blt to go

O.K., I'll play.

Don't care about "intuition." Sorry--just it has been too wrong for too many for too long. I understand if that is a basis for your belief, just hard to demonstrate.

"Evidential" - specifically what evidence?
"Rationalistic" - specifically what rationale?
"Experiential corroboration" - what experiences? (and of course, how did they corroborate?)
"comparative analysis" - let's start with comparing what to what? we can hold off on the "analysis"


I am not asking for your "epistemology" on the entire bible - just this one area--the problematic contradictions as seen by christians, non-christians, and even the "Chicago Statement" both internal and external.

And if this is too serious of a commitment, perhaps a demonstration of it in action here

Sven

[emphasis mine]
One can only claim this if (1) one never read the entire bible or (2) started with the assumption of inerrancy. So, nothing new.

Hopefully some people don't like what it says! Remember the "gems" about killing homosexuals, rapists marrying their victims, smashing children against stones, etc.?

Hopefully this guy doesn't make state laws.

Some folks are really deluded.

Sven

"intuitional" is very close to assuming.

Fact is that you try to harmonize things which other people see as contradiction. Someone only has to do this if he thinks the text is inerrant before he encounters the (alleged) contradiction.

Let me give you an example: I recently read a novel. The main character on one page threw away "the dagger", sitting on his horse. But two pages and only a few minutes in the plot later, he laid "the dagger" on his saddle in front of him. I went back and read the two pages again; nowhere there was any indication or even a possibility according to the plot that he could have taken his dagger up again after throwing it away. So I concluded that the author made an error and went on with reading.

I think you would have come to the same conclusion. But, here comes the problem: if this passage would have been in the bible instead of in a novel, you immediatedly would have invented some (far-fetched) harmonization - because you assume inerrancy before encountering problems. An easy way out would be, for instance, to claim that he had two daggers - I think this would most likely be the harmonization presented. But (1) the author in both cases only wrote the dagger, not the first/second/one of/etc. (2) the author nowhere said that the character had two daggers. These are inconclusice objections, I agree, but I think we would still agree that the author [most likely made an error. Only if the book was the bible, you would accept the harmonization and conclude that the book is still inerrant.

I think the "raised on Biblical inerrancy" is the most important part. People seldom can differentiate what is based on their indoctrination and what is based on their reasoning.

Why did you go away?
Why did you come back?

premjan

the insistence on the "word" is the root of the problem. why can't you just be like everyone else and just use mythology, instead of this idiotic concept called scripture.

jbernier

I think it worth noting that this sentence is self-contradictory. I would argue that "Bible inerrancy" is, by definition, an assumption. It is a hermeneutical position, a first principle about how to read the text. What do I mean by this? First off, it assumes that the scriptures are intended to get all historical and scientific details right. Oops, assumption. Then it argues that it does. However, it does so before even beginning exegesis. Why does it do so before exegesis? Because, quite simply, if it was a result of exegesis, historical study, etc., it would not need its own category - one could simply say "I have considered the evidence in this case and found that the Biblical text offers an accurate historical and scientific account of the world." Inerrancy, however, is not a conclusion: It is a statement about the character of the text that lies outside historical study or exegesis.

Thus all inerrantists, by definition, assume inerrancy because they cannot demonstrate scriptural inerrancy to be correct apart from reliance upon assumptions that do not assume scriptural inerrancy. That is fine. I have no problem with assumptions and first principles - just be honest and call them what they are.

jbernier

Exactly!

Although, to be fair, there are times in historical study that apparent contradictions (particularly between accounts) are just that - apparent. Sometimes they clear up on closer analysis and sometimes it is worth the effort to see if they do. However, one cannot assume that they will, everytime, clear up. Sometimes a contradiction is just a contradiction.

jbernier

This is a good point. Let us be honest: These documents are only "scripture" because some people selected them as scripture. Personally I think that Christians are way too worked up about the line between canonical and non-canonical literature; I am not convinced that one can really say that one is that much qualitatively different from the other.

That having been said, the canon is important, but not for the reasons usually cited. It is important because, for good or will, this people have put so much stock into it. We need to confront what it says because what it says has led people to do both great good and great evil (or, perhaps, in the case of the latter, justified evil after the fact). Thus we need to confront (for instance) the story of Canaanite genocide in Joshua - precisely because it has been used to justify colonialism, crusades, etc. And with stuff like this we maybe need to say "Hmmmm...maybe the ancients got this one wrong. Maybe genocide in the name of God is not a good thing." Why must we do this? Because no understanding of the text that can even remotely justify genocide in the present is morally acceptable after Holocaust. Several million people wiped out in genocidal mayhem must stand as a major corrective for our theologies.

Some here have asked me why I have stayed in the Christian tradition. It is a valid question. Perhaps it is largely for two reasons. First, it is easy to jump ship and absolve oneself of the problems that this traditions for the world, the bad ideologies, the abuse, etc.; it is much more difficult to stay within it and confront those problems head on. Second (and related) I think I reached a point where I realized that if I was not part of the solution I was part of the problem - and I wanted to be part of the solution. Like it or not Christianity is not disappearing any time soon; however, if all the conscientious people leave out of disgust you won't have any conscientious people left in the Christian field - and things will have no chance of improving in that context.

blt to go

But what is it about "christianity" at its very root level that makes it right? To take this to hyperbole, since I do not like terrorists, should I become one to solve the problems I see "within?" (Terrorism, despite "our president's" efforts is not going to disappear any time soon, either.)

especially when that ship is sinking. You can stay and try and pump it out. Me, I'm headed for a lifeboat!

And the ironic thing is, jbernier, that you may find a home for your ideas here, I would be willing to bet that MOST christians reject your ideas of errancy, community salvation, developing theology, uncertainty of relationship with god, as much, if not more than those of an atheist.

It has been my experience that christians are just as, if not more willing to attack one of their own, as compared to an unbeliever.

Cross Examiner

Like most 'conclusions' reached by the scoffing skeptics here at IIDB, I find this glib dismissal of intuition (by three of the brighter ones I've met here no less!) as a valid epistemological basis hasty and philosophically uninformed. Perhaps you do not understand what I mean by intuition and so you mock from misunderstanding? In that case, let me attempt to clarify the idea for you to some extent. When I say that I have an intuitional basis for holding the Bible inerrant I am not referring to some unsophisticated, cartoonish notion of the 'spidey-sense' or some such. Rather, I refer to that which is more along the lines of moral intuition (i.e. innate knowledge of right and wrong, perhaps distinct from the conscience). For example, you somehow know that baby-torture is wrong and ought not be done even though you cannot exhaustively and definitively explain why it is wrong and ought not be done (you can try me on this if you like).

Complimentarily, this intuitional sense may be likened to Calvin's notion of man's sensus divinatus (contrary to a Lockean Tabula Rasa) and/or the 'numinous awareness' that Lewis expounds upon in The Problem of Pain which itself explains, at least in part, anthropology's repeated confirmation of man as a religious, spiritually-inclined animal (i.e. the vast majority of those who've lived somehow innately knew/know there was/is something or someone behind it all, just not what and/or who, exactly). It is this intuitional faculty which provides the basis for understanding the general revelation upon which all of naturaly theology rests. And it is why, for example, that any and all of the various teleological arguments, the arguments from beauty and transcendentals etc. simply 'resonate' with so many (though the vast majority do not know to call such things teleological, transcendental or even arguments for that matter). Without such an innate faculty there can be no basis for judging whether some object or idea (e.g. the Bible, a sunset, a sense of order and design in the cosmos) bears the marks of the divine or not.

Consequently, it is this intuitional faculty which provides the ground for a sort of Kantian synthetic a priori judgment that we make on Biblical inerrancy, which is therefore epistemologically warranted to some degree. I strongly suspect that this faculty, in part, upholds belief in Biblical inerrancy is either closely related or identical to those innate faculties that make theistic belief itself properly basic and warranted (cf. A. Plantinga et al.) and that tell you that baby-torture is just plain wrong. Anyway, if I were to express the above simply and colloquially, I'd break it all down as follows:

1. What it is: sensus divinatus, numinous awareness, innate ideas of the supernatural, eternal, absolute, meaningful etc.
2. How it works: compares innate ideas of the supernatural to the object or idea in question for marks of the supernatural.
3. Why it is: I suspect the purpose of this intuition is multifaceted which, among others, includes a means for human culpability before the Giver of the sensus divinatus (cf. Romans 1.18-32).

Now, while I believe that everyone is born with such an intuitional faculty, I also believe that it can be damaged and, perhaps, destroyed in the same manner that the conscience can be damaged and, perhaps, destroyed. So if you don't sense the supernatural when you read the Bible, that does not necessarily mean that the sensus divinatus didn't and/or doesn't exist. I'm also not saying here that people are theists at birth. It is more like I am saying that supernatural and transcendental ideas exist in the subconscious at birth but are not developed into conscious thought until after experiencing the world, the self, and thinking on the two etc. You'll note, for example, that I order my epistemological factors ontologically -- as they appear in the mind: synthetic a priori ideas (i.e. intuitional), external objects (i.e. evidential), synthetic a posteriori ideas (i.e. rationalistic), corroborating experiences (i.e. experiential), comparative explanations of the aforementioned (i.e. comparative analysis) and so forth. This ordering was not accidental. I've thought this through.

Sven, I gather from your questioning that you are interested in the psychology of belief? If so, then I share your fascination save that I am here at IIDB, in large part, to better understand the psychology of unbelief. But to your questions, the short of it is that I went away from Biblical inerrancy as a result of personal disobedience and irresponsible scholarship only to come back to it because of obedience and responsible scholarship. The details would probably bore you and would certainly be inappropriately aired here and now. Blt to go, I would love to have that long talk that you apparently want to have but I feel I've already spent more than I cared to when I walked into this. And ever since I've come to better understand TAG, ever since I've come to realize that anyone can justify nearly any proposition, I've realized what a waste of time it is to argue with folks from the opposite side of epistemological and metaphysical spectrum. I've decided it more fruitful to challenge folks here to justify their epistemology altogether, since atheistic methodological naturalism does such a poor job at denying and/or explaining the necessary preconditions for human experience. But I guess I should save all that for this thread. Ciao.

Regards,
BGic

blt to go

Sorry, BGic if I offended you by summarily dismissing intuition. Perhaps I shall "flesh" it out more for you.

I would agree that my "intuition" states that torturing babies is wrong. (More than just intuition, but I get the point.)

My intuition ALSO feels that offering my 7-year old son as a bloody sacrifice to appease your tale of a god is just as wrong.

Look at Abraham and Isaac. No, no, not the pretty Sunday School version of "God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, but provided a way out by giving them a ram at the last minute."

May I recommend you read Leviticus 1, but instead of the burnt offering, substitute your own child.

First you bleed them by slitting the throat. Then skin them. Then cut them up into pieces. You have to carefully arrange the head (yeh, the head of your child) and the pieces. Then you light the whole damn thing on fire.

Yep, my "intuition" says that is not right. Yet YOUR tale of a god (being an inerrantist) states that my intuition would be wrong!!! In fact, Abraham is commended, stated as noteworthy, in fact WONDERFUL that he went against his own intution to obey this god.

Nope, BGic, I do not see your god liking intuition one little bit.