- 5 Objections
- Response to 5 Objections
- The Historical Case for the Resurrection of Jesus
- 3 Points of Departure
- On Christian Origins
- On the Holy Spirit
- On Belief
- The Trouble with (Traditional) Worldviews
- Imagination, Authority, and Knowledge
- On Marxism
- Christianity and Marxism
- In Defense of Skepticism
- Skepticism and Ethics
- Where I’m Coming From
- Tradition, Knowledge, and Metaphysics
Introduction
My intention in this series will be to speak as a voice for historic Christian orthodoxy broadly speaking (Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant). However, I will do so from the perspective of someone who is a Protestant Christian, having Protestant biases and being more knowledgeable about the Protestant tradition than other Christian traditions. Having said that, I will proceed to my responses to Joel’s five initial objections.
Responses to Objections
- In what sense can or should the Bible be considered the “Word of God?” Well, it depends on what one’s doctrine of Scripture is. At the very least it would mean that God somehow speaks to us or reveals Himself to us through the Scriptures. Whether that means the Bible contains God’s revelation mixed in with human ideas, whether it means that the Bible “becomes” the Word of God when God uses it to point us to Jesus (Karl Barth’s doctrine of Scripture), or whether it means that the Bible is directly the infallible or inerrant Word of God is a big discussion within Christian theology. I have personally been thinking about how perhaps we should say that different parts of Scripture might be considered the Word of God in different ways: prophecy is directly the Word of God, narratives and wisdom literature are the Word of God in a more indirect sense, and the Psalms, which are examples of what we can say to God, are the Word of God in an even more indirect sense. Christians accept the Old Testament Scriptures because of the claims that Jesus makes about them. The criteria for accepting the New Testament writings as Scripture were their apostolicity, antiquity, and universality: they contained the apostle’s teaching, were early rather than later derivative texts, and were found to have a message that could provide guidance for the whole church, rather than just part of it.
- In what sense can or should the Bible be considered inerrant, factually correct, true, or reliable — whether in its historical, prehistorical, or theological claims? Each alleged error in the Bible would need to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. I’m a bit puzzled by you bringing up textual criticism at this point, since this says nothing about the inerrancy of the original text, and I am not aware of any textual-critical issue where both the original reading is in doubt and the difference would seriously alter the message of the text. Regarding apparent scientific errors, I have found the Lost World series (of Genesis 1, of Adam and Eve, of the Flood) by Dr. John Walton to be quite helpful for thinking through how we can speak of the Bible as inerrant in spite of the obvious pre-scientific worldview of its authors. But even if one concludes that, any way you slice it, there are scientific and/or historical errors in the Bible, that would only contradict Biblical inerrancy, not the Bible’s theological infallibility, which is what actually matters.
- Why should we consider the canon of the Bible to be correct and/or closed? The short answer is: because of the authority of Church Tradition. For Catholics and Orthodox, there really is no problem, since for them, the Authority of the Church, of Tradition, and of Scripture are all part of one package deal. But, as you are well aware, Protestants are in something of a precarious position when they affirm a “fallible collection of infallible books.” I personally don’t see a problem with having a high view of the Authority of early Church Tradition, while also refusing to acknowledge the authority of the contemporary Catholic or Orthodox churches as absolute. I suppose a Protestant would have to say that, yes, in principle we can’t say that the canon is closed in an absolute sense. But, practically speaking, it is closed. The reason someone who receives a message or prophecy from God in the modern period couldn’t add it to the canon of Scripture is that, even though it would be divine revelation, it would not be part of the revelation that has been foundational for the whole church through the ages, and thus could not be placed in the same category as the Scriptures.
- How can we be reasonably certain that Jesus’s resurrection as described in the Gospels actually took place? I will provide a full response to this question in a subsequent post. For now, I will just point out that the Gospels are not our only accounts of Jesus’s resurrection; we also have the earlier witness of the apostle Paul, as well as various oral formulas preserved in the New Testament texts that scholars have identified as predating the New Testament itself. Also, it is not entirely true that the only witnesses to Jesus’s resurrection were his disciples. James the skeptical brother of Jesus saw him after his resurrection and converted, and Paul, the enemy and persecutor of Christianity, later saw the risen Jesus and converted.
- How can we be reasonably certain that Trinitarian Theology as outlined in the Nicene Creed is the most accurate understanding possible of God and his relationship with Jesus Christ? Theology makes explicit what was implicit. Everyone who is a Christian must be implicitly Trinitarian. They must believe that God the Father saves them through God the Son by the power of God’s Holy Spirit that resides in them. They must pray to God the Father through His Son Jesus in the Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity makes explicit what all orthodox Christians implicitly believe. Trinitarian doctrine is not based on Greek philosophical concepts; it uses them to articulate a judgment about who God, Jesus, and the Spirit is, which is grounded in what the NT Scriptures say. Undoubtedly, these Greek philosophical concepts differ both from our modern philosophical theories, and from the actualistic ontology and narrative theology of the Jewish NT, but that is perfectly fine, as long as the same judgment about who God is and His relationship to Jesus is being made. Trinitarian theology does not attempt to speculate and to define God’s being, but to provide a framework for how Christians talk about God that will be consistent with how He has revealed Himself in salvation history and the NT. Do we need to explicitly affirm the fully developed doctrine of the Trinity in order to be Christians? Well, obviously no, not in any absolute sense, since the earliest Christians didn’t do so and they were still Christians. But my question would be, if you don’t affirm Trinitarian doctrine, why don’t you affirm it? What, then, do you believe about God, Jesus, and the Spirit, and is it consistent with God’s revelation and what the NT says about this?
Jed,
I read with great interest your five replies to your brother. They were well done, and I learned from them. Thank you!
The only hesitation I had was in comment #3 on inerrancy. You open up the possibility that the Bible can be infallible without being inerrant. I’m not so sure. If a prophet in the O.T. gets some data wrong while preaching his message as in how many soldiers there were in a particular battle or whether Elijah actually did go up to heaven in a whirlwind, then how am I to be sure that an apostle in the N.T. didn’t mistakenly think that Jesus rose from the dead? In either case, the skeptic could be excused from thinking that the data (and therefore the theology based on it) isn’t all that infallible after all. Bad data makes for bad theology doesn’t it?
Thanks for commenting, Dick. I understand the reasons why many highly intelligent, educated, thoughtful Christian scholars believe total Biblical inerrancy is vitally important theologically. I also realize that there are difficulties involved in trying to sort through which historical details in the Bible are theologically significant and which are not. But at the same time, I do not think there is anything inherently incoherent with the idea that God communicates a theologically inerrant message through Biblical writings that contain some historical or scientific errors (a view of Scripture often referred to as “infallibility”), nor do I think that such an idea leads inevitably down a slippery slope to rejecting everything the Bible says. When arguing with a skeptic, I think it is better to let them know that there are multiple positions on an issue they could hold that are consistent with Christian orthodoxy, instead of an “all or nothing” approach in which I tell them they have to accept my position on the issue or else reject Christian orthodoxy.
Thanks for bringing this up, Dick. I can confirm that this is a point of some confusion for me as well.
Jed, this distinction between theological infallibility and historical/scientific inerrancy seems to make all the difference. As you put it at the end of #2, “. . . theological infallibility . . . is what actually matters.”
I have two questions about this:
1) Would you say theological infallibility is a necessary tenet of an orthodox Christian view of scripture, and if so, why?
2) I get that it is difficult to discern what parts of scriptures are theologically significant, but I’m wondering if you could clarify the category distinction here. What would you say makes something theological? Is it simply that it has to do with God?
1) No, not necessarily. Another view of Scripture consistent with Christian orthodoxy would look to Scripture as the highest theological authority for the church, without necessarily regarding every part of it as infallible; from such a perspective, one could legitimately reject something a part of Scripture says if and only if it can be shown to be inconsistent with what Scripture as a whole says. For example, I once read a scholar argue that because what the gospel of John says about the relationship between Judaism and Christianity is inconsistent with what the rest of the New Testament has to say on this topic, what the gospel of John has to say about this particular topic should not be accepted by Christians. (A Christian committed to biblical infallibility, in contrast, would find a way of interpreting the gospel of John that would be consistent with what the New Testament as a whole says about this topic.)
2) The short answer is yes, what makes something theological is that it has to do with God. However, since historical events referred to in Scripture may sometimes fall along a spectrum of more directly or indirectly having to do with God, this is not always a simple and easy distinction to make. Nevertheless, I believe it is reasonable to claim a distinction between the theological and non-theological claims of Scripture, even if, in some cases, it is not immediately clear how to apply this category distinction.
Interesting.
My next question would be where does this distinction come from? Would you say it goes back to the earliest Christians? If so, was it a sort of implicit assumption, or is there somewhere that this was explicated early on?
As far as I know, such a distinction was never explicitly made in the very early church (Later on, we do see numerous exegetes express the idea that what is really important is the “spiritual” meaning of Scripture, although this was usually connected to the idea that there are multiple meanings of Scriptural texts, an idea generally not accepted by modern exegetes). I would argue that such a distinction is implicit in the fact that the church has always understood the purpose/use of Scripture to be for God establishing and maintaining His relationship with His covenant people and guiding them into holiness, not for being a textbook of history or science.
Got it. So, it’s about purpose or intent.
But, you wouldn’t go so far as to say the historical reliability doesn’t matter, right? For example, you wouldn’t say (as some might) that Jesus didn’t actually walk on water as claimed by the Gospel authors (Mark 6:48/Matthew 14:25), but that what really matters is what this fictional account illustrates about God’s or Jesus’s power, authority, character, or something else.
Or, are there instances where that might be the case (e.g. the creation account or the story of “the Fall” in Genesis)?
No, I would not go so far as to say that historical reliability doesn’t matter; the most obvious example is that Jesus’ resurrection was a historical event, and if it did not actually happen in history, then the whole of Christian theology is undermined (I Cor 15:14). Mark recounts the story of Jesus walking on water in order to make a theological point about Jesus’ Divine Identity, but if Jesus did not actually walk on water, that would undermine the theological claim he is trying to make.
It is always important to take into account literary genre. The gospels, it is generally recognized, are examples of Greco-Roman biography, which does not deal with historical events in the same way as Ancient Near Eastern historical narratives do (and neither of them deals with historical events in the same way as modern historiography). Genesis 1 is obviously not historical narrative, but an example of an ANE creation account. Genesis does depict Adam and Eve as real historical individuals (Adam is part of a genealogy in Gen 5), but the story of their creation and the Fall in Gen 2-3 is focused on them as archetypes, rather than as individuals. Does it matter fundamentally whether Adam and Eve were real historical individuals? Probably not. Does it matter that there was an actual historical Fall, rather than Gen 3 being merely a metaphor for some abstract truth about every human being? I would say yes.
Fascinating. So many questions. Let me see if I can get this straight.
What really matters for scripture — qua scripture — is that it is theologically true. So, if you’ve got a statement, narrative, poem, whatever, it may or may not be literally, historically true, but that doesn’t necessarily matter to it’s usefulness or authority as scripture.
But, each passage is also characterized by a distinct genre (or mix of genres?) which determines how it was meant (by its human author?) to be read, interpreted, and understood. Some genres are meant to be taken as literally, historically true, and some are not. Then, I assume, some are meant to be taken as partly true, true with respect to certain key things, true in some sense (e.g. metaphorically), or true overall but with certain creative liberties allowed by the conventions of the genre (e.g. not recounting verbatim quotes as long as the substance of the quote is there). So, if you’ve got a passage that, by virtue of its genre, is meant to be taken as literally, historically true that also makes a theological point, you should assume it is literally, historically true in addition to being theologically true. If, on the other hand, you’ve got a passage that, by virtue of its genre, isn’t to be take quite so literally, you can take or leave it historically, but you should still take any theological points as true, because it’s scripture.
Is that basically right?
Yes, I think that is what I’m basically saying.
To go back to the original question of the distinction between the “infallibility” and the ‘inerrancy” of Scripture, someone holding to the “infallibility” of Scripture would say that, due to the finitude and imperfection of the human authors, Scripture contains (or at least could contain) historical or scientific errors, but that, nevertheless, God ensured that the texts of Scripture that He inspired through the human authors were theologically inerrant. In contrast, someone holding to the “inerrancy” of Scripture would argue that, because Scripture is the Word of God, it must be completely free of every kind of error (since God cannot lie or make mistakes); when confronted with an apparent error in Scripture, they would argue that, taking into account the author’s communicative intention according to the text’s literary genre, it does not actually count as a real error, or (if there really does seem to be a flat-out error) that we should assume that further information which we do not currently have access to will be able to provide an explanation for this apparent error and show that it is not really an error after all.
OK. So, even in the one case you mentioned above wherein someone can reject the infallibility of some parts of the Bible, you still seem to be saying there should be a commitment to the overall infallibility of the Bible message as a whole. As you put it, “One could legitimately reject something a part of Scripture says if and only if it can be shown to be inconsistent with what Scripture as a whole says.”
My question is “why?” I mean, beyond the mere fact that that’s the traditional or orthodox position, what reason do we have to buy into this idea? Or, what reasons did the early Church have for coming to that conclusion, especially as these were separate writings being put together at the time? Is this the point at which we’re dependent upon the inspiration of the Holy Spirit as an explanation?
As I mentioned in my post, Christians accept the Old Testament writings as Scripture because of the clear claims that Jesus makes about them. But I assume you are mostly asking about the New Testament Scriptures. The New Testament writings are our best means of access to the authoritative teachings of the apostles, being either the direct writings of the apostles themselves (e.g. Paul’s epistles) or early witnesses to the apostle’s teachings (e.g. Hebrews). For this reason, they are of the highest authority for the church for knowing God’s revelation given through Jesus and His apostles to the church. Therefore, practically speaking, the Christian really has no choice but to assume the theological teachings of the NT as a whole are true, since there is no higher theological authority by which to judge it.
I realize this does not necessarily prove that every NT text, even those not written by apostles, is the inspired word of God. However, for me, the authority of church tradition on this point IS a good reason for believing this; for me, then, the question is not “why?”, but “why not?” (I won’t try to make a full case for the reasonableness and legitimacy of accepting the authority of tradition in these comments; I will probably do a full post on the topic at some point in the future in our discussion). The process of canon formation occurred at a time when the church was guided by many early, accurate, oral traditions from the apostles which we do not now have access to; for me to try to look back and second-guess the church’s decision in acknowledging the canon Scripture would seem to me to be, at best, a highly questionable and dubious enterprise.