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I am not sure what Biblical inerrancy is. Perhaps someone can help me. The occasion of my question is my receipt of a renewal form for the journal Philosophia Christi, an outstanding publication my subscription to which I shall renew.
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During the rise of Christianity there were essentially two schools of thought: one from Alexandria and the other from Antioch. Antiochian scholars held to a literal interpretation of scripture whereas those from Alexandria often interpreted certain passages allegorically. The debate has raged ever since between these two extremes. However, I think you will find it interesting to know that Augustine and Aquinas were certainly against the idea of inerrancy. This is made obvious by reading both of their commentaries on the creation story in Genesis.
As for your critique of Genesis: I do not remember the exact quote and I do not own the text, but Hans Frei (1901 - 1988) once said that, contrary to the ideas of Fundamentalists, the literal meaning of scripture is best understood by comparison to a novelist who says, "I meant what I said no matter if it happened or not." An interpretation of Genesis 1, then, could insist that the author was not attempting to establish a philosophical/theological argument about the creation of the cosmos; instead, he was confronting the idolatry of the tribes around him (ex: "Your God is the Sun? Big deal, my God created the sun! Your God controls the oceans? Big deal, my God created the ocean.). In other words, sometimes the meaning is deeply buried in a story (e.g., the parables of Jesus, the story of Job, Noah’s Ark, etc.).
In short, I do not believe that you would be able to sign the Doctrinal Affirmation. As far as I am aware, all “inerrantists” hold to the view that the earth was created in six literal days, that the flood really did cover the whole world, and that the apparent discrepancies in the historical accounts do not really exist. But you do not have to fret. Aquinas and Augustine would have also had to reject signing such a declaration and they, arguably, built Western Christian Theology.
The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy may help with understanding what the doctrine actually states. My understanding of inerrancy, as an inerrantist, is that the Bible is correct(don't want to use the word in the definition) in all that it teaches. I think this leaves the door open for taking certain passages as something other than the "common sense, straight-forward, literal" meaning. To give an instance of this, when in Joshua 10 it speaks of the sun being stopped does not necessarily give credence to a geo-centric cosmology, but is no more than a statement of a phenomena from a certain point of view, akin to modern speak of sunrise and sunset. Just because someone holds the Bible to be inerrant does not mean that therefore there is no room for metaphor, apocalyptic imagery, and similar literary devices; and, in the other direction, just because said devices are in the text does not mean that nothing actually happened in our spatio-temporal world.
In response to your take on Genesis 1, I would say(as one unschooled in Hebrew) that the "light" in verse 2 is a general term that does not have to make mention of light from a specific source, e.g. sun, etc. I'm not quite sure what exactly is going on in verse 3, but I am thinking that when he is speaking of light as a metaphor for His presence within Creation(see verse 2 and perhaps John 1), of the connection of comprehending him within the Creation. I know this seems to not work with the immediate verse, but I think there is enough there to say that Genesis 1 does not have to consist in just the straight-forward meaning of the text. There can be much deeper things going on simultaneously.
As for time, most would say that Time is created at the "time"(for lack of a better term) of verse 1, so it would come along with the creation of the heavens and the earth. This would make sense to me since if God created something, then there was a point where he wasn't, so it seems to presuppose time. So time is in the middle of chapter 1, though implicitly.
Inerrantists, at least those belonging to the EPS, do not all feel obligated to the six literal day Creation. J.P. Moreland has made explicit statements that indicate he does not believe in six twenty four hour periods of Creation. Also William Craig's work, though I cannot right now find anything definitive, seems to presuppose an old age of the universe and earth.
It seems as though the first link to the CBI statement didn't work.
Also, for what it's worth, I found an interview by Anglican Bishop N.T. Wright here). Though he is not an inerrantist, I basically agree with what he says on the issue:
you wrote, "the Bible cannot be literally true in its entirety" (my italics). I agree. Still, the Bible can be true in its entirety. I mean, maybe it holds that: if a part of the Bible-text expresses a proposition, then the proposition is true. This does not entail that all parts of the Bible-text expressing a proposition are literally true.
I strongly recommend this short paper by the jesuit W. Most, defending inerrancy of the Bible. I would be interested in your opinion (and in the opinion of other disputants). (Most also has a book on this issue, which I haven't read yet.)
Of course, I should rather say that maybe it holds that: if a part of the Bible-text expresses a proposition asserted by the (human) author (or by the Author, i. e., God), then the proposition is true. This does not entail that all parts of the Bible-text expressing an asserted proposition are literally true.
Not all propositions expressed by the Bible are asserted by the Bible. E.g., the proposition there is no God.
It's not difficult to quibble with your Genesis example to show that the meaning can be literal. But a good bit of the content of 'literal' has to do with considering the possible meanings of terms in context, and also avoiding anachronism when interpreting the text. Furthermore, 'inerrancy' can convey the notion of precision, which may be misleading, so some theologians are avoiding the term. For a statement on inerrancy, I'd point you to the Chicago document as well.
Take care,
Steve
Vlastimil is right in pointing out that this really turns on the illocutional force of Scripture (note the use of "affirms," "requires," and "promises" in the CBI, all illocutional acts). Both Catholics and Evangelicals think that the "literal sense" of Scripture is true in terms of what is literally being asserted by the passage (from the Catechism of the Catholic Church 116: The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal."), but that doesn't mean to exclude metaphors being asserted as such or inaccurate, fictional, or parabolic descriptions being given for some purpose.
The problem is the ambiguity that Vlastimil notes: does inerrancy apply to what God asserts or to what the human author asserts? The Evangelical statement appears to require the two to be identical with "in its entirety, the Word of God written and therfore inerrant in the original autographs." I would certainly be hesitant about making that identification, particularly if this is to imply that ONLY the meaning the author intended is inspired. Both Augustine and Aquinas rejected that understanding, affirming that there could be multiple inspired meanings in a passage and that philosophical, moral, or theological intractability were an adequate basis for treating a passage allegorically, even in the absence of evidence the author intended to do so (in the vein of "he couldn't possibly have meant that, so he didn't").
Of course, I personally wouldn't sign onto the thing unless they explained to me what they mean by "each an uncreated person," since it could be construed to deny that the Son has a created nature. Sounds a bit too close to Nestorianism (there is a divine person named the Son and a human person named Jesus, and these are united but not identical).
Thanks for your excellent comment which confirms what I suspected. You write, "Inerrancy is essentially the doctrine that the Bible is truthful in all matters of faith, science, history, etc." It seems to me that if this is what is meant by inerrancy, then no reasonable and informed person of the present time can accept it.
You mentioned Augustine. The point I made about time was made by Augustine somewhere if memory serves. Augustine and Aquinas would have to be against inerrancy (as you explain it) since they were great philosophers.
I agree with you: the meaning is buried deep and has to be dug out, and that requires the use of reason. And one mark of a reasonable person is the ability to distinguish between the literal and the figurative.
I like your last paragraph. But now I am deeply puzzled: how could anyone, let alone the very bright people in the EPS, subscribe to inerrancy as you explain it? They must mean something different. Or?
Thanks for the Fr. Most reference. He writes:
This supports my point of view. If the first 11 chapters are myth, story, allegory, something to be taken figuratively rather than literally, then I have no problem. The message is: the physical universe ("heaven and earth") is not ontologically ultimate but derives its existence from a transcendent source of a purely spiritual nature. Taken in this way, there is no conflict with physical science. But taken in the way the inerrantist wants to take it, there is a conflict. Obviously, the physical universe did not come into existence in six days, Eve was not made out of a rib of Adam, Adam was not made out of dust, spirit is not wind, etc.
"Not all propositions expressed by the Bible are asserted by the Bible. E.g., the proposition there is no God."
I would put it this way. Not all of the sentences found in the Bible express propositions asserted by the authors as true, or intended by God as true. After all, it was the Fool who said in his heart, "There is no God."
Does the Bible express even one proposition? The Bible is just a bunch of sentences. God expresses himself through the Bible. But not directly since he needed these various scribes to write things down. And I would suggest that the signal-to-noise ratio is not favorable.
But how could it be literally true that the physical universe came into existence in six days? We know that it didn't.
It seems to me that the EPS statement is sufficiently vague to permit a few different readings.
The strongest is what's known, I think, as verbal plenary inspiration (VPI). This is the view that each and every word used in the Biblical originals is exactly the word that God wanted used. Hence, since God is infallible, the Bible is inerrant. (VPI is the position of the Chicago Statement.)
A weaker, and I think more defensible view, may be called didactic plenary inspiration (DPI). This is the view that whatever the Biblical originals were intended to teach is inerrant. It is not necessary that the particular words of the Bible be chosen by God so long as the particular message that God wants to convey gets across. (VPI entails DPI, but not vice-versa.) If one accepts this view, then the question to be asked with respect to a Biblical text is "what was it intended to teach?" Is Genesis 1, for example, intended to teach that the world was created in six 24-hour days? Or is it, perhaps, a kind of literary framework intended to teach the absolute superiority of Yahweh over all other gods? Or perhaps its purpose isn't primarily didactic at all, but something primarily evocative like poetry?
My point is that since the EPS inerrancy statement does not specify the primary locus of inerrancy (whether the words, the teachings, or something else) it permits a flexible range of approaches to Biblical interpretation.
Mr. Lovvorn made a distinction between inerrancy and infallibility, where the latter has to do only with matters pertaining to salvation. That strikes me as an essential distinction.
You seem to be quoting the RC catechism: "The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis . . ." So would you agree to the following:
Since the physical universe could not have come into existence in six days, the literal sense of the claim that it did is that it is a contingent being sustained in existence by God?
There is much to discuss here, but I am out of time. Thanks for the comment.
Thanks for the comments. Perhaps I can respond later.
Actually, one would simply assert that it is not what is being claimed, that a factual claim is not the illocutional act intended by the speaker by writing this text. It's a rather bizarre and counter-intuitive use of the term "literal," but it is ordinarily what is meant by both Catholics (see "1. The Literal Sense") and conservative Evangelicals when speaking of "the literal sense." It identifies the literal meaning with the illocutional acts (e.g., asserting, commanding, promising) embodied in the text. "Inerrancy" is similarly defined with regard to the illocutional acts of the author (if he intends to assert the truth of a proposition, then the proposition he asserts is true; if he intends to command, then the command is right; if he intends to promise, the promise is reliable; etc.).
You still might have a problem, though. "The Bible in its entirety" likely implies "every illocutional act embodied in the Bible," which might be a proposition you find disagreeable, for example, if you think inerrancy only applies to those illocutional acts pertaining to salvation. It would be fair to say that if you cannot affirm the statement that every illocutional act performed by the authors of Scripture in writing the text is inerrant, then you probably ought not sign the statement.
I hate to open this can of worms myself (so I won't), but you could certainly analyze this issue with regard to your views on intentionality, as "inerrancy" presumes an intentional meaning that cannot err.
This quote shows an obvious commitment to the traditional doctrine of inerrancy that I described in my earlier post. This quote is pretty much a summarization of the ideas of Charles Hodge, Dwight L. Moody, and those views expressed in the many articles featured in the Fundamentals (1910-1915).
In short, I have to disagree with Jonathan Prejean and his understanding of inerrancy. The famous evangelical historian Mark Noll, who just recently left Wheaton for Notre Dame, has explicitly attacked the doctrine of inerrancy, creation science, and fundamentalism (see his Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, America’s God, or Between Faith and Criticism). In doing so he has placed himself in direct opposition to the Chicago Statement and has even been ostracized by many popular evangelical groups for doing so.
In response to my previous post, Dr. Vallicella replied, “I like your last paragraph. But now I am deeply puzzled: how could anyone, let alone the very bright people in the EPS, subscribe to inerrancy as you explain it? They must mean something different. Or?”
I can honestly not understand how they would consider themselves “inerrantists” if they hold to the view the way I defined it. I was not attempting to define their positions but merely to provide the traditional understanding of the word. I believe that Philosophia Christi was one of the first to publish articles on Intelligent Design – a belief explicitly condemned by many that hold to inerrancy. Maybe you could write to them and ask them to explain their own wording? If you do so, I would like to hear of the outcome. It is possible that, as philosophers, they have misunderstood the two doctrines, but I find this to be very unlikely. One thing is for sure, if they do truly hold to the doctrine of inerrancy it is very different than the traditional doctrine and the one outlined in the Chicago Statement.
Just trying to put the best spin I can on it. Perhaps they are glossing the Chicago Statement in terms of intentional content as well, particularly in terms of what counts as "falsehood, fraud, or deceit," "assertions in the fields of history and science," and "the teaching of Scripture on creation and the flood." Of course, you could be right; perhaps they are fundamentalists/literalists.
The modern cosmology assumes that the Bible is errant. Our best theories today, will seem hopelessly naive 5000 years from now. If you accept the Bible as the Word of God, six literal days is perfectly reasonable, though perhaps not well understood. A sufficiently advanced technology appears to me magic. God certainly would be capable of supremely advanced technology far beyond our capability to comprehend.
I think you'll see how this side-steps most of your problems.
Suppose that we were at a big party hosted by me, and I told you a story about how I had to go to the supermarket six days in a row to buy all the sodas. On the first day, I bought Pepsi, on the second day, I bought Dr. Pepper, etc. Later you found out that I didn't go to the store six days in a row, I just had it all delivered.
Would you be mollified if I told you that illocutionary force of my story was just that I bought all of the sodas? I doubt it. You might be confused about why I lied about it, but you would consider it a lie. I can't be innerant if I lie.
This is simply not to the point. The modern cosmology assumes that the universe, as a vast physical system obeying fairly well-understood physical laws, tells its own physical story. If one had never heard of the Bible, and looked to usual scientific methods to determine things like the age of the Earth, one would never come to the conclusion that the whole thing was put there suddenly less than 10,000 years ago. Rather, one would come to precisely the conclusion that science in fact has. It's just a simple as that. So the question becomes, does the Bible really give "teaching" on scientific matters? Prior to concerns about preserving "inerrancy," to say that it does give such "teaching" on "scientific" matters can only be a grotesque anachronism. And never mind that, what comes of thinking that God specifically wants to spoon-feed us facts of natural history that are intrinsically totally irrelevant to our salvation, like the age of the Earth? The whole line of thinking is just ludicrous.
When the Chicago Statement says "We further deny that scientific hypotheses about earth history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture on creation and the flood," I at first feel the need to demur, but then realize that I can actually accede to the letter of the Statement in this matter: for I do not hold that the Bible teaches specific physical facts (although in matters of human history as such, it is reliable) that are discoverable by science, even if the authors of the original documents doubtless believed or had in mind events according to the traditional "young Earth," "global flood," etc., picture of things.
Ad Dave Gudeman: the crucial disanalogy in your example is that you would have had no reason whatsoever to tell your friend other than the exact physical facts involved. If the story of biological evolution of life on Earth is true (and let us at least not presume at the outset that God could not have created life on Earth evolutionarily), what would one, on that basis, expect Genesis to say about the creation of life on Earth? In giving us the story of the first few chapters of Genesis, God is imparting the most essential theological knowledge on the matter in a way that will be most accessible to the vast majority of people who have ever lived. And naturally, this is done in such a way as to not require any understanding of biology, as such, whatsoever. And here I must leave off and quote Peter van Inwagen in one of my favorite essays, "Genesis and Evolution" (I wish, how I dearly wish, it was available on the web in full to point people to.)—And finally, this classically Inwagenian down-to-earth sum-up, to directly address Dave's implicit "Why would He lie?" question: What does someone who takes Genesis 1 as "literally" as possible come to believe?
you wrote:
Ok, but note that Vatican II wrote, in On Revelation, §11 (my italics):
(See the paper by W. Most to which I link above.)
But your claim and the Vatican II-claim are consistent. It can be true both that: 1. all that is asserted by the human autohor is asserted by the Holy Spirit, and 2. there is something asserted by the Holy Spirit that is not intentionally asserted by the human author.
you say,
I would say that the necessary condition of interpreting the Bible correctly is interaction with a proper interpretive community; and that the degree of usefulness of the Bible is different from person to person. Maybe a saint - when reading the Bible - can dig out more than a common believer. And maybe what is asserted by the first 11 chapters of Genesis is not only this: God made all things - in some special way (note the broad way of speaking) He made the fist human pair - He gave them some command - we do not know if it was about a fruit tree - whatever it was, they violated His orders and fell from favor or grace. These are (only) the chief things, as W. Most notes. And even if this is the only asserted message there, it is not clear that it would be better to communicate it other way, e.g., literally - as a short list of the above claims. This could be terrible pedagogy.
What concerned me was the transformation from
all that is asserted by the human author should be considered as asserted by the Holy Spirit
to
only what is asserted by the human author should be considered as asserted by the Holy Spirit
"Asserted by the Holy Spirit" is in principle a broader category than "asserted by the human author." This is a well-recognized case among numerous patristic sources.
The other gap I can see is in the purpose for which something is asserted (or some other illocutional act is made). The Holy Spirit's purpose in asserting something might not be identical even if the Holy Spirit is asserting the same thing. There may not be an actual case in which this condition obtains, so regarding this possibility, I am merely cautious.
"Micah, OK, that's pretty convincing. Still, it bothers me that there are apparently things said falsly that could just as well have been said truly."
Are metaphors false? Man takes many words to say one thing God says many things with one Word, or in the case of the Bible a few words.
I think VV's point is important " 1. all that is asserted by the human autohor is asserted by the Holy Spirit, and 2. there is something asserted by the Holy Spirit that is not intentionally asserted by the human author."
Gensis is not simply about the periods of creation at the time of the beginning, it is also about the periods of creation as they are and will be played out in human history. Why did God decide to record certain events about Israel's history and not others? Because those parts of Israel's history forshadow Christ or the life of the Church or the path of salvation as it works itself out in an individual's life.
This in no way denies the literal truth of the Bible. Just as Jesus is both human and divine, so His-story itself, understood properly, is both a working out of and a revelation of the divine plan. (Just for the record I am not a literal 6-day creationist, I think that this part of Genesis was intended as a teaching story, a parable, not history or science)
Bill had an earlier set of posts discussing representation and resemblence and that at some level resemblence is necessary but not sufficient for representation. The Bible as I understand it represents God, but it takes skill and spiritual wisdom to understand the resemblences correctly, thus learning to make the right connections. It is like learning to read a map. You have to know what all the symbols mean and how scale works etc. Once you do then the map represents the territory.
I couldn’t resist adding this quote from Brain McLaren “Why did Jesus speak in parables? Why was He subtle, indirect and secretive? Because his message wasn’t aimed at conveying information. It sought to precipitate something more important: the spiritual transformation of the hearers. The form of the parable helps to shape a heart that is willing to enter an ongoing, interactive, persistent relationship of trust in the teacher. …It helps form a heart that is humble enough to admit it doesn’t already understand and is thirsty enough to ask questions. In other words, a parable renders its hearers not as experts, not as know-it-alls, not as scholars…but as children…Children are dependent, not independent. They can’t learn unless they ask questions of people they trust. Their thirst for knowledge expresses itself in unquenchable curiosity, a passionate inquisitiveness.”
What Brian says here about parables is true of all of scripture. The challenge is do we dare trust that the Teacher will really speak to us, or will we only trust other teachers such as the RC or our own reason or a cadre of theologians? Not that other teachers aren’t helpful, but we will never get hold of the message through them, only commentary on the message. Jesus, Himself, is the message. At some point we have to let go of the hands that hold us and step out trusting in the Hand we cannot see.
It's at least worth pointing out that there are established schools of interpretation according to which the story of the creation is true and is not about something that transpired in 144 hours. The Hebrew word yom is used, even in Genesis, to mean simply "period of time." There's a huge literature about whether yom with an ordinal must be taken to mean 24 hours or not. My impression from dipping into this literature is that, on the sheer verbal point about yom, it's hard to say anything definitive. So if you're looking for an example that makes inerrancy untenable, maybe this isn't the best one to use.
Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience; . . . Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know. ~ James Barr Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University in England
Yes, I'm familiar with this quotation from Barr's 1984 letter. I'm not sure I see the point of Barr's reference to world-class universities, but there certainly are and have been world-class Hebrew scholars and world-class theologians who take a different reading of Genesis 1 seriously. These include Gleason Archer, Charles Hodge, Walter Kaiser Jr., B. B. Warfield, Bruce Waltke, and Gordon Wenham.
Note that Barr himself goes on to say:
This does seem to undermine the use often made of Barr's comment, since he seems to be acknowledging that it is not so much expertise in the language as judgment regarding the genre that determines one's interpretation.
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