Cross Examiner

A further note on the matter: doubting the Word of God is the perfect recipe for autonomy. The Word of God essentially reveals to man what God is, who He is, what He does, what man is, who he is, what he does, and, most importantly, what God requires of man in terms of thought, attitude and action towards Himself, others and His commands. If this revelation rubs you raw in any way then you need only recast the meaning of Biblical author A in light of ____ (insert arbitrarily chosen standard here; e.g. the feelings of some group g) in order to retain personal autonomy (i.e. epistemological, metaphysical, ethical) from God. I'm just carrying out Biblical relativism (i.e. 'St. Paul got it wrong', 'St. Paul could not get past his prejudices but I can' etc.) to it's logical end.

Regards,
BGic

jbernier

No, that is not the logical end (btw, "Biblical relativism" is your term, not mine, and it does not adequately describe what I am arguing). See, you are assuming that engaging in Biblical critical activity by necessity means that one is unwilling to submit to God. However if one undertakes Biblical criticism with the understanding that God wants us to critically engage the Biblical text one need not be "disobeying God" or other rhetorical construction. Further one must ask whether the Biblical text is or records the self-revelation of God. I argue that for Christian theology the only valid self-revelations of God is the logos and the Paraclete, the Word and the Spirit. Note that the Word, here, is not the "Bible" but Christ Jesus himself, who entered history as a human himself and revealed God before, during after the duration of that human life. The human hands that wrote the scriptures recorded snippets of the historical interaction between the logos and humanity. The words in the texts are not in and of themselves self-revelations of God but a record of such self-revelations. The writers were not automatons but were just like us: Trying to make sense of their lived experiences. A failure to consider the human dimensions of the text - which includes human fallibilities - is a failure to honour the means by which God reveals Godself.

Cross Examiner

Interesting. Are you saying that the Word of God is the communiqué from the Perfect through the imperfect to the imperfect and so should bear the marks of the imperfect (e.g. contain errors)? I like formulas so I'm trying to get the "neo-orthodox" creed (if you will) on Biblical inerrancy articulated for easy digestion.

Regards,
BGic

Craigart14

No. The efficacy of empirical thinking and scientific method has been proven time and time again. T'was not always so, of course. Many societies discounted empirical investigation in favor of faith. Hence, we had doctors in the early Middle Ages inscribing crosses into the scalps of their vic-I mean, er, patients, witches and heretics burning and continual fighting over theological conjectures. Jesus, if I remember rightly, believed in demonic possession and the "evil eye." Science has shown that diseases are caused by germs, chemical imbalances, heredity, etc. The same polio vaccination that protected me from the disease protected everyone else, too, so we have an example of repeatable, verifiable, predictable, and beneficial empiricism. This is but one example among many, many thousands. I don't have to presuppose that my epistemology works; it's been verified thousands and thousands of times. There's no irony in the statement that factual data and analysis are reliable, do not resort to authority, and are stunningly effective.

Craig

Cross Examiner

Whether empiricism 'works' or not is beside the point to whether empiricism is justified or not. Empirical epistemology is, after all, easily reduced to absurdity.

Regards,
BGic

jbernier

I have said nothing about perfection or imperfection. Nor have I (if you note) said anything about errors. I would argue that the question of "errors" is a questionne malposse, a question poorly posed. imo, the question, from a theological perspective, is to ask "How did these particular people at those particular points in history understand God's self-revelation?" (note that this is very different from - although not always unrelated to - the historical-critical perspective). The question of "error", to me, only makes sense if we assume in advance that every single word of the scripture was transcribed by God to these humans and that these did not make any "errors" in recording the transcription. That to me is not a satisfactory position as I am not entirely sure where the human would fit into this, other than as a stenographer.

In my position, then, God's self-revelation was communicated to Paul at the Damascus Road and his later mystical and other spiritual experiences. What we see in the scripture is not God's revelation per se but Paul's discussion of the self-revelation he received from God. Perhaps God's self-revelation was inerrant and perfect - but Paul is not. To say that the texts about God's self-revelation produced by humans must be free from "errors" is to say that these human beings could not make "errors" - and that strikes me as a bit strange (perhaps even blasphemous if one has already established that only God, as a perfect being, is completely free from error).

jbernier

No, it is not beside the point. In fact, it is perhaps the only point that matters. I have said this before: At the end of the day, after all the esoteric arguments are tired and done, "show me the money." Which has a better success rate curing brain cancer: Surgery or anointing the sick? You can't get around that. However, a Biblical literalist and inerrantist perspective forces one to conclude that whenever the elders pray over someone they will be healed. So it should happen every single time. It does not. That is the prediction one must make if one reads that passage in a literal and inerrant way; yet the prediction does not bear itself out in the real world. Yeah, surgery does not heal everyone with brain cancer - but neither is it predicted that it will. No, the question of whether or not the predictions a particular epistemology makes are accurate is not irrelevant; it is the first place to start. Now, does accurate predictions make the epistemology correct? Not necessarily. But consistently inaccurate predictions do make it suspect.

blt to go

Absolutely untrue. It requires oil too! If your elders were only praying, jbernier, no wonder they were dropping like flies.

They forgot the oil!

Cross Examiner

Whether empiricism produces benefits or not is beside the point to whether it is justified or not and whether it leads one to ontological, epistemological and ethical truths or not.

Regards,
BGic

jdlongmire

Ladies and Gents, I give you 3 men in a room, splitting hairs...maybe time to start a new thread?

Maybe: Why assume infallability? or You're errant, I'm not?