Is The Bible Inerrant?

[aron]

Originally Posted by awareness

Of course "in the beginning was the Word." Cuz without the invention of words there's no chance of it being remembered, orally recorded, transmitted, or utilized between each other (Even monkeys have a body language, but not words).

That's even more true for the invention of the written word, in Mesopotamia some 5,500 yrs ago. (God's word came to man before the advent of written language.)

And God's Word(s) created the whole cosmos. So the cosmos, and even we, are God's Word (DNA & Galaxies both swirl); written in His own hand; with no human intermediary.

So we have two books from God: The Bible and the Cosmos; "by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God."

And I think I'm hooked on both Words of God, or all, oral(s) and written(s), that are both, grand and glorious, spellbinding, mysteries to me; that have a firm hold on me, pulling on, like a gravitational force (I will draw all men), it more than seems, my mind, heart, and spirit, or whole being.

Amen Lord. I can't thank You enough.

One small (perhaps large, I don't know) caveat is that the world system as it is configured puts out a lot of stuff (transmission, communication, signals) not lined up with the throne. So we have to be careful what we take in from the "cosmos". Yes, God can smile at you through a dog wagging his tail and grinning. God can speak to you through your next-door neighbor's kid.

But sometimes the creation around you manifests the result of its remove from God. And sometimes, especially with culture, and even more so with religious culture (see the thread "The Asian mind and the Western mind") that manifestation is tricky, and will suck you in. Suddenly your capacity to hear "the Word" is clouded, and obstructed.

God Himself tells us to look up at the stars, who declare the glory of God (see e.g. Psa 19). Scriptures continually reference creation to make us understand God's heart, thoughts, feelings, and intentions toward us. But Satan, in my view, continually comes into the conversation, and insinuates stuff to "twist" our view. I know I'm sounding like Lee here, but I am also sounding like James ("keep yourself from being spotted by the world").

(And today I like James more than Lee because James said that Godliness was to care for widows and orphans and Lee completely missed that - he even publicly despised it).

Also I differ from Lee in that I posit that much of my writings are also confused, and errant, reflecting my confused and darkened person as much as God's current speaking today. I notice that Paul continually sprinkled his writings with admonitions like, "I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers" (see e.g. Rom 11:25, 1 Cor 12:1, 1 Thess 4:13). For whatever the veil of ignorance has been rent, if at all, has been in recognizing that a) the world system as it is currently configured is continually striving to distract me from my divine appointment with the Father, and b) the Word of God, revealed in scriptures, continually points me back.

And I don't have to "understand" the Bible - remember that the disciples were "continually amazed beyond measure" - as much as I understand that I don't understand it. I recently likened Lee going through scriptures to a bulldozer going through a flower garden. I am likewise. But I don't pretend that my perusals have chased the truth down into some corner where it turned and yielded to me. I'm not that smart.

I'm sure this is way off topic.

[awareness]

Originally Posted by aron

One small (perhaps large, I don't know) caveat is that the world system as it is configured puts out a lot of stuff (transmission, communication, signals) not lined up with the throne. So we have to be careful what we take in from the "cosmos". Yes, God can smile at you through a dog wagging his tail and grinning. God can speak to you through your next-door neighbor's kid.

But sometimes the creation around you manifests the result of its remove from God

A bro and I have been discussing this matter. That is, God the creator is separate from His creation. That means the creation is not God so it can't have the perfection of God. That would mean creation was a fall from the get-go.

However, can a perfect creator create imperfection?

Deu 32:3-4 For I will proclaim the name of the LORD; ascribe greatness to our God! "The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.

I don't know. It's a mystery. It's spellbinding.

[aron]

Originally Posted by awareness

God the creator is separate from His creation. .

There is an assumption there that is not warranted, by scriptures. Think of my oft-repeated example, of the angel and Hagar, talking there in the desert. She tells the angel, "You are the God who sees me". The angel is "separate from" the creator God, because she is talking to a messenger, a sent one. But through the medium of this messenger she is connected to God. She is not as separated as we may think.

In another example the angel who spoke to Mary said, "I am Gabriel; I stand before God." If the angel stands before God, how can Gabriel also stand before Mary? I think our notions of "time" and "space", of "togetherness" and "separateness" may be skewed by our being stuck in physical bodies in space and time, and our conceptual arrangements resulting from that experience. So we may not understand God, nor His creation, as well as we suppose.

When John the apostle fell at the angel's feet he was told, "Do not do that. I am your fellow creature. I am not the Creator. Worship God." Yet the difference between John and the angel was so great that John was overwhelmed with awe and reverence. And John had seen Jesus transfigured! Surely he wasn't so easily impressed. But when he saw this angel he was overwhelmed, and began to worship.

Perhaps the distance between those in temporal space-time, and the realm of perfection and immutable spiritual reality is rather vast. So making conjectures about the immutable nature of reality itself, merely because they seem reasonable to our semi-rational minds, may not be warranted.

Put another way; I am not so easily impressed with Lee's "this equals that" or "this means that" logic today as I was several decades ago. And that extends to you and me, as well -- the gap between us and the divine reality is just too great. We shouldn't trust our thoughts too much.

[awareness]

We need a "like" button. Cuz I'd use it on this post. Thanks for your thoughts and insights. Wonderful bro Aron.

[aron]

Originally Posted by aron

I am not so easily impressed with Lee's "this equals that" or "this means that" logic today as I was several decades ago. And that extends to you and me, as well -- the gap between us and the divine reality is just too great.

Interesting that I made those remarks after commenting on the separation, or lack thereof, between "Creator", and "creation."

So maybe I was the one being illogical.

Let me first go back to Lee, then try to make a larger point. Lee's logic took him to a place where he refused to acknowledge his fellow believers, over doctrinal differences: his so-called "ground of oneness", aka "the doctrine of dirt".

Lee's logic took him to a place where he despised, or at least ignored, the weak, the poor, the widows, and the orphans.

Lee's logic took him to a place where he concluded that some parts of the Bible were revelatory and others were fallen, and natural, i.e. not divine. His logically-derived "economy" template then allowed him to determine which was which. His logic ultimately over-rode the warnings of the apostle John (Rev 22:19) not to take away any of the words of prophecy of "this book". His logic even over-rode his own "minister of the age", the apostle Paul, who repeatedly encouraged the saints in his epistles to sing the Psalms. No, said Lee, they are too low. Too natural. Lee's mind had determined this, after years of study, and thinking, and logical progression, had led him to that conclusion.

Now, to my own commentary. I cannot say what unfulfilled issues led this man to become a merchandiser of the Gospel, even the "merchandiser of the age." But it is a truth that one side-effect of the tree of Knowledge is that we can see the splinter in others' eyes, while missing the beam in our own. Thus, Lee could freely point out shortcomings of the ideational structures of Luther, Wesley, et al, even while being blind to his own. We, likewise, can look back and see Lee's faults while being unaware of ours (a benefit of this forum is that those who comment have not been unanimously impressed with my thinking; necessary medicine, to be sure).

To go back to the subject at hand, as I understand it: the disciples were continually "amazed beyond words" and "astonished beyond measure"; they were continually looking at each other and saying, "What is this?!?" I am unfortunately a creature of logic; I am always turning over "A = B" and "B + C = D" in my head. But deep inside there is something that longs for the cloud of unknowing. The journey involves the basic element of continual astonishment, like Moses when he saw the bush, and like myself when I was informed that God loved me and sent His Son to die for my sins.

The "truth" of the word is not where Noah's children found spouses, nor whether Judas hanged himself or died of an intestinal rupture. The truth is not found in God's economy or the doctrine of oneness. No, there is a Person lurking there, hidden and concealed within the words of scripture. This Person will never surrender to our logical constructions. Rather, we can come to the Word, and surrender to Him. And surrender, or "repentance", includes our own deluded, semi-logical minds.

[OBW]

Aron,

Within the context of this thread, and of the Bible, I think that there is a definite place for logic and reasoning. And there is a place where it fails. There is he place where scripture itself calls to "come reason." And there are the places where there is great mystery that is left as such.

And even where Paul says that there are things hidden in ages past that are now made known, even that was not everything. It was something specific. Lee liked to make each of those things into grand metanarratives. But, for example, the rather grand statement in Colossians 1:27 "the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory" is not as revelatory as some might think. First, is the last part referring to the riches or the mystery? (I'm sure that someone who knows Greek well might be able to tell.) But is the statement that follows really about the full mystery of God, or about the entirety of his riches? Probably not. And it is encapsulated in something that has a "known" factor, but is still not fully known or understood. "Christ in you" is something that is at one level simple, yet at another is not so simple.

We sometimes refer to it as complete, yet at others as incomplete, as if we have let him into the foyer and he will slowly move into the rest of the house over the remainder of our lifetime. And in this life, it is a hope. And while hope is not necessarily irrational or incomplete, it is not the same as certainty and complete knowledge. Oh, we are certain — or as certain as a fallen human can be. Yet we have an expectation that we do not understand. All we have is the present, and some notion of what is to come.

But enough on this. I believe it is sufficient to say that there is a lot in that. Yet there is also a lot in that which we still do not understand.

In the meantime, those who argue for inerrancy, especially in the typical evangelical way, are leaning toward a version of inerrancy that is setting them up for a crisis of faith. They assert that the Bible is true and accurate and without error on all things on which it speaks. So if you find a verse that says you can dig brass, then we have to assume that there was a time when brass was not the combination of metals not found naturally in a combined form in the earth, but was found already combined. And since that is not true, there is an error in the Bible. Inerrancy is now destroyed and Christianity is in chaos.

The terms under which inerrancy is said to exist by those who need to have it and define it are far beyond the claims of scripture itself.

Profitable for teaching. Is the Bible concerned with the table of elements and the methods by which things like iron and copper might be alloyed into something else? Or is the passage in question a statement about the bounty of the land in question? And when it comes to teaching, what are you looking to the Bible to teach? Science? Technology? Or the person of God, his relationship to man, and the life that he has chosen/ordained for his people?

Reproof and correction. About science? About history and timelines if past events? Or about living life as one regenerated to be the active image-bearer of God?

Instruction in righteousness. Not in understanding about precisely how the cosmos, the earth, and man came into being. As little information as there is on the subject, it is as if God simply said "I did it. Now let's move on.)

But when someone tries to assert inerrancy, they are almost always starting with a specific interpretation of a specific passage. They are not talking about the Bible in general. They are talking about their interpretation. They might deny that. But since it is almost always attached to an interpretation that is declared to simply be "the word of God," the whole discussion becomes a ruse. It is an alternative way to turn an interpretation into the "pure word of God."

The Bible clearly says a lot. But the things it is clear on do not need an inerrancy clause to be true. Inerrancy clauses are part of the arguments by people who need to find the remains of a wooden ship high in the mountains of what is now the vicinity of the borders of Turkey, Iraq, and Armenia. If those remote sightings that no one seems to be able to get close to turn out to be illusions, then where is their faith?

If it turns out that the earth was created millions of years ago (by God) and a form of intelligent design through directed evolution turns out to be the way so much of the life on earth came to be, what will happen to the faith of those who are clinging to a literal, six-day creation? What if Adam and Eve are stand-ins for something long before, like a general rebellion among many humans, some of whom recognized their error and some who did not? What if the two trees are symbolic of the directives God put before mankind at that earlier time? What if the fall as we know it was not part of a time long after the fall of Lucifer, but was part of that rebellion? Is the simplistic description of a civilization that came to be, then was destroyed (by flood or other calamity) with only a paltry few surviving, importantly described in accurate detail, or in metaphorical language? If we are meant to have a knowledge that can be argued in the manner of a scientific inquiry, we are missing too many details. The only stories of what happened before that calamity were either what Noah and the few with him could keep up with, or what God distilled into the short telling. In any case, over a thousand years, plus the account of the creation and fall are only 6 chapters in Genesis (assuming the literal 6-day creation). Not much detail on which to hang too many hats. And virtually no details if the longer creation timeline is ultimately true.

[aron]

Originally Posted by OBW

Aron,

Within the context of this thread, and of the Bible, I think that there is a definite place for logic and reasoning. And there is a place where it fails. There is he place where scripture itself calls to "come reason." And there are the places where there is great mystery that is left as such.

And even where Paul says that there are things hidden in ages past that are now made known, even that was not everything. It was something specific. Lee liked to make each of those things into grand metanarratives. But, for example, the rather grand statement in Colossians 1:27 "the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory" is not as revelatory as some might think. First, is the last part referring to the riches or the mystery? (I'm sure that someone who knows Greek well might be able to tell.) But is the statement that follows really about the full mystery of God, or about the entirety of his riches? Probably not. And it is encapsulated in something that has a "known" factor, but is still not fully known or understood. "Christ in you" is something that is at one level simple, yet at another is not so simple.

Certainly there is a place for logic, for rational thought. I am nothing if not a rational person. But at the same time I realize the limits of my rationality today, much more than 20 years ago, and I am less impressed with people who are so satisfied with their "revelation", however they present it, that they brook no questioning or conversation. And Lee certainly falls in that camp.

We need look no farther than today's newspapers, with wars either raging or simmering in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Israel/Palestine, Ukraine, and Missouri (?!?), with a large subset of our population either incarcerated or mentally incapacitated, and with millionaire movie stars committing suicide, to know that there are limits on our rationality. Under the veneer of our logic are animal instincts, not always properly tamed. We though Lee had somehow gone beyond all that and was "transformed", now our own logic was limited to "Brother Lee is always right"; but hard experience should have taught him some bounds, and it certainly schooled the rest of us.

"Christ is you" is a mystery which I suspect (barring some phenomenal breakthrough, which I always hold out 'irrational' hope for) that I will spend the rest of my life working on. He said, "It is finished", and it is, but my journey continues nevertheless. That includes my full faculties of rationality, but today I know that it goes deeper. It always goes deeper.

Originally Posted by OBW

We sometimes refer to it as complete, yet at others as incomplete, as if we have let him into the foyer and he will slowly move into the rest of the house over the remainder of our lifetime. And in this life, it is a hope. And while hope is not necessarily irrational or incomplete, it is not the same as certainty and complete knowledge. Oh, we are certain — or as certain as a fallen human can be. Yet we have an expectation that we do not understand. All we have is the present, and some notion of what is to come.

But enough on this.

I think we are saying the same thing. My only difference is in the "enough on this" part. There is never enough on this.

[OBW]

Originally Posted by aron

I think we are saying the same thing. My only difference is in the "enough on this" part. There is never enough on this.

That's too true. There is never enough because we never really get it.