Since the problem of authority is central for any theology and since Protestant theology has located authority in the Bible, and as we have seen above, the nature of biblical authority has been of fundamental concern for Prostestant theology. The Reformation affiirmed that ultimate authority in the church rests not in the pope of the church but in the inspired Scriptures. This claim of biblical authority has raised the problem of the nature and extent of the inerrancy and infallibility of the Scriptures.
The two terms most often used to express the nature of scriptural authority are "inerrant" and "infallible". Though these two terms are on etymological grounds approximately synomymous, they are used differently. In Roman Catholic theology, "inerrant" is used of the Bible, "infallible" is applied to the chruch, particulary to the teachings of the pope and magisterium. Since Protestants have rejected the infallibility of both the pope and the church, the word is used increasingly of the Bible alone. More recently the word "infallible" has been used by those who hold to what B. B. Warfield called limited inspiration but what today is better called limited inerrancy. They limit the inerrancy of the Scriptures to only matters of faith and practice, particularly soteriological issues. In this section, the two terms shall be used as virtually synomymous.
Definition of Inerrancy. Inerrancy of the Scriptures is the view that when all the facts are known, they would show that the Scriptures in the original autographs and when correctly interpreted are entirely true and never false in all that they affirm, whether that relates to doctrine or ethics, or to history, or to the social, physical or life sciences.
Note that the inerrancy of Scriptures is not presently demonstrable. This is because human knowledge in limited in two ways. First, because of our finitude and sinfulness, human beings misinterpret the data that exists. For example, wrong conclusions are drawn from inscriptions and texts. Second, we human beings do not possess all the data that bear on the Scriptures. Some of that data may be lost forever, or they may be awaiting discovery by archaeologists. By claiming that inerrancy will be shown to be true of Scriptures, one recognizes this. The defender of inerrancy only argues that that there will be no errors found at the end. Further more, inerrancy only applies equally to all parts of the Scriptures as originally written. This means that no present manuscript or copy of the Scriptures, no matter how accurate, can be called inerrant.
This definition of inerrancy relates inerrancy to hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the science of biblical interpretation. It is necessary to interpret a text properly to know its correct meaning, before asserting that what the text says is false. Moreover, the key hermeneutical princple taught by the Reformers is the analogy of faith, which demands that apparent contradictions be harmonized if possible. If a passage appears to permit two interpretations. one which conflicts with the another passage and one of which does not, the latter must be adopted.
Let us consider the arguments against the inerrancy of the Scriptures.
The doctrine of the inerrancy of the Scriptures has not gone unchallenged.
It is claimed that there are errors in Scriptures, and these disprove the
inerrancy of the Scriptures. Let us consider some of these supposed errors.
"9 Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying,Many ingenious explanations have been put forward to account for it. It is true that there is allusion to Zechariah 11:12-13, but the words do not agree closely either with the Hebrew or the LXX. The most important addition is the word "field", upon which the fulfillment just described by the evangelist mainly hangs. This word and the conception behind it comes from Jeremiah 32:6-9, a passage in which occurs the purchase of a field for so many pieces of silver. The comparison between prophecy and fulfillment which the evangelist is attempting to make, therefore, depends upon both Old Testament passages. Therefore, it was natural that the evangelist would mention Jeremiah, who was the greater of the two and the earlier of the two prophets, from whom also we derived the word "field" that gave the real point to the matter. Thus there is no error in the ascription of the quotation.
'And they took the thirty pieces of silver,
the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel,
10 and gave them for the potter's field,
as the Lord directed me.'" (Matt. 27:9-10)."Then the Lord said to me,
'Cast it into the potter that magnificent price at which I was valued by them.'
So I took the thirty shekels of silver and
threw them into the potter in house of the Lord." (Zech. 11:13 NAS)
"But Isaiah is mentioned as the chief of the prophets. It was common to combine quotations from the prophets in testimonia and catenae (chains of quotations)." [1]Therefore, Mark did not err because of impatient action. He was only following a common practice of the day, which caused no one to accuse him of a mistake. It is only someone today, who is unaware of that practice, who would make an accusation of error and challenge the practice.
The Scriptures that have been interpreted as supporting the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic system of geocentric motion of all heavenly bodies are Psalms 93:1 and 104:5 and Ecclesiastes 1:4-5, all of which seem to say that the earth does not move.
"The Lord reigns; He is clothed in majesty;Back in 17th century, Galileo pointed out that all three of these Bible passages speak from an earth-bound point of view. Galileo was emphasizing how important it is to establish the frame of reference when doing any scientific or exegetical inquiry. All motion is relative, relative to a frame of reference. Motion on earth is usually made with reference to the earth as the frame of reference. The Ancient Greeks philosophers Aristote and Ptolemy made the earth the ultimate frame of reference for all motion in the universe.
the Lord is clothed, and girded Himself with strength;
Indeed, the world is firmly established; it will not be moved."
(Psa. 93:1 NAS)"He set the earth on its foundations,
it can never be moved." (Psa. 104:5 NIV)"4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises."
(Ec. 1:4-5 NIV)
Galileo pointed out that regardless whether the earth appears to move or not,
an earth-bound frame of reference by definition will always generates an
immovable earth. That is, if the velocity of body on the earth with reference
to the earth is v, then its movement relative to itself is
v×v = 0.
And if v is the velocity of the earth with reference to the sun,
then its movement relative to itself is also
v×v = 0.
Thus the earth would not be moving with reference to itself.
(the magnitude of the vector product A×B
of the two vectors A and B is
ABsin θ,
where A is the magnitude of vector A
and B is the magnitude of vector B
and θ is the angle between the two vectors.
When the two vectors are in the same direction,
this angle θ is zero, then the sine of θ is zero
and the vector product is zero. That is, the vector product of a
vector A with respect to itself will always be
A×A = 0.
And the vector product of a velocity vector v
with respect to itself will always be
v×v = 0.)
Since all motion on earth is made with reference to the earth,
then the motion of the earth with reference to itself is zero;
the earth will never be moving.
Thus regardless of whether the earth appears to move or not,
an earth-bound frame of reference by definition
always generates an immovable earth. And these Scriptures are
referring to this fact, and not to geocentric view of the universe.
And these scripture passages were being misinterpreted as referring
to the geocentric view of the universe, making them appear to be
factual errors.
"Therefore as sin came into the world through one manThe translators of our English versions have rendered the last clause of the verse either as "for that" (KJV) or "because" (RSV, NAS, NIV). And the clause is interpreted to mean that death passed unto all men because all men sinned, that is, men die because of their own sins. But if this meaning is given to this last clause, Paul would appear to be retracting what he had just been affirming in the first three clauses of this verse, that all men die because of Adam's sin. Paul would seem to be teaching that all men die not only because of Adam's sin but also because of their own personal sins. This obscures the meaning of the verse and appears to make Paul contradict what he teaches clearly in the following verses and elsewhere that all men die because of Adam's sin and not their own.
and death through sin, and so death spread to all men
because all men sinned:--" (Rom. 5:12)
"13 For until the law sin was in the world;
but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses,
even over those who had not sinned
after the likeness of the transgression of Adam,
who is a type of him who was to come."
(Rom. 5:13-14 ERS)"...For if by the offense of one the many died,
much more did the grace of God
and the gift by grace of the one man, Jesus Christ,
abound unto the many." (Rom. 5:15 ERS)"For if by the offense of the one,
death reigned through the one,
much more shall those who receive the abundance of grace
and the gift of righteousness
reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ."
(Rom. 5:17 ERS)"21 For as by a man came death,
by a man has come the resurrection of the dead.
22 For as in Adam all die,
so also in Christ shall all be made alive."
(I Cor. 15:21-22)
The interpretation of this last clause of Romans 5:12 hangs on the meaning
of the Greek prepositional phrase at its beginning, eph ho.
This phrase is made up of a preposition epi and a relative
pronoun ho. The preposition epi has several different
meanings depending upon the immediate context and the case
of the noun or pronoun with which it occurs. Its primary meaning
is superposition, on, upon. Since the relative pronoun
ho is in the dative case, the metaphorical meaning of
ground, or reason, seems best here for the preposition
epi. Thus it should be translated on the ground of,
by reason of, on the condition of, because of.
[4]
The meaning of the relative pronoun depends upon its antecedent.
In the Greek language, the relative pronoun agrees with the antecedent
in number and gender.
[5]
Here the relative pronoun is singular in number
but it may be either masculine or neuter in gender.
Accordingly, the following interpretations have been given to the phrase.
However this interpretation must be rejected. For
(a) the Greek preposition epi does not have the meaning of
"in" and
(b) while the Greek relative pronoun ho may be
taken as masculine, it is too far remove from its supposed
antecedent, anthropou [man], being separated from it by
so many intervening clauses.
[7]
Most modern interpreters agree in rejecting Augustine's grammatical
analysis of the phrase.
[8]
"For the context, it would have been sufficient to mention only Adam's sin;It is not Paul who is obscure here but his interpreters and their interpretation of this phrase has caused the obscurity and makes Paul to appear to contradict himself.
there was no need to speak of the sin of the rest of man,
for whether they were sinners or not,
through Adam they had simply been doomed to death --
an idea that was expressed not only in Judaism
but also by Paul himself (v. 14).
However, Paul gets into obscurity here
because he also wants to have the death of men after Adam
regarded as the punishment or consequence of their own sin:
'and so death spread to all men -- because all men sinned' (v.12)!" [9]
"If St. Paul had meant this, why did he not say so?This interpretation has all the appearances of being read into the passage (eisegesis) rather than out of it (exegesis). Furthermore, the phrase pantes hamarton [all sinned] normally refers to the personal sins of all men as it does in Romans 3:23. The aorist tense of the verb hamarton [sinned] signifies nothing as to the completeness of the action. A constative aorist may refer "to a momentary action (Acts 5:5), a fact or action extended over a period of time (Eph. 2:4), or a succession of acts or events (II Cor. 11:25)." [11]
The insertion of en Adam [in Adam] would have removed all ambiguity." [10]
"Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses,It appears that this interpretation of the clause must also be rejected.
even over those who had not sinned
after the likeness of the transgression of Adam." (ERS)
Note: This is the view of Theodor Zahn (1838-1933).
Lenski says concerning his interpretation of this phrase:
"Another turn is given the phrase so as to have it means:Also Berkouwer says concerning Zahn's view:
'under which condition.' letting Paul say
that in Adam's case it was first sin then death
but in the case of all men it was death first
and then life of sinning (Zahn's view)." [14]
"Along with the two explanations referred to hereThe only reasons that are given for rejecting this interpretation are not grammatical but theological. Godet's objections to this interpretation are clearly theological as are those of Sanday and Headlam. This interpretation clearly does not fit into the legalistic theological framework of Roman Catholic and Protestant scholasticism which sees death only as the penalty of sin.
there is still a third, namely that of Zahn.
This holds that the issue at stake is not an 'inclusiveness' in Adam,
since this thought is untenable ('unvollziehbar') for anyone
who does not believe in the pre-existence of souls in Adam
(Zahn, Komm., p. 265); moreover,
the concept of 'all men in Adam' imperils
the image of 'through one man.'
Therefore Zahn translates: 'and on the basis of this
(or, under these circumstances) all have sinned' (267).
Through the sin of the one man death come upon all,
and in such circumstances, all have now sinned.
Death was the foundation 'on which the sinning
of all the children of Adam has sprung forth.'" [15]
How is it possible for all men to sin because of death?
This may be explained in the following way. Since man is
born into this world spiritually dead, not knowing the true
God personally, and since man by the structure of his
freedom must choose a god, then he will obviously choose a
false god because he does not personally know the true God.
Since the true God is not a living reality to him, and since
he must have a god, man will choose some part or aspect of
reality as his god, deifying it.
"...they exchanged the truth about God for a liePaul, writing to the Galatians, described this relationship of death to sin when he reminded them of their condition before they became Christians.
and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator..."
(Rom. 1:25).
"Formerly, when you did not know God,Not to "know God" personally as a living reality is to be spiritually dead. And a man is in "in bondage to beings that are no gods" when he chooses them as his gods. He is in bondage to them because he does not personally know the only true God, that is, because he is spiritually dead. Thus man sins (idolatry basically) because he is spiritually dead. This relationship between death and sin is what Paul is describing in the last clause of Romans 5:12. Because of death all men sinned. Spiritual death in the case of Adam's descendants leads to sin; not the other way around. There is no theological contradiction here. The relationship of death to sin now after the fall is different from the relationship between them at the fall. At the fall, death was the result of sin ("through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin." Rom. 5:12ab ERS). This was established by the divine decree implicit in the command God gave to Adam ("for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." Gen. 2:17 NAS). Adam's sin was unique since it was the act of the head of the race; Adam's position in the human race is unique, as Paul teaches clearly in Romans 5:12-21 and I Cor. 15:21-22, 44-49. His sin affected the human race in a way that the sin of no other man after him has; it involved the whole race in death, spiritual and physical. Adam's descendants do not have to sin to die, spirituallly and physically. They are born into the world over which death reigns and are involved from birth in spiritual and physical death ("Let the dead bury their dead" Matt. 8:22 KJV; Luke 9:60). Now since the fall, sin is the result of death. Since the fall, man does not have to sin to die but sins because he is already dead. Since the fall, this is the basic relationship between death and sin. Later, "the law came in besides" (Rom. 5:20 ERS) and superimposed upon this basic relationship of sin-because-of-death (spiritual) the relationship of death-because-of-sin. "The soul that sins shall die" (Ezek. 18:4, 20: see also Deut. 24:16; Isa. 59:2). The law clarifies not only the nature of sin (Rom. 3:20) as basically idolatry (Ex. 20:3) but also man's responsibility for his sins (see the whole of chapter 18 of Ezekiel). But the coming of the law did not change the basic relationship: man sins because he is spiritually dead.
you were in bondage to beings that by nature are no gods"
(Gal. 4:8).
Paul expresses this basic relationship between death and sin in other words elsewhere in his letters. For example, in Romans 5:21, he expresses it in the following way: "...sin reigned in death." Sin reigns as a king in the sphere of death. That is, death is the sphere in which sin reigns as a king over all men. Death reigns as king over his kingdom of death; "...by the offense of one, death reigned through one..." (Rom. 5:17; see also Rom. 5:14). Death reigns over all men and sin reigns as a king within the sphere and kingdom of death. Sin reigns in the sphere of death because death is the ground or condition upon which all men sin. Another example is I Cor. 15:55-56:
"55 O Death, where is thy victory?Paul here expresses the relationship of death to sin by calling sin the sting of death and not death the sting of sin.
O Death, where is thy sting?
56The sting of death is sin,
and the power of sin is the law."
Augustine tries to overturn this relationship by trying in this passage to make the genitive "of death" into an objective genitive rather than a possessive genitive. He says:
"For all die in the sin; they do not sin in the death;Augustine's argument is beside the point. The distinction between objective and subjective genitive is irrelevant; the genitive is a possessive genitive. The cup of death is not a parallel case. Whose sting is it? Is it the sting of sin or the sting of death? "O Death, where is thy sting?" It is death's sting by which death hurts all men. And since death causes sin, death can hurt man. For if death could not cause sin, then there would be no fear of death; death would have lost its sting. Sin gives death its sting. Some have argued that the death Paul is talking about in I Cor. 15 is physical death since he is discussing there the resurrection of the dead. It is true that physical death is in the foreground in this passage of Scripture, but, as was pointed out elsewhere, from the Biblical point of view physical and spiritual death are inseparable and the Biblical concept of death always includes both. Thus spiritual death is not totally absent from Paul's thoughts as are not other concepts which seem to be irrelevant in the context -- "the strength of sin is the law." (I Cor. 15:56) And as a careful study of Romans 7 will show, the concepts of spiritual death, sin and the law form an interlocking complex in Paul's thinking (Rom. 7:23-24; 8:2).
for when sin precedes, death follows --
not when death precedes, sin follows.
Because sin is the sting of death --
that is, the sting by whose stroke death occurs,
not the sting with which death strikes.
Just as poison, if it is drunk, is called the cup of death,
because by that cup death is caused,
not because the cup is caused by the death." [16]
Even though man is born into the world spiritually dead, alienated from God, not knowing God personally, he has not lost his freedom of choice. He does not have a sinful nature which causes him to sin. Spiritual death has not done anything to man's ability to choose. He neither lacks the alternatives to choose between nor the ability to choose. Then why does man sin, that is, why does he choose a false god? He chooses a false god because the true God is not a living reality to him. He knows about the true God (Rom. 1:19-20) but he does not know him personally as a living reality. And lacking this personal knowledge, man does not have an adequate reason for choosing the true God. The true God Himself is the only adequate reason for choosing Him. He cannot be chosen for any other reason than Himself. For then He would not be God to that person but that reason for which he is chosen would be God. Only a living encounter with living and true God can produce the situation in which God Himself may be chosen. God Himself is the only adequate condition for the choice of Himself. Thus apart from the personal revelation of God Himself, man will usually choose as his god that which seems like god to him from the creation around him or from among the creations of his own hands and mind. Man does not necessarily have to sin, but he usually does. And spiritual death (in the absence of this personal revelation of the true God) is not the necessary cause but the ground or condition of his choice of a false god. The Greek preposition epi translated "because" in the last clause of Rom. 5:12 means "on the basis of" or "on the condition of." It does not imply any necessary causal connection between death and sin. Man sins by choice, not by necessity. Therefore, since all men are under the reign of death, all have sinned.
"For all have sinnedNow the glory of God is the manifest presence of God, and all men do not have this; they are all in want of or in need of it (husterountai). [17] In other words, they are all spiritually dead, separated from God's presence. Therefore, all have sinned.
and are in want of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23 ERS).
This view of death and sin affects our understanding of the need for salvation. As we have seen, spiritual death like physical death is not the result of a man's own personal sins. On the contrary, a man sins as a result of spiritual death. This is why a man needs to be saved. He is dead spiritually and dying physically. Man needs life -- he needs to be made alive -- to be raised from the dead. And if he receives life, if he is made alive to God, death which leads to sin is removed. And if death which leads to sin is removed, then man can be saved from sin. Thus man needs to be saved primarily from death and then secondarily from sin. If he is saved from death, then he can be saved from sin. Accordingly, salvation must be understood to be primarily from death to life and then secondarily from sin to righteousness.
Now this salvation (primarily from death to life and secondarily from sin to righteousness) is exactly what God accomplished through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, His Son. Jesus entered into our spiritual death in order that as He was raised from the dead, we might be made alive together with and in Him.
"4 But God, being rich in mercy,And by saving us from spiritual death, Christ saves us from sin. It is by taking away the spiritual death which leads to our sin that God takes away our sin. Jesus died for our sins -- literally -- to take them away (John 1:29). What the Old Testament sacrifices could not do (Heb. 10:1-4), the death of Christ has done. The blood of Jesus (His death) cleanses us from our sins (I John 1:7). We are delivered from sin itself, not just from its consequences. We were saved from our trust in false gods when we put our trust in Jesus Christ and the true God who sent Him. Did we not "turn from idols to serve the living and true God" (I Thess. 1:9)? When we were spiritually dead we trusted in and served those things that were not God -- money, power, sex, pleasure, popularity, education, science, etc. But when we turned to the risen Christ, we entered into life, leaving behind those false gods. The risen and living Jesus Christ is now our Lord and our God (John 20:28).
because of His great love with which He loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our trespasses,
made us alive together with Christ
(by grace are you saved)." (Eph. 2:4-5 NAS)
The death and resurrection of Jesus was the means by which God removed death -- the barrier to knowing the true God personally and knowing His love. Now God can and does reveal Himself to us in the preaching of the gospel, making us spiritually alive to Himself when we receive Jesus Christ who is life. Jesus said,
"I am the way, and the truth, and the life;Eternal life is to know personally the true God and His Son, Jesus Christ, the Way to the true God, the Father. Jesus said as He prayed,
no one comes to the Father, but by me." (John 14:6)
"This is eternal life, that they may know thee the only true God,And to know Him personally is to have Him. For
and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." (John 17:3)
"He that has the Son has life and he that has not the Son has not life."If we have God's Son, we have eternal life since He is the life;
(I John 5:12)
"3 For what does the scripture say?And just as sin flows from death, so righteousness flows from life.
'Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.'
4Now to one who works,
his wage is not reckoned as a gift but as his due.
5But to the one who does not work
but trusts him who justifies the ungodly,
his faith is reckoned as righteousness."
(Rom. 4:3-5 ERS).
"Is the law against the promises of God?That is, since the law cannot make alive, the law cannot produce righteousness. In other words, just as sin flows from death, so righteousness flows from life. And because the law cannot remove death, it also cannot remove sin. Therefore, since the law cannot make alive, salvation cannot be by the law. And since the law cannot make alive, it cannot produce real righteousness. The righteousness of the law, that is, the merits earned by keeping the law, is a false righteousness, dirty filthy rags (Isa. 64:6; Phil. 3:7-9; Rom. 10:3-4). Just as trust in a false god is sin, so trust in the true God is real righteousness (Rom. 4:3-5).
Certainly not; for if a law had been given which could make alive,
then righteousness would indeed be by the law."
(Gal. 3:21).
Thus by taking away death, God takes away sin. By saving us from death, God saves us from sin. By making us alive to Himself, God sets us right with Himself through faith. Life produces righteousness just as death produced sin. By making us alive together with Christ, we are saved from sin and are put into right relationship to God through faith. When you receive Christ, you are made alive to God and in that choice of faith you are set right with God. We are saved from sin to righteousness; we are redeemed from sin. Redemption is salvation from sin to righteousness.
Thus there is no theological error in Rom. 5:12-14. The legalistic interpretation of Rom. 5:12d as "because all sinned", only makes Paul appear to contradict himself and the scriptures appear to have theological errors in it. When properly interpreted, the scriptures have no theological errors.
In the definition of inerrancy above, inerrancy is defined as "without error". Some theologians have attempted to redefine inerrancy in terms of truth and falsity apart apart from inerrancy. They argue that truth is a property of sentences, not words. The truth of the Bible is inspired but not the words. Therefore, there is the possibility and probability of error in the Bible in wording, fact, and doctrine. By redefining inerrancy, it is claimed by these theologians that Bible is still an inerrant book, that is, inerrant in the truth it contains.
This reinterpretation of inerrancy sounds othrodox, impressive, and convincing to some who are trying to understand the theological battle concerning the nature of Scripture. But there are problems with it.
First, is there not some relationship between the truth of the Scriptures and the words that expresses it? Are not the truths of the Scriptures expressed in words? Yes, they are; but it is argued since we do not possess the original manuscripts, we cannot base our truth of the Scriptures on the words of manuscripts we do not possess. Are we not seeking to find the inerrant truth through the errant words of our errant copies? Why such a concern about inerrant originals that we do not possess anyway?
Answer to these arguments is that we are in a better position to the know the truth of the Bible if in our textual criticism (that is, the search for the original text) we know that the originals were inerrant? In this case, we would seek to determine the inerrant original text as closely as possible from the manuscripts and tools at our disposal, and then work exegetically (by explaining and critically interpreting) to know the truth revealed in the text. On the other hand, if we deny that the originals are inerrant, we would work textually to determine the original text as nearly as possible. But the difference would be that even when our textual work was finished, and even if we were able to construct the original in perfection (which is not possible), we would be coming to an uncertain original because of its lack of inerrancy. And even if we were to do our exegetical work to prefection, we still would not be sure we had arrived at the truth, because we would be working with uncertain (and how uncertain we would not be able even to guess) manuscripts. Textual criticism and exegesis are difficult enough when they are anchored to the knowledge that the originals were inerrant. The task becomes impossible when there is no anchor. The point is that there is a relationship between truth and the inerrant text. Without an inerrant text the truth becomes quite subjective. The following table summarizes these two views of inerrancy.
| Inerrancy | Errancy |
|---|---|
| 1. Interpreter faces manuscripts. | 1. Interpreter faces manuscripts. |
| 2. Textual Criticism seeks to construct inerrant originals as closely as possible. End result is quite close. | 2. Textual Criticism seeks to construct errant originals as closely as possible. End result is close, but errant originals still leave many questions as to which parts are true and which are not. |
| 3. Exegesis -- applying the principles of hermeneutics (intrepetation) to a trustworthy text. | 3. Exegesis -- applying the principles of hermeneutics (intrepetation) to an uncertain text. Seeking to determine which parts of text are true and which parts are in error always must be part of the work. |
| 4. Results -- orthodox Christian doctrine, including the person and work of Christ, clearly seen and established as certain. | 4. Results -- not necessarily orthodox Christian doctrine. No certainty one has found the truth. Many different views of the person and work of Christ is possible. Truth is subjective. |
Second, the problem of inerrant truth through errant words cannot not be resolved by an existential flight from reality and objectivity, which extolls faith in the Holy Spirit, Christ, or Scripture itself, as the Neo-orthodox and liberal evangelicals do. They call for an open-mindedness to the fruits of objective research, but when those fruits would lead to difficulties, they exit through the door of existential fussiness. That door is the only way to avoid the ultimate rediculousness of the errancy's position. If he is has only a Bible containing errors, where else can he go except into the subjective realm.
The problem of these neo-orthodox and liberal evangelicals is the following. When they reject the inerrancy of biblical words, how can they then talk about faith in the Holy Spirit, Christ, or Scripture? Is the Christ of history the Christ of Scripture, or is He some uncertain person whom we meet in the existential encounter? Their dynamic view of the Bible does not guarantee the truth of any aspect of Christ's person or work. For example, on the basis of the dynamic view, one cannot insist that Jesus is God, because those words in Scripture that tell us that He is God just might be in error, entirely or in part. If the words are not entirely correct, how can one know their meaning? Can they teach deity if one is not sure of their full accuracy or has no way of determining their portion of accuracy? Could not different men conclude that those words have different degrees of accuracy and therefore that they teach different views of Christ? What does "atonement" mean if it is not an accurate word to describe what Christ did for us? What does "resurrection" mean? Could it not be maintained that "resurrection" contains truth or give us truth, but that it is not an inerrant word, which therefore must be interpreted accordingly?
The argument that I am making here is that there is no Christ of Scripture without an inerrant Word of God. If the words of Scripture are errant and do not give an accurate understanding of His person and work, then one is hopelessly confined to uncertainty and confusion regarding who He was and what He did. No flight into a subjective closet of experience can help. Faith is not a leap in the dark over the ruins of an errant Bible and which restores the authority of the Bible and the truth of Christ's person and work. Rather, faith is the casting of oneself upon the objective and certain truth of God as revealed in a trustworthy and inerrant Word of God.
The dynamic view of the Scriptures gives us no certain Word of God. It urges faith in the truth of a Bible containing errors. It urges faith in a Christ of experience who has no certain historical ground. It urges faith in a Holy Spirit who must dynamically mediate the truth from an errant book. How are we to be certain that there is even an Holy Spirit, let alone that He is God, unless He too is revealed in an inerrant Word of God? The words "Christ", "Holy Spirit", and many other precious words of Christianity are meaningless apart from an inerrant Scripture. There can be no inerrant truth apart from an anchor to the inerrant words of Scripture. [18]
Arguments for the inerrancy of the Scriptures. At the heart of the belief in an inerrant, infallible Bible is the testimony of Scripture itself. There are some disagreement as to whether Scripture teaches this doctrine explicity or implicitly. The consensus today is that the inerrancy is taught implicitly.
First, the Bible teaches its own inspiration, and this requires inerrancy. Tne Scriptures are the breathe of God (II Tim. 3:16), which guarantees that they are without error.
Second, in Deut. 13:1-5 and 18:20-22, Israel is given the criteria for distinguishing God's message and messangers from false prophecies and false prophets. One mark of a divine message is its total absolute truthfulness. A valid parallel can be made between the prophet and the Bible. The prophet's word was usually oral, although it might be recorded and included in a book; the writers of Scripture communicated God's word in written form. Both were instruments of divine communication, and in both cases the human element was an essential ingredient.
Third, the Bible teaches its own authority, and this requires inerrancy. The two commonly cited passages are Matt. 5:17-20 and Johm 10:34-35. Both record the words of Jesus. In the former, Jesus said that heaven and earth will pass away before the smallest detail of the law fails to be fulfilled. The law's authority rest on the fact that every minute detail will be fulfilled. In John 10:24-35, Jesus says that Scripture cannot be broken and so is absolutely binding. While it is true that both of the passages emphasize the Bible's authority, this authority can only be justified by or grounded in inerrancy. Something that contains errors cannot be absolutely authoritative.
Fourth, Scripture uses Scripture in a way that supports its inerrancy. At times an entire argument rests on a single word (for example, John 10:34-35; and "God" in Ps. 82:6), the tense of a verb (for example, the present tense in Matt. 22:32), and the difference between a singular and a plural noun (for example, "seed" in Gal. 3:16). If the Bible's inerrancy does not extend to every detail, these arguments lose their force. The use of any word may be a matter of whim and may even be an error. It might be objected that the New Testament does not always cite Old Testament texts with precision -- that as a matter of fact precision is the exception rather than the rule. This is a fair response, and an adequate answere requires more space to answer it. A careful study of the way in which the Old Testament is used in the New Testament demonstrates, however, that the New Testament writers quoted the Old Testament not cavalierly but quite carefully.
Fifth, inerrancy follows from what the Bible says about God's character. Repeatedly, the Scripture teaches that God cannot lie (Num. 23:19; I Sam. 15:29; Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18). If, then, the Bible is from God and His character is behind it, then it must be inerrant and infallible. [19]
Believers in the infallibility of the Bible, that it is the Word of God, are often described as "bibliolaters". We are often told that Fundamentalism deifies the Book and speak of it as if "the Spirit of God were imprisoned within the covers of the written word." Emil Brunner says, "The fundamentalist is in bondage to Biblical text," and this "makes the Bible an idol and me its slave." This is what is meant by calling the Bible the paper Pope of Prostestantism. We can conceive of the applicability of this to the Pharisees as such a class in our Lord's day. The Pharisees searched the Scriptures, reverence them as the final judge of all controversy, but they refused to bring their lives into conformity to its demands. We cannot conceive of the charge being applicable to evangelicals of the present day who are seeking to bring their lives to the light of the Word as to the judgment of God Himself. But the scaredness of the Bible to them is a derived quality and is not resident primarily in the pages of the Book. They recognize that it is the words of men who were given a divine revelation and were inspired to communicate it to their fellows, and so, as Calvin puts it, "it is beyond all controversy that men ought to receive it with reverence." The Bible is for us the only sure and accessible repository of divine revelation and of the knowledge of God that makes wise unto salvation. Without it we would be in the position of the pagan world, left to grope after God if haply we might find Him. We believe that if the living God revealed Himself at all, He would reveal Himself infallibly, and if He willed that that revelation should be the possession of His Church for all time, we must believe that He had it in His power to give us an infallible record of it. This He has done in the Hebrew-Christian Scriptures. And so we recognize and reverence the Bible as the Word of God written, and we bow before its authority as before the authority of its Lord. In so doing we think we are following the example of our Lord and Saviour who interpreted His mission, waged His conflicts, conforted His heart, and guided His steps, in dependence upon the written Word. [20]
[1] A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, 6 vols.
(Nashville: Broadman, 1930), 1:252.
[4] F. Godet, Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans
(Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1881), p. 350.
See also Abbott-Smith A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament
(Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1948), pp. 166-167 and
William F. Arnt and F. Wilbur Gingrich,
A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and
Other Early Christian Literature
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1957), pp. 286-287.
[5] J. Gresham Machen, New Testament Greek for Beginners
(New York: The Macmillan Company, 1957), p. 47.
H. E. Dana and Julius R. Mantey,
A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament
(New York: The Macmillian Company, 1948), p. 125.
A. T. Robertson and W. Hersey Davis,
A New Short Grammar of the Greek Testament
(New York: Harper & Bros. Publishers, 1933), p. 269.
[6] Augustine, "Against Two Letters of the Pelagians," bk. 4, chap. 7, in
Philip Schaff,
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Vol. 5
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1971), p. 419.
[7] William Sanday and Arthur C. Headlam,
A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans
in The International Critical Commentary
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1915), p. 133.
[8] John Murray, The Imputation of Adam's Sin
(Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1959), p. 9.
[9] Rudolf Bultman, Theology of the New Testament
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1951), p. 252.
[10] Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. 134.
[11] Dana and Mantey, Manual Grammar, p. 196.
[12] Godet, Epistle to the Romans, pp. 352-353.
Sanday and Headlam say,
"Some Greeks quoted by Photius also took the
rel. as masc. with antecedent thanatos: 'in which,' i.e.
'in death,' which is even more impossible." p. 133.
I have not been able to ascertain who are these Greeks that
were quoted by Photius since Sanday and Headlam do not give any
references. I have found that Theodore of Mopsuestia in his
treatise "Against the Defenders of Original Sin" held to
such an interpretation. Another contemporary of Augustine,
Mark the Hermit, also held to a similar view. See the
section in chapter 3 of my book From Death to Life titled,
"Misunderstanding of the Origin of Sin."
[13] "epi with its relative pronoun refers back to the
preceding thanatos (eph ho = epi thanatos)..."
Ethelbert Stauffer, New Testament Theology, trans. John Marsh
(New York: The Macmillan Co., 1955), p. 270, note 176.
However, he goes on to give a different meaning to the preposition.
"[epi] does not mean as translations mostly suppose 'on the
basis of' but 'in the direction of' (cf. Phil. 4:10;
II Tim. 2:14)... Here epi is the reciprocal preposition to
the dia of the first phrase. So we must accordingly
paraphrase: 'death to which they fell man by man through
their sin.'", p. 270.
This turns out to be the same interpretation as "because all sinned."
[14] R. C. H. Lenski,
The Interpretation of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans
(Columbus, Ohio: Wartburg Press, 1960), p. 361.
[15] Berkouwer, Sin, p. 494, footnote 37.
[16] Augustine, "Against Two Letters of the Pelagians" in
Philip Schaff,
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, vol. 5
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1971), p. 419.
See also Augustine,
"On the Merits and Remission of Sins and On the Baptism of Infants",
bk. 3. chap. 20. Schaff, pp. 76-77.
[17] Abbot-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon, p. 464.
C. K. Barrett, The Epistle to the Romans
(New York: Harpers & Row Publishers, 1957), p. 74.
[18] Richard R. Belcher, A layman's guide to the INERRANCY DEBATE,
Forward by W. A. Criswell
(Chicago: Moody Press, 1980, second printing, 1981), pp. 32-36.
[19] P. D. Feinberg, "Bible, Inerrancy and Fallibility of." in
Walter A. Elwell, ed. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1984), pp. 142-143.
[20] R. A. Finlayson, "Comtemporary Ideas of Inspiration" in
Carl F. H. Henry, ed., Revelation and the Bible
(Grand Rapids 6, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1958), p. 232.
Richard R. Belcher, A layman's guide to the INERRANCY DEBATE,
Forward by W. A. Criswell
(Chicago: Moody Press, 1980, second printing, 1981).