Which Text of the Bible Is Inerrant?

[Road2Damascus]

I’d be concerned that they could always end up finding an older text!!!

Also, I don’t know if it is clear Matthew was written earlier at a time in Hebrew or Aramaic, I do read people assert this. Though then I would think, people often say Matthew and Luke take from Mark as if that is a given.

Also, there seems to be a different Matthew that has been found in Hebrew or Aramaic but it has some fundamental differences with the Matthew in Greek, that Hebrew or Aramaic one (sorry, I don’t know which one that is) for example said something like Gentiles would be able to obtain salvation only after the end of the age. I believe it is an Amazon book, so that part of the initial premise does not seem solid to me.

 

[patrick457]

You are incorrect. The Bible is inerrant in everything it touches on, whether morals, history, science, or any other field of learning. Dei Verbum teaches that God has made the Bible completely inerrant for the sake of our salvation, for if it contained any mistakes we would doubt it and therefore not follow its precepts. It did not teach that only those parts relating to religion and morals is inerrant. Consider the words of Pope Leo XIII:

“But it is absolutely wrong and forbidden, either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of Holy Scripture, or to admit that the sacred writer has erred" (Providentissimus Deus 20).

For the same of completeness, the whole paragraph:

1. The principles here laid down will apply cognate sciences, and especially to History. It is a lamentable fact that there are many who with great labour carry out and publish investigations on the monuments of antiquity, the manners and institutions of nations and other illustrative subjects, and whose chief purpose in all this is too often to find mistakes in the sacred writings and so to shake and weaken their authority. Some of these writers display not only extreme hostility, but the greatest unfairness; in their eyes a profane book or ancient document is accepted without hesitation, whilst the Scripture, if they only find in it a suspicion of error, is set down with the slightest possible discussion as quite untrustworthy. It is true, no doubt, that copyists have made mistakes in the text of the Bible; this question, when it arises, should be carefully considered on its merits, and the fact not too easily admitted, but only in those passages where the proof is clear. It may also happen that the sense of a passage remains ambiguous, and in this case good hermeneutical methods will greatly assist in clearing up the obscurity. But it is absolutely wrong and forbidden, either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of Holy Scripture, or to admit that the sacred writer has erred. For the system of those who, in order to rid themselves of these difficulties, do not hesitate to concede that divine inspiration regards the things of faith and morals, and nothing beyond, because (as they wrongly think) in a question of the truth or falsehood of a passage, we should consider not so much what God has said as the reason and purpose which He had in mind in saying it-this system cannot be tolerated. For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost; and so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true. This is the ancient and unchanging faith of the Church, solemnly defined in the Councils of Florence and of Trent, and finally confirmed and more expressly formulated by the Council of the Vatican. These are the words of the last: “The Books entire, with all their parts, as enumerated in the decree of the same Council (Trent) and in the ancient Latin Vulgate, are to be received as sacred and canonical. And the Church holds them as sacred and canonical, not because, having been composed by human industry, they were afterwards approved by her authority; nor only because they contain revelation without error; but because, having been written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author.” Hence, because the Holy Ghost employed men as His instruments, we cannot therefore say that it was these inspired instruments who, perchance, have fallen into error, and not the primary author. For, by supernatural power, He so moved and impelled them to write-He was so present to them-that the things which He ordered, and those only, they, first, rightly understood, then willed faithfully to write down, and finally expressed in apt words and with infallible truth. Otherwise, it could not be said that He was the Author of the entire Scripture. Such has always been the persuasion of the Fathers. “Therefore,” says St. Augustine, “since they wrote the things which He showed and uttered to them, it cannot be pretended that He is not the writer; for His members executed what their Head dictated.” And St. Gregory the Great thus pronounces: “Most superfluous it is to inquire who wrote these things-we loyally believe the Holy Ghost to be the Author of the book. He wrote it Who dictated it for writing; He wrote it Who inspired its execution.”

 

[patrick457]

BTW, Pius X’s Divino Afflante Spiritu (esp. paragraphs 14-22) is also a good read. I quote in part:

1. Nor should anyone think that this use of the original texts, in accordance with the methods of criticism, in any way derogates from those decrees so wisely enacted by the Council of Trent concerning the Latin Vulgate. It is historically certain that the Presidents of the Council received a commission, which they duly carried out, to beg, that is, the Sovereign Pontiff in the name of the Council that he should have corrected, as far as possible, first a Latin, and then a Greek, and Hebrew edition, which eventually would be published for the benefit of the Holy Church of God. If this desire could not then be fully realized owing to the difficulties of the times and other obstacles, at present it can, We earnestly hope, be more perfectly and entirely fulfilled by the united efforts of Catholic scholars.
2. And if the Tridentine Synod wished “that all should use as authentic” the Vulgate Latin version, this, as all know, applies only to the Latin Church and to the public use of the same Scriptures; nor does it, doubtless, in any way diminish the authority and value of the original texts. For there was no question then of these texts, but of the Latin versions, which were in circulation at that time, and of these the same Council rightly declared to be preferable that which “had been approved by its long-continued use for so many centuries in the Church.” Hence this special authority or as they say, authenticity of the Vulgate was not forbidden by the decree of the Council of Trent to make translations into the vulgar tongue, even directly from the original texts themselves, for the use and benefit of the faithful and for the better understanding of the divine word, as We know to have been already done in a laudable manner in many countries with the approval of the Ecclesiastical authority.

 

[patrick457]

BTW, Divino Afflante Spiritu (esp. paragraphs 14-22) is also a good read. I quote in part:

1. Nor should anyone think that this use of the original texts, in accordance with the methods of criticism, in any way derogates from those decrees so wisely enacted by the Council of Trent concerning the Latin Vulgate. It is historically certain that the Presidents of the Council received a commission, which they duly carried out, to beg, that is, the Sovereign Pontiff in the name of the Council that he should have corrected, as far as possible, first a Latin, and then a Greek, and Hebrew edition, which eventually would be published for the benefit of the Holy Church of God. If this desire could not then be fully realized owing to the difficulties of the times and other obstacles, at present it can, We earnestly hope, be more perfectly and entirely fulfilled by the united efforts of Catholic scholars.
2. And if the Tridentine Synod wished “that all should use as authentic” the Vulgate Latin version, this, as all know, applies only to the Latin Church and to the public use of the same Scriptures; nor does it, doubtless, in any way diminish the authority and value of the original texts. For there was no question then of these texts, but of the Latin versions, which were in circulation at that time, and of these the same Council rightly declared to be preferable that which “had been approved by its long-continued use for so many centuries in the Church.” Hence this special authority or as they say, authenticity of the Vulgate was not forbidden by the decree of the Council of Trent to make translations into the vulgar tongue, even directly from the original texts themselves, for the use and benefit of the faithful and for the better understanding of the divine word, as We know to have been already done in a laudable manner in many countries with the approval of the Ecclesiastical authority.

 

[Jerry-Jet]

Always remember people–just because an alternative ancient original language varient text is older–that doesn’t necessarily meant that it is more accurate-- it might be more accurate–it might be erroneus.

That’s where real scholarship comes in.

That scholarship–if it does not view the bible through the lense of the way that the Catholic Church has taught the bible over the centuries–then that scholarship is NO Scholarship at all!

 

[SGWessells]

God’s Holy Spirit has preserved the Catholic Bible from error in matters on Faith and Morals.

God promised to be with the (Catholic) Church always and it is the Catholic Church from whence we received the Holy Bible, and of which the Holy Spirit safeguards.

Yabablo quoted Pius XII’s citation of Vatican I which condemns this opinion: "For some go so far as to pervert the sense of the Vatican Council’s definition that God is the author of Holy Scripture, and they put forward again the opinion, already often condemned, which asserts that immunity from error extends only to those parts of the Bible that treat of God or of moral and religious matters." Emphasis mine.

The Catholic Church is on record as holding that whatever the Bible affirms, not only in matters of faith and morals, but history, science, geography, botany, zoology, and so forth, is without error, since it has God for its author, who can neither lie nor deceive. Nor can anyone take refuge in the claim that only the original copies are inerrant, because no living person has ever seen one or, as far as we know, ever quoted one. As for the Vulgate, if compared with the original Hebrew and Greek, it is full of errors, and recently the Vatican put out a revised version to replace the revised and corrected version of Pope Clement, which (if I have the order right) replaced the revision of Pope Sixtus. Whew! It’s hard to keep all those corrections of an inerrant book straight.

Anyone who reads the Bible with an open mind knows that it is full of errors and contradictions.Lev. 11:19 calls bats birds; Lev. 11:5 says rabbits chew the cud; they don’t. Nor do hares have hooves, as Deut. 14:7 says they do. Mat. 13:31,32 says the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds, which it isn’t. The Magi living East of Israel see a star in the east, yet following it takes them west. The star moves through the sky until it rests over a particular house, which neither stars nor comets nor conjunctions of planets have ever been known to do. Many scriptures say the earth cannot be moved. There are whole books listing this stuff. What, some might say, have these minor details got to do with salvation? Did Jesus say to God, “Thy word is truth”, John 17:17, or did he not? Did he say “Thy word,” or “parts of thy word?” Is God any less the author of Leviticus than of John? If God created all creatures, surely he knows that hares don’t chew the cud, nor do eagles bear young on their wings (Deut. 32:11). One of the handy things about tradition for Catholics is that it gives your evasions and rationalizations of these blunders canonical authority.

 

[Contarini]

Yabablo quoted Pius XII’s citation of Vatican I which condemns this opinion: "For some go so far as to pervert the sense of the Vatican Council’s definition that God is the author of Holy Scripture, and they put forward again the opinion, already often condemned, which asserts that immunity from error extends only to those parts of the Bible that treat of God or of moral and religious matters." Emphasis mine.

The Catholic Church is on record as holding that whatever the Bible affirms, not only in matters of faith and morals, but history, science, geography, botany, zoology, and so forth, is without error, since it has God for its author, who can neither lie nor deceive.

Yes, but the predominant opinion among theologically educated Catholics today (and this is entirely consistent with what recent Popes, including Pope Benedict, have said) is that this position was not infallibly taught and that Vatican II moved away from it. You can certainly find Catholics, especially on this forum, who reject that interpretation and claim that the stricter view remains in force. But they do not represent the mainstream of Catholic theological opinion or, as far as I can see, the present teaching of the Pope and bishops.

Anyone who reads the Bible with an open mind knows that it is full of errors and contradictions.Lev. 11:19 calls bats birds;

I am not defending a strict version of inerrancy. But just in the interests of fairness and logic, this is absurd. Linnaeus’s classification system is just a classification system. There’s no “error” in calling bats birds (or whales fish).

Lev. 11:5 says rabbits chew the cud; they don’t.

Depends on how you define it; they and other similar animals (it’s not entirely clear what animal is being referred to there and in other parts of Leviticus 11) do eat their own pellets. Just because we translate the Hebrew as “chew the cud” doesn’t mean that the Hebrew term refers only to “chewing the cud” as practiced by ruminant grazing animals.

Nor do hares have hooves, as Deut. 14:7 says they do.

No, it doesn’t. It says that they don’t “divide the hoof,” which clearly means that they don’t have cloven hooves. It doesn’t say they have hooves at all.

These arguments are absurd, because they assume that the ancient Hebrews never bothered to look at real animals, and they impose modern methods of classification and/or ignore the difficulties involved in translating the Hebrew.

Mat. 13:31,32 says the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds, which it isn’t.

I think this is a more reasonable objection to a strict version of inerrancy. It may well have been the smallest seed known to Jesus–or it might just be hyperbole (in the latter case, most versions of inerrancy maintained by thoughtful conservatives would be unaffected).

The Magi living East of Israel see a star in the east, yet following it takes them west. The star moves through the sky until it rests over a particular house, which neither stars nor comets nor conjunctions of planets have ever been known to do.

Indeed, one certainly can’t assimilate the Magi story very easily to known astronomical phenomena, and I think attempts to do so are silly. Either it was a miracle, or it’s a pious legend or (in Gundry’s formulation) “midrash.”

Many scriptures say the earth cannot be moved.

There’s no doubt that the implied geography and astronomy of the OT cannot be reasonably reconciled with modern science.

There are whole books listing this stuff. What, some might say, have these minor details got to do with salvation? Did Jesus say to God, “Thy word is truth”, John 17:17, or did he not? Did he say “Thy word,” or “parts of thy word?”

Well, first of all one shouldn’t assume that whenever the Bible refers to God’s “word” it’s talking about Scripture. That’s a mistake made by fundamentalist Protestants, easily refuted from John 1.

In the second place, of course all Scripture is God’s word and is truth. It’s not a question of “parts” but of “how.”

Is God any less the author of Leviticus than of John?

Well, actually I would say that in fact the way in which different parts of Scripture are God’s Word does differ markedly.

However, God certainly inspired both. Leviticus is certainly the word of God–but in a different way. It’s not that every law perfectly reflects God’s will, but that the laws reflect how the ancient Hebrews understood God’s revelation, and have much to teach us about holiness and about living in a covenant relationship with God.

I find Leviticus to be strong evidence of divine revelation. It is in Leviticus, after all, that we get the key injunction to love our neighbors as we love ourselves–one of the most important things that has ever been said in all of human history.

If God created all creatures, surely he knows that hares don’t chew the cud, nor do eagles bear young on their wings (Deut. 32:11).

Indeed. You are making false assumptions about what it means for Scripture to be God’s Word. This is not true in a way that overrides the normal processes of human authorship (at least not in most cases–as I said, not all of Scripture is God’s Word in precisely the same way).

One of the handy things about tradition for Catholics is that it gives your evasions and rationalizations of these blunders canonical authority.

Or rather, it gives Catholics a flexibility and nuance that fundamentalist Protestants (and unbelievers who have fallen into the absurd error of taking fundamentalism for the most serious form of Christianity) can’t handle.

Edwin

 

[SGWessells]

Patrick 457 quoted Providentissimus Deus as saying: "Gregory the Great thus pronounces: “Most superfluous it is to inquire who wrote these things-we loyally believe the Holy Ghost to be the Author of the book. He wrote it* Who dictated it for writing;* He wrote it Who inspired its execution.”
: “_ For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts,* at the dictation of the Holy Ghost;”*. Emphasis mine.

But Contarini wrote: " You are making false assumptions about what it means for Scripture to be God’s Word. This is not true in a way that overrides the normal processes of human authorship (at least not in most cases–as I said, not all of Scripture is God’s Word in precisely the same way)."

Either “dictation” is a sloppy way of translating, or Catholic views of inspiration, like other Catholic teachings lately, have reversed themselves to keep up with modern advances in knowledge or opinion. Any ordinary parishioner knows what “dictation” means: the Holy Spirit puts words into a human brain and the human wrote down exactly those words and no others. The amanuensis did not add, alter, or correct. Now this was a common view in the past, as quoted above, until it led to problems, so hardly anyone believes it today. But it does raise questions about the Church’s current authoritative, but not officially infallible, teachings. Which of them will be discarded tomorrow? How can God, who supposedly knows all and cannot increase in knowledge nor change his mind, allow his church, speaking with his authority, to flip-flop so obviously?

Contaqrini says:

" There’s no “error” in calling bats birds (or whales fish)."

So long as you make it clear that you are unilaterally changing the meaning of “species” and radically altering the order of evolution as shown in the fossil record. Classifications are based on real and observed differences common to all members of the class. Bitrds belong in the class of egg-laying creatures (for which there is a technical name that escapes me at the moment). Bats bear their young alive. Birds have feathers, bats fur, and so on. To equate them amounts to saying these differences do not count when determining what kind of creatures they are, which makes a shambles of biology all to preserve an “inerrancy” which a thousand verses refute.

Contarini: " they and other similar animals (it’s not entirely clear what animal is being referred to there and in other parts of Leviticus 11) do eat their own pellets. Just because we translate the Hebrew as “chew the cud” doesn’t mean that the Hebrew term refers only to “chewing the cud” as practiced by ruminant grazing animals.

"

If you think there’s no difference between chewing cud and eating excreta, remind me never to eat at your house. If the Holy Spirit had only meant “Don’t eat animals which appear top chew their food,” why didn’t he say so? And why is such a trivial difference so important?

It may well have been the smallest seed known to Jesus–or it might just be hyperbole (in the latter case, most versions of inerrancy maintained by thoughtful conservatives would be unaffected).

Excuse me? The creator of the plants did not know that the mustard seed is not the smallest of all seeds? If you’re going to say, as the Church says, that everything affirmed by the Bible is affirmed by God and therefore inerrant, you can’t take refuge behind hyperbole, since Jesus himself affirms that the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds, not of all seeds known to him. For the record, I think it was hyperbole, but I’m obviously not committed to inerrancy.

There’s no doubt that the implied geography and astronomy of the OT cannot be reasonably reconciled with modern science.

So which one is erroneous? One of them has to be.

Indeed, one certainly can’t assimilate the Magi story very easily to known astronomical phenomena, and I think attempts to do so are silly.

I agree. It’s even harder to reconcile with the birth narrative in Luke.
The absurdities I mentioned are by no means the only, or the most important ones. Nor do I take the scriptures literally. I was only trying to point out that those who claim that they are without error in all they affirm face insuperable obstacles, and must have recourse to amusing mental gyrations to get around them, like saying God felt it necessary to specify that animals which don’t have hooves don’t have cloven hooves; as if the ancient Hebrews might have been mistaken about that.

 

[Contarini]

Patrick 457 quoted Providentissimus Deus as saying: "Gregory the Great thus pronounces: “Most superfluous it is to inquire who wrote these things-we loyally believe the Holy Ghost to be the Author of the book. He wrote it* Who dictated it for writing;* He wrote it Who inspired its execution.”
: “_ For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts,* at the dictation of the Holy Ghost;”*. Emphasis mine.

This is not the prevalent contemporary Catholic understanding. You are being misled by hyper-conservative Catholics on this forum. I think it would be extremely hard to find a contemporary Catholic scholar–even a pretty conservative one like the Pope–who holds to a dictation theory.

But Contarini wrote: " You are making false assumptions about what it means for Scripture to be God’s Word. This is not true in a way that overrides the normal processes of human authorship (at least not in most cases–as I said, not all of Scripture is God’s Word in precisely the same way)."

Either “dictation” is a sloppy way of translating, or Catholic views of inspiration, like other Catholic teachings lately, have reversed themselves to keep up with modern advances in knowledge or opinion.

It’s not a reversal–it’s a nuancing. And it is in fact possible that PD isn’t referring to what I think of as the “dictation theory” (something generally renounced even by very conservative Protestants today).

Any ordinary parishioner knows what “dictation” means

If you know anything at all about Catholicism, you know that it has never, ever been built on anything that could be expressed in a sentence beginning “Any ordinary parishioner knows.”

the Holy Spirit puts words into a human brain and the human wrote down exactly those words and no others. The amanuensis did not add, alter, or correct. Now this was a common view in the past, as quoted above, until it led to problems, so hardly anyone believes it today. But it does raise questions about the Church’s current authoritative, but not officially infallible, teachings. Which of them will be discarded tomorrow? How can God, who supposedly knows all and cannot increase in knowledge nor change his mind, allow his church, speaking with his authority, to flip-flop so obviously?

Maybe God isn’t as concerned about absolute certainty as many humans think.

Like a lot of non-believers, you seem very angry at Christianity for not being fundamentalist, and you seem determined to portray fundamentalism as somehow the only authentic Christianity. It’s a tired game and won’t get too far with thoughtful Christians.

Contaqrini says:
So long as you make it clear that you are unilaterally changing the meaning of “species”

Who’s changing the meaning of “species”? “Species” isn’t a Biblical concept. Furthermore, neither “birds” nor “bats” are species in the Linnaean system–they are much broader categories. (Birds are an order and bats a family, I think–but that’s off the top of my head and may be wrong.) Your objections just make no sense–they are studied anachronisms from beginning to end.

and radically altering the order of evolution as shown in the fossil record.

You’re assuming that classification “ought” to be based on evolution, which is odd given that Linnaeus didn’t believe in evolution as far as I know. The kinds of structural features that he used for his classification system turned out to work pretty well in an evolutionary context, because evolution explains how these increasingly fine structural variations appeared. But there’s no absolute truth value in any classification system. Next think you’ll be telling me that the Library of Congress system is “right” and the Dewey system is “wrong” (my librarian wife has been trying to tell me for a while that it’s better, but that’s quite a different thing).

Classifications are based on real and observed differences common to all members of the class. Bitrds belong in the class of egg-laying creatures (for which there is a technical name that escapes me at the moment). Bats bear their young alive. Birds have feathers, bats fur, and so on. To equate them amounts to saying these differences do not count when determining what kind of creatures they are, which makes a shambles of biology all to preserve an “inerrancy” which a thousand verses refute.

No, it doesn’t. Fundamentalist biology textbooks do not try to argue that bats are birds or that whales are fish–they accept Linnaeus but recognize that it’s just an arbitrary classification system (obviously they see it as more thoroughly arbitrary than those of us who accept macroevolution do).

 

[Contarini]

If you think there’s no difference between chewing cud and eating excreta, remind me never to eat at your house.

It is not the custom at my house to do either, so don’t worry.

If the Holy Spirit had only meant “Don’t eat animals which appear top chew their food,” why didn’t he say so?

You mean “don’t appear to chew their food.”

And why is such a trivial difference so important?

Essentially, it means that you only eat herbivores. I don’t think anyone knows the precise reason for the law–conservatives will argue that it had to do with health, and that’s where I think you have a valid point, since I believe that rabbits are fairly likely to be carrying diseases.

But again, you are proceeding on the assumption that only an ultra-conservative view of Scripture means anything. I look at Leviticus and see plenty of evidence of divine inspiration that has nothing to do with whether they got the details of the biology right.

Excuse me? The creator of the plants did not know that the mustard seed is not the smallest of all seeds?

Many Christians would say that Jesus “emptied Himself” of His omnipotence in the Incarnation. Whether and how far that’s true is a matter of debate.

If you’re going to say, as the Church says, that everything affirmed by the Bible is affirmed by God and therefore inerrant, you can’t take refuge behind hyperbole,

Yes, I certainly can. Hyperbole does not violate inerrancy. If you bothered reading conservative Christian defenses of inerrancy you would know that. I don’t believe in inerrancy myself, but you’re ridiculously misrepresenting it.

For the record, I think it was hyperbole, but I’m obviously not committed to inerrancy.

Neither am I, but that’s irrelevant to the question of hyperbole. If Jesus actually believed that the mustard seed was the smallest, or if the author who wrote it down believed this, and/or if the author mistakenly believed that Jesus said this when He really didn’t, that would violate inerrancy (and all of these are possible, though I think the last is unlikely in this case).

So which one is erroneous? One of them has to be.

But why do you assume that I have to know?

I was only trying to point out that those who claim that they are without error in all they affirm

but that’s not the same thing as taking them literally.

face insuperable obstacles, and must have recourse to amusing mental gyrations to get around them, like saying God felt it necessary to specify that animals which don’t have hooves don’t have cloven hooves; as if the ancient Hebrews might have been mistaken about that.

You’re the one who seems to think that the ancient Hebrews were clueless about the basic physical realities that surrounded them–like whether rabbits have hooves. The phrase “doesn’t divide the hoof” is simply a way of referring at once to animals that don’t have hooves at all and animals (like horses) that have solid hooves.

Given that, as you say, there are a lot better examples, your fixation on these extremely silly arguments says something very odd about your approach. As I said, you seem incapable of seeing Christianity through anything other than a fundamentalist lens. I don’t know if that’s because you were once a fundamentalist or for some other reason. But whatever the reason, it’s not conducive to reasonable discussion.

Edwin

 

[SGWessells]

Contarini wrote: “It’s not a reversal–it’s a nuancing. And it is in fact possible that PD isn’t referring to what I think of as the “dictation theory” (something generally renounced even by very conservative Protestants today).”

I know that, qwhich is why I wrote in my post that “this was a common view in the past, as quoted above, until it led to problems, so* hardly anyone believes it today*.” But thanks for the redefinition. The ordinary Catholic in the pews will no doubt be reassured to know that what appeared to their untutored eye as an abandonment of a previous position in favor of a new one was only a “nuancing.”

If you know anything at all about Catholicism, you know that it has never, ever been built on anything that could be expressed in a sentence beginning “Any ordinary parishioner knows.”

Well, I can’t argue with that.

Who’s changing the meaning of “species”? “Species” isn’t a Biblical concept. Furthermore, neither “birds” nor “bats” are species in the Linnaean system–they are much broader categories. (Birds are an order and bats a family, I think–but that’s off the top of my head and may be wrong.)

Sorry for my careless use of words there. But my main point is that putting bats and birds in the same category ignores essential differences which one would think that a God who created both would be aware of. He can’t mean just “flying things” because some of those may be eaten. But as Biblical absurdities go, this one is admittedly trivial.

Maybe God isn’t as concerned about absolute certainty as many humans think.

I obviously have another of my definition difficulties here. Doesn’t “infallible” necessarily entail “absolute certainty”? If not, why not? And if so, if God isn’t “concerned about” his church being infallible, when did he change his mind? Must have been recently.

Like a lot of non-believers, you seem very angry at Christianity for not being fundamentalist, and you seem determined to portray fundamentalism as somehow the only authentic Christianity. It’s a tired game and won’t get too far with thoughtful Christians.

Well, pardon me for assuming that Christians believe God knows everything and always tells the truth. Henceforth, I will try to be more “nuanced.”

 

[Contarini]

The ordinary Catholic in the pews will no doubt be reassured to know that what appeared to their untutored eye as an abandonment of a previous position in favor of a new one was only a “nuancing.”

Actually, I don’t think most Catholics worry about this too much. Most of the folks who do are on this forum! According to one Catholic friend of mine, Biblical literalism is on the rise among Catholics due to the influence of conservative evangelicalism (at least in our part of the country)–it’s not the position she grew up with.

On this forum you get Catholics who are typically used to arguing with Protestant fundamentalists, who think Catholics don’t really believe in the Bible. That tends to pressure Catholics to take more fundamentalist-like positions.

There is certainly a kind of Catholicism that rests on the notion that the Church “never changes,” and there is a kind of rejection of Catholicism (whether non-Catholic Christian or non-Christian) that feeds on demonstrating the obvious fact that the Chruch does change and arguing that therefore the Church can’t be trusted. These are equally silly and are mirror images of each other.

Christian tradition is a conversation, a debate, more than it is a fixed thing. Authority has an important role in the debate–in making sure that the Church doesn’t just ignore the past and wander off into theological outer space–but it’s nowhere near as cut-and-dried as both ultra-conservatives and skeptics think. The Popes were right to challenge higher criticism and to insist on the divine origin of Scripture. Over time, nuanced ways of preserving the core teachings of the Church were developed and the older hardline stance was no longer seen as necessary. But it’s the attempt to satisfy the concerns of the hardliners that leads to the more nuanced positions–if everyone just accepted the first “liberal” interpretation that came long, doctrinal development wouldn’t happen and the heritage of the Church would be lost.

Sorry for my careless use of words there. But my main point is that putting bats and birds in the same category ignores essential differences which one would think that a God who created both would be aware of.

Again, you are arguing with a dictation theory that I do not hold and most Catholics today do not hold. You are welcome to argue with those who do, as long as you bear in mind that (as you yourself admitted) they are a small minority.

Ancient people classified animals this way, and had dietary regulations. God used those regulations to instill in them the concept of holiness. You’re approaching it from the wrong end.

Not to mention that you originally spoke of “unilaterally changing” something that wouldn’t be invented for a few thousand years. It doesn’t make any sense. You seem to think that modern scientific categories just are the reality of things instead of being historically conditioned paradigms that help us understand the universe in helpful ways. Perhaps we need to debate Thomas Kuhn. . . .

I obviously have another of my definition difficulties here. Doesn’t “infallible” necessarily entail “absolute certainty”?

Certainly not.

If not, why not?

Because it doesn’t. It means “protected from making a mistake.” It refers to the authority that is so protected, not to the subjective state of mind of the persons for whose benefit the protection exists.

The infallibility of Scripture means that once you have determined that Scripture as a whole teaches something, then you can’t simply say it’s wrong. Your argument against the apparent meaning of a particular passage of Scripture must include some account of why that passage shouldn’t be interpreted that way, at least when read in light of the rest of Scripture and Christian tradition. Whereas, for instance, if some particular Church Father said something, I can just say “he was wrong” and move on.

And if so, if God isn’t “concerned about” his church being infallible, when did he change his mind? Must have been recently.

No, but again, people have come to a more nuanced understanding of it. That’s what doctrinal development looks like. What seems simple turns out not to be so simple. The early Christians say “Jesus is the Lord and the Son of God,” and then they have to ask, “what on earth do we mean by that,” and the answers turn out to be rather complex.

You may of course simply walk away from the whole enterprise as hopelessly complicated and find a simpler way of looking at the universe. I’m not sure where you will find such a thing–perhaps Islam, but I suspect that you are no more inclined to become a Muslim than I am.

Reality is complicated. Paradigms that do a good job of dealing with reality–like modern science–are always somewhat complicated. (Of course unnecessary complication should be avoided–again, if you have a simpler way of explaining the universe, I wish you well.) If there were a true religion, why would you expect it to be simple? Aren’t you really acting somewhat disingenuously in mocking our “nuance,” when in fact you have already made up your mind that there’s nothing in Christianity? In short, you don’t really reject Christianity because it fails to conform to the simplistic paradigm you are trying to impose on it. You reject it in the first place and then try to impose the simplistic paradigm because that’s easier to argue against.

Well, pardon me for assuming that Christians believe God knows everything and always tells the truth. Henceforth, I will try to be more “nuanced.”

The lack of nuance is in your assumptions about what we mean when we say the Bible is the “Word of God.” Given what we believe about God, the sense in which any human text can be His Word is of course going to be highly nuanced.

Edwin

 

[SGWessells]

I

You mean “don’t appear to chew their food.”

 

[SGWessells]

Contarini wrote: “The infallibility of Scripture means that once you have determined that Scripture as a whole teaches something, then you can’t simply say it’s wrong. Your argument against the apparent meaning of a particular passage of Scripture must include some account of why that passage shouldn’t be interpreted that way, at least when read in light of the rest of Scripture and Christian tradition.”

Sorry if I seem to beat a dead horse, but if I “can’t say it’s wrong” if the Bible teaches X, that means, to me, that I have absolute certainty that X is right. If I say “X may be right, but maybe not,” then I don’t believe it is taught infallibly, since infallibility precludes the possibility of error (remember, it’s God’s knowledge and authority we’re talking about, not man’s). So if I can’t say “X is wrong” or “X might be wrong” and still maintain infallibility, what is left but absolute certainty? I could say “X is right if I understand it rightly”, but that simply makes infallibility contingent on our understanding, not on God’s authority. And didn’t Augustine say something like, “if I don’t agree with the plain sense of scripture, it must be because I didn’t understand it”?

“you don’t really reject Christianity because it fails to conform to the simplistic paradigm you are trying to impose on it. You reject it in the first place and then try to impose the simplistic paradigm because that’s easier to argue against.”

I impose nothing on Christianity but what I see it imposing on itself; then I expect it to keep within its own impositions. If the Church says, not “the sense of the whole Bible affirms” but “everything the Bible affirms, not limited to faith and morals but including history and science, is authored by the Holy Spirit and is therefore without error,” it doesn’t take a presupposition of Christianity’s falsehood to undermine its authority. All it takes is one affirmation of the Bible which is demonstrably erroneous. If you don’t agree with the ones I listed, there are hundreds of others which are more important and obvious.
As a matter of personal history, you have the order of events wrong. I started on this board as a convinced Catholic, recently returned after a long absence. In the course of my research, I found I could not agree that some of its claims were true. On further research, orthodox Christianity seemed more and more improbable. I am familiar with more nuanced, liberal Christianity, but have never understood why anyone would bother with it. Sure, it has a comfortable patina of age and venerable traditions, and centuries of profound and holy thinkers, plus a lot of beautiful art and music, and many people camp out in it for those reasons, or to bask in the reassurance of its teaching, etc. I understand those motives, and often wish they were sufficient for me. But I have to know that a religion is true to reality, or I cannot follow it or gain its spiritual benefits. I cannot take comfort in a future life in Heaven, for example, unless I believe that there is one, and I can attain it. Right now I cling to a bare possibility, but lack “absolute certainty,” so what comfort can it offer me? Is religious experience a touch from transcendence, a message from the spiritual realm, or is it a disturbance in our normal brain patterns that produces certain sensations? The degree of our certainty in the matter determines the degree of influence the experience has on our lives. On a night of intense and desperate doubt in 1987, I experienced a strong sense of a “Presence” everywhere. I saw no vision and heard no voice, but was filled with a joy and peace which lasted several days. Was that a merciful God strengthening me against future temptations to atheism, which I did experience and resisted on the strength of that experience, or was it only an unusual fluctuation in brain chemistry? How can I trust that it was the former without “absolute certainty”, given the scientific evidence linking"spiritual" experiences with certain areas of the brain?

 

[Pete_Holter]

It is my understanding that only the original manuscript of each book of the Bible is guaranteed as being inerrant. In the case of Matthew, for instance, it is likely that the original was written in Aramaic and then later translated to Greek. In this case, it would be the Aramaic original that is guaranteed to be inerrant, correct?

You are correct, brother.

jmj1984 has already supplied the relevant material from Leo XIII, but here’s the pertinent statement in isolation, in case you missed it: “all the Fathers and Doctors agreed that the divine writings, as left by the hagiographers, are free from all error.” You could also hold the opinion that Matthew wrote his Gospel in both languages and that he wrote both through divine inspiration; or you could hold some other opinion that upholds the truth of the original composition(s). You can see more of my thoughts here: The Footnotes of Dei Verbum (4 Posts).

With love in Christ,
Pete