I agree with most of your text here. I like to say (to myself, mostly) that scripture is authoritative. then, whether it’s accurate or not is moot. It IS the standard by which all other truth is judged. (And that’s my arbitrary choice to believe that).

The other dimension i’d like to add is that i was delighted when you mentioned the riddles that god always throws in. It moved me. It is the way i see it, too.

But i sense that god’s aim is not to make us think (altho i do believe he wants us to apply all our intellectual and reasoning talent to our faith) but rather to assert the primary relationship, that he is god and we are his servants.

If we could ever ‘prove the bible’ the problem in my mind wouldnt be so much that we would not then be able to have faith, but it would rather be that we could stand on our own, and assert truth. I dont feel like god ever intended us to be in that posn, but to rather be always depending on him for truth, and life and breath itself. He is the author of reason, and all our thinking derives from his gift of reason to us. that kind of thing.

The typical response at the point you’ve left it here goes something like this:

How do you know that the story of God’s relationship with us is accurate? If the Bible is not at least inspired how do we know that the story is even close to being an accurate story? Moving the purpose of the Bible from “infallibly dictated statements” to “an illustration of God’s relationship with mankind” doesn’t remove the necessity for the Bible to be accurate, it just _maybe_ loosens the requirements some.

(actually, in most “discussions”, it never moves beyond the first posting and response – after that it’s all accusations flying back and forth. “Legalistic a-hole” and “unbelieving satan-spawn” is the usual level of discussion.)

Anyway, there is a point to consider in there. If Paul wrote nothing but his own take on God-Man relations, and it is wildly off-base from reality, then we’ve got a problem. Ditto if John was using Jesus as a puppet to mouth his own story of what he thought Jesus should have been saying/doing. (obviously extreme examples)

So, did God inspire the story of his relationship with mankind, or did God infallibly dictate His story, or did men write a mostly/generally/somewhat/barely accurate account.

That’s what I meant when I said I didn’t see the connection between the halves. The Bible being the story of God’s relationship or a list of rules (or both), doesn’t really change the need to decide whether or not the Bible is infallible, inspired, trustworthy, or other.

I apologize for taking so long to respond to your comment. I haven’t spent nearly as much time with my blog as I’d like to, of late.

I think the connection between the two distinct parts that you noted in my post can be summarized thus: If God intended Scripture not (as we have so often interpreted it) as a rulebook to guide our every thought, choice and action, but as an enigmatic story of His interactions with humanity from the day He created us, then the “infallibility vs. inspiration” debate is completely pointless. If our faith in Him does not hinge on the assertion that every word in Scripture is divinely dictated, then my point in this post was that IT DOES NOT MATTER if Luke got his timeline wrong, or if Paul added a bit of personal opinion into his writing. One thing remains constant – the book is still, first and foremost, the story of God and His relationship with us.

Not so, if it was intended as a book of rules – because if so, then every word has to be perfect, or we might accidentally mess up in following one of those rules.

That was the crux of my post – Rather than staking out a position on the inspiration of Scripture, I was very deliberately NOT staking out such a position, because the more I think about it, the more I think doing so is pointless.

Wow! I like that. I think He created us to think and many times we are asleep in the pew. Good postings my friend, I look forward to reading more

Dan in KC

“You see, the question itself: “Don’t you think that God is capable of preserving in Scripture an accurate record of what He wants from us?” makes an incredibly deep-seated assumption . . .“

Following that, didn’t seem to match what you were thinking about before that. (it probably does, but I don’t see it) As a summary of the “before” part, you were speaking of the change and reasons for the change from an infallible-in-every-detail view to an inspired-but-not-detailed-perfection view (use one of several possible errors as example). In the “after” part, you were speaking of how the Bible is not meant to be a list of rules, but rather an exercise and riddle to make us think and grow.

I’m not quite sure where the connection is – how does the second part deal with the errors part? Was God specifically putting/allowing errors into the Bible to give us something to wrestle with – as something to make us think critically about which parts of the Bible to believe? A puzzle and enigma which, upon study, helps us develop into maturity is one thing. There can be lots of puzzles and even contradictions in that, no problem.

Out and out errors are quite different than obscurity and puzzles, though. A riddle and puzzle to help people grow and mature doesn’t do it’s job very well if it gets them growing off in the wrong direction. Errors are quite distinct from enigmas that way.

That’s gonna take a bit of explaining, if I’m understanding you correctly. (that’s always a bad assumption)

Disclaimer – I’m not trying to sidle up sideways to an argument over infallibility vs. inspiration. I’ve worked through these issues too (still working through them). I just don’t quite see how the second half of your through answered the first half, and I’m curious.