can the bible be infallibly interpreted?

AmericanCatholic said:

Again, how can an infallible man know when he is being deceived

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... or a denomination that alone claims that self alone is "infallible" know that? (The only such denomination known to me is the RCC. The LDS once claimed this but no longer does). And how can the members of that denomination when their only permitted response is to accept "with docility" whatever that one so self claiming for self alone says (CCC 85, 87, etc)?



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squint said:

I openly deny that is even possible based on ONLY JESUS being 100% TRUTH/100% RIGHT.

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You're certainly entitled, although I consider that to be a serious misunderstanding of what Jesus meant there. And I don't agree that, for example, we cannot decide that one church might be right in saying that Christ willl come again, while the next one is wrong to say he already has....simply because Jesus said "I am the way, the truth..."

And that is what could be termed BLIND FAITH in 'chance.'

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No, it's not. I merely stated the obvious, that there is a certain percentage of the time when mere chance--or randomness--can come up with the right answer. That's just factual.

Anyway, we seem to have said all this before.

Albion said:

squint said:

I openly deny that is even possible based on ONLY JESUS being 100% TRUTH/100% RIGHT.

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You're certainly entitled, although I consider that to be a serious misunderstanding of what Jesus meant there.

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Uh, no, you are in fact trying to turn 100% TRUTH/Jesus Alone into this:

100% TRUTH/Jesus into = 100% accuracy, 100% infallibility, 100% inerrancy by SOMEBODY/SOMETHING ELSE.

Your formula doesn't compute whatsoever. Sorry.

And I don't agree that, for example, we cannot decide that one church might be right in saying that Christ willl come again, while the next one is wrong to say he already has....simply because Jesus said "I am the truth."

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Observing TRUTH from a partial perspective can NOT and WILL NOT YIELD 100% accuracy by ANY individual viewer or group. It is NOT possible.

No, it's not. I merely stated the obvious, that there is a certain percentage of the time when mere chance--or randomness--can come up with the right answer. That's just factual.

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Uh, NO. There is ZERO CHANCE that CHANCE = 100% Jesus.

That perspective is rather insane for a believer to even consider.

Anyway, we seem to have said all this before.

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Spin it however you like. I will not be expecting CHANCE in the form of 100% Jesus/Truth to be visiting my door anytime soon.

And you are welcome to rely on CHANCE to 'do that.'

s

OrthodoxyUSA said:

There can be only one...

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Hmmmm . . . . watched Highlander lately?

I might point out the obvious to any christian sectarian that there is no possible WAY that any particular sect has 100% accuracy, 100% inerrancy, 100% infallibility because THE TRUTH is only ONE, God IN Christ as 'expressed' to the balance of us.

IF any christian sect makes 'claims' to 100% accuracy, 100% inerrancy, 100% infallibility...they have in fact REPLACED the ONLY ONE who really 'has' THE ENTIRETY of that position....

GOD IN CHRIST.

May that EVER be so!

IT was upon this exact basis that I cannot 'in good faith' follow with ANY christian sectarian. I am forced by faithful logic to my own admitted SEVERE LACK of 100% understandings, 100% accuracy, 100% inerrancy, 100% infallibility to ONLY LOOK TO HIM....there is NO other to 'look to' for me personally.

Non 100% accuracy, Non 100% inerrancy, Non 100% infallibility cannot POSSIBLY provide me with much of anything but a LESS than 100% FOLLOWING of HIM.

It is imho FOOLHARDY to look to any OTHER...as a replacement for HIM.

I believe this is also a VERY STRONG basis for SOLA SCRIPTURA. Who needs TRUTH SIFTED by partiality and the potential of MANipulations?

I would even go so far as to say TO LOOK TO ANY OTHER for ANY of those things that ONLY HE HAS and that ONLY HE can partially provide to me because of my OWN admitted inabilities to NOT BE ANY OF THOSE POSITIONS, that raising up any OTHER form of 100% understanding, raising up another 100% inerrancy, raising up another 100% accuracy, raising up another 100% infallibility...is NOT Jesus being raised whatsoever. It is, in short AN IDOL that is NOT Jesus.

I must view these matters in honesty, that any of those 100% views are ENTIRELY out of my hands, logically OUT of the hands of ANY christian sectarian group, and ONLY IN His Perfect Hands.

I particularly DETEST having to BOW to the condemnation of OTHER PEOPLE on the basis of THOSE people NOT BOWING to someone else's sectarian PARTIAL CONSTRUCTIONS/IDOLS of these matters as such constructs can logically be NOTHING BUT PARTIALity

Partiality is NO BASIS of condemnation to any person.

And I am certainly not interested in adoration of PARTIAL CONSTRUCTED IDOLS that claim to be 100% accuracy, 100% inerrancy, 100% infallibility as they CANNOT be such things when that belongs to God in Christ ALONE--->

....AS Thee ONLY TRUTH.

All forms of theology and practice claiming to be 100% of any of the above are LOGICALLY FALSE, and are also FALSE attempts to define an approach to the UNapproachable void of the understanding of who WE are and WHO HE IS.

There is NO WHERE ELSE TO GO....but TO HIM.

enjoy!

squint

2 Peter 2:19
While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption:

for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.

CaliforniaJosiah said:

... or a denomination that alone claims that self alone is "infallible" know that? (The only such denomination known to me is the RCC. The LDS once claimed this but no longer does). And how can the members of that denomination when their only permitted response is to accept "with docility" whatever that one so self claiming for self alone says (CCC 85, 87, etc)?



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Answering a question with a question is considered both impolite and obtuse.

I expected better of you Albion. You seem to be deliberately misrepresenting me in every case.

Albion said:

Yet, as you go through life you stake your eternal destiny and much else on decisions and judgments you make--every day--that are far less than 100% certain.

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Clearly, that is the opposite of my position. Precisely the difference between me and most people (of all religions) is that they form a religious opinion and then tell themselves that goals such as 100% certainty and absolute infallibility are unnecessary and/or unrealistic.

Pretty unbecoming of you to identify me with precisely the mindset I was EXPLICITLY repudiating. This is beginning to look like dishonest debating already.

It's not incorrect and it's not "obviously" incorrect. What is obvious, is that yo don't know the difference between "infallible" and "inerrant." You don't, do you?

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Pure rhetoric. Obviously you can't meet the force of the objection, so you want to bog me down with semantic debates. The force of the objection stands - the Bible can't even tell me whether I should show up for work tomorrow. Period. That objection stands uncontested, unrefuted - and your crafty little semantic tactics can't do a darn thing about that fact.

No man is infallible, even if the Word of God is infallible.

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Call it inerrancy if you want. Fact is, when Paul wrote Romans, by the Spirit of God he was incapable of doctrinal error. Semantically, I call it infallibility. You call it inerrancy. Who gives a hoot which term we use? The main thing is that any of us who lack it are, in most areas of life, stumbling around in semi-darkness.

And you tbink that when to show up at work is an "ethical" decision. What was that about "absurd" again?

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Yes. It's pretty absurd that you can't even figure out that refusing to go to work is an ethical decision. If you lose your job for reasons of attendance, you might have trouble feeding your family. Or, is it that you consider it "ethical" to abstain from feeding your kids?

No, none of us here except yourself knows the first thing about anything.

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So I'm the know-it-all? Fact is, I'm virtually the only Christian who admits that none of us, including myself, know the first thing about religion, we don't know what the bible says, we don't how to run the church...etc. All this, in my opinion, is due to the problem of fallibility, a problem which I am virtually alone in acknowledging. Pretty much the REST of the Christian world is out there pretending to know-it-all.

Take a typical Sunday service. Does the typical pastor walk up to the pulpit, open up the Bible, and admit, "I really don't know for sure what the heck I'm talking about. These are just my opinions." No. He gets up there and PRETENDS to have a firm grip on what the Bible says. In essence, he pretends to be a know-it-all with regard to Scripture.

Point being, here again, by implying that I'm a know-it-all, you are identifying me with precisely the type of mindset that I'm repudiating. Read my lips: NONE of us know what the heck we are doing. All we have are a bunch of opinions, and it's about time we started acknowledging that
(1) This is an unsatisfactory state of affairs.
(2) God isnt doing His job if this is the best He has to offer.
(3) Therefore we have to ask, what is God's solution?
My hypothesis: Inspiration.

here's what we know: The Bible is the word of God interpreted by man. it was spoken in a time when writing wasn't common, so it was passed by speech, which cannot be repeated verbatim every time, so the words changed. It was not spoken in English, but in languages that don't translate directly (try translating 'how old are you' into Spanish: the closest you get is 'how many years do you have'), which means that it cannot be literal Word. When it was finally written down, it was done so not by those who heard the message directly, but by those who heard the message through the grapevine. ever play the telephone game?

that being said, the message is literal, and transcends all language. That message is simple and clear, and irrefutable.

JAL said:

I expected better of you Albion. You seem to be deliberately misrepresenting me in every case.

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I assure you that that wasn't the case. I admit to being put off by having to read you calling everything you didn't agree with "absurd," or "patently absurd," etc. merely because you have a different POV, but I didn't intend to misrepresent your basic concept, nor do I think now that I did.

Pretty unbecoming of you

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beginning to look like dishonest debating

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Pure rhetoric.

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Obviously you can't meet the force of the objection, so you want to bog me down with semantic debates.

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Yes. It's pretty absurd

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Point being, here again, by implying that I'm a know-it-all,

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You see what I mean. Something has you wound really tight at the moment. Perhaps it is job worries, and I am sorry if that is the case. However, I don't appreciate being made your punching bag because of that, and it sure doesn't do anything for a discussion of the issues.

Albion said:

I assure you that that wasn't the case. I admit to being put off by having to read you calling everything you didn't agree with "absurd," or "patently absurd," etc. merely because you have a different POV, but I didn't intend to misrepresent your basic concept, nor do I think now that I did.

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My latest objection, as you noted, is that you misrepreented me. But I didn't merely say it, I demonstrated it. I showed, point, by point, where you misrepresented me. Your response? More rhetoric, attempting to make me look like the bad guy.

Setting aside the rhetoric, let's review one basic point. You suggested that the Bible could suffice for informing me on ethical decisions. I replied that it can't even tell me whether to show up for work tomorrow. As already noted in my last post, you've still doing nothing to meet the force of that objection. And to reinforce the point, I'll add the following comments (here again, I'm DEMONSTRATING my case, instead of having recourse to a bunch of rhetoric and semantic tangles like you are).

Let’s consider a biblical saint faced with the decision as to whether to show up for work the next day.

In this case I’m speaking of a carpenter named Joseph. As it turns out, King Herod was planning to bomb the building (so to speak). Herod wanted the child Jesus dead. Had Joseph stuck with his usual carpenter’s routine, showing up for work as usual, Herod’s plan might have succeeded. Fortunately, inspiration came to the rescue:

The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him” (Mat 2:13).

Did God intend this kind of experience for every Christian? Joel’s promise suggests as much. “I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and they SHALL prophesy. Your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.”

And as Paul said, “Follow the way of love, and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy.”

God not only told Paul when to show up for work, but WHERE to report:

Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia,
Act 16:7 After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not.
Act 16:8 And they passing by Mysia came down to Troas.
Act 16:9 And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us.
Act 16:10 And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia…


I could make a fairly compelling case that God intends inspiration for all believers. But why should I bother? I don’t see too many open-minded participants on this forum. In fact, the hardness of the human heart is one of the reasons exegesis is doomed to be unreliable. Ever tried to forgive someone but couldn't find it in your heart to do it at at that time? That's hardness of heart. In a similar way, pride hardens our hearts in regard to theology. We can't admit that we are wrong. Here too, inspiration is needed because, by penetrating hardness, it can succeed where exegesis usually fails.

we are called said:

...the message is literal, and transcends all language. That message is simple and clear, and irrefutable.

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Yet has caused countless arguments, schisms, wars etc.

FLANDIDLYANDERS said:

Yet has caused countless arguments, schisms, wars etc.

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Tis true

vnct said:

okay, thanks.

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You're very welcome. To give you an example of relevance, consider evangelism. There's basically two ways to say the message:

(1) "I know for sure the gospel is true. Therefore you should repent." Of course, if at that point you are still in your own eyes, fallible, then you are lying and should instead be making statement two below:

(2) "I really don't know if the gospel is true. I'm just not 100% sure that you should accept Jesus as Lord."


Now, which kind of statement best reflects the attitude exhibited in the preaching of Christ, Paul, John the Baptist (et. al.)? Number 1 or Number 2?

I think you'll agree that #1 is how they preached. This confirms that evangelism involves the gift of prophecy because, under infallible inspiration one can blamelessly say, "Repent, because I KNOW (with 100% certainty) that Jesus Christ is Lord."

Hope that further clarifies my position. Thanks for your interest.

vnct said:

does this go for the bible too? where is the bible in all of this?

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Where in the Bible are any of us told we are 100% RIGHT? We can certainly take scriptures that say contrary, ACCEPT that FACT and be in 'The Truth' of that FACT. Not a compicated picture.

Theology, beliefs are MIND CONSTRUCTS.

In the Old Testament, false gods were formed in the same way. They were internalized and then (sometimes) EXternalized in the form of carvings.

One doesn't need a CARVING to have an IDOL formed in their head.

Man or group that claims 100% right has in fact formed a theological IDOL that is IN CONFLICT with the scriptures. They (in effect) worship what they have had conjured up in their minds.

and fwiw...I blame NO MAN for that effort. It is of the DEVIL.

s

squint said:

Where in the Bible are any of us told we are 100% RIGHT? We can certainly take scriptures that say contrary, ACCEPT that FACT and be in 'The Truth' of that FACT. Not a compicated picture.

Theology, beliefs are MIND CONSTRUCTS.

In the Old Testament, false gods were formed in the same way. They were internalized and then (sometimes) EXternalized in the form of carvings.

One doesn't need a CARVING to have an IDOL formed in their head.

Man or group that claims 100% right has in fact formed a theological IDOL that is IN CONFLICT with the scriptures. They (in effect) worship what they have had conjured up in their minds.

and fwiw...I blame NO MAN for that effort. It is of the DEVIL.

s

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Exodus 20:4 Not thou shall make unto thyself an idol/eidwlon #1497, any representation which in heavens from above, and which in land from beneath, and which in waters from beneath to land.

Reve 9:20 and the rests of the men who not were killed in the blows these not repent out of the works of the hands of them, that no they should be worshipping the demons and the idols/eidwla <1497> of the gold and the silver and the brass/copper and the stone and the wood, which neither to be seeing are able, nor to be hearing nor to be walking,

I've used the following examples before.

We cannot be theologically 'sound' or 'reasoned' by DIVIDING the Word AWAY from God or His Christ. Their WORDS are not DIFFERENT from them.

God has spoken through the Law and the Prophets. Not the people, but God through them has spoken into our world.

Jesus likewise spoke, GODS Words.

We all 'try' to form cohesiveness from those speakings or understandings. But at the base of all sound theological understandings we will NEVER be able to wrap an ENTIRE SUMMARY around God. That entire effort is not available to us. We can see in part, but our partial sight, our partial constructs cannot logically reasonably ENCOMPASS 'eternal.' An entity without beginning or ending is only OBSERVED by us, is not and cannot be DEFINED by us in the entirety because of Preeminence of BEING.

One of the books of pseudepigrapha termed it (generally) this way: The entirety of what God Is is only known, knowable and defined only BY HIMSELF.

So it is also with The Word.

When we become 'partakers' in The Divine, we also have a certain freedom experienced in an expansive contemplation of Him. Our mind experiences a certain expansion about matters we cannot 'get our heads around' entirely. When we put up the 100&#37; fence, we have merely come to the imposed END of God, which is impossible.

enjoy!

squint