Biblical Inerrancy: From the Bible, or the Enlightenment?

Aaron Rathburn has an interesting post (dated March 14, 2009) on biblical inerrancy and it's connection to the Enlightenment. Here's a quote from that post:

What if a supremely powerful God wanted to reveal himself with a text? Can we give him the freedom to do it how he wants, and not have to bend to our expectations? I mean, he’s the god, not us—right?

If you are expecting the Bible to be a a propositional-style manual of ethics, then it is wildly and completely errant. But similarly, if you are expecting a science textbook, it is wildly errant. If you are expecting it to be a 21st-century history book, it is wildly errant. But is God capable of using human mistakes for his divine purposes? I would say absolutely.

The Bible is perfect, but it is perfect for God’s will and purposes, according to his standards and expectations—not our preconceived notions of how it “should” be. I can’t help but hear the echo of Paul—who are you, oh man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “why have you made our Bible like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay? (Rom 9)

The Bible is not the 4th-member of the Trinity, and the Bible didn’t climb up on the cross and die for our sins. But it is his text that he has used to reveal himself to us—and we should take it very, very seriously, as the fully inspired, fully divine, authoritative and infallible word of God.

I agree with Aaron that the scriptures are very important but only as they point to Christ. However, I'm more partial to ScottL's comment on Aaron's post:

Unfortunately, I feel that, due to the influence of the Enlightenment, scholars and most Christians alike have now tried to push onto the Bible a 20th/21st century idea of accuracy and inerrancy. ‘Inerrancy’ seems to be a word that has only come about in the last 100+ years.

Therefore, coming to the Gospels, we see contradictory passages where there were either one (Matt 28:2) or two (John 20:12) angels at the tomb of Jesus’ resurrection. Some (more liberal) see this and claim the Bible as ‘inaccurate’. Some (more conservative) see this and therefore think of all sorts of explanations so the Scripture can maintain its status of inerrancy. But I can’t see this being a problem in the days that the Scripture was being recorded. But for us westerners who love our empirically based ‘inerrant’ evidence, it becomes a problem.

The Scripture was first and foremost recorded as the story of God’s redemptive acts, summed up in Jesus Christ. To that, I believe it is completely faithful and that God has communicated faithfully through these human authors, though there might be a handful of places which seem contradictory from the perspective of our day and age, but were of no consequence in the day when the Scripture was being recorded.

I’m glad the Scripture authors weren’t dictated to as their eyes rolled back in their sockets and they foamed at their mouths. I am so glad God delights in the personality, historical and cultural context of those to whom and through whom He communicates.

Both are excellent quotes all the same.

A Synthesis Of Luther And Barth's Trinitarian Metaphors

Jack Kilcrease on Luther and Barth's Trinitarian metaphors:

Barth's metaphors have to do with seeing, Luther's with hearing. This makes sense in light of how they understand divine revelation. Barth views divine revelation as the unfolding of a single subject (God) in an act of revealing himself in time. He does this by echoing his eternal decision to be "one who loves in freedom" in the temporal narrative of Jesus. This temporal narrative is "unveiling" is further echoed in "Jesus, Bible and proclaimed Word" which echoes the Father, Son and Spirit, as "revealed, revealer, revealing." Barth's view of revelation is essentially analogical. Analogy has to do with a kind of visible similitude between things and therefore envisions human knowledge (following Aristotle) as a kind of intellectual vision.

Luther's theology works on the basis of hearing. In other words, God's agency manifests itself through the law which is present and visible through all creation. Human can observe how the world works and see what God's legal will is. They can also see this in the horrific act of judgment that God causes to take place in salvation history. Nevertheless, God promises his grace and enacts under his act of judgment and under act of weakness. The supreme one is the cross. We are told that Jesus is God and that the cross is an act of grace. Nevertheless, all we see is weakness (a weak, beaten and dying Christ) and condemnation (i.e. a symbol of Israel's sin and continuing exile). Contrary to this, we hear "surely he was the Son of God" and "today you will be with me in paradise." Consequently, revelation's hiddenness is transcended only by hearing the Word. Proper knowledge of God is set against analogical and visible knowledge of God, and placed in the realm of hearing.

Interesting stuff---I'd have to say that these two views are easily reconciled as the human experience with God's revelation of God's self has always been both visual and audible. And as we know God's fullest and final self-revelation was in Jesus Christ Himself---who was both seen and heard as the Word of God Himself. The Trinitarian implications of both of these views can be seen in these ways: Jesus Christ as the Word of God actualized, the Bible as the encounter in which we realize that Jesus Christ is the One True and Living Word of God and the Kerygmatic preaching of Jesus Christ the One True and Actual Word of God in which our Divine Election of and by God is revealed. This Election is most fully realized in the Cross and can only point to Jesus' self-sacrificial death upon the Cross. In this sense also the Word of God, God's revelation of God's self in Christ is both seen and heard as God in Christ is both the subject and object of our faith: the whole content and character of the Christian revelation.

Karl Barth also said in Credo: Volume IV of his Church Dogmatics:

It can be asserted and proved with the utmost definiteness and accuracy that the great theological-ecclesiastical catastrophe of which the German Protestantism of the moment is the arena, would have been impossible if the three words Filium eius unicum ["his only Son"] in the properly understood sense of the Nicene trinitarian doctrine had not for more than two hundred years been really lost to the German Church amongst a chaos of reinterpretations designed to make them innocuous. This catastrophe should be a real, final warning to the evangelical Churches, and, especially to the theological faculties of other lands, where, so far as trinitarian dogma is concerned, no better ways are being trodden. Christian faith stands or falls once and for all with the fact that God and God alone is its object. If one rejects the Bibhcal doctrine that Jesus Christ is God’s Son, and indeed God’s only Son, and that therefore the whole revelation of God and all reconciliaion between God and man is contained in Him—and if one then, in spite of that, speaks of ” faith ” in Jesus Christ, then one believes in an intermediate being, and then consequently one is really pursuing metaphysics and has ready secretly lapsed from the Christian faith into a polytheism which will forthwith mature into further fruits in the setting up of a special God-Father faith and a special Creator faith, and in the assertion of special spiritual revelations. The proclamation of this polytheism can most certainly be a brilliant and a pleasant affair, and can win continuous and widespread approbation. But real consolation and real instruction, the Gospel of God and the Law of God, will find a small and ever-diminishing place in this proclamation. (49-50 – emphasis mine)

And with that I close---so what are your thoughts?

Welcome Back Fred!

First, I would like to welcome back my friend Fred H. Anderson to the Blogosphere with his new Blog: Neoorthodoxology. Secondly, I'd highly recommend reading his Lenten post: The Desert Will Blossom. Here is a snippet:

Jesus will have as his center God alone.
What Jesus insists on is remaining in relationship with God.

Thus it is appropriate that Jesus does not answer on his own terms alone.
Jesus refutes the devil each time by quoting scripture.
Jesus answers every temptation by a reminder of his relationship with God.
Jesus answers in terms of that relationship.
The desert forces the question,
but Jesus will not isolate himself from God.

The desert where we sometimes find ourselves forces the same question on us:
Will we be faithful
or will we not?

Of course, the question comes to us in more attractive wrapping than that.

The first temptation is to turn stones into bread:

“If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”

This is to satisfy our hunger at any cost,
to shrink to become nothing more than appetites,
a partial self
living a distorted existence.

Jesus knew that and responded with Deuteronomy 8:3:

"It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone.'"

The second temptation is to replace God with something else.

"Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, 'To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.'”

Jesus knew that was a lie, and he responded:

"It is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'"

You see, what we put at our center,
if it is not God,
can never give us satisfaction,
but leaves us open to disintegration and despair.

The words of the Barmen Declaration show us our center:

Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death

.

Lastly, I'd like to say Amen! At the center of Jesus is God as Jesus is both fully human and fully God and Jesus is the one Word by which we were created by God and by which we were Elected to New and Eternal Life in Him.

Saint Patrick's Christocentric Prayer

Here is an often quoted prayer of Saint Patrick's:

St. Patrick's Breast-Plate

I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of the Invocation of the Trinity:
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
The Creator of the Universe.

I bind to myself today
The virtue of the Incarnation of Christ with His Baptism,
The virtue of His crucifixion with His burial,
The virtue of His Resurrection with His Ascension,
The virtue of His coming on the Judgement Day.

I bind to myself today
The virtue of the love of seraphim,
In the obedience of angels,
In the hope of resurrection unto reward,
In prayers of Patriarchs,
In predictions of Prophets,
In preaching of Apostles,
In faith of Confessors,
In purity of holy Virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.

I bind to myself today
The power of Heaven,
The light of the sun,
The brightness of the moon,
The splendour of fire,
The flashing of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of sea,
The stability of earth,
The compactness of rocks.

I bind to myself today
God's Power to guide me,
God's Might to uphold me,
God's Wisdom to teach me,
God's Eye to watch over me,
God's Ear to hear me,
God's Word to give me speech,
God's Hand to guide me,
God's Way to lie before me,
God's Shield to shelter me,
God's Host to secure me,
Against the snares of demons,
Against the seductions of vices,
Against the lusts of nature,
Against everyone who meditates injury to me,
Whether far or near,
Whether few or with many.

I invoke today all these virtues
Against every hostile merciless power
Which may assail my body and my soul,
Against the incantations of false prophets,
Against the black laws of heathenism,
Against the false laws of heresy,
Against the deceits of idolatry,
Against the spells of women, and smiths, and druids,
Against every knowledge that binds the soul of man.

Christ, protect me today
Against every poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against death-wound,
That I may receive abundant reward.

Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right, Christ at my left,
Christ in the fort,
Christ in the chariot seat,
Christ in the poop [deck],
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of an invocation of the Trinity,
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
The Creator of the Universe.

Saint Patrick makes me proud of my Irish and Christian heritage. Saint Patrick's prayer challenges all Christian believers to follow Christ in all things. If only we put Christ in the center of our lives rather than man, the bible or the church---the world would truly see the Kingdom of God at hand and at work.