Inerrancy Matters

What difference does it make whether or not the whole Bible is inerrant? Isn’t it enough that the Bible be totally reliable on matters of faith and practice? This kind of question has been increasingly asked in conservative Christian circles over the past few decades. It used to be that those who challenged the Bible’s trustworthiness when it spoke about natural phenomena, human events, and its own literary origins also denied, doubted, or drastically reinterpreted what the Bible taught on such central doctrines as the existence of God, the lordship of Christ, and eternal life. Naturally any debates with such persons focused on the issues that were at the heart of the Good News.

But times have changed. Many Christians who have no hesitancy in affirming such fundamental doctrines as the deity of Christ, his Virgin Birth, substitutionary atonement, bodily resurrection, and the Second Coming think that affirming total biblical inerrancy is unnecessary or even harmful. From their viewpoint inerrancy is akin to a modern day pharisaism, seeking to impose on the people of God more than God himself has chosen to do. To insist on inerrancy is seen as tantamount to telling God how he must reveal himself. We are reminded that until recently many Christians were in effect telling God that he simply must have an infallible spokesman heading the church lest everything go haywire. Of course other Christians have denied the relevancy of these parallels and have been alarmed at the movement away from inerrancy. The launching of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy and its recently issued Chicago Statement is one of their responses. (See news story, Nov. 17 issue, p. 36.).

The trustees and editors of CHRISTIANITY TODAY affirm in our statement of faith (which is identical to the one used by Gordon-Conwell seminary) that the “books of the Bible as originally written were inspired of God, hence free from error. They constitute the only infallible guide in faith and practice.” Far from being neutral on this issue, we are committed to the inerrant authority of the Bible. Nevertheless, we do feel that it is important to represent fairly the views of those who differ from us. Moreover, this magazine, ever since it began, has published articles, reviews, and other features by men and women who do not affirm inerrancy. To those with whom we are in essential agreement on inerrancy, we say that we best serve them by stressing the common beliefs of evangelicals. We intend to continue to show that defenders of inerrancy can speak to a wide range of issues facing the church and are not confined to strumming only one string. Indeed, we urge all Christians concerned about inerrancy to take care that they do not regard it as the only issue that matters.

Biblical inerrancy is not a peripheral matter. It is an important aspect of the larger question of biblical authority in particular and hence of authority generally. No one avoids, even if only implicitly, the question of authority. It is certainly a fundamental issue dividing Christians from non-Christians. It is also one of the key issues dividing Christians among themselves. Disputes over authority have been at center stage during the entire existence of the church. Paul had to defend his apostolic authority. The church fathers fought Gnosticism and other strong challenges to the teaching of the canonical scriptures. East and West split over the nature of papal authority and within the West popes had to contend against councils and kings. No sooner had the Protestant Reformers reasserted the supremacy of biblical authority than widespread and increasingly influential challenges arose to the notion that any supernatural guidance to man exists, whether it be the Holy Spirit, an organization, a man, or a book.

Evangelicals who believe that God chose to inspire his Word so that it includes errors have at least two problems. First, they must reconcile their view of Scripture with the teaching and practice of Christ their Lord. Jesus found plenty of fault with common interpretations of the Bible, but he did not question the truth of the text itself. Second, they must show how they distinguish the truths from the errors without in the process making man himself the final authority on what he will accept and reject.

Of course there are problems with the idea of inerrancy. Even after the obviously necessary delimitations of the term (so that, for example, the Bible is not charged with error because it refers to the sun setting or the mountains skipping) there “exist difficult problems of apparent discrepancies,” to use the wording of an early draft of the Chicago Statement. There is no advantage to pretending that difficulties do not exist or are of no consequence. They must be recognized, admitted, and honestly studied. Evangelicals who are questioning or even denying inerrancy are hardly likely to be won back to such a position without the utmost respect being given to the reasons that have led them away from it.

We also urge everyone to remember that a discussion of inerrancy is not analogous to political campaigns and lawmaking. In politics certain skills and strategies are used to enable a candidate or a bill (however modified) to win and the others lose. Votes are decisive even when they choose what hindsight proves to have been the inferior candidate or policy. Whether the Scriptures are inerrant is not going to be decided by voting. If the Bible is not inerrant, no amount of debating skill and political maneuvering can make it so. And if the Bible is inerrant, deficiencies in the skills of those arguing for it, or their poor manners, do not invalidate the truth.

It should be obvious that a person’s view of inerrancy should be shaped by what he thinks is true. The idea should not be supported merely to keep in good standing with, for example, a denomination. It should not be opposed (or not affirmed) in order to curry favor, for example, with one’s colleagues in academia.

Just as those who do not affirm inerrancy can be orthodox in other beliefs (and may even think that their views on the Bible are the ones held by Christ) so, correspondingly, affirmation of inerrancy is no guarantee of either right doctrine or right practice. Many contemporary deviant Christian movements subscribe to inerrancy as did the medieval church. Moreover, those who do affirm inerrancy and are orthodox in doctrine need continually to remind themselves that God’s providing us with an inerrant word is but a means to the end that we may more readily “approve what is excellent, and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruits of righteousness which come through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (Phil. 1:10, 11).

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