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st. matthew and the angel

Inspiration, Inerrancy, and the Trustworthiness of God

By Matthew Barrett

“The notion of an inerrant text is inappropriately idolatrous.” Such a provocative statement comes from John Polkinghorne in his recent book, Testing Scripture. I don’t know about you, but I never considered evangelicals to be either inappropriate or idolatrous when it comes to affirming inerrancy. But nonetheless, this is the charge leveled against inerrantists today. Holding the Bible in such high regard is considered idolatrous because, as Polkinghorne argues, not “all of the Bible is great literature,” but some “parts are plainly pedestrian and some downright boring” (5). Therefore, he argues, we must be the ones to assess where historical truth in the Bible is to be found, “properly subjecting the Bible to critical analysis” (8). Polkinghorne is a case in point: it is not an exaggeration to say that no text has been criticized as much as the Bible. Polkinghorne, as the title of his book reveals, has an agenda, and that agenda is to test the Scriptures in light of our modern conceptions of science, which, of course, we know are true. Assuming an errant Bible is simply a necessity to such a project as Polkinghorne’s. Therefore, if you dare defend the Bible as a text without error, well, you had better prepare yourself for criticism.

Where is the Slippage?

Another recent critic of inerrancy is sociologist Christian Smith. In his new book, The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture, he argues that it is a serious mistake to argue that the “Bible is inspired by God; God does not and cannot lie (Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18); therefore everything in the Bible is true; therefore the Bible is inerrant.” Smith protests, “But this line of thought involves multiple instances of slippage and leaping” (81). So what are these instances of slippage and leaping? Smith lists three. The first “unwarranted leap” is to jump from rightly believing the Bible is “God-breathed” to erroneously assuming that the Bible down to the details of its words “consists of and is identical with God’s very own words written in human language.” The second slippage, says Smith, is when we apply statements in the New Testament about God’s inability to lie to a “more general abstract issue about the ontological nature of the Bible.” Smith goes on to clarify: “It simply does not necessarily follow from the idea that God cannot lie to the idea that every thing in the Bible is inerrant.” God’s truthfulness, in other words, does not mean that the Bible is also free from error. And third, we too often assume that the Bible’s notion of “true” means inerrant. Such an assumption, says Smith, is simplistic, given the “diverse literary nature of the Bible and many textual forms of conveying truths.”

Turns out, Smith is so upset with those who would read the Bible as an error-free document, that he goes so far as to say that those who do are “shamefully untrusting and ungrateful when it comes to receiving God’s written word as God has chosen to confer it” (128). Smith takes off the gloves in his next sentence when he says they “throw the Bible as it is back in God’s face” and want a Bible (an inerrant one!) that is different from the one God has given. “They essentially demand-in God’s name, yet actually based on a faulty modern philosophy of language and knowledge-a sacred text that will make them certain and secure, even though that is not actually the kind of text God gave” (128). What kind of Bible is it then that God has given us? One with errors in it, says Smith, unashamed. And these errors not only pervade the details but even the viewpoints of the biblical authors. In the “process of divine inspiration,” says Smith, “God did not correct every incomplete or mistaken viewpoint of the biblical authors in order to communicate through them with their readers. That would have been distracting. The point of the inspired scripture was to communicate its central point, not to straighten out every kink and dent in the views of all the people involved in biblical inscripturation and reception along the way” (129). So it is the message, not necessarily the details that we are to pay attention to, even though even the viewpoints of those teaching this message will at times be incomplete or, worse yet, mistaken. Nevertheless, such a vantage point, says Smith, never leads us to question the Bible’s divine authority (134). In the end, inerrancy for Smith is a term far too “limited, narrow, restricted, flat, and weak” to represent the diverse speech in the Bible (160).

Who is Really Slipping?

Smith is convinced that inerrantists are slipping, forcing their faulty assumptions onto the Bible, making it something it is not. And in doing so inerrantists are ungrateful, throwing the Bible back in God’s face! But is Smith right? Is it true that belief in the inerrancy of the Bible stands on the erroneous logic that since God is true, unable to lie, therefore his word must also be without error? And are we mistaken to assume that because the Bible is God-breathed so also is it perfect in every way, not only in its message but even in its details? Are we “forcing” our doctrine of inerrancy onto the Bible? And can it possibly be the case that an errant word of God never leads the reader to lack assurance in its credibility and reliability?

When we look at what the Bible says, it becomes very clear that reality is far different than the picture Smith paints. In fact, it is Smith who is really slipping, not inerrantists. Inerrantists are simply seeking to remain faithful to what the Bible says about itself, namely, that God is truth and likewise his word is perfect, reliable, trustworthy, and credible in every way. Therefore, in what remains, it will become evident that the God who is trustworthy has left us with a trustworthy word. What else would we expect from the word of God?

What is Inspiration?

Before we can understand why it is that God’s word is without error we must first take a step back and comprehend what it means for the Bible to be inspired by God. Today, we use the term in a variety of ways. “I was so inspired when I heard the Beatles in concert.” “You have inspired me by your painting.” “If I don’t get some inspiration soon I will never finish this poem.” However, when we use the term inspiration to refer to Scripture we have a very different meaning in mind, namely, the very words of Scripture are spoken by God himself. . . . 

READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE IN THE OCTOBER ISSUE OF CREDO MAGAZINE!

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