05: Scripture (2)

Question 1

Define Inspiration

Answer 1

• Authority = its right to speak and demand allegiance.
• the divine source of Scripture

Question 2

Define Inerrancy

Answer 2

The truthfulness or reliability of the text of Scripture

Question 3

What is the typical evangelical definition of Inerrancy?

Answer 3

The Bible is without error in its original manuscripts (“autographa”)

Question 4

What are some objections to Inerrancy?

Answer 4

1. Conveys an aura of scientific exactness and precision that is alien to ancient canons of science, history and truth
2. Is a negation, and as such does not posit any positive reality at all
3. Is applied to a hypothetical non-existent document (autographa), and thus is of no real use
4. Is recent, so it does not belong to the classical tradition of the church
5. By its very nature, it is impossible to verify
6. Without testing, inerrancy is a dogmatic presumption that keeps us from investigating the biblical phenomena
7. Almost no one holds it at face value

Question 5

What is Millard Erickson’s definition of Inerrancy?

Answer 5

“The Bible, when correctly interpreted in light of the level to which culture and the means of communication had developed at the time it was written, and in view of the purposes for which it was given, is fully truthful in all that it affirms”

Question 6

What is the autographa dilemma?

Answer 6

“The original text was inspired, but in the history of copying the text many errors have crept in.”

This leaves us with a non-inspired (and therefore, erring) Bible, distant from the work of the Holy Spirit.

Question 7

What is good about Erickson’s definition?

Answer 7

1. He does not cite an autographa
2. He stresses the positive (the Bible’s truthfulness)

Question 8

What are Erickson’s qualifications of Inerrancy? (1/2)

Answer 8

1. It pertains only to the affirmations of Scripture
   
   • The assertions by Job’s friends were not true, but they were reported correctly
2. It must respect ancient canons of historiography
3. It must respect the purpose and intention of the text

Question 9

What are Erickson’s qualifications of Inerrancy? (2/2)

Answer 9

1. It must respect the conventional and phenomenal language of the text
2. It suggests a positive attitude towards the text
3. It pertains only to the Bible as it is correctly interpreted
   
   • when correctly understood grammatically and in its historical setting, is absolutely true
   • the inerrancy of Scripture cannot be apart from hermeneutics

Question 10

Can we have absolute objectivity in the historical report?

Answer 10

The notion of absolute objectivity is a modernist myth.

1. All historical writing is perspectival
2. All historical writing is a form of advocacy

Question 11

What is the difference between exactness and accuracy?

Answer 11

1. Exactness - exhaustive rendering of details, an absolute literalness
2. Accuracy - correct statement of facts or principle intended to be affirmed.

The doctrine never profess exactness, but that every statement accurately corresponds to truth.

Question 12

What was René Descartes’ principle of Critical Doubt?

Answer 12

“All assertions must be doubted (assumed false) until they are proven true by the light of human reason”.

Question 13

What stands against the presumption of falsehood (Descartes’ principle)?

Answer 13

The doctrine of inerrancy is a precommitment to biblical truthfulness as a proper compliment to the Bible’s own affirmations of divine source and authority.

It is less about the text than it is about the attitude of the believer.

Question 14

Does Inerrancy lead to a dogmatic license for obscurantism?

Answer 14

No. Inerrancy is an invitation to investigate the phenomena, to take the text with absolute seriousness, but with a predisposition to its truthfulness.

Question 15

Why is Inerrancy important?

Answer 15

The authority, reliability, and trustworthiness of Scripture is inevitably bound to the truthfulness of the biblical materials.

Question 16

What did Warfield meant by saying that the Bible is an oracular book?

Answer 16

Rather than merely being a word about God, the Bible is the very word of God.

Question 17

What are the three affirmations that inspiration entailed for Hodge and Warfield?

Answer 17

1. Origin of the text
   
   • theopneustos (2 Tim.3:16) means God-breathed (expired by God)
2. Infallibility of the text
   
   • being the Bible the breathed-out speech of God, it is without errors (inerrant) and incapable of errors (infallible)
3. Divine authority of the text
   
   • God so associates himself with his Word that rejection of that Word is a rejection of its divine author

Question 18

Rather than “inerrancy”, what word did Warfield preferred?

Answer 18

“Trustworthy”

God’s Word is inherently trustworthy because it is his Word and he is true in all things, and as such it elicits a “simple and robust trust in its every declaration”

Question 19

How is the doctrine of Inspiration covenantal in its approach?

Answer 19

This particular revelation is not given generically. God’s speech is a personal and intentional communication, to a specific audience.

He initiates it, and his redemptive Word is intended “that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”

It is God’s word for God’s people.

Question 20

How is the church involved in the doctrine of Inspiration? (5 ministries of Francis Turretin)

Answer 20

1. The church is the keeper and preserver of the oracles of God
2. The church is the guide who points people to the Word
3. The church is the defender of the Bible, guarding that which is genuinely canonical and separating it from the spurious
4. The church is the herald who proclaims the truth of Scripture
5. The church is the interpreter of the Scripture, that body vouchsafed with unfolding the true sense of the text