Channeling Chris Tilling on Inerrancy

Chris Tilling

Chris Tilling:

By only using scripture, and nothing else, it can be demonstrated that the Bible contains errors of many kinds. This is simply a fact of our scriptures, and must be acknowledged in the process of developing a specifically scriptural understanding of scripture.

The Reformers . . . didn't operate under the same kind of assumptions which were to later influence modern formulations of inerrancy (namely the Scottish philosophy of 'common sense'). . . . [M]any of them could speak in extremely exalted language about the Bible. Luther, for example, could describe scripture as 'God incarnate'! Nevertheless, . . . Luther was also untroubled by historical discrepancies in scripture: 'Let it pass, it does not endanger the articles of the Christian faith' (cf. Goldingay, Models for Scripture, 262-63)

A classical understanding of Scripture, the kind found in Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, Thomas, Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin, is not the stuff of deductive logic. The language of infallibility and inerrancy transfers into the realm of doxology a Gestalt perception of a specific relationship in which the inscripturated word of God is praised to high heaven with the same intensity as is praised the word of God in Pss 19 and 119. It is not the event that is praised (against Barth, or one reading of Barth); it is the God-part of the event that is praised, id est, God’s word, and the Spirit of God that communicates that word.

There is nothing innovative at all about speaking of scripture in language that overlooks its imperfections (‘let it pass,’ says Luther, rightly) and concentrates, in superlative terms, on its perfections. Those who wish to praise Scripture with triter language – (moderately) useful; (all other things being equal) profitable; teachable (so long as it is transposed into the categories of later tradition or the latest ideology) – have nothing in common with Gregory of Nyssa or Martin Luther.

Jim West’s request for at least one verse that backs up the language of inerrancy and infallibility the great tradition, Jewish and Christian, has used in reference to Scripture is as ludicrous as is his whole take on the question. Josh 1:7-9; Ps 1:2-3; 19:8-12; 119, on the one hand, and Isa 45:23; 55:6-12; Jer 23:29; and 33:2-3 on the other, to name only a few key graphs, speak of God’s word, God’s teaching, in the most exalted of terms. It is the language of simchah, joy, glee, but also, awareness of an enormous transcendence. The language of Gregory of Nyssa and John Damascene capture aspects. That of Luther and Kierkegaard, other aspects. Zwingli's language is bold and expansive. The language of nitpicking Scots and ponderous Germans (excepting Luther) misses the boat altogether.

Should someone object that the verses cited do not in the first instance refer to the inscripturated word of God, but to some unknown subset thereof, or to an ephemeral word of which we now have nothing: know this: you have the entire interpretive tradition of synagogue and church against you. The great tradition applied these verses to the entire sweep of scripture, however that was understood exactly at the time, ensuring for generations to this day that the contents of the Bible would indeed be compass, mirror, and anchor of the life of the faithful.

Should someone object that none of the cited passages comes right out with some well-wrought phrase like “Scripture is without error in all that it affirms” (Lausanne Covenant), well, you don’t say? I can’t find “God in three persons, blessed Trinity” in the Bible either. Objections of this kind say a lot about the people who make them, and nothing at all about the affirmations Scripture makes about God and its own contents. 

Get a grip. It’s time to think inductively, in terms of Gestalt perceptions. It’s time to engage in multi-tiered thinking, like this: the Bible affirms that God leads into error (1 Kings 22; Isa 6 [and NT actualizations thereof]; 63:17), and at the same time, that God did not err in so doing. If you find it beneath you or beyond you to affirm something and its opposite on distributed levels of analysis, then theology, philosophy, art, literature, all this and more is beyond you. Stick to baseball batting averages and gyrating stock prices. To each his own reward.

Comments

[Talmida]

I'm not nearly well enough educated to contribute to the arguments here, but my eye was caught by the comment that Luther described scripture as God incarnate.

The Catholic Church teaches that God is truly present in Scripture.

Par. 103 of the Catechism:
"For this reason, the Church has always venerated the Scriptures as she venerates the Lord's Body. She never ceases to present to the faithful the bread of life, taken from the one table of God's Word and Christ's Body."

I don't think that Catholics venerate the Word written, the solid book with words and pages. But we do certainly venerate the Word proclaimed.

Although I would not agree with Luther that God is en-fleshed in Scripture, I do sort of see what he was getting at. Perhaps God en-paged?

[Peter Kirk]

For a more positive aspect of Tilling's views, see the quote here. "Inerrancy", whether we accept it or not, is indeed a rather negative concept.

[JohnFH]

I appreciate what Chris is trying to do. As I see it, he wants to rescue the concept of inerrancy from its erstwhile present-day defenders, who have made it into something negative and detached it from an understanding of the relationship God establishes with us through his Word.

The use of a negative per se, does not entail that the content expressed is negative. To affirm that God does not lie to us, that God's word does not lie, that God's word is without error in all that it affirms, like all solid teaching, frames questions even as it provides answers. What does Scripture affirm? What does it mean to say that God does not lie, even when he sends a lying spirit to deceive his people (1 Kings 22), or gives them a word designed to harden their hearts and provoke rejection (Isa 6)?

I think Chris was wrong to put an exclamation mark after Luther's affirmation that Scripture is God incarnate. There is great truth to that statement, and Luther was not innovating. The similar statement in the current catechism - thank you, Talmida, for bringing it to our attention - is telling.

But I agree wholeheartedly with the intent of Tilling's statement referenced by Peter: Let's speak positively of the trustworthiness of scripture, not negatively of inerrancy. But I continue to believe that when someone like Luther or Zwingli used inerrancy language, they succeeded in doing exactly what Chris would like to do: speak positively of the trustworthiness of scripture.

We might yet learn a thing or two from the Reformers in this respect.

[Drew]

So why, again, must trustworthiness be contingent on an understanding of the text that is inerrant? Moreover, let's unpack this little ditty:

"The language of infallibility and inerrancy transfers into the realm of doxology a Gestalt perception of a specific relationship in which the inscripturated word of God is praised to high heaven with the same intensity as is praised the word of God in Pss 19 and 119. It is not the event that is praised (against Barth, or one reading of Barth); it is the God-part of the event that is praised, id est, God’s word, and the Spirit of God that communicates that word."

The issue is not where it "transfers" for then we are no longer arguing a sense of an inerrant text that has errors, but we are arguing for a text that has authority *in spite of* its errors as a text that reveals God. These are two different arguments. The first, that the text is somehow inerrant, is useless. The latter argument, that it is in effect a witness to the inerrant Word of God seems quite well justified in the text itself. But this does not really argue that the text is inerrant, but the spirit of the text as it "transfers to the realm of doxology".

[JohnFH]

Drew, for all I know, we are in agreement.

I'm having a hard time following you, because on the one hand, I try to refer infallibility language to scripture in accord with classical tradition, for example, by extending the sense of Isa 55 to apply to the word of God inscripturated, and in accord with the rather unexceptional claim that God does not err, and hence he doesn't err when he speaks, whereas you ramble on, if I understand you correctly, about errors in the sense of discrepancies, say, between the number of people killed in a battle as reported in parallel accounts in Kings/Chronicles.

As for the latter kind of error, it is perfectly possible to admit that such inconsistencies are found in scripture, and still claim, with Zwingli, that Scripture "is certain, it cannot err, it is clear, it does not let us go errant in the darkness, it is its own interpreter and enlightens the human soul with all salvation and all grace."

Is this really so hard to understand?

[Drew]

It's totally inconsistent to say that the text errs (the myriad text critical problems for one), but is inerrant. That's all. If you make appeals to the inerrant nature of God or say that the will of God is inerrant therefore the errors in the text as associated with that will are inerrant, you are begging the question. That speculation does not change the fact that the text itself is errant. You are making another argument that the first is not contingent upon. That's the problem and a clear flaw in the argument.

I understand what you are saying, I think that the conclusions of the argument you make demand far better foundations than appeals to authority (Zwingli, patristics, etc.) here.

[JohnFH]

Drew, you are welcome to your world in which, apparently, it's impossible to say one thing and its opposite at distributed levels of analysis.

You are welcome to your world in which the truth of things must be determined by brute logic. We'll see how far it gets you.

You are welcome to your world in which the witness of the Fathers and the Reformers means nothing.

It's not my world.

[Drew]

Very well then. You have no answer. My world is not rooted in deductive logic, but it is rooted in a sense of rationality where our assumptions about things are laid bare in order to grow in wisdom. The witness means a lot to me. I am quite confessional actually. But I never, ever merely accept the teachings of a tradition until I have an understanding a grasp of why I am doing so. And that means that I can rationally justify my assumptions of what I believe.

Note that none of my argumentation is against you personally, ever.

I am simply reading your argument. You seem to have invoked quite a bit of personal language making assumptions about what "I" am comfortable with. It would do well to your Christian witness not to engage in such ad hominem language.

Peace.

[JohnFH]

Fair enough, Drew. You put me in my place with your last comment.

I look forward to seeing you show your confessional side, and how that plays into your doctrine of scripture. I'm usually a bit skeptical of people who claim to have "an answer." For that reason, I might as well take your comment that I don't have one as a compliment.

Peace to you.

[Drew]

Hardly complimentary. I would rather not draw attention to myself either, but my arguments. If I lay out a confessional argument so be it. But it does not even matter my personal stake in it and I would hope for the sake of intellectual advancement the same would be with you!

I know that we would agree on at least one thing: what all of this really means in the end is greater than all of us.

Cheers.

[Rich Rhodes]

What's often missing in these discussions, from my point of view, is a full awareness of our imposition of post-Renaissance notion of truth on what is essentially a Middle Eastern document with significant Greek influence.

That said, I believe the Scripture is the way God wants it to be -- period (and that includes that there are umpteen variant readings of differing qualities). If we have to bend over backwards to make it come out "inerrant" relative to our version of what truth is, then maybe it's time to rethink the very grounds of the argument (which is, I guess, what John was trying to say in his response referring to the witness of the Fathers and the Reformers).

If I didn't believe that Scripture is exactly what God wants it to be -- irrespective of real or apparent inconsistencies, it wouldn't be worth my time to argue about translation.

Also for me, the authority of Scripture does not depend on its inerrancy in the traditional fundamentalist sense. Its authority for me, philosophically an American Pragmatist, lies in the fact that it, unlike any other text or collection of texts, reveals God to my heart. This is a matter of witness not apologetic.

[JohnFH]

Preach it, bro.

The "traditional fundamentalist" way of speaking of scripture diverts attention away from the Bible's own focus.

The Fathers and the Reformers keep the focus where it should be.

[Rich Rhodes]

At my small group tonight after a particularly deep time of worship where God's presence was quite tangible, the leader prayed out on behalf of us all asking forgiveness for loving ideas about God more than God Himself.

[Chris Tilling]

Great post, John, and helpful. I'll write a friendly response soon.

[JohnFH]

Thanks, Chris. I look forward to your response.