Honzo June 6th, 2007
| Synopsis: The Chicago Statement on Inerrancy goes too far and does not stand up to scrutiny. A better approach to inerrancy and infallibility is the Fuller model. |
Terms:
- Inerrancy: without error.
- Infallability: incapable of error
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Yesterday, I posted an open question about how our authors and readers view scripture. I replied that I did not hold to the doctrine of inerrancy. While this may seem shocking at first to some of our readers, allow me to flesh out my position with this post.
First, I need to give my definition of inerrancy. In this post, I am primarily concerned with the Chicago Statement’s position on inerrancy, hereto referred to as Chicago Inerrancy. According to this view, inerrancy implies that the Bible is completely true and accurate – historically, scientifically, and spiritually. In order for this to be the case, every book, every sentence, and every word must be the literal truth. :”(If this precludes your definition of inerrancy, please let me know in the comments.)”: I don’t think the Chicago position allows for any other definition of inerrancy. Consider the following portion of the Chicago Statement:
Article XII. We affirm that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from all falsehood, fraud, or deceit.
We deny that Biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields of history and science. We further deny that scientific hypotheses about earth history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture on creation and the flood.
All it takes to demonstrate the falsehood of the above statement and the Chicago position is to demonstrate a single historical or scientific error. I will provide two.
Example 1: The healing of Peter’s Mother-in-law
Was Peter’s mother healed before or after Peter was called to be a disciple? According to Luke 4:38-40, Jesus healed her hand before he called Peter as a disciple in Luke 5:10. However, Matthew gives us a different story. According to Matthew 8:14-15, Peter’s mother-in-law was healed after Peter was called to be a disciple in Mt 4:18. Both cannot be true at the same time. And before someone tries to say that Peter’s mother-in-law was healed twice, consider two additional problems this would bring up. First, Jesus would be healing the same person’s fever twice in a relatively short period. This implies that the first healing did not stick – was Jesus’ first healing ineffective? This is more of a problem than differences in editing bring up. The second issue is literary in nature. If you examine each pericope, one finds that they are really the same pericope, just out of order in each narrative.
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Luke 4:38-40
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Matthew 8:14-15
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And he arose and left the synagogue and entered Simon’s house. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was ill with a high fever, and they appealed to him on her behalf. And he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her, and immediately she rose and began to serve them.
Now when the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to him, and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them. And demons also came out of many, crying, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ. (ESV)
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And when Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever. He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she rose and began to serve him.
That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.” (ESV)
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Details were changed for the sake of the narrative. The events are not called into question, just the order of events. Peter’s mother-in-law was healed; Peter was called to be a disciple. However, the gospels themselves disagree on the order of events. Both cannot be true; rather, both cannot be historically accurate. One of them is errant on the answer to the following question: “Was Peter’s mother healed before or after Peter was called to be a disciple?” Notice that both do give an answer to that question. Both are not accurate down to the littlest detail. Both accounts can be inspired, but not inerrant. :”(At least not inerrant according to the Chicago position.)”:.
Example 2: The Day and Time of Jesus’ Crucifixion
What day and at what time was Jesus crucified? If one goes by the events in Mark 14:12-20, the Last Supper happened on Passover. Jesus was then crucified the next day at 9AM (Mk 14-15). This differs from the account in John, the last gospel to be written. In John 19:14-16 the narrative is explicit that Jesus was crucified on Passover at 12PM, not the day after at 9AM. The last Supper was the day before. John has a very good reason for moving the crucifixion a day up – one of the themes of the gospel of John is that Jesus is the Passover lamb.
Once again, the historical details were changed for the sake of the narrative.:”(Or, they were recorded differently by two different sources. No matter which one is the case, the historical record differs between the two.)”: Just like in the earlier example, there is no question that the events happened. Jesus was crucified; the Last Supper did take place. However, the gospels themselves disagree on the dating of the events. Both cannot be completely historically accurate to the smallest detail. One of them is errant on the answer to the following question, “What day and at what time was Jesus crucified?” Again, but accounts can be inspired, but are not inerrant, at least the way that the Chicago Statement suggests.
Conclusion
The Chicago Statement and a sizable number of Christians hold that the Bible is inerrant in all matters, including its historical claims. This includes all historical claims. I have demonstrated, through two examples, that the Bible is internally conflicted on a historical matters. These examples can be easily explained away by the editing process and the need to argue spiritual points. However, if these explanations are allowed, Chicago’s strict historical inerrancy claim must be abandoned for a more nuanced claim.
What might be such a claim? I think that the Fuller Statement of Faith gives a good view of inerrancy and infallibility. While the statement does not come right out and give their position on this matter, Parableman has summed up their view quite succinctly (emph added).
So what the Fuller view has done is co-opt a term about the nature of inspiration, a term used for describing the impossibility of God’s word containing errors, to use it to apply to a view about the scope of inerrancy or infallibility, i.e. the view that scripture can or does have errors about some matters while not having, or being unable to have, other kinds of errors. A more accurate description of their view, then, would be that the Bible is infallible or inerrant about matters of faith and practice but not infallible or inerrant about matters of history and science. Calling that infallibility as opposed to inerrancy is wildly confused.
Notice that the Chicago Statement explicitly denies this a good way to view scripture.
It should be noted that the Gospels were ancient biographies, not modern histories. As such, they were primarily concerned, not with historical minutia, but with demonstrating the character’s static personality through examples. Because of this, one should not expect there to be a unified narrative time line among the different accounts, for that was not their purpose. Their purpose was to demonstrate who Jesus was and why he was important to their audiences. In this, they are inerrant.
The authors were not trying to write scientific treatises or modern histories, but something else. As such we should not import our modern categories onto them.
The danger with creeds and statements like the Westminster Confession and the Chicago Statement is that they lead to divisions in the body of Christ. Don’t get me wrong, they are useful in clarifying and communicating positions, but we should be wary in judging other believers in light of them.
I want to open this post up for a discussion on how you view the scriptures. Here are some starter questions.
No, this is not going where you might think it is going. I am not calling any Christian an idiot - I’ll leave that to popular culture, the mass media, and the university system1. No, what I am talking about are the Bibles we consume. Purl and Java articulated this better than I can, so I’ll just link and blockquote.