Bob Thune 2004-03-10 2
From Summa Bergania
From : David Bergan
Sent : Wednesday, March 10, 2004 6:15 PM
To : Bob Thune, Jr
Subject : Re: Status of the Bible
Hi again Pastor Bob,
Thanks for your quick reply! I am both a major fan of CS Lewis and also of your uncle. Last summer when Tom Daschle was starting his re-election campaign I had a chance to speak with him for about 20 minutes... through which he obliterated any hope of getting my vote. Ever. I cannot imagine that he has been so successful in politics when he can shamelessly tell people that he doesn't believe that there is any such thing as absolute truth. Then again, maybe that is why he has been so successful in politics... But that's another story for another email.
Anyway, the issue at hand. Please correct me if I misunderstood any of your statements.
Part 1) Bible verses.
I have a hard time accepting the principle of Biblical inspiration/inerrancy based on Bible verses for three reasons:
1) The main verse seems to be 2 Timothy 3:16. Do you think that when Paul wrote his second letter to his friend Timothy that he meant to say that this letter itself was part of the Scripture that was God-breathed? I think the context pretty clearly implies that he was referring to Old Testament Scripture... not his own letters. His letters weren't considered to be "Scripture" until the Catholic canonization somewhere around 200-300 AD. So how does that work? How does Paul's letter to Timothy suddenly become God-breathed over 150 years after it was written... since it wasn't "Scripture" up until that point?
2) The reasoning is circular. How can we take something inside the Bible and say that it "proves" that the Bible is infallible? I mean, we would never accept that reasoning for anything else - if Alice in Wonderland declared itself to be inspired and infallible, we might try to find reasons outside the story to believe that claim, but would never accept the claim in the book alone as sufficient reason to believe its inspiration.
3) What about other books that do declare their own inspiration? The Koran claims to be the dictation of the angel Gabriel on behalf of Allah. The Book of Mormon also claims revelation from the angel Maroni (I think, haven't talked to my Mormon friend lately). Both books make claims that contradict "normal" Christianity. So if all three (the Bible, the Koran, and the Book of Mormon) are inspired by God... then they all must be true. But where they contradict, they can't be true. Either the Bible is right that Jesus was the Son of God, or the Koran is right that He was merely a prophet. And we aren't going to convert any Muslims to Christianity by saying, "Well, you think your book is inspired, but ours really is." The irony of course being that they would say the same thing back to us.
Moreover, as far as books go to reassure you that what you're reading is in fact from God, the Koran probably has 100 claims to its own inspiration for each one in the Bible. (Maybe not 100 to 1... but quite a few. I lighten discussions with exaggeratation - hope you don't mind.) If quantity matters, we should all be Muslims.
Part 2) Originals and copies.
This isn't a big point to me, but you said that historic Christian theology only holds the original documents as inspired/infallible and not the copies. I'm curious then, what you think about the longer ending to Mark and John chapter 8, where the older manuscripts do not include them. Are they not inspired because they were added in by copyists somewhere along the way? The story of the adulterous woman before Jesus is for me one of the purest images of our relationship to Christ.
Part 3) Practical consideration: what is the final authority?
We can agree on dismissing the Roman Catholic notion.
I would prefer to say that reason should be the final authority. Scripture illumines reason. But in some places I think that Scripture might not be reasonable. Those places are very few, but there are a couple. For example, I think it contrary to God's character to actually harden Pharoah's heart (and then punish him for having a hard heart) in the later plagues of Exodus. I also wonder why it says in Genesis that God created the rainbow to remind Himself not to flood the Earth again... like it's a giant post-it note for a senile God who often gets Himself into world-flooding fits. It would have made a lot more sense to say that the rainbow exists to remind the dumb humans that God is being merciful.
And then there is Paul who claims that only faith matters for salvation, while Jesus says several times that works is a part of salvation, too. (Matthew 7:21-27, Matthew 25:32-46, Luke 6:47-49... and plenty more if you want a full list) So, it's a contest between God-inspired Vs. God Incarnate.
And Paul also makes it tricky in 1 Corinthians 7:6 where he basically says that he is not inspired for the next paragraph or two... and repeats the claim in 7:25. This sets up a Catch-22. If the whole Bible is from the Lord, and the verse "This is not from the Lord" is in the Bible... then what? One option is that the verse is inspired even though Paul didn't know it - but then we have to wonder what kind of spirit is inspiring him, since it told a lie. And the only other option I can think of is that it is faulty to say that the whole Bible is inspired - which makes Paul honest in that verse, but then casts doubts of fallibility on everything else.
We're in the rabbit hole now. Hope to hear your thoughts!
Yours,
David
--David Bergan
"I wish I had never been born," she said. "What are we born for?"
"For infinite happiness," said the Spirit. "You can step out into it at any moment..."
-CS Lewis (The Great Divorce)
