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: biblical inerrancy
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
But interpretation is a different issue from inerrancy, and so another thread I guess.
No it isn't. Interpretation is "how do you know what the text means?" Inerrancy is simply one approach to answering that question. It is one approach to setting boundaries on the limits of possible meanings a text can have.
And I would submit to you that inerrancy is a totally useless approach -- or worse than useless. If you belief that the Scriptures are inerrant, but have no reliable way to determine what the inerrant words actually mean, then this approach offers you exactly nothing. No hedge against error. Nothing but the illusion that you are "submissive" to the Holy Scriptures, along with the temptation to treat others with scorn and derision.
So, back to the question, Fish Fish:
Who decides what the Bible teaches?
Who gets to decide what's an acceptable explanation of a contradiction and what isn't?
Who decides which boundaries to use to narrow the field of legitimate interpretations?
If you and I both see something in the Bible that appears to be a contradiction, and we each, in good faith, with prayer, with reference to the rest of Scripture and to the best information we can find about genre, history, etc., come up with an explanation for that contradiction -- if our explanations differ, who gets to decide which one of us is right?
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ...psyduck...:
Wouldn't it be equally fair just to say that inerrancy asserts that there are no contradictions? Or that what look like them aren't them at all?
Of course any fair-minded critic would take this approach until he was forced by the weight of the evidence to abandon it.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Mousethief: quote:
Originally posted by ...psyduck...:
Wouldn't it be equally fair just to say that inerrancy asserts that there are no contradictions? Or that what look like them aren't them at all?
Of course any fair-minded critic would take this approach until he was forced by the weight of the evidence to abandon it.
This was originally a response to this
quote:
Well I guess there we go back to what Lep has being saying - Inerrancy does not remove these problems - but gives boundaries to narrow the field.
...which was a response to this : quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
quote:
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Originally posted by Fish Fish:
my point all along is there are acceptable explanations of "contradictions" in the Bible.
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So who decides what's an acceptable explanation?
In other words:
FishFish says (I think (There are always acceptable interpretations of 'contradictions' in the Bible.
Josephine (I think - in fact, I'm pretty sure) says "Who decides what is an explanation so acceptable that it resolves the 'contradiction' into a non-contradiction?"
FishFish says (in so many words) quote:
Well I guess there we go back to what Lep has being saying - Inerrancy does not remove these problems - but gives boundaries to narrow the field.
In other words, the inerrantists, it seems to me, are trying to have their cake and eat it. 'Narrowing the field' means - what, precisely? It doesn't provide a technique for resolving contradictions into non-contradictions. I can only understand 'narrowing the field' here in the following way (obviously I'm open to enlightenment):
1) Looking at the Bible, there seem to be four classes of proposition either explicit or implicit in the text. These are:
a) Clearly uncontradicted statements
b) Apparently contradictory statements which will turn out to be non-contradictory on closer examination
c) Apparently contradictory statement which will actually turn out to be contradictory on closer examination
d) Clearly and unequivocally contradictory statements.
It seems to me that inerrancy is basically a faith-stance that prejudges the whole question, and says
1) Positions c) and d) are ruled out of court a priori
2) Position b) needs to be modified to read "Apparently contradictory statements which just are non-contradictory, on a priori grounds.
That's what I meant by quote:
Wouldn't it be equally fair just to say that inerrancy asserts that there are no contradictions? Or that what look like them aren't them at all?
Clearly if this is accurate, and not a misrepresentation, we need to look very carefully at the a priori grounds for holding these positions.
We've already seen that B B Warfield says that there's no other reason to hold such beliefs beyond that the Bible teaches them about itself.
We've also seen at least one inerrantist position which resiles from Warfield and states, if I rememeber, that the issue is the trustworthiness of God. (This of course doesn't explain the origin of the a priori that the Bible is God's speech in such a way that a non-inerrant Bible implies a non-trustworthy God.
In a way we're back to the circularity of inerrantist positions here, and their tendency to keep leading us away from any one single point of debate.
So I'd like to focus in this post (whether anyone wants to take it up is a matter for them!) on non-contradiction, and invite an inerrantist observation as to whether I've got it right, and if not, how not.
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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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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Sorry to double-post - but when I said: quote:
Clearly if this is accurate, and not a misrepresentation, we need to look very carefully at the a priori grounds for holding these positions.
...that was a polite way of saying "Show me (because I can't see it) how Josephine isn't correct in the following":
quote:
And I would submit to you that inerrancy is a totally useless approach -- or worse than useless. If you belief that the Scriptures are inerrant, but have no reliable way to determine what the inerrant words actually mean, then this approach offers you exactly nothing. No hedge against error. Nothing but the illusion that you are "submissive" to the Holy Scriptures, along with the temptation to treat others with scorn and derision.
(I'd meant to include this in the body of the previous post. Heck, I've got flu... ![[Waterworks]](graemlins/bawling.gif) )
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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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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
I am interested to understand why inerrantists feel that the Bible position is fatally weakened outside of their understanding. I don't think that the Bible's authority needs shoring up by unhistorical incoherent means.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
Posts: 15099 | From: Manchester, UK | Registered: May 2001
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Fish Fish
Shipmate
# 5448
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Posted
Hi everyone. I will come back to the posts above - but off out now. Though to be honest i feel I've answered most of the points. As has been stated here lots before, innerancy does not solve evey problem of interpretation. But it does narrow the field. What happens if we allow every interpretation - how is that a preferred aproach?!!!
Furthermore, to lose innernacy unleashes a load of problems, as I'm about to go on to...
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I am interested to understand why inerrantists feel that the Bible position is fatally weakened outside of their understanding. I don't think that the Bible's authority needs shoring up by unhistorical incoherent means.
Just want to respond to this by asking my question yet again, for I never get a decent answer!
I honestly don't see how the book can be authoritative over us if we have the authority over the Bible to decide what is in error. I just simply cannot see this.
If something seems in error to me, such as any apparent contradiction, then I assume authority over the text. If I in any sense say "This is in error, so we don't have to accept it." then I am authoritative over the text, and the text loses its authority over me.
How is this not the case?
[ 20. March 2004, 09:26: Message edited by: Fish Fish ]
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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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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Dear Fish Fish
A loose analogy ...
When we were young our parents had authority over us. Sometimes we thought them wrong, sometimes right. Nonetheless they continued to have authority over us.
Why does the accuracy (which can't be maintained from the evidence anyway) have to be total in respect of the Bible in order for it to have authority over us?
If it is claimed that the authority is compromised in this particular case because it is predicated on the text being, literally, in respect of every jot and tittle ... the (dictated) Word of God ... how do you account for the MSS variants, the incongruities? Are you not rather substituting the Bible for God in these matters?
All divine commands are mediated through human agents. That's where the fallibility comes in. You can no more expunge that from the text than you can from the Pope's words when he speaks "ex cathedra" on faith and morals. Neither position is sustainable and, more importantly, neither is NECESSARY for the Bible or the Church to have authority, (I know you don't accept the latter but it is the comparison I am making to argue the point).
[ 20. March 2004, 11:11: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
If you belief that the Scriptures are inerrant, but have no reliable way to determine what the inerrant words actually mean, then this approach offers you exactly nothing. No hedge against error. Nothing but the illusion that you are "submissive" to the Holy Scriptures, along with the temptation to treat others with scorn and derision.
I don't think Psyduck is fair that the issues are being avoided. For me the issues of inerrancy, trustworthiness, authority and interpretation are intrinsically linked together, so my answer to a question about one is often the other.
But on this point I think Josephine is being very unfair.
Our discussion here on this thread has shown how inerrancy limits the interpretations available to us on difficult passages. No one is saying it answers everything, but to say it leaves you with "nothing" is..well..rubbish. And inerrancy does provide with one tool to work out what words mean - telling you that the other Scriptural material you are using to interpret the passage is inherently reliable to do that with. Now, as I have said that does not solve all interpretative problems, but it certainly narrows the field considerably. Thus it seems that Psyduck and I come to quite different views on the relationship between the God represented in the OT and the God shown in Jesus, because I take the OT material to be hisotrically correct. That's not to make any value judgement on method, merely to say that it clearly has an effect. To say, as you seem to be saying Josephine, that to use any interpretative tool that doesn't give you ALL the answers means that such a tool is useless seems to me to be over egging your pudding somehwat.
This question is secondary anyway, because I am with Warfield on saying that the Bible teaches these things and therefore we need to believe them, but I think what we have shown in this discussion that what you believe about this makes your interpretations differ.
Psyduck, again I had some difficulty following - but are you questioning why we should approach the Bible with an a priori assumption that it is God reliably revealing truth to us? I thought you agreed that we should? Or not? I don't think I have avoided that issue...but please tell me if you think I have. And hope flu gets well soon ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Dear Fish Fish
A loose analogy ...
When we were young our parents had authority over us. Sometimes we thought them wrong, sometimes right. Nonetheless they continued to have authority over us.
Father G. This analogy is too loose! My parents had authority over me when I was younger because even when I thought they were wrong, I still had to do what they said. This is not the approach taken by non-inerrantists to the Bible. If it was there would be no discussion. Rather the approach is
"Because I have interpreted in such a way to lead me to the conclusion that I am right and this is wrong, I am not bound to believe what it is saying." Or something.
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He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Are belief and authority the same thing?
Anyway, Leprechaun, if it could be conclusively proved to an inerrantist that something actually was wrong in the Bible ... would that person's religious universe completely collapse? Mine wouldn't. Whose is the most sturdy house then?
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
Our discussion here on this thread has shown how inerrancy limits the interpretations available to us on difficult passages. No one is saying it answers everything, but to say it leaves you with "nothing" is..well..rubbish. [\qb]\[quote]
No, it's not. As you and Fish Fish keep saying, inerrancy is different from other approaches to interpretation.
Look, for purposes of doing arithmetic, you expect your calculator to be inerrant, don't you? And if it isn't, even if it gets the right answer 99% of the time, what would you do with it? I don't know about you, but I'd toss it if it were me. If it's not right 100% of the time, it's useless.
That standard doesn't apply to slide rules or other tools that only claim to provide estimates. A claim of inerrancy sets you up for a higher standard than other approaches.
[quote][qb]To say, as you seem to be saying Josephine, that to use any interpretative tool that doesn't give you ALL the answers means that such a tool is useless seems to me to be over egging your pudding somehwat.
Again, I didn't say that. I said this tool must provide all the answers. If it doesn't, then how can you say that psyduck is wrong? The only answer you've got is, "well, he says he's not an inerrantist, and he says the Bible is mistaken here, so he's wrong." But that's as fallacious as an argument can be.
And what if psyduck restated his argument? What if he said, "Okay, I agree with you and Fish Fish, that the Bible is inerrant, as long as it's interpreted correctly, but I interpret this passage as being allegory." What answer do you have for him then? Can you say he's wrong then?
quote:
Psyduck, again I had some difficulty following - but are you questioning why we should approach the Bible with an a priori assumption that it is God reliably revealing truth to us? I thought you agreed that we should? Or not?
I hesitate to speak for anyone else, but I would certainly agree that the Holy Scriptures are reliable. But reliable is not the same thing as inerrant.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
I honestly don't see how the book can be authoritative over us if we have the authority over the Bible to decide what is in error. I just simply cannot see this.
Fish Fish, authority does not require inerrancy.
If a policeman pulls me over and tells me I was speeding, he doesn't lose a whit of his authority if I think he was wrong. If I choose to submit to my priest, my husband, my boss at work, there is nothing in that relationship that requires them to be inerrant.
Likewise, Steven Hawking has authority when he is speaking on matters related to physics, but he is not inerrant. The Justices of the Supreme Court have authority when they speak on matters related to constitutional law, but they are not inerrant.
Quite simply, authority does not require inerrancy. There is nothing that requires the Holy Scriptures to be inerrant in order for them to be authoritative. In fact, arguing thta it does dangerously undermines the authority of Holy Scriptures, because, using that approach, if they are shown to be in error in one small detail, they are then no longer authoritative.
Approaches that do not rely on inerrancy allow authority to continue even in the face of error, giving Scriptures more authority, and more robust authority, than does inerrancy.
Now, Fish Fish, back to my question:
Who decides what the Bible teaches?
Who gets to decide what's an acceptable explanation of a contradiction and what isn't?
Who decides which boundaries to use to narrow the field of legitimate interpretations?
If you and I both see something in the Bible that appears to be a contradiction, and we each, in good faith, with prayer, with reference to the rest of Scripture and to the best information we can find about genre, history, etc., come up with an explanation for that contradiction -- if our explanations differ, who gets to decide which one of us is right?
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
No, it's not. As you and Fish Fish keep saying, inerrancy is different from other approaches to interpretation.
Look, for purposes of doing arithmetic, you expect your calculator to be inerrant, don't you? And if it isn't, even if it gets the right answer 99% of the time, what would you do with it? I don't know about you, but I'd toss it if it were me. If it's not right 100% of the time, it's useless.
That standard doesn't apply to slide rules or other tools that only claim to provide estimates. A claim of inerrancy sets you up for a higher standard than other approaches.
Sorry this is not a fair comparison. It sets you up for a higher standard for the material or tool, but doesn't demand that my understanding of what comes out be inerrant - I quite often don't understand what comes out of my calculator, but because I assume it is internally consistent I keep on using it and not chucking it. It's the same. Knwoing my calculator is inerrant doesn't get me to the right answer all the time, but it helps me interpret the figures that come out.
If I did believe the calculator was wrong I would chuck it. But you are using this example as if I am claiming that inerrancy means that I will get the right answers to everything all the time. It doesn't. It is an assumption, I believe warranted by the nature of the text and its claims that is one interpretative tool. That is all. You seem to be saying that it is "useless" unless it provides all the answers. Why? I could say the same about your consensus model of interpretation, except worse, because the church has hardly had any consensus on anything since the beginning of its time. As it happens I think consensus is a useful tool. But only one of many.
quote:
If it doesn't, then how can you say that psyduck is wrong? The only answer you've got is, "well, he says he's not an inerrantist, and he says the Bible is mistaken here, so he's wrong."
I would venture a guess that there are more differences between Psyduck's theology and my own than inerrancy. One of the reason I think his interpretation is wrong is because I think he has a wrong view of the materials. But I daresay there are other issues we disagree over.
quote:
And what if psyduck restated his argument? What if he said, "Okay, I agree with you and Fish Fish, that the Bible is inerrant, as long as it's interpreted correctly, but I interpret this passage as being allegory." What answer do you have for him then? Can you say he's wrong then?
That is an altogether different issue. But I think then at least we would be talking on a more similar platform, and would be more likely to come to agreement. In the same way you are more likely to come to agreement with Father G on many issues than me because you are coming with the same set of assumptions.
quote:
I hesitate to speak for anyone else, but I would certainly agree that the Holy Scriptures are reliable. But reliable is not the same thing as inerrant.
Well, as I have said before, how something with mistakes in it can be relied on is beyond me.
Father G. I could answer your question, but I don't want to get into a "my faith is better than your faith" discussion thanks.
[ 20. March 2004, 14:28: Message edited by: Leprechaun ]
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Fish Fish, authority does not require inerrancy.
If a policeman pulls me over and tells me I was speeding, he doesn't lose a whit of his authority if I think he was wrong. If I choose to submit to my priest, my husband, my boss at work, there is nothing in that relationship that requires them to be inerrant.
Oh Josephine, as I have said, if people here submitted themselves to the Bible's authority in the same way you do to the police there would be no discussion. The issue here is people saying, this is wrong therefore I am not bound to accept or believe it. You cannot take THAT approach to the police, or else you go to jail.
If you are saying that you believe in the authority of the Bible in the same way as as you do that of the police - ie that you will believe and abide by what it says even when you think it is mistaken, then fine, we need not have this discussion. But that is not the approach being taken by most non-inerrantists here.
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He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
Well, as I have said before, how something with mistakes in it can be relied on is beyond me.
Ah, so you never use the phone book?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
Well, as I have said before, how something with mistakes in it can be relied on is beyond me.
Ah, so you never use the phone book?
Certainly don't stake my eternal destiny on it, no.
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He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Leprechaun: You stake your eternal destiny on the inerrancy of the Bible?
Come to that - you stake your eternal destiny on the Bible... ???
With me, it's Jesus Christ. That's the watershed.
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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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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ...psyduck...:
Come to that - you stake your eternal destiny on the Bible... ???
With me, it's Jesus Christ. That's the watershed.
And how did you find out about Jesus? How did you come to hear his promises so that you could trust them? How did you come to know that God was there and he loved you?
An answer to all of those questions MUST be the Bible (even if it was derivatively).
I suppose you've just got to hope those who were hearing the word of God had their radio tuned in the day that Jesus promised salvation for those who trusted him. Or that there isn't a "louder voice" coming from another part of the text that says actually its trusting Jesus, but you've got to do this too (which incidentally is a mistake the supposedly "inspired" church have been making since day 1)
You see why this has to do with the trustworthiness of God for me? That wasn't just me trying to make the discussion more interesting to raise the stakes....
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Leprechaun:
quote:
And how did you find out about Jesus? How did you come to hear his promises so that you could trust them? How did you come to know that God was there and he loved you?
In Church. Where Scripture was read and preached, and the Word stood in the midst. In the total event of evelation which was always - is always - in the hand of Christ. Christ spoke. The inerrancy of the Bible had nothing to do with it. I wasn't saved by the Bible. I was saved by Christ.
quote:
An answer to all of those questions MUST be the Bible (even if it was derivatively).
You are actually saying, in so many words, that everything derives from the Bible? Surely you don't mean that?!? That's sheer Bibliolatry. You have replaced God and Christ with the Bible. If that's what you mean.
quote:
I suppose you've just got to hope those who were hearing the word of God had their radio tuned in the day that Jesus promised salvation for those who trusted him. Or that there isn't a "louder voice" coming from another part of the text that says actually its trusting Jesus, but you've got to do this too (which incidentally is a mistake the supposedly "inspired" church have been making since day 1)
And precisely the mistake you're making. You have now as good as said that you have to believe in an inerrant Bible, or you can't be saved, because an inerrant Bible is the means of salvation. You're basically adding something to trusting Jesus. You're saying that you can only trust Jesus if the Bible is inerrant - i.e. you can only trust Jesus if you see the Bible in a certain way.
People have believed in Jesus on the basis of the flawed recollection of a Biblical text quoted from memory to them in a prison cell. People have believed in Jesus on the basis of the lives they have seen influenced by his Lordship over them, before ever they came in contact with the Bible, and thousands more have read the New Testament and believed in Jesus Christ without it ever crossing their mind that they were (or weren't) reading an inerrant book. It was the truth of the testimony that led them to believe, not its inerrancy. It was its power, not its guaranteed correctness. People have come to faith on the basis of paraphrases of the Gospel story muttered after dark in labour camps, which were a proclamation of the Gospel that Christ filled with his presence. The Word Preached is as powerful as the Word Read, because teh WOrd made flesh can fill both. That's teh bottom line.
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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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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ...psyduck...:
In Church. Where Scripture was read and preached <snip> The inerrancy of the Bible had nothing to do with it. I wasn't saved by the Bible. I was saved by Christ.
I put it to you respectfully, that it was only the truth of the words read and preached that meant you were able to trust Christ. If they are not true, there is nothing to trust. That is all I am arguing for.
quote:
You are actually saying, in so many words, that everything derives from the Bible? Surely you don't mean that?!? That's sheer Bibliolatry. You have replaced God and Christ with the Bible. If that's what you mean.
No, that all of our knowledge about Christ, in whom we trust, is derived from there. I was reading John Piper (whom I have just been waxing lyrical about on another thread) and he says something like this
"I love the Bible like I love my eyes. I don't get up in the morning, and see the beauty of the world and think "what great eyes". But I love them because I can see the glory of the world through them."
I suppose all I am saying is that I don't worship the Bible, but as faultless eyes would give me a perfect view of the world, a believe a faultless revelation gives me a perfect view of the glorious Jesus.
quote:
I suppose you've just got to hope those who were hearing the word of God had their radio tuned in the day that Jesus promised salvation for those who trusted him. Or that there isn't a "louder voice" coming from another part of the text that says actually its trusting Jesus, but you've got to do this too (which incidentally is a mistake the supposedly "inspired" church have been making since day 1)
quote:
And precisely the mistake you're making. You have now as good as said that you have to believe in an inerrant Bible, or you can't be saved, because an inerrant Bible is the means of salvation.
I am most certainly not saying this. All of your examples are ones I have no doubt that God's spirit worked powerfully through his word to change people's hearts.
I am not saying you have to believe inerrancy to get to heaven - but I do believe the reason that any of us, in reality, will get to heaven in the end is because what we trusted in, God's revelation of himself, was perfect, flawless, inerrant.
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He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
I do believe the reason that any of us, in reality, will get to heaven in the end is because what we trusted in, God's revelation of himself, was perfect, flawless, inerrant.
I will respectfully submit that, if by "God's revelation of himself" you mean the Bible, and not Christ Jesus, then you are guilty of bibliolatry.
We are not saved because we trust in the Bible. Three thousand were saved on Pentecost, and the NT had not yet been written. And should every copy of the Holy Scriptures be destroyed tomorrow, people would still be saved.
God has given us the Holy Scriptures, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient for our salvation.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Leprechaun: quote:
I am not saying you have to believe inerrancy to get to heaven - but I do believe the reason that any of us, in reality, will get to heaven in the end is because what we trusted in, God's revelation of himself, was perfect, flawless, inerrant.
But you're saying that God's saving revelation of himself is the Bible.
Or are you not?
I'm saying that God's saving revelation of himself is Jesus Christ, the Word of God, God 'respoken' in loving fullness in human nature. I'm saying that the Bible itself says this (start with Jonn 1 and Hebrews 1); that the Bible itself says (John 21) that neither it nor any other collection of books could possibly sum up the whole of God's revelation in Christ, and that all that it can do is to offer 'enough'.
I keep coming back to the Piper quote you offer: quote:
"I love the Bible like I love my eyes. I don't get up in the morning, and see the beauty of the world and think "what great eyes". But I love them because I can see the glory of the world through them."
He's obviously done a lot of thinking about his eyes. I suspect that a bit of him now can't help thinking first thing in the morning "What great eyes!"
Contrast this with a story I heard a senior Minister tell about the experience, when he was young and newly-ordained, of taking his retired successor from the railway station in Machynlleth to a special service at his church in the countryside.
The route led over the rather spectacular Dylife gorge, and the old boy asked if they had time to stop. They did, and so they did. The old chap shuffled over to the gorge side of the road on his successor's arm, and asked to be left for a few moments, to reflect. The younger man heard him saying something under his breath, and discreetly drew closer to catch it. It was "Well done, God!" over and over again.
At the end of the day they were driving back towards the station. The old man made the same request. This time the young minister hesitated, because they were a bit late, and in any case the whole view was blotted out by a mist which filled all the valleys. But he did anyway. Same thing. "Well done, God!" And even mist-filled, the view was spectacular.
It was at that point that the younger man realized that the old boy was so nearly blind (though he still had all his marbles, and knew that the view wasn't what it had been in the morning) that he could barely see anything anyway. And yet what he was telling, on the basis of compromised visibility and very dodgy eyes, was still the truth. "Well done God!" You don't need to be able to see it all. All you need is to be able to see enough. The important thing is not that we see it perfectly, but that it's all really there.
The enormity of what happens in Christ far surpasses any capacity of Scripture to sum it up 'perfectly'. What we have are perspectives on a truth that tell the truth of Christ as they have it. Scripture doesn't offer us us the whole thing - just a relatonship with the whole thing. The saving event is wrought by Christ in space and time. Not by an inerrant book.
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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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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
I will respectfully submit that, if by "God's revelation of himself" you mean the Bible, and not Christ Jesus, then you are guilty of bibliolatry.
Madam, I respectfully disagree. In the same way you would have consider me to have trust in you if I believe the things you say, and wouldn't get upset that its your words I am trusting, rather than you, I do not consider that God sees it as idolatory that my way of trusting him is relying on the things he says.
quote:
Psyduck wrote:
He's obviously done a lot of thinking about his eyes. I suspect that a bit of him now can't help thinking first thing in the morning "What great eyes!"
And there's nothing wrong with that. Just as the Psalmist saw nothing wrong with waxing lyrical about God's law (even if you don't accept that means the whole Scripture, it is certainly God's written revelation) praising God for its perfection, and the effect it has on him. Its great to think something is brilliant because it has a great effect on you, and leads you to other great things.
So much we agree on, but I can't pin down - you agree that it is through the written word (read or preached) that we discover Christ. That is all I am saying. That the Bible can reliably and effectively do this.
Trusting in the propositional truth God reveals to us about Jesus is trusting Jesus. It is through the propositional truth that any relationship is formed, like any relationship.
I don't understand your beef with my view!
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Dear Leprechaun
quote:
Father G. I could answer your question, but I don't want to get into a "my faith is better than your faith" discussion thanks.
I didn't imply "better" ... I suggested comparisons of sturdiness on the principle of the vulnerability of a certain faith position to certain questions. So, on the God / E.T. threads I have previously stated that a faith that is ready for the implications of E.T. life is more sturdy than one that is not.
"Better" is not a word I would dream of using.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
Posts: 15099 | From: Manchester, UK | Registered: May 2001
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Leprechaun: quote:
So much we agree on, but I can't pin down - you agree that it is through the written word (read or preached) that we discover Christ. That is all I am saying. That the Bible can reliably and effectively do this.
Actually, this is perhaps it. I don't agree that it is through the written word (read or preached) that we discover Christ. It's through the Word read and preached that Christ confronts us - that we encounter him. And in the encounter he is always the living subject. He speaks, he comes, he meets.
If you'll let me be very literalistic in my interpretation of what you are saying; you put it the other way round:
quote:
it is through the written word (read or preached) that we discover Christ.
That strongly suggest to me that we "discover him" in a way that's a bit like seeing him accurately portrayed. He is the object of our gaze, not the subject of the encounter, not the one who graciously meets us as a living presence. And that's when what we discover aren't just 'true facts' about Christ, which is, on your account, all the Old Testament seems to be able to offer us.
quote:
The Bible can reliably and effectively do this.
Yes, but you're vesting the power to do this in the Bible itself, by making 'inerrancy' a virtually metaphysical property of the Bible itself. You make the Bible broker the encounter between us and God in Christ. What I'm insisting on is that that encounter is solely in God's hand.
The other thing you're doing, of course is divorcing the Bible from its context in the life of the Church. Here, I don't mean what the Orthodox and Catholic contributors mean.
I've already indicated that I don't understand God to have called the community into existence, then the community have produced and approved Scripture albeit under inspiration. I'd say that Scripture is the impress of impact of the Word made Flesh who calls the Church into being, and the embodiment in writing of the preached Word under which the Church lives.
But the Gospel is the Church's proclamation of Christ. You don't get Christ without the Church.
That's actually the point I'd want to make from our previous exchange of posts, where I was citing people who'd come to faith in labour camps and prisons, hearing very errantly remembered recountings of the Gospel from the lips of those who believed. The Church was there. As Nathaniel Micklem says, where two or three are gathered together, you don't have a church - but you do have the Church. And the Church's transmission of the faith, by reading and preaching the Word, is what creates faith. Because Christ is at the heart of the encounter.
But your stance on the Bible suggests to me that you think that the Bible is enough on its own, like a sort of "Teach Yourself" book. I sense here a view with which Protestants are often associated, that we become Christians first - by reading the Bible, maybe - and then form churches.
That's certainly not the Reformed tradition. As Bernard Lord Manning said, "For us, Christianity is churchmanship." It's the community hearing the Word that is our encounter with Christ.
When you make the Bible inerrant, you're also making it autonomous. You are privatizing Christianity into people reading a book. Or lecturing on the book (preaching). Or following the instructions in the book (the sacraments.) You are completely emptying the whole sense of Church as encounter - with Christ, but also with each other - of meaning.
That's why your sentence: quote:
The Bible can reliably and effectively do this.
is so terrifying. It's the Bible that does everything, brokers everything, mediates everything. It fulfils the roles of God, Christ, Church. I honestly don't think that the charge of 'Bibliolatry' is a very helpful one, because it's adversarial, and I really want you to see what I'm saying here, and don't think that you do. I think that inerrantist positions make the Bible perform all sorts of roles in the economy of the Christian faith that it's just not meant to - and that really fall to other protagonists in the drama of faith: us; the Church; the preacher; Christ; the Holy Spirit; God.
And when I ask myself '"Why?" the thought that keeps coming back is that if all these things are summed up in the Bible - an inerrant book that we just accept - then we have a guarantee. Faith is shorn of its risk. If we can tell ourselves that it doesn't matter how things look, there are no contradictions, no errors, no mistakes about fact, no superseded moral positions, in the Bible, then all we have to believe is that the Book is True, and everything is taken care of.
But faith isn't like that. Faith is wrestling with stories we don't like, or understand, just because they are there. (I know some inerrantists - pointing no fingers and exempting present company - would love to believe that "errantists" want to amputate difficult bits, but it's not true; not only do we live with them as you do because they are there, but we don't have any anaesthetic!) Faith is living with the fact that our own grasp of things is weak and uncertain on good days. Faith is looking at exactly the same world everyine else looks at, and making a different but precarious sense of it on the strength not of a guarantee, but a promise, and an invitation to trust. I know that you'll say that inerrancy requires trust and faith too, but it just seems to me to be a drastic simplification of the complex Christian demand to trust in all things - and a reduction of it to trust in an infallible book.
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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)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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Fish Fish
Shipmate
# 5448
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Dear Fish Fish
A loose analogy ...
When we were young our parents had authority over us. Sometimes we thought them wrong, sometimes right. Nonetheless they continued to have authority over us.
Why does the accuracy (which can't be maintained from the evidence anyway) have to be total in respect of the Bible in order for it to have authority over us?
Its a good illustration - but flawed!
The Bible is different from other authorities since it contains God's revelation of himself. We can know vertually nothing about God unles he tells us about himself. So, if we assume the authority over the text in determining errors and contradictions, we are in some sense telling God what he is like rather than him revealing himself to us.
My illustration of the problem of this position has been the doctrine of the Trinity. No one seems to have commented on this yet - yet its a huge issue of God's self revelation.
The Trinity seems to a human rational mind to be contradiction. But only by accepting the text by faith do we acccept God's revelation of himself as Trinity. We wouldn't dare say "This is contradiction - God cannot be like this. This is human error creaping into texts with human authors." We accept that God has revealed himself as Trinity. So why do we treat other apparent contradictions differently?
If we accept the apparent contradiction of the Trinity, but reject other apparent contradictions, we are assuming the right to tell God what he must be like, rather than accept that God is a complete mystery to us unless he reveals himself - in his word made flesh, but also in his word written.
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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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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
FishFish: Let's try a new approach.
quote:
The Bible is different from other authorities since it contains God's revelation of himself.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH! ![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif)
quote:
We can know vertually nothing about God unles he tells us about himself.
JESUS CHRIST!!!!!!
quote:
So, if we assume the authority over the text in determining errors and contradictions, we are in some sense telling God what he is like rather than him revealing himself to us.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!
quote:
But only by accepting the text by faith do we acccept God's revelation of himself as Trinity.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! 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)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
Psyduck
2 things
1) How do you know anything about Jesus Christ? From the Bible. Even if this experience has now been cemented in your life and by the church our primary source of information about Jesus is THROUGH THE TEXT OF THE BIBLE. It is therefore a nonsense to say you accept God's revelation of Jesus without admitting that the Bible is in some sense God's self revelation.
2) You said:
quote:
I'd say that Scripture is the impress of impact of the Word made Flesh who calls the Church into being, and the embodiment in writing of the preached Word under which the Church lives.
How exactly is this different from saying God reveals himself to us in the Bible? Hmmm? And I don't mean think of a way of saying why its different with long words and airy fairy illustrations. I mean really, in words in plain English, how is it different?
To me it seems you are just going back to this "have your cake and eat it" situation - where you believe in the Jesus of the Bible, except not really the bits that you can't understand, or wouldn't want to preach on.
If that seems uncharitable, well it probably is, but then please explain to me in a way I understand why I am wrong.
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He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Leprechaun: quote:
1) How do you know anything about Jesus Christ? From the Bible. Even if this experience has now been cemented in your life and by the church our primary source of information about Jesus is THROUGH THE TEXT OF THE BIBLE. It is therefore a nonsense to say you accept God's revelation of Jesus without admitting that the Bible is in some sense God's self revelation.
The Bible says nothing to us unless God speaks through it in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Bible doesn't 'reveal' God. God reveals himself through the eternal Word - Christ - who speaks through Scripture. If you want me to underline what this means, that's why the Bible doesn't have to be inerrant, nor claims to be inerrant. All it has to be - along with the preaching of the Word (sc. Christ) is the place where God in Christ confronts us. The Bible is what it is, and it isn't an infallible book. It's a meeting-place.
quote:
quote:
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I'd say that Scripture is the impress of impact of the Word made Flesh who calls the Church into being, and the embodiment in writing of the preached Word under which the Church lives.
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How exactly is this different from saying God reveals himself to us in the Bible? Hmmm? And I don't mean think of a way of saying why its different with long words and airy fairy illustrations. I mean really, in words in plain English, how is it different?
How's it different? It asserts that God reveals himself, and the Bible is the (inspired) testimony to that self-revelation. The Bible isn't the revelation. On your view, God doesn't have to be there at all - because the Bible is 'inerrant', it's self -contained. Revelation is something that God does, not 'the Bible™'.
quote:
To me it seems you are just going back to this "have your cake and eat it" situation - where you believe in the Jesus of the Bible, except not really the bits that you can't understand, or wouldn't want to preach on.
No, I believe in Jesus Christ as the revelation of God, and I believe you put a book in his place.
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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)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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Fish Fish
Shipmate
# 5448
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ...psyduck...:
FishFish: Let's try a new approach.
quote:
The Bible is different from other authorities since it contains God's revelation of himself.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!
quote:
We can know vertually nothing about God unles he tells us about himself.
JESUS CHRIST!!!!!!
quote:
So, if we assume the authority over the text in determining errors and contradictions, we are in some sense telling God what he is like rather than him revealing himself to us.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!
quote:
But only by accepting the text by faith do we acccept God's revelation of himself as Trinity.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! JESUS CHRIST!!!!!!
Thanks for answering that then.
Are you saying that Jesus Christ is the reason we believe the Trinity? Because all we know about JEsus Christ is what is written down. So you haven't answered my question.
Or are you using Jesus' name to swear at me - cos if so I'm not a happy chap.
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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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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
Lep - I'm not convinced at all that it's true that all we know of Jesus is what is written down.
Where did the writings of the NT come from? The answer is the early church. The early church wrote in the gospels and the epistles what they had come to understand Jesus. The NT is the record of that distilled knowledge - some 40-150 years after Jesus left the earth.
The Church is therefore the actual custodian of all we know about Jesus. The NT Scriptures are one aspect of that knowledge, but only one. We also have the Holy Spirit and Tradition. And, of course, working with all of these, Reason.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Jolly Jape
Shipmate
# 3296
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Posted
FF
Back again!
I think that the point Psyduck was making, though he is more than capable of speaking for himself, is that revelation only becomes revelation when the Revealer speaks. Without the revealer, the words are just words on a page. I would just stick my neck out here and say that no-one, NO ONE has become a Christian just through reading the Bible. It is the Holy Sprit, working through, amongst other things, the Bible, who brings us into living relationship with Jesus, the Living Word. Without Him (Them) the words are just that, words; no matter how inspired they were. To pretend that the Bible, in and of itself, is sufficient, is to fly in the face, not only of common sense, but of the actual message of the Scripture. You cannot have a personal relationship(TM) with a book, you cannot even have a personal relationship with someone's words. You can only have a personal relationsip with a person, or, in this case, Person. We are led to that Person by the book, but He's the one who holds the dynamic. It's Him, not the book, who makes it happen.
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To those who have never seen the flow and ebb of God's grace in their lives, it means nothing. To those who have seen it, even fleetingly, even only once - it is life itself. (Adeodatus)
Posts: 3011 | From: A village of gardens | Registered: Sep 2002
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Fish Fish
Shipmate
# 5448
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
FF
Back again!
I think that the point Psyduck was making, though he is more than capable of speaking for himself, is that revelation only becomes revelation when the Revealer speaks. Without the revealer, the words are just words on a page. I would just stick my neck out here and say that no-one, NO ONE has become a Christian just through reading the Bible. It is the Holy Sprit, working through, amongst other things, the Bible, who brings us into living relationship with Jesus, the Living Word. Without Him (Them) the words are just that, words; no matter how inspired they were. To pretend that the Bible, in and of itself, is sufficient, is to fly in the face, not only of common sense, but of the actual message of the Scripture. You cannot have a personal relationship(TM) with a book, you cannot even have a personal relationship with someone's words. You can only have a personal relationsip with a person, or, in this case, Person. We are led to that Person by the book, but He's the one who holds the dynamic. It's Him, not the book, who makes it happen.
I don't hear anyone disagreeing with any of that!
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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...:
FishFish: Let's try a new approach.
quote:
The Bible is different from other authorities since it contains God's revelation of himself.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!
...
Ah, Ok, having got up to date wuith the debate, I realise I should have done that before posting. Humble apologies. ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
But I think my question about the Trinity still stands. The church teaches the doctrine of the Trinity fundamentally cos the church wrestled with that doctrine revealed in the scriptures. How do errantists decide that doctrine is a "contradiction" worth accepting, but other "contradictions" are actually just that - contradictions caused by human error and misunderstanding?
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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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Jolly Jape
Shipmate
# 3296
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Posted
Maybe not, but I think that it follows from those propositions, which are not disputed, that there is no requirement for the scriptures to be inerrant. The dynamic is in the here and now. It's the present inspiration ot the Holy Spirit which makes the words effective. God breathes His spirit into the records of the struggles of His people down the ages, and applies them, or, if you prefer, interprets them, to our situation and context. As a matter of fact, as I have repeated several times, I do believe the scriptures to be inspired in the original writing as well as in the current reading, and I do believe them to be authoritative, but it's not really the point with regard for their efficacy at "making wise unto salvation". Jesus taught with authority not, primarily, in that he used authoritative texts. Every Tom, Dick, and Isaac did that! The authority with which He taught was that of the Living Word. It is that same authority upon which the written word relies today.
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To those who have never seen the flow and ebb of God's grace in their lives, it means nothing. To those who have seen it, even fleetingly, even only once - it is life itself. (Adeodatus)
Posts: 3011 | From: A village of gardens | Registered: Sep 2002
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Jolly Jape
Shipmate
# 3296
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Posted
FF
The Trinity is not a contradiction, in the way in which we normally use the word. I do seem to remember that this ground has been covered before; however, I'll rehash it a bit. The Trinity is certainly a Mystery, a conundrum, if that's not irreverent, even a paradox. But to say that Jesus was both fully God and fully man, to take one aspect of trinitarian thought, (a mystery), is not the same as saying Jesus is exclusively God and exclusively man, which would be a contradiction.
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To those who have never seen the flow and ebb of God's grace in their lives, it means nothing. To those who have seen it, even fleetingly, even only once - it is life itself. (Adeodatus)
Posts: 3011 | From: A village of gardens | Registered: Sep 2002
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Fish Fish
Shipmate
# 5448
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
FF
The Trinity is not a contradiction, in the way in which we normally use the word. I do seem to remember that this ground has been covered before; however, I'll rehash it a bit. The Trinity is certainly a Mystery, a conundrum, if that's not irreverent, even a paradox. But to say that Jesus was both fully God and fully man, to take one aspect of trinitarian thought, (a mystery), is not the same as saying Jesus is exclusively God and exclusively man, which would be a contradiction.
I accept that totally. That actually would be my argument. But that is also my point. Why decide that the trinity or Jesus' divinity is not a contradiction, but other passages in the Bible are contradictory. Can't those other passages be conundrums or mysterious revelations from God, stretching our understanding of him. Why dismiss them as contradictions - especially as Jesus never does?!
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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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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
Fish fish - because some of the other contradictions are contradictions.
To resolve the issue of Jesus' adoptive paternal grandfather (discrepancy between Matthew and Luke) in the manner in which the Trinity is resolved would be to suggest that both are correct and they are the same person. This is not the rationalisation I generally see; usually it's "well, erm, father means father in law here".
The Trinity conundrum is not posed by a pair of contradictory statements. It is altogether different in nature.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Stoo
Mighty Pirate
# 254
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
Why decide that the trinity or Jesus' divinity is not a contradiction, but other passages in the Bible are contradictory
Because it's not a logical fallacy.
- Statement 1: "I am both male and English" - neither statement is contradictory
- Statement 2: "I am both male and female" - the statement, although it looks odd is not necessarily contradictory. I could be a hermaphrodite, or could be talking about traditional gender roles. "I" could be God, and encompass both sexes.
- Statement 3: "I am exclusively male and exclusively female" - the statement is nonsense. There is no way to reconcile the two sides.
Mysteries can be reconciled. Even if we cannot comprehend how, we can comprehend that it could be done.
Logical fallacies cannot be reconciled. I do not, cannot, believe something illogical. If you can, then you've either got a stronger faith or a weaker mind.
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Posts: 5266 | From: the director of "Bikini Traffic School" | Registered: May 2001
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Fish Fish
Shipmate
# 5448
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Fish fish - because some of the other contradictions are contradictions.
To resolve the issue of Jesus' adoptive paternal grandfather (discrepancy between Matthew and Luke) in the manner in which the Trinity is resolved would be to suggest that both are correct and they are the same person. This is not the rationalisation I generally see; usually it's "well, erm, father means father in law here".
I must admit, that's a new one on me! I don't like having to answer these issues - but this one intrigues me! Can you give me references please?
But...
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
The Trinity conundrum is not posed by a pair of contradictory statements. It is altogether different in nature.
We're told "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one." and yet "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" - these are just as contradictory as any other contradiction we've discussed on this site. One says one thing. The other says something different. We only say they are not contradictory cos we've found a "solution" - the doctrine of the Trinity "solves" the apparent contradiction. And so I'm arguing that there are "solutions" to other "contradictions", and that they in fact only apparent contradictions, and the Bible is indeed inerrant.
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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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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
But, FF, the Bible as a stand-alone source did not provide the "solution" - the Church did, through the direction of the Holy Ghost. That's really my main point (as it was several pages back!). We needed the Church through the Hoily Ghost to ratify that "solution" as opposed to the numerous other heretical but equally "biblical" "solutions" that were doing the rounds.
CB
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
We're told "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one." and yet "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" - these are just as contradictory as any other contradiction we've discussed on this site. One says one thing. The other says something different. We only say they are not contradictory cos we've found a "solution" - the doctrine of the Trinity "solves" the apparent contradiction. And so I'm arguing that there are "solutions" to other "contradictions", and that they in fact only apparent contradictions, and the Bible is indeed inerrant.
Well, yes the verses are contradictory taken on their own. But, we don't do that. There are a whole load of passages that make clear that God is one God (the only God), and this is a vital and inescapable part of the Jewish religion. The NT is clear that Jesus was fully God, yet seperate from the Father in some sense, while still holding onto the clear teaching that God is one. To reject one or the other is to reject a major part of the Bible.
That is an enormous difference to saying the writers weren't perfect, and though they tried their best occasionally got some minor fact wrong and therefore one of either Luke or Matthew got their geneology slightly mixed up. Non-inerrantists are not given license to reject large parts of Scripture, we don't find it necessary to worry ourselves about minor details.
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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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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
We only say they are not contradictory cos we've found a "solution" - the doctrine of the Trinity "solves" the apparent contradiction. And so I'm arguing that there are "solutions" to other "contradictions", and that they in fact only apparent contradictions, and the Bible is indeed inerrant.
Riiiight, that makes sense. You close your eyes and believe the contradictions are not there. And then when you open them again and it is still there you decide your eyes aren't working.
I submit that your eyes are more influenced by the belief in inerrancy than the other way around.
The bible cannot be inerrant as it is not just a collection of statements that are true or false. Somethings do not fall into those categories (like poetry and parable).
[ok spot the idiot]
C
[ 22. March 2004, 12:41: Message edited by: Cheesy* ]
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
But, FF, the Bible as a stand-alone source did not provide the "solution" - the Church did, through the direction of the Holy Ghost. That's really my main point (as it was several pages back!). We needed the Church through the Hoily Ghost to ratify that "solution" as opposed to the numerous other heretical but equally "biblical" "solutions" that were doing the rounds.
CB
Which "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)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Which "Church"?
The One Holy Catholic(k) and Apostolic(k) one I mention every week?
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
And where precisely does the Baptist church I attend fit into that grand scheme of things?
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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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
The church teaches the doctrine of the Trinity fundamentally cos the church wrestled with that doctrine revealed in the scriptures.
Bzzzzt. Wrong answer. The Church teaches the doctrine of the Trinity because the Church experiences God as Trinity. Part of that experience is recorded in the Bible. But the Bible isn't unequivocal one way or the other -- just look at how many sola scriptura groups are Jesus Only or modalists of other sorts.
Nevertheless the Church is unequivocal on this subect, because the Church knows God.
quote:
How do errantists decide that doctrine is a "contradiction" worth accepting, but other "contradictions" are actually just that - contradictions caused by human error and misunderstanding?
Antiquity, universality, consensus.
Now, would you kindly answer my questions?
If you and I both use the Scriptures, and faith, and prayer, and come up with different interpretations of an apparently contradictory passage, who gets to decide which is right?
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
And where precisely does the Baptist church I attend fit into that grand scheme of things?
Yours in Christ
Matt
Last time I checked it was part of it.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
But, FF, the Bible as a stand-alone source did not provide the "solution" - the Church did, through the direction of the Holy Ghost. That's really my main point (as it was several pages back!). We needed the Church through the Hoily Ghost to ratify that "solution" as opposed to the numerous other heretical but equally "biblical" "solutions" that were doing the rounds.
CB
Which "Church"?
Yours in Christ
Matt
The one that met at Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon, etc. precisely to define her doctrine of Trinity. The Church.
CB
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
But if there is no universality of interpretation, which is amply demonstrated in this thread if nowhere else despite what Josephine avers, how can that catholicity be of value? Many Baptists and indeed other evangelical groups would be unhappy with an undefined statement of "one holy catholic and apostolic church", BTW; that was what in part sparked my question.
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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