Objection to Biblical Inerrancy #12

Continued from Objection to Biblical Inerrancy #11

A final objection is that inerrancy is “a pre-critical, pre-scientific idea.” That is an arrogant position, and assumes that no one who went before us was able to have as deep and profound a thought about the Scripture’s nature as we have.

Assuming we are more intelligent than two millennia of Christian thinkers is a product of evolutionary psychology. For example in just the area of the Trinity, we have writings of profound thinking in the early church.

Yes, we have more understanding of science and technology today, but have we improved in the areas of selfishness and generosity? Actually, we are more efficient at killing.

Inerrancy assumes a certain humility, that I am not the apex of all knowledge. Inerrantists place themselves under the authority of Scripture. They do not set themselves in judgment of it.[1] Martin Luther modeled this humility. Becker says,

“When Luther was unable to see any importance in some of the words of Scripture he ascribed his lack of insight to his sinful flesh and to the weakness of his faith. In other words, when modern unbelievers who masquerade as Christian scholars find something in the Bible that seems unimportant or inexplicable to them, they immediately assume that there must be something wrong with the Bible. Luther, on the other hand, in a similar situation would come to the conclusion that there was something wrong with him. . . . ‘It is absurd,” [Luther writes,] ‘to imitate those audacious geniuses who immediately shout that a manifest error has been committed whenever such a difficulty arises and who without shame dare emend book that are not their own.’ . . . Instead of approaching the Bible with imagined superior wisdom and knowledge, we are to assume the difficulty lies not in the Bible but in our ignorance.”[2]

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[1] Much of the foregoing is based in John S. Hammett, THE6110 Christian Theology I Class Lecture Notes, (Wake Forest, NC: Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fall 2008), 41-43.

[2] Becker, “Luther and Inerrancy.”

Continue on to: Biblical inerrancy in church history

Also on Sunday in the South:
Objections to Biblical Inerrancy #1 & #2, #3 & #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11