Facing the Truth
“For my
part, whatever anguish of spirit
it may cost, I
am willing to know the
whole truth.”
Patrick Henry 1736-1799
What happens when an educated,
fundamentalist Christian is faced with an obvious error in the Bible? Charles
Ryrie proposes that because he is an inerrantist, he
will not view error as a possible explanation for problems found in the Bible.
Likewise, someone who is predisposed to believe the Bible is erroneous will
likely conclude that each problem is an error. I would have to ask Mr. Ryrie
then, “How do you become an inerrantist? Were you
born an inerrantist just as people are born Irish or
German? Did you inherit that status as one might inherit alleles for blonde
hair or blue eyes? Did someone tell you ‘You are an inerrantist’?”
People have to believe what they believe
because of experience. Belief is not a choice or a matter of predisposition.
When you first come to the Biblical text, that is when you become an errantist or an inerrantist. It
has to originate with the text. If you say that you were predisposed to believe
that the Bible is inerrant before you were ever faced with the text, then your
decision was based on something other than the Bible. The same would be true of
this example:
I could tell you that on the next page of
this book there is a sentence printed in the margin. That sentence is a
statement that is either true or false. Without turning the page and reading
that statement, can you tell me if it is true? If someone else reads the
statement and tells you it’s true you may be predisposed to believe that the
statement is true. You would, however, have to admit that your belief is based
on what someone told you and not what you have read.
If there had been a statement printed in
the margin of every page in this book and all of them that you had read were
true, could you tell me before reading the last one if it was true? You could
say that based on what you had read so far you were predisposed to believe that
it was true as well. But until you read it you are basing your belief on your
reading of previous text and not on the text at hand. Why not read the text for
yourself and base your belief on what the text says, not what you’ve been told
about it by someone else.
In his book What You Should Know about Inerrancy, Charles Ryrie gives an
illustration of a happily married man who comes home early one day to find his
wife waving good-bye to a handsome man about to get into a car. He proposes
that if the man’s confidence in his wife is total and unwavering, he will
assume that she had a good reason for seeing that man. But if his confidence in
his relationship with his wife is even a bit shaky, his thoughts will wander into
all kinds of paths of suspicion of unfaithfulness on her part.
I really
like that illustration, but I don’t believe it was taken far enough to apply to
the issue of inerrancy. I’ll explain. If all that the husband saw upon his
return home was his wife waving good-bye to another man, then I would agree
that his previous opinion of his wife would have the strongest bearing on the
conclusion he forms. But what if, when she sees her husband approaching, she
acts panicked? What if his wife is wearing lingerie? What if he enters the
house and finds the sleeper sofa unfolded and in disarray? What if there is
soft music playing and candles and champagne on the table? What if there are
men’s boxers on the floor? What if there is an open condom wrapper next to the
bed? Is this not a whole new story? Will his previous opinion of his wife have
the strongest bearing on his conclusion now?
Even if she came up with some kind of
explanation for each and every piece of evidence the husband has seen, her
husband is most likely to believe that she has been unfaithful because of the
picture that is painted when all of the evidence is viewed collectively. He may
not want to believe that it could be true that she was unfaithful to him. He
may even struggle to believe in her, but he doesn’t get to choose what he
believes. Belief is not a choice. It is not an option. He may only choose how
he acts on his beliefs. He may choose to leave her. He may choose to forgive
her because he loves her in spite of her unfaithfulness. But he can’t choose to
believe her and he can’t erase the fact that the evidence is there that she was
unfaithful.
Here is the dilemma of the inerrantist. If a man has claimed to be an inerrantist, did he claim it before or after he was exposed
to the Biblical text? If he answers honestly that he claimed inerrancy without
having read the entire Bible, then there is a chance that he has not stumbled
upon errors. If he says that he has read the Bible from cover to cover and
never seen an error that may be true. It is by studying the Bible from cover to cover that the errors are exposed.
Let’s face it; most Christians will only open their Bibles on Sunday morning
when the preacher says turn to here or there. Some have endeavored to read a
chapter a night and will lie in bed and mindlessly mouth the words out, then
roll over and go to sleep. Few people study the Bible. It is with careful study
of the text and comparative analysis that the errors are discovered. For
instance, because of the length of the text and the time involved in reading
it, you may not realize by the time you read to Matthew that something you just
read contradicts something you read in Genesis.
Only by becoming very familiar with the
text, so that little flags go up when you read something contradictory, or by
comparative analysis of separate texts, are you able to easily spot errors in
the Bible. Once they are pointed out they are clear and obvious.
Have you ever watched people viewing
computer generated 3-D art, trying to find the image hidden in the background
clutter? Some will stare until their eyes water and never see it, backing up
and moving closer and trying different angles. But once someone shows them
where to focus, the image seems to leap out at them and they wonder why they
didn’t see it before. Soon they can see the image in all of the pictures; it
was just a matter of learning to focus. That is how it is with errors in the
Bible. People read right past them all of the time and swear they can’t see
them. But, once they are shown how to focus the errors leap off of the page at
them. I’m going to show you where and how to focus. When you look carefully
past all of the clutter you will see the errors in the Bible clearly and wonder
why you didn’t see them before.
CLOTHED
IN INERRANCY I WHAT IS
INERRANCY?
FACING
THE TRUTH I BIBLICAL
CONTRADICTIONS I BIBLE
BASED MORALITY
EXCUSES USED TO EXPLAIN
ERRORS I CAN
GOD EXIST? I ATHEIST
IN A FOXHOLE
ATHEISM I THE
EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES I DOES THEIR BELIEF AFFECT ME?