As Glenn notes, the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy is the widely accepted benchmark for what this doctrine entails. Very briefly stated, it affirms that the Bible is without error. That is what “inerrant” means. Glenn singles out the following parts of the Statement for disagreement:

WE AFFIRM that inspiration, though not conferring omniscience, guaranteed true and trustworthy utterance on all matters of which the Biblical authors were moved to speak and write.

WE AFFIRM that Scripture, having been given by divine inspiration, is infallible, so that, far from misleading us, it is true and reliable in all the matters it addresses.

WE AFFIRM that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from all falsehood, fraud, or deceit.

WE DENY that Biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields of history and science. We further deny that scientific hypotheses about earth history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture on creation and the flood.

WE AFFIRM that the doctrine of inerrancy has been integral to the Church’s faith throughout its history.

One of the obvious problems with this disagreement is that it severely undermines one’s apologetic with regard to the witness of Scripture. By disagreeing with these statements, Glenn commits himself to admitting that the Bible is not guaranteed true, trustworthy, and reliable; and may be misleading and contain falsehood, fraud, or deceit. That is a difficult situation for a Christian apologist like him to be in.

For my own part, I am an inerrantist, and I find Glenn’s critique of inerrancy shallow and unsophisticated to the point of attacking a strawman. Here’s why.

The Objection Evaluated

Glenn provides the following evidence for discarding inerrancy:

If the texts of the Bible contain not a single error, then two biblical accounts of the same event will agree. They need not cover all the same aspects of the event, but they will agree in the sense that there will not be any conflict between them. Otherwise there is an error present, since two accounts of an event that conflict cannot both be fully correct. However, we know that this is not the case when it comes to the four Gospels. There are some cases where this is fairly obvious. For example, all four Gospels contain sentences attributed to Jesus, but they differ from one Gospel to the next.

What is obvious to anyone with even a little exegetical training is that Glenn is implicitly evaluating the Bible against a modern, scientific or journalistic standard of reporting. It should go without saying, however, that the Bible is an ancient, prescientific compilation. While, in the Modern West, it is considered “inaccurate” or even “dishonest” to quote someone without doing so verbatim, in the ancient Near East no such view existed. On the contrary, it was customary to quote the essence of what a person said, without concerning oneself over the minutiae of the words and sentence structure used. This fact was not lost on the framers of the Chicago Statement, as indicated by Article XIII:

We deny that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according to standards of truth and error that are alien to its usage or purpose. We further deny that inerrancy is negated by Biblical phenomena such as a lack of modern technical precision, irregularities of grammar or spelling, observational descriptions of nature, the reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyperbole and round numbers, the topical arrangement of material, variant selections of material in parallel accounts, or the use of free citations.

Variant Selections & Topical Arrangement

I highlight the latter items—topical arrangement and variant selections—because of additional evidence Glenn moves on to allege against biblical inerrancy. He presents for consideration the differences in who is reported to have visited the tomb on Sunday morning in Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:1, Luke 24:10, and John 20:1–2; concluding, reading all four accounts, could you tell who was there and who was not?

The answer, however is obviously yes. As the ESV Study Bible notes on Luke 24:10, It was Mary … and the other women indicates that at least five women went to the tomb. And of John 20:2, contra Glenn’s claim that according to John 20:1–2, the only woman involved was Mary Magdalene, it observes: The plural we suggests the presence of other women besides Mary. Since Luke 24:10 lists Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them, and Mark 16:1 lists at least one of those women as Salome, it’s trivial to deduce that these were all present—with at least one other, unnamed woman.

The only way in which one can find a difficulty in this passage is to suppose that each of the authors intended to exhaustively list everyone present. Yet even reading modern writing, that’s far from a reasonable or normal assumption. Imagine I were emailing someone to tell him about our going to an apologetics conference. I might say that “Thinking Matters went to the conference”; or, if the person I was telling knew particular people in Thinking Matters, but not others, I might say that “Jason and Stuart and I went to the conference”; or I might just mention Jason if the other people were less important in the telling. None of these even suggest that the rest of Thinking Matters wasn’t present; let alone entail it.

A final evidence alleged against inerrancy is as follows:

Another type of difference between different Gospels is the way that different events are placed in a different order. A well known example is the cleansing of the temple in Jerusalem. In the Synoptic Gospels this event occurs after Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, fairly late in the narrative. In John’s Gospel however, this event occurs in chapter 2, before much else has happened.

But it’s a well-documented fact that adhering to a strict chronological order when reporting is a relatively modern invention. In the ancient Near East, arranging anecdotes by topic or by idea was an extremely common, not to mention effective, story-telling technique. It’s called block logic. It’s not wrong, unless you’re specifically intending to present a chronological description of events. It’s just a different way of recounting things. Someone claiming enough exegetical competence to reject the doctrine of inerrancy should know this.

Standards of Truth

Now, Glenn even acknowledges that standards of truth in the ancient Near East may differ to those in the modern West. Yet in doing so, rather than seriously considering the issue and recognizing the relevant cultural distinctions, he appears to mock the notion:

Maybe you want to rescue it by saying that inerrancy is not only compatible with individual writers using their own style, but it is also compatible with the fact that writers are doing no more than adhering to standards of accuracy that were acceptable in their day, and that is why there are no problems with the existence of conflicting accounts, because the fact is, standards of the day just weren’t very high. But this is inerrancy in name only, and it creates a hilarious spectacle for the sceptics to pour scorn upon. [...] If we qualify inerrancy this much to save it, it becomes a useless idea altogether.

There is simply no way to overstate how theologically inept—not to mention culturally prejudiced—this statement is. It amounts to saying that using the grammatico-historical method of exegesis to determine our doctrine is a hilarious spectacle. It’s akin to saying that all we need are English Bible translations, because qualifying our understanding of Scripture against its sociolinguistic context is to qualify it so much that it becomes useless. It’s to say that putting ourselves into the shoes of the authors and audience of the scriptural autographs is not merely irrelevant, but an exercise in comedy.

What Glenn wants us to believe is that how the original authors and audience of Scripture understood errors merely indicates that their standards were too low. And, if we qualify inerrancy to mean that the Bible is free from error as its original authors and audience understood errors to be, then it’s a “hilarious spectacle” and a “useless idea altogether”. This objection is dead on arrival for two reasons:

Inerrancy is supposed to be defined by Scripture

Firstly, even if standards of truth in biblical times were sub par—tsk, tsk—it remains that the biblical authors wrote in those times. Now, maybe Glenn thinks those scamps should have used modern Western standards of reporting, even though these were totally alien to their culture, where the retelling of stories was a largely verbal affair and the manner of conceptualization was quite different. But the fact remains that they didn’t use our standards. They used their own. Probably because the ignorant peons they were writing to, wretched, barely hominid gimps that they were, expected it.

Thus, taking into account what the Bible itself considers an error when we’re defining inerrancy is not a “qualification”. It is a central tenet of the doctrine. When Scripture attests to its own inerrancy, it does so assuming an ancient Near Eastern concept of truth and error.

Modern journalistic standards are not an objective ideal

Secondly, what justification does Glenn have for taking his view that the “standards of the day just weren’t very high”? High compared to what? It isn’t as if our modern Western conventions for journalism constitute an objective standard against which any kind of story-telling should be judged. They’re not some pinnacle of reporting—a gilt-edged ideal that any writer in any culture should be looking up to and trying to imitate, even if that were possible without the use of technologies unavailable to them. In fact, these standards aren’t even commonly used in Western society.

Does Glenn really believe that the genre of the gospels is functionally identical with modern journalism? Does he seriously believe that using any other story-telling conventions actually amounts to error? If I tell him that “Thinking Matters went to an apologetics conference last month”, and he tells his wife that Bnonn said, “Last month, Thinking Matters went to an apologetics conference,” should we say that his standards of testimony are so low that, in fact, he has reported what I said erroneously? Even in the modern day there is no presumption that we retell the exact words someone used unless we’re doing so in very specific circumstances—such as writing for a newspaper, or using a blockquote tag. Certainly, the advent of copy and paste has made this much easier, and thus raised our expectations. But that hardly implies that reporting the gist, if not the precise words, is a lowlier method, and in fact constitutes error. The only time that would be true is if there is a presumption of a verbatim quote. Unless Glenn has remarkable evidence to the contrary, in the case of Scripture, there is not.

Moreover, even in modern journalistic writing it is never expected that the author report everything, or that he not be selective about the facts he conveys. In fact, basic common sense tells us that every reporter must do these things, because it is inherent to the nature of reporting as a subjective exercise. And this may become more pronounced depending on the kind of story-telling techniques an author is using, and the specific reasons he has for writing. In short, Glenn appears to ignore even the most obvious facts of literary criticism in his efforts to make his case.

Conclusion

Overall, Glenn’s understanding of inerrancy is too inadequate for his critique to gain any actual traction against the doctrine. The fundamental exegetical principles of genre, language, cultural context, and intent are all ignored, meaning that inerrancy itself is essentially ignored, while a strawman is burned in its place. Indeed, it’s as if he’s unaware that inerrancy is an exegetical issue at all. Instead of looking at the scriptural foundation for the doctrine, and the linguistic nuances of the term “error”, he imposes upon Scripture his own arbitrary conventions of reporting, finds it lacking, and then declares that inerrancy must be false. Sadly, the comments on his blog suggest that many other Christians don’t see anything immediately problematic with this approach. Hopefully this article can serve as a corrective.

Related posts:

1. “No one is righteous”…metaphorically speaking

I’m in a discussion with a guy regarding free will, and in our discussion, we’ve come to a point where he is asking how we know when to interpret Scripture literally or figuratively.  The reason he asks is because he utilizes the argument against “no one is good, not even one” as we see unbelievers doing good all the time.  I’ve tried talking with him about God’s standard of Good as compared to man’s standard, but he says that he sees a verse like that as more metaphoric, in that no man is totally good, but that he can choose to still do good things.  He then asks how I know that we are to take the verse talking about earth’s ‘four corners’ as figurative, wanting me to say that I base it on extra biblical evidence, so that he can prove his point that he sees unbelievers doing good things every day, so a verse like found in Romans 3 can’t be literal.

Any help you can give me would be wonderful.  How do I answer this question well?

Bearing in mind that I’m by no means a trained exegete, there seem to be a few ways to address this:

1. There’s a disparity between empirical and moral extra-biblical evidence

On the one hand, as regards interpreting Scripture in light of extra-biblical evidence, there’s an obvious disanalogy between empirical and moral evidence. We can know that the earth is round in a good number of extra-biblical ways, because God has equipped us with faculties to make these sorts of determinations. In one sense, the same is true of moral judgments: God has equipped us with a conscience to tell between good and evil. But there are two major differences which must be noted:

a. Direct disparity

Whereas Scripture’s purpose is very seldom to describe brute empirical facts, it is very often to describe moral facts. Its chief concern is with the relationship between God and man—and the major problem with that relationship is a moral one. So whereas we may have good warrant for treating as metaphorical empirical descriptions which are prima facie not literally true, the same warrant does not exist to treat prima facie false moral descriptions as metaphorical.

b. The implausibility of interpreting Scripture against our moral intuitions

Expanding on (a), it must be noted that Scripture claims our moral intuitions are fundamentally skewed by the fall. It describes man as totally depraved, and his way of judging good as fundamentally wrong. Rather than judging goodness by looking to God, we naturally judge goodness by looking to man. Thus, if we believe Scripture, we should expect that our prima facie moral judgments will be wrong in many instances—especially with regard to morality in respect to God, as opposed to merely in respect to other people. If Scripture is correct, then fallen man only considers this latter “human-human” morality, and ignores that while one may do good to another man, that same act may still be evil as regards God. I would direct your friend to Paul’s direct statement in Romans 14:23 that “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin”. For this reason, our moral intuitions do not provide any kind of extra-biblical support for rejecting the literal truth of Scripture’s moral statements. Quite the opposite is true. If Scripture’s statements are literally true, then our moral judgments are most likely false as regards our goodness with relation to God.

c. Assuming the consequent

Building on (b). your friend is flagrantly begging the question against you. He wants to deny the literal truth of Scripture’s moral statements on the basis of his own moral intuitions. But one of the things that Scripture says about his moral intuitions is that they are incapable of providing a reliable basis for these sorts of judgments—thus, if Scripture is literally true in these matters, his moral intuitions provide no kind of useful extra-biblical data. By insisting that they do, he is therefore assuming the very thing he needs to prove: namely, that Scripture’s moral statements are metaphorical.

2. Moral intuitions are subjective and vary between people

Moreover, I do not share your friend’s moral intuitions. On the contrary, one of the things that makes Scripture so plausible to me is how accurately and unashamedly it describes the moral condition of man. To be sure, as an unbeliever I certainly would have agreed with your friend. I would have rejected Scripture’s moral statements on exactly the same basis: I refused to judge goodness as something in relationship to God, and instead recognized only human-human moral relationships. Thus, I judged most people to be relatively good. However, as a believer who knows that all things are rightly judged in relationship to God, it is impossible for me not to see that “no one does good”, since even great acts of charity and self-sacrifice are driven not by a motivation to honor God, but by a desire to honor man. All the moral actions of any unbeliever—and many of believers as well, since we are by no means perfect yet—are basically idolatrous despite whatever benefit they may have to other people. So I would say that:

a. Judging between conflicting intuitions

Your friend’s entire case seems based on the assumption that his moral intuitions in this matter are correct—yet given that his intuitions are by no means universal, this is a highly tendentious assumption. If someone else, like me, finds Scripture’s moral statements intuitively plausible when taken literally, his whole case is undermined. Why should I accept his intuitions over mine?

b. Judging like an unbeliever rather than a Christian

Given what I’ve said about how unbelievers judge moral issues, your friend’s attitude in general constitutes a Big Red Flag. He is judging moral issues exactly as if he were an unbeliever, rather than as a Christian. Mind you, given that he appears to be at best a semi-Pelagian, that doesn’t come as any great surprise.

3. Exegetical deficiencies

On the other hand, his contention is inept on exegetical grounds as well. A phrase like “the four corners of the earth” is not difficult to see as a figure of speech. However, a phrase like “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God”—along with the rest of the three chapters Paul dedicates to describing the moral condition of man, and the umpteen passages he draws from in the Old Testament—are plainly not. There is simply no linguistic warrant for taking all of these passages as metaphorical; so if your friend wishes to do so, the burden of proof rests squarely on his shoulders. Whereas Scripture never repeatedly and explicitly claims that the earth has four corners (it does use the expression once or twice, but that is at best an implicit claim), it does repeatedly and explicitly claim that man is totally depraved, morally corrupt, unable to please God, and so on. It states this fact in any number of different ways, from the hand of any number of different prophets. So your friend needs to have an answer to each of those passages.

4. The slippery slope to hell

Your friend’s avenue of argument leaves the way open to deny basically any doctrine that someone finds personally objectionable:

a. Any doctrine can be denied based on some arbitrary intuition

If it’s reasonable to take depravity as metaphorical because a literal view conflicts with one’s moral intuitions, then it is reasonable to take the Trinity as metaphorical because a literal view conflicts with one’s logical intuitions; or it’s reasonable to take hell as metaphorical because a literal view conflicts with one’s emotional intuitions. Perhaps your friend is thinking of adding unitarian universalisism to his Pelagianism?

b. Many doctrines can be denied even on the basis of purely moral intuitions

But even if we arbitrarily confine the argument to moral intuitions, a great deal can still be denied. Many people find the notion of penal substitution morally abhorrent. Even if your friend does not, how does he propose to convince people of the truth that Jesus died for their sins, when their moral intuitions would lead them to believe that, in fact, the crucifixion was a merely metaphorical event? That would certainly be deeply hypocritical. And denying the doctrine of hell on moral grounds is as old as the hills. Not to mention the goodness of God, and/or the unity of Scripture, since YHVH did some pretty unsettling things back in the day when Israel was still in vogue. No doubt examples can be multiplied.

In conclusion

In short, it seems to me that your friend is taking the approach of subjecting Scripture to his own personal opinions, rather than allowing Scripture to stand in judgment over his opinions. That is not Christianity—it is a religion of his own invention; merely inspired by the Bible.

Related posts:

1. A response to Glenn Peoples’s ‘No, I am not an inerrantist’

The parable works on several levels, but one is how the prophecy of Isaiah [25:6–10] is fulfilled now, with Jesus the Bridegroom coming as the Bread of Life, and in the future, at the end of time, when the heavenly wedding feast takes place, as portrayed in Revelation 19:7–10.

Needless to say this correspondent is a Roman Catholic. He continues:

A curious detail in the story in Matthew is that of the wedding guest who had no wedding garment and was kicked out. I would be interested to know what your interpretation of this is.

Although I’m not much of an expositor, I always find it enjoyable to study and unravel the parables of Jesus, since they are so very rich in theological content. Close examination of one parable invariably reveals linkages with others which weren’t obvious at first sight, and which weave it into a larger tapestry in illuminating and gratifying ways. So let me break away from my more typical philosophical theology, and offer an exposition of the parable of the wedding feast.

The larger context

Matthew 22:1–14 comes at the end of a number of previous parables and events which demonstrate and commentate upon the apostasy of the Jews; that is, their rejection of the kingdom of heaven which was their rightful inheritance as God’s chosen people:

Matthew 20

In Matthew 20:1–16 the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a vineyard who hires laborers at various times throughout the day, but pays them all the same amount at sundown. Here is demonstrated firstly the generosity of God toward those who formerly were not his people, and secondly the ungracious and foolish presumption of the Jews in believing their own perseverance and works to be meritorious. In verses 17–19, Jesus foretells his death at the hands of the Jews, laying a contextual foundation for the parables to come. Then in verses 20–28 the mother of the sons of Zebedee asks him that her sons may sit beside him in his kingdom—an event which culminates in the re-emphasizing of this contextual foundation as Jesus declares his purpose in coming to give his life as a ransom for many. All of these parables and events serve to highlight the theme that the first will be made last, and the last will be made first—a principle exemplified in Jesus himself. Finally, he heals two blind men, leading into his triumphal entry into Jerusalem in Matthew 21:1–11.

Matthew 21

The triumphal entry poignantly re-emphasizes the fact that Jesus himself is not excluded from the repeated statement that the first shall be last, but rather is its ultimate exemplar. Entering Jerusalem, he is regarded as the first among a people who are themselves regarded as the first before God. Yet later he was to be handed over by them for execution as the lowest criminal among a people regarded as the lowest criminals before God.

To lay the narrative foundation for this, Matthew turns in chapter 21 to emphasizing particularly the apostasy of the Jews. Verses 12–17 detail how the temple has become “a den of robbers”; verses 18–22 recall the cursing of the fig tree for failing to bear fruit, just as Israel will be made to spiritually wither for the same reason; and verses 23–27 describe the unbelief and malice of Israel’s spiritual leaders toward the authority of God.

This leads into three parables which build upon each other. The first is of the two sons. Jesus uses it to explain to the Scribes and Pharisees that they are less righteous than the worst sinners, because they did not do what they ought to have done by believing God’s message proclaimed through John the Baptist. Here is emphasized their rejection of God’s authority as represented in his prophets. The second parable is of the murderous tenants, where the rejection of God’s authority in the prophets is built upon to emphasize the rejection of his own son—the most recent and despicable of Israel’s acts of unbelief and disobedience. Therefore, Jesus tells them, “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. And the one who falls on this stone [that is Jesus] will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him” (vv 43–44).

The parable of the wedding feast

This all finally leads into chapter 22:1–14: the parable of the wedding feast. In this, Jesus expands on what he has said about the kingdom being taken away from the Jews and given to a people producing fruits. Israel’s apostasy is again described, but now the emphasis shifts from what was required of them, and toward what God will give to others:

Verses 1–3

And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, 2“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, 3and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come.”

The motif of a feast is common in Scripture as a metaphor for God’s provision and delight in his people, and for their reciprocal delight in him. Isaiah 25:6 is a good example. The metaphor is a natural one, since human kings and patrons would show their graciousness to their subjects by holding feasts in this way. Here in Matthew, Jesus also alludes to the scriptural metaphor of Israel as God’s bride, such as appears in Ezekiel 16. Most importantly, he names the wedding as being for the king’s son—thus explicitly identifying himself as God, who is king over Israel.

This marriage feast metaphor is used again in Revelation 19:6–10 to describe the glorified church rejoicing in its savior. Here in Matthew 22, however, the context is not glory in the intermediate (or final) state, but rather the kingdom of heaven firstly as a past and future temporal reality (verses 3–6 and 7–10 respectively); and extending secondly into an eternal state within which God’s people remain—or not—following the final judgment (verses 11–14).

Verses 4–6

Again he sent other servants, saying, “Tell those who are invited, ‘See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.’” 5But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, 6while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them.

Preparing a feast in biblical times was not as exact a science as it is today. There were no industrialized meat or vegetable farms, no combine harvesters or abattoirs, no packing plants or storage facilities, no trucks or trains, no supermarkets or cornershops, no cars or vans, and no fridges or freezers. Subsequently, when a patron wished to organize a feast or a banquet, he would send out an invitation well in advance informing those invited of the intended time for the event. Then, when the food was actually prepared and the banquet finally set, a second invitation was sent so that the waiting guests could come immediately (cf Luke 14:17). Jesus uses this custom to allude to the repetition with which God has called the Jews through the prophets. Yet despite these repeated invitations, the Jews chose the world over the kingdom of heaven, while some even persecuted and murdered the messengers God sent. Thus they not merely ignored God’s invitation; they actively despised it. As he says in another place, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.”

Now, unlike today, a person could not reasonably refuse an invitation like the one in this parable. Attendance at a feast was a serious social obligation—especially for the invited dependents of a patron, and most especially for the invited subjects of a king. It was highly incumbent upon such guests that they come punctually when summoned. Conversely, refusal to attend constituted a deliberate insult to the dignity and grace of the host. Thus, a unanimous refusal such as the one in this parable implies a conspiratorial effort on the part of the guests to greatly shame and insult their king. In return, he would be socially obliged to save face by avenging his honor and executing justice. Even in a far more mundane situation, this would typically entail severe punishment for those who had refused to attend; while the graciousness of the invitation had to be upheld by extending it to prior non-invitees. Here, the extreme, concerted actions of the guests in refusing in toto to attend, and in further murdering the king’s messengers, would have constituted nothing less than treason. Capital punishment would have been the only appropriate response.

Verse 7

The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

The king appropriately sends his army to slay the treasonous guests. This certainly alludes to historical occasions on which God had punished Israel’s disobedience by subjecting them to military conquest. Isaiah again comes to mind, where in 10:5–6 the armies of Assyria are prophesied to bring God’s wrath upon Israel:

Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger; the staff in their hands is my fury! Against a godless nation I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

However, while these historical judgments are certainly in view, they in turn merely foreshadow the final judgment wherein God rejects the Jews utterly forever, and gives their inheritance to others. This is particularly the focus of the parable, and thus Jesus does not merely recall what God has done, but also prophesies what God will do. Rome was shortly to destroy the temple and put the Jews to the sword, scattering them abroad and preventing them gathering in the presence of God, as his people, ever again. There is a comparison here to Luke 14:16–24, which also emphasizes that “none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet” (verse 24).

Verses 8–10

Then he said to his servants, “The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.” 10And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.

Here is where the parable turns from what was commanded by God to what will be given by God. Jesus expands on his previous comment in Matthew 21:43: that, having taken his kingdom from the Jews, he will give it to a people producing fruits. Thus he alludes to the spread of God’s kingdom throughout the world as prophesied in Genesis 18:18, wherein “the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed’” (Galatians 3:8). This coming grafting of the Gentiles into God’s people is progressively revealed in Psalm 22:27, Micah 4:1–4, Isaiah 49:6, Hosea 2:23, and many other places—and fulfilled in Luke 24:47, John 4:22, Acts 17:30, and Matthew 28:19, where Jesus says: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.

The servants of God—that is, in the church age, ourselves—go out into the world as instructed, and gather as many as we find: “both bad and good” (verse 10). So we indiscriminately preach the gospel, drawing into our number those of sincere faith; but also those who harbor unbelief in their hearts despite professing as we do. We know that in the visible body of Christ there are many who are outwardly Christians, but who have not inwardly clothed themselves with the righteousness of Jesus. But we are commanded to invite all without exception, even if some who come are insincere.

Verses 11–13

But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. 12And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. 13Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

When our King arrives, on that final day, “the angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous” (Matthew 13:49). So God will take these wolves in sheep’s clothing and demand an account from them. But “every mouth will be stopped” (Romans 3:19), and he will cast them out, for

Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” And then will I declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” (Matthew 7:21–23)

Normally, guests at a wedding were expected to attend in fresh and clean clothes in honor of the occasion. Wearing the same clothes one had been working in all day was to insult the host by demeaning the value of the event, rather than extending the honor deserved. Thus, the wedding garments in the parable at least refer to unsoiled, clean clothes. However, given that the guests were gathered from the highways, it’s reasonable to infer that they had no such clothes on them. Subsequently, wedding garments must have been provided for them when they entered. Here, then, is an allusion to righteousness unto salvation. Our own garments are as polluted menstrual cloths (Isaiah 64:6)—wearing them to the wedding feast, the kingdom of heaven, is to bring upon ourselves the wrath of our host the King. Without clean garments he will throw us out into the darkness. However, because we have no such garments, he has graciously provided them for us; as in Isaiah 61:10—

I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

Or Ephesians 2:4–9—

God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Professing Christians who presume upon God’s grace while remaining inwardly unconverted, even though they may appear in every way very pious, will be thrown into hell along with all those who rejected God openly. “For we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ” (Galatians 2:16); so even the holiest of people, performing all outward observances and good deeds and acts of contrition, will never be saved by these, but by faith—”for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). Only those who have, by faith, put on the foreign righteousness of Christ are actually justified (Romans 5:1); so only they will remain in the kingdom of heaven after the final judgment. Of the others, God will ask, “How did you get here?” A man without a wedding garment must not have come in through the front door; and “he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way—that man is a thief and a robber” (John 10:1).

Verse 14

For many are called, but few are chosen.

Finally, Jesus appends a brief summation—an explanation of God’s purposes in redemption. Many are called by the gospel, but few are chosen to receive it. So the gospel is extended to all, even though all are not elect. Yet as many as are appointed to eternal life will believe (cf Acts 13:48), for “he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Ephesians 1:4; cf 2 Thessalonians 13–14). In this way, the parable is drawn to a close with a summary affirmation of all that it teaches: that God, the sovereign king of salvation, freely chooses to whom he will give it, and from whom he will withhold it.

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

For example, consider how one Catholic correspondent recently explained this to me:

The king is not the only governing official in this prophesied restored kingdom. The house of David also had a master of the palace, a type of prime minister, Eliakim, as Isaiah 22:15–25 and others, like 1 Kings 4:6, affirm (cf. Mt. 16:13–20). In Isaiah 22 Eliakim replaces the corrupt Shebna, showing that the prime minister’s position was an office of succession. Verse 21 explicitly says there is a transfer of authority between the two. The nature of the prime minister’s authority is that he has the keys to David’s house or kingdom, and whatever he opens, none shall shut; and whatever he shuts, none shall open. The prime minister had wide-ranging authority. This is further affirmed by verse 21 saying Eliakim will be a father to Jerusalem, Israel, and the house of Judah, which was David’s house, one of the twelve tribes of Israel.

I believe that the governing structure of the original house of David can be related to the Church of today. Even if Jesus’ Jewish disciples did not completely understand the nature of the kingdom of heaven, it is clear they understood that the restoration of the house of David somehow figured in the establishment of his heavenly kingdom. Peter and the other apostles didn’t question Jesus about the words he uttered in Matthew 16:18–19. They understood he was re-establishing the house of David and that Peter would have governing primacy in carrying out the mission of the new King, Christ, as the prime ministers of the former house of David did for their kings. Just as the former was a father to Israel and the house of Judah, so Peter would be a father to the new Israel, the Church.

The crucial difference is that the former prime ministers oversaw an earthly kingdom whereas the new leaders administer a heavenly kingdom. Consequently, Isaiah 22:25 says the prime minister and David’s kingdom would fall, but Christ tells Peter in Matthew 16:18 that the gates of hell will not prevail against the restored Davidic house, his Church. Jesus promised that he would be with his disciples until the end of time (Mt. 28:20).

This might look perfectly reasonable at first blush; so let me point out some (not all) of the problems with it.

1. Catholics do not have infallible exegesis to ground their claims on their own terms

Starting the critique from the ground up: on the Catholic’s own terms, only the Roman Magisterium has the authority to pronounce infallible interpretations of Scripture. Therefore, it seems reasonable that I should ask for the Magisterium’s infallible exegesis of all the passages which have just been cited above. It is, after all, the Catholic’s claim that personal interpretation, or private judgment, is unscriptural and dangerous, having led to all the various schisms throughout Christianity’s history—schisms which continue to this very day. The laity does not have the authority to interpret Scripture for themselves; they can only be certain of what any given passage means by consulting the Roman Magisterium. Thus, for a Catholic to validly know that the Bible has been interpreted correctly above, he must have infallible exegesis of all of the passages cited. How else could he possibly know that he has understood them correctly? Thus, on his own grounds, he has given me no reason to accept his exegesis; nor even any reason for him to accept it.

2. Catholics could not recognize infallible exegesis, even if they had it

However, even if a Catholic can produce infallible exegesis of every single passage cited (which he cannot, because no such exegesis exists) how could he tell that it was infallible? What criteria would he use to be sure? There doesn’t appear to be any certain way of knowing which pronouncements of the Church are infallible and which are not. Catholics themselves sometimes disagree about the status of various decrees. Was Unam Sanctam infallible, for example? What about Vatican II? Similarly we can ask about the interpretations of various passages. The Magisterium hasn’t produced any comprehensive, infallible exegesis of Scripture; any complete commentary of the Bible. Individual Catholic theologians are not infallible, so an appeal to just any old Catholic commentary won’t do—not even a whole bunch of them. In this regard, then, it seems that Catholics are in precisely the same situation as Protestants: having to interpret Scripture according to the best scholarship and methods and knowledge at hand. Although they appeal to the teaching authority of the church, in reality that teaching authority tells them nothing useful, and they are left to their own devices.

3. The Catholic interpretation of Scripture begs the question

In truth, the problem is worse than that, however. Even if the Catholic does not need infallible exegesis, nor to know that it is infallible, but instead claims that he submits his interpretation to the teaching authority of the church—not in the sense that said teaching authority has produced an infallible exegesis of its own, but in the sense that it constrains the bounds of exegesis via the existing doctrines of the church—he is still assuming the consequent. This is bare-faced question-begging. If no infallible interpretations for the passages in question exist, then it follows that the dogmas by which the Catholic layman’s own exegesis is constrained have not actually been derived from Scripture at all. On the contrary, they are read into Scripture; the meaning of a passage is not determined on the basis of the passage itself, but on the basis of prior Catholic doctrinal commitments. It is not taken out of the passage, but put into the passage; it is not derived, but imposed. In other words, the Catholic never does exegesis; he always does eisegesis.

4. Appealing to Scripture is really a roundabout way of appealing to Tradition

But perhaps this is only a problem on the Protestant’s presuppositions. Assuming that all the points above are moot, so the Catholic does not need infallible exegesis, nor to know that it’s infallible, then perhaps he’s not begging the question—perhaps on his own grounds eisegesis is how Scripture should be interpreted. If Scripture’s meaning is discovered by reference to the doctrines established in the infallible Catholic Tradition, then perhaps there isn’t a problem. Under the Catholic framework, Scripture and Tradition work alongside one another to produce the truths of the faith. But where and what is this Tradition? Is it God-breathed, like Scripture? I haven’t met a Catholic yet who will go so far as to say it is; because, in truth, every Catholic knows that “Tradition” is actually comprised of the various writings of individual men who were themselves entirely fallible (and often wrong). Yet it is this equivocal, hodge-podge, self-contradictory history of Christian writings which is the authority by which Scripture is interpreted. It is actually required, under the Catholic’s own view, to define the meaning of the unequivocal, unified, self-consistent word of God.

But how can non-inspired human tradition have authority over the inspired God-breathed Scripture? Naturally it cannot, and Roman Catholics will try to say that Tradition works alongside Scripture, and is derived from Scripture; rather than being above Scripture. But this is no more than lip-service. Regardless of what Romanism affirms in theory, in practice Scripture is entirely subordinated to Tradition, as I’ve just shown. And if Scripture is subordinated to Tradition, then the Catholic has no need to prove his case from Scripture. After all, it is Tradition which describes the papacy, and which thus defines what Scripture must mean in places like Matthew 16:18–19. Thus, why bother to appeal to Scripture at all? Why not be consistent and discard it altogether, and plainly admit that the papacy is grounded in Tradition? If eisegesis is the valid way of interpreting Scripture under the Catholic view, rather than deriving the meaning of the text from the text itself, then appealing to Scripture is just a roundabout way of appealing to Tradition. Why beat around the bush? Why not just go straight to Tradition in the first place?

5. Appealing to Tradition doesn’t offer the superiority that Catholicism claims

But even if all of the above points are moot, so the Catholic has no need for infallible exegesis, nor for knowing that it is infallible, and he is not begging the question, and he really is validly deriving his doctrines from Scripture by using Tradition as a guide, it remains that Tradition does not confer the epistemic advantage he claims it does. The Romanist position is that, without the Tradition of the Church to guide one, it’s impossible to determine with certainty the true meaning of Scripture. Thus, it’s every man for himself; the right of private judgment trumps all, and “every man is his own pope”. Subsequently there are “tens of thousands” of denominations, all believing different things (if the typical Catholic is to be believed!) Without an infallible interpreter, the Church would schism and lose its hold on the truth.

Now aside from the obvious fact that, even if the Roman Magisterium is an infallible interpreter, the universal church has still schismed into numerous denominations and “lost its hold of the truth”, it should be clear after a moment’s consideration that an infallible interpreter doesn’t solve the alleged problem. The teaching documents of the Roman Church are not more simple than Scripture itself. They are by no means more perspicuous. If anything, they are harder to understand. But even if they were not; even if they were apparently very clear, how can the Catholic layman be certain that he is understanding them correctly? He claims that he has a superior position to the Protestant in terms of knowing the truth. But how? In the case of the Protestant, he has an infallible rule of faith (the Bible) which he must interpret using his own fallible faculties. He has no guarantee that he will interpret everything rightly. In the case of the Catholic, he has an infallible rule of faith (the Magisterium) which he must interpret using his own fallible faculties. Just like the Protestant, he has no guarantee that he will interpret everything rightly. So in what way is the Catholic position superior to the Protestant one? Clearly it is not; it has merely pushed the “problem” of private judgment back one step. But if the positions are epistemically identical, then in fact the Protestant has the advantage, because he is interpreting infallible Scripture directly, while the Catholic is not. The Protestant is closer to God’s inspired word than the Catholic is. If an infallible understanding of the faith is really the issue, as the Catholic claims, then the Catholic position actually fails by its own standards, and the Protestant position turns out to be superior.

6. Peter is not given any primacy of authority in Scripture

Leaving aside the prior epistemic questions now, and getting into the meat of the passage in question—even if the Catholic has no need for infallible exegesis, nor for knowing that it is infallible, and even if he is not begging the question, and he really is validly deriving his doctrines from Scripture by using Tradition as a guide, and even if he somehow can get around the problem of his fallible faculties—it remains that Scripture itself is neither supportive of, nor neutral towards his position. In fact, it contradicts the notion that Peter was given special authoritative primacy. In John 20:23 and Matthew 18:18, all of the disciples are given the same authority by Jesus as is allegedly given specially to Peter in Matthew 16. Now, it is certainly possible that Matthew 16 shows Jesus giving this authority to Peter preeminently, as the leader of the apostles. But if this is the case, the preeminence is as an apostle; it is a preeminence of standing, and not of authority. Peter is given the authority before the others as an honor—but it is still the same authority. Thus, his preeminence cannot constitute sole ownership, or even special ownership, of the authority represented by the keys—this was given to all of the apostles equally. Therefore, under the Catholic’s own view, there should be twelve popes with one having preeminence. Yet this is obviously not the case.

Moreover, Matthew 16 does not need to be understood to refer especially to Peter for any reason related to his preeminence among the apostles—rather, it is naturally read as singling him out for the sole reason that he was the one who answered Jesus’ question, “who do you say I am?” Had someone else replied, would Jesus have withheld the authority of the keys, despite giving that authority to all of the apostles later? That seems a very unreasonable conclusion.

7. Peter is not the rock to which Jesus is referring in Matthew 16

But even if the Catholic has no need for infallible exegesis, nor for knowing that it’s infallible, and even if he’s not begging the question, and he really is validly deriving his doctrines from Scripture by using Tradition as a guide, and he somehow can get around the problem of his fallible faculties, and then even assuming that Peter is given a special primacy, he still does not appear to be the rock to which Jesus is referring. Ephesians 2:20 and Revelation 21:14 explicitly name the foundation of the church as all of the apostles, with Jesus as the cornerstone. This being the case, how can Peter be the rock on which the church is to be built? Clearly he cannot be. All of the apostles are part of that rocky foundation, which rests on the one rock: Jesus himself. Since Matthew 16:18 can be read in various ways, and since the reading of Peter as the rock is at odds with other parts of Scripture, the Catholic reading should be discarded. It makes more sense to understand the rock as Peter’s profession of faith, and Peter as being “rocky”. Indeed, this interpretation is not unheard of in the early Christian writings, and was preferred by that great Doctor of the Church, Augustine himself—which speaks volumes about the Catholic notion of unified church tradition, and of a papacy existing since day 1. (Of course, Augustine also said a lot of very Romanist-sounding things, and his ecclesiology left much to be desired; yet nonetheless he does not recognize Peter as the rock.)

8. In its descriptions of the church offices, Scripture does not describe a special office for Peter

But even if the Catholic has no need for infallible exegesis, nor for knowing that it is infallible, and he is not begging the question, and he really is validly deriving his doctrines from Scripture by using Tradition as a guide, and he can get around the problem of his fallible faculties, and then even assuming that Peter is given a special primacy, and that he is even the rock to which Jesus is referring, there is still utterly no corroborating evidence in Scripture that this equated to some kind of special office. It is very odd that to build a case for the papacy, Catholics have to go Matthew 16—by no means a clear and explicit institution of the Roman Catholic papacy. This is highly incongruous, because the New Testament frequently alludes to church offices, and explicitly names them. Therefore, if the papacy genuinely did exist as a special office in the New Testament era, instituted by Jesus himself, we would not expect the only corroboration for it to exist obscurely in passages like Matthew 16 and John 21. Rather, we’d expect to find this most important office of the church named in the same way that the offices of bishop and deacon are named. Or if not that frequently, then at least once or twice. After all, those offices not only are they mentioned by name (Acts 20:17; Philippians 1:1), but their appointment is described (Acts 14:23; Ephesians 4:11; Titus 1:5), their qualifications (1 Timothy 3:1–13; Titus 1:5–9), their discipline (1 Timothy 5:19–20), their responsibilities (Ephesians 4:12–13; Titus 1:10–11; James 5:14; 1 Peter 5:1–3), their reward (1 Timothy 5:17–18; 1 Peter 5:4), their rank (1 Corinthians 12:28), and the submission due them (1 Timothy 2:11–12). If there was an office that was to have primacy over these (not to mention infallibility) throughout church history, an office which could be called the very foundation of the church, it is totally unreasonable to think that it would not be mentioned explicitly and often in the New Testament. And it is simply absurd to think that it wouldn’t be mentioned at all.

Moreover, there isn’t even a single Roman bishop mentioned or named. There aren’t any admonitions to submit to the papacy; any references to appointing popes; any references to determining whether they’re exercising infallibility; any references to appealing to them to settle disputes. And when speaking about the post-apostolic future, the New Testament refers to bishops and teachers in general (Acts 20:28–31; 2 Timothy 2:2) and submission to scripture (2 Timothy 3:15–17; 2 Peter 3:1–2; Revelation 22:18–19)…yet it says not a word about any papacy.

9. Scripture contradicts the idea of papal succession

But even if the Catholic has no need for infallible exegesis, nor for knowing that it’s infallible, and even if he isn’t begging the question, and he really is validly deriving his doctrines from Scripture by using Tradition as a guide, and he can find his way around the problem of his fallible faculties, and then even assuming that Peter is given a special primacy, and that he is the rock to which Jesus is referring, and that this entails the special papal office—even assuming all of these things, which is just vastly unwarranted, there is still nothing to support the notion of papal succession. If the parallel between Matthew 16 and Isaiah 22 can be extended as far as the Catholic would like, then verse 25 of Isaiah 22 indicates that the office in question is not one of succession. Eliakim replaced Shebna at God’s explicit command; but who replaced Eliakim? The Catholic may say, as in the example quoted at the beginning of this increasingly unlikely missive, that Jesus institutes succession in Matthew 16 in contrast to Isaiah 22. But this a very slender straw at which to grasp, since firstly the “it” against which he says “the gates of hell shall not prevail” is not the rock but the church; and secondly even if it were the rock, this wouldn’t actually imply succession in any case.

More importantly, though, even if we assume for the sake of argument that this supposed office might have been one of succession, where the keys were passed on from Peter to the next pope, and then to the next one in turn, we know that this didn’t happen. The Book of Revelation was written in the nineties AD by most reckonings; Peter was martyred in the sixties; so, under the Catholic’s own view, the keys would have passed to someone else by that time. Sure as custard, Revelation 3:7 says very specifically that Jesus has the key of David. So even if some special office was conferred on Peter alone in Matthew 16, how can the Catholic claim that this office passed to his successors? Or, if it did pass to his successors, apparently it was a short line of succession; for the keys which represent that office found their way back into Jesus’ hands by the turn of the century. Thus, it is impossible that the current pope holds the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Those keys are held by Jesus now.

In conclusion

This is how high the Catholic house of cards is—at least nine storeys. It is an irrational structure from the ground up; from its self-contradictory epistemic claims to its contradictions of Scripture. Such a flimsy and teetering foundation is not a gospel at all. There is no salvation on top of that very tall house of cards.

Related posts:

1. A response to Glenn Peoples’s ‘No, I am not an inerrantist’

I believe that God is the primary author of Scripture who used human authors as his instruments. They wrote freely everything that God wanted written.

I agree that God is the primary author of Scripture; but I don’t think your statement makes sense. You hold to libertarian freedom, which entails that for any given choice we have the real possibility of doing otherwise. Thus, in order to freely write what someone else wants you to write, you would have to first evaluate it. You would need to be able to review God’s thoughts and then write them down of your own free will. Otherwise, if you were writing your own thoughts, and you were genuinely free, there could be no guarantee that you would write what God wanted. Or, if you were writing God’s thoughts but you believed you were writing your own, you would not be writing genuinely freely. Am I to take it, then, that you hold to a dictation theory of inspiration?

I don’t have a problem with the rest of your statements on inerrancy; traditionally, Rome has held a basically identical doctrine of Scripture to that affirmed in the Reformed confessions.

I believe that God wants to make himself known to, and to enter into a relationship with, everyone in order to save us.

In a sense this is true; but is it an unqualified statement? Because the devil, as they say, is in the details. I agree that God wants to make himself known to, and enter into a saving relationship with everyone. This is a straightforward intention contingent upon the existence of sinners. Some Calvinists would disagree, and I think they can consistently do that, but there are (in my opinion) very strong arguments in favor of God’s universal benevolence. But, having affirmed universal benevolence, it must equally be said that whatever God desires toward that end, he nonetheless does not cause. Even you, despite your very high view of human sovereignty impinging God’s sovereignty, must acknowledge this. God creates many people in situations where they not only will not receive the gospel, but cannot receive it. Throughout history, a vast number of people have been lost because they were born in places where the gospel had not yet reached. Or, under the old covenant, a vast number of people were lost because, quite simply, God chose Israel as his people, and excluded the other nations. This is very incongruent with your unqualified statement about God’s desires toward all people; but is not only highly congruent, but in fact prefigures the Calvinistic view of God’s relationship with the elect and the reprobate. There is nothing mysterious or contradictory about God’s intentions in this regard. Consider:

1. God purposes to glorify himself through (a) the redemption of an elect people (glorifying his love and mercy), and (b) the reprobation of sinners (glorifying his justice and wrath).
2. God brings about the created order through which he will achieve this purpose, thus creating sinners made in his image, using the fall as the mechanism for this.
3. Through (2), the conditions are established in which God, because he is love, has a straightforward moral intention of benevolence towards all sinners without exception—even those whom he has purposed in (1b) to be lost.

Notice that (3) is contingent upon (2) which is contingent upon (1). In other words, God’s universal benevolence toward all sinners is actually predicated upon his prior intention to reprobate some sinners to hell. In the Catholic scheme, you have a totally different state of affairs which is at best sublapsarian, and leads to a number of inconsistencies between God’s actions and his intentions. It would look something like this, though you’re most welcome to adjust it to better fit Catholic theology; I don’t mean to misrepresent your position:

4. God purposes to create mankind to live in a perfect relationship with him.
5. Mankind falls, contra (4).
6. God desires and purposes to reconcile all of mankind to himself.
7. But he then continues to create people he knows will not be reconciled to himself, contra (6).
8. And in addition, even those who can be reconciled to himself will not necessarily be, contra (6).

This view of God, frankly, is insulting to a being who is unqualifiedly wise and powerful. Better put, this is a view of God in which he is not unqualifiedly wise and powerful. Rather than declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, “My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,” the exact opposite is true. Isaiah 46:10 describes the Calvinist superlapsarian view of God perfectly; and it contradicts the Catholic view just as aptly. Now, you may say I have misrepresented the Catholic view; and again, you’re welcome to correct it as you see fit. But I cannot see that it would take less than turning it on its head to fit it into the biblical teaching about God’s actions in creation.

I believe that the Bible must be read according to its literal sense, as we read other forms of human literature, in the context of all of the original writing.

Good, then you agree with the grammatico-historical method of exegesis. We therefore have a basis for interpreting Scripture together without having to defer to the alleged authority of the Roman Magisterium.

But because the principal author of Scripture is the Holy Spirit, we must also read Scripture in the spiritual sense: what the Holy Spirit is telling us, beyond what the human authors have consciously stated. Often they did not know exactly what their own writings meant, as in the prophecies, or were unaware of deeper underlying meanings. The literal sense describes a historical reality and the spiritual discloses deeper mysteries revealed through the historical realities. I believe that we can distinguish between the literal and spiritual senses but that we cannot separate them. I accept the ancient Christian tradition that there are three spiritual senses that stand on the literal foundation: allegorical (unveils the spiritual and prophetic meaning of Biblical history); moral (how the life of Jesus prompts us to form virtuous habits); anagogical (shows how events in the Bible prefigure our final union with God). Together, all these senses draw out the fullness of what God wants to give us through his Word. This spiritual reading of Scripture goes back to the Bible itself: Paul, Peter and Jesus used this method of reading Scripture. Examples available if required.

I agree, though with reservations. Determining the literal meaning of a passage is generally relatively trivial, using grammatico-historical exegesis. Determining the sensus plenior is not always as easy, and is more open to disagreement. Jesus and the apostles were divinely inspired to know the sensus plenior of a given passage definitively; we are not. There are cases where the fuller meaning is clear (Psalm 22, for instance); but there are also places where it is not so clear, or where it is open to multiple interpretations, or where it is hard to see at all.

Having given this brief outline, I think that the key to understanding the Bible systematically is to remember that we divide it into the Old and the New Testaments, or Covenants. This must therefore be a vital theme that runs right through the Bible and our understanding of it and what God is saying to us through it; that is, our interpretation of the Bible must always bear this fact in mind. The Bible is the history of salvation [...]

Again, I agree; however one’s covenant theology will strongly influence one’s exegesis. You need to be sure your view of the covenants is accurate if you are going to interpret Scripture within a covenantal framework. Catholic covenant theology errs in a number of ways—

[...] of God’s attempts to reconcile us with himself and to make us part of his Family of the Trinity, as we were before the Fall.

—and that’s one of them. God does not “attempt” to reconcile us to himself. God will accomplish all his purposes. If he purposes to reconcile someone to himself, then that person will be reconciled. Thus:

1. Everyone God purposes to reconcile to himself will be so reconciled.
2. Not everyone is reconciled to God.
3. Therefore, God does not purpose to reconcile everyone to himself.

The offer of membership in this Kingdom is extended to all, even if not all accept it.

Agreed; but the offer of membership is extended on the basis of God’s contingent universal benevolence. It doesn’t imply that God has purposed to save all, or that he non-contingently desires to save all.

The Kingdom is to be found, on earth, in the Church that Jesus built on Peter and the Apostles: the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church which you profess in the Creed.

Agreed. And that is not the Roman Catholic Church.

Related posts:

1. “No one is righteous”…metaphorically speaking
2. A response to Glenn Peoples’s ‘No, I am not an inerrantist’

Click here for Angels Depart’s final statement; below is my response—

As I see it, Angels, there are three main areas which I must cover in this final response so as to show convincingly that God must exist, and that the Bible is his revelation. The first area regards the issue of the textual criticism of Scripture. I will dwell on this as briefly as possible, since although it is important, it is also incidental to the main thrust of my argument. The second deals with science and probability. Again, I will treat this with as cursory a consideration as possible before leading into the third area, which is the question of epistemic authority and security. I will spend the most time on this question, in order to fully demonstrate why God must exist.

So firstly, regarding the contradictions you have asserted to exist in Scripture. You discuss angels being bound versus the devil being free; God’s omnipotence versus his inability to lie; and his alleged inability against iron chariots. Your responses to the first two of these three questions seem to be disconnected from the arguments I forwarded in my previous statement. You accuse me of failing to address the issue of devils appropriately, and of “completely ignoring” the “blatant contradiction” of God’s omnipotence and inability to lie. But in my previous statement, I said—

Since God is truth (John 14:6; 1 John 5:6), and he cannot contravene his own nature (otherwise he could not be God), it is absurd to suppose that he can lie. If he could lie, he would not be God. It does not make him less than omnipotent, unless you misunderstand what omnipotence means.

As you can see, I have clearly answered your objection. If you believe that my answer is inadequate then I would ask that you explain why, rather than alleging that I ignored the “contradiction” altogether. Similarly, as regards the issue of demons, I stated clearly that the Bible does not say in 2 Peter 2:4 or Jude 1:6 which angels were imprisoned; nor how many. It is true that fallen angels are demons, and that Satan, the devil, is a fallen angel. But these passages do not say that all angels were imprisoned, nor when. There is ample provision within them to be referring to a specific group of angels; and there is ample provision also for the passages to be speaking metaphorically rather than merely spiritually. If the latter is true, then it is likely that they are referring to the same event as Revelation 20:2. I would interpret this through a preterist eschatology and argue that the binding is not in a literal pit for a literal thousand years (that is, it is not a total incapacitation), but rather is an apocalyptic illustration of how God has revoked the ability of Satan and his angels to prevent the spread of the gospel in the “millennium”, which is the current age. However, it seems needless to continue any complex exegesis when I can simply point out that to establish a contradiction here would require far more information than the passages themselves provide. It is only by assuming from them a great deal more than is warranted that any kind of incongruity can be suggested. I made this quite clear in my previous statement, and it strikes me as strange that you would have mistaken my clear refutation of your objection for my conceding the point.

As regards Judges 1, you have conceded my defense here, and although you raise ancillary objections, they are not arguments per se, but rather your own personal disagreement with God’s methods. No doubt you would do things differently to God, but since the Bible itself tells us to expect such a thing, this is by no means a problem.

What would be really impressive in situations like these is if god made himself/herself known directly to the enemies of his/her people. A direct revelation from god could not be refused. There are many examples of god making people’s hearts hardened and making them disobey his/her command, but he/she never coerces someone to follow them.

Of course, this is simply not true. If by a “direct” revelation you mean simply a revelation in which God himself appears to people, then such a thing can and may be refused, as evidenced by all those who gathered around Jesus and yet disbelieved him. But if by a “direct” revelation you mean a personal imparting, by God, of the truth of his word, then such revelation is never refused. This is the basis of Christian faith: the indwelling Spirit and the implanted word (Jer 31:31-35; John 3:3-8; James 1:21).

The second thing is, if god normally works through average everyday means then how do we know that it is god working? If we assume that it is god working but he/she is working through everyday means then how is that any different than there being no god?

As I will show, the difference is that reality is unintelligible and impossible if there is no God. Nonetheless, I find your question rather bizarre. I’m not really sure with what purpose you framed it, so it is difficult to answer directly.

Moving on, you ask why God would issue a covenant knowing full well that it would be broken. This question is loaded with implicit assumptions, not least of which is the supposition that God issues covenants for similar reasons that people do; and that people always wish covenants they issue to be fulfilled. However, since God’s purpose in creation is to glorify himself, and one of the ways in which he can do this is to show the results of disobedience to his commands, many reasonable explanations can be formulated to the contrary. That said, it is not necessarily appropriate for a Christian to do this, and I will not be seen to be questioning or testing God’s motives—neither is it necessary for the sake of argument, since your inability to discern these motives does not imply that they do not exist, nor that they are not superlatively good.

Nonetheless, lest your accusation of God being deceitful seem unanswered, let it be noted that Scripture does in fact explicitly state at least one purpose of the law in general (which includes the covenant conditions in question): to demonstrate man’s inability to justify himself before God, and thus the necessity of faith (Gal 3). It “was our guardian until Christ, so that we could be justified by faith” (v 24). There was no deceit on God’s part; only inability and incomprehension on man’s part.

As for your allegation that “there is a countless amount [sic] of absurdities and direct contradictions in the Bible that are impossible to reconcile”, I have already shown that this is a ridiculous claim. You cannot give examples of supposed contradictions, have them refuted, and then immediately say, “well there are countless others that can’t be reconciled!” Since I have proved that those contradictions which you have alleged were apparent only on the basis of an ignorance or naiveté of one sort or another, it is simply absurd to give you, rather than the text, the benefit of the doubt as regards other supposed contradictions. To do so would be to commit the twofold error of violating a major principle of textual criticism, and ignoring the precedent of your previous errors—errors which you now compound by citing a supposed incongruity between Genesis 1 and 2, thus demonstrating that you are ignorant of a fundamental aspect of Hebrew thought: block logic. Since you are evidently unaware that in Hebrew culture it was common to arrange stories conceptually, rather than chronologically, how can I possibly take your criticism of the Bible any more seriously than you would take criticism of evolutionary theory from someone who did not understand the concept of a common ancestor? Your textual objection is as well-founded as the scientific objection that if we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys around? (I should also note that it isn’t really cricket to allege another contradiction after I have already considered and refuted more than I originally offered to—at best it suggests a certain degree of desperation on your part.)

Now, to briefly address your objections to the canon of Scripture: since these seem to be based entirely on your own speculation rather than any hard evidence; and since, if Scripture is true, then God sovereignly ensured its accurate transmission regardless of potential pitfalls and possibilities of error, I see no counter-argument that needs to be made. Scripture is inerrant because it was authored by God, and not because of any particular historical arguments. That said, the only historical arguments against its accuracy are those propounded by heavily biased, fringe theorists who have an insufficient grounding in genuine historical scholarship.

Lastly, the argument from atrocity. You cite various New Testament passages which supposedly contradict the Bible’s own commands in the Old Testament. However, since I have already stated that these Old Testament commands were situational and specific, and cannot be generalized; and since I have similarly acknowledged the general commands given in both the Old and New Testament to love one’s enemy, you appear to be arguing against a nonexistent position. Your objection does not engage with my point regarding specific versus general commands at all, let alone demonstrate why it is in error. You would therefore seem to concede this point by default.

The second area I must cover is science and probability. More specifically, I should say science and uniformity. You have given some impressive-looking calculations and arguments for the accuracy of scientific prediction, but you have done so on the basis of the very assumptions which I have called into question. In other words, you are continuing to assume the validity of presuppositions such as the uniformity of nature, so as to make your argument. But since it is not any specific experiment which I am questioning, but rather the underlying philosophy of them all—the very presuppositions you are assuming—your argument is both irrelevant and unable to engage with the points I am making. Allow me to elaborate:

For example we do have a way of knowing exactly the potential outcome given consistent variables. If you are coming up with slightly different outcomes it is likely that your variables have not been consistent. For instance, in your example regarding a measurement taken on the speed of sound, I would question whether or not the scientist was controlling for variables, such as wind speed, air density and elevation.

The latter part of this statement is not in question. I was careful to mention, when giving this example, that I was simplifying for the sake of brevity. Furthermore, the example (along with its companion the pendulum) was demonstrating that “empirical” laws are actually not empirical at all—a point with which you have not engaged. It was not trying to show that consistent results are impossible.

Nor have I claimed that consistent results are impossible. On the contrary! I affirm the law of uniformity, and the usefulness of science, and the benefits of medicine, and all those other things you represented me (for what reason I do not know) as being against. My point was that you, and not I, are in the situation of having no justified, rational reason to suppose that consistent results are to be expected at all. Since you have no rational reason to suppose this, you also have no basis for calculating even the most tentative probabilities—for, as I said, this requires knowledge of the number of actual and possible instances of something happening. If you have no justification for supposing that something will happen the same way twice (given sufficient control of the variables of course), then you have no basis for calculating a probability based on hypothetical occurrences; you must restrict yourself to actual ones. My comments regarding probability were merely introductory to the main thrust of my argument, which was regarding uniformity. This argument you have not engaged with in the slightest. You have not even attempted to refute the fact that your (not my!) worldview cannot justify its assumption of uniformity, which of course includes such assumptions as the accuracy of memory and so on.

Now, for some reason it is entirely common for people to think that I am myself arguing against science, uniformity, and so on, when in fact I am arguing against the secular scientific worldview. Obviously, it is absurd and ridiculous to think that if I hold up a glass of water and let it go, it will not fall to the ground and break, sending water all over the place. We all agree on that. What seems to be somehow missed in my presentation is that this is my point. If it is so absurd and ridiculous to disbelieve uniformity, then conversely its truth must be obvious and entirely sensible. But if it is so obvious and true, then it ought easily to be demonstrated. Such an obvious truth, being so fundamental to all science, should be able to easily be proved. There should be a rational basis for it. To put it more technically, the philosophy of science should entail a metaphysic, or theory of reality, which can rationally justify its belief in the principle of uniformity.

But it can’t. The Christian worldview, of course, can—it accounts perfectly for uniformity, because our orderly and consistent God “upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb 1:3). We can rightly ridicule a worldview which cannot even account for the basic principle of uniformity, because such a worldview is genuinely ridiculous.

Now, this leads me into my third and final area of discussion, which is epistemology and metaphysics. You said that we “have a way of knowing exactly the potential outcome given consistent variables.” I am glad you used that word, knowing, because that is the precise question at hand. If I can show that you have no way of knowing anything of the sort—that you have no justification for any scientific or religious proposition which you may assert—then the foundation of your entire worldview crumbles, and any argument you may bring to bear will collapse from the ground up. Conversely, if I can show that I do have justification for the scientific and religious propositions I assert, I automatically exclude any contrary propositions by merit of that justification.

What I am saying is that knowledge (I am sure you will agree) entails a belief which is both true, and justified. One may coincidentally believe something true, but if one believes for no good reason, or for false reasons, then one does not have knowledge. Therefore, if you are to make any claim to knowledge (such as that God does not exist, or that it is unknowable whether or not he exists), you must be able to justify your claim. You must be able to show that it is true. If your assertion is without rational basis—that is, if it cannot be shown to be genuinely, objectively true, but rather is ultimately a result of your own subjective ideas—then obviously you have no argument whatsoever. You have only opinion; and opinion is of no use in a debate.

So far, you have offered numerous reasons for doubting the truth of Christianity. These reasons have basically been empirical in nature, one way or the other. You have assumed that one can come to at least some knowledge through empirical means, and that this knowledge can contradict other knowledge-claims, such as those made by the Bible. But what if you can come to no knowledge whatsoever using empirical methods?

In order to use empirical evidences, you must make assumptions. One of the assumptions I have already mentioned is that of uniformity. Since you are unable to justify this assumption, any belief built on top of it is necessarily unjustified as well. That is to say, if you claim to know that the Flood did not occur (and here is why I concede no point at all regarding it), then you must also claim to know all the other things, including philosophical ones, upon which this alleged knowledge is based. If a prerequisite to your claim is that nature is uniform, then you must be able to know that nature is uniform. It is no good to merely believe it, no matter how apparently obvious or necessary that belief is. Indeed, the more obvious or necessary it seems, the easier it ought to be to show that it is rationally justified.

More fundamentally, though, empirical knowledge-claims rely on more basic assumptions, like, an external world exists, and, we can come to knowledge of the external world through our senses. Again, how do you know this? You may subjectively believe it, and it may appear absurd to question it, but what rational justification do you have for this belief? If no rational justification can be given, then regardless of how sensible it may seem, it cannot be called knowledge. And, as I have said, a worldview which cannot justify even its most basic beliefs can rightly be called ridiculous. Since it clearly fails to engage with even the most fundamental aspects of reality, which we all take for granted, there is certainly no reason to suppose that it correctly interprets reality in more complex ways.

It should be obvious from what I have said so far that no worldview which is based purely on subjective experience can make any meaningful claim to knowledge (by “meaningful” I am referring to claims of the sort currently under debate: religious assertions and the like). Since knowledge deals with rational justification and true beliefs, it is by definition dealing with principles and facts which are not specific to any one person, but rather are universal to all people, having an origin outside of them. In other words, knowledge must be objective. But a particular and subjective person such as you or I is simply unable to assert universal and objective principles on the basis of our own experience. We have no way of knowing that we are not mistaken. The rather tired example of the brain in the vat suffices to show this. It is only in the case of necessarily true objective facts, such as the law of noncontradiction, that we can make any claim to knowledge at all. Nothing can simply be asserted as true on the basis of subjective belief, regardless of what it is.

This leaves the empiricist, who relies wholly on subjective interpretation of the world and the belief that what he perceives actually correlates to what is, in a position of total skepticism. Unless he can logically infer from the proposition, I perceive an external and physical world, to the conclusion, there is such a world, he simply cannot know if he is right about any given knowledge-claim or not. He would have to stop making knowledge-claims altogether. But such skepticism itself is a self-refuting position: that is, its assumption that we can know nothing about the world is itself rationally unjustified. How do we know we can know nothing about the world? What if, for example, there is an objective, universal deity who is both immanent (exists within reality and can communicate with us) and transcendent (exists outside of reality as we know it, and causes it to exist)? What if that deity has given us a true revelation of the world, so that we can know about it and make justified claims about it?

Certainly, such a revelation would be a valid basis for making knowledge-claims. If that revelation was from a truthful God, and if it declared that this was so, and if it told us enough about the world to build a workable framework for interpreting reality—that is, a metaphysic—then that metaphysic would be completely true, and any claims to knowledge we made based on it, whether directly or through valid inference, would be indeed genuine. So, since any worldview which is based on subjective experience or beliefs cannot make knowledge-claims and must reduce to skepticism; and, since skepticism refutes itself and cannot be true; therefore a worldview based on an objective revelation is the only possible alternative. Without it, you cannot claim to know, and you cannot claim not to know. A revelatory worldview is therefore not merely the only theoretically viable one—it is the only actually viable one. No other worldview can be true. To say otherwise is a knowledge-claim, which I have just shown cannot be made except on the basis of objective revelation. Therefore, any knowledge-claim—even one which asserts the falsehood of a revelatory worldview—must presuppose objective revelation. It borrows from this revelation even as it seeks to deny it.

Now, you might object that, even so, there are many worldviews which claim to be based on objective revelation, so the point I am making is at best moot. It certainly does not help me in establishing the truth of Christianity, since although I seem to have narrowed the possible contenders for a true worldview to a handful, I have no justification for claiming the Bible as the one genuine revelation, rather than (say) the Qur’an. But of course, even your saying this requires some kind of basis for doing so. What basis will you claim? I have already shown that you are wrong to say that no proof exists for God, since whichever alleged revelation is genuine does indeed constitute such a proof, as does the argument I have given above. It is in fact impossible for God to not exist, since that would mean we can know nothing. The only possible knowledge-claim which can be made in this regard is that God does exist. The assertion that he does not is by definition false; therefore, once properly reduced and analyzed, it is actually unintelligible. It is an incoherent statement; it means nothing. It is not a knowledge-claim, and worse, since it claims to be knowledge-claim, it is not even a sensible statement at all. Thus your position—whether it be that God does not exist, or merely that we cannot know if he exists—is shown to be absurd and false.

So even if it is the case that revelationism does not establish the truth of Christianity automatically, you should still recant your previous agnosticism and earnestly try to determine which revelation is true. (I say this only to remind you that your agnosticism has been soundly refuted and you have therefore lost the debate; we should still consider the objection, because that way we can show not only that “god”, in a general sense, exists; but that this god is YHVH, the Christian deity.)

Obviously there is a great deal which can be said at this point; and a lot that should be said also. For example, to most fully expound and prove my case, I should not merely disprove all other non-Christian worldviews, but also explicate the biblical metaphysic and epistemology to show that they do indeed make reality intelligible. Obviously, the Christian worldview must actually be able to justify the knowledge-claims it makes. However, I unfortunately cannot do this here for reasons of brevity and etiquette. For now, I can only direct you to The Wisdom Of God by way of proof that I can do this; and to Vincent Cheung’s Systematic Theology (PDF).

That said, I assert on the basis of the above precedent that the biblical worldview does make reality intelligible, while also acknowledging the open nature of this assertion, and inviting you to interact with it more fully in the future. In order to briefly demonstrate it, and to prove its exclusivity (that is, that only the Bible is sufficient as a basis for metaphysics and epistemology), I cite the philosophical concern known as the problem of the one and many.

This problem, briefly stated, asks: is the universe one? How then is it diverse? Or, is it diverse? How then is it one? This question can be expressed in many ways, but its basic gist is that either unity, or plurality, must be ultimate. If unity is ultimate, then diversity is impossible; if plurality is ultimate, then unity is impossible. However, neither of these situations is sensible, since they lead to logical absurdities. Obviously diverse things exist, and therefore unity cannot be ultimate, for no diversity can come from something totally unified. But if unity is not ultimate, then diversity must be—but then the same problem applies in reverse: no unity is possible. And if unity is impossible, relationships between things could never exist, for a relationship by definition is a unifying principle between two different things. Since logic entails relationships, and logic is self-affirming, it is irrational and self-refuting to think that diversity could be ultimate. Thus, neither is possible.

The only resolution to this dilemma is the equal ultimacy of unity and plurality represented in the trinitarian God of the Bible. Unless another worldview alleges a revelation from such a God, it cannot be true, because it would necessitate the impossible situation of an unintelligible reality. This simple philosophical issue therefore refutes any monotheistic or polytheistic religion which claims objective revelation. Any worldview which fails to answer the question of unity and plurality fails to make reality itself intelligible, and is thus incoherent and false.

Therefore, by merit of the impossibility of the contrary, Christianity must be true. Now again, to be fair, I have not presented my argument in great detail; nor have I explicated many points which might be misunderstood; nor have I dealt with many objections which commonly arise. If you would like, I would be quite willing to schedule a second debate to examine these sorts of questions in a mutually convenient way. Alternatively, I could recommend you read The Wisdom Of God, which is available online either in free PDF or a cheap paperback, and is linked at the top of the sidebar.

However, the salient points I wished to affirm have now been made. I have demonstrated that empiricism cannot make any knowledge-claims at all, and that you are therefore wrong to consider it either rational, or capable of proving anything. It is, in fact, irrational and unsupportable—and therefore false. I have demonstrated equally that skepticism is a position which must be necessarily false. Thereby, I have proved that what one might call revelationism—a system of thought founded upon objective revelation—must be true. This constitutes a proof for God in the broadest sense, and thus refutes the negative position of the moot of this debate. I have then further demonstrated that only the biblical worldview can genuinely claim divine revelation, because the gods of no other religions have natures which answer one of the basic questions which must be answered if reality is to be intelligible and coherent.

I have also addressed and refuted your objections against the Bible itself, from several angles, thus defending its internal consistency and truth. It therefore remains as the sole basis for any claim to knowledge, whatsoever.

Continued in the conclusion »

Related posts:

1. “No one is righteous”…metaphorically speaking

Click here for Angels Depart’s third statement; below is my response—

Erratum; August 2, 2007: thank you Jim for pointing out that I incorrectly cited the covenant conditions relating to Judges 1. These are not from Leviticus 7, but Deuteronomy 7.

As with my previous statement, Angels, I am going to respond only to some of the items you address. Again, this is not with the intent to avoid other important issues, but rather to focus on those which seem most central to the moot of the debate.

Firstly, thank you for clarifying your position regarding the burden of proof, and the claims of your own worldview. Your posts as I have read them seem to evidence a decidedly atheistic bent—and, given that the moot itself places you in the negative position regarding Does God exist? I inferred you to be taking a genuinely atheistic, rather than agnostic stance. If you are affirming agnosticism, at least in principle, a better moot would seem to be Can we know God exists? Nonetheless, since by answering that question in the affirmative I will also affirm this debate’s moot, I am happy to continue.

Secondly, I will briefly engage with the alleged contradictions you cite. Now, I said I would engage with just two, for the sake of brevity, and you have cited four (the negative positions of which are alleged to be Judges 1:19, Mark 6:5, Hebrews 6:18, and 1 Peter 5:8). I will engage with the first, and the third, so as to demonstrate the manner in which a lack of understanding severely cripples one’s ability to say anything about Scripture. This should provide adequate precedent to allow the second example of Mark 6:5 to be given the benefit of the doubt and thus suspended. Your fourth example (1 Pet 5:8) indicates no apparent contradiction at all, since 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6, which you list in contradiction to it, do not state which angels were imprisoned; Satan’s particular status could easily set him apart from them by mere implication anyway; and certainly we see Jesus casting out many unclean spirits during his ministry, so obviously they were not all imprisoned. There is good reason to think that the verses you cite are referring to an extra-biblical tradition about the Nephilim of Genesis 6, but even if not, no contradiction exists. So—

1. Is God all powerful?

Yes he is—but we must clarify what this means. For God to be all-powerful does not imply that he can do the logically impossible. For example, a popular question posed to Christians is, can God create a rock so heavy that he could not lift it? Or some iteration on that theme. Of course, the question is a contradiction in terms. It presupposes a being who can lift anything, and then asks about something he cannot lift. But if he can lift anything then obviously the question is incoherent. Though grammatically we can parse it, and semantically it seems to make sense, when broken into its logical components it is actually meaningless. It cannot be answered any more than the question can God create an uncreated being? By definition, an uncreated being cannot be created.

So omnipotence does not imply the ability to do logically absurd things, like creating uncreated beings, or imagining square circles. These things are meaningless in the most literal sense. Reason and logic are intrinsic elements of God’s nature—and he cannot be who he is not. It is not an imperfection on his part that he cannot be imperfect.

Similarly, to say that God cannot be all-powerful because it is impossible for him to lie (Heb 6:18) is to make an absurd statement. Since God is truth (John 14:6; 1 John 5:6), and he cannot contravene his own nature (otherwise he could not be God), it is absurd to suppose that he can lie. If he could lie, he would not be God. It does not make him less than omnipotent, unless you misunderstand what omnipotence means. This is why I said that contradictions appear to arise when one has insufficient knowledge to be evaluating Scripture.

The same is true of Judges 1:19. All emphases in the passages below are mine.

And the LORD was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain because they had chariots of iron.

Notice that it does not say that God could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain; it says Judah could not. The sentence is comprised of two parts: first, “the LORD was with Judah, and he [Judah] took possession of the hill country”; second, “but he [Judah] could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain because they had chariots of iron.” Is the LORD with Judah in the second part of the sentence? Obviously not; certainly Scripture details any number of other occasions where God causes his people to prevail in battle against apparently insurmountable odds—including the previous half of this very sentence—so it is hardly sensible to suppose that he could not do the same here. Rather, God was not with Judah in the battle against the inhabitants of the plain. If, instead of reading a single verse and taking it at a dubious “face value”, you continued on so as to understand the context of the passage, you could discover that an explanation is forthcoming at the very beginning of the very next chapter—

Now the angel of the LORD went up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, “I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall break down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed my voice. What is this you have done? So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you.” (Judges 2:1-3).

Here, the angel of the LORD is referring back to the covenant conditions of Leviticus Deuteronomy 7:1-2,12,16:

When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than yourselves, and when the LORD your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them.

And because you listen to these rules and keep and do them, the LORD your God will keep with you the covenant and the steadfast love that he swore to your fathers [...] And you shall consume all the peoples that the LORD your God will give over to you. Your eye shall not pity them, neither shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you.

But what do the Israelites, and specifically the people of Judah, do in Judges 1?

And the descendants of the Kenite, Moses’ father-in-law, went up with the people of Judah from the city of palms into the wilderness of Judah, which lies in the Negeb near Arad, and they went and settled with the people [...] Judah also captured Gaza with its territory, and Ashkelon with its territory, and Ekron with its territory (Judges 1:16,18).

Do the people of Judah devote their enemies to complete destruction? No! Judges 1 makes a point of mentioning this. They settle with them, and capture them, keeping them alive and even mingling among them, in total contravention to God’s command. God’s previous promise that they would have success was conditional upon them obeying his commandments; and so when they start to disobey, he revokes the promise. And, in order to make this as obvious as possible, the failure of the people of Judah to take the plains is directly preceded by their disobedience—in the very verse before!

Your assumption of a contradiction here is caused by a failure to understand the overall context of the story, which results in a failure to correctly identify the causality of the people’s defeat. God generally uses normal means to accomplish his purposes—in this case, he prevented the people of Judah from taking the plains by means of the iron chariots of its inhabitants. Would they have prevailed against the chariots if they had obeyed God? Of course they would have. God, being all-powerful, was in absolute control of the situation and could direct it as he pleased.

Rather than give the text the benefit of the doubt, as an impartial scholar would; and rather than investigate the story further for explanations, as an impartial scholar would; and rather than ensure that you understand the covenantal context within which the story is placed, as an impartial scholar would—you instead assume that you know more about what is going on than the author, read a few verses, focus on a single one which appears to you (in your complete ignorance of what is going on, and without even a critical consideration of the structure of the sentence), to be contradictory to the attributes of God, and then declare that the Bible contains contradictions. I hope I have made it evident how ridiculous this is.

Now, thirdly, some cites on the accuracy of oral tradition, and the dating of the original New Testament documents (even Wikipedia agrees, with the possible exception of James). However, as I mentioned before, I am making most of my comments regarding canon based on the highly regarded book, The Canon of Scripture, written by F F Bruce. Bruce is a noted and respected historian; which, I would caution you, cannot be said of people like Acharya S and Elaine Pagels, whose works, though publicly prejudiced, speculative, and well-refuted, you nonetheless seem to be referencing.

Fourthly, I would like to briefly dispense with the argument from atrocities. For the record, I am assuming the definition of atrocity as an atrocious act; one which is “extremely [...] brutal or cruel; appalling, horrifying; utterly revolting” (Merriam-Webster Online, atrocious). This definition appeals to the visceral response which most people would have. I use this definition so as to avoid the difficulties inherent to ethical judgments, so as to ensure that we have a common ground from which to work. From an ethical standpoint it should go without saying that I deny that the Bible approves atrocities whatsoever.

Now, I have already stated that the Bible contains no examples, out of the above-defined sorts of atrocities, which can be extrapolated from specific, historical events into general principles for all time; but rather that it mandates, in the absence of such general commands, the principle: “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44).

You cite Numbers 31:16-18 in support of your case that the Bible approves atrocities in general—but the events therein are in fact an example of specific, historical commands. They, like all other examples in Scripture, give us no leave to treat them as if they contain a general principle to be applied outside of the direct circumstances in which they occurred. Furthermore, even if they did give us such leave, and even if other scriptural teaching such as Matthew 5 did not militate against, you would still need to demonstrate that the generalization does not commit the fallacy of induction.

That said, your argument from atrocity does not rest upon the soundness of these generalizations. Rather, it seems to be agnostic to the general application of biblical teaching by Christians, and is directed instead toward the examples in Scripture itself. You succinctly state that, “if the god of the Bible is real and did allow these atrocities then he is not worthy of being served”—which, you say, would be in direct contradiction to the biblical teaching that he is worthy, and thus prove the falsehood of Scripture. Let me agree with you that a single contradiction in Scripture is sufficient to prove Christianity false; and let me also do you the service of justifying your assertion that the Bible teaches that God is worthy of our service. This is a fact upon which the entire law, and thus the entire gospel, rests—see Exodus 20, and also Revelation 4:11.

I interpret your argument, in referring to “these atrocities”, as referring not only or necessarily to events such as the Crusades, but also to those described in your selected passage of Numbers 31, and others. Obviously, these events were not merely allowed by God, but commanded by him. Therefore, we can certainly say that the condition upon which your premise rests is amply met: God has allowed, and even at times commanded atrocities.

However, the consequent assertion of your argument is that God is therefore not worthy of being served. This seems to be a confused statement. It is asserted in order to establish a contradiction within Scripture, but is not itself justified from Scripture. That is to say, your argument is couched as an internal critique of the biblical worldview; something like this—

1. The Bible states that God is worthy of being served (from Ex 20, etc).
2. If God commands atrocities, then he is not worthy of being served.
3. God commands atrocities (from Num 31, etc).
4. Therefore, he is not worthy of being served (from #2).
5. Therefore, the Bible is false (from #1 and #4).

There is an obvious omission in the logic above: that is, the justification for premise #2. You have not cited any, and there is no scriptural basis for it. After all, these atrocities were commanded by God either to preclude the possibility of the Israelites turning aside and violating the commandment to serve him (in the case of their destroying other peoples), or to punish them when they did (such as in the case of your Numbers 31 passage). We may reasonably infer that a physical destruction is a foreshadowing of the eternal destruction for which all those who do not serve God are devoted, as described frequently throughout the Bible—for example, in the first half of Revelation 21. Since the Bible approves that those who do not serve God be punished with eternal torment, destruction, and death; we can argue a fortiori that it must equally approve a lesser, temporal torment, destruction, and death visited upon the same people.

This is certainly confirmed repeatedly by Scripture. Consider, for example, that God himself, in Exodus 7-12, strikes Egypt with plagues culminating in the death of all its first-born males, as a judgment upon the nation, through Pharaoh (who was hardened by God so that this would happen). Or consider his judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. Or how, in 2 Samuel 24, he incites David to number the people, so as to punish him for doing this—and then how this punishment involves the deaths of 70,000 men. Or simply glance through Deuteronomy to see all the sins which warranted death, so as to purge the evil from Israel.

So it is quite evident that premise #2 of your argument is not a biblical one: God is definitely not unworthy of service though he commands what we have defined as atrocities. Therefore, this premise cannot be used to internally critique the biblical worldview. You have imported it from your own worldview, which has no bearing on Christianity. Now, if your worldview is true, then Christianity is false in any case, so your argument from atrocity is superfluous. But if your worldview is false, then premise #2 is fallacious and your argument fails. Therefore, we should really move directly now to examine your own worldview. So—

If we can prove that something happens again and again over multiple trials then we can make strong assumptions about the possibility that it will continue to happen under those same circumstances.

This is where we will start. I would like to challenge your supposition that proving something again and again over multiple trials gives us any greater ability to make assumptions about the possibility of it happening in future, given the same circumstances. Later on, I would also like to challenge your supposition that you can prove anything at all. I will cover the former item now.

What you seem to be saying, as regards repeated experimentation, is that you are trying ensure that the results are consistent. Where results are similar, I assume you would also average them so as to increase the likelihood of accuracy. Those results which seem too dissimilar, of course, are discarded. This is effectively attempting to minimize the probability of error by increasing the number of instances of confirmation. I presume I am correct in stating your position this way.

The problem you have is that probability is measured by dividing the number of actual situations of something by the number of possible situations. Since it would require universal knowledge to discover the number of possible situations of any given event, the idea of increasing probability in this manner is plainly absurd. The probability is simply unknowable, and always will be. That is, if the numerator is unknown, the probability of accuracy (and thus of error) is unknown, since the equation cannot be completed. (If you assume an infinite number of possible situations, then the probability is a finite number divided by infinity, which is zero—even worse!)

In other words, the accuracy of any scientific experiment is completely unknowable, and thus will never increase even if you were to run experiments until the proverbial cows returned. And if you don’t know, you don’t know, and so whatever theory you may formulate based on your experiment is no better than speculation. Therefore, performing repeated experiments is self-evidently pointless from a logical point of view, since you can have no idea whether this is helpful or not. Yet, you still act as if you can know. Even though this is just an irrational pandering to your intuitive sense of what makes something likely, you do it anyway, don’t you? It has nothing at all to do with actual probability, or with reality as you understand it (it has a lot to do with reality as I understand it), or with rationality. So why do it?

Moreover, if your experiment yields a certain result, but then whenever it is conducted in the future it yields a different result, you discard the initial result as an error. Indeed, any outlying results are ignored, and only “consistent” ones are collected and averaged. This is supposed to increase certainty and accuracy, as discussed above. But how do you determine when a result is aberrant and when it is not? Since any repetition of the same experiment will yield different results each time, if only because your own observation is limited to a certain margin of error, you can never obtain a perfect result. In fact, you don’t even know that there is such thing as a “perfect” result. All results are in error to some degree. How you determine the degree of error which is acceptable is really quite arbitrary. You may think that it’s reasonable to discard results which show a discrepancy larger than the margin of error you have calculated for your equipment; but then you are still accepting that there is error present, so any theory you derive from the results does not reflect reality as it actually is.

In fact, your theory is a result of a mathematical set of averages. For example, if you are determining the speed of sound at sea level, you may measure four times (I will say four for the sake of simplicity, but really it would be more than that), and get the results 340.33, 340.28, 340.27, and 340.28 again. However, you will not take any of these measurements to be the speed of sound—instead, you will average them by determining their mean, and get 340.29 meters per second. Now, this result never appeared in your observations at all, and yet you would claim that it is the speed of sound instead of one of the results you did obtain? Furthermore, if you are going to average your results, why not choose the mode, 340.28, instead of the mean—at least that way you would be using an actual experimentally observed number!

Using this very simple example, we can see that scientific “facts” are not actually data imposed upon the scientist by reality, but rather mathematical models imposed upon reality by the scientist. The decision to average the results was not arrived at empirically. It was not dictated or even suggested by the empirical measurements taken. On the contrary, rather than being a finding at all, it is a formulation, ultimately determined by aesthetic philosophical notions, rather than empirical observation. In this sense, science is actually not empirical at all, and never could be.

A good example which may help to clarify this issue is the equation used to describe the motion of a pendulum, which says that the period of its swing is proportional to the square root of its length. Now, this equation assumes that the pendulum’s weight is a point (ie, infinitely small); that its string is tensionless; and that there is no friction on its axis. Such a pendulum never existed, and never could exist. Therefore, this law is not empirical, for it does not describe actual things—rather, it describes some imaginary “perfect” pendulum which has been invented as a non-empirical, non-physical philosophical idea. Physical pendulums, bizarre as it may seem, do not actually obey the laws of physics.

There is more to be said, though. When you perform your experiments so as to get results which you will average into a non-empirical, mathematical model which you call a “law” (which the universe nonetheless doesn’t actually follow), you face an even bigger problem. Consider that, on top of averaging the results, you also choose which ones you will average at all. How do you decide? Well, you assume that consistent results are to be expected! After all, it’s not reasonable for you to ignore results which are outside your arbitrary margin of error if you don’t presuppose that your results will be consistent in the first place. That is, you assume that if you had perfect observational abilities, you would always get precisely the same result.

But what justification do you have to assume that it is the aberrant results which are in error? What if all the other experiments were in error instead? Certainly it seems unlikely; your assumption seems reasonable; but I have already shown that intuition is totally useless for determining things like what is probable and rational, given a (so-called) empirical worldview. Indeed, how would probability even be determined in this instance without making a whole host of other unjustified, non-empirical assumptions? For example, why do you assume that only one of the results can be correct? Why do you not instead assume that, at that one particular point in time, the experiment yielded a different result, making the whole question of probability moot?

This gets down to probably the most fundamental principle in science: that of the uniformity of nature. You assume that the future will resemble the past, and that an experiment conducted in one location will yield the same result when conducted in another. Again, to prove the irrationality of science which you hold in such high regard, I need only ask: why? Uniformity must be true if any scientific theory is to be even considered plausible, because it is implicitly assumed by the scientific method upon which all theories are based; and yet it commits a basic logical fallacy. There is simply no reason, no justification, for the assumption of the uniformity of nature within your own worldview (when we look at the vastness of the universe, and its supposed age, really it doesn’t even make any kind of necessary intuitive sense). It is also obviously another non-empirical assumption.

Now, you may say that we can expect the future to resemble the past because that is what we have always observed to date. You may agree that it’s hypothetically possible that the future could suddenly be different—realistically, as far as you know, the laws of nature might radically alter at any instant, since there is no consistent and orderly God upholding them from one moment to the next. But, I imagine you would argue that this is very unlikely, because it has never happened before. You seem to have implied as much in your last statement.

But this is just the same fallacy again: probability isn’t measured this way. In fact, it is again unknowable as to whether the future will resemble the past! If the only way for you to justify the assumption of uniformity is to argue for it on the strength of its historically always having been so, then you are sunk, because this reasoning is openly fallacious by merit of its circularity—after all, the inference is only justified if you are already assuming that the future must be like the past!

But to even posit this much, you must first assume that your memory of the past is accurate, which again is an assumption justified only by your presupposition of the fact, and so constitutes (at best) question-begging. So not only can you not know that the future will be like the past; you cannot even know that the past has been like the past! Thus, the presuppositions which you hold as most fundamental to much of your knowledge-acquisition process are not only irrational, but obviously irrational. If you were to pursue the truly rational course, your worldview would immediately devolve into skepticism.

I am going to draw my statement to a close here. I have established a sufficient foundation now to present my final, complete refutation to your worldview in my next statement. I believe that statement 4 will be the last before our conclusions? Please correct me if you would like a different format. I am happy to accommodate you within reason, but I don’t want this debate to become too protracted.

To conclude then, I have so far shown firstly that the contradictions you allege to exist in Scripture are not what you claim, but appear that way only given ignorance of the text and prejudice against the normal method of textual criticism. In showing this, I have also established a precedent wherein to evaluate other supposed contradictions—that is, that any apparent incongruity is more likely to be caused by similar defects in your own analysis than by genuine errors in the text.

Secondly, I have shown that scientific theories do not describe reality as it actually is, and never can; that they are not actually empirical at all; and that they are founded upon assumptions which are rationally unjustified. Attempts to justify them result only in circular reasoning and other logical fallacies. The form of reasoning in the scientific method itself can be essentially represented as follows:

1. This object is spherical.
2. Billiard balls are spherical.
3. Therefore, this object is a billiard ball.

Thus, since the assumptions underlying all scientific reasoning are logically fallacious, it follows that all scientific theories are logically fallacious also.

In my final statement before the conclusion, I will draw out the implications of this as regards your ability to make knowledge-claims of any kind, showing why your worldview is necessarily false. In so doing, I will simultaneously demonstrate why the Christian worldview must be true.

Continued in part 4 »

Related posts:

1. “No one is righteous”…metaphorically speaking
2. A response to Glenn Peoples’s ‘No, I am not an inerrantist’