Biblical Inerrancy
Richard Hall over at
Connexions has some strong criticism of biblical inerrancy in his post on Fundamentalim and Evangelicals:
"To take one example recently rehearsed in these columns: the doctrine of
biblical inerrancy.
Not only is it not biblical, it is not even venerable, dating only to
the nineteenth century. It is a defensive doctrine, reactive to
modernism and theological liberalism (which is also, as Karl Barth
graphically put it, a “flat-tyre” theology - but that’s another post).
It is probably most usefully understood psychologically rather than
theologically, as the product of a paranoid mindset that appeals to
authoritarian and obsessive personalities. Its assumption that
scripture has an independent authority, oracular in function - hence
the wildly misleading phrase “The Bible says . . .” - it is, in fact,
Koranic..."
Read the rest
here.
Thanks for the link. Small correction – it (sadly!) wasn’t me that wrote the piece you’re referring to. It was my friend and colleague Kim Fabricius.
Richard Hall (email) (link) - 23 11 05 - 20:48 (Edit / Delete)
How can you say that inerrancy dates back to only the 19th century? Inerrancy of scripture was a crucial point in the condemnation of Galileo by the Catholic church in the 17th century.
Mike Dufel (email) (link) - 23 11 05 - 23:34 (Edit / Delete)
Oops, I should have posted that comment on the original site…
Mike Dufel - 23 11 05 - 23:37 (Edit / Delete)
Kim replied at my place: http://theconnexion.net/wp/?p=1672#comme..
“You are quite wrong, Mike. In fact, the church’s teaching at the time of the Galileo fiasco was that the heliocentric theory could be held as a working hypothesis. Indeed historians of science now tell us that the church would have accepted Copernicus’ theory sooner rather than later if it hadn’t been for Galileo’s own arrogant insistence on it before he had marshalled the full astronomical proof. The church’s real problem was not a doctrine of biblical inerrancy but its captivity to an Aristotelean cosmology.”
Richard Hall (email) (link) - 24 11 05 - 07:31 (Edit / Delete)
Richard I do agree with you mostly that the corner stone in which Galileo would be condemned was upon the church’s capitivity to an Aristolelean cosmology, but to some degree Mike does have a point.
Sadly in discussions most individuals limit ourselves to the modernistic version of inerrancy, which of course is the most prevalient form seen in protestanism. But truth be told there are various views on the bible being inerrant and these variant views have existed throughout the history of the church. One of the contemporary unofficial views of the Catholic church is that the bible is inerrant in all the information it contains while the church is infalliable in what it officially teaches/declared. Now the catholics will differ here as whether there is limited inerrancy (i.e., the bible contains no error in what it teaches about God) or full inerrancy (i.e., the bible contains no errors in what it declares or contains).
So for Galileo. He was convicted based upon the teachings of the church (The Aristolean Cosmology). But the justification for the conviction was partly based upon their interpretation of the biblical text which so often reflects geocentrism. There existed a fear that if geocentrism was wrong it would undermine the authority of the bible.
Ben Finger (link) - 26 11 05 - 02:24 (Edit / Delete)
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