Biblical inerrancy vs infallibility

[cloudyday2]

I'm not so sure. Especially when there is a philosophical dimension to the bias against new or marginalized data, suppression rather than support is what the response from majority of experts will be. That's what Ben Stein's documentary demonstrated. Secular scientists, who by and large are naturalists/materialists, have a strong philosophical motive to deride and dismiss anything in science that might weaken the ground for their naturalism/materialism. Certainly, anything that would indicate that there is a supernatural agency at work in the universe simply cannot be allowed to gain traction - particularly when there has been such vocal and sweeping dismissal and denigration of such a possibility by naturalist/materialist scientists.



No way? Really? I think you're overstating yourself here a bit. Being a non-expert does not entirely disqualify you from assessing the claims experts make. Especially when experts are interpreting the data of science, which they always inevitably do, their conclusions often become philosophical not scientific. And when this is so, you don't have to be an expert scientist to take note and object if necessary. Dawkins is a prime example of a scientist telling us what to think philosophically. As he aptly demonstrates, being a scientist does not make you a good philosopher. But he is not unique in his attempts to pass off a philosophy as a fact of science. This is generally what most scientists do to one degree or another. And when they do, it isn't necessary to be an expert in their scientific field to assess the validity of their philosophical interpretation of the data.



Is this not what you are already doing - just not with fringe theories? Does acting the way you describe in your post not accord with your personal biases? It seems so to me...

Selah.

Let's take quantum mechanics as an example. Initially, physicists resisted QM, because it was so weird. Finally they accepted QM.

My personality is attracted to fringe theories, so I make a special effort to examine skeptical arguments.

Here is a website debunking a large number of creationist claims. You can lookup things like the supposed human footprints beside the dinosaur footprints and see a skeptical explanation.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/index.html

 

[chilehed]

So any errors in the Bible are simply the fault of the reader for not being able to see the truth hidden beneath the apparent error? If there is "truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation" wouldn't it be more sensible for Him to simply make the truth obvious rather than hiding the truth beneath words that seem to be errors?

Some apparent errors are merely us not understanding the colloquialisms used by those who spoke a foreign language thousands of years ago. Some are the result of us not grasping the usage of various literary forms. There are a number of reasons for such misunderstandings, and we all deal with them every day. Do you really think that there's no ambiguity to language? Have you never been on either side of a conversation in which one party was making the truth obvious, and the other just didn't get it?

I work for a company that has a global footprint. Early in my career I had to ask the representative of a Japanese supplier if they could do something (exactly what is not relevant here), and his reply was "that would be difficult". I had no clue that what that meant was a bold, unequivocable and obvious "NO!" The problem wasn't him being unclear, because he wasn't unclear at all. The problem was that I didn't understand the language or culture.

So why is it so hard to understand that when the ancient texts say something like "100 thousand men", what it could have obviously meant to the ancient readers was "the men from 100 clans" because in that context, the word "thousand" was a colloquialism indicating a clan. It's perfectly obvious, provided you know the language.

The ambiguity of language is no big deal, because if you misunderstand something important you can always go back to the other person and ask them to clarify what they meant. Most of us have to do that every day. In the case of God, you can ask the Church that he established... which is one of the reasons he established it.

 

[cloudyday2]

Some apparent errors are merely us not understanding the colloquialisms used by those who spoke a foreign language thousands of years ago. Some are the result of us not grasping the usage of various literary forms. There are a number of reasons for such misunderstandings, and we all deal with them every day. Do you really think that there's no ambiguity to language? Have you never been on either side of a conversation in which one party was making the truth obvious, and the other just didn't get it?

I work for a company that has a global footprint. Early in my career I had to ask the representative of a Japanese supplier if they could do something (exactly what is not relevant here), and his reply was "that would be difficult". I had no clue that what that meant was a bold, unequivocable and obvious "NO!" The problem wasn't him being unclear, because he wasn't unclear at all. The problem was that I didn't understand the language or culture.

So why is it so hard to understand that when the ancient texts say "100 thousand men", what it obviously meant to the ancient readers was "the men from 100 clans" because in that context, the word "thousand" was a colloquialism indicating a clan. It's perfectly obvious, provided you know the language.

The ambiguity of language is no big deal, because if you misunderstand something important you can always go back to the other person and ask them to clarify what they meant. Most of us have to do that every day. In the case of God, you can ask the Church that he established... which is one of the reasons he established it.

That works for some issues, but I'm not sure it works for all issues. Take the story of God killing all the first born Egyptians (humans and livestock). Did that actually happen? If it didn't actually happen, how is fiction true? If the fiction is meant to convey a moral message, isn't the message of that story a bit narrow-minded - "Yahweh is bigger and meaner than other gods, but luckily Israel has a protection contract with Yahweh". That's a yucky message IMO.

 

[cloudyday2]

^BTW Maybe this is getting too much into apologetics? We are not supposed to debate, so I don't mean to be forcing you to defend doctrines.

To try to get back on topic, does the Catholic church have tables showing what parts of the Bible should be understood as allegory, poetry, history, pious myth, etc.?

 

[golgotha61]

Here is a link on Biblical inerrancy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_inerrancy

Inerrancy means that everything in the original manuscript must be correct. Infallibility means that everything in the original manuscript is spiritually helpful but it isn't necessarily correct.

Instead of classifying the Bible as a unit, I think believers should classify books of the Bible or even sections of those books. For example, many Christians don't believe that the Torah is historically accurate, but those same Christians might believe that the Gospels are historically accurate (roughly).

Is there such a thing as "New Testament inerrancy"?

Inerrancy means that Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact. Aiki gave you the web address to Ryrie’s treatment of inerrancy and this is a good analysis of the subject. There is no separate treatment of inerrancy as it applies to the New and the Old Testaments by those who support inerrancy. All Scripture is “God breathed” (2 Tim. 3:16) and this includes both testaments. The New Testament is considered Scripture by virtue of 2 Peter 3:15-16. In these verses, Paul’s writings are referred to as graphē, translated “scriptures,” which is used fifty-one times in the New Testament and that refers to the Old Testament Scriptures in all of those occurrences.

Infallibility is most often used to say that God’s word is inerrant when it relates to “faith and practice” but this belies 2 Tim. 3:16 that says that all Scripture is “God breathed.” Also, Paul says in Romans 15:4 that whatever was written in the Old Testament, was written for our instruction. There is no mention of restricting God’s truthfulness in these verses. And truthfulness is the object of inerrancy which means that the Bible does not tell us every fact there is to know about every subject but that what the Bible does say, is true.

 

[chilehed]

That works for some issues, but I'm not sure it works for all issues. Take the story of God killing all the first born Egyptians (humans and livestock). Did that actually happen? If it didn't actually happen, how is fiction true? If the fiction is meant to convey a moral message, isn't the message of that story a bit narrow-minded - "Yahweh is bigger and meaner than other gods, but luckily Israel has a protection contract with Yahweh". That's a yucky message IMO.

That part is understood to relate a historical event in a manner that we today would relate history. But there are other ways to relate history that aren't so rigid. I would take issue with the heavy-handedness of your description of the moral message, but, as you notice, that discussion is far afield of the original question.

^BTW Maybe this is getting too much into apologetics? We are not supposed to debate, so I don't mean to be forcing you to defend doctrines.

To try to get back on topic, does the Catholic church have tables showing what parts of the Bible should be understood as allegory, poetry, history, pious myth, etc.?

You seem to be asking good questions with the intent to understand Christian thought. Seems perfectly legit to me.

The Church doesn't really do things the way a lot of people think. Certainly there are defined doctrines with which Catholics are not free to disagree, but within those bounds there's great freedom to have differing thought. For example, the word "myth" doesn't indicate a story that is not true; myth is not "fairy tale". Properly speaking, a myth is a story that refers to an actual historical event and that also describes a universal archetype. For example, the story of Adam and Eve is a myth: two actual people, the progenitors of the whole human race, who in some way radically damaged their relationship with God. And also they universal archetypes: I, personally, did the same thing at some point early in my life (as did each of us). The point of the story is not the tree, whether it was an apple or not, or things like that; the point of he story, the truth that God wished to have us understand, is that our lives are a mess because at some point we damaged our relationship with him. Maybe it was an apple after all, maybe not, but that's not the point that God was trying to make. So, the story is true, but it's not told in the same way as a person today would tell history.

Or the description of the Beast in The book of Revelation; the actual historical person is the Emporer Nero, but the universal archetype can indicate many people. Hitler, Stalin, me,.... The woman in labor can be taken as indicatig both the Virgin Mary and the Chuch. My point here is that a particular text can have multiple levels of meaning, which is a characteristic of good writing. A text can be poetry, history and allegory all at the same time, and the reader is called to be sensitive to such high expression of art.

 

[cloudyday2]

...
Properly speaking, a myth is a story that refers to an actual historical event and that also describes a universal archetype. For example, the story of Adam and Eve is a myth: two actual people, the progenitors of the whole human race, who in some way radically damaged their relationship with God. And also they universal archetypes: I, personally, did the same thing at some point early in my life (as did each of us). The point of the story is not the tree, whether it was an apple or not, or things like that; the point of he story, the truth that God wished to have us understand, is that our lives are a mess because at some point we damaged our relationship with him. Maybe it was an apple after all, maybe not, but that's not the point that God was trying to make. So, the story is true, but it's not told in the same way as a person today would tell history.

So "a myth is a story that refers to an actual historical event and that also describes a universal archetype"? The problem is that any memorable historical event is a myth by that definition, and many stories I would classify as myth don't satisfy the definition. We could call the D-Day landing a myth, because I'm sure it has been used as an archetype to understand other scenarios. Meanwhile, the story of Persephone ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persephone ) that Wikipedia calls a myth does not refer to a historical event.

Would it be reasonable to view Adam and Eve as wholly fictional characters like we view Persephone and Hades? Or does the Catholic church teach that every human descended from a single husband and wife that were somehow the very first humans? (I read a Catholic explanation that hominids at some point acquired a soul that changed them from animal hominids to human hominids (in the image of God). Acquiring a soul was a instantaneous occurrence while acquiring a body was a gradual occurrence through millions of years of evolution. I don't know if that is official Catholic doctrine or just one guy's explanation.)

 

[chilehed]

So "a myth is a story that refers to an actual historical event and that also describes a universal archetype"? The problem is that any memorable historical event is a myth by that definition, and many stories I would classify as myth don't satisfy the definition. We could call the D-Day landing a myth, because I'm sure it has been used as an archetype to understand other scenarios. Meanwhile, the story of Persephone ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persephone ) that Wikipedia calls a myth does not refer to a historical event.

Common usage of words is often imprecise, in addition to the usual ambiguities of the words themselves.

Would it be reasonable to view Adam and Eve as wholly fictional characters like we view Persephone and Hades? Or does the Catholic church teach that every human descended from a single husband and wife that were somehow the very first humans? (I read a Catholic explanation that hominids at some point acquired a soul that changed them from animal hominids to human hominids (in the image of God). Acquiring a soul was a instantaneous occurrence while acquiring a body was a gradual occurrence through millions of years of evolution. I don't know if that is official Catholic doctrine or just one guy's explanation.)

The best place to begin studying authentic Catholic teaching is the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is easy to find online.

I'm pretty sure that one of the defined teachings is that humans are all descended from a single man and woman, who were not fictional: Adam and Eve. And I don't see why a reasonable non-Christian would take serious issue with that - obviously, if our earliest ancestors were fictional we wouldn't be here.

The Church has no defined teaching on how the physical development of humans happened; young earth creationism and old earth evolution may both be believed by faithful Catholics, the question has thus far not been of any concern to the doctrine of the Church. That isn't expected to ever change, because it's not a matter of the content of the faith or of morals.

The acquisition of our souls... well, the soul is the life principle that animates the body. Vegetation has one kind of soul, lower animals have another, what are they called .... *headscratch* .... vegetative and animative? I forget. But humans have rational souls, which were indeed given to us as a special act of creation (pretty sure that the "special act of creation" part is official teaching). If that happened at the end of a long period of pre-human evolution, then I suppose that prior to that we had animative souls.

I have to leave for an emergency trip out of town tomorrow, so won't be able to be back for a while. I hope this has been helpful. But again as to your original question: the Catholic view is that all of the books of the Bible are inerrant.