Bob Thune 2004-04-16
From Summa Bergania
From : David Bergan
Sent : Friday, April 16, 2004 10:41 AM
To : Bob Thune, Jr
Subject : Inspiration and the resurrection
Hi again, Pastor Bob,
I was wondering if this wasn't the parallelism you were setting up when you asked for my proof. But here's my question:
Why do we need the Scriptures to be fully inspired, or even inspired at all, to come to our conclusion about the resurrection?
Pretend for a second that everything in the Bible was recorded by corrupt Roman senator-historians like the ones who tell us of Caesar... that, to me, does not mean that we have to assume every fact they write is wrong. Uninspired historians are still going to try to accurately report the facts. Books can be true without being inspired. So just because I take the Gospel stories of the disciples as true does not mean that I have to take them as being inspired. Which is just the same as when I read in the newspaper about a house that was on fire, I take that as true without assuming the newspaper to be inspired. Such is the case with historical events, and I submit that Biblical inspiration is therefore not necessary to come to our conclusion that the resurrection occurred.
If, however, it was necessary to accept Biblical inspiration to accept the resurrection, I must repeat that I find it intellectually dishonest to accept Biblical inspiration because we want to accept the resurrection. We cannot choose the beliefs that we want and declare them true. That makes us no better than the poor souls who want to believe in a cult leader and therefore declare his esoteric theology true just because it gives them the conclusion that makes them feel good.
With regard to prophesy, I find it impossible to deny inspiration for any Biblical prophesy that came true. Therefore, the prophesies of Isaiah, Daniel, etc, must have been divinely inspired (because the option of them being really really lucky guesses is not reasonable at all, nor is the option that they were inspired by a devil, when they lived Godly lives). But recognizing these instances of clear divine inspiration raises the question of how large an umbrella it opens up. Do the confirmed prophesies of Isaiah necessarily conclude that everything written by Isaiah is divinely inspired? Do the confirmed prophesies of Isaiah conclude that the book of Ruth was divinely inspired? These are the hard questions. I am willing to say that the prophesies of Isaiah that are confirmed give a lot of credibility to any prophesy of his that we might doubt (since I don't think that it is consistent to know that some of his prophesies were inspired and think that others were not... like the example I gave of predicting 22 out of 23 actions for your wife).
Summary:
-Resurrection - it happened.
-Books can be true without being inspired.
-Biblical inspiration not necessary to prove resurrection true.
-Biblical prophesies that came true were divinely inspired.
-Prophesies that came true make it very likely that other prophesies we might doubt by those prophets are also divinely inspired.
-The hard question is how large of an umbrella is opened for divine inspiration based on the confirmed prophesies?
Let me know what in this summary you disagree with and why. If nothing, we can move back to the argument I've been waiting to diagram regarding Paul and 2 Timothy 3:16.
Your friend and Christian brother,
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)
