Just a Fundamentalist

Truth,

Well, you are not the only one who has been cut off from posting over there at IM. My last post was not accepted.

It’s interesting that Spencer will use such language about us who uphold inerrancy, yet he never had one thing to comment about what the denial of inerrancy IN HIS OWN DENOMINATION did to my father.

My father was a fairly new christian in the late 70’s and wanted to go into ministry. He was directed to Southeastern Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, an institution within the Southern Baptist Covention. In those days, those who were denying inerrancy had an almost impregnable foothold in the classrooms. My father lasted about a month. I still have some of his books to this day. Martin Noth’s History of Israel, ripping to shreads the historical veracity of the Hebrew Bible, German higher critics on the NT saying Peter and Paul didn’t write half the stuff under their name.

What about those victims? Who tore apart the body of Christ in that situation? My father didn’t have people around him that could help him with the onslaught of doubt like I myself have.

“I think it was your reasoning that denying inerrancy makes God out to be a liar that caused the fuss. I hold to inerrancy, yet thought that statement went too far and the reasoning used to get there was insufficient.”

Ranger,

I suspect that what we have here is two different views of the nature of inspiration.

If one’s view of inspiration is such that the prophet speaks “by God” and “for God” such that the words of the man are recognized as the words of God Himself, then a denial of inerrancy does make God out to be a liar. How could it not? If you feel it does not, then though you may claim a similar view of inerrancy, your underlying view of inspiration must somehow be logically different…

For instance, someone may view inspiration as something like “God inspires the ideas to the mind of the prophet, and then the prophet to the best of his human ability reproduces those thoughts in words of his own choosing, also allowing for the possible intrusion of human errors of thought as well, inspiration logically applying only to the thoughts given to the prophet and not the words chosen by the prophet to communicate those God-given thoughts, so that the end result is that the prophet has given a general and adequate account of what God said, but included in that account may be errors of the prophets own doing, couched in words of the prophet’s own choosing.”

Someone with such a view may still accord authority to the prophet’s writings and truly believe they convey to us truth that God wanted us to know, and my even say that it is inerrant with respect to those truths. But there may be some errors nonetheless in the prophet’s writings respecting other matters that originated from the intrusion of the prophet’s own input.

One important point to remember in all this is that it is “Scripture” (what is written down) that is given by God breathing out (2Tim3:16) and not merely thoughts/words to the prophet/apostle. Therefore, what is written is breathed by God just as much as the thoughts/words that came to the apostle/prophet’s mind before putting it on paper.

I caught Spencer’s claim to being a Barthian, which now clears up alot in my mind. But now I’m left to wonder why a Barthian carries a ‘post-evangelical’ flag?

Now all the IMonk supporters are guilting his detractors for being “unloving.” They are saying he really has no problem with “inerrancy” but just the way it’s used. Yet, he well knew that to deny it is throwing a firebomb in front of those whom he knows will respond just as they have. He could’ve attacked the abuse of inerrancy rather than taking on the word itself. But I’m not at all convinced that he really is kosher with the concept itself per se. And I don’t completely by into his claim that there are no errors in the book.

Spencer claims to be a Barthian.

Here is Karl Barth’s words…

“As truly as Jesus died on the cross, as Lazarus died in Jn. 11, as the lame were lame, as the blind were blind, […] so, too, the prophets and apostles as such, even in their office, even in their function as witnesses, even in the act of writing down their witness, were real, historical men as we are, and therefore sinful in their action, and capable and actually guilty of error in their spoken and written word (Barth, 1963 [1938], CD I/2, 529).”

“For that reason every time we turn the Word of God into an infallible biblical word of man or the biblical word of man into an infallible Word of God we resist […] the miracle that here fallible men speak the Word of God in fallible human words – and we therefore resist the sovereignty of grace… (CD I/2, 529).”

More Barth on Scripture….

“If God has not been ashamed to speak through the Scriptures with its fallible human words, with its historical and scientific blunders, its theological contradictions, with the uncertainty of its transmission and above all, with its Jewish character, but has rather accepted it in all its fallibility to make it serve Him, we ought not to be ashamed of it when with all its fallibility it wants anew to be to us a witness, it would be self-will and disobedience to wish to seek in the Bible for infallible elements” (K. Barth, Kirchiche Dogmatik, 1, 2, p.590,

Aaaah, my part in the little controversy is over. Michael and I had a couple email exchanges and have sort of amicably departed with a degree of mutual understanding.

Now that I’m over my little agitation, I realize something at least. It’s kind of silly for me to give the monkster too hard of a time. I’ve been a solid trinitarian for over 15 years, and due to my years of bible study coming of age I’ve begun to question the doctrine quite vociferously.

In other words, if I was the man running that blog over there, and I posted a post against the word “trinity” like Michael did with the word “inerrancy”, what would be happening to me right now would make Michael’s little fallout look like a mass-huggy.

So, peace.

Stephen,

From the extensiveness of your post I have to assume that you have spent more time in this line of critically comparing the gospels and looking for contradictions than I have, so I may not be able to address all the points you raise. In the beginning of my christian life, some 19 years ago, I spent a lot of time reading books that dealt with supposed contradictions, but since then having taken the leap of faith I’ve been more of a commentator of Scripture rather than it’s critic.

But I will address the ones I can, and really trying to focus on the logic of your argument, which may help me even where I don’t have the expertise you do in the critical angle.

I’ll start with point #1…

“Mark 12.9 attributes words to Jesus that Matthew’s version of the pericope attributes to the crowd (Matt 21.41).”

Let’s agree that both accounts deal with the exact same telling of the parable, though we may assume that Jesus repeated these parables in his travels. But, let’s assume it’s the same telling in view.

We can really simplify this as follows….

In Mark’s version, we have Jesus telling the whole parable, start to finish without any input from the crowd. Therefore, when Jesus asks the summary question “What shall therefore the lord of the vineyard do?” Mark’s version has Jesus answering His own question, where as Matthew gives the added detail that when Jesus asked the question, someone from the crowd spoke up and gave the answer “he will come and destroy…”

It’s the same answer, but one version has Jesus answering the question and one version has the crowd answering it.

Purely from a logical point of view, in light of the fact that these are two seperate eye-witness accounts, there is no clearly no contradiction.

All one has to do is imagine a scenerio where the two perspectives can co-exist, thus clearly ruling out a contradiction. If there was a true contradiction, you could not put them together side by side in a hypothetical scenerio.

Let’s imagine such a scenerio…

Jesus tells the parable. He asks the question, “What will the lord of the vineyard do.”

Someone from the crowd answers “He will come and destroy…”

Jesus says “Correct! He will come and destroy…” (repeating the correct answer from the crowd.

Now, we can understand how you can have two distinct eyewitness testimonies to this, one including the detail of the exact origin of the answer (the crowd), and one leaving that detail out and starting at the next logical event in the story, ie, Jesus repeating the correct answer.

I will honestly try and get to as many of these as I can, and if I encounter a point where I don’t possess an adequate knowledge base to equal yours, I may still be able to examine the underlying logic you employ.

Joe

Stephen,

Addressing your next alleged piece of evidence against inerrancy, you say….

“For another fun synoptic ‘who said what’ instance compare Matt 19.16-17 with Mk 10.17-18. In Mark the man said to Jesus ‘Good teacher.’ In Matthew the man says uses good with reference to the deed in question. What is going on here?”

So we be clear….

In the byzantine texts of both gospels, the man calls Jesus “Good Master” That the alexandrian sources give a different reading, one in my opinion is very obviously inferior in this case, is more of a text-crit question than inerrancy.

I sense in this example that not only have you spent more time than I in looking for contradictions than I, but you have dug deeper.

To be continued….

btw, on my last past I mentioned the problem with that verse was more in the realm of textual criticism, and by that I meant deciding which textual family has more authority regarding these variants, not that inerrancy has NOTHING to do with textual criticism.

Moving on to point #3 (I will get to #2 later, after a bit more research.)

You say…

“Does Jesus tell the disciples to take a staff (Mk 6.8) or not (Lk 10.10)? In a comment on a different post Jerry suggested that the only way to ‘deal with’ this is positing autographs that did not have this problem and corruption in the transmission history of either Mark or Luke. This would seem like an extreme case of ‘special pleading.’ What do you all think?”

First of all, its Mat. 10:10, not Luke 10:10.

Secondly, notice the contradiction, again, comes from accepting Alexandrian corruptions. I’m not a KJB only guy, but I generally appreciate the Byzantine family of texts with only a few major exceptions where I prefer the Alexandrian.

In this case it’s rather telling that the contradiction only occurs by accepting Alexandrian variants. Sinaiticus, Vaticanus and D give us staff singular in Mat. 10:10 creating the obvious discord with the singular staff in Mark 6:8. But the Byzantine reading gives us staffs/staves plural.

Read the two passages from the KJB….

Mar 6:8 and commanded them that they take nothing in the way, except only a staff; no bag, no bread, no copper in the belt,

Mat 10:10 nor a bag for the journey, nor two coats, nor sandals, nor staves. For the workman is worthy of his food.

In the Mat passage, the meaning is that they are not to take STAFFS, similar to how it qualifies coats with “two”, ie, don’t take two coats, don’t take staffs (plural).

That the unspoken assumption here is that one staff only is sufficent is given in the Mark passage, “ONLY a staff.”

John Gill writes….

“”And commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey,…. To accommodate them in it, except those things after directed to: save a staff only; a single one, for staves in the plural number are forbidden. Matthew 10:10 does not forbid the taking of shoes, but two pair of shoes; as not two coats, nor two staves, but one of a sort only, that is, with more than one staff, which was sufficient to assist them, and lean upon in journeying: for, according to Mark, one was allowed; as though they might take a travelling staff, yet not staves for defence, or to fight with.”“

Unrelated to Stephen’s arguments against inerrancy, here is a ‘Spencerian’ one being made over at his blog.

Michael Spencer writes…

“If I have to read one more explanation of a discrepancy or a non-fact so that the special definition of an error-isn’t-an-error can survive, I’m going to pull my eyes out.

Psalm 148:4 Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!

Turning this kind of thing into “facts” (instead of appreciating it for the poetry that it is) is enough to make you lose all contact with reality.”

One can only guess that Spencer is reacting to some creation science attempt to prove something more is referred to by the “waters above the heavens” than simply water-filled clouds.

One of his comrades chimes in….

“Those who claim that “the waters above the heavens” refer to some sort of vapor canopy seem to be suggesting that David, in this case, wrote those words based on knowledge that David the man could not have, but that were somehow inspired the Holy Spirit. At the same time, we’re asked to give the writers a pass when they suggest that the circumference of a circle is three times its diameter, because they were just human, and it’s close enough.”

This just shows the absolute confusion going on with these guys in their attack of inerrancy. They go after the name, which simply means “without error”, but yet arguments like this have more to do with certain types of arguments made by inerrantists.

What if the psalmist meant neither ‘water canopy’ (Spencer’s pet straw man) nor some poetic mystical something that somehow is supposed to make sense here, but simply referred to plain old clouds?

John Gill thought as much….

“and ye waters that [be] above the heavens; divided by the firmament from the waters below; and are no other than the thick clouds, in which the waters are bound up, and not rent, but at the pleasure of God, Ge 1:7; so Seneca {d} calls the clouds the celestial waters. And these give men occasion to praise the Lord, that those vast bodies of water that are over their heads are not let down in such large quantities upon them as would destroy them; and that are carried about from place to place, and let down and gentle showers, to water and refresh the earth, and make it fruitful, so that it brings forth food for man and beast. The Targum is,

“ye waters, that by the Word (of the Lord) hang above the heavens;”

in which is displayed the glory of amazing power, wisdom, and goodness. The most ancient Syrians and Arabians were thoroughly persuaded, that beyond the bounds of the visible heavens there was a great sea, without any limits; which some {e} suppose to be the waters here meant.

{d} Nat. Quaest. l. 3. c. 23. {e} Vid. Steeb. Coelum Sephirot. Heb. c. 7. s. 3. p. 126, 127. and Gregory’s Works, p. 110.”

Where is all the angst over this verse in Gill? And why are these post-evangelicals/emergents so quick to see a problem here in relation to inerrancy?

Michael,

Can anyone ever say a critical thing about what you write without you getting all bent out of shape? I thought one of your big words is “conversation.” To have one is not to just entertain compliments, but you gotta be willing to converse with those who differ and challenge.

Do you have to get upset? You kick people off your blog, withhold posts, pour out your contempt in other posts…

Why not just allow us in “the conversation?”

And, about my problems with the trinity. It’s BECAUSE of my belief in inerrancy and the absolute authority of the Scriptures that I re-examined that doctrine.

Also, for you to hold up the ‘Nicene Creed’ as something that I must assent to or else I am not worthy of interacting with is NO DIFFERENT than Rome’s insistence I submit to her doctrines. The Bible isn’t enough apparently. One of your cronies lampooned inerrancy as something that should be spelled ‘shibboleth.’ Well, for you, the Nicene Creed operates the same way apparently.

You appear to have a huge double standard. You dish it out, but cannot take it. You like to be provocative, but you act astonished when people respond the way you expected. You despise fundamentalism and evangelical culture, but you just love to launch theological molotov cocktails their way and watch the carnage, all the while you and your tavernistas have a good laugh over their beers. You decry how edgy fundies get, yet you act the very same way when something dear to your heart gets challenged.

My creed, the only one I will assent to and identify with is a book - the Bible. I simply don’t have a shorter version.

If you can’t deal with that, you’re frightened. I’m a religious leper and the only way you know how to deal with it is to get upset and scram.

I’m not nearly so energized over trinitarian discussions as I am over this inerrancy discussion. In fact, I am still a faithful member of a trinitarian church and will probably remain that way - I don’t see it as that vital a doctrine to divide over. Inerrancy on the other hand is absolutely vital. As I said, God and His word are one. You cannot know God apart from His word, you cannot obey Him apart from His word, you cannot please Him apart from His word, and you cannot TRUST Him apart from His word. You can’t separate a person from his words. They are eternally one. People want a God who has been gagged, or they want a nice literary classic of religious words apart from the deity it speaks of.

I find your attack on inerrancy very curious. I think it needs to be challenged. I don’t think you are being upfront about what you really believe. I think alot of your language is highly political. You dart and dodge and fail to talk straight. Your reasons for rejecting the word are highly suspect. You have failed to give us a CLEAR idea what you really mean by inerrancy and authority from a clearly biblical view.

You need to be challenged. Iron sharpens Iron. And if you think my trinitarian issues need to be “sharpened” then be my guest.

BTW, what do you mean by your comment on the blog about “taunting monkeys” as being a good preparation for running your blog? This sounds to me like you rather enjoy taunting others, rather than having a genuine “conversation.” This sounds to me that you have a rather low view of those you are in disagreement about, and see them as fun sport.

I did read the context…some guy conversed about the kid who taunted the lion at the zoo and got killed. Then you said…

“Taunting Monkeys is outstanding preparation for the pastorate. (jn)

Or for running my blogs :-)”

There you go. Like you say. You love to taunt “the monkeys.” You get entertainment out of it. Unfortunately you don’t respect the “monkeys” enough to let them in on the conversation.

And it’s interesting how you are going to try and turn the focus on my issue with trinitarianism.

So interesting. You have a problem with the word “inerrancy” BECAUSE it is not found in any of the creeds.

Yet the word “trinity” is not found in the NT. Nor is any word for God found in the NT that denotes “three-ness.” Nothing. Nill. Zero.

You can apparently dissent from orthodox christianity by disputing inerrancy, yet you act JUST LIKE the fundamentalist in going after my non-trinitarianism as point of criticism.

Interesting.

You poured out your heart about the vicious work being done by those “evil” inerrantists, how they would refuse you the status of being a christian.

Look what at your attitude toward my issue with trinitarianism. You are treating me as if I’m unworthy to observe your blog and comment.

DOUBLE STANDARD.

You cannot dispense with inerrancy and then try to blackball me for not being a trinitarian. Face it. We are both heretics to a lot of people in the church.

If you think you can read the Scriptures and come out with a belief that it isn’t inerrant, why cannot I reread the Scriptures and come to the conclusion that perhaps trinitarianism is not the best way to explain the Scriptural data? Aren’t we doing the same thing.

I guess “trinitarianism” is one of the passes to the country club of orthodoxy. You’ve got the pass, so you are in, and you can look at me and turn me away.

I hope others take the time to read through some of your blog entries and witness the incredible hypocrisy you exhibit.

You can dispense with inerrancy, but I can’t dispense with trinity. I think I’m catching that facial tic you mentioned at BHT.

Michael,

I will show how, regardless of whether the Bible is inerrant or not, historic creeds are definitely not inerrant.

The Athanasian creed tells us that unless you believe the following, you cannot be saved….

Each of the three co-eternal, co-infinite individuals within the trinity are each said to be the very same thing in the same exact measure, via the doctrine of perichoresis.

This is a bare naked logical contradiction. This leaves no ontic or logical basis to make any real distinction between the individuals. All one can do is verbally insist there are distinctions, but logically it is not so.

There you go. Error. No way to explain it. The Athanasian creed is not inerrant. It fails the test. I have no need to accord it any authority, anymore than the latest post at the Boar’s Head Tavern. :-)

One last thought before nighty-night….

When Michael raises a critical eyebrow at my non-trinitarianism, what does he do? He challenges me NOT WITH SCRIPTURE, but rather whether I can assent to the Nicene Creed.

Get it?

He knows deep down he can’t challenge me with Scripture. He denied inerrancy. He doesn’t have the confidence, or at least the integrity to argue from it. He must hold up a council to me!

This shows me he has more confidence in a human ecclesiastical council than he does in the ability of Scripture to establish a doctrine clearly, forcefully and inerrantly.

Oh the depths….G’night.