Quote:
Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah
A single observation of a zombie not striking someone dead is sufficient to disprove this theory. In science we say that you cannot prove theories with observations but you can disprove them, the geocentric model was disproved by a single observation by Copernicus.
The question "is the Bible inerrant?" is in fact questioning the authority of the Bible.
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See, I think this gets to the root of the problem - in fact, Copernicus didn't disprove anything, he simply proposed a new theory based on new observational data. Galileo was doing great work with glass and lenses and the universe was opening up night by night; Galileo's observations were not trying to disprove anything either, he was driven by curiosity and ability to see what is out there. None of this work disproved the geocentric model, it merely afforded scientists a better view, a new, better theory, which you could accept or, in the case of the Catholic church, reject for 300 years.
Why is this important to inerrancy? Because as I understand it, we don't have all available data yet, as far as the bible goes. We haven't yet seen Jupiter's moons.
Now, of course you could have argued a heliocentric theory from the dawn of time, but nobody would pay any attention because although it would fit observations quite nicely, there's many other theories which ALSO explain the observations quite nicely, thank-you very much, and we're very happy with them. Heliocentricity, while fitting the facts, would be as welcome 2,000 years ago as me saying "in fact, I believe our whole existence is a dream of a giant zombie turtle". Heliocentricity in that case is "inerrant" (as we know now) but before its time.
I guess my point is, we'll never know for sure that the bible is inerrant until the very end. Faith, to me, is saying "I believe the bible will be shown to be inerrant all along". Now, I personally don't believe this 100%, but I do believe the mystery of man's experience of God will continue to unravel until a point when we'll be able to say "Ah! Now Genesis makes perfect sense".
Cheers!
James
PS I misspelled Galileo there and the spell checker came up with Galilee, a reminder of the good church background of the man
PPS And sorry for the rather mischievous mention of the zombie turtle- peace