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Author Topic:   Bible Inerrancy stands against all objections
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 1 of 3 (841837)
10-22-2018 5:28 PM


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.
dwise1 writes:
Creationists keep claiming that the Bible does not contain any error and that if even a single error were to be found in the Bible, then the entire Bible is in error and completely false and it must be thrown into the dustbin (Br for "garbage can").
Furthermore, they claim that if the Bible is not true then God does not exist (or alternatively that God is a Liar and must not be worshipped). Either way, they are taught that they must abandon their faith and become atheists (not real atheists, but rather the perverted Christian version).
Additionally, they have made many false claims about the real world and have assigned those false claims the same inerrancy status as they have the Bible. Therefore, if they false claims about the real world are shown to be false, then that disproves the Bible which in turn disproves God.
Obviously, the Bible is not completely devoid of errors. And obviously their false claims about the real world are false. They have booby-trapped their faith and then stumbled into their own traps.
Or to put it into the terms that GDR offers, they are putting words into God's mouth, words that God never said and never would say.
I do not believe any of that. I have a much more realistic understanding of the Bible. It obviously contains errors, but that has no bearing whatsoever on whether the rest of it is in error. That also had no bearing whatsoever on whether God exists or not. And false claims about the real world are just plain false and should not be used. Making one's faith dependent on those false claims about the real world can only result in driving everybody away from that false creationist theology.
Creationists must examine what they believe in order to weed out false beliefs such as "creation science".
Actual creationists (as opposed to faux creationists like creation) believe that God created that universe. Science studies how the universe works. Creationists claim that explanations using natural processes for how something works denies God, whereas actual creationists believe that God created those natural processes, including evolutionary processes. There is no conflict between divine Creation and science, including evolution.
The only thing that causes any conflict with science is when creationists inject their false theology and false claims.
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:
Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrany writes:
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.
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.

Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 2 of 3 (841838)
10-22-2018 5:37 PM


to GDR: Word of God is both Christ and Scripture
GDR to creation writes:
You keep trying to have the Bible say something that wasn't intended when it was written and isn't intended now.
Biblical inerrancy was intended then and now. I'm including a link below to a document on the subject.
It draws you and others away from what God is really trying to tell us.
Not so. Creation is simply affirming what all Christians affirm, that God is right and any claims to the contrary don't matter.
Let science do the job it does very well and learn from it. It tells us how things are and how it got to be that way. Let us use our Christianity to tell us why things are the way they are.
Science is wonderful and does not contradict the Bible. Evolution is false science.
When you look at evolutionary theory you should look at it with amazement that God could bring about a process that allowed you and all the other myriad of living creatures to evolve.
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.
Science has given us healthier longer and fuller lives. Why don't you just be grateful to God for what it has accomplished instead of treating it like an enemy.
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:
Chicago Statement writes:
Jesus Christ, the Son of God who is the Word made flesh, our Prophet, Priest, and King, is the ultimate Mediator of God's communication to man, as He is of all God's gifts of grace. The revelation He gave was more than verbal; He revealed the Father by His presence and His deeds as well. Yet His words were crucially important; for He was God, He spoke from the Father, and His words will judge all men at the last day.
As the prophesied Messiah, Jesus Christ is the central theme of Scripture. The Old Testament looked ahead to Him; the New Testament looks back to His first coming and on to His second. Canonical Scripture is the divinely inspired and therefore normative witness to Christ. No hermeneutic, therefore, of which the historical Christ is not the focal point is acceptable. Holy Scripture must be treated as what it essentially isthe witness of the Father to the Incarnate Son.
It appears that the Old Testament canon had been fixed by the time of Jesus. The New Testament canon is likewise now closed inasmuch as no new apostolic witness to the historical Christ can now be borne. No new revelation (as distinct from Spirit-given understanding of existing revelation) will be given until Christ comes again. The canon was created in principle by divine inspiration. The Church's part was to discern the canon which God had created, not to devise one of its own.
The word canon, signifying a rule or standard, is a pointer to authority, which means the right to rule and control. Authority in Christianity belongs to God in His revelation, which means, on the one hand, Jesus Christ, the living Word, and, on the other hand, Holy Scripture, the written Word. But the authority of Christ and that of Scripture are one. As our Prophet, Christ testified that Scripture cannot be broken. As our Priest and King, He devoted His earthly life to fulfilling the law and the prophets, even dying in obedience to the words of Messianic prophecy. Thus, as He saw Scripture attesting Him and His authority, so by His own submission to Scripture He attested its authority. As He bowed to His Father's instruction given in His Bible (our Old Testament), so He requires His disciples to donot, however, in isolation but in conjunction with the apostolic witness to Himself which He undertook to inspire by His gift of the Holy Spirit. So Christians show themselves faithful servants of their Lord by bowing to the divine instruction given in the prophetic and apostolic writings which together make up our Bible.
By authenticating each other's authority, Christ and Scripture coalesce into a single fount of authority. The Biblically-interpreted Christ and the Christ-centered, Christ-proclaiming Bible are from this standpoint one. As from the fact of inspiration we infer that what Scripture says, God says, so from the revealed relation between Jesus Christ and Scripture we may equally declare that what Scripture says, Christ says.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Message 3 of 3 (841844)
10-22-2018 6:29 PM


Thread Copied to The Bible: Accuracy and Inerrancy Forum
Thread copied to the Bible Inerrancy stands against all objections thread in the The Bible: Accuracy and Inerrancy forum, this copy of the thread has been closed.

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