Inconsistency In Belief in Biblical Inspiration

 Inspiration is defined as, “That which moves humans to receive divine or supernatural truths, associated particularly with biblical authors in the writing of Scripture.”¹ This is often (mis)understood by way of (often) assuming a type of dictation theory of inspiration when referring to biblical inspiration. However, a more reasonable way to understand inspiration is via superintendence², that is to say that there’s a recognition of what writers of the biblical text wrote that necessarily recognizes that our current situation wasn’t in the mind of the author. 

Some might argue that somehow undermines the authority of Scripture but I don’t necessarily think so, but that isn’t what this post is about. Rather it’s about really bad arguments for inspiration, arguments such as those offered by Roman Catholic apologist Dave Armstrong over at his blog Biblical Evidence for Catholicism.

In a post titled, “Why Do Christians Believe in Biblical Inspiration?”, Dave offers some arguments for inspiration that, if applied consistently, could make a lot of things “inspired” at the same level as Scripture, something that I'm reasonably certain that he doesn't want to occur. 

Dave begins by saying something that I find common ground with,

“The Bible has been abused, criticized and scorned more than any other book in history. Many attack it in order to undermine and destroy the basis of Christianity, the perpetuation of which is so annoying to them. The notion of an ancient collection at writings concerning God and morality exercising influence over “enlightened” 21st century man is absolutely repugnant to many people today, especially intellectuals.

I would say that anytime the revelation of God has been brought to bear against sinful man that it has been seen as “repugnant” by him. There’s nothing special about the rebellion of man in sin that is especially unique to today. 

Dave continues, and wants to show his readers that 

"…the skeptical view of Scripture: that it is mythological, filled with contradictions, inaccuracies, and unacceptable, “primitive” ideas, that God had no hand in it, etc., are left devoid of any foundation.

Dave then moves to establish that Scripture purports to be the “word of God”, appealing to passages like 2 Timothy 3:16-17, 2 Peter 1:20-21, Matthew 5:18, and Isaiah 40:8, concluding,

“Clearly, then, the Bible presents itself as God’s Word, or Revelation, given to us for our benefit. Jesus quoted from many Old Testament books as if they were completely authoritative, including Genesis. He said in John 10:35 that “Scripture cannot be untrue”, and appealed to fulfilled prophecy repeatedly to substantiate His claims to deity. Now, obviously if one believes that Jesus was God, then one must agree with His view of the Bible.

Dave notes that skeptics aren’t moved by such arguments, and that is true. Dave has to admit that the argument is somewhat simplistic,

“The total unity and internal consistency of the teachings of the Bible is a strong argument for an ultimate divine authorship, when it is considered that over forty people wrote the Bible over a period of about 1500 years. They were from different cultures and eras, spoke different languages and had widely divergent personalities, backgrounds, occupations, and writing styles.

He then notes a crack in such arguments: a crack that has to deal with the Bible’s age and method of transmission that feeds directly into arguments related to matters of reliability. 

But here is where I think that Dave makes an error, and it’s a pretty sizable error that confuses a number of categories: namely textual reliability and historical reliability. 

If you have spent any time engaging in evangelical or apologetic endeavors, undoubtedly the question of reliability will appear and there are two related yet distinct issues that often get lumped together to argue for overall reliability that simply should not be confused: textual and historical reliability. 

In the case of textual reliability what we are looking at is the history of the transmission of the text. Not to oversimplify the matter, but it comes down to actually looking at the copies of a particular document as it has come through time. The biblical text, both Old and New Testament, were essentially transmitted, up until the invention of the printing press, by hand copying. 

This process of replication was sometimes undertaken in less than ideal circumstances but—by and large—were reproduced with incredible accuracy. It’s not to say that every text is a carbon copy of an earlier manuscript, or that there’s no obvious relationship between them. What we do have is evidence that the biblical text has been transmitted in a rather stable and dependable manner that has not introduced any overwhelming distortion to the text. So, what about historical reliability?

Historical reliability is something that can make those who are convinced of both inspiration and inerrancy uncomfortable because it would seem to make the biblical text subject to external authorities. However, if you have a consistent understanding of these doctrines, as well as a recognition that truth coheres to reality, then the text is not being made subject to an external authority, but is merely being affirmed for what it already is.

Furthermore the biblical text itself—when we look at the Bible as a literary construction, a composite work of multiple documents—then we recognize that we cannot treat the biblical text as anything necessarily different than a historical document(s) that are consistent with similar documents that we already imbue with historical authority. 

This means that any attempt to dismiss the biblical texts based merely upon their religious significance rather than their historical content is to rather brazenly stride into the realm of special pleading in order to argue for their exclusion.

Dave seems to recognize this as he appeals to a reader for “intellectual fairness and open mindedness”; however, unlike his appeal on the basis of a defense of inspiration, that is my appeal when it comes to interaction with any historical document, not just the biblical text because, we shall see that Dave’s argument, regardless of how well intentioned it might be, becomes subject to the charge of special pleading when it comes to applying his arguments consistently.

If we take what are essentially Dave’s two foundations, textual and historical reliability, and begin to apply the standards to other texts—whether ancient or modern³—and if any text lodged under those same conditions could similarly be applied with the term “inspired”?

Therein lies the problem of appeals to historical or textual reliability with regard to inspiration. Rather, the biblical texts’ historical reliability demonstrates the apostolic assertion that the text are not some “cleverly devised myths”⁴ but speak about genuine historical events that are described using an intentional theological framework.

Now, I do have to applaud Dave as he mustered a considerable amount of evidence that demonstrates that the biblical text is historically reliable, by demonstrating matters of geography, customs, and forms that are historically consistent with the time that a particular story describes. However, none of that proves the inspiration of Scripture.

When Paul refers to Scripture as being “inspired”⁵ he isn’t speaking about the means of the texts’ generation as much as the fact that the Bible is the means by which God has ordained to speak to his people, wherever they might be, whenever they might be, so that they will have certainty in their knowledge of him.

To reduce this fact to elements that are merely artifacts of their existence and testimony to his power to preserve his truth, is to minimize the authority of the text as a witness.

Simply put, it’s not that the textual and historical reliability of the text are irrelevant to biblical defense, but that they are irrelevant to inspiration as a doctrine and must not be confused with it.

Ecclesia semper reformanda est

Notes

1. Donald K. McKim. The Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms, Second Edition. Westminster John Knox Press. 2014. (ePub)

2. R.C. Sproul. Can I Trust the Bible?  Reformation Trust Publishing. 2017. p. 18

3. By “ancient” I mean a text that is at least as old as the biblical text, and by “modern” I mean basically any book produced since the invention of the printing press.

4. 2 Peter 1:16

5. 2 Timothy 3:16-17