Thoughts on the inerrancy of Scripture



Saul Meets Samuel (artist unknown)



In “Another reason why sola scriptura is bad doctrine”, one could argue, I evaded a very sticky wicket. One could even accuse me of deliberate obfuscation.

Okay, grant that Christianity is not based on Scripture, that you can’t derive the authentic beliefs of the first Christians from Scripture alone, and that Scripture by itself is as likely to lead to errors as it is to truth. Still, if Scripture is the inerrant, indefectible Word of God—and postulating that God would not lie about Himself—then does that not require you, Mr. Layne, to believe that God commanded the total destruction of the Amalekites (1 Sam 15:2-3)? That He ordered homosexuals to be put to death (Lev 20:13)? Doesn’t that require you, Mr. Layne, to believe that rock badgers are ruminants because God said they chew the cud (Lev 11:5)? That the universe and everything in it was created in six days (Gen 1:1-2:1)? In sum, does this not require you, Mr. Layne, to believe everything the Bible says without reservation and qualification, no matter how silly or demonstrably counterfactual a statement might be, no matter how one text might contradict another?

Yes or no?

Another reason why sola scriptura is bad doctrine

Let's pretend that you're watching TV. (Not too hard, since you're already staring at a monitor.) On the screen are the usual between-acts interruptions of narrative flow known as "commercials". One of them is a trailer for Schmuckatelli's Rules,[1] a recent release from Blowhard Pictures, which trumpets the presumed endorsement from Roger Ebert: "A FINE MOVIE … I WOULD RECOMMEND THAT EVERYONE SEE IT".

Intrigued, you find your way to Ebert's review in the Chicago Sun-Times, where you read: "Schmuckatelli's Rules is a fine movie, except for the dialogue, the story, the acting, the cinematography and the editing. I would recommend that everyone see it, except that I can't think of a reason even to watch the trailers." Congratulations! You've just discovered a fallacy of quotation out of context!

What did the Pontiff really say?

It’s been a week now since L’Osservatore Romano released the extract from Pope Benedict XVI’s new book Light of the World: A Conversation with Peter Seewald,[1] in which the Vicar of Christ said … well, something about condoms that caught everyone by surprise. (That is, everyone except for the emotionally stunted among the social liberals, the ones who stopped listening to the Church decades ago and now content themselves with whining variations of “Daddy doesn’t understand me”.)

What did the Pope really say? Even now the actual content of his remarks is a matter of debate, let alone its implications for sexual morality; this is despite the fact that the comments were printed, not simply overheard in passing. Whether the Pope’s comments have been overblown to the point of inviting dismissive clichés or truly a fundamental paradigm shift is a judgment call that needs some fifty or one hundred years’ distance to make dispassionately, without the injection of today’s sociopolitical obsessions.

I admit, like other conservative Catholic bloggers (see the link to Mark Shea’s blog in my last entry), I seized B16’s example of a male prostitute so I could pound the square peg down into the round hole of the pro-life movement’s aversion to contraceptives. We should all have been thinking more clearly. For if Benedict’s words meant what we thought they did, then the idea would obtain regardless of whether we spoke of homosexual prostitution or heterosexual fornication. The context was AIDS, not reproduction; to import contraception into the discussion was to do the Pope an injustice.

A blast from the past; or, recycling the (com)post

As many of you know, jaws dropped around the blogosphere when the MSM reported that Pope Benedict XVI had in some fashion come out for—yes folks, you read that right, for—condoms in the fight against AIDS. Turns out the MSM got it wrong again, this time with some help from L’Osservatore Romano, which for some reason is thought to be the official mouthpiece of the Vatican. If you want to read a good drilling into the subject, go to Jimmy Akin’s blog on the National Catholic Reporter website; I can’t do better. However, I felt the occasion called for some additional commentary. So I dug back up this gem from March ’09.

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Sometimes, it seems like the only issues religious debates hang on now have to do with sex and reproduction. It’s like listening to Johnny One-Note playing the kazoo: it gets old very fast. Like much else, the same ground gets covered over and over, like a flock of crime-scene investigators looking for a toenail in a farm field.

Take the issue of contraceptives, for example. At least since 1968, the year Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae, various people (both Catholic and non-Catholic) have been grumping about the Church’s decision to maintain its traditional opposition to artificial birth control, either damning it as an example of the Church’s refusal to join the twentieth (now twenty-first) century or bemoaning it as well-intentioned but ineffectual.

The meaning of tradition

We’re just one week from moving into Advent, the season of the liturgical calendar during which we prepare for the celebration of our Lord’s birth by reflection, repentance and renewal of our baptismal vows. That is, if we can spare ourselves the time from the madness surrounding The Holidays, which seem to start earlier every year (the phenomenon I’ve seen referred to, with grotesque aptness, as “Christmas creep”). Indeed, the profane traditions of “Thanksmas” have so multiplied under the beneficent gaze of Mammon that to actually observe Advent you almost have to dispose of all the Santa-Claus-Jack-Frost-and-snowmen crap, retaining—if you must—only a tree and a crèche.

Why do we do this to ourselves every year? The instant response is, “Well, we do it every year because … it’s … traditional,” with maybe a futile shrug and hand gesture that says, “What are you gonna do?” The season itself is so full of chairos, so pregnant with meaning, that we reiterate the accidents as if they were inextricably part of the essence. And perhaps that’s not far from the truth: perhaps it’s a physical manifestation of the spiritual richness of this time, albeit corrupted to a certain extent by Hollywood and Madison Avenue secular concerns.

So if you were looking for a “Bah, humbug!” from me, you’re going to be disappointed. But stay on a bit, because I’m about to go off on another tangent.

Wherein I take a possibly surprising position on a controversial issue

So I walked over to the [Group W] bench, there … Group W is where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the Army after committing your especial crime … there was all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly people on the bench there … mother-rapers … father-stabbers … FATHER-RAPERS!

—Arlo Guthrie, “Alice’s Restauraunt”

In California—where else?—US District Court judge Virginia Phillips issued a permanent, world-wide injunction against the Defense Department, ordering the military “immediately to suspend and discontinue any investigation, or discharge, separation, or other proceeding, that may have been commenced” under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

To me, the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy made sense only as a means of conserving military criminal investigations resources for more critical violations of the UCMJ; as an attempt to compromise between the ideal of no gays in the military and the reality of gays filling useful, even critical roles, it was a loser: instead of being quietly intolerant, the DoD became openly hypocritical as well as intolerant.

Another tiresome post on homophobia

Yes, I know. There are so many other topics to write about. Nevertheless, between the recent concerns over bullying and the recent SCOTUS case against Westboro Baptist Church, we seem to be approaching a crisis, the shape of which needs articulation.

Back in 2003, in a blog now long disappeared, I wrote about the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas (539 US 558). My concern at the time was not public acceptance of homosexuality. Rather, my concern was that SCOTUS was once again misusing the judicial power of review to serve its own sense of good legislation.

The lonesome death of Hope Witsell

It looks like at least one segment of the American population—the mainstream media—is finally waking up to the reality of bullying. At least among young people. (If ever the MSM woke up to the reality of political bullying, and how they feed and feed on it, I would get on my knees and pray because I would know the Second Coming was nigh.)

At my high school class’ 20^th reunion, one person who had given me grief throughout my last three years of mandatory education approached me and said, “I wanted to let you know that I’m sorry for being such an asshole to you.” I was, to say the least, nonplussed; I’d finally let go of my anger some years before and wasn’t even thinking about it. But I managed to summon up enough of my customary tact and grace to shake his hand and say, “Hey, we were all assholes in high school.”

Mister Diplomacy, that’s me.

Recapturing the Catholic brand—UPDATED

The release this week of a Pew Forum study has caused some concern among American Christians, especially by the revelation that the highest average score came among atheists and agnostics. As Jimmy Akin pointed out on his National Catholic Register blog, the quiz wasn’t all that extensive and was more of a “how much do you know about all the major world religions?” quiz rather than anything specific to Christianity. Because the US is still predominantly Christian, most Christians would have less interest in learning about non-Christian religions than would other groups, especially atheists. I’m not completely satisfied with this answer—after all, Catholics in the US are outnumbered by Protestants almost 4:1, yet did slightly worse (50% average versus 55%)—but it’s a good and valid point.

However—breaking down the quiz further—there’s still some cause for discomfort. For in a battery of questions reaching towards general Bible knowledge, Catholics came up well short of the mark. If we took the old school standard of 70% for a D- pass, then Catholics would have flunked with an average 45%. (Protestants would also have flunked, with an average 54.1%, with even the highest-scoring bloc, white Evangelicals, doing no better than 60.8%.) And the study noted that 55% of Catholics know that the Church teaches that the Eucharist is not just a symbol, that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ … which means that 45% don’t; frankly, my brothers and sisters in the faith, if you don’t know this one, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.[1]

A few reflections on prayer

Where does prayer come from? Whether prayer is expressed in words or gestures, it is the whole man who prays. But in naming the source of prayer, Scripture speaks sometimes of the soul or the spirit, but most often of the heart (more than a thousand times). According to Scripture, it is the heart that prays. If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain.

The heart is the dwelling-place where I am, where I live; according to the Semitic or Biblical expression, the heart is the place “to which I withdraw.” The heart is our hidden center, beyond the grasp of our reason and of others; only the Spirit of God can fathom the human heart and know it fully. The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives. It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death. It is the place of encounter, because as image of God we live in relation: it is the place of covenant.

Christian prayer is a covenant relationship between God and man in Christ. It is the action of God and of man, springing forth from both the Holy Spirit and ourselves, wholly directed to the Father, in union with the human will of the Son of God made man. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2^nd Edition, 2562-2564)

“Man is in search of God,” the Catechism reminds us. Many priests, pastoral theologians and religious folk speak of the “God-shaped hole in our souls”; friendships, loves, wealth, success, power and fame still leave us crying for more, dissatisfied without knowing why. Our spiritual lives begin when we finally acknowledge that “hole” for what it is, rather than attempt to fill it with material goods, desperate activity and frantic pleasure-seeking. In acknowledging his need for and dependence on God, Man does not surrender his own dignity or intrinsic worth. Instead, he finds them given new strength as a child of God, who says to him, “You are my beloved son.”