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dare defend the Bible as a text without error, well, you had better prepare yourself for criticism. Where is the Slippage? Another recent critic of inerrancy is sociologist Christian Smith. In his new book, The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture, he argues that it is a serious mistake to argue that the “Bible is inspired by God; God does not and cannot lie (Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18); therefore everything in the Bible is true; therefore the Bible is inerrant.” Smith protests, “But this line of thought involves multiple instances of slippage and leaping” (81). So what are these instances of slippage and leaping? Smith lists three. The first “unwarranted leap” is to jump from rightly believing the Bible is “God-breathed” to erroneously assuming that the Bible down to the details of its words “consists of and is identical with God’s very own words written in human language.” The second slippage, says Smith, is when we apply statements in the New Testament about God’s inability to lie to a “more general abstract issue about the ontological nature of the Bible.” Smith goes on to clarify: “It simply does not necessarily follow from the idea that God cannot lie to the idea that every thing in the Bible is inerrant.” God’s truthfulness, in other words, does not mean that the Bible is also free from error. And third, we too often assume that the Bible’s notion of “true” means inerrant. Such an assumption, says Smith, is simplistic, given the “diverse literary nature of the Bible and many textual forms of conveying truths.” Turns out, Smith is so upset with those who would read the Bible as an error-free document, that he goes so far as to say that those who do are “shamefully untrusting and ungrateful when it comes to receiving God’s written word as God has chosen to confer it” (128). Smith takes off the gloves in his next sentence when he says they “throw the Bible as it is back in God’s face” and want a Bible (an inerrant one!) that is different from the one God has given. “They essentially demand-in God’s name, yet actually based on a faulty modern philosophy of language and knowledge-a sacred text
that will make them certain and secure, even though that is not actually the kind of text God gave” (128). What kind of Bible is it then that God has given us? One with errors in it, says Smith, unashamed. And these errors not only pervade the details but even the viewpoints of the biblical authors. In the “process of divine inspiration,” says Smith, “God did not correct every incomplete or mistaken viewpoint of the biblical authors in order to communicate through them with their readers. That would have been distracting. The point of the inspired scripture was to communicate its central point, not to straighten out every kink and dent in the views of all the people involved in biblical inscripturation and reception along the way” (129). So it is the message, not necessarily the details that we are to pay attention to, even though even the viewpoints of those teaching this message will at times be incomplete or, worse yet, mistaken. Nevertheless, such a vantage point, says Smith, never leads us to question the Bible’s divine authority (134). In the end, inerrancy for Smith is a term far too “limited, narrow, restricted, flat, and weak” to represent the diverse speech in the Bible (160). Who is Really Slipping? Smith is convinced that inerrantists are slipping, forcing their faulty assumptions onto the Bible, making it something it is not. And in doing so inerrantists are ungrateful, throwing the Bible back in God’s face! But is Smith right? Is it true that belief in the inerrancy of the Bible stands on the erroneous logic that since God is true, unable to lie, therefore his word must also be without error? And are we mistaken to assume that because the Bible is God-breathed so also is it perfect in every way, not only in its message but even in its details? Are we “forcing” our doctrine of inerrancy onto the Bible? And can it possibly be the case that an errant word of God never leads the reader to lack assurance in its credibility and reliability? When we look at what the Bible says, it becomes very clear that reality is far different than the picture Smith paints. In fact, it is Smith who is really slipping, not inerrantists. Inerrantists are simply seeking to remain www.credomag.com | 15