Last year as part of our Sydney Anglican Church “Connect Groups”[1] we met to study the doctrinal framework of the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students (AFES), whose intention it is to make clear what it means to be a Bible-believing Christian. Although I have previously considered the authority claims of the Bible, this study really made me think more about this issue than I had previously. Phillip Jensen and Tony Payne provide commentary on all nine of the doctrinal statements made by the AFES in the Matthias Media publication The Blueprint[2]. This article is concerned only with the first of those statements:

The divine inspiration and infallibility of Holy Scripture, as originally given, and its supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct.[3] [emphasis mine]

Infallibility has to do with the trustworthiness of Scripture. So by implication the AFES seem to be affirming that the Bible is completely reliable when it comes to religious or spiritual issues, but not necessarily when it comes to other issues like science or history. Or as Jensen and Payne put it more explicitly, “… Scripture is limited to matters of faith and conduct. The Scriptures do not claim to be an authority in calculus, nuclear physics, poetry or chess”[4] [emphasis mine]. For textual support they cite 2 Tim 3:16-17; possibly the most popular proof text used to refute anyone who thinks that the Bible doesn’t make any restrictions on the kinds of subjects on which it speaks truthfully.

But then only two pages later… “The Scripture has authority over all matters on which it speaks. It is not exhaustive – it does not cover all matters – but because of its authorship its authority extends over everything it covers“[5] [emphasis mine]. What then do Jensen and Payne mean when they talk of Scripture being limited to matters of faith and conduct? To avoid the confusion, I can only assume that what they mean is this:

- Scripture is the ultimate authority on all matters on which it speaks;

- Scripture only speaks on matters of faith and conduct, therefore;

- Scripture’s authority is limited to matters of faith and conduct

This then leaves open the possibility that Scripture could contain historical or scientific errors, while leaving the Christian feeling content in the notion that Scripture still has authority over the important things like the reasons you ought to put your trust in Christ (which by the way, makes implicit authoritative claims that infringe on both science and history), your moral point of view and the way you ought to behave and treat others, etc.

When it comes to discussions about Biblical authority, infallibility is one of the common terms used. The other is inerrancy. Inerrancy as I have come to understand it, affirms that when all the facts are known, the Bible – in its original manuscripts and properly interpreted – will be shown to be true and never false in all that it affirms, whether related to doctrine, ethics, history or science.[6] Or as Dr. Douglas Kelly has pointed out, “The Bible itself never makes any distinction between historical or natural facts, and spiritual or religious facts.”[7] So for example, if the modern day scientist or historian contradicts Scripture, it is the scientist or historian who is to be accounted as wrong. Incidentally the doctrines of infallibility and inerrancy are typically presented as homogenous in places such as The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978), so I would affirm them both. However some (perhaps many?) modern day evangelicals seem to avoid the term inerrancy and affirm infallibility instead, with the qualification such as made by Jensen and Payne that scripture’s authority is limited to faith and conduct.

In their exposition on infallibility[8] Jensen and Payne say that some Christians have a view of Scripture that claims too much (arguably a reference to the doctrine of inerrancy despite the clarification in the 2009 version of The Blueprint[2]), not allowing for the incidental variations that are typical of historical accounts.[9] I empathise with this approach as there are a few passages that are difficult to resolve if inerrancy is to be maintained. However I don’t think this is sufficient reason to abandon inerrancy, for two reasons:

  1. These problem passages are not recent discoveries, so it should come as no surprise that there are quite reasonable explanations for them that have been addressed by the church for centuries, including solutions proposed by Augustine in the 5th century AD writing on the gospels.[10]
  2. Infallibility as understood and proclaimed in the modern church as something that is limited to faith and practice, gives up too much. It places biblically-based claims in a bubble, weakening its authority to say anything meaningful to the real world. This is why some people (like Denis Alexander for example) are quite comfortable allowing the history of creation to be completely re-written so that it fits within an evolutionary framework instead of a biblical one.[11] Indeed John D. Woodbridge suggests that many evangelicals believe that if the Bible is only infallible for faith and practice, then it cannot be negatively affected by evolutionary hypotheses.[12]

The Blueprint also says that to hold to the doctrine of infallibility is “the distinctive of evangelical belief… [that] mark[s] evangelicals out from the crowd.” I find this to be an odd statement for two main reasons:

  1. Infallibility, as described in The Blueprint, does not appear to have been the distinctive belief of Christians throughout history. It is relatively well attested that this particular debate gained momentum among leading American evangelicals at Fuller’s Seminary (Pasadena, California) in the 1960′s and 1970′s. Dr. Wayne Grudem, who was a student at Fuller in 1970-71, recalls that this was the year that the doctrine of inerrancy was removed from their statement of faith[13], which was no doubt a reflection of the views held by an increasing amount of faculty members (not just at Fuller, but in various theological seminaries[14]) who would often call into question some of the Bible’s historical details and its agreement with the current scientific consensus. Just a few decades earlier, the Evangelical Theological Society was founded (1949), whose only restriction on membership at the time depended on one’s commitment to the doctrine of inerrancy. I will leave it to the reader to discern/investigate why such a society was necessary in the first place, but I suspect that the compromise runs much deeper, historically speaking, than the evangelicals at Fuller.
  2. Greg Koukl pointed out on a recent radio program, infallibility is actually the lower of the two standards. In criticising infallibility he rightly observes, “On all the things the Bible claims that you have no way of testing - statements about religion and faith and practice – it’s perfectly reliable. But when it comes to things that you can actually test like history and science, you can’t count on it. [But] if I can’t count on it in what it says in history and science, why should I count on it in what it says in faith and practice?”[15] Similarly Jesus said to Nicodemus, “I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?” – John 3:12 (NIV). Here’s the thing, if holding to infallibility marks the Christian “out from the crowd”, then how much more distinct is the Christian who holds to inerrancy as well? To illustrate, what kind of Christian stands out more in the crowd; the one who makes public stands against abortion and same-sex marriage, or the one who stands with the PC elite and doesn’t?; the one who holds that there really was a global flood that covered the entire planet, or the one who sides with the current scientific consensus saying that it was just a local Mesopotamian event?; the one who claims that Jesus rose physically from the dead, or the one who holds that the resurrection story serves only as source from which we can draw meaningful lessons but wasn’t an actual historical event? Likewise then, who stands out in the crowd more; the one who holds that the Bible is completely true on everything it speaks and without error or contradiction, including where it conflicts with current popular opinions held by the majority of historians, archaeologists, palaeontologists, anthropologists, cosmologists etc, or the one who holds that Bible is largely true but could contain historical errors or  statements that prima facie are not in agreement with popular scientific opinion?[16]

Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems to me that labelling evangelical Christians who affirm infallibility but not inerrancy as “distinct” is akin to suggesting that Christians who would vote No on Prop 8 or throw their support behind Embryonic Stem Cell Research mark themselves as targets of the PC elite. Hardly! Instead it is those that hold to the higher standard that truly stand out in a crowd.

Finally I want to respond to a statement mentioned earlier from The Blueprint that stuck in my craw a bit:

“The Scriptures do not claim to be an authority in calculus, nuclear physics, poetry or chess”

I’m not sure how that is relevant? It’s not an authority on Christmas light installation either, nor on any number of other arbitrary examples that could be given, so this is not helpful in addressing the issue of authority. Instead I would point out that the Bible does not make explicit claims to authority on ark construction or geology either, yet it says that Noah built one of those things that withstood a catastrophic global flood which would’ve affected the geology of the entire planet! Given the syllogism presented in The Blueprint then, should we interpret the rock layers (quite clearly something that does not fall within the boundaries of “faith and conduct”) based on the evolutionary assumptions and dating methods accepted by modern science or should we understand the layers based on the historical reliability of a global catastrophic flood as recorded in Genesis?[17]

I think that answers to questions like that really help draw a line in the sand when it comes our position on biblical authority, and I rather like Dr. David Menton’s position on it:

“If ever got to stand upon the decks of Noah’s Ark that would be the second best evidence for its existence. The first is the Word of God.”[18]

References and notes:

  1. Connect groups are just a fancy name for Bible study groups and are a by-product of the Connect 09 initiative of the Sydney Anglican Diocese.
  2. This link to the 2009 edition of The BluePrint provides more information and clarification on the distinction between inerrancy and infallibility that was not in the edition that I used for study. For example, an excerpt from page 15 says, “The use of the word ‘infallible’ in the AFES statement does not reflect a particular position on this issue … [and] should be understood as it is defined here and not as an anti-inerrantist position”. I appreciate the clarification, however this article is predominantly concerned with the commentary quoted from the 1995 publication, which does in my opinion reflect a typical anti-inerrantist position and remains unaltered in the 2009 publication. For example, inerrantists do not affirm that the authority of Scripture is “limited to matters of faith and conduct” as Jensen and Payne have done.
  3. Jensen, Phillip D., and Payne, Tony, “The Blueprint”, (Matthias Media 1995), p. 6,10.
  4. Ibid., p.12
  5. Ibid., p.14
  6. The most famous clarification on this position is the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978) and I am happy to stand corrected on what is by comparison my rather concise and hodgepodge version of the doctrine.
  7. Kelly, Dr. Douglas., What the Genesis Text Really Says About Creation, AiG 2003 Creation Conference presentation on CD, Time index – Approx 48min. Dr. Kelly is a professor of Systematic Theology.
  8. What B. B. Warfield referred to as “limited inspiration”, and is today sometimes called “limited inerrancy” (http://mb-soft.com/believe/text/inerranc.htm – accessed 25 January 2010)
  9. Jensen, Phillip D., and Payne, Tony, “The Blueprint”, (Matthias Media 1995), p.11
  10. Wayne Grudem addresses some of the strongest objections against variations in the biblical text that pose a challenge to inerrancy in his freely-downloadable Systematic Theology Class, in which he also maintains there has been no passage of Scripture he has ever found that could not be resolved in such a way that also preserves inerrancy.
  11. A recent example of this is Denis Alexander’s book “Creation or Evolution – do we have to choose?”, in which he attempts to convince the reader that Darwinism can be harmonised with the Bible. There have been several critiques of Alexander’s thesis, one of which is freely downloadable in PDF format here.
  12. As cited by A. Kulikovsky, http://creation.com/the-bible-and-hermeneutics
  13. Wayne Grudem discusses some of his experiences at Fuller Seminary during his Systematic Theology Class.
  14. See Lindsell, H., The Battle for the Bible, (__________ 1976), in which Lindsell promotes the doctrine of inerrancy and documents his investigation of various seminaries who had begun to deny it by challenging the words of Scripture.
  15. http://www.strcast2.org/podcast/weekly/092009.mp3, What [is] the distinction between Biblical infallibility and inerrancy?, Time index – Approx 38min to 51min.
  16. Though it is rarely acknowledged or realised by modern exegetes of Scripture, popular scientific opinion has usurped Biblical authority and can be consistently shown to have implicit authority over Scripture.
  17. Jonathan Sarfati and Carl Wieland both address this issue broadly in short articles on the CMI website.
  18. Dr. Menton is a full-time researcher and speaker with Answers in Genesis. This statement comes from one of his presentations at the 2003 Creation Conference.

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