How we know the Bible is the innerrant, inspired Word of God

[Contarini]

I did not say that is what I am doing.

That is what your OP claimed to be doing.

I said that is how the Church approaches the Bible.

And you have provided not one shred of evidence for this claim. You can’t point me to any official document taking this approach. It’s an apologetics argument borrowed from Protestants. (Not that I think borrowing from Protestants is always bad)

And I’m not in the least horrified. Sorry I gave that impression.

The horror was more Randy’s than yours. You have mostly just ignored my argument and tried to divert the discussion to other things. You have also made the argument that the OP must be correct because otherwise there is no way to “know” that the Bible is the Word of God. It’s insulting to you for me to repeat that you said this–but you insulted yourself by making such a dishonorable argument in the first place.

I wish you were more horrified or offended by what I am saying. Then you might try to respond to it.

Edwin

 

[Lampo]

And you have provided not one shred of evidence for this claim. You can’t point me to any official document taking this approach. It’s an apologetics argument borrowed from Protestants. (Not that I think borrowing from Protestants is always bad)

I will assume you understand what “nihil obstat” and “imprimatur” mean. This is taken from Keating’s work on explaining how Catholics prove inspiration of the Bible.

NIHIL OBSTAT: I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004

IMPRIMATUR: In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004

This is taken from the Catholic Encyclopedia on the “Inspiration of the Bible.”

A Catholic may claim this additional certitude without falling into a vicious circle, because the infallibility of the Church in its teaching is proved independently of the inspiration of Scripture; the historical value, belonging to Scripture in common with every other authentic and truthful writing, is enough to prove this.

Much more is said and it will take me longer to digest it, but here is the link. From reading over it once, Keating is not saying anything contrary to the teaching of the Church.

On a side note again: You accuse me of ignoring your points. Are you ignoring me in retaliation? You didn’t address my concern about you referring to the Catholic Church as the “Roman” Catholic Church. It was in post #60.

 

[Contarini]

I will assume you understand what “nihil obstat” and “imprimatur” mean.

I do. You, however, apparently don’t. Nihil obstat and imprimatur do not mean that the book contains official Catholic teaching. I have not claimed that Keating’s argument is unorthodox by Roman Catholic (yes, I’m using the term again and I’m not going to argue about it) standards. I claimed (perhaps mistakenly) that it was an apologetics method he borrowed from conservative 19th-century Protestants. Your citation from the CE appears to disprove this. However, the fact remains that even if Keating is reviving an old-fashioned Catholic as well as Protestant method, his method is not universal and would not find favor with most Catholic theologians or Biblical scholars today. My arguments remain unrefuted. You haven’t even tried to refute them. You just keep trying to create distractions. The most ridiculous example is your attempt to start an argument about the term “Roman Catholic.” I avoid this term except when necessary precisely because silly people raise politically correct objections to it. But sometimes it is necessary (because what I am describing is not, in my opinion, the view of the historic Catholic Church but that of the modern Roman Communion, specifically in its Latin branch). When it is necessary I will use it and I will not be distracted from the main argument by PC nonsense.

Again: are you willing to defend your OP or not? Are you willing to explain how, in the light of the overwhelming consensus of Biblical scholarship, you can claim that Matt. 16 can be proven to be historically accurate (i.e., that Jesus actually said the words “upon this Rock I will build my Church, etc.”) without presupposing a doctrine of inspiration?

Edwin

 

[Lampo]

Are you willing to explain how, in the light of the overwhelming consensus of Biblical scholarship, you can claim that Matt. 16 can be proven to be historically accurate (i.e., that Jesus actually said the words “upon this Rock I will build my Church, etc.”) without presupposing a doctrine of inspiration?

Edwin

I cannot refute what I don’t understand, so could you point me towards some of the overwhelming consensus of Biblical scholarship claiming that Jesus did not tell Peter, “You are Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church.” ? Do the Early Church Fathers believe Jesus said these words?

Are you claiming that in order for something to be historically accurate in the Bible that it must be corroborated somewhere else in the Bible?

 

[Lampo]

Are you willing to explain how, in the light of the overwhelming consensus of Biblical scholarship, you can claim that Matt. 16 can be proven to be historically accurate (i.e., that Jesus actually said the words “upon this Rock I will build my Church, etc.”) without presupposing a doctrine of inspiration?

Edwin

These Biblical scholars seem to believe Jesus said the words in Matt. 16.

…because the Lord said to Peter, “On this rock I will build my Church,…” - Tertullian, Modesty, A.D. 220

Peter, upon whom is built the Church of Christ,…-Origen, Commentaries on John, A.D. 226 - 232

Look at the great foundation of the Church, that most solid of rocks, upon whom Christ built the Church! - Origen, Homilies on Exodus, A.D. 244

And he says to him again after the resurrection, ‘Feed my sheep.’ It is on him that he builds the Church, and to him that he entrusts the sheep to feed. And although he assigns a like power to all the apostles, yet he founded a single Chair, thus establishing by his own authority the source and hallmark of the (Church’s) oneness. No doubt the others were all that Peter was, but a primacy is given to Peter, and it is (thus) made clear that there is but one flock which is to be fed by all the apostles in common accord. If a man does not hold fast to this oneness of Peter, does he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he deserts the Chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, has he still confidence that he is in the Church? This unity firmly should we hold and maintain, especially we bishops, presiding in the Church, in order that we may approve the episcopate itself to be the one and undivided. Cyprian, The Unity of the Church, 4-5 (A.D. 251-256).

Our Lord, whose commands we ought to fear and observe, says in the Gospel, by way of assigning the episcopal dignity and settling the plan of His Church: “I say to you that you are Peter,…” St. Cyprian of Carthage, Letter Without Heading, of Cyprian to the Lapsed, A.D. 250

There speaks Peter, upon whom the Church would be built,…St. Cyprian of Carthage, Letter of Cyprian to Florentius Pupianus, A.D. 254

For Peter, whom the Lord chose first and upon whom He built His Church,…St. Cyprian of Carthage, Letter of Cyprian to Quintus, A Bishop in Mauretania, A.D. 254/255

Simon, My follower, I have made you the foundation of the holy church. I betimes called you Peter…St. Ephraim, Homilies, 4,1,

…the Holy Roman church has been placed at the forefront not by the conciliar decisions of other Churches, but has received the primacy by the evangelic voice of our Lord and Savior, who says: “You are Peter, and upon the rock I will build My Church,…” St. Damasus, The Decree of Damasus, A.D. 382

 

[Contarini]

I cannot refute what I don’t understand, so could you point me towards some of the overwhelming consensus of Biblical scholarship claiming that Jesus did not tell Peter, “You are Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church.” ? Do the Early Church Fathers believe Jesus said these words?

Christian scholarship did not stop with the Church Fathers, you know. I revere the Church Fathers greatly, but in questions of historical judgment no one follows them consistently (by this I mean that even if, for theological reasons, you want to accept some of their judgments on the Bible with which modern scholarship disagrees, you’re highly unlikely to do the same thing when they talk about ancient pagan history–and this shows that you aren’t using a historical criterion at all).

If you seriously want to know what modern scholarship has to say on these issues, you might start with the New Jerome Biblical Commentary. This is a relatively conservative commentary by the standards of the broader scholarly community. Fitzmyer, Brown, and Murphy (the three editors) are excellent examples of modern Catholic scholarship. Another great modern Catholic Biblical scholar is John Meier from Notre Dame. Of course all of these are considered liberals in the conservative Catholic circles which you no doubt regard as “true Catholicism.” But that’s not the point here, is it? The point is that these are all reputable scholars in the broader academic guild, and the fact that they are/were all Catholics in good standing and relatively conservative by the standards of the guild surely does not weaken my case.

This conservative Catholic online article grants everything I am claiming in the act of arguing theologically against what it admits to be the dominant view in modern Catholic scholarship (citing the New Jerome Commentary and Brown and Meier in particular).

Are you claiming that in order for something to be historically accurate in the Bible that it must be corroborated somewhere else in the Bible?

Not “must.” But multiple attestation (the principle you describe above) is one of the most basic and uncontroversial criteria for historicity, yes. Bear in mind that we are talking about how certain we can be that something is accurate. Obviously a single witness can be accurate. But generally we want corroboration if we are going to have reasonable certainty. When, as in the case of Matt. 16, we not only don’t have corroboration but a parallel (probably earlier) source that does *not *include the details in question, the scale tips to the side of a reasonable likelihood that these details are *not *authentic descriptions of the original saying or event.

Consult any modern Biblical scholar not dogmatically committed to a view of Biblical inspiration that rules out the possibility of such editorializing from the start, and you will find that they support what I am saying. Therefore, I repeat: your argument fails utterly.

I shouldn’t really be the one on whom the burden of proof rests. You ought to be able to give me reputable historians who have concluded that Matt. 16 is thoroughly historical without relying in any way on a pre-existing commitment to divine inspiration.

Edwin

 

[Lampo]

Matt. 16, for instance, is almost universally regarded by NT scholars as reflecting the theological emphases of Matthew and not as a literal transcript of what Jesus said (note that the parallel passage in Mark does not contain the key words allegedly giving “infallible” power to Peter–never mind that most scholars also don’t think that Matt. 16 is talking about infallibility).

Could you provide the sources for your claim? Who are the scholars and what are their works - sources?

 

[Lampo]

I shouldn’t really be the one on whom the burden of proof rests. You ought to be able to give me reputable historians who have concluded that Matt. 16 is thoroughly historical without relying in any way on a pre-existing commitment to divine inspiration.

Edwin

Are you not claiming that Jesus did not say to Peter, “You are Peter and upon this rock…”? By me quoting the ECF as to their belief that Jesus did indeed say this to Peter, is it somehow implied they have a pre-existing commitment to the divine inspiration of this passage?

 

[Contarini]

Are you not claiming that Jesus did not say to Peter, “You are Peter and upon this rock…”? By me quoting the ECF as to their belief that Jesus did indeed say this to Peter, is it somehow implied they have a pre-existing commitment to the divine inspiration of this passage?

Of course. Are you seriously questioning that they had such a pre-existing commitment? Are you suggesting that the Church Fathers just found this ancient text called Matthew and became convinced on purely secular grounds that it was historically accurate?

Augustine said that he wouldn’t have believed the Gospel if the authority of the Church had not moved him. This is a favorite passage for Catholics to use against Protestants, and yet somehow you and those who think like you completely forget it with regards to this issue, where it’s most relevant.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Could you provide the sources for your claim? Who are the scholars and what are their works - sources?

I gave you a link to a conservative Catholic article agreeing with everything I have been saying about the consensus of modern scholarship (while finding that consensus deplorable). Go read the New Jerome Commentary if you don’t believe the article.

Edwin

 

[Lampo]

And how do you do that? To make the next step you have to assume a degree of historical accuracy that no historian would ascribe to any ancient text whatsoever, and you have to ignore what historians would normally see as evidence of editorializing such as the difference between the Matthaean and Marcan versions of Peter’s confession. In other words, you will never get there by simply treating the Bible as a history book. Contrary to the OP, you do in fact have to assume inspiration in order to have any reason to ascribe such remarkable accuracy to the Bible.

Edwin

Do historians ascribe a degree of historical accuracy to the life of Julius Caesar? Do you believe that Julius Caesar was an emperor and that he was murdered by conspirators led by Brutus? How much volume of ancient text do we have of Julius Caesar as compared to the Biblical and extra-Biblical writings on the life of Christ? Do most historians agree to the historical accuracy of his life? Do most historians ascribe a high level of accuracy to what we know of Julius Caesar?

I’m not trying to throw a red herring here, but to try and show an inconsistency on your part. Unless I’ve missed it, you have not proven that a pre-existing commitment to divine inspiration exists. Why couldn’t the Bible be approached as an accurate historical document, but the details of Julius Caesar’s life can?

 

[Lampo]

I gave you a link to a conservative Catholic article agreeing with everything I have been saying about the consensus of modern scholarship (while finding that consensus deplorable). Go read the New Jerome Commentary if you don’t believe the article.

Edwin

Yes, thank you. You posted them as I was typing that post. Obviously, I have not had time to read your recommendations.

 

[Lampo]

Of course. Are you seriously questioning that they had such a pre-existing commitment? Are you suggesting that the Church Fathers just found this ancient text called Matthew and became convinced on purely secular grounds that it was historically accurate?

Why would they first have to believe it to be inspired in order to believe its historical accuracy?

Augustine said that he wouldn’t have believed the Gospel if the authority of the Church had not moved him. This is a favorite passage for Catholics to use against Protestants, and yet somehow you and those who think like you completely forget it with regards to this issue, where it’s most relevant.

Edwin

I have not forgotten that quote at all. In no way am I denying that the Catholic Church decided the Canon of Scripture. I know She decided what is inspired and what is not and is the official interpreter of Scripture.

 

[Lampo]

You can’t assume that passages such as Matt. 16 are entirely historically accurate *unless *you first invoke the theological concept of divine inspiration.

Why not?

 

[Lampo]

If you don’t assume divine inspiration, the only honest approach is to treat the text as you would any other ancient document: which means that the balance of probability is in favor of the words "you are Peter, and on this rock. . . " being Matthew’s addition rather than having been spoken by Jesus.

I think I’m beginning to see your side. Not that I agree with it, but beginning to see your take.

But it’s at least somewhat relevant here, as another nail in the coffin of your assumption that Jesus must have said the words ascribed to Him in Matthew 16.
Edwin

Not just my assumption, but also of Tertullian, Origin, Cyprian, Ephraim, St. Damasus, etc.

In all honesty, I just recently learned of this approach to the Bible. It makes sense to me. Approaching the Bible in any other way would be a circular argument. I fully understand that the Catholic Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, decided which books were inspired therefore determined the Canon of Scripture. The problem, in my mind, comes in when you ask how do you know the Bible is inspired? Answer: Because the Church says it is. Question: How do you know the Church has the Truth? Answer: Because the Bible says so. THAT is a circular argument. The OP clears this up. What other option is there in determining that the Bible is inspired? It all relies on the authority of the Catholic Church.

 

[Lampo]

The most likely possibility, and the one that historians would normally go with in a case like this, is that Matthew elaborated on the original account in order to make a point.

And the point being that Peter was head of the Apostles and that Jesus built his Church upon Peter, correct? How does this refute the OP?

 

[Contarini]

And the point being that Peter was head of the Apostles and that Jesus built his Church upon Peter, correct? How does this refute the OP?

Because all you can prove historically is that Matthew thought Peter’s leadership was significant. (I’m not going to get into an argument again here about how much we can or can’t prove from the Matthaean texts, so I have deliberately used a vague phrase.) You can’t prove that Matthew was directly reporting something Jesus said. Your OP claims to be able to prove that Jesus established an infallible Church, not that the author of Matthew writing about 50 years later (according to most scholars) thought he did (I am not granting that Matthew ascribes to Jesus the founding of an infallible Church, but I recognize that your case is cumulative so as I said I don’t want to get into that right now when it’s not the main point I’m disputing).

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

I think I’m beginning to see your side. Not that I agree with it, but beginning to see your take.

Oh no! I was just about to give up Internet discussion as hopelessly ineffective (which would be good for me), and you reconfirm my addiction by making me hope that real communication may be possible!

Not just my assumption, but also of Tertullian, Origin, Cyprian, Ephraim, St. Damasus, etc.

Indeed. My point is that if your OP is really claiming to make a purely historical argument that proves the authority of Scripture, you have to start from premises that modern secular scholars would accept as genuinely historical. (The Catholic scholars I’ve mentioned are considered “liberals” by many Catholics precisely because they accept premises that allow them to interact with the secular and interfaith world of historical scholarship.) As I said, we don’t accept the Church Fathers’ judgments about other parts of ancient history without serious critical examination. When they say that Pilate wrote a letter confirming Jesus’ innocence and holiness, or that Tiberius proposed to the Roman Senate to declare Jesus a god, almost no one takes them seriously.

In all honesty, I just recently learned of this approach to the Bible. It makes sense to me. Approaching the Bible in any other way would be a circular argument. I fully understand that the Catholic Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, decided which books were inspired therefore determined the Canon of Scripture. The problem, in my mind, comes in when you ask how do you know the Bible is inspired? Answer: Because the Church says it is. Question: How do you know the Church has the Truth? Answer: Because the Bible says so. THAT is a circular argument. The OP clears this up. What other option is there in determining that the Bible is inspired? It all relies on the authority of the Catholic Church.

As I tried to say in an earlier post (but probably far too wordily–it’s a big fault of mine), I don’t agree with your premises about what counts as justification for a belief. Let me try to be as succinct as possible!

1. I wouldn’t say that I “know” that the Bible is inspired. I would say that I “believe” it. That recognizes that the evidence is not beyond dispute and involves a choice.
2. If you ask “why do you believe this,” then I will tend to take the question literally and give a narrative, as I did in an earlier post. Because that’s the only adequate way to explain why one believes in anything that is really big and complex and important, like a religion. No important decision is made based on some simple, linear proof. At least I would hope that no one would make an important decision that way. Most of our big commitments (whether intellectual or personal, or as in this case both) result from many lines of evidence of many kinds coming together in a cumulative case. So I see absolutely no need for the kind of proof you’re looking for.
3. I think part of the problem you’re having is that you mostly argue with sola scriptura Protestants, so you naturally are frequently driven to point to the Biblical evidence for the Church. Since you believe the Bible on the authority of the Church, you have understandably concluded that you have a problem with circularity that needs to be solved somehow. I think this is an illusion. I would say (now you might disagree with this, since I’m going to go a bit Protestant on you) that the Bible and the Church rest on each other in different senses. The authority of the Bible rests on the Church in the order of knowing–the Church points us to Scripture. But because the Church points us to Scripture as the Word of God (and as Vatican II said, the Church is the servant of the Word and not its master–so perhaps I’m not being Protestant after all!), the Church rightly appeals to the Scripture it has given us to explain why it can make the claims it does. If you understand this in terms of a foundationalist apologetic in which one thing logically leads to another and everything rests on principles that all rational humans can accept, then yes, this is a problem. But as I’ve shown, your OP is no solution, because there are valid historical grounds for rational human beings to doubt that Scripture is historically accurate enough to support your argument.

 

[Contarini]

So instead I urge you to reconsider your premises. Foundationalism is not the only way to go. You don’t have to break your reasons for believing down into a series of steps one of which necessarily leads to another, all ultimately resting on some rationally unshakeable premise. There is nothing wrong with believing in Scripture on the witness of the Church and then appealing to Scripture to support the Church, as long as you aren’t claiming to construct some kind of syllogistic proof. You’re simply maintaining a coherent position whose parts support each other. The question to ask is not how *one *of those parts can be proven and thus used to support the rest, but why you find the Faith convincing as a whole. And that leads us back to the “cumulative case” approach I have described above.

If you’re serious about apologetics, I really do recommend the four books I recommended in earlier posts. Alasdair MacIntyre’s *Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry *lays out how tradition is related to truth. For my money, this is the best alternative to both Enlightenment rationalism (whose premises you implicitly accept in your OP) and postmodern relativism (hence the “three versions” of the title). Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions argues that even scientists, those paragons of empirical rationality, switch “paradigms” not because one paradigm clearly proves itself to be superior to another by neutral criteria, but because they have what amounts to a conversion which leads them to accept a different set of criteria altogether. (To Kuhn’s puzzlement, many of us who are interested in questions of religious belief find his account helpful as a description of how intellectual conversion happens in religion and philosophy.) William James’ *The Will to Believe *argues that when the evidence is not entirely conclusive (as it often isn’t), but we necessarily have to choose to accept a belief or reject it with consequences either way, there is nothing wrong with choosing to accept rather than reject it (as opposed to the agnostic position of someone like Thomas Huxley who would say that we reject a belief by default until we are thoroughly convinced it’s true–I think again that you are tacitly accepting Huxley’s argument in your OP and need to reconsider this). And William Abraham’s little introduction to the philosophy of religion lays out the “cumulative case” approach to the justification of religious belief which I’ve been defending (Abraham calls it “soft rationalism”).

These are important issues, and I think you have unwittingly accepted some premises that hurt the Christian Faith in general and the enterprise of apologetics in particular. I hope you don’t find it patronizing that I suggest some resources that might challenge you to consider a different approach.

In Christ,

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Do historians ascribe a degree of historical accuracy to the life of Julius Caesar? Do you believe that Julius Caesar was an emperor and that he was murdered by conspirators led by Brutus? How much volume of ancient text do we have of Julius Caesar as compared to the Biblical and extra-Biblical writings on the life of Christ? Do most historians agree to the historical accuracy of his life? Do most historians ascribe a high level of accuracy to what we know of Julius Caesar?

I’m not trying to throw a red herring here, but to try and show an inconsistency on your part. Unless I’ve missed it, you have not proven that a pre-existing commitment to divine inspiration exists. Why couldn’t the Bible be approached as an accurate historical document, but the details of Julius Caesar’s life can?

This is a really good question. Multiple attestation is a criterion that historians use across the board. Historians do not assume that details about Caesar’s death are accurate if they only come from one author, such as Plutarch (who lived more than a century later and was the source for Shakespeare’s play). I am not enough of an expert on the subject to tell you which of the details of the standard narrative have multiple attestation, but I know that Plutarch isn’t accepted uncritically by historians. We also have Suetonius, who was a little later than Plutarch but seems to be independent of him (he gives a very different picture of Caesar), and Appian a little later yet. More reliable by the standards of historians are contemporary sources–for instance, we have Cicero’s speeches against Mark Antony delivered after Caesar’s death and referring to the events surrounding it. (And obviously, for Caesar’s earlier campaigns we have his own memoirs, which are of course treated with quite a bit of suspicion by historians since they were basically political propaganda.) And we have lots of inscriptions and coins and so on. So no single source is accepted uncritically, but we have so many different sources–contemporary writers, inscriptions and other archaeological evidence, and several historians writing within a century or so–that we can crosscheck and arrive at a fair degree of certainty.

Christians often get mixed up between the textual issue and the broader historical issue (so do many skeptics). Christian scholars and apologists rightly point out that our textual evidence for the NT is much, much better than our evidence for any other ancient text. We have so many texts from so many times and places that we can arrive at a reasonable certainty concerning the original reading of each of the NT documents. But this is not the same thing as historical certainty about the events described in those documents. While I think even there we’re in pretty good shape, our historical certainty about Jesus is much less than our certainty about someone like Julius Caesar for whom we have so many different independent sources of information.

Edwin