Bible Inerrancy stands against all objections

This came up on RAZD's thread about age correlations, starting at Message 876 both GDR and dwise commenting that creationists wrongly insist that the Bible is inerrant. It's off topic there so if anyone has more to say on the subject it does need a new thread, although I don't think there's much to discuss about it, just inerrantists saying we hold to it no matter what and anti-inerrantists saying science won't let us.In any case here's my answer to dwise and I'll post my answer to GDR in the next post. Bible inerrancy is a principle that goes back to the earliest times, it isn't a recent idea concocted in response to evolutionary theory as some seem to think. There was no conflict with science until the pseudosciences of the Theory of Evolution and the Old Earth came along. (Galileo was opposed by the Roman Church's adherence to Aristotle, not the Bible). There is nothing false about our theology, the problem is that these are pseudosciences and they create the conflict.Here is a pretty thorough declaration of Bible inerrancy: Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy with Exposition:It doesn't get into issues of creation science beyond making the general statement that the Bible is correct wherever it touches on such matters. This is stated in Article XII: In other words it denies the criteria used by science to argue against the Bible. Where issues remain unresolved it exhorts believers to affirm the truth of the Bible on the expectation that eventually it will be shown that the supposed contradiction is an illusion.This is our foundation. Any of our particular attempts to answer scientific claims may be wrong, but the Bible remains the foundation and the truth we are always striving for.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Biblical inerrancy was intended then and now. I'm including a link below to a document on the subject. Not so. Creation is simply affirming what all Christians affirm, that God is right and any claims to the contrary don't matter. Science is wonderful and does not contradict the Bible. Evolution is false science. God created creatures to "evolve" -- vary in wonderful ways -- only within their Kind, but not from one Kind or Species to another. This is very clear from the Bible for those who know the Bible is God's inerrant word. I haven't read all of creation's posts but I doubt he is saying anything at all against science as such since Christians strongly affirm true science, True science is a gift from God and it HAS given us longer and healthier lives, but evolutionary theory has given us absolutely nothing of use. Zip, nada.And here's the link to this document I also just posted to dwise: Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy with Exposition .Besides noting what I posted to dwise, I'd particularly like you to be aware of the section titled Authority: Christ and the Bible because you are always asserting that Christ is the Word but the Bible is not: Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Thread copied here from the Bible Inerrancy stands against all objections thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

Here's the actual condemnation of Galileo.Note how it says "The proposition that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture", and "the said opinion [...] can in no wise be probable which has been declared and defined to be contrary to divine Scripture" and "it is declared that the doctrine of the motion of the Earth and the stability of the Sun is contrary to the Holy Scriptures and therefore cannot be defended or held" and so on.Note also that they never mention Aristotle.Note also that in 1536 Petrus Ramus successfully defended his doctoral thesis that "Quaecumque ab Aristotle dicta essent, commentitia esse" ("Everything Aristotle said was wrong.") without the Roman Catholic Church so much as batting an eyelid.

Here is a quote of Augustine of Hippo from "The Literal Meaning of Genesis" which predates Darwin by over a thousand years. Inerrancy was not intended then or now.

quote:

---

Often, a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other parts of the world, about the motions and orbits of the stars and even their sizes and distances, and this knowledge he holds with certainty from reason and experience. It is thus offensive and disgraceful for an unbeliever to hear a Christian talk nonsense about such things, claiming that what he is saying is based in Scripture. We should do all we can to avoid such an embarrassing situation, which people see as ignorance in the Christian and laugh to scorn.

​

The shame is not so much that an ignorant person is laughed at, but rather that people outside the faith believe that we hold such opinions, and thus our teachings are rejected as ignorant and unlearned. If they find a Christian mistaken in a subject that they know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions as based on our teachings, how are they going to believe these teachings in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think these teachings are filled with fallacies about facts which they have learnt from experience and reason.

​

Reckless and presumptuous expounders of Scripture bring about much harm when they are caught in their mischievous false opinions by those not bound by our sacred texts. And even more so when they then try to defend their rash and obviously untrue statements by quoting a shower of words from Scripture and even recite from memory passages which they think will support their case ‘without understanding either what they are saying or what they assert with such assurance.’

---

Science cannot contradict the Bible as they are answering different questions. I disagree that evolution is false science, but even if it is, that still does not mean the your understanding of how to read the Bible is correct.Just a couple of thoughts. When you read the Sermon on the Mount it is clear that Jesus corrects as erroneous parts of the OT. On divorce He even goes so far as to say that it came from Moses, not from God.Also in all 3 synoptic Gospels it tells about how the Pharisees claimed that the miracles of Jesus were done through evil powers. Jesus goes on to say that ascribing that which is good to evil blasphemes the Holy Spirit.You are doing essentially the same thing. You are calling evil, (genocide and public stoning etc), good by your heretical understanding of Scripture.Incidentally in the first post you talked about me not calling the Bible the word of God. I believe that the Bible is a library of books that God uses to speak to us. However I would call it the word of God while Jesus is the "Word of God". John tells us that the logos existed from time immemorial and became flesh. He didn't say that it became a book. It's in the Bible.

I gather there was some bad biblical theology that was used against Galileo also, but even Wikipedia lays the problem on the Church's adherence to Aristotle and Ptolemy: Some passages in the Bible are mentioned as contradicted by Galileo's theory also, but in the end this view changed, at least in Protestant circles I believe. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

But you're putting the cart before the horse here. Sure, they backed the geocentric cosmology of Ptolemy rather than the heliocentric cosmology of Aristarchus of Samos but that wasn't because they had a big crush on Ptolemy or because they did eeny-meeny-miney-mo but because they thought that Ptolemy's teaching fit with Scripture and Aristarchus's didn't.

Augustine was all over the place on some subjects. He's great on salvation by faith but not so great on science. Not according to the statement I linked which clearly says the Bible is to be held as inerrant on matters of history and science as well as spiritual matters. I'm going with the statement on inerrancy which declares that the Bible is true on every subject it addresses, which includes some statements that have implications for today's sciences. I think it's pretty clear that there is no contradiction with all the sciences which as you say have made our lives better in many ways, and which we should thank God for; which leaves the Old Earth and Evolutionary Theory as the only sources of conflict, and again, sources of nothing in the slightest bit useful to us. These are the historical sciences that can't be proved as the hard sciences can be, because they reach back to events that can't be verified in themselves. It all remains theory or conjecture as a result. Wherever there are some claims that do appear to contradict the Bible, such as the tree rings, as the Statement on Inerrancy says, we trust that they will eventually be explained in accordance with the scripture. Not according to my theology. He reveals their spiritual meaning whereas the Jews understood them to refer only to outward behavior. So Jesus said the commandment against adultery isn't just against the outward act, but is also violated by inner thoughts of lust; that the commandment against murder isn't just against the outward act but is also violated by inner thoughts of hatred toward anybody. In other words He showed their true breadth, he didn't contradict them. No He doesn't. He says Moses was lenient about divorce, allowing it because of the hardness of the men's hearts, though in reality God hates divorce and opposes it in all cases. In this case as in the above two cases discussed, Jesus could be said to show that the true commandment is stricter than the Jews take it to be. Except that it is Scripture itself which ascribes those events as God's acts of justice. Stoning to death was the way the death penalty was executed in those days. So what is heretical is your insistence that the Scripture is wrong and that those acts are evil. You are the one calling good evil and evil good, not I. Well, read what I quoted. It says that there is a reciprocity between the written Word and Christ as the Word of God, that ultimately they are one, validating each other.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Then the argument would have to be that they were wrong. But I keep encountering descriptions of Romanism's adherence to Aristotle in particular, even a former priest who says that's all he was taught, just Aristotle, not the Bible. However, there do seem to be some confusions involved in all this.

Well, you know, I showed you the document. There's eleven mentions of Holy Scripture in there and none of Aristotle and Ptolemy. You might say that they were misinterpreting scripture, you might even say that the plausibility of the Ptolemaic model made it easier to do so. But they thought they were defending Scripture and not Ptolemy just as when you talk flood geology you think that you're defending the Bible rather than Henry Morris.

The Chicago Statement was written in 1978. To call it evidence of the intent of the actual authors of the Bible is nonsense. As indeed is the idea that inerrant was intended from the beginning. It is nothing more than a statement of belief from a selection of 20th Century church leaders whose churches represented only a fraction of the Christian population.If your ideas about the writing of the Bible were correct Jeremiah would have to know that he was contradicting Deuteronomy. (Deuteronomy itself was almost certainly written later, so he may not have)The author of Luke surely knew that his version of the Oliver Discourse differed from that found in Mark (there are significant disagreements between Luke/Acts and Matthew but nobody knows if the author of Luke knew of Matthew). Though we can surely say that the author of Luke would not have regarded MatthewBiblical Inerrancy is a false dogma. In the minds who cling to it, it may stand against all challenges - even the truth. But that is all. A falsehood remains false no matter how many people insist on believing it even after it is shown to be false.

quote:

---

Not according to my theology.
  —Faith

---

Alternate theology=alternate facts?

According to the title of your topic, Bible inerrancy stands against all objections. But what does it stand on? A statement? People can write whatever they want.I could, for the sake of the discussion, grant you that all the biblical claims that go against science are right. For example the entire universe being around 6,000 years old, the global flood or Jesus's resurrection. But even then, you have the immense task of addressing every single of the many contradictions in the Bible. For example you have two stories of Paul's conversion; one where the people that were with him saw the light but couldn't hear anything, and the other where they did hear voices but couldn't see anything. In the best case scenario, only one can be correct because they are mutually contradictory. This already shows that at least one single statement in the Bible is incorrect. But is worse; we know the Bible is full of such examples. I don't see how could that ever happen, but maybe the time to believe such biblical claims is when they are satisfactorily explained, not when we only have some statement saying that the Bible is free from error.

Scripture isn't geocentric. It doesn't say anything clear about such things at all. Most of my arguments are based on my own completely original observations of geological information, in most cases without referring at all to the Bible or Morris or anything except the physical information.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The Statement of Biblical Inerrancy is aimed at capturing the biblical understanding of believers back to the beginning. As I've said, it's foundational, everything else follows from it. God inspired it, therefore it is inerrant.The usual resolution of the incident you mention has to do with "hearing" meaning "understanding" and when it says they saw no man nothing contradicts that since in the other cases all they saw was light, not a person.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.