Infallibility of Scripture III

I think my reply to Mr. Ahern’s post warrants a whole new post.

For a start, Mr. Ahern dismissed rather summarily the issue of canonicity, which is, from a practical perspective, the most important issue of the lot. The infallibility of the whole depends on the infallibility of the parts. The choice of infallible parts, therefore, is extremely important.

We might put canonicity in perspective with infallibility by drawing an analogy. Suppose, again, that we are making the car. The car requires 4,000 parts. In the junkyard we find 8,000, of which 4,000 are definitely infallible, and 4,000 are fallible. You might say that we have two cars in the yard, one fallible, one infallible. But in reality we have no car as yet. We only have parts. To make the car, we have to choose the parts. If we choose the infallible parts, we get an infallible car. If we choose even one fallible part, however, we end up with a fallible car. The choice of parts is as important as the actual infallibility of the parts.

Now my question about the canon is just this. Why are we taking an arbitrary leap of faith in asserting that the councils which decided the canon were inspired? Why are only these councils inspired? Why isn’t the Council of Trent inspired? Is this based on any general principle (“All Church Councils are insipired” or “All Councils Dealing With Scriptural Canonicity are Inspired”)? In short, how can John, the Protestant, assume that these councils are inspired?

Secondly, Mr. Ahern noted briefly in passing that “infalliblity [could] never be displaced, only relocated.” He further said that in this case, it was being relocated to the individual. Mr. Embrey and Nate largely passed over this. But in the end, where else does infallibility rest? Are we to suppose that the individual is merely a passive receptor? He is not. Any reading of Scripture will depend on a lot of things. Whether the individual has a different understanding of a word than the writer. Whether he takes what is said literally or figuratively. 

I’m not saying that if we understand Scripture to be infallible that doesn’t make a difference to how we read it. It does. But I don’t think we can get away from the fact that the individual is always the authority on Scripture. Like any other book, Scripture doesn’t interpret itself. Teachers can help interpret it. But even they can go wrong. Even if Scripture were infallible per se, the final authority on what Scripture says (via interpretation, at least) is always the individual.

Thirdly, Nate and Mr. Embrey hammered out whether the Matthew and Acts accounts conflict about Judas’ death, and on mature consideration, I waive my point: I think the accounts could be construed both ways. To say that someone fell “headlong” might merely be a loose idiom for “down”, or else might be equivalent to the Mt. account, depending on the Greek. Which really just brings up the fact that the text of Scripture is fallible.

Ultimately, it all ties together. Man is fallible, Christ is infallible. Why should we believe that a book which alleges to have the true perspective on Christ is infallible when it is man-made?

Posted at 8:49 pm EST on the 3rd of January 2009 by P. B. Hilton.

Under Theology as

There are 3 replies.
 
  1. J. R. Ahern says on January 4th, 2009 at 6:43 am

    I accept your analogy as far as it goes. But it doesn’t go far. If your car is made up of one piece that’s fallible, I grant that that car is now fallible. But, in case you didn’t notice in my post, I admitted that there is a possibility that there is a fallible book in the Bible. If we can put the work of the Holy Spirit in these terms, though, I don’t think it’s “likely”. It’s not possible in a practical sense. Once again, the traditional Protestant stand is that it’s a fallible collection of infallible books. So, your analogy doesn’t prove anything that I don’t already believe.

    Individual interpretation is always there, yes. But in saying that infallibility is relocated in the individual, I’m drawing a clear distinction between the inevitable conclusions of your model and the traditional model. I’m a traditionalist, so I naturally don’t believe that an “uncomfortable” passage about wives submitting to their husbands can just be snipped out and the rest left as “profitable for doctrine”. But there’s nothing wrong with that in your model. One could, just like Thomas Jefferson or Karl Barth might, snip out any uncomfortable passage since that’s no longer inconsistent with your doctrine. But still, infallibility remains to haunt you.

  2. P. B. Hilton says on January 4th, 2009 at 9:46 am

    I hasten to point out that in making the canon “infallible” by referring to the Holy Spirit as a warrant, you are merely referring the job to the individual. Because, let’s face it, externally there is no difference at all. How do we know when the Holy Spirit is acting and when the individual is acting? Clearly, we can’t. They’re blurred. Was Martin Luther acting through the Spirit when he threw out James, or through the Spirit when he took it back? Were the Reformers right to throw out books like Wisdom, etc? By referring everything to the Spirit (and hence to the individual) we have subjectivized it. The infallibility is back to the individual. And so you can’t even talk about any real external infalliblity anymore.

  3. J. R. Ahern says on January 7th, 2009 at 5:35 pm

    Unfortunately, I can’t but laud your point. Sorry if I’ve been unclear on this, but, yes, I agree, the canon is fallible. It is determined by individuals. I certainly wasn’t making the claim that the guidance of the Holy Spirit makes it infallible, but I am making the claim that the guidance of the Holy Spirit makes it likely that it is correct. In saying that, I’m not denying but rather affirming the simple fact that the choice of Canon in the early years of the Church was wise. The choices made sense. There’s been a vast majority of agreement (besides, of course, books like Wisdom, as you mentioned) on the choice of Canon, and although I think it is open to debate (and hence fallible) I don’t think we should tremble in fear that we got the wrong books. I don’t think the discord about the Apocrypha’s canonicity proves anything about the relevancy of the rest of the canon (like Hebrews or James).