Inerrancy, again!

I just ran across this post on inerrancy and Russell Moore’s book. Go ahead and read it. I'll wait.

Good. She definitely is no fan of inerrancy, is she? Neither am I, but after reading it I mused as follows:

But isn’t there a place for the authority of scripture without inerrancy? Is it all or nothing? I’ve never believed in inerrancy, but I believe in the authority of scripture as prima scriptura—but the science nerd in me loves the findings of science. Perhaps the problem isn’t inerrancy itself, but the sola scriptura that it entails (or maybe it's the other way around, sola scriptura demands inerrancy)? I’m reminded of a line in Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place where she says her father loved the findings of science and would pray to the God who set the atoms dancing and other such things. For me the findings of science incite the same feeling. Sometimes just as much as a cool new insight into a Greek or Hebrew text in scripture that I read—and sometimes even more!

Because I believe in prima scripture, though, I hold to a traditional view of morality. But—and this is where most people go off the rails—I don't see God as an angry parent, just waiting to club you into submission, or worse yet, an even more omnipotent version of Zeus on the rampage with his lightning bolt. I don't, and never have, believed in the popular version of penal substitution—and I definitely have problems with the "official" theological version of it. If you have to peg me, I would be a Christus victor person, but as Scot McKnight says in his A Community Called Atonement, theories of atonement are like a golf bag full of clubs. You don't hit a drive with a putter! And remember, the church didn't really have a "theory of atonement" for its first thousand years or so! The emphasis was on the redeeming, wooing, self-emptying love of God for humanity.

Ok, I've moved far from the origin of this and am riffing on my favorite topic now, which is the love of God for humanity as displayed in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, followed by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit so that we can live in communion with him, now and forever. (That's mouthful, isn't it?)

Thoughts?

By the way, I know I've linked to this video before, but I really like it because it sums up the problems with much Western theology. It's only nine minutes long, and it's probably one of the best uses you can put nine minutes to (what a rotten sentence grammatically!).

The joys of (not believing in) inerrancy

OK, I confess that I've never been a fan of inerrancy, going all the way back to the original Battle for the Bible, always seeing it as a distraction from really grappling with what the text is saying. For one thing, everyone defines it differently. And my experience over the years is that the proverbial person in the pew thinks it means oral dictation, which it definitely is not—and that's about the only thing inerrantists will agree on! So, this little excerpt from I Still Believe was refreshing:

It is a liberating experience for a biblical scholar to be free of the a priori affirmation of inerrancy. Not only do a host of problems dissolve, but new options become available and at the same time the Scriptures become more alive. Without having to hide or ignore something, one can enjoy the feeling of honesty.—I Still Believe, page 111

<idle musing>
Several years ago I was reading Greek with another person just for the fun of it. We would take a book in the New Testament and spend about an hour just sight-reading it. If we got stuck, we'd pull out the lexicon. After we had been doing this for several weeks, the person I was reading with told me how freeing it was to let the text just speak without coming to it looking to confirm a belief! I have to admit that I was somewhat surprised, as I have rarely (I wish I could say never) come to scripture that way. I don't believe in inerrancy, but I certainly do believe in inspiration, and to use scripture as a weapon to prove a presupposed belief is to me a form of heresy! But on reflection, it helped me understand the approach to scripture among some people.

Lord keep me from that attitude! May I ever come at scripture with an open heart and mind, seeing what you have for me that day!
</idle musing>

What is inspiration, anyway?

"What is the inspiration [of the Bible] can never be properly defined—there is a mystery therein. It is a mystery of the divine-human encounter. We cannot fully understand in what manner 'God's holy men' heard the Word of their Lord and how they could articulate it in the words of their own dialect. Yet, even in their human transmission, it was the voice of God. Therein lies the miracle and mystery of the Bible, that it is the Word of God in human idiom."—Pentecostalism as a Christian Mystical Tradition, pages 114–15, quoting Ervin, "Hermeneutics: A Pentecostal Option," Pneuma 3.2 (1981): 17–18, quoting Georges Florovsky, Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern Orthodox View (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing, 1972), 27

Arguing in a vacuum

Henry does not go into great detail about the definitional possibilities for mysticism, assuming instead a very specific account and in turn generalizing it to the whole. Undoubtedly, one significant reason why Henry can do this is that he does not speak of the Spirit much, if at all, in his considerations of mysticism. And this critique could be extended even more so to the whole of Henry’s project in God, Revelation, and Authority: the work is pneumatologically anemic, especially in the way it sets up methodological concerns. Henry’s project is first and foremost a theology of the Word. or Logos. Without recourse to a pneumatological idiom at critical points along the way, Henry has constructed a theological epistemology that all too easily defaults to a modern, rationalist paradigm. No wonder, then, that mysticism cannot fit within such a program; the agenda has been constructed so as to exclude it from the very beginning.—Pentecostalism as a Christian Mystical Tradition, page 108

But what if the philosophical underpinning is wrong?

The claim of the Bible’s inerrancy has been defended on the American scene by many evangelicals in a manner that reveals a certain epistemological militancy, one that forces a person to take sides regarding the Bible’s truthfulness, again with the latter being understood in a very particular, modern way. This militancy has emerged in a myriad of ways across a number of forms. One of the most popular cases occurred in the 1970s, when Harold Lindsell published his book Battle for the Bible (1976).Soon thereafter the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978) was formulated, a document repeatedly appealed to as a way of building broad consensus. Institutional purgings, denominational divisions, strategic initiatives, and similar efforts have collectively contributed to the sense shared by many that to be evangelical, one needs to subscribe to biblical inerrancy. Otherwise, one would be on precarious footing, slipping inevitably toward heresy and unorthodoxy—that is, caving in to the cultural and worldly pressures to relinquish the fundamentals of the Christian faith.—Pentecostalism as a Christian Mystical Tradition, pages 89–90

<idle musing>
Yep, Father, Son, and Holy Bible. That's what counts, not the Holy Spirit! Bibliolotry tied to a marriage to the Enlightenment, which, ironically, those tied to inerrancy frequently decry as anti-God. But what if that view is wrong? Your whole doctrinal system falls like a house of cards.

Wouldn't it be better to cling to the traditional Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Then you are free to rest instead of continually battle. But maybe, Roger Olson says, those who tenaciously cling to inerrancy don't want to rest. They prefer to fight and judge and declare who is in and who is out. : (
</idle musing>