The Doctrine of Inerrancy - a NON-negotiable.
As a conservative Evangelical, I have always affirmed the inerrancy of Scripture. To this day, that has not changed. Sadly, many of the theologians and authors that I have admired and been influenced by through the years have ultimately abandoned their belief in this critical doctrine. I have to regrettably admit this has been more true of the Arminian scholars than of more Calvinistic ones. I want to affirm my Calvinist friends for that reality. I can and do understand why people would be attracted to a theological camp that has resisted the temptation to compromise and abandon their convictions on this doctrine. I listen regularly to a couple of Calvinist podcasts and I really respect their commitment to inerrancy.
What do we mean by "inerrancy"? Why is it such a critical doctrine to affirm? Here the short version of The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy that has been a standard for Evangelicals. The full statement can be found below but for the sake of the brevity, I've only posted the synoptic version of the longer Chicago statement. This statement answers the "What is inerrancy?" question.
The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy - Short Statement
1. God, who is Himself Truth and speaks truth only, has inspired Holy Scripture in order thereby to reveal Himself to lost mankind through Jesus Christ as Creator and Lord, Redeemer and Judge. Holy Scripture is God's witness to Himself.
2. Holy Scripture, being God's own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God's instruction, in all that it affirms: obeyed, as God's command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God's pledge, in all that it promises.
3. The Holy Spirit, Scripture's divine Author, both authenticates it to us by His inward witness and opens our minds to understand its meaning.
4. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God's acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God's saving grace in individual lives.
5. The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total divine inerrancy is in any way limited or disregarded, or made relative to a view of truth contrary to the Bible's own; and such lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the Church.
So in summary, we can say that the original autographs of the Scriptures (which we do not possess) were verbally inspired by God and without error in all matters it addresses – theological, historical, philosophical, scientific, etc. The scientific question is arguably the most controversial. This is not to say it is always addressing a scientific issue where people think it is. Sometimes people have interpreted a passage incorrectly or have read into the text their own presuppositions. All this is to say, that when the Bible is addressing an issue of science, it does so accurately and free from error.
I think that adequately explains what inerrancy is, but why is it so important?
If the Bible is riddled with errors, which many believe it is, then how can we possibly trust what it says? A well-known NT scholar has recently said that he doesn't believe that the resurrection account of the saints in Matthew 27 is historical but rather a 'literary device' used by Matthew. Having heard this scholar recently interviewed, his essential point is that as long as the bodily resurrection of Jesus is true and happened historically, then it doesn't really matter if there are errors in the New Testament. The problem is that liberal scholars have been saying for nearly 150 years that that the bodily resurrection of Jesus did not happen. To them it was also a 'literary device' used by the authors to make a point.
If we concede that there are in fact all types of errors in the Bible, then how can we know if anything at all in the Scriptures is actually true? Why would I give my life to something, and seek to obey the teachings of something that may or may not be true? Why would the earliest Christians have been so willing to die for their faith if the things they recorded were merely "myths" and "legend"? I know that the technical discussions of inerrancy are quite recent in Church History, but I completely reject the notion, and I recently heard N.T. Wright reaffirm this claim, that the very concept of inerrancy is only a couple of hundred years old. The 2nd Century church, for example, simply did not believe the Scriptures to be full of inaccuracies and errors. They bound themselves to it, especially the writings of the Apostles, and obeyed it unto death. It would certainly be anachronistic to say they were concerned with all the details we debate today over the meaning and application of the doctrine of inerrancy, but it would be equally wrong to say they did not believe in the inerrancy of Scripture. They were universally of the opinion that if God had truly inspired something, then what He inspired was entirely true and without error.
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