Why believe in Biblical inerrancy?

[Captain Chaos]

All the arguments that I have seen to support Biblical inerrancy wind up being circular.

Like, "the Bible is the word of God because one part of the Bible says that all scripture is true."

And how does one know that one part of the Bible is true? "Because the Bible is the word of God, and thus all parts of it are true."


Admittedly, that bit of circular reasoning is obvious, but I have still seen folks try to use it. Other arguments also tend to be circular, but they contain more links in the circular chain.

So, my question is this:

Are there any non-circular arguments to support Biblical inerrancy? If so, I will attempt to refute them.

[Rave7pt0]

There are some theoretically non-circular arguements, but those are still baseless. For example, the infallibity of the pope the pope ratified the bible, presto -- even though the infallibility doctrine wasn't around at the time of the compilation. People will come up with all kinds of reasons they are right...

[EndersGame]

Man is a marvelous curiosity … he thinks he is the Creator's pet … he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to him and thinks He listens. Isn't it a quaint idea.
A God who could make good children as easily a bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave is angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell -- mouths mercy, and invented hell -- mouths Golden Rules and foregiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!

[Matt W]

EndersGame - focus, if you please. The topic is the inerrancy of the Bible - not an excuse to rant about God. :rolleyes:

Do not respond to me within this thread. PM myself or Sean if you have any questions.

[belverron]

It requires less imagination.

[Matt W]

And? Stay on-topic, belverron - my post was meant to bring an end to it....not provoke further responses....

[PatrickHenry]

It's a difficult question for any thoughtful christian, Chaos. Maybe we should define "inerrancy." If we feel that God is transmitting important messages, we must find a way to decipher His conceptual framework. He could have made us His robot-slaves were He not interested in the variability of our responses.

Do I believe that the Bible is inerrant in every conceivable aspect? Hardly. But the fact is, at least for me, the Bible has led into an interaction with His Spirit that is transformational. My studies have shown it to be accurate in directing me and others into newer and different behaviors that are not a natural part of the selfishness that characterizes the animal world. It is a function of the world of the Spirit.

I believe that the Bible is God's word for man. Therefore I attempt to find the congruency between it and my experiential world. I hope this makes sense to some of you...I trust God and feel that He has given us enough to be spiritually transformed into a form acceptable in His Eternal Kingdom of Righteousness.

[EndersGame]

I understand what you said but my post was what i thought about god and his "infallability", I put deep belief in mark twains writing, heres a quote if you want. It's a rant but you can't say the improvements he states in this are bad things so how is he perfect?

If I were to construct a God I would furnish Him with some way and qualities and characteristics which the Present lacks. He would not stoop to ask for any man's compliments, praises, flatteries; and He would be far above exacting them. I would have Him as self-respecting as the better sort of man in these regards.
He would not be a merchant, a trader. He would not buy these things. He would not sell, or offer to sell, temporary benefits of the joys of eternity for the product called worship. I would have Him as dignified as the better sort of man in this regard.
He would value no love but the love born of kindnesses conferred; not that born of benevolences contracted for. Repentance in a man's heart for a wrong done would cancel and annul that sin; and no verbal prayers for forgiveness be required or desired or expected of that man.
In His Bible there would be no Unforgiveable Sin. He would recognize in Himself the Author and Inventor of Sin and Author and Inventor of the Vehicle and Appliances for its commission; and would place the whole responsibility where it would of right belong: upon Himself, the only Sinner.
He would not be a jealous God -- a trait so small that even men despise it in each other.
He would not boast.
He would keep private His admirations of Himself; He would regard self-praise as unbecoming the dignity of his position.
He would not have the spirit of vengeance in His heart. Then it would not issue from His lips.
There would not be any hell -- except the one we live in from the cradle to the grave.
There would not be any heaven -- the kind described in the world's Bibles.
He would spend some of His eternities in trying to forgive Himself for making man unhappy when he could have made him happy with the same effort and he would spend the rest of them in studying astronomy.
-- Mark Twain, Notebook

[US Independent]

The Vatican has proven Bible inaccuracy many times. They do an excellent job hiding it. It is a written document, there will be mistakes. But the people that believe in it will always believe in its accuracy. Don't argue with people that take strength from a fabrication within their hearts and souls. No matter how accurate your argument would be they will still believe in the unbelievable.

[phoenix_fire]

Wiggin', you're stretching. The question was concerning the inerrancy of the Bible. If you want to rant, start your own thread. (Coincidentally, I find it ironic that you use one book: a book written by a very obviously flawed man to try to refute another written [depending on whom you ask] by the Deity or at least by other men).

Anyway, the Bible calls itself God-breathed, and while you can call this a circuitous argument, it still begs the same question either way: do you or do you not believe? There are a lot of things that people call god, but if you believe in the God of the Bible, then by definition, you believe the Bible. That includes all the stuff that makes you uncomfortable. If you believe any part of the Bible, then it is hard to disregard the parts about its authority.

[ItsDarts]

It's been my experience that most christians (excluding the ones on forums like this) are clueless as to the origins of the bible. They are unaware that the bible was compiled by a council and the books included were voted on. They are unaware that there were other books left out for various reasons undoubtedly because they didn't reflect what that council believed. The best arguments I've seen go something like the following;

It is true that the bible does have "seemingly" glaring contradictions, but one is suppose to remember that there were many writers of the bible books, over a 1500 year period and the teaching parts of these books are not in error. There are different accounts of the same events in the gospels, but this is because it is coming from different points of view. These aren't errors, just different POV of the same event. Ask 3 people to describe what happened at an accident and you will get 3 different stories, all of them true from the perspective of that witness, the gospels are no different.

I'm an atheist and have no belief in the bible or its god, but I try to understand it just the same. It might be helpfull for the original poster to give some examples of what he finds to be an errancy.

[Captain Chaos]

It might be helpfull for the original poster to give some examples of what he finds to be an errancy.

I think it would be a bad idea for me to do that. Any belief system, no matter how insane it might seem on the surface, can be rationalized if you try hard enough. Any seeming inconsistency or falsehood in the Bible can be rationalized - explained as being symbolic or something. Biblical prophecies are all temporally open ended - meaning they don't have to come true at some particular time, they just have to come true at some time after the prophecy was written.

Here is a prophecy for you:

I predict that the end of the United States is forthcoming.


It'll happen sometime, and thus my prophecy will have been proven true - big deal.



With all of the effort and editing that went into the Bible, one would expect it to be rationalizable. But that is not all that impressive.

Bible believers start with the assumption that the Bible is true, and then say that if you cannot prove it false, it must be true. It is a fools game, because you can never truly "prove" it false, because there is always a way to rationalize it, if you are creative enough.

Look at the lengths young-Earth believers go to, in order to maintain their belief that the Universe is 10,000 years old. The most compelling argument against this belief is the undeniable evidence of old starlight. To get around this, at least one young-Earth believer has come up with a "theory" that the Earth is behind an event horizon - a black or white hole. There are so many reasons why this is impossible it is ridiculous, but some people still believe this.

No, I think it is better to question the starting premise. Why should anyone start with the premise that the Bible is inerrant?