Albert Mohler writes today on the importance of inerrancy, The Devil Is in the Details: Biblical Inerrancy and the Licona Controversy. Dr. Mohler is among the leading champions for inerrancy in the church. Given that questioning the validity and inerrancy of the Bible has become something of a badge of honor among some who are seeking to make their rejection of "fundamentalism" a sign of maturity, this is an important conversation. Of course when it comes to those passages that affirm their own personal preferences, they will die on those hills with the best of 'em.
As Dr. Mohler writes, the devil is in the details. Many people affirm the inerrancy of the Bible but many also inject qualifiers into that affirmation. Some don't seem to see a problem with that but I get concerned when we look at the Bible with out allegedly more advanced and wise modern eyes and declare certain sections to be less applicable today or completely irrelevant for modern believers. There are many, many Christians including some very "conservative" believers who want to affirm the hisotoricity of the resurrection but on the other hand reject the literal creation acount. That leads, I believe, to all sorts of mischief.
The argument often goes that "science", which of course is never wrong or politically motivated, proves that a literal treatment of the Creation account is impossible. So we just cast it aside so as not to offend the world. Of course those same scientists would just as firmly claim that dead men, in a grave for several days, don't get up and walk and talk. The same science that rejects the creation account rejects the resurrection but far too many of us have tried to have our cake and eat it to.
It is not very far. Just a little bit down the road. You can see one from the other. The question really is one of trust. Do we trust the "scientists"? Or do we trust the Bible?
4 comments:
Teaching a class tonight on the Authority, Inerrancy, Clarity, Necessity, and Sufficiency of Scripture. I will be reading your post to the class. Great application of the doctrine for today!
Thanks Jason, this is such an important topic for the church to be aware of and think through.
Valid logic applied to one or more false premises... leads to an invalid argument.
"The argument often goes that "science", which of course is never wrong or politically motivated, proves that a literal treatment of the Creation account is impossible."
Well, of course I imagine there are some who may take that tack - but many believing Christians accept the notion that the point of the story (i.e. God is the creator and the source of all that is, that He made man in his own image, that is as a person made for love, communion and relationship with the God who is Love, etc.) is the truth and that it is not meant as a science lesson per se. This is approach is supplemented by understanding that the original Hebrew story was a beautiful and poetic story about Adam (which means human/man in Hebrew) married Eve (which means LIFE) in Hebrew and they had children.
The only reason I even CARE about this argument is that I think we (Christians) waste energy on a useless and fruitless argument that in the end is not even the point of the story. 24 hours? 24 years? 24,000 years - pointless.
Creator, source of all - priceless.
Meanwhile, the world is full of despair because Christians don't give an effective account of the hope that is within us. The TRUTH of the Scripture is not about science - it's much bigger than that.
Kate
Would you say the same thing about the Resurrection? Our esteemed scientists would say that the event of the empty tomb is impossible as well. I am not sure how you label this question "pointless". Once you start cherry picking the areas of Scripture that you deem trustworthy and brush off others as conveying some sort of ephemeral meaning without conveying truth you are on a path that many have walked before, a path that sees more and more of the Bible discarded until you are left with a nice religious morality tale.
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