Bi

[Jerry Carter]

My

[Divine Insight]

My best friend was an atheist. We would argue for hours over alleged contradictions in the Bible. I must confess I was easily overwhelmed because of his expansive knowledge of every Biblical passage. His familiarity with scripture was due to the fact that he was studying to be a Catholic Priest.

After the religious experience I referred to in my introduction I had a slow but steady change in my thinking. On the subject of inerrancy my friend had been less than candid with me. Although he always touted his objectivity I realized that he never once discussed what was consistent in the Bible, only what he deemed inconsistent. This seemed quite dishonest, how could he not know this theological argument.

In this thread I will make three arguments:

First, that secular critics base their criticism on the premise that most Christians hold to a Fundamentalist view of inerrancy. That is, the bible being the “inspired� word of God it cannot have error. In fact, fundamentalism is a minority view among theologians.

Second, I will argue that once the consistencies are understood we can feel more comfortable that the alleged discrepancies do not threaten the integrity of the Bible.

Finally, I will argue that secular critics abuse definitions because they evoke the emotions of lay Christians.

I’m hoping there will be more depth to this post and so I may not be able to respond to every post, especially if they repeat what other posts say. Overcoming my handicaps is challenge enough. I encourage criticism.

Thank you.

In terms of your first argument I already reject it, no matter how much more you might have to say on the matter.

I have several reasons for this:

First off, I couldn't care less what "Most Christians" might believe. As far as I'm concerned if modern day Christians are willing to accept a grossly errant Bible that can't be trusted to say what it means and means what it says, then they don't appear to me to be considering their God to be "trustworthy" (at least they are certainly confessing that their Bible is not trustworthy).

As far as I'm concerned that concession right there already satisfies and supports my arguments against the Bible.

Secondly, I actually agree with the Christian Fundamentalists. At least in their position that the Bible must be the inerrant word of God if it is to have any credibility or value. Obviously I disagree with them that the Bible can possibly be inerrant or correctly describe a respectable God. So I come to a different conclusion from the Christian Fundamentalists and instead of concluding that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, I simply recognize that because it's obviously errant, it cannot be the word of any "trustworthy" God.

Thirdly, I claim that the "Most Christians" that you are referring to are actually inventing their own notion of God whilst supporting the parts of the Bible they like and rejecting the parts they don't like as being errant, or "not from God". As far as I'm concerned all they are doing is trying to create a God that they can like whilst simultaneously confessing that they actually don't like the God that the Bible actually describes.

And finally, like your friend, I too studied the Bible with the intend of teaching others the "Word of God". Although I was Protestant instead of Catholic. However, I was brought up and taught by our church that the Bible contains answers to all our questions. And I actually believed that this was true. That is until I actually studied the Bible in depth for myself. I then learned that the Bible, not only doesn't answer all my questions, but it actually raises far more questions the more I read it. And like you, I also recognize that it necessarily must be errant, or "ungodly" in many areas.

So any argument that "most Christians" are not fundamentalists who demand an inerrant Bible is a non-argument for the Bible as far as I'm concerned. To the contrary it's already a concession to my position that the Bible is not trustworthy and cannot be considered to be "The Word of any God".

So by confessing that the Bible is not inerrant you have already conceded to my position. The fact that this doesn't seem to bother "most Christians" is totally irrelevant as far as I'm concerned.

[Jerry Carter]

[Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]

I posted this on the wrong thread and then tried to delete it. I intend to re-post on the debate thread. I am not posting to convince anyone but rather to get criticism. I hope that you will give me a hearing. I am not offended by your comments and I appreciate your opinions. Thanks for your response.