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Source: (consider it) Thread: biblical inerrancy
Psyduck

Ship's vacant look
# 2270

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FishFish:
quote:
But none of that negates the fact that God gives us the scriptures so we know what he thinks, and don't have to rely on the wise counsel of flawed, sinful humans.
OK remind us how God gives us the Scriptures. Tell us how you think it is done. Tell us what roles the human and the divine play in the giving of Scripture, in what sense God writes it and what the human authors do. Tell us what their input is, and how its flawed humanity is overcome to make the Bible inerrant. Then tell us how you know this. And why there's not a peep about it in the Bible itself.

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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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dyfrig
Blue Scarfed Menace
# 15

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Forgot one thing - we're not dealing with judging the "wisdom" of the Bible, we're dealing with very mundane things like the way certain details (many of which have been mentioned above) don't fit together. Pointing the phraes "This door is blue" and "this door is red" about the same door (which happens to be green!) isn't putting yourself above someone's wisdom - it's merely speaking truthfully. Is it someone a denial of the entire Christian faith to say that Jesus misidentifies a person in a particular OT incident he's referring to? Is it so bad to point out that Kings and Chronicles suggest different details? Why?

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"He was wrong in the long run, but then, who isn't?" - Tony Judt

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Josephine

Orthodox Belle
# 3899

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quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
If I have the wisdom and insight to spot errors in the Bible, and so know better than the authors what is true and untrue, how can I still say that I submit to its wisdom?

Because wisdom is not to be found in a collection of facts?

Look, my eldest son is 20 years old. He's brilliant. I'm not just being a proud mama here -- it's really mind-boggling how much he knows. His collection of facts is enormous.

But my young man, my beloved son, is utterly lacking in wisdom. He is so wrapped up in what is true in the same sense that you're using true -- what is an accurate statement of fact, objectively true, that he has become a fairly thoroughgoing materialist and an atheist. He often can't see what is true in a deeper sense if it smacks him in the face. The meaning of life, of love, of birth and death, of holiness -- it all eludes him because he's looking for facts.

The wisdom of the Holy Scriptures does not lie in its being a recitation of facts. Its wisdom is far deeper, more real, than any fact. And it getting a fact wrong here and there does nothing to negate its wisdom. Or its authority. Or its holiness. Or its divine origin.

When we read the Holy Scriptures, we are not seeking facts. We are seeking Christ. We trust him to be found by us there.

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Jolly Jape
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# 3296

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Josephine, as always, [Overused] [Overused]

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Matt Black

Shipmate
# 2210

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quote:
Originally posted by ...psyduck...:
OK remind us how God gives us the Scriptures. Tell us how you think it is done. Tell us what roles the human and the divine play in the giving of Scripture, in what sense God writes it and what the human authors do. Tell us what their input is, and how its flawed humanity is overcome to make the Bible inerrant. Then tell us how you know this. And why there's not a peep about it in the Bible itself.

How many times do we have to repeat ourselves in answering the same questions??!! [brick wall] 2 Peter 1:21, as I've said already, sets out this process. That's your answer. Next question, please.

Dyfrig, the apparently contradictory passages in Scripture to which you refer are an old chestnut which has been refuted by a number of scholars who take an inerrantist view.

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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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460

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quote:
Originally posted by ...psyduck...:
To be an inerrantist is, in a profound sense, to be "One Christian short of the Church..."

How can it be, when the inerrant Scriptures are themselves a product of the Spirit in the Church?

It might be that the relatively constant Scriptures allow the believer to check that the teachings of the local church in the place and time in which the believer finds themself are in fact in agreement with the teachings of the Church in the past.

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Ken

L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.

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Callan
Shipmate
# 525

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Originally posted by Matt Black:

quote:
Dyfrig, the apparently contradictory passages in Scripture to which you refer are an old chestnut which has been refuted by a number of scholars who take an inerrantist view.

I think you are using the term 'refute' in the popular rather than the proper sense. Inerrantist scholars may well have said: "no these passages are not contradictory" but I don't think that they have demonstrated it to the satisfaction of anyone who was not already committed to inerrancy.

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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton

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Jolly Jape
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# 3296

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Matt, as far as I can see, this is the first time 2Peter 1;21 has come up in these discussions. Problem is:
a) in context and detail Peter is talking about the prophetic word rather than scripture as a whole,
and b) I don't think the verse has anything to say about inerrancy in any case. You don't have to hold to inerrancy in order to use scripture, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and in concert with other believers, to discern who is and who is not being faithful to Christ, which seems Peter's main concern in this passage.

Ken, you wrote:
quote:
It might be that the relatively constant Scriptures allow the believer to check that the teachings of the local church in the place and time in which the believer finds themself are in fact in agreement with the teachings of the Church in the past.

Absolutely agreed that this is one of the purposes of scripture, but this again does not rely on those scriptures being inerrant, only on them being authoritative. Or so ISTM.

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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)

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Psyduck

Ship's vacant look
# 2270

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quote:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by ...psyduck...:
OK remind us how God gives us the Scriptures. Tell us how you think it is done. Tell us what roles the human and the divine play in the giving of Scripture, in what sense God writes it and what the human authors do. Tell us what their input is, and how its flawed humanity is overcome to make the Bible inerrant. Then tell us how you know this. And why there's not a peep about it in the Bible itself.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How many times do we have to repeat ourselves in answering the same questions??!! 2 Peter 1:21, as I've said already, sets out this process. That's your answer. Next question, please.

Now that would be:
quote:
because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God
Well, you might like to explain how none of us "errantists" would dissent from that...

Oh, and that's me being kind and letting you off the hook for not telling us "what roles the human and the divine play in the giving of Scripture, in what sense God writes it and what the human authors do; what their input is, and how its flawed humanity is overcome to make the Bible inerrant." Oh - and "how you know this". None of which is covered in the verse you cite.

Again, it only means what you say it means if we accept what you say it means. Which since you say it means a great deal more than it itself says it means, is rather difficult. And points up one of the biggest difficulties with inerrancy - it often forces a choice between what the Bible actually says and what inerrantists say it means.
Which means you could do worse than go back and look at the verse preceding the one you just cited.
quote:
First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation


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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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quote:
Originally posted by dyfrig:
FF:
Ah, but you see, that's the problem. "Seeking it's true meaning" is an odd phrase, because texts are slippery things. Where does meaning lie?

I'd go with the author's intent - they're the one's writing, and they're the ones guided by HS to write.

quote:
Originally posted by dyfrig:
And what does it say about a God who lets himself be known through such a strange collection of texts?

It tells us of a God of grace, who interacts with people through history, and who promises and then fulfils those promises.

Are you saying that because they seem strange to you that they don't communicate truth to us? Not sure what your point is here.

quote:
Originally posted by dyfrig:
How do you know that "inerrancy" as a tool will let you find it, when the texts themselves neither claim this particular brand of it nor, on closer study, stand up to such a claim in the first place?

And I've been arguing that they do claim this, that the apparent errors are only apparant and not real, and that it is indeed important for the Book's authority over us to be completely trustworthy, or else its hard to see why its worth trusting error or mistake.

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
But, ISTM to be saying something different. We are both standing in the same place, reading Scripture based on how it seems to be to each of us. There is no difference in our approach. Yet you insist that when I read Scripture I stand in authority over it, and when you do it it stands in authority over you.

If you think in any way that you can tell the authors of the Bible that they got it wrong, then how do you not sit over it?

If I say they didn’t not get it wrong, and submissively learn from it, how is that not fundamentally different from you?


quote:
Originally posted by Stoo:
You discount analogies continuously, and then say that no-one's answering you. You repeat your questions which have been answered because you say the answers did not satisfy you.

I disagree with the analogies because they don't work. And up until recently no one did interact with some of my points - about the trinity for example. They have done more recently, and I'm grateful for that. But, no, the answers haven't satisfied me yet!

quote:
Originally posted by Stoo:
You need to think about others' arguments, and not just discount them because you dislike them.

I am not simply saying "I don't like" - I am giving reasons and interacting. Or would you rather I rolled over and simply said "Yes you are all right"? Cos I don't think you are, so I won't!


quote:
Originally posted by dyfrig:
Forgot one thing - we're not dealing with judging the "wisdom" of the Bible, we're dealing with very mundane things like the way certain details (many of which have been mentioned above) don't fit together. Pointing the phraes "This door is blue" and "this door is red" about the same door (which happens to be green!) isn't putting yourself above someone's wisdom - it's merely speaking truthfully. Is it someone a denial of the entire Christian faith to say that Jesus misidentifies a person in a particular OT incident he's referring to? Is it so bad to point out that Kings and Chronicles suggest different details? Why?

But the problem is that this is a slippery slope. As I've said before, and not really had a satisfactory answer, we accept some solutions to "contradictions" in the Bible (such as the trinity), and so perhaps if there are solutions to other "contradictions", we should be so quick to dismiss those solutions.

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
The wisdom of the Holy Scriptures does not lie in its being a recitation of facts. Its wisdom is far deeper, more real, than any fact.

True. But if the facts are wrong, it undermines the reason to accept its wisdom.

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
When we read the Holy Scriptures, we are not seeking facts. We are seeking Christ. We trust him to be found by us there.

But why on earth should I trust that I will find Christ in a book if its riddled with errors? How on earth do I know that what I am trusting is not an error? How do I know that what it says about Christ's divinity is not an error? Or his resurrection? Or even his existence? If there's even one error, then there may be millions, or not even a jot of truth. Pull on that thread, and the whole book can unravel.

Now, of course, none of you would go that far. But where do you stop? Each of you determines in different places that "this is error and this is not" - and so each of you assumes knowledge over the text.

Oh I know this is going in circles. But it still seems to me that any knowledge we claim to have over the text diminishes the wonderful mystery of God revealed in the scriptures. It is, in the end, a pottentially arrogant position to take, which denies God's ability to reveal himself accurately, and assumes knowledge superior to the authors of the God-breathed Bible. I just cannot do it - no matter how much you all say I'm not playing the game I should.

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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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Josephine

Orthodox Belle
# 3899

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quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
The wisdom of the Holy Scriptures does not lie in its being a recitation of facts. Its wisdom is far deeper, more real, than any fact.

True. But if the facts are wrong, it undermines the reason to accept its wisdom.
Why?

quote:
quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
When we read the Holy Scriptures, we are not seeking facts. We are seeking Christ. We trust him to be found by us there.

But why on earth should I trust that I will find Christ in a book if its riddled with errors? How on earth do I know that what I am trusting is not an error?
It depends on the object of your trust, of course. I trust Christ, revealed to us by the Holy Spirit, through Holy Scripture, through the lives of the saints, through the holy icons, through the prayers that Christians have prayed for more than a millenium.

I'm simply not worried about errors. They don't concern me a bit. My faith is not such a house of cards that if one small fact turned out to be wrong, the whole thing would come crashing down. It simply wouldn't.

Our Lord said that if we seek him, we'll find him. He said, "My sheep know my voice." I believe him. I trust him. If the Bible got the number of people in the tribe of Benjamin wrong by 1 or 100 or 10000, I don't care. It doesn't matter. It doesn't change anything.

The Holy Scriptures are trustworthy and reliable and authoritative, they are useful, they are given to us by God in his love for us because he knows we need them. But you have to read them for what they are: they bear the same relationship to God that an icon does. They are worthy of study, worthy of veneration. They present the truth to us. But God Himself is the Truth. We should never confuse an icon with its Prototype. We must not confuse the image with the Original.

[ 23. March 2004, 21:00: Message edited by: josephine ]

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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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Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

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quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
quote:
Originally posted by dyfrig:
FF:
Ah, but you see, that's the problem. "Seeking it's true meaning" is an odd phrase, because texts are slippery things. Where does meaning lie?

I'd go with the author's intent - they're the one's writing, and they're the ones guided by HS to write.
OK. So we go with the authors intent. What about when Ahaz king of Judah is given a prophecy that the foreign kings who threaten the nation will be destroyed by God, and when God offers a sign that this will happen it is simply a sign for that king? Surely that is the authors intent? Well, go to Isaiah 7 and read the account ... what's that "a young woman will give birth to a son" ... the text Matthew applied to Mary. So, the Bible authors themselves don't go with the authors intent when they quote other passages of Scripture. Where does that leave you?

quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
But, ISTM to be saying something different. We are both standing in the same place, reading Scripture based on how it seems to be to each of us. There is no difference in our approach. Yet you insist that when I read Scripture I stand in authority over it, and when you do it it stands in authority over you.

If you think in any way that you can tell the authors of the Bible that they got it wrong, then how do you not sit over it?

If I say they didn’t not get it wrong, and submissively learn from it, how is that not fundamentally different from you?

But, if the Bible isn't inerrant, if the intent of God wasn't to give us a book of facts then our positions are reversed. At the best, all that can be said is that we both come to the Bible with certain expectations ... you that it's inerrant, me that God speaks through it even if it isn't correct in every detail. In a real sense we're both standing over the same book.

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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

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Callan
Shipmate
# 525

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Originally posted by Fish Fish:

quote:
But why on earth should I trust that I will find Christ in a book if its riddled with errors? How on earth do I know that what I am trusting is not an error? How do I know that what it says about Christ's divinity is not an error? Or his resurrection? Or even his existence? If there's even one error, then there may be millions, or not even a jot of truth. Pull on that thread, and the whole book can unravel.

This is the key issue, isn't it? For inerrantists God speaks through facts and through propositional logic. If God gets his facts or his propositional logic wrong then the game is up. The Bible is a manual of aircraft maintenance. Put one bolt out of place and the whole thing crashes to earth in flames.

For the non-inerrantists God speaks through facts and through propositional logic but he also speaks through poetry and mysticism and story. The Bible isn't invalidated by wrong facts because presenting a complete schema of correct facts wasn't the object of its writers.

The Bible contains myth, like the Iliad. It contains ancient history, like Herodotus. It contains religious and love poetry, like Hesiod and Horace (in what meaningful sense is the Song of Solomon inerrant, or errant??). It contains ancient biography, like Plutarch. It contains letters about the Church, like Cicero's letters about Rome. It contains Apocalyptic, like the literature of Zoroastrianism.

Now none of these genres were positivistic or fact based in the way that the Highway Code, or a modern engineering manual is. They were primarily literary genres. Of course some of them contain facts and those facts are important but the facts are not the raison d'etre of their creation and preservation. God spoke through the literature of a particular ancient people, not by turning it into a positivistic fact based genre which was utterly unknown before the late 17th/ early 18th century, but by illuminating it's authors with the light of His Holy Spirit and allowing their words to point us to the Word of God, Jesus Christ.

The two views are utterly incommensurable, of course. But the irony is that inerrancy is defeated on the very battle ground it chooses. Inerrancy is obliged to deny the results of historical scholarship, to insist that the law of non-contradiction does not apply to Scripture. To insist that where clear errors exist there is, in fact, no error. The very epistemological relativism which inerrancy is supposed to act as a bulwark against is the basis of a view that maintains that truth is of less value than a 'faith position'.

It is recorded of Einstein that he once pronounced: "God does not play dice". Niels Bohr is alleged to have responded: "Einstein, stop telling God what to do". The parallel is an instructive one.

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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton

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Psyduck

Ship's vacant look
# 2270

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FishFish:
quote:
But why on earth should I trust that I will find Christ in a book if its riddled with errors?
Maybe you're starting from the wrong end. We all do find Christ here. Because we meet him in our encounter with the book(s). None of us is calling into question his presence in the reading and the hearing, or setting any conditions for it. You're the one doing that. You're the one saying that it's only if the book is inerrant that Christ can meet us here. What really worries me about inerrantism, religiously, is that it seems to me to exhibit a really crucial lack of trust. Unless the book is guaranteed, unless it meets our criteria, unless the Word of God comes to us as a tangible paper object, and is put into our hands, we can't believe. That seems to me to stand Biblical faith on its head. God comes to Abram and says Come with me, and I'll fulfil this absolutely impossible-sounding promise which I'm making with no guarantee beyond that I'm saying it. And Abram says "OK". Jesus calls to these two guys at a lakeside, who've never known anything but fishing, and says "Leave all that and come with me!" - and they go. He calls to a man who's known no friendship or anything but hatred for years, because he's a tax-collector, and says "Come with me and I'll be your friend" - and Matthew gets up, and leaves the money on the table, and just follows, on a word. That's how faith works. Inerrancy may seem to be that sort of faith - but it's not. It's not straightforwrd faith in Christ, and a determination to get up and follow where he leads. It's a guaranteed faith, a faith that says - and how many times have the inerrantists on this thread said it - how can we trust in God unless we know beforehand that God is trustworthy? How can we trust in God unless the book is inerrant?

And yes you make the inerrancy of the book depend on God's trustworthiness, but that's so that you can trust in God because of the infallible book, and so on and so on. In the end, there are no grounds for trusting God except trust itself. There are no guarantees. God says - and we believe him or we don't. It really is that precarious.

Except of course that it isn't. Because this is God we're talking about.

I think what's been happening in this thread is that two conflicting patterns of faith have been bumping into each other. There are those who say "We believe in God, because the inerrant Bible witnesses to his trustworthiness, and we trust that the Bible is inerrant because this is God we're talking about, and everything he's done in Christ is vouched for by an inerrant Bible, which we knwo is inerrant because God is trustworthy, and..."

On the other hand there are people who say "We seem to encounter God here, and he invites us to trust - so we will. Or at least, we'll try..."

Don't you see the difference? DOn't you see that the first stance is a trying to lift yourself up by your own bootlaces? Don't you see that inerrancy involves a seeking for a guaranteed reliability that actually undercuts and destroys trust? Here's the proof: is there an inerrantist on this thread who hasn't said that it's an issue of God's trustworthiness - that a 'fallible' Scripture can't reliably reveal God?

What the rest of us are saying is "Here's a book - well, a collection of writings - that in one place puts the Cleansing of the Temple at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, and at another at the end; that in one place suggests that creation took place in one way, and a chapter later contradicts this in several important ways; that contains misattributions, factual discrepancies between doublets, a highly specific ritual law which is later set aside, attitudes which in the light of later parts of the same collection of writings appear grotesque and horrifying - and yet when we read it we are confronted by a God whose claim on us we can't deny. The bits of it jar, and conflict, yet fit together in such a way that we don't dare discard any of it. It challenges us, and when we think we've oriented ourselves adequately to it, and we're quite smug about our relationship to it, and think we've got it sussed, it knocks our assumptions to the ground and challenges us to start again. When we encounter it read and rearticulated at the heart of our religious communities, it seems to allow a voice to speak through it which comes from beyond itself, which takes its words - even the most difficult - and makes them speak with the authority of a living, ultimate presence. And out of this apparent mess of clashing, contradictory documents there speaks one whom we the Church perceive to be one with us and the perfection of what we should be as human beings, and one with the ultimate, transcendent reality who is God. None of these contradictions or blemishes or 'errancies' seem to inhibit him speaking directly to us, and saying things which surprise and astonish us no matter how long we've wrestled with this Bible. The non-inerrantists have no trouble going with the sheer miracle of God's speech through the Bible. I can't but see that for inerrantists, their belief in inerrancy must be a terrible problem. Because you can't see the Bible for what it is. You have to portray the Bible as speaking with basically one voice, when manifestly it doesn't. You have to portray it as containing no contradictions, when manifestly it does. And you have to pretend that you're the only people who listen to what the Bible says, when even the most critical liberal scholarship of the nineteenth century was a (wrong-headed, and preconception laden) attempt to hear what the Bible was actually saying.

The real difference is that you have to go beyond listening to what the Bible is saying, as a Christian. Heresy is all about listening to what the Bible says - to me. The real trick is to listen to what Christ is saying to us. To the Church. Through the Bible.

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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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Zeke
Ship's Inquirer
# 3271

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Very well said.

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No longer the Bishop of Durham
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If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be without it? --Benjamin Franklin

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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330

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quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:

But why on earth should I trust that I will find Christ in a book if its riddled with errors? How on earth do I know that what I am trusting is not an error? How do I know that what it says about Christ's divinity is not an error? Or his resurrection? Or even his existence? If there's even one error, then there may be millions, or not even a jot of truth. Pull on that thread, and the whole book can unravel.

This is an illogical position. We all learn things from imperfect textbooks and imperfect people all the time. The measure of 'correctness' of the bible does not lie in its literal accuracy. Try to fit together the stories of the resurrection for example. The simple answer is that you can't.

But I submit that the immediacy, the blurred memories and the excitement make it more likely to be true. Ask any policeman - if you get any accounts that agree 100% then you start to be suspicious. Why does this unravel everything? Why does a few men who couldn't remember some years after the event the order of the detail detract from the main point of the story?

My wife and I got married in 2000. I don't remember very much about it. Does that mean it didn't happen? If so, I could be in trouble...

C

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arse

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Matt Black

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quote:
Originally posted by ...psyduck...:
quote:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by ...psyduck...:
OK remind us how God gives us the Scriptures. Tell us how you think it is done. Tell us what roles the human and the divine play in the giving of Scripture, in what sense God writes it and what the human authors do. Tell us what their input is, and how its flawed humanity is overcome to make the Bible inerrant. Then tell us how you know this. And why there's not a peep about it in the Bible itself.
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How many times do we have to repeat ourselves in answering the same questions??!! 2 Peter 1:21, as I've said already, sets out this process. That's your answer. Next question, please.

Now that would be:
quote:
because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God
Well, you might like to explain how none of us "errantists" would dissent from that...

Oh, and that's me being kind and letting you off the hook for not telling us "what roles the human and the divine play in the giving of Scripture, in what sense God writes it and what the human authors do; what their input is, and how its flawed humanity is overcome to make the Bible inerrant." Oh - and "how you know this". None of which is covered in the verse you cite.


[/QUOTE]

I really don't know what else you want from me! You ask me a question (how was Scripture given), I give you my answer (by the HS). You then don't accept my answer. OK, fine, that's up to you, but permit me to at least hold to my answer. This is fast becoming a dialogue of the deaf...

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

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quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
Matt, as far as I can see, this is the first time 2Peter 1;21 has come up in these discussions. .

Er...no.I've referred to it twice earlier - on pp 20 and 21

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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Psyduck

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quote:
I really don't know what else you want from me! You ask me a question (how was Scripture given), I give you my answer (by the HS). You then don't accept my answer. OK, fine, that's up to you, but permit me to at least hold to my answer. This is fast becoming a dialogue of the deaf...

The trouble is that you seem to be refusing to take on board what I'm saying, which is that a) I read the 2 Peter text and understand it differently to you, and b) the 2 Peter text read straight doesn't seem to be saying anything like - or anything like as much - as you seem to read into it.

You say "This settles it!" We say "We don't think it does, because a)... b)..." and you say "You're not listening..." That's actually what's happening.

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mr cheesy
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OK Matt, given that you are so good at listening, perhaps you would like to address my last post.

C

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Fish Fish
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quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
Our Lord said that if we seek him, we'll find him.

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
He said, "My sheep know my voice." I believe him. I trust him.

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
The Holy Scriptures are trustworthy and reliable and authoritative, they are useful, they are given to us by God in his love for us because he knows we need them.

Each of these statements begs the question - How do you know? If you accept that the Bible has some errors and mistakes in it, how do you know that these are not those errors or mistakes? How can you trust what you know to be flawed? Its like standding on rotten floor boards or thin ice.

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
We should never confuse an icon with its Prototype. We must not confuse the image with the Original.

I am NOT confusing the Bible with God. I AM saying it points to Jesus in an inerrant way. Its NOT the same thing. I do NOT worship the Bible. But I DO trust God to be able to perfectly reveal his truth to me.


quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
OK. So we go with the authors intent. What about when Ahaz king of Judah is given a prophecy that the foreign kings who threaten the nation will be destroyed by God, and when God offers a sign that this will happen it is simply a sign for that king? Surely that is the authors intent? Well, go to Isaiah 7 and read the account ... what's that "a young woman will give birth to a son" ... the text Matthew applied to Mary. So, the Bible authors themselves don't go with the authors intent when they quote other passages of Scripture. Where does that leave you?

Because prophecy can be true on a number of levels. The sign was for Ahaz, a king in David's line, who had failed to trust God - he would indeed see a virgin with a child as a sign that God could do what he wants. But that prophecy has a much deeper meaning when another King of David's line is born to a virgin - Jesus. The author intended it for Ahaz - but in God's wonderful sovereignty, he had a deeper meaning as well. But Matthew does not go against the author's intent - he goes with the intent (to report God's prophecy) and shows its ultimate fulfilment.

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
But, if the Bible isn't inerrant, if the intent of God wasn't to give us a book of facts then our positions are reversed. At the best, all that can be said is that we both come to the Bible with certain expectations ... you that it's inerrant, me that God speaks through it even if it isn't correct in every detail. In a real sense we're both standing over the same book.

No, I disagree - for I am not sitting in judgment of any passage and saying "I don't need to submit to the teaching of this passage for I can see it is a mistake, an error, a rotton floor board, thin ice..." Instead I am seeking what the book can teach me rather than what I can teach it.


quote:
Originally posted by Callan.:
This is the key issue, isn't it? For inerrantists God speaks through facts and through propositional logic. If God gets his facts or his propositional logic wrong then the game is up. The Bible is a manual of aircraft maintenance. Put one bolt out of place and the whole thing crashes to earth in flames.

For the non-inerrantists God speaks through facts and through propositional logic but he also speaks through poetry and mysticism and story. The Bible isn't invalidated by wrong facts because presenting a complete schema of correct facts wasn't the object of its writers.

While I stand by every word of the Bible being true, I am not saying its like an aircraft manual or the highway code. If you read what I've been saying, I am arguing that everything is true WITHIN ITS GENRE. So, yes, the Bible speaks in many genres - speaks through poetry and story and proverb and prophecy. Absolutely deluighted to affirm that again. But however the Bible communicates truth, it does so perfectly.

quote:
Originally posted by Callan.:
To insist that where clear errors exist there is, in fact, no error. The very epistemological relativism which inerrancy is supposed to act as a bulwark against is the basis of a view that maintains that truth is of less value than a 'faith position'.

However, what may appear to be an error at first is not always an error. What is an apparant contradiction may not be. What appears to be a "clear" error may infact not be. What we dismiss as contradiction may in fact be telling us something true or mysterious about God which we dismiss to easily.

quote:
Originally posted by ...psyduck...:
FishFish: [ You're the one doing that. You're the one saying that it's only if the book is inerrant that Christ can meet us here.

No, I'm not! I am asking how you know you've met Christ when you cas doubt on the place where you meet him?

quote:
Originally posted by ...psyduck...:
What really worries me about inerrantism, religiously, is that it seems to me to exhibit a really crucial lack of trust. Unless the book is guaranteed, unless it meets our criteria, unless the Word of God comes to us as a tangible paper object, and is put into our hands, we can't believe.

On the contrary, it trusts God more - trusting him to be able to comunicate rather than be constrained in any way. It takes God at his word, rather than keeping a foot in either camp and choosing to doubt some things and then choosing to believe others.

quote:
Originally posted by ...psyduck...:
FishFish: It's not straightforwrd faith in Christ, and a determination to get up and follow where he leads. It's a guaranteed faith, a faith that says - and how many times have the inerrantists on this thread said it - how can we trust in God unless we know beforehand that God is trustworthy? How can we trust in God unless the book is inerrant?

But of course there is still faith - I still have to believe that Jesus loves me, died for me, was raised for me. But I also have to have faith that God has revealed himselves in ways I cannot always understand, which may seem like contradiction...

So, I think we too are saying "We seem to encounter God here, and he invites us to trust - so we will. Or at least, we'll try..." -but the more I trust him and his word, the more reason I have to trust him and his word, and my faith increases. I wasn't an inerantist when I became a Christian 14 years ago, and a barely was when I started on this thread. But my faith has increased, and my trust in the Bible has increased. Praise God.


quote:
Originally posted by ...psyduck...:
The real trick is to listen to what Christ is saying to us. To the Church. Through the Bible.

I honestly can't see how taking God and Christ at their word and trusting the Bible does not do this. And I honestly don't see how you can do this if you think the text you are leaning on is actually riddled with errors, and so whatever you might lean on today may give way tomorrow.

quote:
Originally posted by Cheesy*:
quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:

But why on earth should I trust that I will find Christ in a book if its riddled with errors? How on earth do I know that what I am trusting is not an error? How do I know that what it says about Christ's divinity is not an error? Or his resurrection? Or even his existence? If there's even one error, then there may be millions, or not even a jot of truth. Pull on that thread, and the whole book can unravel.

This is an illogical position. We all learn things from imperfect textbooks and imperfect people all the time.
Yes - and we judge what is worth learning from this human and what is in error. But the Bible is different in that it perports to be a revelation from God. And, in the face of a perfect, powerful, creative God, I am a fool to think I can sit in judgment over his words and say, in effect, "Excuse me, you've clearly got that bit wrong - but I'm happy to believe that you have got that bit right." ISTM to be foolish - and I won't set myself up as more wise than God. I can't do it. I'd rather be thought of as a fool by you all than thought of as foolish or arrogant by God.

[ 24. March 2004, 08:58: Message edited by: Fish Fish ]

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Jolly Jape
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Matt,

OK, not sure you are really addressing ...psyduck...'s question, but how about me trying to give my answer, and then you picking out the points, if any, with which you disagree.

ISTM that the authors of the various books had different and diverse purposes. Few of them werre consciously writing what they believed would become Scripture, and most of that subset wrote in the New Testament. Some were writing down oral traditions, some were recording prophesy which they or others had received in the past. Most, if not all, did it prayerfully, and using all their God-given intellectual powers. For them, it was a fully human activity, people using their creativity to accomplish their goals, and, as a result, consciously or unconsciously to glorify God.

Now, you may say, that would negate the 2Peter passage. However, that is not the whole story. During this process, God is also active, through the Holy Spirit. With one writer, He will move their heart to worship, and the result is a Psalm of praise, but it is still the author's work. With another, He will quicken the remembrance of how He spoke to the author in the past, bringing to mind the prophetic word - step forward Isaiah. Sometimes, a faithful disciple will write down a record of activities as they happen, an eye-witness report like those of Baruch in Jeremiah. Sometimes is just boring old chroniclers, earning their bread in the Jerusalem scriptoria, but doing it to God's glory and with the Holy Spirit strenghthening them. Sometimes, ISTM, very occasionally, there is that surprising word that comes through as being a direct intervention of the Spirit, where the writer was not in control; where, on looking back, the author must have thought, "Did I really write that?" Job 39:9 must have been like that, I think. Right back at the beginning (chronologically; Job is usually thought of as one of the oldest books) we see a prophecy of the Incarnation. This is a "special case" I would suggest, but is no more inspired or less inspired than the other examples. I would contend that the process of the writing of scripture is fully divine - and fully human.

Now you might or might not agree with what I have written. It's my understanding, and, as such, is no better or worse than the next man's. But it seems to me that the above schema does not require inerrancy, ie, in this context, the overriding of the frailty of the authors by God's Providence. I submit that it's hard to see what inerrancy would contribute to the process.

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Alan Cresswell

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quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
How can you trust what you know to be flawed? Its like standding on rotten floor boards or thin ice.

The thing is, if you know the floorboards may be rotten or the ice thin you proceed with caution, you put a little weight on the next step watching in case it starts to give and stepping back if it won't take your weight, you look for cracks or other signs that the next steps aren't sound, you take measures to spread your weight such as putting in additional boards. In approaching Scripture we do something similar - we read it carefully, we assess one passage in light of another and if cracks start to appear we don't go and build doctrines on those verses instead prefering to stand on stronger texts, we are supported by others (and support them in turn) in the Church through the traditions and teaching passed down to us as well as discussion with contemporaries.

It's the people who assume the ice is think and walk out blindly without taking care who end up needing to be fished out of icy water.

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Jolly Jape
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quote:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
Matt, as far as I can see, this is the first time 2Peter 1;21 has come up in these discussions. .
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Er...no.I've referred to it twice earlier - on pp 20 and 21

Yours in Christ

Matt

Sorry, Matt. I stand corrected. Must have missed those.

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Fish Fish
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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
It's the people who assume the ice is think and walk out blindly without taking care who end up needing to be fished out of icy water.

[Killing me] Good call!

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
How can you trust what you know to be flawed? Its like standding on rotten floor boards or thin ice.

The thing is, if you know the floorboards may be rotten or the ice thin you proceed with caution, you put a little weight on the next step watching in case it starts to give and stepping back if it won't take your weight, you look for cracks or other signs that the next steps aren't sound, you take measures to spread your weight such as putting in additional boards. In approaching Scripture we do something similar - we read it carefully, we assess one passage in light of another and if cracks start to appear we don't go and build doctrines on those verses instead prefering to stand on stronger texts, we are supported by others (and support them in turn) in the Church through the traditions and teaching passed down to us as well as discussion with contemporaries.
So then we come back to the fact that no one in the Bible, especially Jesus, treats the Bible like you advocate. Its treated as completely trustworthy and true. Nowhere does anyone ever point out a crack or thin ice.

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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:

quote:
This is an illogical position. We all learn things from imperfect textbooks and imperfect people all the time.

Yes - and we judge what is worth learning from this human and what is in error. But the Bible is different in that it perports to be a revelation from God. And, in the face of a perfect, powerful, creative God, I am a fool to think I can sit in judgment over his words and say, in effect, "Excuse me, you've clearly got that bit wrong - but I'm happy to believe that you have got that bit right." ISTM to be foolish - and I won't set myself up as more wise than God. I can't do it. I'd rather be thought of as a fool by you all than thought of as foolish or arrogant by God.
Foolish in what way? And how is that less foolish than attempting to connect and match up things that cannot be. You tie yourself in a million knots over the detail, I don't need to.

C

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Psyduck

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FishFish:
quote:
Nowhere does anyone ever point out a crack or thin ice.

Er... Jesus does!
quote:
You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me;

Looks to me like he's saying that his Jewish opponents are standing on Scriptural thin ice!

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"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)

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mr cheesy
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Sorry, cross post

quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
So then we come back to the fact that no one in the Bible, especially Jesus, treats the Bible like you advocate. Its treated as completely trustworthy and true. Nowhere does anyone ever point out a crack or thin ice.

No we don't. We get back to the Christ who said 'It is written this, but I tell you y.' Nowhere in my reading is Christ blindly following OT tradition, quite the contrary.

C

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Psyduck

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In fact, I think I'll maybe start quoting John 5:39 back at everyone who juts quotes 2 Peter 1:21 at me!

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"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)

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Alan Cresswell

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quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
So then we come back to the fact that no one in the Bible, especially Jesus, treats the Bible like you advocate. Its treated as completely trustworthy and true. Nowhere does anyone ever point out a crack or thin ice.

Well, I'd accept they treat it as true. But that's different from inerrant. And, I'd accept they treated the God they knew through the Scriptures and their experience as trustworthy.

There are some hints at pointing out "thin ice".

We have Peter saying that Pauls letters are difficult to understand and (like other Scriptures) distorted by the "untaught and unstable". This should give us warning to take care with simplistic readings of complex passages or twisting passages to say something they don't (like, IMO, claiming inerrancy when they don't).

We have all of Jesus' sayings about "it's written ... but I say ..." which could indicate that he saw the Law as somehow lacking.

There are numerous examples of passages counter balancing others, where each on its own would give a false picture. If ice starts to seperate it can become very unstable.

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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I seem to recall Jesus saying that Moses got the divorce law wrong, and wrote his own law because the people couldn't take the one God would have wanted.

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Fish Fish
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quote:
Originally posted by ...psyduck...:
In fact, I think I'll maybe start quoting John 5:39 back at everyone who juts quotes 2 Peter 1:21 at me!

Well, perhaps you'll quote the next verse as well to complete the quote?

quote:
You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

This is no criticism of the scriptures - but of their failure to follow the scriptures. Jesus affirms that the scriptures are indeed the place to find eternal life - but its the Pharisees hard hearts that will not follow the scriptures to Jesus. There is no value in diligently studying the scriptures unless we follow where they point and follow Jesus. We are not saved by studying scripture in an academic way. We are saved by turning to Jesus - who, he affirms, is revealed in the scriptures.

So, yeah, please do continue to quote John 5:39 - for Jesus affirms again the value of the scriptures, and says nothing to diminish them!!!

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Fish Fish
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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
We have Peter saying that Pauls letters are difficult to understand and (like other Scriptures) distorted by the "untaught and unstable". This should give us warning to take care with simplistic readings of complex passages or twisting passages to say something they don't (like, IMO, claiming inerrancy when they don't).

Fair enough - I'm against symplistic reading and twisting passages as well. But that passage very much affirms Paul's writings as scripture and authoritative - its the interpretations that are open to error, not the text.

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
We have all of Jesus' sayings about "it's written ... but I say ..." which could indicate that he saw the Law as somehow lacking.

Lacking does not equal error. And in the context, as we've said before, jesus affirms the law as inerrant.

quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I seem to recall Jesus saying that Moses got the divorce law wrong, and wrote his own law because the people couldn't take the one God would have wanted.

You recal wrongly. Jesus doesn't say Moses got it wrong. He does say "But it was not this way from the beginning."

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Jolly Jape
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FF,
Funny, when I read the passage (not that I didn't know John 5:39 by heart, of course [Snigger] ) I went on to read verse 40, and thought that it was rather a clincher for psyduck's argument. Jesus was setting the priority upon coming to Him. If anything, he was downplaying the role of scripture. They were saying, "The scriptures are the final word, they give us all we need to know for salvation." He was refuting this.

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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Can I rewind a bit Fish fish?

You seem to be saying through your posts that your logic is:

(a) God is omnipotent
(b) God therefore can create an inerrant Scripture
(c) God did create an inerrant Scripture

It's the jump between (b) and (c) I'm not getting - just because God can create an inerrant Scripture doesn't mean that He has.

Indeed, I'd go further. If He has, He's actually done a very bad job of it, given the level of disagreement in the church as to what these inerrant Scriptures actually teach. I'd have thought that if He was going to reveal Himself perfectly, accurately and inerrantly through the Scriptures He'd have been a bit clearer about it.

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Might as well ask the bloody cat.

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Matt Black

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quote:
Originally posted by ...psyduck...:
quote:
I really don't know what else you want from me! You ask me a question (how was Scripture given), I give you my answer (by the HS). You then don't accept my answer. OK, fine, that's up to you, but permit me to at least hold to my answer. This is fast becoming a dialogue of the deaf...

The trouble is that you seem to be refusing to take on board what I'm saying, which is that a) I read the 2 Peter text and understand it differently to you, and b) the 2 Peter text read straight doesn't seem to be saying anything like - or anything like as much - as you seem to read into it.

You say "This settles it!" We say "We don't think it does, because a)... b)..." and you say "You're not listening..." That's actually what's happening.

I'm just giving you my answer to your question. What's wrong with that? My objection was that I kept getting asked the same question. If people ask me the same question over and over, they'll get the same answer

Yours in Christ

Matt

[ 24. March 2004, 09:50: 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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Psyduck

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FishFish:
quote:
quote:
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Originally posted by ...psyduck...:
In fact, I think I'll maybe start quoting John 5:39 back at everyone who juts quotes 2 Peter 1:21 at me!
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Well, perhaps you'll quote the next verse as well to complete the quote?


quote:
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You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

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This is no criticism of the scriptures - but of their failure to follow the scriptures. Jesus affirms that the scriptures are indeed the place to find eternal life - but its the Pharisees hard hearts that will not follow the scriptures to Jesus. There is no value in diligently studying the scriptures unless we follow where they point and follow Jesus. We are not saved by studying scripture in an academic way. We are saved by turning to Jesus - who, he affirms, is revealed in the scriptures.

So, yeah, please do continue to quote John 5:39 - for Jesus affirms again the value of the scriptures, and says nothing to diminish them!!!

That is so completely inside-out that it makes me want to [Waterworks]

Jesus' opponents are following the Scriptures scrupulously. In fact, they are doing so with the diligence of people who expect to find eternal life in them. And because of the way they insist on reading the Scriptures (here meaning those parts of the OT that they held were binding on them) that they couldn't see God's revelation in Jesus Christ. Because for them Scripture is definitive, Christ can't be. Not only are you completely wrong about this:
quote:
This is no criticism of the scriptures - but of their failure to follow the scriptures.
...but you have completely turned the section inside out, in order to try and fit it into your prior understanding of what the Bible is and how it works.

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"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)

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Fish Fish
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quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
FF,
Funny, when I read the passage (not that I didn't know John 5:39 by heart, of course [Snigger] ) I went on to read verse 40, and thought that it was rather a clincher for psyduck's argument. Jesus was setting the priority upon coming to Him. If anything, he was downplaying the role of scripture. They were saying, "The scriptures are the final word, they give us all we need to know for salvation." He was refuting this.

He says no such thing! He says the scriptures are all about him - totally affirming them - not criticisng them one jot or tittle - criticising the Phirisees - saying that they need to put them in practice.

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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

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# 2270

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[Waterworks]

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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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And by the way, just for teh record, I didn't complete the quote, because I felt that it would have been out of place in the present discussion. It could easily have been taken to apply to FishFish or inerrantists generally, and given what it says:
quote:
These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
...I wouldn't want anyone to think that I was saying that about anyone on this thread. And in any case, just as a text, it doesn't advance the argument at all (or if it does, I think, like JJ, that it clinches it...)

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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

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quote:
Originally posted by Cheesy*:
OK Matt, given that you are so good at listening, perhaps you would like to address my last post.

C

Ask and ye shall receive [Biased]

ISTM that what you are saying casts doubt on the very reliability of Scripture.This is not a merely human document or collection of documents but ones inspired by God, in a way that is different to, say, a modern charismatic going up to the front of church and saying "thus saith the Lord...". If we are saying that Scripture is merely on a par with that example, then that begs the question "why bother with it at all?" Now, I hear what the non-inerrantists are saying, that inerrancy and authority/ reliability and not co-related, but I have to disagree; for me it is a logical impossibility to relie upon a book that purports to be by and of God and yet is in error. For me, it really is 'either-or'

Yours in Christ

Matt

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Matt Black

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quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
Matt,

OK, not sure you are really addressing ...psyduck...'s question, but how about me trying to give my answer, and then you picking out the points, if any, with which you disagree.

ISTM that the authors of the various books had different and diverse purposes. Few of them werre consciously writing what they believed would become Scripture, and most of that subset wrote in the New Testament. Some were writing down oral traditions, some were recording prophesy which they or others had received in the past. Most, if not all, did it prayerfully, and using all their God-given intellectual powers. For them, it was a fully human activity, people using their creativity to accomplish their goals, and, as a result, consciously or unconsciously to glorify God.

Now, you may say, that would negate the 2Peter passage. However, that is not the whole story. During this process, God is also active, through the Holy Spirit. With one writer, He will move their heart to worship, and the result is a Psalm of praise, but it is still the author's work. With another, He will quicken the remembrance of how He spoke to the author in the past, bringing to mind the prophetic word - step forward Isaiah. Sometimes, a faithful disciple will write down a record of activities as they happen, an eye-witness report like those of Baruch in Jeremiah. Sometimes is just boring old chroniclers, earning their bread in the Jerusalem scriptoria, but doing it to God's glory and with the Holy Spirit strenghthening them. Sometimes, ISTM, very occasionally, there is that surprising word that comes through as being a direct intervention of the Spirit, where the writer was not in control; where, on looking back, the author must have thought, "Did I really write that?" Job 39:9 must have been like that, I think. Right back at the beginning (chronologically; Job is usually thought of as one of the oldest books) we see a prophecy of the Incarnation. This is a "special case" I would suggest, but is no more inspired or less inspired than the other examples. I would contend that the process of the writing of scripture is fully divine - and fully human.

Now you might or might not agree with what I have written. It's my understanding, and, as such, is no better or worse than the next man's. But it seems to me that the above schema does not require inerrancy, ie, in this context, the overriding of the frailty of the authors by God's Providence. I submit that it's hard to see what inerrancy would contribute to the process.

Not much with which to disagree except the last para; for me, God's providence does override the human frailty. This makes the documents no less human for that, well at least no more than Jesus' divinity negates His humanity. For me, inerrancy is necessary for the reasons put forward in my last post

Yours in Christ

Matt

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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Originally posted by Cheesy*:
OK Matt, given that you are so good at listening, perhaps you would like to address my last post.

C

Ask and ye shall receive [Biased]

ISTM that what you are saying casts doubt on the very reliability of Scripture.This is not a merely human document or collection of documents but ones inspired by God, in a way that is different to, say, a modern charismatic going up to the front of church and saying "thus saith the Lord...". If we are saying that Scripture is merely on a par with that example, then that begs the question "why bother with it at all?" Now, I hear what the non-inerrantists are saying, that inerrancy and authority/ reliability and not co-related, but I have to disagree; for me it is a logical impossibility to relie upon a book that purports to be by and of God and yet is in error. For me, it really is 'either-or'

Yours in Christ

Matt

Then from your definition it cannot be of God. Even if there was one minute spelling mistake.

Personally, I prefer to believe God uses imperfect things to make a point and change the world.

C

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Psyduck

Ship's vacant look
# 2270

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Matt Black:
quote:
This makes the documents no less human for that, well at least no more than Jesus' divinity negates His humanity.
Now that is fascinating! I wonder if there's not more than an analogy here? Would you care to expand, maybe with reference to the relationship of Jesus' humanity to his divinity?

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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
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Matt Black

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I'll have to be brief because I'm just about to go into a meeting. Two things: firstly, I think it's no accident that both are referred to as 'the Word of God'; and secondly, with both you have human weakness being divinely perfect. Now, before you jump on me, that's as far as I'm prepared to take the analogy - it does not mean that I ascribe any equality of status with Jesus to the Bible; I don't worship the Bible, pray to the Bible, receive my salvation from the Bible etc

Yours in Christ

Matt

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mr cheesy
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The bible is not 'the word of God' in any meaningful sense, that title being reserved for Christ alone.

C

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arse

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Psyduck

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Oh, and what does 2 Cor. 3:5-11 mean on an inerrantist reading? Have we done that one?

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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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dyfrig
Blue Scarfed Menace
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Let's assume for the moment that Jesus' words do make the Torah inerrant (which they don't) and 2 Pet makes the "prophets" inerrant (which it doesn't) and 2 Tim makes the whole of scripture inerrant (ditto) - this leaves a problem.

Daniel, Chronicles, thw Wisdom literature and the New Testament aren't covered by these saying (the OT books weren't either Torah or prophets, and some weren't even scripture) and most of the NT had not been written by AD 67 (possible date for 2 Tim) and that which had been written wasn't yet accepted as scripture by any part of the church.

So how do they become inerrant?

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Sean D
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I wanted to respond to something Leprechaun said in the "God the pathological killer" thread in purgatory but thought it probably would be too tangential there so here it is:

quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun in a purgatory thread:
Progressive revelation = OT incomplete BUT NOT MISTAKEN.

This distinction doesn't really work.

  • The OT writers did not know everything God was eventually going to reveal about himself.
  • They therefore believed some things about God which God was later to reveal were not the only side of the story.
  • This lack of fuller revelation inevitably means that they are de facto mistaken about stuff.

A good example might be the idea in Deuteronomy and elsewhere in Torah that punishment for sins will be visited by Yahweh on several generations after the sinner. This is explicitly countermanded by both Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

Another one is the idea in early wisdom lit (mostly in Proverbs but also see Psalm 37) that a moral life is rewarded with a good and happy life. This is corrected by Job, which notes drastic exceptions to this accepted truth.

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Josephine

Orthodox Belle
# 3899

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quote:
Originally posted by Fish Fish:
quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
Our Lord said that if we seek him, we'll find him.

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
He said, "My sheep know my voice." I believe him. I trust him.

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
The Holy Scriptures are trustworthy and reliable and authoritative, they are useful, they are given to us by God in his love for us because he knows we need them.

Each of these statements begs the question - How do you know? If you accept that the Bible has some errors and mistakes in it, how do you know that these are not those errors or mistakes?

Antiquity, universality, consensus.

quote:
How can you trust what you know to be flawed?
I think that's already been asked and answered. But I suppose that's what makes this a dead horse.

<sigh>

Answer number 1: I trust mousethief. I trust my father. When she was still alive, I trusted my mother. That trust has nothing at all to do with their ability to get random facts straight. If it did, no one would ever have trusted my mother -- because, in fact, if you wanted to know what time the show started, or that sort of thing, you could almost put money on her being wrong. But my mother was loved, honored, and trusted by many people, including, especially, by those of us who knew her best.

My trust doesn't have to do with mousethief, or my father, or my mother, or anyone else getting facts right. It has to do with who they are. It has to do with my relationship with them.

Christianity isn't a set of facts that one believes or not. The devils do that. Christianity is a relationship with the Living God. If you know him, if you've encountered him anywhere, then, when you read the Holy Scriptures, you recognize him there. Or, if you're too ignorant or too sinful to recognize him, you know other people whom you are sure, because of their holiness, their love for God and for others, they have encountered him, they know him, and they can show him to you, help you sort it out. There's not just one such person, either -- there are many of them, and over the last 2000 years, they've all been saying pretty much the same things about our Lord and God.

At any rate, the bottom line is that I trust God, not because I've read a book that purports to be inerrant, but because, in some small way, I've met him. I trust him because, in encountering him, I find that I can't do anything else.

It's not about facts, Fish Fish. It's about a relationship. It's about knowing God.

As I've said, I haven't claimed the title "inerrantist," and I dislike the title "errantist," because I think errors of fact in the Holy Scriptures are generally beside the point. It's not that I think that the Scriputres are "riddled with errors." I think that the errors that may or may not be there are totally beside the point.

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