Updated (scroll down)
Mike Duran at his blog posed what he considers a dilemma regarding the relationship between apostasy and abandoning the Bible as authoritative. [1] Duran invoked the example of Leo, son of the famed intelligent design proponent Michael Behe, who said that his trust in the Bible was shaken by reading The God Delusion by Dawkins and considering for the first time “the fallible origin of Scripture.” [2]
It did not occur to me until later in life to examine the reliability of the Bible, the infallibility of which my Christian opponents would always agree upon. [3]
That point in particular was what originally shook my specific faith—Catholicism—and planted seeds of skepticism … [4]
Once my trust in the Bible was shaken, I still believed strongly in a theistic god, but I realized that I hadn’t sufficiently examined my beliefs. Over the next several months, my certainty of a sentient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent deity faded steadily. I believe that the loss of a specific creed was the tipping point for me. [5]
This erosion of trust in the Bible “is often the first step in Christian apostasy—‘the loss of a specific creed’,” writes Duran, quoting Behe’s phrase.
The first step toward the deconstruction of Christianity must always be the deconstruction of Scripture. For once “the foundations are destroyed” (Ps. 11:3), you are free to construct another worldview, preferably one to your own liking.
However, this creates a problem. If we can’t question and debate the authenticity, authority, and limits of Scripture, how do we know we can trust it? Unquestioned belief in the Bible is just as wrong as unequivocal rejection of it. [6]
