Posts

Showing posts from November, 2016

St. Augustine on Inerrancy - AD400

For those that want to argue that “inerrancy” is a novel doctrine that only developed in reaction to the liberal Biblical scholarship of the 19 th century, consider the words of Augustine himself writing around the year AD400. “it is not allowable to say, the author of these books is mistaken…[if there appears to be an error] either the manuscript [copy] is faulty, or the translation is wrong, or you have misunderstood” (Against Faustus, 11.5).

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 fo

The Sovereignty of God

If any Arminian has ever had a discussion/debate with a Calvinist, he or she will quickly be confronted with the claim that the Calvinist believes in God's sovereignty and somehow the Arminian does not.  When some of my good friends "converted" to a Reformed view back when we were in college together, it was this term that was forever on their lips. Sovereignty, sovereignty, sovereignty! Eventually when they would say, "We who believe in God's sovereignty....", I would respond, "and as for us who believe in God's love....".  They didn't like that.  And I didn't like being told I didn't believe in God's sovereignty because as a conservative Evangelical, I believed in God's sovereignty as a Biblical non-negotiable doctrine. Since I think balanced Calvinists and Arminians would both affirm that the other group believes in both God's sovereignty and God's love, what we need to determine is what we mean