Objections to Biblical Inerrancy #3 & #4

Continued from: Objections to Biblical Inerrancy #1 & #2

A third objection is that Biblical inerrancy is erroneous because what is meant is some type of divine dictation theory.[1] The evangelical view of verbal, plenary inspiration denies that God took over someone's mind and forced them to write in a certain way. Such a view offends God's character and the doctrine of the priesthood of the believer as well as the dignity of the image of God at resident in each person. Such a view is more akin to demonic spirit possession seen in witchcraft.

What is actually erroneous that leads to difficulties with inerrancy is unbelief. When critical methods of humanistic unbelief are made judge of all biblical data, whatever does not agree with what is known right now is judged wrong, as if at this time we are at the peak of all human development and understanding about natural and metaphysical realities.

A fourth objection is that inerrancy is a recent invention, that the Church never believed it historically. Agreed, the word inerrancy is not a common word in Church history because they were not answering the questions we have today. Not until the late 20th century did anyone seek to separate the concepts of infallibility and inerrancy. They affirmed both and saw them as inseparable. Augustine said the authors of Scripture “were completely free from error.” Luther stated that unlike the popes and councils opinions, the Scripture “has never erred.”[2]

Calvin said that the Bible’s “best authentication is the character of the One whose Word it is.”

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[1] God “enters into history with us, [and] moves the hearts of his servants and is not content merely to guide their pen or goose quill for them. This is actually the way in which the advocates of the doctrine of verbal inspiration conceived it to have happened. What this was, expressed in modern terms, was a fantastic idea of heavenly cybernetics in which God was the guide of a process of automatic writing.” Helmut Thielicke, Between Heaven and Earth (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 6; quoted in Saucy, 20.

[2] Martin Luther, WA, 7.315.

Continue on to: Objection to Biblical Inerrancy #5

Also on Sunday in the South:
Objections to Biblical Inerrancy #1 & #2