Splarnst

I disagree. This hasn't been my observation at all.

Brian63

Peter,

Even if that is true, it could also be true for a lot of books that nobody bothers to argue are divinely inspired.

Are you saying then that there is nothing in the text itself which should lead a person to conclude that it is or is not divinely inspired? That if the text is divinely inspired, that fact would have no impact on the accuracy of the text?

Brian

Splarnst

There is one criterion often used to disqualify something as inspired: if it contradicts something the reader already believes. But this doesn't apply when they read something in a book they already profess to believe; in that case, they rationalize and excuse it.

braces_for_impact

I think it's a matter of simply believing the text is divinely inspired first and then reading and interpreting the text through that lens. If one were to really investigate "divine inspiration" of a text, then it should be the other way around.

I am reminded of a study I saw some time ago, I wish I still had a link to it. Essentially, they took school children, and presented them with scenarios presented in the form of stories that were based on biblical stories but with all the names removed so that the children didn't know the source of the stories. They then had the children write a short essay on the morality of the stories they read. A great majority of them wrote essays on the barbarity and how morally wrong the actors in the story were. Then they take the same story, but put in names like "David" or "Moses" and so on, and suddenly, despite it being the same stories, the essays change to why the actions performed in the story were morally acceptable. It was a powerful study that showed the power our culture and religion has on shaping our moral judgments.

With regards to divine inspiration, I think we have the same problem here. There are no demonstrable differences between the bible, the Koran, or any other "holy" text and other literature. It's simply a matter of putting the cart before the horse.

Petergdi

I certainly don't restrict the idea of divine inspiration to the Bible, and I know of know biblical justification for doing so.

You are making a false distinction. There is no text without reader (or hearer) interaction. The relationship between the writer and the text is largely closed to us, but we can see the results of the interaction between the text and readers every day right here.

I'm not quite sure what you are getting at here. I don't think it makes much sense to read a portion of the text, decide what it means, and either insist that this meaning must be the truth because you read it in the Bible or decide that the Bible is somehow worthless because you find it wrong. I don't know how much of what the Bible appears to report as history is history, but I would be astonished if either the most optimistic or the most pessimistic estimates were anywhere close to the mark.

Peter.

Brian63

What do you restrict it to, if anything? Are your posts on this message board divinely inspired? Is an instruction manual for a new appliance divinely inspired? Is the credit card offer I received in the mail divinely inspired?

How do you tell if a piece of text is divinely inspired or not?

I would not find it worthless because it was wrong, I would only find that it is not divinely inspired. If a book is divinely inspired, I expect, at the very least, that it would be inerrant and unfailingly accurate throughout.



There are Christians that are inerrantists when it comes to the accuracy of the Bible, and that seems to be a more reasonable view than the errantist position. Errantists who cite prophecies are the most inconsistent on this point. They excuse the inconsistencies, imprecisions, and errors in some places by pointing to human involvement in its construction. However, they also point to the astounding precisions and accuracies found in prophecies as evidence of them having been divinely influenced. Those prophecies involved human construction as well though, and the god apparently saw fit to make the sure the text was precise and accurate anyway. Why would the god not do the exact same throughout the entire bible then?

Brian

Solo

Well, first of all, to answer this question one would have to have some notion of what divine means. This would be a blank with atheists. It's like asking someone who is tone deaf (and insists there is no such thing as music) if a tune is melodious. :huh:

Jiri

Brian63

If that was the case, it would make no sense for someone to even try and persuade someone who is tone deaf that a tune is melodius. Similarly, it would be pointless for an evangelical to even try and convince an atheist that the Bible is divinely inspired. Yet, that is exactly what they try to do via various apologetic arguments.

I think their approach has merit on that level (though the specific apologetics will ultimately fail). People can be convinced by arguments of others, regardless on whether those arguments are sound or unsound. The approaches of the evangelicals are not pointless.

Brian

Solo

I agree. I mean I agree with Chesterton that without God there would not be atheists, and I am willing to leave it at that.

Jiri

Brian63

As someone who thinks atheists exist (such as me) but a god does not, I would not agree with Chesterton on that, but it is getting a bit off-topic.

Brian