Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Doctrines

  • From Saint to Sinner

    Lingamish comments today on sinners becoming saints and touches on the possibility of saints becoming sinners.

    It’s high drama for a sinner to become a saint (Read St. Augustine’s Confessions) but higher still is the tale of a saint who becomes a sinner. A fictional example from Spanish literature is San Manuel Bueno Martir by Miguel de Unamuno. I read that story in a Spanish Lit class in college and it has haunted me ever since.

    This is a question that haunts many, many people, and my own experience had led me to be very interested in it. I left the church entirely out of seminary, and only returned 12 years after that. I discuss it at some length in my post on the Participatory Bible Study Blog, Hebrews 6:4-6: Can Those who Fall Return?. I link from there to my personal testimony as well. Here, however, I want to discuss point of view in answering this question. See my discussion of Hebrews 6 (linked above) for more scripture on the topic.

    The issue of falling away and returning is a very contentious issue, and I think it is contentious precisely because it cuts very close to the heart. All of us are probably acquainted with people who are terribly fearful that they are not really saved, and that God is going to get them because of some minor failing. Perhaps they will commit the sin of adultery in their heart and then be run over by a bus before having the opportunity to confess it. Living in that type of fear is a terrible thing, and spiritually debilitating. On the other hand we probably also know people who are so sure that they have the inside track to God that they don’t feel any need to seek spiritual or ethical growth. In each case, we may tend to react against unbalanced teaching that led to the problem.

    I believe there are at least three perspectives from which one might answer the question:

    1. Biblical
      I think the Bible is a bit equivocal on this issue. There are plenty of scriptures that support our security with God, but also plenty that warn against overconfidence, or more accurately self-confidence.
    2. Theological
      This one is often the hardest. What precisely is true. Can someone lose their salvation? I recall a class with a Calvinist student. In one discussion I told him that I had serious problems with a God who could predestine some people to eternal damnation. He responded that he didn’t particular like it, but that was what he thought was true. I don’t think the Bible makes it quite that clear.
    3. Pastoral
      The answer from a pastoral perspective will often depend on who’s asking the question. Is this a person who is short on security? Are they concerned that God can’t accept them? One might need to emphasize security. Is this a person who is inclined to carelessness? Perhaps the firmer version of Hebrews 6:4-6 would be more applicable. Of course, a pastor needs to work within what he understands to be the truth as well.

    For me, the answer must come largely from the pastoral perspective, because I think that’s the way the Bible tends to answer the question. Looking at the entire book of Jeremiah we can see how an entire nation, and especially the city of Jerusalem, became very confident that because of God’s promises they did not need to fear destruction. The promises were needed because the people needed to comprehend the value of a stable relationship. The judgment was required because people became so complacent in an assured relationship that they let that relationship die.

    I suspect that God looks more at the pastoral perspective on these issues. For myself, I often reduce this to the following: It’s possible for someone to reject salvation after apparently accepting it, but it is never accidental.

  • Squaring the Wesleyan Quadrilateral

    One of the things that originally attracted me to the United Methodist Church was the quadrilateral, in the form in which it is presented in the discipline. Since becoming a member I have found out that most members of United Methodist congregations have no idea what this is, that some members use the quadrilateral to justify just about anything, and that others seem to want to eviscerate it or simply replace it with a more standard “sola scriptura” stance.

    First let me clarify a couple of points. I’m not here trying to figure out what Wesley meant by his comments on the elements of the quadrilateral; I’m simply looking at how I see them functioning today. Second, I’m using “sola scriptura” in the more popular sense that tends to cut the scriptures off from tradition and experience, and to downplay the role of reason in interpretation. I realize that more sophisticated theologians do not make these errors, but in the pews, “Bible alone” tends in this direction. I do believe that both the label and the attached rhetoric have tended toward this imbalance in the pews, so I don’t hold the theological sophisticates guiltless on this point.

    For those who don’t know, the quadrilateral supposes the use of scripture, tradition, experience, and reason in the formation of doctrine. Because many people have driven truckloads of manure through the supposed filter of this method and called it doctrine, others have tried to modify the quadrilateral. One particular explanation is that the quadrilateral is not an equilateral, but that scripture is the longer line. This is a well-intentioned effort to test more United Methodist doctrine by the standards of scripture, but I think it is neither precisely correct, nor is it adequate to the task. In effect, it pushes people toward a “sola scriptura” stance, but doesn’t clarify the position of the other three elements, other than to give them a smaller and subordinate role.

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  • Moderate Thinking

    Since starting the Moderate Christian Blog Aggregator, I’ve gotten a few comments on what it means to be moderate. One very reasonable question is how I can combine the words “moderate” and “passionate,” as in “passionate moderate.” It seems like a contradiction in terms. And I do do intend the two words to convey a certain amount of tension. Nonetheless I don’t think they’re entirely contradictory.

    “Moderate” isn’t an ideological or party label. It’s a general description that some people are comfortable with. So what I’m about to discuss applies only to me. It may apply to other people. Many people I have run into who self-identify as moderate would be comfortable with most of what I’m saying, at least what I’m saying about the process of thinking, though not necessarily about the specific positions I have come to. I use my own specific conclusions simply as an illustration. It’s quite possible, and indeed likely, for those who identify themselves as moderates to disagree.

    There are people who espouse a form of moderation from apathy. They don’t care to make a decision so they generally find a center point, effectively a point of least conflict among those they have to live with. Another group may well find it difficult to make decisions and end up in the center through lack of concern. I’m not talking about these groups, but rather those who are active and committed and yet take a moderate approach.

    Here are the keys to what I think of as moderate thinking.

    1. Never improperly excluding a middle position

    Improperly excluding middles is a standard practice in both politics and religion. You are either a laissez faire capitalist or you’re a communist. You’re left wing or right wing. You accept Biblical inerrancy, or you don’t believe in the Bible at all. You’re a fundamentalist or an atheist. Each of these pairs ignores many positions between, and some of them ignore additional positions that are more extreme.

    2. Finding the actual extremes

    Very often politicians and theologians want to place their opponents on the extremes. Moderate thinking avoids this by looking for the actual extremes and finding the range of opinions. As an example, Ned Lamont, Democratic senatorial candidate in Connecticut, is called an extremist, and his election is supposed to mean that the Democratic party is turning far to the left. But Lamont, who wants to withdraw troops from Iraq over a period of six months is hardly an extremist. His position is probably held by a majority of the voters of his state, though they may vote for another candidate for other reasons. The extreme position would be a pacifist position that stated that we should not employ force against terrorists, but should turn the other cheek (figuratively) to them.

    On the other hand, Democrats try to paint Bush as an extreme right winger. But a few miles from me we have a Baptist pastor who was a Vice-Presidential candidate for a minor party in the last election and who thinks Bush is a liberal. That doesn’t make Bush right, any more than agreeing with a majority of Connecticut voters makes Lamont right, but it does mean that he’s not the extreme.

    3. Setting relative values on issues and positions

    This third point simply means that in general moderates are not one issue people. Many people have numerous litmus test issues. For example, they will not vote for a candidate who differs with their position on abortion, or on the war in Iraq, or on taxes, or on any of a number of other issues. I don’t do litmus test issues. There are certain positions I find very hard to stomach, but in choosing a candidate to vote for, I have to deal with a range of issues, and generally no issue is absolute.

    Application

    Much of our political and religious discourse is conducted with excluded options. Let me just take a few examples.

    Gun in the House

    I have made a decision not to have a gun in my house. I have had all kinds of reactions to that decision. I have been congratulated on my high moral stance against gun control. I have been condemned for not believing people should be permitted to defend themselves. But gun control advocates should not take comfort from my stance, and homeowners who wish to protect their property with a weapon should not be concerned. I’ll be voting for candidates who will uphold your right to self-defense.

    So then why do I not have a gun? I have simply made a calculation that my own level of alertness, my normal reaction time, and my decisiveness under the appropriate circumstances are not quite good enough to make the gun a good idea for me. I’m not bad with one on the range, or at least I wasn’t a few years ago when I last tried. I have decent aim. But I don’t believe the odds are good that I’m more likely to get the weapon from a safe place, locate a target, and use it effectively, than I am to have it stolen and used to shoot me, for just one example. And to those who have told me I should darn well get that good, I say, “You get that good. I’ll do what I think best.”

    I have no moral qualms about shooting an intruder. If I can get the guy with a baseball bat, I will. But that is where I think that I am safest. The extremes here are a complete refusal to use violence on the one hand, and a “guns blazing” approach on the other. I ask what will make my family safer.

    War in Iraq

    I oppose the war in Iraq. Again, there are those who respond to my high moral stand against war, and there are those who think I’m a wimpy pacifist (no, I’m not calling all pacifists wimps). But neither are dealing with my own reasoning. The question is one of strategy. What is the best way to use force? Here I see the extremes as pacifism, in which we do not respond violently to terrorists, and the parking lot view, which suggests we make countries that support terrorists into parking lots. I look for the action that is going to result in a better state of affairs after it has been accomplished. I cannot see how the Iraq war can end in a better state than things were before the war, and thus I regard it (and did so before it was launched) as a bad strategy.

    Historical Jesus

    This is a topic on which it’s easy to get Christians confused, because most simply don’t know all the various options, and in fact, very few probably need to know all of them. To identify the extremes, however, we have on the one hand a historical Jesus who is precisely as a harmony of the gosples would make him, and on the other hand we have the belief that Jesus was made up, that he is not a historical figure, or even a historical figure around which some myths have grown, but that he never existed at all. There is quite a lot of ground between those two positions.

    I would like to see us recognize the many possibilities between “every detail of the gospels are historically true without even normal eyewitness variations” and “most of the gospel record is false. For example, one can assume that certain details such as how many times the cock crowed and how many times Peter denied Jesus may have been remembered differently by different people. Even more substantively, one can wonder whether there were, in fact, multiple feedings of 5,000 people and then 4,000 people, and can do so without doubting the entire story of Jesus.

    I recall an online written debate in which I undertood in a series of messages to defend Jesus as a real, historical figure. I came up with six points that I would defend and began the debate. A number of Christians observing these posts told me that I had already given up Christianity because I was not defending the virgin birth or the resurrection. But I had not denied either of those doctrines; I had merely taken on a more limited task–demonstrating that Jesus was, at least, a historical fiction, and not totally a construction of his followers.

    Passionate Moderation

    How can one be a passionate moderate? I see no reason why one cannot be passionate about one’s beliefs just because they are not extreme. In other words, I don’t see the problem here. Let me give a quick example. On the topic of evangelism and missionary effort I get pegged both as evangelical and as liberal. Why?

    First, I believe passionately that Christians are to be witnesses for Jesus. We are not to be ashamed of who we are, and we are to testify of what Jesus has done for and in us.

    Second, I believe passionately that it is the Holy Spirit who convicts and converts, and that our witness is never to be forceful, intrusive, emotionally manipulative, or offensive. (Note that I did not say that the gospel itself would not offend; our witness to the gospel should not offend.)

    The first of these points gets me called evangelical; the second gets me called liberal. And if you were to hear and see me carrying out those statements, independently of one another, you might agree. But together, they seem to me to be the “Jesus” way of evangelism. The combination seems moderate to many people, but I simply think it is right, and I’m passionate about it.

    Conclusion

    That, to me, is the essence of being a passionate moderate. Your mileage will probably vary–moderately, I hope!

  • On Being a Love Preacher

    I’ve been talking about the incarnation and the two laws, and placing the concept of love at the center of Christianity. There are those who think that preaching love is somehow a weak form of Christianity, and a soft form of ethics. “All you need is love” is not regarded as a particularly profound message. “There’s lots more to it than just love,” I’ve been told.

    But I don’t think so. I think love requires some definition, because not everything we call love actually is. There are lots of details required to implement love. But love is the key, and love is anything but easy.

    My pastor this morning referred to the “cliche of ‘What Would Jesus Do?’” And indeed WWJD has become a cliche, with just about anything you might want to justify being explained as, of course, precisely what Jesus would do. And in practice WWJD has become something of a cliche, and unfortunately, in general people claim that Jesus would do whatever it was they wanted to do anyhow.

    But what would Jesus actually do? Well, we can get some idea from the gospel of John. (This message is scattered throughout scripture, but I’m using the passage in which it is most clearly stated.) Jesus gave up his life for his friends. And then he gave a command:

    12This is my command, that you love one another just as I loved you. 13Nobody has greater love than this, that he lays down his life for his friends. 14You are my friends if you do that which I command you. — John 15:12-14 (TFBV, or see the CEV using BibleGateway.com)

    What would Jesus do? Well, he did give his life for his friends. And he did provide that to his disciples as a definition of love, of the love that they were to carry out.

    Now which is easier?

    • Believe a set of doctrines so that despite whatever you may do, you will still be saved and live eternally?
    • Put your trust in God and let him transform your life so that you exemplify this love, that is exemplify what Jesus would do?

    I think the easy road out is option ‘a’. We would really rather not be confronted with what Jesus actually would do in most circumstances.

    But that, I believe, is the challenge of the gospel.

  • The Incarnation and the Two Laws

    34Now when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they approached him together, 35and one of them tested him by asking him, 36“Teacher, Which commandment is the greatest one in the Torah?” 37Jesus replied, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole being’ {Deuteronomy 6:5} and with your whole mind. 38This is the greatest and first commandment. 39And the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ {Leviticus 19:18} 40On these two commands all the law and the prophets hang. — Matthew 22:34-40 (TFBV)

    I hope I’m getting across the idea in this series (starting with Christian Essentials: Incarnation at the Center) that rather than a list of doctrines and of standards I prefer a hierarchy. Both logically and in terms of importance various teachings fall into a hierarchy. At the center of all of this I see the notion of incarnation. I’m going to discuss my understanding of many other doctrines later, including ones I regard as non-essentials, and I believe in each case we’ll find the incarnation shedding light on how that doctrine should be understood.

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  • Incarnation Essentials

    In a previous post I started a discussion of what I think are the essentials of the Christian faith. I think it’s going to be a bit difficult for me to keep clear when I’m talking about essentials, and when I’m talking about how I apply those in broader detail, but since I believe that is precisely what we, as Christians, must do, I will make every effort.

    In simple form, the orthodox doctrine of the incarnation states that Jesus came in the flesh, and that he was wholly human and wholly divine. Many Christians are unsure what this means, as they are about many doctrines. I’d like to restate what I consider the essentials of the doctrine of the incarnation:

    God was present on earth in Jesus of Nazereth. Jesus was human enough so that he is able to understand us completely. Jesus was divine enough so that he is able to redeem us.

    Now I accept the 100% divine/100% human formulation for myself, but this is what I believe it is essential to believe. Stated even more simply: God wants to save you. God can save you. A Biblical statement is: God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself (2 Corinthians 5:19). I’m going to expand on that, but my expansion is not part of the essentials.

    Now as I understand it this reconciliation was the ultimate reconciliation; there is no conceivable reconciliation that could cross a greater gap. God is infinite, we are finite. No matter what you subtract from infinity, it remains infinite. God bridged that gap. In bridging that gap he made all other gaps irrelevant. As Paul put it, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). From the incarnational perspective all gaps have become infinitessimal, because they are all to be seen from the perspective of the incarnation, an event that spans infinity.

    This is one reason why I reject the complementarian position. I do not believe it is worthy of the incarnation, and I don’t believe that we can accept any doctrine that is not worthy of the full meaning of the incarnation. Coincidentally, Suzanne McCarthy has again been writing about this on the Better Bibles Blog where she comments on the theology of the incarnation, and specifically about the use of male terminology in translations related to it. Why does the ESV translate terms related to the incarnation with male specific references?

    In a comment on Suzanne’s post, Peter Kirk calls attention to 1 Peter 1:21, in which qelhmati anqrwpou is translated “will of man,” when the contrast should be “human will” as opposed to divine will. This is a clear focus on the minor human differences which should have been overwhelmed by the reality of the incarnation. In a more relevant case, Philippians 2:7-8, the ESV translates en omoiwmati anqrwpwn as “in the likeness of men” rather than the more precise “in human likeness,” though oddly they use “human” for anqrwpo" in the next sentence. This is thinking that is clearly not worthy of the full impact of the incarnation.

    I’m going to reflect more on this later, although I need to move through the essentials in just a few posts, so I’ll leave that further comment for a few days.

    Right now I’d also like to relate this concept of the incarnation to the notion of legalism, total depravity, and our ability to save ourselves. I think the doctrine of total depravity is one that again misses the point. It doesn’t matter if we can be righteous. The Bible calls Job righteous, for example. Modern Christians are uncomfortable with that, but the Bible writers had no such concern. The problem is that no matter how righteous one becomes one is still a finite, limited, human being. It is not merely a matter of being wicked that separates us from God; it is a matter of being not-God. No matter how good we can became, we will still be not-God. Any element of eternity must, by nature, be God’s gift. (Note that I do not refer to us becoming gods; rather I refer to all those elements that fall on God’s side of the line, such as eternal life. There is no possibility that we, who are not eternal, could somehow earn eternity. It doesn’t belong to our reality, but to God’s. It is, by definition and by nature, only attainable as God’s gift.) The gap cannot possibly be crossed from our side. It has to be crossed from God’s.

    In my next entry I’m going to discuss the two laws given by Jesus, love for God and love for neighbor, and tie them to the definition of the incarnation. I think we can hardly find anything more essential than what Jesus said were the first and second laws.

  • Christian Essentials: Incarnation at the Center

    One of my principles of constructive criticism is that one should generally be prepared to propose something positive. This doesn’t always work–sometimes you know one solution won’t work before you have an alternative, but generally I think it’s a good rule. So having said some negative things about the Together for the Gospel statement, I think I should say something about what I do believe.

    As I thought about this project, I came to realize more and more that there are differences between what I consider the core of my experience and the logical center of my beliefs. But as I thought even more about it, they seemed to come back together. I see both now as kind of the layers of an onion, but we start at the center and move out, the core being the most essential, and the outer layers less so. I have previously discussed the importance of distinguishing essential and non-essential doctrines in order to have some unity or coherence of the faith, but at the same time be able to include and celebrate appropriate diversity. I think my best reasonable length statement on this is Unity, Diversity, and Confusion. You can follow some links from there. I also listed four doctrinal items that I hold as essential, which I derived from Elgin Hushbeck Jr.’s Consider Christianity books. (You can see a brief summary at Understanding Christian Apologetics.) But neither of those provides either the reason why I would consider those things essential, nor does it put the life into it.

    I’m going to try to be brief on each of these entries (STOP LAUGHING!), but I will make a number of entries in this series. In the early stages I’ll be making statements that I will leave to back up later, and also I will use scriptures without developing their interpretation from the context, but I will try to remember to tie up all the loose ends as I go on.

    So what does put life into it? I believe the life gets there by putting the right thing at the center and then keeping it centered.

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  • Van Till a Freethinker?

    With a hat tip to Dispatches from the Culture Wars, I’d like to call attention to the text of a speech given by Howard J. Van Till (The Fourth Day) to the Freethought Association of West Michigan. Van Till’s work on evolution in general and intelligent design in particular is amongst my favorite reading, and he provides some excellent insights into working with truth, and our view of what truth is, in the context of a religious institution.

    While I experienced some hostility as a graduate student in a Seventh-day Adventist institution, I never experienced this degree of hostility, but I did reject the idea of signing a doctrinal statement in order to be able to teach. That was one of the things that led me away from even seriously seeking work in an Adventist institution. Now as a member of the United Methodist Church, I often actually seem quite conservative.

    Readers who come from my current side of the aisle–mainstream Christianity outside the Calvinist or Catholic traditions–may find it hard to empathize with Van Till. Calvinism tends to be much more creedal, and thus to be much more explicit.

    But I am no less subject to having an ODoR (operational description of reality) than anyone else, and often being less explicit about it simply makes it harder to examine, rather than meaning that one is actually more open minded. I think Van Till has again provided some excellent insight into the nature of the controversy over creation and evolution, and the relationship of science and religion.

  • T4G: Interpretation and Egalitarianism

    In searching around the blogosphere, or more accurately taking a quick glance, I note that many bloggers are responding to the Together for the Gospel statement as though Article XVI (about male leadership in ministry) was a single aberration in an otherwise good document. In fact, for some, the tragedy of women being excluded from the conference (though not completely) was that they would be denied the otherwise wonderful Bible teaching involved.

    (Let me note a few entries that I read and that provide good links to others. These are not all examples of the tendency I noted above, but they will help you get the flavor of the discussion. Dave Warnock discusses this issue especially in his post Together or Divided?, and Michael Bird wrote an excellent post from a generally conservative viewpoint, but focussing on the complementarian/egalitarian issue in Together for the Gospel . . . Not Quite. Adrian Warnock has been blogging extensively on this from the conservative point of view. A good wrap-up can be found at Adrian Warnock’s blog.)

    I’m afraid I can’t agree with this viewpoint, however. I think that the issue of gender roles in church leadership is the single clearest example of a divisive viewpoint in this statement, not to mention one I believe is wrong. But I believe that the complementarian view comes directly from the statements on scripture and the approach to interpretation that is represented here. Now I don’t call this approach “conservative.” There are genuine conservatives who don’t accept the complementarian position, and even more important, there are complementarians who are not divisive.

    The reason I see this statement as divisive is simply that it claims that all these elements are part of the genuine gospel, and the clear implication that those who disagree are teaching a false gospel. This level of detail when defining essentials is very troubling to me. Now it may appear that I am creating an equally detailed statement by opposing this statement point by point. But let me emphasize that I do not regard my beliefs on Biblical inspiration or on egalitarianism are a part of the essential definition of the gospel. I do believe that inclusiveness is more consistent with what is fundamental than is exclusiveness. Exclusiveness is not worthy of the doctrine of the incarnation and the sacrament of communion. But that’s another post.

    The T4G statement places one’s theology, the data that one accepts as true, at the center of the issue, and even in doing this it fails to place the focus on the incarnation, in the instance of God’s reconciliation, and especially on his giving us the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:16-21). This emphasis is more dangerous than the complementarian attitude reflected in Article XVI, although that article does follow naturally from the doctrinal nature of the whole statement.

    There is a serious need here to define what truly is essential, and what is optional. My most fundamental problem with the T4G statement is that I believe it is almost all about non-essentials (other than statements on grace and salvation by faith, and even those are flawed), and skips many essentials.

    I’ll return to my article by article discussion in my next post on this topic.

  • T4G Article I: The Bible

    The first two articles of the Together for the Gospel statement relate to the Bible. I’m going to deal primarily with the first article in this short essay. The article reads:

    I find myself so fundamentally in disagreement with this article that practically every word requires some sort of response. Since I have written fairly extensively on Biblical inspiration in articles available on the internet, I will refer to those where possible and only summarize my difficulties.

    We affirm that the sole authority for the Church is the Bible,

    It’s interesting that the major portion of the history of faith in the world in general occurred without the Bible, and even more without the Bible as we have it today. If the Bible is the sole authority, God took his time about creating that sole authority. Where in the Bible is there a statement that the Bible is the sole authority? If one is to hold to this type of exclusive view of “sola scriptura” then there should be a basis in scripture for:

    • The canon of scripture, which is nowhere specified in scripture
    • The use and interpretation of scripture, again unspecified, though we have examples of some interesting approaches
    • The precise text of scripture.

    Note that I don’t have a major problem with these issues. The Bible is the foundation of my faith, but then I don’t make any claim that the Bible is the exclusive authority. One of the key errors that stands behind the T4G view is the understanding that when the Bible refers to the “word of God” one can apply all those things that are attributed to “the word” to the Bible. For a more detailed discussion of this issue, see the pamphlet What is the Word of God.

    Throughout Biblical history the church was led by prophets, apostles, and other leaders who were said to be in some sort of communion with God. There is no indication of a time when a collection of literature would become the sole authority. This does not mean that the Bible is not fundamental, or that it is not extremely important, or that it does not convey God’s word. In fact, I would say that its authority is foundational, but it provides the foundation for a structure. The Christian church is not founded on a book, but on a person.

    verbally inspired, inerrant, infallible, and totally sufficient and trustworthy.

    You will search the Bible in vain for scriptures that actually affirm these doctrines. Skipping over the more complex theological definitions, verbally inspired is generally understood to mean that the words of scripture, and not just the thoughts or the message, is inspired. Some of those who hold that the Bible is verbally inspired also hold that it was verbally dictated, that God provided the very words of scripture to the prophet. Others hold that God protects the words so that we can safely say they are God’s words, even though the personality of writers show through. The end result is very similar, because one assumes that each word is there by God’s direct choice; not God’s choice of a writer or a message, but his choice of a specific word.

    Inerrancy is normally understood as the claim that the Biblical autographs are without error in all it affirms, no matter what the topic, thus including science and history. A minority will hold that a particular translation or manuscript contains the perfect word of God. This latter position is clearly nonsense, because no matter what translation of manuscript one chooses, one also excludes the majority of the readers of the Bible throughout history from having such an inerrant scripture. Inerrancy of the autographs suffers from a lack of any autographs by which one might check the claim. If God was concerned that the autographs be without error, he was apparently inexplicably unconcerned with seeing that the actual copies that you and I can read are without error.

    Infallibility is a vacuous claim to make about a book, simply because the book does not, in fact, do anything. Interpretations can clearly be in error. It seems more important to me to understand how people get information from the book. Infallibility that is inaccessible is of little interest, and one need only read a few commentaries or books on Biblical theology to see that infallibility is apparently inaccessible.

    Totally sufficient and trustworthy causes me to wonder what it is that the Bible is totally sufficient for. Normally theologians will say “totally sufficient for salvation,” though many will maintain that under appropriate circumstances considerably less than that is sufficient. This claim seems to me to hardly go beyond saying that the Bible is what it is. I agree! And I think it is sufficient to its purpose. I also find it trustworthy, provided we are careful to understand what its purpose is. It is no trustworthy, for example, as a science text. That’s not a criticism, just an observation. It was never intended as a science text. It does not replace one’s personal communion with God. Again, it was never intended to.

    More important than the items of definition I have pointed out is a common failing of all these claims about scripture: They all rely on a particular approach to developing a Biblical theology of the Bible. The common approach is to take a passage such as 1 Peter 2:19-21 or 2 Timothy 3:16, and then decide on the basis of these texts what the Bible ought to be. Other than the circularity of this approach, which can be ameliorated through other theological approaches, I find it interesting that in the face of a substantial history of the Bible and how it came to be, so many theologians prefer to define what they want it to be, rather than simply observing what it is.

    2 Timothy 3:16 provides us with the word “theopneustos” or “God-breathed” which has been made to carry a great deal of freight. But when God breathed into Adam he didn’t make him inerrant, he made him alive. What exactly is the content of a text that is God-breathed? But this issue applies much more to verbal inspiration. The evidence against verbal inspiration is very strong in the text and the history itself. There are certainly words that are attributed to God, but there are also words that are clearly not attributed to God. The synoptic problem presents us with clear evidence that the gospel writers copied from one another, that there are different sources in the Pentateuch, Samuel, and Kings, just as examples.

    My point here is not to recite again the details of the inspiration of scripture, which I have deal with elsewhere (Inspiration, Biblical Authority, and Inerrancy and my posts on inspiration in my studies on Hebrews), but rather to suggest that we need to use a different method. If the history of the Biblical text were completely obscure, we might have an excuse to determine its nature by creating standards based on texts, but instead we have extensive material available. We know that one author copies from another, we know that there are various sources, we know that there are differing viewpoints. (I will comment on this issue a bit more in my entry on Article II.)

    We deny that the Bible is a mere witness to the divine revelation,

    I don’t get the phrase “mere witness.” To me, the most wonderful thing about the Bible is that it is a witness to divine revelation and to divine action in history. The fact that it is written by humans who are subject to error as I am makes it much more accessible. I know that one can live by faith because Abraham, Moses, and Jesus did. This witness is not mere, it is critical. The author of Hebrews uses it as a showcase for his argument in Hebrews 11.

    or that any portion of Scripture is marked by error or the effects of human sinfulness.

    But the copies that we actually have are marked by error. I do not mean extensive error, but Biblical inerrantists will not allow the smallest error in the autographs, and yet are satisfied with a 98% or 99% accurate copy. Of course one can’t determine that for certain again, because we don’t have the autographs. I don’t think this is a serious problem for Bible study, interpretation, and application, but that is because I don’t believe that inerrancy is relevant to those issues at all.

    The effects of human sinfulness are all around us. The very fact that we need to hear the word through prophets or read it in books is the result of sin and our separation from God. Without human sinfulness there would be no need for the Bible at all.

    Inspiration is an incarnational process, God breathing life into imperfect words in imperfect human language to be preserved imperfectly by imperfect copyists, read imprefectly by imperfect readers, preached by imperfect preachers, and discussed by very imperfect bloggers such as myself.