Inerrancy: History of the Doctrine of Inerrancy and Its Importance

If we look back at church history, we can see the doctrine of inerrancy has only become an issue in modern times because the church fathers accepted completely the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures as a self-evident fact.

They never defended the doctrine in their times because it was assumed.

The early church employed the Scriptures to defend the deity of Christ.

Augustine declared the following statement regarding inerrancy, he wrote “For I confess to your charity that I have learned to defer this respect and honor to those Scriptural books only which are now called canonical, that I believe most firmly that no one of those authors has erred in any respect in writing.”[1]

The doctrine of inerrancy was not developed very much during the medieval period.

Instead, the church concentrated primarily on defining the relationship of the Bible to the authorities in the church such as the pope.

Most Christians and Christian scholars held a high view of inspiration and inerrancy during this period.

However, this lack of development of the doctrine came to an end with the Reformation because the Reformers emphasized the doctrines of inspiration and inerrancy even though these subjects were not mentioned often in their writings.

For the Reformers like Luther and Calvin, the Scriptures held the highest authority in the church against the claim of the Roman Catholic church that the pope is the highest authority.

Ryrie writes “Calvin referred to the Scriptures as the ‘sure and infallible record’[2]and the ‘unerring standard.’[3]Luther declared in no uncertain terms: ‘I have learned to ascribe this honor i.e., infallibility only to books which are termed canonical, so that I confidently believe that not one of their authors erred….’[4] It has been in the modern period that the doctrine has of necessity had to be developed. The rationalistic attacks on the reliability of historical matters with a subsequent questioning of the authenticity of the text of Scripture were a denial of inerrancy and rejection of inspiration. It is important to notice that the two doctrines—inerrancy and inspiration—fell together under these attacks. Thus a new theory of inspiration arose which recognized the inspiration of certain truths in general and in so far as they conformed to natural reason. The doctrines of human fallibility in the production of Scripture and the infallibility of human reason in the interpretation of Scripture had gained the day. But God had prepared others to expound and defend the truth. What the church owes to men like Hodge and Warfield can scarcely be measured. Their writings on these matters concerning inspiration are still classics. More recently, and in their train, Thy Word Is Truth by Edward J. Young presents and defends well verbal inspiration and inerrancy.”[5]

In modern times, liberal scholarship has attacked the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible who viewed an inspired experience in place of an inspired text.

Neo-orthodoxy followed by neo-liberalism has been in the forefront of this attack.

Both these schools contend that the Scriptures are fallible.

They both believe that revelation can not be given in propositional truth but instead only in one’s personal encounter with God.

Barth attempted to defend some of the authority of the Bible but failed.

However, he did argue that the Bible does bear witness though fallibly, to Christ who is the revelation of God.

Thus, Barth was heavily influenced by the liberal scholarship in his periphery.

Therefore, these schools do not believe the Bible is inerrant.

Consequently, they view the individual reader’s opinion of a particular text in the Bible as the authority which of course is totally subjective.

This view permeates liberal scholarship even in the twenty-first century.

Therefore, both neo-orthodoxy or neo-liberalism attack the verbal inspiration of the Bible and inerrancy because they realize that both stand together.

Dr. Ryrie has the following comment, he writes “With great sorrow one notices a tendency among conservatives to attempt to divorce inerrancy from verbal inspiration. In another’s words the situation is accurately stated as follows: ‘Unquestionably the Bible teaches its own inspiration. It is the Book of God. It does not require us to hold inerrancy, though this is a natural corollary of full inspiration. The phenomena which present difficulties are not to be dismissed or underrated. They have driven many sincere believers in the trustworthiness of the Bible as a spiritual guide to hold a modified position on the non-revelation material. Every man must be persuaded in his own mind…. It is possible that if our knowledge were greater, all seeming difficulties could be swept away.’[6]In other words, some because of apparent difficulties in the Bible (such as historical and chronological problems) are concluding that these sections are not inerrant though inspired. One hears more and more these days: ‘I believe the Bible is inspired, but I cannot believe that it is without error.’ Inspiration, yes; verbal inspiration, no. Why is it so? One cannot see motives, but for some it is the result of honest wrestling with problems which has shaken their faith. For others, one cannot help but feel that it is part of the current worship of intellectualism as a sacred cow and a necessary step in achieving the approbation of godless intellectuals so-called. Is inerrancy important or must it be abandoned in this enlightened age?”[7]

The importance of Biblical inerrancy is manifested through its relationships.

For example, in relation to the character of God, we believe God’s Word to be infallible simply because God Himself is infallible and He is true (John 3:33; 17:3; Rom 3:4; 1 Thess 1:9), and this true God communicates through the Scriptures, which are truth.

But the modern critics assert that fallible men have corrupted what originally came from God in perfect form, however, this need not be the case because the omnipotent God is certainly able to preserve the record of His revelation inerrant.

All one has to do is examine the biblical evidence itself to see that whether or not there are errors but not only is it not necessary that there be errors, but it is more plausible that the omnipotent God of truth would preserve His revelation in the Bible without error.

2 Peter 1:21 asserts that men were borne along by the Holy Spirit when they wrote Scripture and this is what kept the record free from error even though fallible men were used in producing it.

The importance of Biblical inerrancy is also manifested in relation to inspiration because a high view of inspiration demands inerrancy as a natural and necessary part of it or in other words, errancy and inspiration are incompatible.

Edward J. Young wrote “The real reason why men oppose the doctrine of an infallible Scripture is that they are not willing to embrace the Biblical doctrine of inspiration. There is no such thing as inspiration which does not carry with it the correlate of infallibility. A Bible that is fallible—and we speak of course of the original—is a Bible that is not inspired. A Bible that is inspired is a Bible that is infallible. There is no middle ground.”[8]

As we noted in previous classes, some in an attempt to preserve inspiration without infallibility, assert that inerrancy is limited to matters of “faith and practice.”

In other words, the Bible is infallibly inspired in doctrinal areas which concern the Christian’s faith and life, but in “lesser” matters it is only inspired but not inerrant.

In the post-modern world in which we live in, it is popular, for instance, to exclude today the area of scientific matters from infallibility.

Many assert that the Bible is not a textbook of science, however, though this is true, such a statement should not be used to deceive people into thinking that when the Bible speaks on a matter that is in the area of science it may be in error.

If there are these parts of the Bible which are not inerrant, then the question properly arises, who decides which parts are true and which parts are erroneous?

One cannot hold to inspiration and infallibility of certain parts and only the inspiration of other parts.

The authority of the Bible is under attack today by those who charge that such authority is the authority of a “paper Pope.”

They assert that authority is in Jesus Christ Himself but not in the Word of the Bible for God’s Word must not be as they say “petrified in a dead record.”[9]

This super pious statement must be challenged because how can Jesus Christ have any authority if the witness to Him (the Bible) is not infallible?

If it is infallible, then it has authority too.

There is no other way of knowing about Christ and His authority except through the Bible.

If the Bible is subject to error, then it is very likely one of those errors concerns our knowledge of Him, His supernatural origin, or His deity, or His teachings, or His resurrection.

If in every detail He is not all that He claimed to be, then what authority does that kind of person have?

Both the authority of Christ and the authority of the Scriptures depend on the inerrancy of the Scriptures, for statements that are not completely true cannot be absolutely authoritative.

Furthermore, parts of the Bible cannot be true and thus authoritative while other parts are not and it is not a book that is authoritative only in matters of “faith and practice.”

Warfield wrote “The authority which cannot assure of a hard fact is soon not trusted for a hard doctrine.”

[1] Epistolae, 82. i, 3. [2] Job, p. 744. [3] Institutes, I, 149. [4] M. Reu, Luther and the Scriptures, p. 24. [5] (1963). Bibliotheca Sacra, 120(478), 138–139. [6] Everett F. Harrison, “The Phenomena of Scripture,” Revelation and the Bible, p. 250. [7] (1963). Bibliotheca Sacra, 120(478), 139–140. [8] Edward J. Young, Thy Word Is Truth, pp. 108-9. [9] J. K. S. Reid, The Authority of Scripture, p. 279.