Is the vatican 2 inerrancy qualification necessary?

[anon5216]

So this “true Christianity” that you’ve apparently discovered on your own must have a god that can err. I’m sorry but this “Christianity” is a fiction you’ve created. The God of the Church is perfect and his divine revelation therefore cannot contain errors.

Nice try. It is not God I’m claiming can err. It is fallible humans’ interpretation of what they think is God’s revelation.
You assume the traditions and writings the Church has are actually God’s undistorted inerrant revelation.
That’s purely a matter of faith - NOT a matter of objectively proven fact.

 

[joemccarron]

Well, Joe, I hope that I was able to share some helpful information. I am thinking that what may best serve you is if we look at some of the specific struggles you are having. Perhaps we can work through a couple of them together. Of course I don’t have satisfying answers for all of them. But with God’s mercy, we’ll do what we can. When I was first exposed to the Bible as an adult, I was looking at it from the perspective of a skeptical agnostic. So I was looking for all of the absurdities and contradictions I could find, and I found them in spades. With the grace and love towards man of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Pete

Pete, as always, you bring great resources to this thread.

I don’t think that there is any particular passage that I think can not be reconciled with enough fancy footwork. Its just that I find all the fancy footwork really being true improbable. I mean ok Judas was hung the rope broke and he then fell spilling out his guts. (its just that the gospels have a funny way of saying it) Then Jesus said forgive them lord for they know not what they do, followed by a loud “My Go My God why have you forsaken me”, which was followed by another loud cry and he gave up his spirit but not before saying “It is finished” and then gave up his spirit but not before saying “father into your hands I commit my spirit” and then he gave up his spirit. Again the way its worded in the Gospels its not impossible that there were no mistakes but … I could go on as to what the Holy spirit said when Jesus was baptized, how the empty tomb was found, what day he died etc. We don’t even need to get into the infancy narratives.

I don’t know what it is but when I read the fundamentalists doing these justifications (some of which we discussed here about rabbits and their droppings) I get the sense I am dealing with a salesmen, not really people open to the truth. I don’t mean to suggest that anyone mentioned in this thread is dishonest or that it is immoral to refute alleged contradictions. To the contrary I think there is great merit in refuting or explaining why certain contradictions are not necessarily so. I have done this myself. I guess what bothers me most is the overemphasis on the importance of this pursuit. The idea that one must believe these sorts of far fetched explanations or be damned is one I have trouble accepting.

I would find it difficult indeed should it be made clear that I must not allow myself to believe that there seems to be discord on small matters in the gospels. The notion that this belief would separate me from the church seems completely unwarranted.

When we examine these matters the ability to say “I don’t understand what the author is saying,” or thinking “its somehow symbolic”, or blaming copyists or translators rarely gives much in the way of relief either. In the end when I read the Gospels I think they are amazingly accurate and consistent but they do have some hallmarks of being written by a human not solely God.

As a lawyer I am constantly taking statements and having people testify about the events in the statements later. For the gospel writers to be as accurate as they are decades after the events I can only conclude God must have had a hand in it. But some of the alleged inconsistencies are so much better explained by the Gospel being written as Luke said he did it

“Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the word have handed them down to us, I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received.”

He investigated the matter carefully and wrote down what he discovered from his human sources. He did not one day lose control of his hand and find it writing the Gospel - evidently controlled by God.

Don’t think for a moment I deny that the Holy Spirit was at work here. I mean if Luke and the other Gospel authors were writing between 40-60 years after the events described their consistency is amazing.

I myself had a statement taken in a case once and I listened to the statement about a year after - I couldn’t believe many of the things I said! I think I have a pretty good memory but this process is very enlightening. There were no inconsistencies on the important matters just on minutia, but it was really eye-opening.

I guess my experiences in life shape my views on these matters.

 

[anon5216]

It is utter nonsense to you because you do not believe it, but if it is true, then you could be in quite a bit of trouble.

Like I said, the analogy as with virtually any is not perfect and breaks down at some level. The difference is that almighty God has promised that this referee through divine revelation revealed through sacred Scripture, the Magisterium, and Tradition, that when he makes definitive calls pertaining to certain matters (faith and morals) that these decisions are safeguarded against any error (infallible) and are irreformable. …

It is the Church who claims that “God promised …”
Again, that’s purely a matter of faith - NOT a matter of objectively proven fact.

 

[joemccarron]

For this example, I think that what you mean by “agree,” and what John means by “agree,” do not agree. He wrote that “if there be anything touching times or places, which they have related differently, this nothing injures the truth of what they have said,” and then goes on to say further down that “it is one thing to speak differently and another to speak at variance.” What you have said here, that they don’t agree, is a little different from what John is saying, which is that their “disagreement” consists of their having harmoniously related the same things differently.

You may want to think about it like this. John is going to show us how their different material, as it pertains to time and place, in no way injures the truth. He says, “And these things too, so far as God shall enable us, we will endeavor, as we proceed, to point out.” Now if John had just conceded discordance (Gk. = διαφωνία) in the Bible as it pertains to these things, why would he go on from there to show that when they have related things differently (Gk. = δίαφόρως) it doesn’t injure the truth? The implication of saying that things spoken differently doesn’t injure the truth is that if they went beyond mere “differences” then it would injure the truth, or, more accurately, it would at least have a greater propensity for injuring the truth.

No John is saying that it helps the truth. But he is not referring to “the truth” of the times and places but “the truth” of the chief heads of the faith. The discrepancies regarding small matters greatly supports the truth of large matters - which all 4 agree on. If there were no discrepancies one would question whether there really were 4 sources or question if they had colluded.

John doesn’t really care about the minor stuff about times and places, he is concerned with the chief heads of the faith. Saint John rightly uses the fact that there seems to exist minor discrepancies as evidence that the major points are really attested by 4 relatively independent sources.

BTW: To the extent you get into arguments about whether Jesus really rose from the dead this is a great point to make.

 

[Pete_Holter]

Your last paragraph is an explicit false dichotomy.

Good afternoon, Joe.

If you want to hold two disparate approaches to Scripture, then there is no dilemma. I concede this. But you can’t just reject what I’ve said here without explaining why having a consistent hermeneutic is the less reasonable approach, especially in light of the objections I raised in my earlier posts about the problems faced when we interpret an imagined implication of Dei Verbum so as to divide Scripture between salvific and nonsalvific material over against the explicit teachings of the Fathers, Doctors, and Magisterium of the Church, including Dei Verbum itself.

Perhaps I can only hope that Anon will agree with me on this.

Extreme inerrancy was not considered a doctrine of the faith for the fathers. These fathers are making statements about their own beliefs not saying one must accept everything out of scripture or be deemed a heretic.

The absence of error with regards to sacred Scripture was not expressly defined until Vatican I when it said that the books of the Bible “contain revelation without error.” Before that time it was permissible to hold a variety of views. And even after that time there was legitimate excuse for not understanding the full implications of what was said. But once Pope Leo XIII definitively explained this infallible dogma of the council, which itself drew from the unanimous heritage of the Fathers, the debate was over. Nevertheless, concerning the fathers: all of the Fathers’ positive teaching is expressly consonant with total inerrancy; and some of the Fathers’ negative teaching is expressly dissonant with denying total inerrancy.

You will see a greater percentage of the Fathers writing adamantly and expressly about the Trinity after the early ecumenical councils. And yet, even without any express formulation of any ecumenical council prior to Vatican I, you still have all of the Fathers interpreting Scripture in a way that presupposes inerrancy, many of them expressly teaching in favor of inerrancy, and some of them forbidding the denial of inerrancy. To the best of my knowledge, there is no counter evidence.

“o emphatically were all the Fathers and Doctors agreed that the divine writings, as left by the hagiographers, are free from all error, that they laboured earnestly, with no less skill than reverence, to reconcile with each other those numerous passages which seem at variance – the very passages which in great measure have been taken up by the ‘higher criticism;’ for they were unanimous in laying it down, that those writings, in their entirety and in all their parts were equally from the afflatus of Almighty God, and that God, speaking by the sacred writers, could not set down anything but what was true. The words of St. Augustine to St. Jerome may sum up what they taught: ‘On my part I confess to your charity that it is only to those Books of Scripture which are now called canonical that I have learned to pay such honour and reverence as to believe most firmly that none of their writers has fallen into any error. And if in these Books I meet anything which seems contrary to truth, I shall not hesitate to conclude either that the text is faulty, or that the translator has not expressed the meaning of the passage, or that I myself do not understand’” (Providentissimus Deus).

Of course, the fathers had an easier time defending scripture in their day because their understanding of the world did not vary much from that of the scripture writers. The fathers gave reasons for their defenses of scripture. We can’t say they would reach the same conclusions if their reasons had been clearly disproven. To say that would be to say that the Fathers were intellectually dishonest. Of course the reasons they gave couldn’t be disproven then, but they can now.

I can only refer you back to what Pope Leo XIII wrote. You are not saying anything that he did not already address in that quote.

If you want any help understanding this teaching of the Church, I am here for you. Otherwise, I leave you in peace. I don’t want to debate. I want to help.

If Joe posts anything here that anyone would like me to respond to, you can send me a private message and I will do what I can to help you.

With the love of Christ,
Pete

 

[joemccarron]

This leads to the next question: Do you believe that God wanted to write errors and to include true contradictions in His Book, and that this would not hinder our quest for salvation? True difficulties and obscurities yes, to humble us and train us in spiritual exercises, but errors and contradictions? If we believe that we have detected errors in those areas where the Biblical text is testable (history and science), why would we believe that there are none of these things where the text is untestable (theology)? To do so would be, I think, a form of fideism and not true faith. It is also in conflict with Jesus’ own pedagogy: “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” (John 3:12) He builds our confidence in His teaching about things we can’t see, by speaking truthfully about things we can see. If we assert that there are errors in the Bible pertaining to earthly things, then, from Jesus’ line of reasoning, we’ve undercut our hope in receiving inerrant truth pertaining to heavenly things. I hope I am giving you some things to think about that you haven’t thought about before.

I think your basic ideas are contradicting each other. Either God put difficulties in scripture or he didn’t. If God really inserted difficulties into the text in order to humble us or train us then this contradicts your claim that “[God] builds our confidence in His teaching about things we can’t see, by speaking truthfully about things we can see.”

If God wanted to build our confidence in his teaching by speaking truthfully about things we can see he would not put so many difficulties there. We would be able to plainly see that everything he said checks out fine. Something may be true but it won’t build our confidence unless we can recognize that truth.

So either God put the difficulties in there or he didn’t. If he did, then don’t try to claim he didn’t in order to build our confidence in the other matters. If he didn’t put difficulties in there, then don’t say he did in order to humble and train us.

The obvious solution is that God gave us the instruction we need to do what we are required to do in this world. He gives that to us by the Holy Spirit acting in scripture (all of scripture every book) the church and individually through grace.

I don’t think God gave us difficulties in scripture or on earth to test or humble us. Nor do I think God wants us to base our faith in Jesus on the belief that rabbits do indeed chew the cud.

 

[joemccarron]

And not [only is excessive ridiculousness] in [the Greek philosophers]… worthy of blame, but so is also their ever-shifting current of words; for since they assert everything on uncertain and fallacious arguments, they are like men carried hither and thither in Euripus, and never remain in the same place.

Not so this fisherman; for all he says is infallible (Gk. = ἀσφαλείας); and standing as it were upon a rock, he never shifts his ground. For since he has been thought worthy to be in the most secret places, and has the Lord of all speaking within him, he is subject to nothing that is human… what he says is divinely inspired (Gk. = Θεόπνευστα; cf. 2 Tim. 3:16). (The Gospel of John, Homily 2)

And referring back to the quote from Homily 82 above… when John says that Jesus’ word cannot deceive and has never failed while our own personal thoughts do – and keeping in mind that John holds that it is really God in Christ Who speaks through all of the authors of Scripture – how can His word, i.e., the whole Bible, err? And how can our failing thoughts show that His unfailing word does this?

By this Apostle stand the powers from above, marveling at the beauty of his soul, and his understanding, and the bloom of that virtue by which he drew unto him Christ Himself, and obtained the grace of the Spirit. For he has made ready his soul, as some well-fashioned and jeweled lyre with strings of gold, and yielded it for the utterance of something great and sublime to the Spirit.

Seeing then it is no longer the fisherman the son of Zebedee, but He who knows the deep things of God, the Holy Spirit I mean, that strikes this lyre, let us hearken accordingly. For he will say nothing to us as a man, but what he says, he will say from the depths of the Spirit. (The Gospel of John, Homily 1)

Were John about to converse with us, and to say to us words of his own, we [must needs] describe his family, his country, and his education. But since it is not he, but God by him, that speaks to mankind, it seems to me superfluous and distracting to enquire into these matters (The Gospel of John, Homily 2).

Yes these passages say that the scriptures are inspired. The teachings are not of man but of God. But those who argue fro extreme inerrancy take this to an uncalled for extreme. Its like saying Jesus really wants us to hate our families. What is the context?

In these passages John C. is not addressing minor discrepancies he is addressing the overall teachings of Greek philosophers and comparing them generally with the Gospel of John. When John C. addressed the issue of minor discrepancies squarely he said what he thought and he said they seem to exist.

 

[joemccarron]

Good afternoon, Joe.

If you want to hold two disparate approaches to Scripture, then there is no dilemma. I concede this. But you can’t just reject what I’ve said here without explaining why having a consistent hermeneutic is the less reasonable approach, especially in light of the objections I raised in my earlier posts about the problems faced when we interpret an imagined implication of Dei Verbum so as to divide Scripture between salvific and nonsalvific material over against the explicit teachings of the Fathers, Doctors, and Magisterium of the Church, including Dei Verbum itself.

Perhaps I can only hope that Anon will agree with me on this.

I’m not sure what you mean by two disparate approaches. I think we should approach scripture as a true guide to how we should act in this world. I do not think we should look at it as a science book although there is some scientific truth. I also don’t think we should look at it like a history book although there is some history.

I am responding sort of haphazardly, I admit, if I missed a question or comment that you think is especially important please give me the post number and I will address it.

We have the teachings of the church concerning religion but not really science or math and that doesn’t seem to bring about any insurmountable problems. If we thought it did should we then look to the church for answers to scientific and historical questions? Should Popes ask the Holy Spirit for those truths? If God gave the answers to those questions we could solve many crimes from the historical information and cure many diseases from the scientific. However, we know God is not really interested descriptive truth he is more interested in informing us of the things that we need to know. God has concern for who we are and what we should be not for what we know about science. (ok God has concern for everything in our lives and each hair on our head but I hope you get my point.) God gave us abilities to explore the world through the sciences but gaining this sort of knowledge is not his primary concern for us. I don’t think he would work miracles (or otherwise interact with humans) so that we better understand the digestive tracts of rabbits.

If I’m required to believe he did then I may have a problem.

 

[una_fides]

As to whether we must believe rabbits chew the cud or not for our salvation - this is for our church to answer.

Joe, why again with the rabbit. We were so past this like two months ago. It seems like you forget all the progress we make and then return to the same old thinking. The Church is not saying you have to believe anything in particular about that passage other than the fact that it is a part of Scripture and that as a part of Scripture it is not an error. How you want to interpret it beyond that is up to you.

We have the church fathers including Saint John Chrystosm. If what he taught was orthodox then it shouldn’t be considered false teaching 1800 years later. It’s either true or false.

Again, you are ignoring the facts previously demonstrated on this thread, which you have not answered sufficiently. You have not proven that St. John believed there were actual errors in Scripture. Your conclusions are your own personal opinions. Your logic is also misplaced because if St. John believed that there were errors in Scripture, then can you answer the question why on earth he was arguing that passages that any modernist today would say were errors were not? If he truly thought there were errors in Scripture, then it only makes sense he would take that easy way out. But he didn’t go against what everyone else around him was saying and understood to be true. We also have absolutely no records of any fathers arguing against the mainstream view that there were no errors in Scripture. This dogma was not contested, as it was universally understood, despite whatever you would like to speculate without any evidence. The overwhelming surviving evidence is that the fathers believed that there could be no errors in Scripture because God was the author. The fathers that compiled the canon itself were the main ones speaking out on this issue as well.

But we are indeed 2000 years into it. We were 1850 years into it before Pope Leo XIII spoke and no council has ever said that we must believe that every phrase of scripture can contain no error or we would be excommunicated from the church. The church gave us many creeds teachings through councils and developments. Why did Pope Leo XIII all of a sudden make this statement? It wasn’t because of a new scientific/historical/archeological discovery verifying the truth of scripture in every detail. He said it as a reaction to certain claims that were being made at the time. We should understand his statements as a reaction to those claims.

The claims he reacted to were the ones that he and other popes anathamatized and said were heresy. It is not until dogmas come under fire that the Church condemns the heresies in order to defend the pure teachings of Christ entrusted to her.

 

[joemccarron]

If you want any help understanding this teaching of the Church, I am here for you. Otherwise, I leave you in peace. I don’t want to debate. I want to help.

If Joe posts anything here that anyone would like me to respond to, you can send me a private message and I will do what I can to help you.

With the love of Christ,
Pete

Pete
If you do not wish to have your responses public that is ok. If you wish to e-mail or PM me any follow up I would enjoy the electronic company whether it be on inerrancy or any other topic. As I have said on multiple occasions I have learned from and appreciate your responses. I hope the feeling is mutual, but I don’t claim to be anything more than a practicing Catholic. Just as you hope to help me with your thoughts I wish to do the same for you.

The PBC mentioned the “intellectual suicide” that fundamentalist approaches to scripture can bring. I know those suicidal leaps often end on unforgiving ground. I pray that you always have faith that our Lord will not abandon you even though the truth and his ways of revealing it may not be as you, or I, imagine. You are a great asset to this church. It is people like you that make this church God’s home and bride. Thanks for your contributions to this thread.
We can both pray to those saints who have gone before for guidance in our lives. And we can both have faith that our church will help us in our understanding of what God wants of us.

 

[una_fides]

Yes but when we do that we can’t throw out parts. We should try to find a way to understand that what these modern Popes said that does not contradict what Saint John said. I think Vatican 2’s statement did that.

---

Joe, this passage demonstrates the fallacy in your discerning of the truth. You absolutely cannot take some statements made by St. John out of their contexts and thereby put them on part with dogmatic papal declarations. You have to understand the mind of the Church’s Magisterium in what she taught–then–and only then–can you approach St. John’s writing and you must put his writing on the same level as the other Church fathers who wrote much more clearly on the matter. Thus, we can safely and easily conclude of St. John’s writings one of two things:

1. He truly believed that there could be errors in Scripture concerning “small” matters–and was sincerely mistaken, since the issue has now been dogmatically settled by popes
   -or-
2. He actually believed there to not be any errors in any part of Scripture when it is properly understood.

Either way after reading those authoritative declarations by popes, you cannot safely conclude option 3) that St. John viewed there to be real errors in Scripture and that somehow this approach is alright and that the modern papal declarations understood that. To conclude #3 is to ignore the papal declarations and stretch them infinitely further than anyone would ever need to stretch the writings of St. John or Scripture in order to properly understand them.

---

 

[una_fides]

No John is saying that it helps the truth. But he is not referring to “the truth” of the times and places but “the truth” of the chief heads of the faith. The discrepancies regarding small matters greatly supports the truth of large matters - which all 4 agree on. If there were no discrepancies one would question whether there really were 4 sources or question if they had colluded.

John doesn’t really care about the minor stuff about times and places, he is concerned with the chief heads of the faith. Saint John rightly uses the fact that there seems to exist minor discrepancies as evidence that the major points are really attested by 4 relatively independent sources.

If Chrysostom doesn’t care about minor details, then why does he spend so much time reconciling them as Pete’s previous posts demonstrated? Why does he not just admit that 5 days vs 7 days was an error? Why argue and say that they were giving the same period of time? Does this argument somehow pertinent to salvation whether it was 5 or 7 days? The truth is he defends the small matters because they reflect upon the large ones. If God’s inspiration is faulty on small matters, then why not large ones as well? You are forced to either conclude that God did not author all of Scripture, which Vatican I and subsequent popes have infallibly condemned, or that God did inspire these errors but they just weren’t important to him so he allowed them to be included in His Book that was designed for salvation.

 

[joemccarron]

If Chrysostom doesn’t care about minor details, then why does he spend so much time reconciling them as Pete’s previous posts demonstrated? Why does he not just admit that 5 days vs 7 days was an error? Why argue and say that they were giving the same period of time? Does this argument somehow pertinent to salvation whether it was 5 or 7 days? The truth is he defends the small matters because they reflect upon the large ones. If God’s inspiration is faulty on small matters, then why not large ones as well? You are forced to either conclude that God did not author all of Scripture, which Vatican I and subsequent popes have infallibly condemned, or that God did inspire these errors but they just weren’t important to him so he allowed them to be included in His Book that was designed for salvation.

I would point out that I said he doesn’t “really care” about the minor points. I did not say he doesn’t care at all if there are inconsistencies in minor points.

St. John in the passage we were discussing explicitly used the conviction of contradictions on small matters to help establish the truth of the chief heads which they (the gospel writers) don’t disagree on. This passage is the most relevant to understanding his position because the question is put most squarely to him. It’s not just an off the cuff remark.

Yes St. John did make arguments regarding minor matters so I would not say he didn’t care at all about them. Nor did I say that. I agree with what he said about there seeming to be inconsistencies and yet I also think it’s important to point out that not everything that is claimed to be a contradiction is necessarily contradictory.

 

[joemccarron]

---

Joe, this passage demonstrates the fallacy in your discerning of the truth. You absolutely cannot take some statements made by St. John out of their contexts and thereby put them on part with dogmatic papal declarations.

I did not take his statements out of context. If you read the statements in context its pretty clear he did think there seemed to be inconsistency. That’s what he said and the context fits squarely with what he said.

That said I do agree that a Pope can say “No, in this case the Saint was mistaken and was teaching false doctrine.” I agree with that. But that is not what Pope Leo XIII did. He said all the fathers agreed with his (Pope Leo’s) view and indeed based his position on that agreement.

So we can either say:

1. Pope Leo XIII was simply unaware of St. Johns position in which case we can only wonder if becoming aware of it might change his opinion. Popes have said things based on insufficient information and once they had that information changed their mind. Consider our current Pope lifting the excommunication but then becoming aware that one was a holocaust denier, then changing course. Popes do make decisions based on reasoning and that reasoning can be important. (unless it is ex-cathedra)
   or
2. Pope Leo XIII was aware of it but did not mean his statements to be interpreted in such a way that they would run contrary to what Saint John said. After all I believe some of the scholars of Pope Leo’s day were indeed claiming errors in the chief heads of the faith. His statements may have been a reaction against that.

 

[joemccarron]

Here is what The Catholic Study Bible says:

“The culmination of official Catholic pronouncements on biblical studies was the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation. The nature of these documents is cumulative; that is, the latest document restates the teachings contained in previous documents and clarifies matters not discussed earlier in detail. The document of an ecumenical council has far more official weight than a papal encyclical or an instruction for the Biblical Commission. (for a discussion of the authority of various Roman Catholic documents, see Ladislas Orsy, The Church: Learning and Teaching Wilmington, DE: Glazier, 1987). Moreover, the Council on Scripture was a “dogmatic constitution,” the most authoritative kind issued by Vatican II. Thus Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation should be taken as the authoritative climax of a long series of developments in the Church’s attitude toward the bible.” RG19

With respect to inerrancy it quotes Dei verbum and then says:

“The key expression in this statement is ‘that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the sacred Scriptures.’ Without explicitly embracing the theory of limited inerrancy, that statement suggests that the Bibles inerrancy consists primarily in its being a trustworthy guide on the road to salvation. Thus it expresses “inerrancy” in a positive way, and avoids conceiving it as a defensive program of protecting the Bible against accusations of scientific or historical error.” RG 27

It also says this:

“The Old testament constituted the bible for Jesus and the early Christians. According to the Gospels, Jesus frequently quoted or alluded to the Old Testament texts in order to establish a theological point or to suggest a way of acting. He clearly accorded these texts a certain degree of authority. Nevertheless, Jesus emerges from the New Testament as displaying flexibility toward the Old Testament and even authority over it. he distinguishes what comes from God and what comes from Moses (see Mk 10,1-12), criticizes and goes beyond scriptural teachings (Mt 5, 21-48), and rates love of God and neighbor (Mk 12,28-31) over strict observance of the Sabbath.” RG 17

 

[joemccarron]

Joe, why again with the rabbit. We were so past this like two months ago. It seems like you forget all the progress we make and then return to the same old thinking. The Church is not saying you have to believe anything in particular about that passage other than the fact that it is a part of Scripture and that as a part of Scripture it is not an error. How you want to interpret it beyond that is up to you.

We came up with a possible explanation that was based on complete unbridled speculation. Now the fact taht we came to an explanation that seems theoretically plausible does nto necessarilly mean it is the most likely candidate. But even if this possible explanation is the most likely candidate when you have so many different appearent errors the chances that none of them are in fact errors gets to be pretty dim. That is why I say there “seem” to be errors regarding minor things in the text. I’m not out to try to prove any one of them can not possibly be explained by various gyrations. But when we look at them as a whole - well the prospects aren’t good.

Again, you are ignoring the facts previously demonstrated on this thread, which you have not answered sufficiently. You have not proven that St. John believed there were actual errors in Scripture. Your conclusions are your own personal opinions. Your logic is also misplaced because if St. John believed that there were errors in Scripture, then can you answer the question why on earth he was arguing that passages that any modernist today would say were errors were not?

I’m not saying he was a “modernist” however one may define that term. He wasn’t and I’m not. (Although I may appear to be one when I am in certain company, in other company I seem a real traditionalist) But I have explained that indeed there is good reason to resolve claims that this or that passage may be contradictory (even when its not dealing with salvation). I am not saying, by any stretch, that we should just sit back and every time someone says there is a contradiction we can say “well it’s not regarding salvation so who cares.” No not at all. It’s important to show that those who wrote the scriptures were not idiots and that they were using at least reasonably reliable information. But do we need to say they were Gods? I don’t think that’s necessary. They were human beings inspired by the Holy Spirit to write what they did for the sake of our salvation.

I do think it is more important that people understand that the bible is without error when it comes to our salvation and the chief heads of the faith than it is to try to prove its without error on minor parts. Do you agree?

 

[TMC]

I do think it is more important that people understand that the bible is without error when it comes to our salvation and the chief heads of the faith than it is to try to prove its without error on minor parts. Do you agree?

You are absolutely correct. Moreover, the opposite tactic drives people from the faith. When you tell someone you have to believe that 5 can mean 7 or that rabbits have cuds, or that Jarius’ daughter died and was raised twice, they naturally assume that the rest of the things you have to say are equally nonsensical. This is what St Thomas meant when he wrote about not giving the wise a reason to despise our faith.

 

[una_fides]

You are absolutely correct. Moreover, the opposite tactic drives people from the faith. When you tell someone you have to believe that 5 can mean 7 or that rabbits have cuds, or that Jarius’ daughter died and was raised twice, they naturally assume that the rest of the things you have to say are equally nonsensical. This is what St Thomas meant when he wrote about not giving the wise a reason to despise our faith.

What would give the wise more reason to despise our faith: telling them that the Bible does not have errors when in some parts certain statements in this 2000 year old book can seem to be, or having a pope infallibly bind a dogma saying that the Bible does not contain errors only to later have the teaching changed or denied by Catholics who claim to acknowledge the Church’s authority? (Even if those papal declarations were not infallible–which they certainly were–they would at least be binding dogmatic statements that the pope authoritatively said all are bound to believe and the heresies that all are bound to disbelieve.) If the Catholic faith contradicts itself on one dogma of the faith, then she no longer has any credibility at all. Any and every other dogma can then be called into question, since she then would have lost her credibility as an infallible teacher of the faith. So yes, this issue is much bigger than just inerrancy; it rests on the authority of the Church and also touches on the nature of God as being a God of truth, not error.

I will be responding to other recent comments soon.

 

[anon5216]

What would give the wise more reason to despise our faith: telling them that the Bible does not have errors when in some parts certain statements in this 2000 year old book can seem to be, or having a pope infallibly bind a dogma saying that the Bible does not contain errors only to later have the teaching changed or denied by Catholics who claim to acknowledge the Church’s authority? (Even if those papal declarations were not infallible–which they certainly were–they would at least be binding dogmatic statements that the pope authoritatively said all are bound to believe and the heresies that all are bound to disbelieve.) If the Catholic faith contradicts itself on one dogma of the faith, then she no longer has any credibility at all. Any and every other dogma can then be called into question, since she then would have lost her credibility as an infallible teacher of the faith. So yes, this issue is much bigger than just inerrancy; it rests on the authority of the Church and also touches on the nature of God as being a God of truth, not error.

I will be responding to other recent comments soon.

Yes, Church leaders painted themselves into a ridiculously tight corner on this.
And they’re eventually going to have to eat serious crow as a result.

The issue does weigh heavily on the authority of the Church, but doesn’t necessarily touch on the nature of God in the slightest - just our human definition of God.
As I’ve said frequently, I don’t believe throwing out the bath water of this vestigial Jewish religious authoritarianism invalidates Christianity.

Joe and TMC are right on target.

 

[una_fides]

Yes, Church leaders painted themselves into a ridiculously tight corner on this.
And they’re eventually going to have to eat serious crow as a result.

The issue does weigh heavily on the authority of the Church, but doesn’t necessarily touch on the nature of God in the slightest - just our human definition of God.
As I’ve said frequently, I don’t believe throwing out the bath water of this vestigial Jewish religious authoritarianism invalidates Christianity.

Joe and TMC are right on target.

Anon,

Thank you for sharing your non-Christian perspective. Understand, however, that it is not just “Church leaders” who in the past couple hundred years have laid out this teaching on inerrancy. It was the same Church fathers who compiled Scripture that held to these beliefs concerning these books. St. Augustine was very instrumental in the process of canonization, and his position, as that of the vast majority of the other Church fathers, is crystal clear. There are always some writings here or there in the many volumes of writings that people can try to take out of context or distort from their original meaning in order to try to support heterodox ideas. Nevertheless, the Scriptures ring true, and it is only on a very small amount of texts comparatively that there is any question as to potential errors. Yes, they are there, and yes some can be difficult to explain, but there are still valid explanations. And with a book as large as the Bible and that has been preserved for so long and is being read in different languages and in a different time, one would only expect that everything will not be understood properly. As Joe pointed out, the fact the gospel writers agreed on so much content demonstrates in and of itself an act of Divine providence in preserving these accounts. The fact they are not word for word agreements even further demonstrates their credibility, as long as one does not begin by assuming they are mere human works full of errors.
If one rejects the Magisterium, then they reject Scripture, and if the Magisterium and the Church fathers were wrong on inerrancy for 2000 years, then why would they be trusted concerning their compiling of the books themselves. To reject the Magisterium is logically to reject the canon itself. The two are inevitably intertwined. Since you accept neither, of course you will see disagreement not only in little matters but also on teachings of faith and morals as well.