Dale Allison on the Bible

"The inexplicable divine mystery still speaks through the old pages and through my hermeneutical confusion; and in the end I must pursue the book because it has always pursued me. It has made me feel like a worm and no man, and it has made me sing the song of Simeon. It has made known my transgressions so that they are ever before me, and it has freed me from my past so that I am free indeed. It has so shaped my intellect that, even when I do not end with it, I always begin with it. And what little good deed doing I have done has come from memory of the Good Samaritan and of the Son of Man's words to the sheep and the goats.

I have come to live and move and have my being in the Bible [...] and in the Christian traditions it has brought forth. I want this book read to me on my deathbed. Despite my modernity and my cynical nature, despite my dissection of it and my quarrels with it, the Bible remains profitable for teaching, for correction, and for training in righteousness. It comforts. It inspires. It commands. When I push its pages apart, I lay my finger on God's heart. I hate to see people not reading it."

Taken from The Luminous Dusk .

The metaphors of theology

Christianity (like other religions) is founded upon centuries of theological doctrine—e.g., the Trinity, the atonement, the virgin birth etc. And many of these doctrines that have been passed down are seen, especially by fundamentalists, to be unquestionable and infallible. Fair enough. But, the question can be posed regarding whether or not some (or many) of these doctrines are necessary, useful, and, more importantly for this specific post, univocal. That is to say, my point in this post is to ask “Can the meaning of these doctrines be pinned down unambiguously?”

Take the doctrine that I so vehemently oppose, namely, the inerrancy of scripture. Christians who adhere to inerrancy believe that God, in some sense, was behind the authorship of scripture and rendered the nature of scripture error-free. Ok, but if you ask an inerrantist exactly in what sense God “authored” scripture you run into problems. Did God himself take up a pen and a paper and write out the Bible? Of course not. But then how did it happen? Did God supersede the consciousness of the writer of scripture and control his mind? Some inerrantists will say yes, and some no. But, therein lies the ambiguity in the doctrine. How can we even promulgate this doctrine with certainty if the means by which it was carried out are extremely obscure?

This example can be multiplied over and over again: Was Jesus literally God, or only metaphorically God? And does Jesus have to be seen as God himself in order to be our Lord? Was the story of the fall really meant to be predicated of an original pair of humans, or is it simply a story that illuminates that humanity as a whole has “fallen”? Is Hell an everlasting torture chamber of fire, or is the language predicated of Hell mostly metaphorical, and Hell is a different place altogether? Etc.

My point regarding these examples is not that people disagree about doctrines, though this is an important periphery here. The point is that the language and concepts usually utilized about these doctrines is ambiguous and obscure. These doctrines are wrapped in so much metaphor, analogy, and mere approximations that it seems difficult to state some of them literally. The question of what exactly we mean when we promulgate a doctrine can always be posed, and clear answers are not always forthcoming. But, if this is the case, then can we really say that some doctrines are unquestionable and infallible? If there is so much semantic wiggle room with regards to a certain doctrine, then I don’t see how questioning or offering radical interpretations of said doctrine can constitute heresy.

Let it also be remembered that the doctrines that we have inherited from the Christian tradition were originally expounded by fellow humans; humans who share the same semantic and cognitive limitations as us. And those doctrines were based on those individual’s own subjective interpretations of scripture—interpretations that we still disagree on today. So, even though most of our doctrines have had a long line of tradition to back them up, this does little to help our confidence in their univocality.

All that being said, I do not mean to insinuate that Christian doctrine is useless and void. Far from it. It is through Christianity that I believe we come into the closest contact with God and Jesus, and I don’t believe that the metaphorical nature of doctrine negates this. What it should do, however, is make us more sensitive to the differences that our doctrinal interpretations produce. We shouldn’t be quick to put our own Christian denomination on a pedestal and proclaim that the other denominations” have it wrong”. We should realize that different interpreters necessitate different interpretations, and that we can still be fellow servants of God while harboring these differences.

God did not write the Bible

The title of the post should be self-evident if taken in a literal sense, since, to quote the perfect grammar of Russell Brand, “the Holy Spirit ain’t got a pen.” That is, it seems quite obvious, even to fundamentalists, that God didn’t literally take up the task of writing the Bible. So, why did I take up the task of writing a post that asserts the obvious? Because, although many Christians wouldn’t claim that God literally wrote the Bible, they do claim that the Bible is the written Word of God. That is to say, many Christians believe that because of revelation and inspiration, scripture is “wholly and verbally God-given” and that God “caus[ed the] writers to use the very words that He chose.” (See the Chicago statement on Biblical Inerrancy.) Thus stated, such Christians adhere to the claim that God is the author of the Bible, though not in a direct sense.

My claim is that God cannot be said to have authored the Bible in this sense. What better way to demonstrate this, then to survey the Bible itself, and I believe the best way to do this, is to quote passages from the Psalms:

Hear me, Lord, my plea is just; listen to my cry. Hear my prayer-- it does not rise from deceitful lips.--Psalm 17:1

Arise, Lord! Deliver me, my God! Strike all my enemies on the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked—Psalm 3: 7

You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.—Psalm 63:1

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.—Psalm 51:1-2

I chose these Psalms—there are many more like them--for a specific purpose. You see, these Psalms are all prayers and pleas to God himself; they are the pleas of pious hearts and souls crying out for their creator. As such, it seems quite obvious that God did not author these verses in any sense, for then that would imply the absurdity that God is praying and pleading to Himself. So, we see that these verses cannot be preceded by “The Lord says.” Thus stated, we have direct evidence from the Bible that not all of its verses were “wholly and verbally God-given”.

All it takes is simple examples like these to collapse the foundation of inerrancy. For if we can find verses where God clearly did not author them, then we cannot say with any certainty that the rest of the Bible was authored by God. Now this is not to say that the Bible isn’t inspired by God in some sense, but it puts to bed the idea that the inspiration of God somehow controls the words written on the page.

God's inclusive inspiration

"Ask pardon of your Lord and then turn unto Him (repentant). Lo! my Lord is Merciful, Loving. "

“Verily, that which is with God is the best for you, if you but knew it: all that which is with you is bound to end, whereas all that which is with God is everlasting.”

“ Yea, thou art merciful unto thy children when they cry unto thee, to be heard of thee and not of men, and thou wilt hear them.”

“...when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God."

Shall we care to speculate whence these verses derive? Contrary to a prima facie assumption, these verses are not from the Bible. The first two derive from the Koran, and the latter two from the Book of Mormon.

What is a Christian to make of these verses above? Is he not to agree with them? Is it not true that (as the Christian believes) God is merciful and loving, as the Koran says? Is it not true that those in service of fellow human beings are also in service of God almighty? Of course the Christian will uphold such truths regarding the nature of God. Yet, simply because other self-proclaimed holy books occasionally hit the bulls-eye regarding the character of God, this is not enough for one to grant those books the same divine status as the Bible. For there are still a multitude of verses in these aforementioned books that most Christians would adamantly disagree with. Fair enough.

However, is it not at least the case that some of these holy books are also inspired in some sense—though perhaps to a lesser degree—by God Himself? The Christian might cringe at such a thought and retort that “the Bible is the only inspired Word of God”. Yet, what exactly the word inspired means is by no means agreed upon by Christians—even fundamentalists. So if this is the case then how can we rule out a priori that other books such as the Koran, or the Book of Mormon, do not contain some hint of divine inspiration? I maintain that we cannot.

But, let us tread a step further. As I articulated above, Christians will no doubt uphold the aforementioned verses as valid reflections of God’s nature—that is, they will agree that God is merciful, loving, everlasting etc. It might seem that identifying the truth of these verses is no big deal—for an occasional true proposition about God in a written book does not necessitate that said book be labeled holy. But, an interesting question can be raised here: where does truth come from? Surely all truth derives from God himself? Just as all being, goodness, love etc., derive from God, it seems that truth must also derive from the same source. Doesn’t James 1:17 state “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning”?

But, if every good thing, which must include truth, comes from God, then surely any valid proposition regarding the nature of God must come from him as well. For where else are we to find a wellspring of pure goodness? This leads us to the conclusion that the aforementioned verses, along with hundreds like them, must ultimately derive from God. How then can we deny that these verses are not in some sense inspired by God?

I maintain that these verses are indeed inspired by God. And if they are inspired by God, then we can reach an interesting inference regarding God’s revelation: God has indeed revealed his truth outside of the Christian religion. And if this is true, then it’s time we take a closer look at religious inclusivism.

Textual Criticism and its implications for inerrancy

As a Christian I’ve spent a lot of time dwelling on and pondering the case for inerrancy. The reasons for this are numerous. First, it was probably the doctrine that could have potentially led to the loss of my faith had I chosen to hold to the “inerrancy-or-bust” mentality that plagues fundamentalists. Second, it was after rejecting this doctrine that I truly felt my faith strengthened—I could put my faith solely in God instead of setting up the bible as my spiritual focal point. Third, it seems to me that this doctrine is more of a spiritual crutch to many to be held at all costs instead of a position deduced by pure logical inference.

 With such reasons thus stated, I find myself occasionally running through my mind the reasons why this doctrine is simply unwarranted and untenable. And let me say that the reasons I, personally, have for rejecting this doctrine seem to be miles wide in scope and miles deep in substance. Yet there are a few arguments I have come across (or have come up with myself) that I feel have really put the final nail in the coffin for the doctrine of inerrancy and it is in this post that I would like to expound one of those very arguments.

 This argument begins with the recognition regarding the findings of Textual Criticism. In case the reader is unaware, Textual Criticism is the endeavor of attempting to ascertain the original form of a text. Now, usually appealing to any kind of secular scholarly consensus regarding the bible is something that fundamentalists and inerrantists will not react favorably towards—since in order to affirm the doctrine of inerrancy one would have to reject almost all consenses reached by the academic community. Yet, there is one area where even fundamentalists will (usually) yield to academia and that is in the science of textual criticism. In New Testament textual criticism scholars have reached conclusions that cannot be denied, since these conclusions have concrete evidence to ground them. For instance, it is unanimously agreed that all the (thousands of) New Testament manuscripts we possess have scribal errors. Some of these errors are simple copying mistakes while others are blatant textual additions. These variants reach a mark as high as, and most likely higher than, 400,000.

It’s important to understand that most of these errors are completely insignificant (e.g. spelling mistakes). However, there are many that are quite significant indeed. 1 John 5:7-8 is one of the only places where the doctrine of the trinity is explicitly taught, and yet these verses are not found in a majority of NT manuscripts; the story of the adulterous woman (John 7:53-8:11) is completely absent from many early manuscripts of John; and the resurrection ending of Mark (Mark 16: 9-20) was not added until two centuries after the Gospel of Mark began to circulate. Let me articulate once more that these conclusions are based on concrete physical evidence of the manuscripts we possess.

 So, what is the significance of the above conclusions, and how do they affect the doctrine of inerrancy? Well, first let me begin by correctly articulating the inerrantist position. The doctrine of inerrancy only states that the original texts of the bible are inerrant, and not that God would keep the editors and scribes, who transmitted the texts, from error. Fair enough. But there is double standard employed here; and I believe presuppositionalist  Greg Bahnsen demonstrated it in his own writings:
 

There is no scriptural warrant for holding that God will perform the perpetual miracle of preserving His written Word from all errors in its being transcribed from one copy to another.

 Notice the problem? Did God ever claim that he would keep the scribes and editors from corrupting his word as it was transmitted textually? No. But, similarly, did God ever claim that he would keep the human writers of scripture from corrupting his word as they wrote scripture? No, he did not. (Let it be known that an appeal to the inspiration of scripture does not save this claim unless one already assumes that inspiration necessitates an inerrant text--which would need to be demonstrated.) So, how can one claim that the original text should be inerrant but not the text after transmission, since both of these assertions rest on the same lack of promulgation of the divine will?
 
Moreover, what makes the bible different after the original text is formed? Is it not still the “Word of God”? Of course it is. So, why would God not allow error to corrupt his Word during the writing of the original text but he would allow error to corrupt his Word during its textual transmission? Surely any answer given in vindication of the former would not also apply to the latter? So, I maintain that we can form a valid dilemma regarding the nature of scripture: Either (1) God desired that no human error intermix with his Word or revelation, or (2) God did not desire such a thing. But we know for a fact, again due to textual criticism, that human error did corrupt God’s Word as it was textually transmitted. So, we have warrant for rejecting (1) and are therefore completely warranted in accepting the conclusion that God allowed human error to intermix with his message—whether it pertains to the original text or not. Thus, we have logical airtight reasons for denying the doctrine of biblical inerrancy.

Who are we to judge the Word of God?

As a Christian who does not hold to inerrancy, I come across a fair amount of negativity from fellow believers concerning my theological convictions. Some have even gone so far as to label me a heretic, or deny that I am indeed a fellow brother in Christ. However, despite some of the fierce attacks wielded towards my beliefs, I do, in fact, many times see where my fellow Christian interlocutor is coming from; and no more so than when they bring forward the present charge: if you are a non-inerrantist then you, by definition, find some error in the bible; therefore you discard what you find to be falsehood in scripture. By doing so you are putting yourself “over” scripture, and therefore God himself. Hence, you are raising your autonomous authority above God’s!

Now, let me admit that I do in fact understand what the inerrantist’s concern is here; and it is, indeed, a very serious accusation—one that should not be taken trivially. Who has the right to raise their authority above that of God? Is God one such that his truth is contingent on the whims of fallen humanity? Surely such a position would be the epitome of a sin against our creator!

Yet I maintain that to submit such a charge is only a wild mischaracterization on the part of the inerrantist.

First, the inerrantist seems to be forgetting a crucial aspect of the non-inerrantist position: we don’t believe the bible is authored by God in any direct sense. That is to say, we don’t believe that the human authors were only puppets or instrumental mediums that perfectly transmitted the “word” of God. This is, obviously, what constitutes the very rejection of inerrancy. So, since we don’t view the bible as authored by God then the whole charge losses tenability. How are we putting ourselves above God if God didn’t author the text to begin with? It would surely be foolish to think our authority supersedes God’s; yet if the bible is not inerrant then no such thought need cross our minds.

Second, I claim that even if the bible were inerrant, the above argument would still constitute a non-sequitur. The reason for this is that no one can avoid putting themselves “over” the text. Written mediums are of the very nature that the reader must exercise his authority over the text in order to interpret and decipher it; and the bible being a written medium necessitates that we do the same regarding it. So even if the bible were inerrant, God would have known that the transmission of his message was being filtered through a channel that necessitates using our own judgment.

However, this isn’t exactly what the inerranist is getting at. It’s not the act of interpreting that troubles him; rather, it’s the act of deciding, using our own arbitrary authority, which parts are valid and which parts contain falsehood.

This point is well received, but I still believe the inerrantist is accusing the non-inerrantist of something he himself cannot escape. While it might seem as if only the non-inerrantist is utilizing his arbitrary judgment –by deciding what he will or won’t accept in scripture as valid—I maintain that the inerrantists (and everyone for that matter) do the same. For a judgment is both positive and negative—that is to say, the inerrantist is still utilizing his own arbitrary judgment by affirming the whole of scripture—especially since the determination of what constitutes scripture is itself a judgment--as valid. It is not only the one who denies aspects of scripture that is putting his authority in place to judge said scripture. For the proposition “scripture is wholly true” is still a conclusion reached through an individual’s logical inference; and as such it constitutes a judgment predicated on the authority of what the inerrantist views as valid or reasonable.

Thus, it seems that, inerrantist or not, we are in the same boat here and the argument above loses weight unless the inerrantist is prepared to predicate it of himself. We were all meant to judge scripture; without the judgment of scripture there would, consequently, be no scripture.

Philosopher Keith Ward on biblical inspiration

"We can speak of the Bible as inspired, in that we can see God at work influencing and guiding the minds of biblical historians, lawyers, priests, poets and prophets, so as to lead them to a cumulative tradition of insights into the nature and purpose of God, the ultimate spiritual reality. For Christians who believe this, the Bible is not the words of God, somehow by-passing the minds of men and women and dictating words direct from the divine mind. It is a unique witness to the gradually percieved purposes of God, which culminate in the prophetic teaching and life of Jesus, seen by Christians as a decisive and normative disclosure of the nature and purposes of supreme spirit."

Taken from The Word of God?.

Biblical inerrancy and the means of inspiration

Upon entering into a discussion regarding the nature of scripture, the topic of the inspiration of the scriptures inevitably comes up. This is, no doubt, an important topic due to the fact that the Bible claims inspiration for itself (or does it?) and because the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy is founded upon such a belief. But what exactly does it mean to say that the Biblical writers and, therefore, the Bible were inspired?

To begin, let it be known that the Bible itself does not settle this dispute. For although it appears as if certain verses in the Bible claim inspiration of the whole—as if the writers already had the Bible canonized during their writing—there is little to no explanation of just what the nature of this inspiration was. I want to make it clear that not even many die-hard inerrantists will claim they know the nature of biblical inspiration—Article VII of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy states, “[t]he mode of divine inspiration remains largely a mystery to us”. Even if they do claim to know the method of Biblical inspiration, I don’t see how such an assertion can survive a charge of begging the question. But if we cannot deduce the nature of inspiration, then what warrant do we have in claiming that this inspiration produced an error free Bible?

It is in the face of this question that the inerrantist will break from pure scriptural speculation to engage in, nothing more than, theological speculation. The contention brought forth, in instances similar to this, will be something along the lines of the following: God is truth himself and is incapable of lying; if God inspired scripture, then it follows that he inspired no falsehood into scripture; thus, we should expect scripture to be filled with nothing but the truth and, therefore, to contain no falsehood. Now, while this line of argumentation might seem logical from start to finish, I maintain that it is founded upon many assumptions that beg the question.

First, while I maintain it is true that God would not inspire falsehood, I also maintain that inspiration of truth does not necessitate that the medium that receives that truth will not corrupt it. We seem to forget that there are two mediums involved in the transmission of the Bible and one of them—the fallen human writer—is surely capable of falsehood. Now, it is true that simply because the human medium is capable of falsehood this does not necessitate that it did in fact corrupt the scriptures with said falsehood. Just like the fact that my truck is capable of breaking down does not necessitate that it did so this morning. However, if the medium that transmits the Biblical message is indeed capable of error then this possibility cannot be rejected a priori. So, how then can we deduce if human error actually entered into scripture?

Well surely we cannot simply take the witness of scripture as our reference point since to do so would already be to beg the question in favor of the infallibility of scripture—e.g. I know human error hasn’t entered into scripture because the Bible says it hasn’t, and the Bible is fully trustworthy. So, all anyone can do is to submit scripture to their own reasoning capabilities in order to deduce the nature of its witness. And when I, personally, carry out the aforementioned process I find that it is perfectly reasonable and logical to conclude that human sin must have been allowed to enter into scripture (e.g. Psalm 137, 139: 21-22 etc.) Therefore, I find it logical to conclude that, whatever the nature of inspiration, God must have felt it permissible to let human sin color the pages of the Bible. And should we expect anything more? As Cornelius Van Til says, “all is yellow to the jaundiced eye”. Similarly, if humans are fallen and sinful then it seems quite reasonable to deduce that if humans are the mediums whereby a product is produced, then that product can be expected to have signs of that falleness.

Second, we have no reason to believe that God would have to produce an inerrant text, unless we already assume that this is what he wanted to do. I maintain that it is perfectly valid to assert that if God wanted to produce an errorless text then an errorless text would manifest. But how do we know this is what God desired? We, once again, cannot appeal solely to scripture to settle the issue, since to do so would be to beg the question yet again—e.g. I know God desired to produce an inerrant text since his inerrant text says so. We must, once again, appeal to our own determination of scripture to settle the issue. If we see aspects of scripture that strike us to be irreconcilable with an inerrant text then we are perfectly warranted in claiming that scripture is not error free—and, therefore, completely warranted in claiming that it was obviously not God’s desire to produce an inerrant text.

Alas, we must be careful of this line of argumentation—e.g. God would do XYZ. C.S. Lewis articulated it rather well:

But there is one argument which we should beware of using for either position: God must have done what it best, this is best, therefore God has done this. For we are mere mortals and do not know what is best for us, and it is dangerous to prescribe what God must have done—especially when we cannot, for the life  of us, see that He has after all done it.

Notice that the inerrantist position already begins the journey with the conclusion established—e.g. the Bible is inerrant and that’s that—while the non-inerrantist can truly ask “is the Bible inerrant? Let’s look at the evidence and see.” The former is a top-down approach and the latter is a bottom-up approach—which I maintain is the only valid approach.

So, whatever the nature of inspiration (will we ever know?) we can safely infer that God did not see it fit to let his inspiration drown out the voice of the human author. And should we expect anything different from the God who Christian theology states came down to earth in the form of a man? Surely God is not above accommodating himself to his beloved children.

My views on the Bible

One aspect of theology that I know will be discussed frequently on this blog is the nature of scripture. I know it will be discussed frequently for two reasons: 1) my views regarding scripture are contrary to the convictions of fundamentalist Christians and are seen, by some, to be controversial and heretical; 2) it is a topic that I believe is crucial regarding one's Christian convictions. Too many Christians are losing their faith because they were taught that the Bible is the inerrant and infallible Word of God ; and they have made this doctrine their spiritual foundation, instead of making God their foundation. Then, once this foundation has been shown to be suspect, the Christian's faith collapses because they have not built their house on the rock. It is this line of theological reasoning that I hope to speak out against.

So, what exactly are my views of scripture? Well, I do not believe the Bible is inerrant nor infallible. It was not authored by God in any relevant sense that we mean the word author. It's as Russell Brand once said, "The Holy Spirit doesn't have a pen." Now, this is not to say that I do not believe the Bible is inspired, but the word inspired needs to be properly defined, and I see no necessary correlation between  inspiration and inerrancy. That is to say, though I believe the Bible to be inspired by God, I do believe it contains errors theologically, morally, historically, and scientifically. Yet, I treasure the Bible in spite of, and because of these shortcomings. The Bible is our interaction with the divine, and such interaction does not necessitate that we will not misinterpret the divine.

I do not expect my views of scripture to resonate with everyone. Yet, my goal is not to get people to see things the way I see them, but, rather, to simply demonstrate that one need not adhere to the adolescent "all or nothing" mentality of fundamentalists (or atheists) in order to be a faithful follower of God.