Intuition and Presuppositions: Rational Belief in the Inerrancy of the Bible

Bibles can come in many different sizes. My personal one has an area of about 6 inches height, 4 inches wide, and 1.5 inches tall. Every letter is about one-sixth the size of my fingernail. There is about 138,000 words in the New Testament (if I remember that correctly), with the Old being about three times as long. 

Many Christians believe in the fundamental truth of Scripture as being inerrant. To communicate His messages to us, of course He gave a completely infallible book. Many Christian leaders have asked, "If only parts of the Bible are the truth from God, how do you know which parts?" But is it really plausible to say that entire big book, containing 66 individual books in all collected over millennia, agrees on everything? 

I have only taken one philosophy class, which is concluding soon. My professor mentioned Lara Buchak's definition of faith: belief in something not negated by the evidence but not necessitated either. When you give up looking for evidence despite the fact that there isn't enough to prove your opinions, you take that "on faith." This is a significant part of how I can believe in inerrancy, but not completely. 

Technically speaking belief in inerrancy isn't necessary for salvation. In The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, it is noted that the Gospel is defined in Acts and Paul's letters as belief in who Jesus is and what He did for humanity(1). I also noted this in the introduction to the resurrections of Jesus(2). 

Have you ever heard of the saying I mentioned a while ago, "The danger is in the ditches?" What it means is that there are two extremes on one side, and the middle aligns with the evidence. The danger is in the ditches here: if it could be proven there is an error, this wouldn't overcome other evidences. It could be argued that what is the word of God is the Gospel, and anything else that the Bible doesn't conflict on. But it certainly is indicated by Jesus proving to be God in Mark, and handing us down His biography along with three others and 23 other writings, with 39 older writings considered holy under the Jewish God His followers referenced(3). 

My goodness, it definitely is not outside His power to produce an inerrant book! In his debate with William Lane Craig, Bart Ehrman poked at the plausibility of the resurrection because the Gospels seem to contradict one another, and if God really blessed the main event of the Bible He would bless it all, right(4)? Why wouldn't He do so? It's so much easier than having to be critical with everything it says. 

Masses of books have been written on apparent contradictions in the Bible. It's not fair to just read off a list and say, "Case closed!" Late prominent apologist Norman L. Geisler, author of The Big Book of Bible Difficulties, has found plenty of problems with skeptics but can't identify any in the Bible. I have been encouraged when studying the post-resurrection differences and seen the same(5). There are so many variants that aren't even real difficulties! Don't be misled by skeptics who are quick to accuse. There are many considerations Christian experts can bring up. Proving the Bible necessarily contradicts itself would be very difficult. Here are some examples of arguments against the Bible:

Christian apologists Andreas Kostenberger and two other colleagues, in their book responding to many claims made by Bart Ehrman, defend the difficulty that was the "touchstone that sent Bart Ehrman over the edge of confidence in the Bible." (6) Matthew 12:1-8, Mark 2:23-28, and Luke 6:1-5 all report the story from 1 Samuel 21:1-6. According to the original source, under the priesthood of Ahimelech, he gave holy bread to David and some of his followers. Only Mark differs from it and says the high priest was Abiathar. 

Ironically, to believe this is an error would be to have faith, as Buchak defined it. It is a possible conclusion but not provable. Emanant Christian scholar James D. G. Dunn points out it is possible that Mark wasn't compelled to report the tradition with "pedantic accuracy," and Matthew and Luke's parallels are evidence that different Gospel writers aren't supposed to be complete parrots of their sources(7). After all, they didn't include Ahimelech but omitted a dating entirely. 

Kostenberger and his colleagues point out the Greek word epi right before "Abiathar the high priest," is usually translated as "upon," but this wouldn't make much sense in the Mark 2 passage. He could have been indicating the time the event happened, as Abiathar was the only survivor of King Saul's slaughter in 1 Sam. 22 and most likely the first detail to capture Mark's Jewish first-century audience. Or, this could work for location because the Old Testament had no verse numbers back then. Epi is used again in Mark 12:26, which includes "the passage about [or, entitled] the burning bush." 

They explain that a basic rule for historians is to take different accounts and try to harmonize them. A famous example I can think of has someone crossing some mountains (was it the Alps?), and historians know the accounts are hopelessly contradictory. But no one denies the character crossed the mountains, and experts most likely accept what both sources agree on. Kostenberger and his colleagues say, "We wish Ehrman was still open to considering some of these other rationales because, as with every other contradiction the Bible is accused of, it's just not as open-and-shut as the skeptics suggest."

Ehrman's arguments range from genuine difficulties (complete harmonization of the empty tomb accounts, for instance), or the easily explained away. He argues that since Paul referred to Christ as the "first fruit" of the resurrection, he thought he knew Jesus would come within his life time(8). This is because the first fruit a farmer gets on day one and then he goes back the next. They don't wait years, it's immediate. However, by the time Paul even had gone to Jerusalem the first time (Galatians 1:18), years had passed. Just because he wanted to use a metaphor doesn't mean he would be so strict with it -- he couldn't be so strict with it! Perhaps he didn't think he knew when Christ would come back, and relative to eternity and the quickness of human lives it is soon, so/and/or it just looked nice to him. 

Theorizing rational grounds for believing inerrancy has led me to ask, "If the Bible is for the lay person, why would they need outside information? We give children Bibles and invite them to read it, along with adults. Why would God hand them a book which they are supposed to be able to learn from themselves, which seems to not be completely from Him?"

For starters,  as I said earlier, you don't have to believe in inerrancy, much less defend it, to believe in Jesus and be saved. Then, we can see the real question is, why have Christians learned from this supposedly contradictory book by just reading it for themselves? The sword cuts both ways. Just go out and meet a wonderful Christian person. Perhaps they catch the apparent discrepancies but just have faith.  (I used the quip "the sword cuts both ways" in my post revisiting the problem of pain and miracles[9]. What I implied, but think I should explicitly point out, is with examples like these, they include the fact that we can't know everything, and don't have to know everything to make the reasonable decision.)

Then I also asked, "If skeptics really are wrong, why can they make so many arguments for a significant number of contradictions? Does probability state the Bible must be wrong somewhere?" One response that must be considered is they can fail to see the Bible as 66 distinct books. The Bible is the word of God, as recorded by men He worked through and made sure they got it right, over more than a thousand years. Thus, in Psalms and Proverbs you can read that God "hates" sinners (Psalms 15:4; Proverbs 6:16-19), but in John learn He loves them all (John 3:16). The two talk about how He extrinsically favors do-gooders (think a rewarded child and their disciplined sibling), and the other God's intrinsic love to save them and want to bless them more. The Hebrew word for "hate" can also just mean "love less," and the context does not necessitate He literally hates them and would keep them from seeing the light(10).  Both legal experts and converts Wallace and Greenleaf point out that eyewitness reports come from different perspectives and will probably fill in each others details, with purely human accounts undeniably disagreeing with one another somewhere. The epistles of Paul during his travels and the book of Acts that records his travels support each other, but can so stress different things that there are challenges. It is also worth knowing that just because an answer isn't quite indicated in a passage doesn't mean it isn't there. We literally may not be able to see an answer for just lack of attainable information. 

Moreover, I thought of this which is obvious because it comes from a general rule: the best lies have the most truth in them. Skeptics can find so many "errors" by pointing out the similarities, but then emphasizing what they think of the differences. One might object that this doesn't explain why God would allow there to be so many differences in the first place. But like with Paul using the term "first fruit," arguments will not necessarily be challenging to respond to. They might be very easily explained away and obviously exposed as stemming solely from skeptical bias. And then the real difficulties just get carried over to all the other responses I give in this post. 

I also thought of the question, "Why are there arguments now, not earlier?" True, the printing press has been around for a while and Christian believers have been writing for centuries, but the Bible didn't come with a neat set of harmonizations. 

My immediate response is to have faith because we do have evidence, and don't need an answer.  And who knows what dedicated Christians would be able to come up with back in the first millennium. Maybe God shields the eyes of believers who could not become apologists, so they don't really catch these things or it doesn't bother them.

But as for nowadays, and therefore, personally you dear reader, you can get answers and reasons. No one can say, "There is no Christian side." I just came across Hugh Ross's answer to the question, "Why is there so much evidence for God now? Why not previous centuries?" He explains,

"The answer I see from the Bible is that God measures out evidence in direct proportion to the level of resistance to His truth. Where the resistance is relatively low, less hard evidence for the God of the Bible is necessary to overcome it. But where resistance, namely arrogance, is high, so also is the quantity and quality of evidence He provides to overcome it." (11) 

As I mentioned in my now outdated blog introduction, I am willing to go into books and try and answer questions about Bible contradictions posted in comments. I am going to write a new introduction sooner or later, and will point out that one reason I have this blog is because I cannot know what someone will come up with, and so favor having a chance to think and accumulate relevant knowledge.

But then someone might argue they must go through the whole Bible and see for themselves it cannot decisively be concluded that there are contradictions. Thus, they are completely free to not believe it, because it would take a task force of experts to drain the entire Bible. But one logical thing we, as people that can get answers, can realize is that the sword cuts both ways here too: one would never know enough to explain away all apparent contradictions anyway, and so upon seeing one can have faith it can be explained away (if there is enough evidence to believe there is some inspiration in the Bible at all).

I wrote in a former post the obvious truth that presuppositions must be challenged. To be truly intellectually honest, a person must be willing to give up their core beliefs if they have seen enough of both sides to know what has been refuted. And as I've been explaining, I did challenge the idea that the Bible doesn't contradict itself. I've looked at some examples, including the big example of the post-resurrection narratives, and only been encouraged(12). 

To borrow Ehrman's observance of how bias can slip into arguments, I am always very skeptical toward claims that the Bible contradicts itself(13).  My intuition SCREAMS, "Don't trust Ehrman immediately if he says there's a contradiction! That so fits his tactics, his bias." 

And now, a word on intuition (it is, after all, in the post title and I refuse to let it be there only because it sounds cool): it should be criticized as a not necessarily reliable truth-teller. What if intuition leads to denying God during pain(14)? I suddenly realize that intuition and presupposition can be used interchangeably, at least from one perspective. What we believe colors what we will think intuitively. I might express doubt of evolution after a presentation in biology class because I think it's very plausible that the speaker was only presenting one side, while a fellow student thinks to herself that I'm just a whiner who doesn't believe in science (not in an aggressive way, just being brutally honest to herself). So we need to make sure, having challenged our presuppositions and giving a fair assessment to the evidence, that our side is the most probable. Our intuitions are at least justified (if not proven, only to be changed by irreconcilable counterevidence), because our beliefs are not justified by intuition. 

That being said, I immediately start thinking of possible answers when I go farther than just skipping over an argument because it's in a book and not what I'm there to consider. Maybe two different writers were considering only one part of something, or maybe skeptics are reading into the text that a writer must have mentioned something or just plain reading a claim into a text, and of course there is the principle that two different eyewitnesses will have different perspectives (the example I commonly use for the Gospels). and I-don't-know-what-else-but-experts-do. Believe me, when I chase down answers it can feel like I only know a miniscule amount of strategies for questioning passages, whereas experts will bring up so many different things I never would have thought of. 

"Tortured fear and stupid confidence are both desirable states of mind." (15) It "just so happened" that while I was thinking about this issue, and today decided to write it down, was also on the same day I found this wonderful quote to go with it in the Screwtape Letters. (The Screwtape letters consist of a senior demon Screwtape writing to his nephew Wormwood, about how to lead someone away from God.) Along with me, you may have heard someone say, "If you find an error in the Bible I'll throw the whole thing out." I faintly remember cringing when I heard people talk about a Bible contradiction when I was a child, and today internally cringe when I hear that. On one hand, it would be "stupid confidence" for a Christian to challenge someone they were discussing with to bring up a contradiction, because they are convinced there are none. If the non-Christian can come up with a difficulty, it can seem like they should right then and there admit defeat. On the other hand, the "tortured fear" due to lack of confidence in God's word would also be bad. Someone seriously doubting might get the rug of faith pulled out from beneath them too easily. The danger is in the ditches. True, skeptics would have to also get an equally educated Christian side to a subject and show it is not correct and not just take their source on faith, which is a significant challenge. But, Christians have the challenge of supplying and learning the answers! It's not easy for both of us. The best I can do is explain the information contained in this post that support a rational faith. (Of course that's the case: what you are reading this very minute is, after all, where I dump my thoughts and string them together in a coherent argument to defend Christianity.)  Belief in inerrancy is by far the most probable for me.

I'm planning on sometime soon, maybe next post, recording more encouragement. I'll respond to some arguments for contradictions between Acts and Paul's epistles, and identify some parallels, which is more evidence for the reliability of Acts.  

Citations:

1. Gary R. Habermas and Micheal R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Kregel Publications: Grand Rapids, MI. 2004), 25. They cite Acts 1-5, 10, 13, 17; Romans 1:2-4; 10:9; 1 Corinthians 15:3ff; 2 Timothy 2:8-9. It always made sense to my ears that since John 3:16 says anyone who simply "believes in Jesus" will be saved, they simply have to be willing to admit the truth of who Jesus is and what He did for them. This is proof. 

2. In the introduction post, I specifically expanded on the Gospel: "By looking at all the times the New Testament speaks of Jesus's deity and the way to salvation, we could compare them and see which doctrine outweighs the other, if there even are any contradictions. I don't believe there are, as I have seen a number of challenging questions raised from passages over Jesus's identity and salvation by belief in Him alone, but had reasonable explanations for them."

3. I have referenced this as my most significant reason to believe in inerrancy more than once throughout this blog, with the original and greatest explanation being in my conclusion on the True Lost Gospel of Peter.

4. https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/debates/is-there-historical-evidence-for-the-resurrection-of-jesus-the-craig-ehrman

5. "Bible Difficulties -- 4 Different Accounts of Empty Tomb Appearances," "Revisiting harmonizing the empty tomb accounts," and this post on the resurrection appearances.

6. Andreas J. Kostenberger, Darrell L. Bock, and Josh D. Chatraw, Truth in a Culture of Doubt: Engaging Skeptical Challenges to the Bible B&H Publishing Group: Nashville, TN. 2014), 53-55.

7. James D.G. Dunn, The Evidence for Jesus (Westminster Press: Louisville, Kentucky 1985), 11.

8. Bart Ehrman, Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend (Oxford University Press: Oxford, NY. 2006), 119.

9. "Revisiting the possibility of miracles, and God and evil"

10. The differences between Psalms and Proverbs and John cannot be understated. The former collect wise sayings and songs written well before Christ, and the other is a Gospel. It reports the Good News of Jesus, and is written by a special author who was very close to the heart of God. 1 John significantly parallels authorship, and Christian tradition takes "the Disciple whom Jesus loved" as the author (20:2, 21:20). No wonder Jesus loved Him so much, for this Disciple stands out among the other Gospels and epistles as being loving.

11. Hugh Ross, The Creator and the Cosmos: How the Greatest Scientific Discoveries of the Century Reveal God (NavPress: 1993), 155.

12. I once thought, someone could make an argument by drawing together enough similarities from all the books of the Bible. If it really is just a human book, why is there so much harmonization instead of contradictions? Remember, the Bible was written over 1,000 years by over forty different authors. As a matter of fact, skeptics like Ehrman argue that their ideas conflict each other in many details. This contrasts from a great Christian evidence, which I haven't studied, that the Bible is the word of God because there is no way so many different people over such a long time span could keep the same story perfectly. They would otherwise significantly differ from each other on God or something else somewhere along the line.

13. Ehrman does say that he is "always highly suspicious--completely and powerfully suspicious--of 'scholars,' from one side or another, whose 'historical' findings just by chance happen to confirm what they already think." (Bart D. Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth [HarperOne: 2012], 143.) I cite that in the introduction to the argument for Jesus's resurrection.

A short post with some relevant information, like expanding on Wallace and Greenleaf, is "Bart Ehrman: Expert, Skeptic, Scholar"

14. Atheism is the most straightforward answer to all the suffering in the world. My main post on pain is "The Matter of an All-Loving God... and EVIL"

15. C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, annot. ed by Paul McCusker., (HarperOne: 2013), 87.