A new statement of biblical inerrancy – part 1
At the risk of more personal abuse from certain conservative quarters, in two posts I want to suggest a new statement of inerrancy. I am thinking of writing an essay about this, actually, and would appreciate your feedback as I test my thoughts here. In this post I will give my introductory blurb and reasoning. In the second post, things will get really interesting! This first post is a little negative, I admit, but the second is so positive that I'm sure I'll be forgiven. Besides, it's a first draft ... The following statement assumes that the church has a long tradition of affirming inerrancy, and that it is a valuable tradition. However, it also asserts that modern – and especially stricter – formulations are either misleading, ineffective or both. Furthermore, one model for scripture, one title, whether it be 'Word of God', 'Witness', 'Inerrant', 'Infallible', or whatever, cannot capture or adequately signify the variety and importance of God's gift of scripture to us. It is beyond any simple definition, and must be titled by the churches practices, posture, and through a variety of different faith confessions. By inerrancy we mean to say something about scripture itself, but at the moment it simply identifies a high view of scripture, one that is manifested in healthy practices and an expectant faith-filled posture towards scripture.
Why a new statement?
- Stricter formulations of inerrancy do not necessarily foster appropriate and healthy practices and an expectant posture towards scripture.
- Believing the flood 'actually happened', for example, as posited in the Chicago Statement, doesn't guarantee orthodoxy, or an appropriate posture towards scripture, nor healthy scripture reading habits. Believing that inerrancy simply affirms all in scripture necessary for salvation is without error also doesn't guarantee orthodoxy, or an appropriate posture towards scripture, nor healthy scripture reading habits.
- The proclamation of a strict definition of inerrancy – such as the Chicago Statement – is meaningless if one does not live life in such a way that reflects a high view of scripture, by which it is meant that one doesn't maintain and pursue certain practices, nor come with expectancy and faith that God will speak in scripture.
- If you confess the Chicago Statement of inerrancy, this is no promise that you actually have a high view of scripture. It may simply mean that one is wallowing in self-righteous anti-intellectualism, and loveless, close-minded, aggressive, needlessly defensive dogmatism. It must not mean this at all, and doesn't for the majority that confess the Chicago Statement (I hope), but the point is that such a definition doesn't affirm the important and the worthwhile, that which inerrancy does at its best, namely encouraging a daily practice and an internal and communal posture that treats scripture as if God speaks through it.
- What is lacking in many doctrinal formulations of scripture, as well as in the various formulations of inerrancy, is a practical fostering of meaningful practices and faith-filled expectancy in one's posture as scripture is read.
- Stricter formulations of inerrancy tend not to acknowledge the limitations of naked propositional formulations.
- While propositional statements are important, an obsession with precise and strict formulations of inerrancy can simply foster the playing of meaningless metaphysical word games. One can no more define, for example, 'childhood' in a proposition than 'inerrancy'; it needs to be lived and experienced or it is meaningless. Inerrancy cannot be boiled down to propositional truth claims without violence being done.
- Propositional statements are important and should be formulated so as to 1) facilitate the establishing of concrete meaning in one's practices and posture towards scripture, 2) correspond to witness of scripture, and resists the temptation to employ a deductive wringer.
- Stricter formulations of inerrancy do not necessarily facilitate healthy interpretation. It is a hermeneutical stance without facilitating a hermeneutical skill and healthy hermeneutical habit. It may even hinder healthy, responsible interpretation with its harmonisation tendencies.
- Stricter formulations of inerrancy do not correspond with reality and are demonstratably false on the basis of nothing but scripture.
- Stricter formulations of inerrancy go beyond scriptures witness
- The stricter versions of inerrancy take the worthwhile and valuable tradition of inerrancy formulations beyond scripture's own witness.
- For more on this cf. my earlier series.
What is needed is a statement of inerrancy that makes clear propositional statements (that nevertheless avoids deductive logical wringers) to provide an orientation for appropriate church practices and posture towards scripture. It the following post it will thus be formulated as a varied faith confession (in part 1), and a statement of purpose (in part 2).
Labels: Inerrancy
posted by Chris Tilling @ 1:41 AM
13 comments
13 Comments:
When you say "stricter" are you simply referring to the Chicago statement and/or other similar constructions? Is the Chicago statement really strict? Or sort of strict? Just trying to get a better feel for your frequent use of "stricter formulations." The other posts sound enticing
Seems like a promising approach. Some quick and too-compact reflections, for what they're worth--
Yes: a programmatic approach rather than a timeless doctrine to which one must assent. Negative benefit: to avoid mishandling the Scriptures. Positive benefit: historicity. Radical reflection which is inclusive of the priorities through which the Scriptures have been rendered through history. The aim is not an absolute knowledge of its object, which reduces the text to an Idea (and one thinkable by me, the reader); rather this rational aim is regulated (or chastened if need be) by an unsettled attentive listening for the unforeseeable advent of Scripture's meaning today and tomorrow (your "expectant posture"--good!). Like the historicity of history, proper handling of Scripture is paradoxical because it operates on two axes that are not commensurable: (1) its rational character--the history of God's dealings with us unified by a sense, a construal of history that can be comprehended as an event in its infinite totality; (2) its dramatic movement--the Scriptures as a task to realize, which in no small way must be an unforeseeable advent(ure) as we readers find ourselves comprehended by it. We want to eliminate the tension between these two axes and that is where we get into trouble and start treating the Bible as if it were some other kind of text (cookbook, encyclopedia, instruction manual, book of spells, story book, etc.).
Every exegesis, every attempt to fix the rationality of redemptive history, must be accompanied by a receptive posture to stem the nascent dogmatism that would whelm the faith-filled hope for what is not yet seen in the world to which we write and speak (justice, peace, beauty, etc.). The attentive reader will recognize the truth (by the grace of the Holy Spirit), yet because the Scriptures are not reducible to a rational program, also recognize that in that very declaration of truth she is not an adequate measurer for it. To act in a mode of expectancy is to produce (poiesis) provisionally. The Scriptures serve as a matrix--into which we are embedded, not hovering above it--for all works of the Spirit, not as an apodictic foundation. They yield lived sense, not a timeless mathesis universalis. It is rational, but not that kind of rationality. More like "sense-bestowing" for what God is up to in the world.
Dear me, this is what happens when one is in the throes of finishing a dissertation. I should have just barged in and started shouting at you and smashing some pottery. I could pull down a bookshelf or two if that would set the right mood...
Although I am with the extreme conservative camp, I am also quite flexible and pragmatic. Thus, I will accept just about any definition of inerrancy as long as it makes the Liberals livid.
Hi Jordan, by strict I mean those that insist a belief in the historical and scientific inerrancy of all of the bible.
Article XII of the Chicago statement that makes it a 'strict' definition in my view.
"We affirm that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from all falsehood, fraud, or deceit.
We deny that Biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields of history and science. We further deny that scientific hypotheses about earth history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture on creation and the flood."
The 1689 LBC on the other hand is not strict, and simply states: "The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience"
I hope that clarifies matters.
Joel, great text!
"Every exegesis, every attempt to fix the rationality of redemptive history, must be accompanied by a receptive posture to stem the nascent dogmatism that would whelm the faith-filled hope for what is not yet seen in the world to which we write and speak (justice, peace, beauty, etc.)"
That took my breath away!
Looney, thank you for your honesty! "I will accept just about any definition of inerrancy as long as it makes the Liberals livid" That is admittedly not my goal.
Chris, love the cartoon, like the idea of a practical doctrine, hate the word inerrancy about which I rant here
PS - to help people find this post in the future, you might want to change the spelling of your label!
Thanks, Doug, change made! It was getting late when I drafted it!
I share your reserve about the word 'inerrancy'. I nevertheless chose to adopt it (and not 'infallible' for example), because the church has a long tradition of employing it, and worthy tradition. I don't want it to remain the sole possession of those who feel they must believe the historicity of the flood, for example. Furthermore, I am deliberatly being loose in my usage of the word, and acknowledge as part of the deal that all labels are by themeselves inadequate. Plus, while I don't use the word 'inerrancy' in my statement, it is implied positively when I speak of believing the scriptures are truth.
Or think you I should use a different label?
"The proclamation of a strict definition of inerrancy – such as the Chicago Statement – is meaningless if one does not live life in such a way that reflects a high view of scripture, by which it is meant that one doesn't maintain and pursue certain practices, nor come with expectancy and faith that God will speak in scripture."
I love that.. It's so easy to become caught up in stupid debates about stupid details and forget that the point of it all pursuit of Godly living. Reminds me of 1. Tim. 6:3-5.
In response to your question (and your part 2) I've explored what other word we might use here
Chris, if one MUST use a misleading term like "inerrancy," your two-part post seems to be a helpful way of characterizing it. But I wonder why you think this is an ancient term of the church? I cannot find any use of the term "inerrancy" before the Protestant scholastics of the 17th C. (esp. Turretin) and some of their Catholic counterparts. "Infallible" is much older and their are many other terms (sufficient, certain,authoritative, etc.), but "inerrant" is relatively recent.
Given that, and given the history of the terms abuse that you know so well, why strive to rehabilitate it at all?
I guess that only someone who is inerrant may produce a statement on inerrancy that is not suspect of being erroneous. But wait, if someone is inerrant, it is because someone else inerrantly designed him/her as inerrant, who must have previously been inerrantly confirmed as inerrant if we are to trust him/her completely, but then of course that previous inerrant statement must... er, I mean, whatever.
I come from a faith tradition that affirms that Jesus is the Word of God and Scripture gives witness to the Word, which means that we enter this kind of debate from a quite different perspective. However, I am interested in this bit of the Chicago statement which Chris quotes:
"We affirm that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from all falsehood, fraud, or deceit."
Grammatically, this looks to me like a definition of inerrant, but it's an odd one. I don't think anyone in the Christian tradition would have any difficulty with the notion that the authors of Scripture were not telling lies in a deliberate attempt to trick people, which is what this is saying. Neither, however, would I see "not trying to trick people" as a definition of inerrant, because people can, and do, make mistakes that lead people astray all the time, without any intention of doing so. In fact, this seems to me to be a fairly impressive example of a non sequiter.
A statement that avoids this kind of oddity is definitely worth the effort.
Thanks all for your helpful thoughts.
I wanted to hold on to the inerrancy label as I thiunk I see those who use thgis terminolog trying to do something valuable. Furthermore, I see those who use this also sometimes doing things that are counterproductive - hence my desire to redefine it, and reuse it. I am, of course, defining a doctrine of inerrancy differently to others:
It is fundamentally a high doctrine of scripture which focuses its definition upon the truth of scripture - so I maninatain. And if this is so, my statement is appropriately called a statement about inerrancy.
When Eve was in the garden, she should have taken inerrancy seriously. Eve's failure to accept God's propositional truth as inerrant lead to a pragmatic approach to be like God. A person should be careful not to repeat the sin that began the whole problem with the human race. History is our guide and teacher in this case.
If Eve had argued with God against inerrancy as it applies to propositional truth, and told God she went for the pragmatic approach, God would have turned a deft ear to the argument and still judged the human race.
Truth comes prior to experience and it always has which would include history and science. Inerrancy that includes history and science is really normative and all variants are ones that seek to undermine the authority of Scripture.
The scholars who put together the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy were the brightest minds that the evangelicals have ever had and their wisdom should be heeded.
The post-Kantian evangelicals who are existentially based are really setting the church up for the great apostacy having a low view of Scripture. Evangelicals who want to stress life over truth are attempting to relive the Garden experience all over again which will have devastating consequences for the church in the long run.
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