2.12.2007

An inerrant Scripture?

By whose standard? That's the question. Here's food for thought on the subject:

"There is a way of being a biblical absolutist [believing everything in the Bible is true and relevant to us; no problem passages we avoid or "re-interpret"] without buying into modernity's notions of truth being limited to science or math. There is a belief in Scripture that can ask every question [that challenges the truth of Scripture], and give an intellectually honest answer.

"Superficial inerrancy wants the Bible to sit down in Mrs. Enlightenment's class for an exam, and wants the Bible to get a perfect score. But biblical absolutism says it should go the other way; we want to get Mrs. Enlightenment to enroll in Scripture's class, and take a few tests of her own. Maybe even flunk a few of them. When Scripture is studied as the absolute standard, a lot of these questions and tensions... just disappear. But when Scripture is studied as one-which-takes-tests-administered-by-others, the defenders of the faith always wind up like the nerdy kid who got a 98 percent and is trying to haggle the teacher out of two extra points."


Douglas Wilson

1 comment:

  1. Steve, thank you for this, I hope you don't mind that I quoted part of this over at my blog. :) If you do, I'd be happy to remove it.

    ReplyDelete