Catholic Apologetics Guidebook

What I am suggesting is this:

Seeing as though we do not have the original texts, and no way to completely recreate them, nor the ability to distinguish from them one true and definitive interpretation, then we ought not dismiss the options and opinions of others, based upon this idea of an "unerring" word of the Bible.

In other words, if we can't even start from THAT place, then where are we and where are we headed?

But here is the problem with that: There are people (for example, me) who have done a substantial amount of research into the Bible, Christian history, theology, etc., and who would not entirely agree with your starting point as stated above. I do agree with your point that of course different people will interpret the same Bible passage in different ways. But I also do believe that the Bible was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and that as such, it cannot and does not contain error in anything that the Biblical authors (both human and divine) intended to assert. And I haven't found anything in any of my studies that dissuades me from that opinion.

So I think that after reading your explanation of what you meant, I better understand where you are coming from. But I still think that when you say things like the quote above, it comes across to me (and probably to other "conservative" Christians also) as something like this:

"If you would just abandon your deeply-held conviction that the Bible is inerrant, and agree with ME that it isn't, then we could have a fruitful conversation. In other words, admit you're wrong and I'm right, and then we can proceed."

I know that that's not how you mean for it to sound, but I'm just saying that it does sound that way, at least to me.

Let me see if I can further illustrate by way of an example. Let's suppose that a Jehovah's Witness knocks on my door, and we begin to have a theological discussion regarding the divinity of Jesus. (Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus is an archangel, or at most a lesser god of some kind.) Which of the following approaches should I take in my discussion with this Jehovah's Witness?

Approach #1: Find a common starting point which we both accept as true, and then build a case for my position based on that common starting point, but do so with charity. In this case, Jehovah's Witnesses do believe that the Bible is true, so I could show him a few specific Bible passages to demonstrate why I believe that Jesus is fully God and fully equal and consubstantial with God the Father. I could then pray with him, and pray for him after he leaves, and hope that something I said to him that day may have planted a seed in his mind, which in time will lead him to the truth about Jesus's divinity.

Approach #2: Say to him the following: "Look, it's obviously wrong to deny Jesus's divinity. It's quite obvious from many Bible passages that Jesus is God, and almost all Christians throughout history have believed in Jesus's divinity. So if you'll just stop denying Jesus's divinity, then we can start making some progress."

I'm just trying to point out that when you say things like the quote above, I think that it comes across as sounding something like how Approach #2 would sound to my hypothetical Jehovah's Witness. (And while I strive to follow Approach #1 myself in such discussions, I admit that there are times when I have probably practiced something closer to Approach #2 instead.)

Anyway...the larger point was that no religion is infallible, no word unerring and therefore no interpretation beyond mistake and miscalucation.

I agree that this is true for individual humans, and I certainly would never claim inerrancy for any of my statements. But there are those of us who believe that God can make and has made inerrant statements. I do respect your opinion, but you seem to expect people to automatically agree with it, and that's the part that I don't quite understand.

2004 Newsweek poll:

Is the Bible literally accurate?

Catholics: 45% yes
Non-Evangelical Protestants: 47% yes
Evangelical Protestants: 83% yes

There are at least a couple of problems with polls like this:

First, Catholics and Protestants often use different terms to mean the same thing, or the same terms to mean different things. Therefore, you can't necessarily make a one-to-one comparison between the beliefs of Catholics and Protestants, unless you are extremely careful about defining your terms.

For example, what Catholics mean by the Bible being literally accurate and what some Protestants mean by the Bible being literally accurate are two different things. Catholics believe that the Bible is literally accurate, where the word "literal" refers to the meaning that the original author intended to convey. For example, did the author of Genesis really intend to tell us that God created the world in six literal 24-hour days? Or was he simply using the days as a symbolic device to convey to us the more important message that God created the world and created man? Catholics believe that whatever the original authors (both human and divine) intended to convey is literally true, but sometimes (as in the case of the creation account in Genesis) there can be legitimate doubts about exactly what meaning the original authors intended. On the other hand some Protestants take a more "literalistic" view to interpretation, where if the Bible says six days, then it must literally mean six days -- period.

A second problem with this survey is that there are many people in this country who identify themselves as Catholics, but who don't practice their faith on a regular basis, and who never were catechized very well on what the Catholic Church actually teaches on various topics. There are even some who have left the church, and perhaps don't even believe in God any more, but who still might identify themselves as "Catholic" for a survey like this. Because of the large number of such "cultural Catholics", there unfortunately will often be significant gaps between what the Catholic Church actually teaches, and what such polls show Catholics as believing. This is something that I think is a sad situation for the Catholic Church in the U.S., but it is the way that things are currently.

Personally, I see absolutely zero argument for declaring the Bible as the unerring word of God...

Again, this is your opinion, and I respect it. But others see a lot more than zero argument for declaring the Bible to be the inspired word of God, and as ridiculous or absurd as you might think that is, I don't think that you will get far with such people by simply dismissing their point of view out of hand.

...and the majority of the world's Christians have historically agreed with that notion...

Really? Can you quote any Christians prior to say around 1700 A.D. who didn't believe in the inerrancy of the Bible? You might find a small handful, but I don't think you'll find many.

...thus making "end times" prophecy an extremely dangerous proposition and an utterly absurd means for creating political foreign policy.

I do agree with you that using "end times" prophecy as a guide to foreign policy is a bad idea.

Remember, the Evangelical sect was born out of a fringe sect of Southern Baptists and Methodists and was originally deemed by Biblical scholars, in that day, to be extreme, dangerous and unenlightened.

I contend it is more the product of the 19th century American south experience, than anything accurately portrayed in scripture or something "divinely inspired".

I might also point out that its steady rise seems to coincide with the steady decline in American education.

You could also say that the decline in our educational system corresponds to a rise in secularism in the U.S. Or you could say that the decline in the educational system has something to do with the teachers' unions and their gains in political power. But just because two different trends go the same direction at the same time does not necessarily mean that one is the cause of the other, or even that they have any relationship at all.

You simply can't start from a place of absolute certainty and work backwards. That is just not how logic and reason work.

I agree. But I am not taking an inerrant Bible as my starting point. There is a lot of historical evidence, along with the personal experience of faith, which comes first, before I can accept the Bible as inerrant. At least that's the way it works for me, but I can't necessarily speak for others.

Does it never occur to people as peculiar that, generally speaking, the higher the level of completed education the less belief in fundamentalist religion?

I don't know whether the numbers would actually support your point or not, but I do know a lot of highly educated people who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible -- as well as a lot who don't.

It is my personal belief that extreme forms of religion are dangerous and that any religion that demands unquestioned belief in the "unerring" is an extreme form.

I respect that, and to some extent I would agree -- but I would say that it depends on what type of extreme form, and on what the religion is. Extreme forms of Islam have obviously done a lot more harm recently than extreme forms of Buddhism, for example. And I would also point out that I have never perceived Evangelicalism as demanding unquestioning belief from anyone.

I wanted to add one additional point to expand on this idea of extremism in religion being bad. I would contend that there are good kinds of extremism and bad kinds of extremism in Christianity (and probably in many other religions too). For example, there is a particular online Catholic apologist/evangelist (who I won't name, because I don't want to promote his work) who has become convinced that in order to be a good Catholic, one must believe in geocentrism -- i.e., that the earth is the physical center of the universe. Of course the Catholic Church teaches no such thing, historical misunderstandings regarding the Galileo incident aside. But this guy has a rather popular web site where he promotes this view as authentic Catholic teaching. Obviously, anyone who is informed about modern science, but who is not informed about Catholic doctrine, could easily form a rather bad impression of the Catholic Church based on a visit to this guy's web site. Also, this guy's views on geocentrism have led him into extended debates with other Catholics, thus wasting time and energy that could have been better used on evangelizing or helping the poor, for example. So there's an example of a bad form of religious extremism.

On the other hand, consider Blessed Theresa of Calcutta (Mother Theresa). She took Christian teachings about helping the poor to what was definitely an extreme, yet I think that almost everyone would agree that she was an example of a good form of religious extremism.

It is my belief that God bestowed upon us the gifts of the mind...consciousness, freewill, logic and reason...so that we may use them to get closer to Him and His creations.

On this point, you and I are 100% in agreement! I can't state that strongly enough.

But I would contend that there are two ways in which God can and does give us enlightenment. One is that He gives us the ability to figure out some things for ourselves. That is where logic, reason, and science come into play. The other is that God has revealed certain things to us that we could not have simply figured out on our own -- this is where I believe that the Bible comes in.

I understand your position a bit better now, and I hope that the reverse is true as well.

Dialogue on the Reliability, Inspiration, and Inerrancy of Scripture – Page 2