Question About Inerrancy

[TheObstinateAss]

Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch write

“The principal of biblical inerrancy follows logically from this principle of divine authorship. After all, God cannot lie, and he cannot make mistakes. Since the Bible is divinely inspired, it must be without error in everything that its divine and human authors affirm to be true.” - Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament, p. x

Or, to put it into a syllogism:

1. God cannot err
2. God inspired Sacred Scripture
3. Therefore, Sacred Scripture does not err

Scott and Mitch also note that the term “inspired” (borrowed from 2 Tim 3:16) could also be translated as “God-breathed” (Ibid., p. ix).

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but this is the same sort of language used in Gen 2:7 when it is said that God breathed into man’s “nostrils the breath of life”?

If so, given the fact that man goes on to fall, wouldn’t the following syllogism be false?

1. God cannot err
2. God inspired man
3. Therefore man cannot err

Is the reason the first syllogism is true and the second syllogism is false, is that man has free will and a text does not, so that man can err and a text cannot?

 

[edward_george]

You’re conflating what “inspire” means between the two passages. Because you have misdefined your terms, your syllogism (that is, the jump from one verse to the other) is invalid. The word “inspire” is being used in two different senses in each sentence.

-ACEGC

 

[ChadS]

You’re conflating what “inspire” means between the two passages. Because you have misdefined your terms, your syllogism (that is, the jump from one verse to the other) is invalid. The word “inspire” is being used in two different senses in each sentence.

-ACEGC

I would also add that perhaps the word translated into English as “breathed” from the Hebrew and Greek aren’t equivalent or carry the same meaning. So although we’re reading the same word and we think that it’s the same the ideas this rather limited English word is being asked to convey are entirely different concepts.

Chads

 

[edward_george]

I would also add that perhaps the word translated into English as “breathed” from the Hebrew and Greek aren’t equivalent or carry the same meaning. So although we’re reading the same word and we think that it’s the same the ideas this rather limited English word is being asked to convey are entirely different concepts.

Chads

As per GreekBible.com:

2 Timothy 3:16

πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος καὶ ὠφέλιμος πρὸς διδασκαλίαν, πρὸς ἐλεγμόν, πρὸς ἐπανόρθωσιν, πρὸς παιδείαν τὴν ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ,

θεόπνευστος,a {theh-op’-nyoo-stos}

1. inspired by God 1a) the contents of the scriptures

theo=God
pneustos=breathed/inspired

Genesis 2:7:

1. καὶ ἔπλασεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον χοῦν ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς καὶ ἐνεφύσησεν εἰς τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ πνοὴν ζωῆς καὶ ἐγένετο ὁ ἄνθρωπος εἰς ψυχὴν ζῶσαν

ἐνεφύσησεν

1720 emphysáō (from 1722 /en, “in” and physaō, “breathe, blow”) – properly, breathe (blow) in. 1720 (emphysáō) is only used in Jn 20:22 where Christ breathed into the apostles. By “breathing in Christ’s inbreathing,” 1720 (emphysáō) prefigures “the promise of the Father,” fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost (Lk 24:49; Ac 1:4; Ac 2:1f).

This is a reference to the word’s only occurrance in the NT, which highlights the importance of the power to forgive sins–so important that its handing on is the same action as God giving life to man (as per Genesis 2:7)

Not the same word being used here, and where it is used, it refers to two different actions.

-ACEGC

 

[TheObstinateAss]

But even if they are different actions, they are both God’s actions, right? And God cannot err, so…?

 

[Aelred_Minor]

But even if they are different actions, they are both God’s actions, right? And God cannot err, so…?

The application is that if God tries to make man a living creature it will happen, just like if He tries to express truth through written words those words will contain no error in what they actually assert to be true. If you are going to pursue this line of thought the question shouldn’t focus on whether human beings can err, which is irrelevant since we are talking about two very different uses of the metaphor of “breath”, but how human beings came to be mortal if God Himself gave them the breath of life. I think we have a good enough understanding of how that happened though, through sin.

The closest parallel with Scripture, something that after the inspiration of Scripture could make it errant would, I suppose, be a transcription or translation error by a non-inspired scribe or scholar. The possibility of such errors should give us pause, especially since we have relatively few fragments of Scripture from antiquity and none that appear to be the original copy penned by the inspired human author. Here we see one of the many shortcomings of Sola Scriptura and one of the advantages for there being a living teaching authority to guide the Church.