In Christ,
Paul Emery
Short Essay on Inerrancy and Inspiration
The
challenges of inerrancy and inspiration have plagued the Church for
millennium. Secularists and liberal
theologians will challenge the entirety of Scripture while arguing that the
Bible is still a good moral authority. Even
pastors in denominations that are fairly conservative will challenge the need
for an inerrant and inspired account of God’s word. In Theology
for Today Dr. Towns quotes Dr. Robert Bratcher who stated, “To invest the
Bible with qualities of inerrancy and infallibility is to idolatrize it, to
transform it into a false God.”[1] As the Bible is the Word of God, it seems not
plausible, but necessary for the Bible to be authoritative, inerrant and inspired.
2
Peter 1:3 says “seeing that His divine power has granted to use everything
pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called
us by His own glory and excellence”.
Joshua 1:8 says, “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth,
but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do
according to all that is written in it;” Each of these two verses contains at
least one very important word, “everything” in 2 Peter 1:3, and “all” in
Joshua1:8. The Bible is what should direct the lives, through the power of the
Holy Spirit, for every believer, and truly for all people.
As the very Word
of God, the authority of the Bible is two-fold.
Christ, who was God in the flesh, used Scripture as He battled against
Satan during His forty days in the desert.
For each of the tests Satan placed before Him the Son of God responded with
Scripture to respond to each temptation (Matthew 4:4, 7, 10; Luke 4:4, 8, 12).
In His use of the Scripture, Christ validated the “ontological authority” of
the Scripture. The Bible also obtains
it’s authority from God, Himself. “Every
Scripture is God-breathed (given by His inspiration) and profitable for
instruction, for reproof and conviction of sin, for correction of error and
discipline in obedience, [and] for training in righteousness (in holy living,
in conformity to God’s will in thought, purpose, and action),” (2 Timothy
3:16). Scripture is God breathed, just
as His spirit was put into man in Creation through the breath of God (Genesis
2:7).
Dr. Towns gives a
great definition of Inspiration in relation to the Scriptures in his book Theology for Today, “Inspiration is the
guidance or influence of the Holy Spirit on the human writers of Scripture so
that God controlled them in such a way that what they wrote was exactly what
God wanted them to write without error” (Towns 2001, 59). Inspiration of the Scripture is directly
taught by the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 3:16.
Christ supported the inspiration of the Scriptures in Matthew 5:17-18
when He addresses that He came to “fulfill the law” (Matthew 5:17), how until
“heaven and earth pass away” not one portion of the law “will pass away”
(Matthew 5:18). Inspiration or dictation
of God is also supported in 2 Peter 1:21 and 1 Corinthians 2:13.
P.F. Feinberg has
a fairly solid definition of inerrancy.
“When all the facts become known, they will demonstrate that the Bible
in its original autographs and correctly interpreted is entirely true and never
false in all it affirms” (Elwell 2001, 156).
In his introduction to the Gospel he compiled Luke explains how he
“carefully investigated everything from the first” (Luke 1:3). Since God has provided us “everything we need
for life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3) the information has to be inerrant, and
completely truthful. Again in Matthew
5:18 Christ says: “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,
not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law, until all is
accomplished.”
There are four
major arguments that Feinberg identifies when it comes to the discussion on
inerrancy. The first argument Feinberg
identifies is “the Biblical Argument”.
In this argument the premise is that Scripture itself teaches its
inerrancy, even if the word itself is never used. This draws back to the point in the beginning
of this essay that the Scripture cannot be a good book or profitable in some of
its teaching and not in others because the Bible itself proclaims that “Every Scripture is God-breathed”. This argument however, would seem to be
easily rejected by those who are outside of the faith because it can appear as
circular reasoning. The second argument
is “the Historical Argument”. Many
secularists and liberal theologians will say that the cannon of Scripture was
not created until the Council of Nicaea. In this argument though there is abundant
evidence of the quotation of Scripture all the way back to 2nd
century Christian fathers as Dr. Towns points out in Theology for Today, pg. 78-79.
Some would claim
that the last two arguments are the weakest.
In the “Epistemological Argument” the challenge is that some of the
scripture is not inerrant then there can be no sure indication of which portion
is inerrant, and which portion is not.
“The Slippery Slope Argument” would then go a step further and argue
that if you give up on inerrancy other doctrines will be more easily rejected. This seems to be the most appropriate
argument because what has been demonstrated in many mainline denominations that
have moved into areas of much greater concern for example the Episcopalian
Church and their acceptance of homosexuality after rejecting the inerrancy of
the Scriptures.
The relationship
between inspiration and inerrancy is that of a symbiotic relationship. If the Scripture is indeed “inspired by God”
who is perfect then the Words which He chose for His revelation must be
inerrant not just as it relates to “faith and practice” but as Dr. Towns
attests "There was no error in grammar, historical locations, sociological
understanding mathematics, geology, geometry, or geography” (Towns 2001,
59). If even one portion of Scripture is
not inerrant, then all of Scripture needs brought into question as to whether
it could be breathed by God.
In taking the view
of the absolute authority, inspiration, and inerrancy of Scripture means that
one accepts it in its entirety as Peter suggests, that the Scripture is the
revelation of Christ and therefore has “granted to us everything pertaining to
life and godliness.” (2 Peter 1:3). It
also verifies the Apostle Paul’s claim that the purpose of Scripture is
“profitable for instruction, for reproof and conviction of sin, for correction
of error and discipline in obedience, [and] for training in righteousness (in
holy living, in conformity to God’s will in thought, purpose, and action),” (2
Timothy 3:16). The Scripture is God’s
perfect revelation to us, and as such will always point us to living for God's glory.
Bibliography
Blum,
Edwin, Jeremy Royal Howard, and Holman Bible Editorial Staff, eds. Hcsb Study Bible, Black Genuine
Leather. Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2010.
Feinberg,
Paul, ed. "Inerrancy and Infallibility of Bible." In Evangelical Dictionary of Theology.
2nd ed, edited by Walter A. Elwell, 156-59. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker
Academic, 2001.
Ryrie,
Charles C., ed. Ryrie Study
Bible: New American Standard Bible, 1995 Update. Expanded ed. Chicago: The
Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, 1995.
Towns,
Elmer L. Theology for Today.
2nd ed. Nashville, Tenn.: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 2001.
Zondervan. Amplified Bible. Reprint ed.
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001.
[1] Robert Bratcher,
“Biblical Authority for the Church Today,” Christianity
Today, (May 29, 1981): Quoted in Elmer Towns, Theology for Today. (Mason, OH: Cengage Learning, 2008), 65
