Do most creationist agree with this?

busterdog · Jan 18, 2008

Mallon said:
... which begs the question: What does it mean to be inspired by God?

Any number of scriptures provide the answer.

Does scripture say scripture is "inerrant"? That word was not used. Nor does scripture say that scripture is fallible, inspired by man, man's art, man's wisdom, an approximation or merely metaphor. At best you have a stalemate there.

Lets list some scripture on these points:

The law was given for the remission of sin.
God is not a liar like man.
He has exalted his word above his name.
All scripture is God-breathed.
In the beginning was the Word.
The Word became flesh ...
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.
Not a jot or a tittle shall pass untill all be fulfilled.
The law and prophets were written concerning Jesus.
If anyone takes away from the book, God will take away from his place... If anyone adds to this book ....
Sharper than any two edged sword
Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword ....
He causes a cherubim with a flaming sword to guard paradise.

Rev 19:13 And he [was] clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.

Pro 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

The very idea that there is a "Word of God" at least implies that it is different from whatever "knowledge of good and evil" it is that man enjoy in his cursed existence. By its very nomenclature it is different. It is not beautiful or poetic or wise, its what God says. How is that ambiguous?

To me it is not ambiguous at all, but this is based upon inference. I know. Not the same as saying it exactly as man would like it to be said.

But, looking at the above, I am really not all that clear on how God could have said more. I think our questions about such things are not as clever as we imagine them to be.

Now, I understand the argument about how we compare the Bible to poetry and man's literature. It has many comparable features. There are arguments that arise from that fact, I know. Once you "falsify" key areas of scripture it is natural to fall back upon "inspiration" as the key. It is wise (as the world measures such things). So, we clearly part company on that a priori basis, which is whether human observation can falsify the Word. No need to reargue that.

busterdog · Jan 18, 2008

theIdi0t said:
When did inspiration turn to dictation?

When man desired for pure truth and God in his mercy gave it.

When it was clear to man that relative values and human wisdom suck for salvation.

The cry of the prophets is not the beauty of expressing human feeling, its a cry for clear and unclouded, unambiguous truth. The first truth is a perfect man who died to save us. The Word that testifies of Him follows.

I write these impassioned posts before I reaslize that it is better to show I understand your point so we needn't beat the dead horse. Lots of "beauty" is for many modern theologians the attribute of exaltation. "Beauty" came into the world. Aptness of expression. Better than man could do on his own. Every phrase can be read to say God wanted us to have a "better" version of what we already had -- wisdom, beauty, assurances. One could argue that the phrases I cited to Mallon refer to absolutes. No doubt it is not clear enough for many modern ears. It does not match the type of language many would expect to define an absolute truth, as opposed to a relative improvement on man's expression. I understand why that is.

Consider one thing: was Jesus sinless? Would a perfect man give a Word that was simply an improvement on man's fallen wisdom and expression?

busterdog · Jan 18, 2008

shernren said:
But inerrant by what standard? Inerrancy only makes sense if one is comparing the work adjudged inerrant to some kind of standard that distinguishes truth from error.

After all, it would hardly be necessary nor edifying to say that the Bible is inerrant relative to itself. Of course it is, and that is not what those who teach inerrancy mean when they say that the Bible is inerrant.

Welll, that is a very interesting question. Going back to the a priori issue, you probably would say the TE standard is peer reviewed or otherwise not self-validating. It has integrity because it is independently checked and cross-checked by many people.

The inerrant perspective is that the Bible regards the self-validating ways of man (and his science) as being no more logically intact. It would regard human wisdom corporately as a single, falsely self-validating system. The Bible goes to great pains to distinguish the Kingdom of God from the World -- incuding the wisdom of the world.

If science were to be sufficiently self-validating, all those folks who perhaps had an otherwordly experience (as in the gifts of the spirit) and comparing what the Word says would find a way to argue that their "peer review" is as valid as yours. Would that be reasonable? Again, we are back to the essential cleavage by which we choose a different frame of reference.

Having been through that, I have no problem saying the Bible is self-validating and that this is fine with me. That is built also on the witness of the resurrection, the one who testifies of himself and how he regards his word.

Is that self-validation if we rely on Jesus?

theIdi0t · Jan 18, 2008

busterdog said:
The inerrant perspective is that the Bible regards the self-validating ways of man (and his science) as being no more logically intact. It would regard human wisdom corporately as a single, falsely self-validating system. The Bible goes to great pains to distinguish the Kingdom of God from the World -- incuding the wisdom of the world.

But what you don't see, is that you're the one that incorporates the wisdom of the world to validate the word of God. The world tells you truth is not valid unless it is literal and scientific, and you fallen to the charm of this modern sentiment. No where in the writings of early Christianity will you find believers trying to harmonize the Judas account as modern believers in inerrancy would do. In fact what you attach to truth is a godless sentiment of scientism.

There is no meaning nor truth to be derived from your type of inerrancy Busterdog, and you must come to that realization. When you hear an individual like Juvenism claim that he would abandon his faith before he accepts the discrepancies in the Judas account, before he accepts this type of errancy, you should feel disheartened. And I think you do, I think you do find such words, such views discouraging. Is this not so?

To me such sentiments reveals a meaningless Christianity, held together by the last threads of a string. I feel a deep sympathy for such believers, to the point that if I knew I could cut that string, I'm not sure if i would. It's the faith of frailty, and glass about to break.

Is this type of Christianity only discouraging to me Busterdog? Does it empower or worry you?

Mallon · Jan 18, 2008

busterdog said:
Any number of scriptures provide the answer.

I don't think they do. At least, they don't provide the answer you seem to assume, which is inspiration=dictation=scientifically infallibility. I'll address those Scriptures you cited in a minute...

Does scripture say scripture is "inerrant"? That word was not used. Nor does scripture say that scripture is fallible, inspired by man, man's art, man's wisdom, an approximation or merely metaphor. At best you have a stalemate there.

I think you're creating a false dichotomy. Most evolutionary creationists will argue that the Bible is God's wisdom distilled through human experience. And this is completely in keeping with the Scriptures. We already know how God delivers news He wants left untainted: He drops it in the form of stone tablets on the top of a mountain. If God didn't want fallible human influence to enter into the Bible, He wouldn't have inspired men to write it.

Out of curiosity, why do you think God inspired man to write the Bible instead of just dropping it from heaven, busterdog?

Lets list some scripture on these points:

The law was given for the remission of sin.
God is not a liar like man.
He has exalted his word above his name.
All scripture is God-breathed.
In the beginning was the Word.
The Word became flesh ...
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.
Not a jot or a tittle shall pass untill all be fulfilled.
The law and prophets were written concerning Jesus.
If anyone takes away from the book, God will take away from his place... If anyone adds to this book ....
Sharper than any two edged sword
Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword ....
He causes a cherubim with a flaming sword to guard paradise.

Rev 19:13 And he [was] clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.

Pro 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

I'm sorry, but none of those verses, taken either alone or together, imply to me that the Bible was dictatated by God and/or scientifically infallible. Half the time, the "Word of God" you quote seems to be referring to Jesus, not the Bible (which hadn't even been assembled yet). Surely there must be a better argument for the infallibility of the Bible than this. Perhaps you could explain how the verses you cited above support your point...

But, looking at the above, I am really not all that clear on how God could have said more. I think our questions about such things are not as clever as we imagine them to be.

He could have had us write "The Scriptures are perfect. They are Holy. They are correct on every subject about which they speak or imply." Something to that effect. In describing the Bible, He might have even avoided such ambiguous words as "inspired" or "God-breathed" and used more commanding words like "dictated". But He didn't. God limited Himself to human experience (kenosis) so that those early Hebrews (and us today) might be able to grasp those timeless truths about which He spoke.

So, we clearly part company on that a priori basis, which is whether human observation can falsify the Word. No need to reargue that.

I don't know why you keep setting up this false strawman. Perhaps you are simply incapable of listening. But, again, you will not hear evolutionary creationists say science can falsify God's message. Only your interpretation of it. God's message is not false. Yet we hold that the YEC interpretation of it is.

juvenissun · Jan 18, 2008

theIdi0t said:
When you hear an individual like Juvenism claim that he would abandon his faith before he accepts the discrepancies in the Judas account, before he accepts this type of errancy, you should feel disheartened.

Where did I say that?

I know this would happen. Because I suspect you are not a person who are interested in finding the truth, but trying to embarrass others by your poor logic reasoning.

You are not an honest person right here, intentionally or not.

theIdi0t · Jan 18, 2008

juvenissun said:
Where did I say that?
You are not an honest person right here, intentionally or not.

Juvenissun if I was wrong, I will apologize. I asked you a series of questions in two post. In the second post (Post 23)I summed up the questions and asked you, in what I believe to be a straight forward manner:

Would you say your faith in inerrancy can be summed up in a similar way: "If the bible is not inerrant I would lose my faith, because my faith would become useless."

And you answered YES!

You, yourself claimed that you would lose your faith, if you accepted that the bible was not inerrant, so how am I not an honest person? Where did I interpret your view wrong? If you're saying that I read your words wrong, I'm fine with that, but what I expressed is exactly the view I was led to believe was true from you. I made it a point to make sure my questions were as precise as I could ask them, so that I wouldn't be accused of interpreting your answers wrong. If I have, I hope you will clarify, rather than accuse me of being dishonest.

I suspect you are not a person who are interested in finding the truth, but trying to embarrass others by your poor logic reasoning.

I have no desire to embarrass you Juvenism, even if I may find some of your views worrisome, the truth is what I am looking to find. If I misread your views I apologize, but I would like you to clarify where I have done so.

juvenissun · Jan 18, 2008

Would you say your faith in inerrancy can be summed up in a similar way: "If the bible is not inerrant I would lose my faith, because my faith would become useless."

And you answered YES!

Fine. Now compare it with your quote to busterdog on what I said, and check the difference.

busterdog · Jan 18, 2008

theIdi0t said:
But what you don't see, is that you're the one that incorporates the wisdom of the world to validate the word of God.

You assume there is no surface text at all.

busterdog · Jan 18, 2008

Mallon said:
I think you're creating a false dichotomy. Most evolutionary creationists will argue that the Bible is God's wisdom distilled through human experience. And this is completely in keeping with the Scriptures. We already know how God delivers news He wants left untainted: He drops it in the form of stone tablets on the top of a mountain. If God didn't want fallible human influence to enter into the Bible, He wouldn't have inspired men to write it.

Out of curiosity, why do you think God inspired man to write the Bible instead of just dropping it from heaven, busterdog?

Click to expand...

Of course there was human impact. Jeremiah wrote out of personal anguish, but it all fit the model of divine inspiration. The Song of Solomon certainly made good use of the flesh.

The means of writing the Bible is not material. The fact is it worked inerrantly. I have no problem with the Holy Spirit appearing anonymous at times.

You know, God did drop out of heaven. What happened? In the Temple, the Priests could not stand to minister. By the Oaks of Mamre, Jesus prepared to level Sodom. At Sinai, there was enough presence of God to incinerate rock, yet his bloody people couldn't refrain from trying to shag anything that moved. And then they couldn't stop complaining about the manna. The question is not why God didn't drop down. The question is how human beings could be so helpless and oblivious.

I'm sorry, but none of those verses, taken either alone or together, imply to me that the Bible was dictatated by God and/or scientifically infallible. Half the time, the "Word of God" you quote seems to be referring to Jesus, not the Bible (which hadn't even been assembled yet). Surely there must be a better argument for the infallibility of the Bible than this. Perhaps you could explain how the verses you cited above support your point...

Click to expand...

Was it Vanderbilt who said about what his boat cost, "If you have to ask, you can't afford it." Obviously we are just seeing very different things.

He could have had us write "The Scriptures are perfect. They are Holy. They are correct on every subject about which they speak or imply." Something to that effect. In describing the Bible, He might have even avoided such ambiguous words as "inspired" or "God-breathed" and used more commanding words like "dictated". But He didn't. God limited Himself to human experience (kenosis) so that those early Hebrews (and us today) might be able to grasp those timeless truths about which He spoke.

Click to expand...

Honestly, I think he was quite clear about it.

I don't know why you keep setting up this false strawman. Perhaps you are simply incapable of listening. But, again, you will not hear evolutionary creationists say science can falsify God's message. Only your interpretation of it. God's message is not false. Yet we hold that the YEC interpretation of it is.

Click to expand...

Again, you must assume there is no surface text in Gen. 1-2, and then you must assume that science tells you surface text must be metaphor. Whether there is or is not surface text depends on a choice of a prioris. Human observation or divine revelation.

Is it my interpretation? To the extent that I choose a self-validating Bible as the ultimate frame of reference, yes that is so. "Interpretation" is much like choice. From there, I simply go to the surface text. It say six days.

Listen to Dawkins. He takes a crappy sample of human witness and experience and as a result concludes that God is a fantasy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxGyMn_-J3c

This is falsification pure and simple. He is not giving you opinion. He is telling you what reality and reasonable observation demands. You can insist that this is not the same process as science, but I am sticking to my guns.

Mallon · Jan 18, 2008

Busterdog, I'm not going to address much of what you've said because I want to stay on topic. So please just address the following question:

busterdog said:
Honestly, I think he was quite clear about it.

Can you please explain why you think those Bible verses "clearly" speak of inerrancy, especially when it comes to science? Can you explain the logic that you employ to get from those verses to cited earlier to your belief that the Bible is scientifically inerrant? Is it really nothing more than a hunch you have?
(Please don't pass this question off with a quotation again.)

theIdi0t · Jan 18, 2008

busterdog said:
Listen to Dawkins. He takes a crappy sample of human witness and experience and as a result concludes that God is a fantasy:

Just to correct you, that wasn't Richard Dawkins, that was Peter Atkins.

shernren · Jan 19, 2008

busterdog said:
Welll, that is a very interesting question. Going back to the a priori issue, you probably would say the TE standard is peer reviewed or otherwise not self-validating. It has integrity because it is independently checked and cross-checked by many people.

The inerrant perspective is that the Bible regards the self-validating ways of man (and his science) as being no more logically intact. It would regard human wisdom corporately as a single, falsely self-validating system. The Bible goes to great pains to distinguish the Kingdom of God from the World -- incuding the wisdom of the world.

If science were to be sufficiently self-validating, all those folks who perhaps had an otherwordly experience (as in the gifts of the spirit) and comparing what the Word says would find a way to argue that their "peer review" is as valid as yours. Would that be reasonable? Again, we are back to the essential cleavage by which we choose a different frame of reference.

Having been through that, I have no problem saying the Bible is self-validating and that this is fine with me. That is built also on the witness of the resurrection, the one who testifies of himself and how he regards his word.

Is that self-validation if we rely on Jesus?

What a confusion of terms and concepts.

Let's cut through all this and go back to single questions, single answers. Let's start with:

Would it be possible for the Bible to be inconsistent with heliocentric science and still be inerrant?

juvenissun · Jan 19, 2008

theIdi0t said:
Your inerrancy holds no value for me, it posses no beauty, nor does it salt my faith. I might even argue, that it is the imperfections that make it all together beautiful and meaningful to me.

Strange.

You are definitely not a scientist.

Why don't you make some beautiful mistakes in some of your formal documents?

juvenissun · Jan 19, 2008

shernren said:
What a confusion of terms and concepts.

Let's cut through all this and go back to single questions, single answers. Let's start with:

Would it be possible for the Bible to be inconsistent with heliocentric science and still be inerrant?

Bad question. But if an answer is demanded, it is a YES.

busterdog · Jan 20, 2008

shernren said:
What a confusion of terms and concepts.

Let's cut through all this and go back to single questions, single answers. Let's start with:

Would it be possible for the Bible to be inconsistent with heliocentric science and still be inerrant?

Probably what I did is not use terms of art from the peer review with rigorous precision. I think what I said was nonetheless cogent. I am irreverent about terms of art.

If the Bible was wrong about heliocentrism, I would presume it to be not inerrant.

Let's not go over the old geocentrism ground. I gave a very carefully parsed literary analysis (my field) and people said it was not just incorrect in the balance, but completely baseless. I know that it was not baseless. If there is something new, then by all means ....

By the way, I am basking the glow of give and take and I don't see myself going back to a pitched battle (my perception) over whether there was the slightest merit in my literary analysis. For the most part, I have forgotten how those ships were passing in the night.

shernren · Jan 20, 2008

busterdog said:
Probably what I did is not use terms of art from the peer review with rigorous precision. I think what I said was nonetheless cogent. I am irreverent about terms of art.

If the Bible was wrong about heliocentrism, I would presume it to be not inerrant.

Let's not go over the old geocentrism ground. I gave a very carefully parsed literary analysis (my field) and people said it was not just incorrect in the balance, but completely baseless. I know that it was not baseless. If there is something new, then by all means ....

By the way, I am basking the glow of give and take and I don't see myself going back to a pitched battle (my perception) over whether there was the slightest merit in my literary analysis. For the most part, I have forgotten how those ships were passing in the night.

Which thread was your literary analysis in? My apologies - I can't remember offhand.

In any case, I presume that your answer is "no, it cannot." However, there are people who believe the exact opposite. That is to say that some people believe that:

The Bible can be inconsistent with heliocentric science and still be inerrant.

How would you convince such a person that s/he is wrong?

juvenissun · Jan 20, 2008

shernren said:
The Bible can be inconsistent with heliocentric science and still be inerrant.

To whom? and at what time?

Simple minded physicist. Why can't you consider more variables?

busterdog · Jan 21, 2008

shernren said:
The Bible can be inconsistent with heliocentric science and still be inerrant.

How would you convince such a person that s/he is wrong?

Fasting and prayer.

(And a little Fiddler on the Roof. --- Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset.)

I would simply ask him to listen to George Bush give a speech. How many references to "foundations" and "arms" and "standing up" for this and such does he make? We assume no literalism there. So, why assume anything more about the Psalmist? Generally in JOb or the Psalmists metaphors are linked with other clear metaphors. LIke clay under a seal . No one thinks the scribes thought the atmosphere was made of clay or wax. The effect of the known metaphors is to point beyond human understanding. It simply lacks narrative structure as the exposition of events. It does not assume that one can understand these things. Examine the tone of these passages. Gen. 1-3 is completely opposite. It assumes that essential points can be understood. It looks like an explanation. Not all of it can be understood, certainly, but the form of exposition puts emphasis on those things that can be comprehended. It does not primarily point beyond the surface text to things like limitless power or knowledge. Unlike the wisdom literature, unlimited power is implied, not explicit. Look at Genesis and look at the wisdom literature. If you are telling your wife how, when and where you are going to buy that new car for her, which style of language works best? Gen. or psalms?

http://christianforums.com/t5886017&page=2

http://christianforums.com/t5021948-seperating-metaphor-from-literal-truth.html

Do most creationist agree with this?

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