Have or can biblical writings ever be proven to be the undistorted "Word of God"?

[anon5216]

You’re wrong. My college transcripts are not posted on the web page. If they were, you’d see college courses in the study of Shintoism, Buddism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, etc., with just a wee bit of Zoastrianism as well.
I stand partially corrected. College courses would be informational, not experiential, not really valid in the context I’m using.

In fact I spent 3 years in Japan learning first hand what many of these Eastern religions practice and teach. I left the Catholic Church as a teenager and spent 25 years studying other religions and philosophy.
This sounds more like it, but again, if you just had teachers of mental knowledge, not so useful. Just like relative to the Catholic Church, if you don’t have a spiritual director of the caliber of Padre Pio, it’s just not the same.

Nonetheless, I’m sure its not the first or last time you’ve been wrong. You’re excused.
You’re excused as well.

Wrong again. Where did I refer to biblical writings at all in my posts?
I clearly mentioned checking out your website at the top of my post.
You don’t seriously deny references to biblical writings to support your assertions there, do you?

You’re excused again, but making a habit of such baffoonery will lead you no where.
Well, you’re entitled to a bit of baffoonery yourself.

 

[anon5216]

I agree with you! I still wonder though how you or I know it’s the Holy Spirit and thus know that even we are interpreting the word correctly. If I can’t even be sure of myself knowing the difference between the Holy Spirit and a figment of my own imagination.

Please believe me, I’m not trying to ridicule your position because I do agree.

Not only that, but who’s to say what Catholics call the “Holy Spirit” is not called by another name in other spiritual traditions and equally active there.

May God bless you (and your circle of family, friends and acquaintances) in His own way with ever transcending spiritual growth, far beyond anything you or I or any religious authority can imagine.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

I clearly mentioned checking out your website at the top of my post. You don’t seriously deny references to biblical writings to support your assertions there, do you?

My beliefs are based upon three kinds of evidence:

1. Experience
2. Testimony of others
3. Reason

“Testimony” is indeed quite broad, and includes the testimony of some of my favorite atheists, such as Isaac Asimov and Albert Camus.

It seems to me, that all beliefs are based upon these three forms of evidence, whether I’m Taoist or Catholic or Atheist. Beliefs are subjective, since each and every person has a different set of experience, exposed to different testimony, and have varying capacities to reason. It should be no surprise then that there are many different subjective beliefs.

Truth, however, is not subjective. Truth, by definition, is that which corresponds to reality. I can believe that 3 + 2 = 5 or I can believe it = 6. In this example, only one corresponds to reality, and is therefore true. The other is false, independent of one’s subjective beliefs.

Moreover, it seems that man has this innate urge to seek beliefs which are true. Nobody likes to believe in a falsehood, a deception, an untruth. Yet, since there are many contradictory beliefs, we know that not all can be true.

It seems to me that the variations in the three forms of evidence are all factors in why people belief contradictory things. Nothing of these beliefs can be “proven” in the strict sense of deductive reasoning. But that doesn’t mean that the evidence is so ambiguous we cannot draw certain conclusions based upon the evidence.

I certainly must trust my experience, and expose myself to as much testimony about God (or lack of God) as I can, and then decide for the most compelling conclusion having reason in its favor. I’ve done that, which is why I’m Catholic. My beliefs cannot be based upon the Bible alone affirms (as if I were Protestant), because that simply begs the question, why the Christian Bible?

Instead, through my study of philosophy, I found all non-monothesitic religions to be contradictory, ontologically speaking. So, based upon philosophy, I’ve drawn the conclusion that there can only be one supreme being which lacks any potentiality whatsoever. Therefore, I’m a monotheist. Now some might argue in favor of a different philosophical worldview than I have, but the one I have is also based upon my experience, various testimony, and reason.

Nonetheless, of the monotheist religions, the preponderance of evidence (which ALWAYS includes 1) experience, 2) testimony of others, & 3) reason) tends toward three “finalists” in being the most compelling: Judaism, Christianity, & Islam.

The Bible itself is not the main evidence of Divine intervention in the world. It goes well beyond the the testimony handed on by the Bible. For instance, it seems to me to be beyond all comprehension that the Jews could have survived or even been a footnote in history without Divine intervention. Historically speaking, they are a statistical outlier. Which means that something (or someone) else was helping the Jews achieve what they should not have achieved, sociologially speaking. Consequently, I believe that the Jews were the chosen people of God. You may disagree, based upon your experience. However, my study of history, my experience and the testimony I’ve been exposed to tells me that it is most reasonable to conclude the Jews should NOT have been as influential as they have been in the course of human history. They should have instead been, given their inconsequential numbers, much like the pigmies, a small dot in the history books. But they weren’t. I think there’s a Divine reason for that.

From there, I use “calculatis eliminatus” to investigate the claims of the three monotheistic religions, always comparing their claims to my experience, the divergent testimony I’ve been exposed to, and reason. I can get further into details as to why I’m Christian rather than Jewish or Muslim, but I think you get the idea.

What other evidence do we have to form our beliefs, other than experience, testimony and reason? I can’t think of any. What evidence led you to your beliefs? Is it something outside these three kinds of evidence? I’ve studied all the world religions, not a one of them has a strict proof in its favor. But then again, neither does irreligion.

The principal evidence for my beliefs is metanoia.

 

[wynnejj]

If you are looking for Catholic saint miracles, those are the ones you will notice, and it will seem like “the mother lode preponderance of miracles”. If you are looking elsewhere, you will find the mother lode elsewhere.

I do think that I am objective when I assert that the Catholic Church seems to be the “mother lode of miracles”. Simply a survey of the internet on Miracles would lead one to that conclusion. Regardless, a public miracle to one who is justifiably skeptical is about as interesting as a statistic. There has to be more.

From your description of your “personal miracles”, I agree you must be on the spiritual path appropriate for you. Realize that many, many people have quite similar confirmation of their own spiritual path that happens to be completely unrelated to Catholicism, or even any form of Christianity for that matter. It isn’t just memorizing texts and agreeing to believe what you are told to believe that has resulted in your personal “private revelations”.

There are many more dimensions to the Catholic Church than just memorizing texts and agreeing to believe. What you describe is just the jumping-off point and calibration points from which spirituality blossoms. The rules and regs are black and white, but the fruits are multi-colored. (Enough flowery speech, though. I’m more a black & white kind of guy.)

The Catholic Church, by defining certain collected texts as “biblical” and then further defining those texts as Inerrantly and/or Infallibly the “Word of God” has chosen the path of endless speculations on the “letter of the law” and have confused it with the “spirit”. Subsequently, they have confused generation after generation of innocent followers/members with fallacy upon fallacy.

The Catholic Church is not Fundamentalist. It does not insist a literal interpretation. It is more geared towards an understanding the Holy Spirit of the biblical texts.

The Bible is NOT the undistorted “Word of God”, but that doesn’t mean there is no spiritual value there. It certainly would mean that the Church could not get away with simply scaring you into submission, but would have to prove that following its teachings would get you personally verifiable spiritual results. And it would have to do that with every individual - not even just once, but at every significant step of spiritual growth. That’s a whole lot more difficult, and since many of these so called Church leaders have not achieved significant personal spiritual growth themselves - what to do but take the easy way out and define titles that “guarantee” levels of spiritual authority.

Actually, your observation about the RCC’s spiritual leaders is in fact an instance of an example which enhances my belief in the infallibility of the Pope, as the Vicar of Christ - not the man, but his doctrinal decrees. When Humanae Vitae was issued making its pronouncement banning contraception, the Pope’s infallible ruling was not accepted favorably by many bishops. The perceptions of the Pope on how accepting contraceptive practices would play out in history are indeed prophetic and being played out today in America and around the world. Western civilization has become sex berserk - certainly by any Christian standards of 100 years ago. Today, the bishops & clergy & laity are just finding their voice against the product of the contraceptive mentality, abortion. No matter how erudite & knowledgable one is in the teachings of the Catholic Church, evangelization & scandal will make teaching null, unless you overlook the scandal to understand the spirit of the law.

May God bless you (and your circle of family, friends and acquaintances) in His own way with ever transcending spiritual growth, far beyond anything you or I or any religious authority can imagine.

 

[Alindawyl]

The principal evidence for my beliefs is metanoia.

I was raised in the Church and yet spent over 13 years away from her as a young adult, thinking I knew better how to live my life or could find a better example of truth out there somewhere. But no matter how hard I looked, everything was lacking which was not Christianity in general and the Church specifically.

Metanoia is the perfect word for me as well

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Using an objective standard, of course, there is no way to prove the truth alleged in the bible as to much of anything. There are other attestations of some factual historical matters that suggest that the bible does contain some information that seems reasonably true in that sense.

I don’t believe that it has been the foundation of the RCC that the bible is absolutely true in every respect. I believe issues inerrency date mostly from the 18th century forward. Such was not the conclusion historically. I think most Christians believe that the writers of the NT and the OT for that matter were people who spent a great deal of time thinking about God and theology. They recorded truthfully from their point of view stories that were common to their heritage and perhaps stories that they had concluded were factual. No one much believed that the genesis story was historically accurate, until like I say around the 18th century. Such stories were so very common to their day, that they were considered myth. Myth should not be considered as a pejorative term. Myth signifies the historical story of a people, and shapes our beliefs and understanding of ourselves.

I find that it is more helpful to consider the scriptures as the honest attempt of individuals to explain their experience of God in their lives and historically to their nation or people. It is the considered understanding of how they think God wishes us to act and feel. As such, they portray great wisdom. When they relate factual matters such as we typically think of as historical in nature, I believe they did their best to reflect the truth as they knew it. But remember they had not the techniques we use today to write “history” and in fact defined history quite differently than we do today.

In the end, it is not important whether this or that fact actually occurred. It is not important that we have Jesus’ words perfectly recorded. This is unlikely because these various “books” were written decades after the fact and it would be most unusual to get the exact words correctly. It is important that they reflect as best they could the meaning of what Jesus said. Perhaps sometimes they interpreted wrongly, but we trust that the Holy Spirit helped each to be accurate.

Given the strange and very artificial collection that we now designate the bible, it would be hard to make a convincing case that God himself/herself dictated it to these numbers of mostly anonymous writers. In fact, I doubt that it could be done at all. Much effort is wasted, it seems to me, in this exercise of “how accurate is the bible.” It has proven to be of enduring moral and theological relevance to us for in excess of 2000 years. That should be enough.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

I was raised in the Church and yet spent over 13 years away from her as a young adult, thinking I knew better how to live my life or could find a better example of truth out there somewhere. But no matter how hard I looked, everything was lacking which was not Christianity in general and the Church specifically.

Metanoia is the perfect word for me as well

Many people seem to require an “prodigal son” departure before their “metanoia” moment occurs and they realize what it was they are missing.

 

[Jimdandy]

Churc

I agree with you! I still wonder though are interpreting the word correctly. If I can’t even be sure of myself knowing the difference between the Holy Spirit and a figment of my own imagination.

Please believe me, I’m not trying to ridicule your position because I do agree.

By Sanctifying Grace, a gift from God.

Knowledge and wisdom are gifts from God-which may be obtained through prayer-
Prayer is having a conversation with God and then listening for His response-and, God speaks very clearly through His Word in the Holy Bible-so, Pray to the Holy Spirit before reading and give thanks to God afterwards.
-Jesus has revealed His Father to us and sent His Spirit to be with us always-so it is also correct to say that the Catholic Faith, properly understood, encompasses the most complete understanding of, and provides us with all the Sacraments of His Church (His Body) to aide us in our journey-our purpose if you will-which is to know, love and serve God, beginning with His Kingdom here on earth.

God works in ways that are not those of man, He is the God we ALL worship-

Faith is a freely given gift from God, seek, love, and ask for this gift.

For Catholics and our Eastern Brethren, the Sacrament of Reconciliation is an enlightening gateway.

Sometimes, I think how wonderful it would be to be childlike, and just believe-which is exactly what Jesus has asked of us!

Peace be to all of us.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

They can be seen to be honest perceptions and reactions to extraordinary events/experiences, but what does that prove? Human perceptions are colored by our knowledge base and our expectations. Our memory of experiences is not by any means unbiased. We may believe we are honestly and truthfully relating our experience, but that belief does not guarantee anything.

You may want to believe that God inspired these writers (and not others) and Personally saw to it that every word was accurately His, and perhaps even some of the biblical writers themselves believed that, but belief proves nothing - (neither does collective belief).

I’m with you on this. I think that the claim of infallibility of scripture, much less the Church, does a disservice. It reminds me of 1984.

As near as I can tell, belief in infallibility is an article of faith. I have asked others to put forward arguments for it but never heard one.

See e.g.:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=293677

 

[itsjustdave1988]

…I don’t believe that it has been the foundation of the RCC that the bible is absolutely true in every respect. I believe issues inerrency date mostly from the 18th century forward. Such was not the conclusion historically…

I find that it is more helpful to consider the scriptures as the honest attempt of individuals to explain their experience of God in their lives and historically to their nation or people. It is the considered understanding of how they think God wishes us to act and feel. As such, they portray great wisdom. When they relate factual matters such as we typically think of as historical in nature, I believe they did their best to reflect the truth as they knew it. But remember they had not the techniques we use today to write “history” and in fact defined history quite differently than we do today.

In the end, it is not important whether this or that fact actually occurred. It is not important that we have Jesus’ words perfectly recorded. This is unlikely because these various “books” were written decades after the fact and it would be most unusual to get the exact words correctly. It is important that they reflect as best they could the meaning of what Jesus said. Perhaps sometimes they interpreted wrongly, but we trust that the Holy Spirit helped each to be accurate.

Given the strange and very artificial collection that we now designate the bible, it would be hard to make a convincing case that God himself/herself dictated it to these numbers of mostly anonymous writers. In fact, I doubt that it could be done at all. Much effort is wasted, it seems to me, in this exercise of “how accurate is the bible.” It has proven to be of enduring moral and theological relevance to us for in excess of 2000 years. That should be enough.

This may be your opinion, but I assure you it is certainly contrary to Catholic doctrine. Non-Catholics can easily verify what the church has always taught regarding the inerrancy of Scripture. For instance…

**St. Justin Martyr, ***Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, *(ca AD 155):

I am totally convinced that no Scripture is contradictory to another, I shall admit instead that I do not understand what is spoken of***.

---

From St. Irenaeus’ *Against Heresies *(ca. AD 180/199):

If, however, we are not able to find explanations for all those passages of Scripture which are investigated…we must leave to God, the One who made us, knowing full well that the Scriptures are certainly perfect, since they were spoken by the Word of God and by His Spirit. [2, 28, 2]

St. Augustine of Hippo, *Letter to Faustus, *AD 400, & *Letter to St. Jerome, *AD 405:

                                "If              we are perplexed by an apparent contradiction in Scripture,              ***it is not allowable to say, The author of this book is              mistaken***; ***but either the manuscript is faulty,              or the translation is wrong, or you have not              understood***." (Augustine,Reply to Faustus the              Manichean,11:5(A.D. 400),in NPNF1,IV:1)

For I confess to your Charity that I have learned to yield this respect and honour only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error. And if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the manuscript is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it. (Ltr LXXXII. (A.D. 405.), reply to St. Jerome’s letters LXXII., LXXV., and LXXXI)

It certainly does no good to speak of the authority or inerrancy of Scripture if such authority is not a commonly agreed upon premise among participants in the discussion.

However, it likewise does no good to contradict or attempt to downplay what the Church has clearly taught on the matter since the earliest Church fathers.

 

[anon5216]

My beliefs are based upon three kinds of evidence:

1. Experience
2. Testimony of others
3. Reason

Solid enough
…

Truth, however, is not subjective. Truth, by definition, is that which corresponds to reality. I can believe that 3 + 2 = 5 or I can believe it = 6. In this example, only one corresponds to reality, and is therefore true. The other is false, independent of one’s subjective beliefs.
Truth may not be subjective, but belief in what to ascribe as Truth certainly is. Your simple arithmetic example is hardly relevant to spiritual truths. I think you agree the simple arithmetic (“literal”) interpretation of the Bible is invalid. If biblical teachings could be understood as easily as 2 + 3 = 5, then the Protestants would have a point.
…

… the monotheist religions: Judaism, Christianity, & Islam.
The Jews never were true monotheists and none of those three religions are truly monotheist. They are merely “mono-loyalist”. The Jews believe Jesus is a Christian God and they aren’t loyal to him. They believe Allah is a Muslim God and aren’t loyal to him either. The Muslims believe Allah is the only acceptable God to be loyal to. The Christians believe various things depending on the sect.

There are very few individuals on this planet (and no organized groups) who can be considered truly monotheists: Those rare individuals who have realized Adwaita Vedanta - not merely intellectually learned the teachings describing it. Descriptions of Truth do not equate to Truth itself.
…

The principal evidence for my beliefs is metanoia.

METANOIA: YES, excellent common ground between the world’s many spiritual traditions.

The prefix “meta”, referring to “beyond” or “outside of” or “next to” or “after”.
The verb “noia” (or the proper Greek version), “to perceive, to think, the result of perceiving or observing”.

So metanoia, a “change of mind”, “reorientation”, “fundamental transformation of outlook of man’s vision of the world and of himself”, a “great understanding”, a “spiritual conversion”.

May God bless everyone, in His own way (in accord with whatever external spiritual path is appropriate for each individual’s soul), with ever transcending metanoia experiences, far beyond anything you or I or any religious authority can imagine.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

METANOIA: YES, excellent common ground between the world’s many spiritual traditions.

I figured we’d find some common ground sooner or later.

If coming to know, believe, and practice what one man calls the “Good Book” does not produce metanoia, then its time to pick up another “Good Book” or find another rabbi. Catholicism isn’t a “religion of the book” however. We believe in the sacredness of another Greek word, paradosis, whether written or oral (i.e., lived).

 

[itsjustdave1988]

With regard to the undistorted “Word of God”, let me share with you my Catholic perspective, which is comparative to my study of science…

God gives us his revelation in two ways: 1) Natural revelation – God speaks through the things he has created, and 2) Supernatural revelation – God speaks directly, supernaturally. Whenever & however God speaks, he always speaks the truth, and nothing but the truth. Whenever we think we have come across an apparent contradiction in what God has truly spoken, the error is in our failure to properly understand the Author’s intent.

With regard to Divine revelation of the “natural” sort, scientists trust that truth can be discovered by discerning the nature of things. For instance, when observing lightning on particular occasions (particular truth), we can reason or infer things about the truth of lightning in general (general truth). Anyone who has spent any significant time studying science has come across what seem to be “apparent contradictions” among the teachings of science. For example, light seems to behave as a particle. However, it also seem to behave like a wave. This wave-particle duality can be an “apparent contradiction” to some, but we accept it as true, although complex and not quite fully understood…a “mystery.” A mystery that gifted men and women may come to understand more deeply after further contemplation, while others may never see past the apparent contradiction. Thus, when scientists encounter apparent contradictions in the study of nature (science), we do not presume that nature is fraudulent, filled with error. Instead, we accept a priori, that God’s revelation is inerrant. When faced with apparent contradictions in nature, we conclude that we haven’t perfectly understood the truthful material very well, and therefore we have more work ahead of us. Scientists accept that there are still things they do not understand. In other words, nature contains some “mysteries” which we are still trying to contemplate. While we are aware that there are “apparent contradictions” in God’s natural revelation to us, we also know that they cannot be true contradictions in nature, but instead result from our own lack of ability, our own failure to understand that revelation properly.

Same thing goes for the Divine revelation of the “supernatural” sort. It is complex. It is filled with mystery. We can sometimes come across “apparent contradictions” which we find perplexing, but we trust that such are the result of a lack of understanding on our part, not characterized by “fraud” on the part of the Author.

In other words, God’s natural revelation and God’s supernatural revelation are not erroneous, but true. There can be no true contradictions within or between them. It would be foolish to accuse the Author of Divine Revelation of error. We instead admit humbly that something in our own understanding must be lacking, and we are called to further contemplation. In this way, it is in God we trust above our own limited talents.

Why is this important? From the perspective of Catholicism, the ultimate norm for discerning the truth is God and His revelation to us (natural and supernatural). Consequently, by seeking to better understand God’s revelation, Catholics may come to a deeper knowledge of God, and a more intimate love of God, so that we may more faithfully serve God.

Inerrancy of Christian Scripture derives from a reasoned “faith” in the trustworthy testimony offered by the apostles of Christ, and those whom they chose to replace them in their continued ministry. There are many various and often conflicting testimonies about Jesus. Not all witness who sit in the witness stand are trustworthy, however. Like the testimony presented in a court of law, it is up to each and every person to put themselves into the jury seat and determine which testimony is most trustworthy, most congruent with their own experience and reasoning. Once one resolves to trust the testimony of others and all other evidence (e.g., experience and reason) as being true (i.e. corresponding to reality), then its a matter of continued and deeper contemplation regarding that which one believes to be true in order to bring about metanoia. If it is truly from God, then despite any “apparent contradictions” the evidence must be true. It’s only our own failure to understand what God has revealed which can bring about “apparent contradictions.”

Remember, this trust in various testimonies should not be “blind,” but ought to be based upon an evaluation of all relevant evidence of 1) experience, 2) testimony, and 3) reason. Growing skilled in reasoning and having personal exposure to a broad testimony and experience is key to having beliefs which turn out to be true, key to avoiding the “kool-aid” drinking cults which have claimed to be true in every generation.

One of the Christian teachings based upon the above method of assessing the evidence is the Catholic dogma which affirms that God is the author of Scripture in such a mysterious way that the Sacred human authors wrote only that which God himself wanted written. This has been a dogma from Christian antiquity, mark by consent among the early Church Fathers, as well as universality within the worldwide Church.

Consequently, like the revelation of nature, a Catholic may come across “apparent contradictions” which seem difficult to resolve. What a Catholic (if he is to remain a faithful Catholic), may not do is accuse God’s revelation as being in error, whether it is what God revealed in nature or is of the supernatural sort.

For Catholics, the Bible is not the starting point of our beliefs. St. Augustine taught, “For my part, I should not believe the the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church.” (Augustine, Against the Fundamental Epistle of Manichaeus, Ch. 5)

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

With regard to the undistorted “Word of God”, let me share with you my Catholic perspective, which is comparative to my study of science…

This is a very good summation that I would be inclined to agree with but it does not sound like the inerrancy claimed of scripture and Church. Nobody (as far as I know) is claiming that God gave a conflicting revelation. And most people do not question the sincerity of the Bible’s authors or the Church. But that still leaves plenty of room for error.

One of the Christian teachings based upon the above method of assessing the evidence is the Catholic dogma which affirms that God is the author of Scripture in such a mysterious way that the Sacred human authors wrote only that which God himself wanted written. This has been a dogma from Christian antiquity, mark by consent among the early Church Fathers, as well as universality within the worldwide Church.

Althogh this is certanly a teaching from the earliest times, it does not necessarily follow from the preceeding. It is a tradition, not an argument.

 

[anon5216]

With regard to the undistorted “Word of God”, let me share with you my Catholic perspective, which is comparative to my study of science…

God gives us his revelation in two ways: 1) Natural revelation – God speaks through the things he has created, and 2) Supernatural revelation – God speaks directly, supernaturally. Whenever & however God speaks, he always speaks the truth, and nothing but the truth. Whenever we think we have come across an apparent contradiction in what God has truly spoken, the error is in our failure to properly understand the Author’s intent.
It is precisely this that is the point. People of all the world’s spiritual traditions keep insisting that their “scriptures” are God’s words. Hogwash. The apparent contradictions between them start from the failure of the human “authors” to properly understand and/or communicate God’s initiated Truth and continue with readers failing to understand what’s left of God’s Revelation after the initial human authors finish writing their imperfect understanding and/or interpretation.

With regard to Divine revelation of the “natural” sort, scientists trust that truth can be discovered by discerning the nature of things. For instance, when observing lightning on particular occasions (particular truth), we can reason or infer things about the truth of lightning in general (general truth). Anyone who has spent any significant time studying science has come across what seem to be “apparent contradictions” among the teachings of science. For example, light seems to behave as a particle. However, it also seem to behave like a wave. This wave-particle duality can be an “apparent contradiction” to some, but we accept it as true, although complex and not quite fully understood…a “mystery.” A mystery that gifted men and women may come to understand more deeply after further contemplation, while others may never see past the apparent contradiction.
Precisely the issue between the world’s various spiritual traditions. Most members of each tradition simply can’t see past the “apparent contradictions”.

Thus, when scientists encounter apparent contradictions in the study of nature (science), we do not presume that nature is fraudulent, filled with error. Instead, we accept a priori, that God’s revelation is inerrant. When faced with apparent contradictions in nature, we conclude that we haven’t perfectly understood the truthful material very well, and therefore we have more work ahead of us. Scientists accept that there are still things they do not understand. In other words, nature contains some “mysteries” which we are still trying to contemplate. While we are aware that there are “apparent contradictions” in God’s natural revelation to us, we also know that they cannot be true contradictions in nature, but instead result from our own lack of ability, our own failure to understand that revelation properly.
Agreed, and that this needs to be applied in the realm of spirituality.

continued …

 

[anon5216]

… continued

Same thing goes for the Divine revelation of the “supernatural” sort. It is complex. It is filled with mystery. We can sometimes come across “apparent contradictions” which we find perplexing, but we trust that such are the result of a lack of understanding on our part, not characterized by “fraud” on the part of the Author.

In other words, God’s natural revelation and God’s supernatural revelation are not erroneous, but true. There can be no true contradictions within or between them. It would be foolish to accuse the Author of Divine Revelation of error. We instead admit humbly that something in our own understanding must be lacking, and we are called to further contemplation. In this way, it is in God we trust above our own limited talents.
Yes, it is complex. Yes, it would be foolish to accuse the Author of Divine Revelation of error.
YES, it is even more foolish to attribute human attempts at expressing this revelation of being inerrant - as many, many people of the world’s different spiritual traditions are wont to do - even to the point of their so called leaders.

Why is this important? From the perspective of Catholicism, the ultimate norm for discerning the truth is God and His revelation to us (natural and supernatural). Consequently, by seeking to better understand God’s revelation, Catholics may come to a deeper knowledge of God, and a more intimate love of God, so that we may more faithfully serve God.

Inerrancy of Christian Scripture derives from a reasoned “faith” in the trustworthy testimony offered by the apostles of Christ, and those whom they chose to replace them in their continued ministry. There are many various and often conflicting testimonies about Jesus. Not all witness who sit in the witness stand are trustworthy, however. Like the testimony presented in a court of law, it is up to each and every person to put themselves into the jury seat and determine which testimony is most trustworthy, most congruent with their own experience and reasoning. Once one resolves to trust the testimony of others and all other evidence (e.g., experience and reason) as being true (i.e. corresponding to reality), then its a matter of continued and deeper contemplation regarding that which one believes to be true in order to bring about metanoia. If it is truly from God, then despite any “apparent contradictions” the evidence must be true. It’s only our own failure to understand what God has revealed which can bring about “apparent contradictions.”
Again, people of various traditions take their portion of “revelation” as witnessed by various non-inerrant human authors and ascribe direct Inerrant Divine Revelation to it. Not being able to see beyond the “apparent contradictions” while claiming “mystery” of one sort or another to the actual human incurred contradictions of error within their own chosen tradition.

Remember, this trust in various testimonies should not be “blind,” but ought to be based upon an evaluation of all relevant evidence of 1) experience, 2) testimony, and 3) reason. Growing skilled in reasoning and having personal exposure to a broad testimony and experience is key to having beliefs which turn out to be true, key to avoiding the “kool-aid” drinking cults which have claimed to be true in every generation.
Agreed.

One of the Christian teachings based upon the above method of assessing the evidence is the Catholic dogma which affirms that God is the author of Scripture in such a mysterious way that the Sacred human authors wrote only that which God himself wanted written. This has been a dogma from Christian antiquity, mark by consent among the early Church Fathers, as well as universality within the worldwide Church.
The is precisely a fallacy - 2000 years old or not - it’s still a fallacy that violates your previous paragraph.

Consequently, like the revelation of nature, a Catholic may come across “apparent contradictions” which seem difficult to resolve. What a Catholic (if he is to remain a faithful Catholic), may not do is accuse God’s revelation as being in error, whether it is what God revealed in nature or is of the supernatural sort.
Again, there’s the utter fallacy of mistaking human interpretation of God’s revelation as God’s revelation itself. That amounts to idolatry - nothing less.

For Catholics, the Bible is not the starting point of our beliefs. St. Augustine taught, “For my part, I should not believe the the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church.” (Augustine, Against the Fundamental Epistle of Manichaeus, Ch. 5)
This is that absurd circular argument again. (Catholics are by no means the only ones guilty of it.)

May God bless everyone, in His own way (in accord with whatever external spiritual path is appropriate for each individual’s soul), with ever transcending metanoia experiences, far beyond anything you or I or any religious authority can imagine.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

This is a very good summation that I would be inclined to agree with but it does not sound like the inerrancy claimed of scripture and Church.

The inerrancy claimed by the Church with regard to Scripture is that everything asserted by the sacred authors must be considered also to be asserted by God. If you disagree this is the dogma of the Church, I can give you some sources.

But that still leaves plenty of room for error.

Error in the understanding, not error in the revelation. If one is a faithful Catholic, then one owes the assent of faith to all dogmas of Catholicism, which include the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture in all that is asserted by the Sacred Author.

I’m not arguing for the Catholic perspective, but instead sharing that perspective. From my other posts you might have already gathered that there is no “proofs” of any religion or irreligion in the strict sense of “deductive reasoning.” Instead, each individual must evaluate the claims of each religion (or irreligion) and evaluate whether they correspond to one’s own experience, reason, and the testimony which they have been exposed to. In this manner, Catholicism is “proved,” but only in the sense of many converging clues which point to it, in a manner which St. Augustine describes remains “purposefully ambiguous” so that the faithful may come into a relationship with God through faith that is formed by love.

The analogy I used was like deciding to marry the one you believe with all your heart is the one woman you are meant to spend the remainder of your days with. There’s no data that can be crunched in a formula, nor any deductive proof you can go through which will definitively say, “This is the woman I’m supposed to marry.” The same goes with one’s relationship with God.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

The inerrancy claimed by the Church with regard to Scripture is that everything asserted by the sacred authors must be considered also to be asserted by God. If you disagree this is the dogma of the Church, I can give you some sources.

Since we have arrived at the nub of the issue, let me be very precise and ask you to be precise in return.

I understand that this is the claim that the Church makes and that this claim goes back through history into the times of the OT. (Orthodox Jews believe that God, himself, dictated the Torah to the Jews and that Moses wrote it down word for word.)

So the question is not whether this inerrancy (that everything asserted by the sacred authors must be considered also to be asserted by God) is claimed but whether the claim is, itself, in error.

For example, most scholars believe that the Torah was cobbled together from about five different sources sometime around the early Second Temple period. That puts the kibosh on the Jewish claim of God’s direct authorship though it still leaves open the possibility that the essential meaning was conveyed through five different authors.

Error in the understanding, not error in the revelation.

Right, but I (and I think Anon5216) would include the athors among those who might commit the error in understanding. Even an eye witness can get things wrong.

If one is a faithful Catholic, then one owes the assent of faith to all dogmas of Catholicism, which include the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture in all that is asserted by the Sacred Author.

I don’t claim to be a faithful Catholic in that sense. But this brings us back to my question: is belief in inerrancy merely faith (and tradition)? Is there no argument for it?

I’m not arguing for the Catholic perspective, but instead sharing that perspective. From my other posts you might have already gathered that there is no “proofs” of any religion or irreligion in the strict sense of “deductive reasoning.”

Sure, but there is such a thing as “reasonable faith” by which we usually mean minimizing the faith element by using reason (and facts) at every opportunity. As opposed to blind faith that is so common in Protestantism.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

*People of all the world’s spiritual traditions keep insisting that their “scriptures” are God’s words. Hogwash.
*

Not necessarily. There are two possibilities: 1) the proposition of a specific religion is false 2) the proposition is true.If you mean that all these religious claims cannot be ALL be true, I certainly agree, since what the various religions say about God’s word is contradictory (although they at times share common beliefs). I’m not advocating for the truthfulness of every religion. I only believe in one religion. The rest I believe to be false.

Precisely the issue between the world’s various spiritual traditions. Most members of each tradition simply can’t see past the “apparent contradictions”. *

Well, since I’m Catholic, I will only say that Catholicism does indeed admit apparent contradictions, and Catholic theologians have an a priori trust of the truthfulness of the Scripture and Tradition, yet humbly distrust the fullness of their own skill in fully understanding each.

Agreed, and that this needs to be applied in the realm of spirituality. *

Agree. From a Catholic perspective, St. Augustine teaches: "if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the manuscript is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it. (Ltr LXXXII. (A.D. 405.), reply to St. Jerome’s letters LXXII., LXXV., and LXXXI).

 

[itsjustdave1988]

…I understand that this is the claim that the Church makes and that this claim goes back through history into the times of the OT. (Orthodox Jews believe that God, himself, dictated the Torah to the Jews and that Moses wrote it down word for word.)

So the question is not whether this inerrancy (that everything asserted by the sacred authors must be considered also to be asserted by God) is claimed but whether the claim is, itself, in error.

I understand you, but I think you miss my point. I’m not arguing that you should be Catholic. That’s something totally outside my sphere of influence or sphere of concern. Clearly you’re not in love with the spouse, so why would I insist that you marry her?

I’ve said that if, due to all the converging clues, you do indeed become Catholic, then you must believe the Bible to be inerrant. To do otherwise is to claim to assent to Catholicism and to claim to reject Catholicism simultaneously.

I can’t prove that you should love the spouse. Neither can you prove that what I say about the spouse is false. All I can do is tell you the many reasons why I love her, and this is the “proof” I’ve been talking about. There will never be a sufficient reason which convinces me not to love her.

What I’ve said, and will say again, is that the “proof” is based solely upon the converging clues which are clearly manifest in my life, in my love, in the experience, in the testimony, all reasonable given the evidence I’ve witnessed from my seat in the jury.

I get that you don’t think the Bible is inerrant. I can’t convince you to love someone you don’t seem disposed to love. I’m curious why you think that we should?