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Deductive Inerrancy
I saved this post for part two because I wanted to show in part one that the doctrine of inerrancy is a worthwhile consideration because Scripture itself claims to be inerrant. That is, Biblical inerrancy is not a doctrine of man, but of verbum Dei. So from the previous post, we saw that Scripture claims to be inspired and, thus, it follows that it is inerrant.
What we’ll do here is consider the best case for inerrancy. If you remember back to September, I wrote a post entitled “A Question of Inerrancy“. In it, I laid out the seven ways Jesus taught that the Old Testament was God’s Word. I draw on the same information there, and from my previous post, for this one. What we’ll be getting into is the best defense of Biblical inerrancy, and why we must hold this doctrine as Christians.
There is a popular New Testament scholar whose story illustrates the danger of misunderstanding inerrancy. In his sophomore year of high school, Bart D. Ehrman had a “bona fide born-again experience.” He then went on to earn a diploma at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and an undergraduate degree at Wheaton. He initially held the view taught him at Moody: that the Bible was “inspired completely and in its very words–verbal, plenary inspiration.” By the time he reached Princeton Theological Seminary, these views were crumbling. The sort of Biblical criticism we’ve dealt with in previous posts got to him (and obviously stuck with him to this day).
Timothy Paul Jones, author of Misquoting Truth (which I highly recommend), writes:
During his second semester at Princeton, Ehrman wrote a paper in which he attempted to reconcile an apparent historical blunder in Mark 2:26. In this passage, Jesus refers to an event that occurred in the time of “the high priest Abiathar,” when in fact the event happened–at least according to 1 Samuel 21:1-6–during the high priesthood of Abiathar’s father, Ahimelech. Still holding to his belief in the historical truth of Scripture, Ehrman intended to show that this was nota historical error after all. A professor’s comment, scrawled on the final page of his research paper, transformed the direction of Ehrman’s life.
According to Ehrman, the professor “wrote a simple one-line comment that for some reason went straight through me. He wrote: ‘Maybe Mark just made a mistake.’ [After considering my fancy footwork needed to avoid the problem], I finally concluded, ‘Hmm. . .maybe Mark did make a mistake.’”
Ehrman’s doubt naturally came to include the rest of the Bible. For, as he asked himself, if there could be one tiny mistake in Mark, could there not be more and possibly greater mistakes throughout Scripture? Of course there could be.
How far are we willing to go? Do we accept a few, supposed, minor errors and denounce rationality in favor of unreasonable faith? Or do we, like Ehrman, hit a “dead-end” in our faith and simply stop? William Lane Craig has a great article entitled “What Price Biblical Errancy?” in which he addresses just that concern.
Let’s be honest: there will always be questions. The Bible has many difficult passages. But as Christians (that is, believers in and followers of Christ), we should never hedge on the inerrancy question. I know, you’re probably thinking, “Well, Nick, you can’t really expect us to believe that. There are at least a couple mistakes in the Bible. I mean, come on–even if the original writings were utterly true, things were bound to change over the years. And what if we do run across a legitimate mistake like Ehrman thought he did?”
You miss the point. That is not how we (should) define inerrancy.
There are two types of reasoning: deductive and inductive. Quoting Dictionary.com:
Deductive and inductive refer to two distinct logical processes. Deductive reasoning is a logical process in which a conclusion drawn from a set of premises contains no more information than the premises taken collectively. All dogs are animals; this is a dog; therefore, this is an animal: The truth of the conclusion is dependent only on the method. All men are apes; this is a man; therefore, this is an ape: The conclusion is logically true, although the premise is absurd. Inductive reasoning is a logical process in which a conclusion is proposed that contains more information than the observations or experience on which it is based. Every crow ever seen was black; all crows are black: The truth of the conclusion is verifiable only in terms of future experience and certainty is attainable only if all possible instances have been examined. In the example, there is no certainty that a white crow will not be found tomorrow, although past experience would make such an occurrence seem unlikely.
Bart Ehrman’s concept of inerrancy was based on inductive reasoning. Indeed, I think most Christians, if asked to defend Biblical inerrancy, would rely on the same tactics: prove the Bible is inerrant by harmonization, explaining solutions to seeming contradictions, etc. There is a place for this, but it cannot be our starting point. If we find a supposed instance of errancy, doubt may cloud our thinking and ruin our faith. So we should start with deductive inerrancy.
I’ve copied some of the aforementioned article:
[Biblical inerrancy] is not arrived at inductively, but deductively. Inerrantists freely admit that no one reading through the Bible and keeping list of difficulties encountered along the way, whether inconsistencies or mistakes, would come to the conclusion at the end of his reading that the Bible is inerrant. He would likely conclude that the Bible, like almost every other book, has some errors in it. But inerrantists have maintained that belief in biblical inerrancy is justified as a deduction from other well-justified truths. For example, the late Kenneth Kantzer, Dean of the seminary I attended, argued for inerrancy by means of the following two syllogisms:
1. Whatever God teaches is true.
2. Historical, prophetic, and other evidences show that Jesus is God.
3. Therefore, whatever Jesus teaches is true.
4. Whatever Jesus teaches is true.
5. Jesus taught that the Scriptures are the inspired, inerrant Word of God.
6. Therefore, the Scriptures are the inspired, inerrant Word of God.
The claim here is that we have good reasons to think that the Bible, despite its difficulties, is the inerrant Word of God and therefore we should accept it as such. As Friedrich Schleiermacher once put it, “We do not believe in Christ because we believe in the Bible; we believe in the Bible because we believe in Christ.”
Feel free to refer back to “A Question of Inerrancy” for details on how Jesus taught Scriptural inspiration and inerrancy.
Craig continues:
When confronted with biblical difficulties, the inerrantist will attempt to show that alleged mistakes are not really mistakes after all and to provide plausible harmonizations of apparent inconsistencies. Where this cannot be done, he will honestly admit that he doesn’t know the solution to the difficulty but nonetheless insist that he has overriding reasons to think that the text is accurate and that were all the facts to be known the alleged difficulty would disappear. Such an approach has served the inerrantist well: example after example could be given of supposed biblical errors identified by previous generations which have now been resolved in light of more recent discoveries. One of my favorite examples is Sargon II, an Assyrian king mentioned in Isaiah 20.1. Earlier critics claimed that the reference to Sargon was an error because there was absolutely no evidence that an Assyrian king named Sargon II ever even existed—until, that is, archaeologists digging in the region of Khorsabad unearthed the palace of one Sargon II! We now have more information about Sargon than about any other ancient Assyrian king.
I remember having a conversation with Aaron on what is really at stake behind Biblical inerrancy and infallibility. His simple question startled me and set me to deep contemplation. What we have here, when a Christian is willing to forgo the doctrine of inerrancy, is a throwback to the first deception in the history of man. He asked me to recall the Fall of Man. Do you remember the words of the serpent to Eve?
“Did God really say…?”
Consider the implications… No, we would not have to drop our faith as Ehrman did. If you read the end of Craig’s article, he mentions the ample historical evidence we have for Jesus’ resurrection even if we do not consider the Bible inerrant. As he says, we should not have inerrancy as the center of our beliefs like Ehrman. Then, if inerrancy falls, the rest likewise dissolves. We should have something like “God exists” in the center, linked directly with the deity and resurrection of Jesus.
That said, we cannot simply let inerrancy fade out. Remember that all Scripture is God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16). God does not breathe falsehood or error, so if we find a book of the Bible to be compromised, it can no longer be referred to as Scripture. If you follow my logic in “Verbum Dei or Verbum Homo?” you should notice that the inspiration and inerrancy of the entire New Testament is so interdependent that if one piece–say, the Gospels–were to be rejected, the rest would surely be of no authoritative value as Scripture. Historical? Yes. Accurate? Probably. Inspired? No. And thus, we have only a resurrected Jew, whose promises may have been fabricated, and whose church may well be a sham. We have enough history to believe in some sort of resurrected Jesus, but we lose half of our Bible and any certainty on Jesus’ ideology. Obviously, if any part of the major New Testament letters go, we are left with unprovable, suppositional “Christianity,” if it can even be named so.
I know a lot of what I write on this subject sounds like unsympathetic preaching, but trust me, I struggle with doubts about the Bible constantly. Indeed, my entire view of the Bible has changed by virtue of my taking a liberal (theologically speaking) New Testament course for a single semester. If this is an area of interest, distress, or simply concern for you, please feel free to comment here or reach me via email/AIM/Windows Live Messenger (nick[at]ekpyros.com, bobsnox, bobsnox2000@earthlink.net, respectively). It’s all well and good to say, “Well, Jesus taught that Scripture was inerrant, and that settles it,” while our minds read difficult passages, suffering from lack harmonization. Don’t misjudge me as thinking I have all the answers or a completely assuaged mind: I don’t. But I do have some faith, and God has never let me down in any honest search for His truth. Send me an email, or post at our forums, and we’ll work through things together.
- Nick