Inerrancy

The following post is my first presentation in Round Table.

1. What does inerrancy mean? And why is it important?

Simply stated inerrancy means the Bible tells the truth or the Bible is without error. It is important to note that the doctrine of inerrancy is held to the original autographs.

A more detailed definition of inerrancy would be “the Bible tells the truth, which may include approximations, free quotations, the language of appearances, and different accounts of the same event as long as these do not contradict”.

If you remember our discussion last week I posed the question why does it matter today that the Bible is inspired or inerrant? Let me give you a few reasons why it is important.

A. The first is the most important and if there were no other reasons, this one would be sufficient for us to understand its importance. To deny inerrancy denies the truthfulness of Scripture.
B. Denying inerrancy removes any objectivity of the scripture and gives no sure way of knowing whether any of the teaching of the Scripture is truthful. Think of the implications of this. If we cannot know what is true or untrue in the Bible how do we know Christ is really the way to God? How do we know anything about who God is or how he relates to His people?
C. Also denying inerrancy denies the very character of God. If God is perfect, omnipotent, loving, omnipresent, omniscient, and completely truthful then how could God give us something other than that which is completely truthful?
- Heb. 6:18 – “it is impossible for God to lie”.
- John 14:6- “God is truth”.
- Ps. 119:160 ; Rom. 3:4– “All your words are true”.

2. What is the logical problem if one error exists?

The problem that occurs if one error exists is that how then is the Bible trustworthy? If one error exists then the Bible cannot be trusted, and we could all be deceived about who God is and how we can know Him.

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, wrote “Nay, if there be any mistakes in the Bible there may well be a thousand. If there is one falsehood in that Book it did not come from the God of truth”.

This can also be seen in some of Martin Luther’s writings. He said, “It is true absolutely and without exception, that everything is believed or nothing is believed.”

This is the logical problem. If one error exists it might as well all be in error.

3. What does evangelical, conservative, and fundamentalist mean?

First of all these terms are very hard to give an exact definition to because they mean different things in different arenas, to different people and they are changing in meaning. I was going to say that even since our parents generation these terms have changed meaning, but then I remembered Rick and King Arthur are here so it might be better to say even since Rick and Ronnie’s generation these terms have changed meaning. Conservative and fundamentalist can be used for different religions and positions in politics. For our discussion we will look at these terms as they relate to Christians.

Evangelical is the broadest. “Simply put an evangelical believes in the Gospel”.

Conservative is less broad than Evangelical but more broad than fundamentalist. Conservative can be defined as “the theological position that affirms the basic doctrines of Christianity such as the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, and the divine inspiration of the Bible.

Fundamentalism is even less broad than Evangelical and Conservative. Fundamental can simply mean believing in the fundamentals or basics of the faith. But it is more the fundamental movement I am addressing. In this movement it can be seen that fundamentalism is not a broad category. Christian Fundamentalists tend to separate themselves from the modern world and even Christians who they feel have not separated themselves enough from the world. They believe the Scripture but tend to add extra biblical teaching to it. An example of this would be Christians who believe in the King James only as the accurate Bible.

It makes more sense to look at these categories with Evangelical at the bottom of a pyramid, conservative in the middle, and fundamentalist at the top. A Christian Fundamentalist is a conservative because they do believe in the “fundamentals” of the Christian faith. They would also be Evangelical because they believe in the Gospel. A conservative is an evangelical (because they believe in the Gospel), but not necessarily a fundamentalist. And one could be evangelical but not necessarily a conservative or a fundamentalist. They believe in the Gospel but reject some of the other Doctrines that a Conservative would hold to.

4. How do you know the autographs are inerrant, since we do not have them?

One of the arguments used against inerrancy is that since we do not have the original autographs we cannot know that it is inerrant. It is true that we do not possess the originals but we do possess the original text. We possess nearly 5,700 New Testament manuscripts that contain all or nearly all of the original text. We can reconstruct the original text with over 99% accuracy, and 100% of the truth comes through. An example would be this quote “Y#U HAVE WON 10 MILLION DOLLAR”. You would have no problem understanding 100% percent of the message even though this quote is in 4% in error. The Bible we hold is less than 1% in error.

The Bible in our hands is the infallible inerrant word of God insofar as it has been copied accurately.