doubtingthomas

Robert:

To me there seems to be two major fundamental flaw in your argument.

I think, based on your posts in this thread and others, that your argument boils down to this:

1. God exists and has spoken to us through the bible.
2. Therefore the bible must in whole be inerrant (based on your definition of inerrancy).

This seems, to me, to be a non sequitur. It does not necessarily follow that if God revealed himself through scriptures that he also then restrict error for being included in these texts, for whatever reason. Unless you can present to me an absolute proof that God would not allow error in the bible, then your argument fails.

My second objection, involves your assertion that "God" or the "christian worldview" can be a valid ultimate authority. My problem with this is that the only valid ultimate authority for anything is reason. Reason is atecedent to the conclusion that only the christian worldview is valid, not the other way around. In fact, you must rely on reason to reach any conclusion. Therefore since your ultimate authority is founded upon something else it can not be your ultimate authority.

RobertLW

We have thousands upon thousands of copies of the text. In order for critical doctrines to be distorted, thousands upon thousands of scribes would of had to make the same exact error. I think you can agree that this would not be a reasonable position. By allowing scribal errors, I am simply allowing the obvious but it does not make the meaning of the text suspect. For example, I could give the Declaration of Independence to 500 students and ask them to copy it by hand. (Which is what we are talking about) In the end, I would have 500 copies with multiple errors. If we were to lose the Declaration of Independence , we could reconstruct it with reasonable assurance that we could reconstruct the meaning and intent of it's message using those copies. We could have this assurance because of the probability of all 500 students making the exact same error. For example 498 students wrote "We hold these truths to be self evident" and 2 students wrote, "We hold these trucks to be self evident". Could we not be reasonably assured that the original autographs said "truths" rather than "trucks"?




Let us take into consideration the nature of man and that the scribes probably committed much greater sins during their lives than incorrect punctuation, extra tick marks or spelling errors. I think we can reasonably say that they would be the very least of the errors they would have to answer for. Also, making these kind of errors is very much different than altering the meaning of the text.




I have never read any other book where the author has made the claim that the book is an authority unto itself. If you have another example, I would entertain it. Having said that I will offer my justification. I can justify all that I see and use in this world and without the self-authenticating word of God it could never be said that I truly know anything.





Yes, this is what I have been saying, logic and empirical evidence need to support each other and cannot stand on their own as an ultimate authority. If you say that your epistemological basis for knowledge is both reason and empirical data, how is this justified? They do not justify one another as an epistemological basis for knowledge. They also do not explain such universals as morality. It is my contention that only the Christian worldview justifies all universals.

I will be on vacation until Thursday, I will answer when I return or you may send me an e-mail if you would like to discuss further.

Robert

RobertLW

We would have to take into consideration the nature of God. He is perfect, therefore error would be impossible. It is not a matter of God "restricting error", it is a matter of contradicting his nature. Error would contradict my worldview which is justified.




Actually, it is my contention that the Christian worldview can be the ONLY valid worldview. So, are you saying the arrow never hits the target? I respectfully disagree. I do not think that you are willing to live with the consequences of having reason as your ultimate authority. For example, motion is not possible as Zeno argued. Is this your position or will you concede that you must also consider empirical data when coming to a conclusion? While it is true that I used reason to conclude that the Christian worldview is valid, I can at the same time justify it's use. I used reason because God provided me with it and I use it in the way He intended. Can you see that I just justified reason by appealing to my ultimate authority and not the other way around? My ultimate authority is self-authenticating, it is not justified by reason. God providing me with reason is antecedent to me using it.

Robert

jbernier

Do we not also have to take into consideration the nature of the text? I note that your public profile states that you come from a Presbyterian background. The Protestant tradition in general has always argued that Christians must take the Bible seriously and on its own terms. However, assuming that the Bible MUST be inerrant is a refusal to take the Bible seriously on its own terms for it assumes a priori that there CANNOT be historical inaccuracies or mutually exclusive statements in the text. Thus the inerrantist assumption does not allow the text to be whatever it is.

Further to the point, if (as Protestant theology has always affirmed) the Biblical text is the primary source of knowledge for God's nature for the Christian person then inerrancy faces a major problem: We do not know what God's nature is until AFTER we have let the text tell us what God's nature is. Thus we cannot state what God's nature is BEFORE reading the text. Therefore if one supports one's position about the Biblical text's character by an argument from God's nature one is assuming knowledge of God that logically comes BEFORE interpretation of the Biblical text. Thus the Biblical text would not be the primary source of knowledge for God's nature as one needs to have prior knowledge of God's nature before reading the Biblical text. Sola scriptura goes right out the window and with it the entire Protestant Reformation.

Now, it must also be stated that ancient Jewish and Greek historiography did not have our obsessive concern with historical detail. History was much more rhetorical in nature: It was written to persuade an audience to a particular point of view rather than provide a snapshot portrait of past events. In short, historical accuracy was generally not a central concern of the Biblical writers, thus begging the question: If it was a central concern for those who wrote the text why should it be a central concern for those who read the text?

jbernier

Let us consider the statement "the only valid ultimate authority for anything is reason". First, let us rephrase it slightly as "Reason is the only valid authority for anything", as it puts the subject (reason) first in the sentence. What is your warrant for this statement? How do we know that "Reason is the only valid authority for anything"? Presumably it must be by reason as it is a thing and thus reason must be the only valid authority. Thus we can restate the sentence thus: "Reason is the only valid authority for reason."

Hang on. Is this not akin to saying "The Bible is true because the Bible says so"? You would, I assume, agree that that is circular reasoning. Is "Reason is true because reason says so" any less circular? Of course not. Thus you cannot demonstrate that reason is valid from reason; you are making an a priori assumption. Your assertion, I would say, is no less than dogmatic than saying "The Biblical text is the only valid authority for anything" in that you cannot demonstrate it without referring to the authority of that which you are trying to prove authoritative.

Note that you are also quite right when you note that if an ultimate authority is founded upon something else then it cannot be your ultimate authority. Thus we see that you cannot prove the veracity of your statement either from reason or from something other than reason; thus you cannot prove the veracity of your statement. The most you can say is either "Reason may be the only valid authority for anything" or, perhaps, "I believe that reason is the only valid authority for anything." Either way, they demonstrate that your objection to Robert's position by reference to the ultimate authority of reason is neither valid nor sound as it requires that a statement for which you cannot demonstrate the veracity is correct.

Nonetheless, I believe you are correct when you point out that in the simple act of reading the Biblical text one is engaging in an interpretative act that, by its nature, means that authority is at least shared between the Biblical text and the interpretation (or act of interpretation). The Biblical text is never read in isolation from our own a priori assumptions, preconceptions, etc. However, this fact does not necessarily mean that the revelation of God that Christians believe is contained within the Biblical text is false, untrue, etc.; it simply means that engaging with that revelation is a much more complex process than inerrantists and literalists would have us believe.

Vorkosigan

That's an interesting argument, and quite powerful. Excellent post.

Vorkosigan

jbernier

Thank you.

Sven

You sidestepped my question in the OP again. How did you arrive at this "ultimate authority"? How did you know that it was the right way to read the bible? etc.

Thanks for making may point even clearer. Fact is that every denomination claims that the bible communicates its message clearly - bit nevertheless they disagree on the message.

What?
Try http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=192


See above. You still haven't explained at all how did you arrive at your ultimate authority.

But you don't exclude honest errors by presuming the verity of the biblical writers. Did you miss this point?

By what, please?!?

Sven

This very much sounds like the TAG-crap some Christians recently tried to explain (justify is the wrong word here) in the EoG forum. Perhaps you'd like to meet them and help them explain the logic (?) behind it.

How do you know?

I'm still waiting for you showing this.

Nice. Leaving the thread without having answered anything.

Sven

The bible doesn't either, as Vinnie has explained over and over again in your debate. Remember the problem of canonization (sp?) ?

How about first showing that morality is a universal?

This really looks like TAG. You really should have made this clear from the beginning, then you could have debated TAG instead of the errancy of the bible. Since everything you claim in the end boils down on the claim above, debating anything else with you is really futile.