Scriptures Were Written As An
Inerrant Whole
John McQuarrie, a liberal theologian, wrote in his systematic
theology "Principles of Christian Theology":
"..and an exclusive preoccupation with any one source
[leads] to an unbalanced theology. The Bible may be taken as perhaps the
basis authority, for it has a fixity and objectivity that gives the kind
of stability that is needed if the community of faith is to preserve an
identity. Yet this community of faith is not the community of a book. Its
faith came before the book, and indeed, it was the community which determined
the canon of the Scripture. Thus the Scripture must be interpreted in accordance
with the mind of the whole community, both as extended in space and as
stretched through time. This makes clear the place of the tradition of
the Church ... not a body of esoteric, unwritten material, but a consensus
as to what the teaching means .." (pages 380-82)
Later in his treatise McQuarrie writes:
".. Reason and conscience must also have their critical
authority alongside Scripture ... for only so can the ancient teachings
be renewed and reinterpreted, and made revelant to new conditions".
McQuarrie's premise (as well as other liberal theologians)
is that:
-
Faith in any one substance of source leads to an unbalanced
theology because, as mankind changes, that source will become outdated.
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The Bible should not be regarded as an able authority of
truth because of it's antiquity. The Bible should be used as a regulator
of truth, but not accepted as truth in itself.
-
Human reason and conscience should be placed on the same
level with the Biblical manuscripts, for it was human reason that verified
it's canon. Since human reason established its canon, that same human reason
can extract and add to text, deciding what is true and what is false.
There are many things that liberal theologians, like McQuarrie,
fail to take into account in their regard for Scripture:
-
Human reason did verify the canon of our Bible,
yet it was not reason alone that established what we regard
as today's Scripture. The Bible teaches us that the Holy
Spirit is the Christian's teacher and guide. If man, in partnership
with this same Spirit, determined the canon of the Scripture, then man
alone cannot determine what is true and false in Scripture.
-
Why couldn't human reason alone dictate the canonicity of
the Scriptures?
| 1 Corinthians 15:20-22 "But
now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that
slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of
the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
"
1 Corinthians 2:14 "But
the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they
are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned."
|
-
The Bible teaches us that all men are born
physically alive but spiritually dead. Spiritually dead man
has no power to understand the things of God: the natural man assumes the
things of God are foolish.
-
Man in either his natural unsaved state or his saved alive
state has the power to harden his conscience to God's will.
| 2 Peter 1:21 "For the
prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." |
-
The Scriptures were written by holy men of God as they were
directed by the Holy Spirit. Since we are finite it is illogical to assume
that we can, with that same finite mind, be totally responsible
for determining which part of the Holy Writings were written by infinite
God and which are of no value. Just as the Author of a Book best knows
what he wrote, only God can best determine the canonicity of His Writings.
The significant feature of 2 Peter 1.21 (above) is the use
of the Greek word PHERO, translated were moved
in the KJV. The word literally means to be carried
along by an outside force. The writers of the Scripture were
mere tools in the hands of God as the writing occurred. The will of man
was entirely passive during the writings, whereas the will
of God was supreme. Did God allow the writers of the Scripture
to influence the writings? Obviously there was some influence
in the manner of writing, as you can see that the Pauline writings are
different in literary style from the Isaiah writings. Yet outside of literary
style, the Bible teaches us that the content of the Writings
were totally controlled by God.
If we believe in the teaching and guiding ministry of
the Holy Spirit, then we must believe that He controlled
man as the Scriptures were examined for canonicity. If we make the decision
one of man alone, then we, in effect, negate the ministries of the Spirit
to both the Church and to man.
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Liberal theology refuses to accept the Scriptures as inerrant
based on their antiquity. Yet if the Scriptures were written by God, and
God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, then it stands to reason
that such a God would address the Scriptures to all believers of
all ages.
The early Jews carried and preserved these Holy Writings.
They were extremely careful to preserve every jot and tittle of the writings
from human error. If God had meant for the Scriptures to apply only to
a certain period of people, then why did He place such care in the hearts
of a people to preserve that writing? Only if the Scriptures were written
by an infinite God to be used by all generations of humanity,
only then do the writings have any validity. If the Scriptures were written
by man, based on our fallibility, then they are useless to us, totally
without theological application. There are only three ways that we can
view the Scriptures:
-
They are a death trap written by men, full of flaws and useless
traditions.
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They are an outdated almanac, a revelation from God only
useful to a long dead society.
-
They are the living Word of God, revelant to all ages of
mankind. The Scriptures are true, inerrant, and we can trust them to guide
us in our search for the only true God.
Any other hypothesis than those above is hypocritical, shallow
fence sitting. Either the Bible is wholly true and from God, or a wholly
false and mythical work. Liberal theology teaches "Faith in any one substance
leads to an unbalanced theology". Yet how would you build your house? Would
you build part of it on concrete bedrock, and part on sand, or would you
build it all on a solid foundation. The house built on an unsure foundation
is sure to crumble; how much more the faith built on sand?
Why should we base our theology on anything other than
a sure foundation? The wise Christian builds his faith on the sure foundation
of the Word, that Scripture that has stood the test of time. Years ago
when evolution was all the rage Christians began abandoning the traditional
creation account of Genesis in order to "make their faith seem more sure".
They began to explain away the six days of creation as "periods of time",
and making God the one who, rather than forming man out of the dust of
the ground, made man "crawl up out of the sea". When flaws began developing
in evolutionary theory this new faith was spotlighted as
weak, ineffectual, as foolish as evolutionary theory. The very antiquity
of Scripture makes it reliable for building our faith. I
would rather build my faith on a foundation that has stood the test of
thousands of years as opposed to a man made foundation recently formed
in the 19th and 20th centuries. Wouldn't you?
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