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Where *should *Catholics stand on the issue of biblical inerrancy? This is the question.
It appears to me there is a growing rift between Catholics who ascribe to limited biblical inerrancy and those who ascribe to unlimited biblical inerrancy. Unfortunately, even though the Catholic Church has continually made pronouncements through its Fathers and popes that the text of the Bible should be regarded as unrestrictedly inerrant, the ambiguous clause of Vatican II has temporarily allowed the limited biblical inerrancy theory to gain greater recognition among Catholics, both the laity and the scholars, to explain that which might appear to be in error.
Non-Catholics are recognizing this discrepancy among Catholics. How embarassing, and this is definitely not an issue which Catholics should have to explain. The very fact that Catholics cannot agree to what degree our primary religious text is either inerrant or not calls into question many other fundamental beliefs of the Catholic Church.
However, is this an issue in which both sides will reach an agreement? or will the commentaries composed by modern biblical scholars lead to a schism between those who hold the Bible to be limitedly inerrant and those who regard the Bible as unlimitedly inerrant??
Without any official ponouncement by John Paul II or Benedict XVI, Catholics are left to simmer in their indecisiveness regarding the inerrancy of Biblical scholarship. Perhaps, suggests the Magisterium, those who choose the limited view might get it right, or perhaps those who choose the unlimited view will get it right?
Why should the issue of biblical inerrancy be a matter of a roll of the dice? And must their be ambiguousness regarding this issue?
Jimmy Akin attempts to address this issue, arrives at his personal opinion that the Bible is inerrant in the traditional sense, yet the comments which follow his discussion on the subject only serves as evidence that Catholics have been left to their own devices regarding Scripture, since no recent pope is willing to make an official pronouncement on the matter. From such a standpoint, truth has become relative since both limited and unlimited views regarding inerrancy are accepted.
Shall we see where this leads? We have no choice.
It appears to me there is a growing rift between Catholics who ascribe to limited biblical inerrancy and those who ascribe to unlimited biblical inerrancy. Unfortunately, even though the Catholic Church has continually made pronouncements through its Fathers and popes that the text of the Bible should be regarded as unrestrictedly inerrant, the ambiguous clause of Vatican II has temporarily allowed the limited biblical inerrancy theory to gain greater recognition among Catholics, both the laity and the scholars, to explain that which might appear to be in error.
Non-Catholics are recognizing this discrepancy among Catholics. How embarassing, and this is definitely not an issue which Catholics should have to explain. The very fact that Catholics cannot agree to what degree our primary religious text is either inerrant or not calls into question many other fundamental beliefs of the Catholic Church.
However, is this an issue in which both sides will reach an agreement? or will the commentaries composed by modern biblical scholars lead to a schism between those who hold the Bible to be limitedly inerrant and those who regard the Bible as unlimitedly inerrant??
Without any official ponouncement by John Paul II or Benedict XVI, Catholics are left to simmer in their indecisiveness regarding the inerrancy of Biblical scholarship. Perhaps, suggests the Magisterium, those who choose the limited view might get it right, or perhaps those who choose the unlimited view will get it right?
Why should the issue of biblical inerrancy be a matter of a roll of the dice? And must their be ambiguousness regarding this issue?
Jimmy Akin attempts to address this issue, arrives at his personal opinion that the Bible is inerrant in the traditional sense, yet the comments which follow his discussion on the subject only serves as evidence that Catholics have been left to their own devices regarding Scripture, since no recent pope is willing to make an official pronouncement on the matter. From such a standpoint, truth has become relative since both limited and unlimited views regarding inerrancy are accepted.
Shall we see where this leads? We have no choice.