Bob Thune 2004-03-10
From Summa Bergania
From : Bob Thune, Jr
Sent : Wednesday, March 10, 2004 10:30 AM
To : David Bergan
Subject : Re: Status of the Bible
Hey David,
Excellent question, thanks for writing and asking! And be sure to vote for my uncle John in the November Senate election, okay? Our family is counting on you. ;)
Let me give you a preliminary response, and you can let me know if it goes deep enough. Since you are a CS Lewis fan, I'm sure you are capable of sustained intellectual musings! So you may have further reflections on this issue after this email. I'm willing to take the rabbit hole as deep as you want it to go, so let's keep the dialogue alive.
First, let's define our terms:
inspiration = God's divine work to reveal His truth through the agency of human writers
infallible/inerrant = without error
The second terms derive from the first, as you note in your email: because we believe Scripture is inspired by God, therefore we hold it to be without error.
The bottom line of why we believe this is that Scripture itself asserts it. Check out these verses: 2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:21; 1 Corinthians 14:37; 2 Peter 3:14-18.
Furthermore, consider the fact that Jesus and the apostles often quoted from the OT Scriptures in ways which asserted their complete authority. (See especially Jesus' words in Matthew 22:41-46, and Paul's argument in Galatians 3:16-17, both of which make arguments based on the grammatical accuracy of OT Scriptures).
It should be noted that historic Christian theology holds only the original copies of the Scriptures (now lost to us) to be completely inerrant. The copies and manuscripts that we have are not considered inerrant, but rather "accurate." This accounts for the fact that human errors are made in translation, but also for the fact that we have so many manuscripts (over 5,000 copies of early NT manuscripts) that we can establish the original text with incredible certainty. There are many examples of this and sources on it if you want to go deeper into it.
Finally, a practical consideration: what should be our final authority in matters of faith and practice? There are only 3 options:
1) Church Tradition and Hierarchy, which is the Roman Catholic source of authority (therefore they elevate tradition to an equal status with the Bible)
2) The Scripture itself, which is the traditional Protestant view going back to the Reformation
3) My own interpretation of Scripture, which only leads to disunity and confusion. If we only look to the Bible for "inspirational content," as you say, but not for authoritative truth, then each person is left to themselves to decide which parts of the Bible they will believe and which ones they won't. There is no objective basis for moral or theological judgments... which is a popular point of view in a postmodern world, but can't actually be lived out consistently.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, but I hope it takes a stab at answering your questions. take a look at the Scriptures I mentioned and drop me a line back. And thanks for taking the time to ask!
In His Grip,
Bob
