Posted by: Nick Norelli | December 15, 2007

Inerrancy in Presuppositional Apologetics

Jim West issued a challenge to fundamentalists to demonstrate the doctrine of inerrancy from Scripture.  Now I do not believe the Bible to be inerrant and I do have some problems with the guidelines of the challenge (i.e., asking for a lone propositional verse), but it was one of his comments that got me thinking.  In response to Phil Sumpter’s quote of R. Raymond’s Systematic Theology on the deductive reasoning used to arrive at inerrancy, Jim said:

It’s fascinating to me that fundamentalists, who damn reason at every opportunity, use it, as you correctly note Phil, to guard their most cherished of notions.

Now here’s my question and I’d love for some of my presuppositionalist buddies to weigh in here (Jeff and Moses, this means you) — if the foundation of presuppositionalism is God’s special revelation (as recorded in Scripture) and the Bible doesn’t make any perspicuous claims to inerrancy (which Jim is correct in stating it does not), and the doctrine must be reasonably deduced, then what is the epistemological grounds on which the presuppositionalist stands in regard to affirming inerrancy?  In the matter of inerrancy isn’t the presuppositionalist forced to engage in an evidential apologetic?

B”H

Posted in Apologetics, Inerrancy, Scripture

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Responses

This was my essential problem with the arguments presented. It seems that inerrancy is needed for scripture to be authoritative and/or reliable, but there is no logical or scriptural connection between these concepts. Hobbins seems to appeal to the inerrancy of God and appeals to authority rather than making this connection clear on rational grounds. So it goes like this:

The text is inerrant
It has clear text-critical (among other) errors
It is not therefore inerrant
God is inerrant
God speaks through the text
Therefore the text is inerrant

The first argument is different than the second and I have not hear why the two must be connected in any way shape or form. Nor have I heard how the first argument must be contingent on the second. I have heard appeals to authority and even a degree of “It is what it is”, but those are not even arguments - they are fallacies to avoid making the case.

The hypothesis is this:
Saying it is authoritative does not mean that it, by necessity, must therefore be inerrant.

I have not seen this argument disproved yet.

By: Drew on December 17, 2007
at 7:50 am

Hey Nick, sorry I have not jumped in, I have been away from the computer for a week or so because of exams and graduation. I am currently in MD visiting folks and will not get back (Lord willing) until Friday.

You’ve asked a very simple question, so I’ll give a very simple answer, at this point. You asked “In the matter of inerrancy isn’t the presuppositionalist forced to engage in an evidential apologetic?”

Who said that evidential apologetics is not a part of presuppositionalism. It is certainly is, from Van Til to Bahnsen to Frame to many others including myself.

The issue is not using evidences, because as presuppositionalist, we would certainly believe that all the evidences the evidentialist present (well, with qualifications) certainly points to the existence of the God of the Bible, or whatever other doctrine (or historical aspect) is being defended. Why wouldn’t the evidence being in God’s favor?, it is his world!

The issue of Inerrancy is certainly a different question. I can’t understand how you hold to Inerrancy and at the same time believing any part of the scripture as authoritative.

I would recommend you the following article Inductivism, Inerrancy, and Presuppositionalism also The Inerrancy of the Autographa. You certainly want to check out Van Til’s Nature and Scripture also In Defense of Something Close to Biblicism

By: Jeff on December 18, 2007
at 4:45 am

Jeff,

Thanks for responding (and for the links!). So is it safe to say that inerrancy is not one of the foundational presuppositions to presup. apologetics?

Also, I think you meant to say that you can’t understand how I (or possibly Drew above) don’t hold to inerrancy while at the same time believing any part of Scripture is authoritative (please correct me if I’m wrong).

The answer is simply that I don’t see the connection between the two. The early Christians saw the errant LXX as authoritative. There were historical errors, contradictions, translation errors, etc. in the LXX but the NT writers had no problem quoting it and adhering to what it taught.

If inerrancy is something that refers to strictly only to the autographs (Art. X of the CSBI) then everyone who accepts the authority of Scripture does so based on an errant text — the nature of the errors doesn’t much matter for my point. My point is simply that an error (textual or otherwise) doesn’t render the text impotent — never has, never will.

By: Nick Norelli on December 18, 2007
at 10:42 am

So is it safe to say that inerrancy is not one of the foundational presuppositions to presup. apologetics?

I would say that the teaching of Inerrancy would be fundamental to Presuppositional apologetics.

What does Inerrancy entail, would be another issue. I’m not sure if we are on the same page regarding Inerrancy or not.

But, your original question “In the matter of inerrancy isn’t the presuppositionalist forced to engage in an evidential apologetic?”, to my knowledge, no presupper would necessarily have a problem with engaging the evidences.

By: Jeff on December 18, 2007
at 1:09 pm

Well Hobbins has admitted in a few places that he is not a big fan of logic or applying punt or childish syllogisms when in fact an inerrantist must do this in order to establish any grounds for an assertion. And none of those grounds are remotely good since they are themselves rooted in an endless string of unsubstantiated assertions. The best witness is scripture itself and the probability that the proof texts for inerrancy mean what inerrancy has come to mean is highly suspect. They do mean that scripture is authoritative, but there is no evidence of any doctrine of inerrancy as it is argued today. And all of this “autographs” stuff is rubbish. That is as made up as Rapture. If we do not have them, who cares. It’s useless nonsense and bears no witness to the evidence we do have regarding the text.

By: Drew on December 18, 2007
at 9:56 pm

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