Dr Greg Bahnsen - Sola Scriptura: The Epistemological Necessity of Inerrancy (Part 2)

And especially to share this evening, tomorrow evening with you, considered a great privilege. And I hope, even though you have to forgive me for forgetting your name, that I'll get to meet more of you individually and get a chance to chat. Thank you again for the invitation. Tonight's lecture is going to be something of a combination of philosophical apologetics and some rather hardcore theological considerations about a subject which is of great importance in the evangelical world today, a subject that has been misunderstood in many places and by many people, in many ways a subject of biblical inerrancy. I think if we reflect on the necessities of epistemology, if we think epistemology, what's that guy talking about up there? Epistemology is the theory of knowledge. If you aren't inclined in philosophical direction, if that's not your major here, epistemology considers what the requirements of knowledge are, how we know what we know, if we know what we know, how we justify these things, what we mean by notions like belief in knowledge, truth, those sorts of matters. And what I'm suggesting is if we will look at epistemology from a Christian perspective, will see that holding to the inerrancy of Scripture is absolutely necessary. In 1977, Word Books published a book edited by Jack Rogers entitled Biblical Authority. In it, Clark Hennick has written an article entitled Three Views of the Bible in Contemporary Theology, in which he surveys and reacts to the liberal, the neo orthodox, and the conservative evangelical viewpoints on the Bible. Now, Pennock characterizes the liberal approach to biblical authority as selective. The liberal comes to the Bible and he selects those things that he thinks are appropriate and rejects those things he deems inappropriate. The liberal looks at the Bible as not beyond correction. Modern worldviews may be used to correct the worldview presented in the Bible and various things that are taught in the Bible. On the other hand, the neo orthodox approach to the Bible, says Pinnock, the neo orthodox approach makes man's experience of faith the location of revelation, ending up by grafting biblical views onto what is basically a secular understanding of reality. The neo orthodox takes man's experience of faith, this internal experience of coming to know the Lord, and then graphs that on to what is the view of reality available to people outside biblical restraints and foundations as well. So you take a secular view of life and you add to it this experience of faith. Now Pinnock tells us that the third approach, the conservative evangelical approach, says we should listen to Scripture, and we should listen to Scripture even when it offends our modern mentality, even when it challenges us. The Keynote of the conservative approach is that when the Bible speaks, we bow the head to say, yes, Lord, that's a very hard thing for 20th century men to do. That kind of humble attitude is not fostered on all sides round about us. But the conservative says, if the Bible conflicts with what I take to be a modern view of life, then the modern view of life must be reformed and not vice versa. We will reform every aspect of life according to the word of God, rather than reforming the word of God by these various aspects of life in all three cases. Pinnock's insight, it seems to me, is that the problem of biblical inerrancy, the problem of biblical authority, is presuppositional in character. It's the question of what one takes as his final authority, what we might call what one takes as his control beliefs. We all have a web of beliefs, a large web of beliefs all the way from, I believe it's Monday evening and such trivial things as I think the birds are chirping outside. If that's what we happen to be hearing or think we are hearing. Two more important things that are religious in nature. I believe in God. I believe in final judgment or things of that nature. Now, among this large range of beliefs, we find certain ones that are the stick beliefs, the ones that we stick with no matter what, or at least we stick with them almost to the end or all the way to the end. That is, we hold onto them, we are tenacious about them in a way that we aren't with others. In fact, there's a large gradation when it comes to this tenacity about our belief. If I think I hear birds chirping outside and then some kind of counter evidence is presented to me, I don't find it difficult to give that up. If somebody presents evidence that there is no God, I hold on to dear life, you see. So there are control beliefs, those beliefs which are foundational, those beliefs which we would call presuppositional in tonight's lecture. And what Pennock is telling us is that this question of biblical authority is a presuppositional question. What are our control beliefs when it comes to the Bible? Now, my narrow interest in this paper is with a series of questions which Pennock says must be seriously considered and answered by those who wish to defend biblical inerrancy. And I'm glad to tell you tonight that I am a defender of biblical inerrancy. I don't say that with pride. I say that only because of the grace of God. But it's a grace of God that keeps you humble, hopefully bold and humble at the same time. I wish to say that the Bible is the word of God and that it is without error in what it teaches. Now, Penning says, if you hold that kind of view, as unpopular as it may be in the 20th century, then there are some questions you're going to have to ask and answer. Having assailed many evangelicals in a quite vague and I think, metaphorical, perhaps emotive manner for over belief about the Bible and attempting to soften the contours of its text, not doing justice to the human side of the Bible, Pennock sets forth seven critical questions posed by those who aren't satisfied with the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. He says these questions cannot be ignored. Time requires, however, that I ignore all but one of them. And I would insist that my response to that one question, namely is inerrancy and epistemological necessity, is but one answer to Pinnock's question. I don't think that I've cornered the market when it comes to answering the question, but I do have something to suggest in reply to this one question that I hope it's worth hearing. There might be many other avenues by which one could approach the question and reply to it, but tonight I'll give you my own. In his article, Pennock asserts that it is obvious that the argument based on epistemology, the argument in favor of biblical inerrancy based on epistemology, is itself very doubtful. And by that he means that religious certainty would not be destroyed if a flaw were to exist in Scripture, that errorlessness is not deemed epistemologically crucial by God, and that one can have a very high and strong view of the inspiration and authority of the Bible without believing that it's without error. He also means that the authority of the Bible does not stand or fall on questions as to whether the disciples carried one or two staffs or whether there are rabbits that chew the cud. Notorious detailed problems for those holding to biblical inerrancy. Do you get the point? Hennock is saying you can believe in biblical authority even though you don't believe in biblical inerrancy. Now, this particular question of whether scriptural inerrancy is an epistemological necessity has been given added importance by the publication of Stephen Davis book the Debate about the Bible, Westminster Press, 1977, in which he straightforwardly criticizes the inerrancy of the Bible and argues for infallibility. Instead, he says, I believe in the infallibility of the Bible, but not the inerrancy of the Bible. Davis isolates the three common arguments that are advanced for inerrancy by evangelical writers, and he rejects each one in turn, takes each one of these up and then knocks it down. He labels these arguments the biblical argument for inerrancy, the epistemological argument for inerrancy, subject tonight's talk and the slippery slide argument for inerrancy. That's the second one that I'm concerned about, and it's the second question that underscores the importance of Pinnock's own question is inerrancy and epistemological necessity. All the more since it turns out that Clark Pennock wrote the introduction to Stephen Davis book an interesting combination of facts as well. You should be aware of the fact before we continue, however, that Pennock and Davis, although they in a sense complement, support each other, nevertheless conceive of the epistemological argument for biblical inerrancy quite differently. They have different conceptions of that argument. Hennig, for instance, says if he is trying to portray what allegedly is our argument, or my argument for the inerrancy of Scripture on the basis of epistemological necessity. He says the argument goes like if a flaw were to exist in Scripture, religious certainty would be destroyed. If there were one flaw in the Bible, then no religious certainty. He portrays me as saying, if the Bible is mistaken on a single point which we can't believe the Bible at all, we can't believe the Bible at all. Unless every point can be established, the entire edifice will come crashing down. According to those who argue in this way, playing panic and one single error and even a tiny detail of Scripture will invalidate the whole Bible. Its inspiration will open the floodgate to Bible denying theories, to liberalism, ultimately to apostasy, so that the authority of the Bible stands or it falls on every detail. It's true. Davis, on the other hand, doesn't portray the argument in that light at all. His basic idea is that unless the Bible is inerrant, Christians have no sound epistemological foundation on which to base their belief. And there are distinct versions of this argument, he says, ones which are not carefully distinguished, even as Pinochet has not carefully distinguished them, they seldom are. But the different forms of this argument would be the somebody could say the Bible might err in any passage, and since it might err anywhere, it's not reliable anywhere. Or secondly, somebody would say if the Bible is errant, if it makes mistakes, it cannot be authoritative for faith and practice, that seems to be be Pennock's understanding of the argument. Thirdly, a person might say the Bible requires an extra biblical criterion that's superior to itself if it makes mistakes, and that's an unchristian attitude to hold. Or finally, somebody might argue if the Bible is errant, then we have no sure guarantee of other Christian beliefs either. Now, it turns out that although Davis does a commendable job of distinguishing the lodge of different versions of this argument, he does nothing to handle them on a separate basis. He says, in fact, and I quote, since each easily flows in and out of the others, the answer to one is the answer to all that isn't true. Is it if they are logically distinct. To answer one is only to answer one. There's no logical connection between refuting one version of the argument and refuting others. Well, the point can, however, is that I have a version of the argument which neither Kinnick nor Davis turn out to have refuted. And it may be that it can be refuted and rebutted. I'll give you a few minutes to ask questions about it as we get done, but I think that it's worth consideration. I do think there is an epistemological necessity for biblical inerrancy. I'd like you to follow along with me tonight as I lay that before you. First of all, I want to say that inerrancy is necessary in order to know any theological truth that is revealed in Scripture. I know that some of you are taking notes, so since that's such a key point, let me repeat it for you. Inerrancy is necessary in order to know any theological truth revealed in Scripture. You must underline that word know, as you'll see in just a moment. That's crucial. Inerrancy is necessary in order to know any theological truth revealed in Scripture. Why? Well, in the first place, because knowledge is justified. True belief. What do we mean by the word knowledge or the verb to know? We mean somebody holds a belief that it's a true belief and that it's held with justification or with good evidence. For 25 centuries, the problem of human understanding, namely of recognizing the basis of intellectual intellectual authority, has been an enduring preoccupation and a permanent feature of man's speculative thought. There are typical epistemological questions and critical issues in deciding how we are to reflectively picture ourselves when we think of ourselves as knowers. How we are to settle on an intellectual process, how we are to settle on intellectual procedure. These questions asked, not what do we know? They ask. How do we know? Especially has there been an interest in pursuing the goal of non arbitrariness for those who have studied epistemology, People want to eliminate personal prejudice, they want to eliminate unreasoning conjecture, they want to eliminate distorting bias from their beliefs, and so they get engaged in epistemological distort discussions. And it seems to me that that's reflected in recent efforts in epistemology by the fact that the field is pretty much concentrated these days on the whole issue of the justification of knowledge claim. That is really the central notion in epistemology day. How do you justify a claim to knowledge? Now, in conjunction with such questions, would you notice that the Scripture teaches us that we can and that we do know the theological truths which are revealed in the Bible? The Scripture tells us that we know certain things if we are believers. In fact, the Bible teaches us that it itself is without error. That would be one of the things we could know if we can know the truths of the Scripture. Psalm 119:160 says, the sum of thy word is true truth. Proverbs 35 says, Every word of God has proven true. Of course in John 17:17 we read, Thy word is truth. So the Bible claims to be a book full of truths. Not a book full of errors, not a book of misleading remarks or personal opinions, but a book of truths. Hebrews 4:13 tells us that God is in a position to not make any mistakes because before the eyes of God, every creature is open. God sees everything. According to Hebrews 6:18, God cannot lie. And so if God sees everything and God cannot lie, it only stands to reason that what God says is going to be true. Second Timothy 3:16 says, Every scripture is God breathed word. All Scripture is inspired of God, which means it is exhaled by God. It is what God says. And so if every scripture we find in the Bible is God's word, and God sees everything, and God cannot lie, it stands to reason that every scripture that asserts things is going to be true, even as these other passages have said. Okay, so the Bible claims to be true, and it claims that we can know the truth. Here are some of the things it says in this regard. When men repent and are saved, they come to quote a knowledge of the truth. 1st Timothy 2:4 2 Timothy 2:25 Indeed, they are commanded to grow in knowledge the knowledge of the Lord. 2nd Peter 3:18 When John wrote his first epistle, it was in order that you may know that you have eternal life. 1 John 5:13 Jesus taught that if we abide in his word, we shall know the truth, and it shall set us free. John 8:32 and John insists, We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. First John 4:16 and he further declares, we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding in order that we might know him who is true. 1st John 5:20 Moreover, we know specific theological truths, for instance about our future glorification. 1st John 3. 2 says, we know of these things and we know the Spirit of God and thereby can detect anti Christian error. 1st John 4:2 and we know that we have come to know Him. It's an interesting expression this morning. Significant. Not only do we know certain things, but we know that we know certain things. There's a kind of certainty about it. First John 2, 3 We know that the apostolic witness is true. The third epistle of John, verse 12 and in listening to God's revelation, Proverbs says, we know the certainty of the words of truth. I'll give you one particular illustration here. Peter says that we are to know for certain that God has made Jesus Lord in Christ by his resurrection. Acts 2:36 and thus I could go on and on and on, but you get the point. By now there is a persistent biblical teaching that we can and do know theological truths that are revealed in God's Word. Indeed, we can know them as certain. Of course, the claim doesn't make it the case, but the Bible says that it's true, and the Bible says we can know the truths that are presented therein. Now I'm going to assume tonight that knowledge that the word knowledge and the verb to know when they are used in the Bible are not radically categorically different concepts than the standard everyday garden variety concept of the knowledge that I've called justified true belief. Now, I do believe knowledge in the Bible is more than that. My only point tonight, and the only crucial point for my presentation, is that it is at least that justified true belief. So then, given the central questions of epistemology and given the goal of epistemology, and given that these biblical truths about our knowledge are as I've said they are, we need to go on and ask the obvious question. How can we know, for instance, the statements of the Bible? How can we know what the Bible says? The Bible says Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. How can we know that? Can we know with certainty that Christ was raised for our justification? As Paul says in Romans, such Questions as these ask after the warrant for our theological beliefs and the nature of that warrant. When asked whether we know these theological assertions, these biblical propositions about God and his relation to man which are believed and are set forth as true, we are being asked for the justification for the evidence that we have for them and for our purposes. Now, as I continue this paper, any such theological assertion that comes from the Bible can be considered. The Bible says God is one. The Bible says the wages of sin is death, and on and on and on. And we will symbolize any particular assertion of the Bible hereafter as P, any premise, if you want, or proposition. Okay? So anytime I say P hereafter that will stand for any of the whatever you know, proposition or premise you want to keep in your mind, as long as it's a biblical one. Okay, now we need to ask about the nature of knowledge if we're going to answer the question, how do we know that P? Somebody says, now you believe Christ was raised from the dead. You believe that P. How? How do you know that? Well, if I don't know what knowledge is, I'm not even going to be able to begin to answer that question. So let's ask ourselves now, what is knowledge? Well, in the first place, it's obvious that knowledge, knowledge is a kind of belief, isn't it? All instances of knowledge are instances of belief. They are in fact a subclass of the instances of belief. Okay, now let's say I believe the moon is made out of green cheese. I also believe that it's Monday evening and I believe xyz we can go on and on and on. Now all those things are genuinely believed. I would operate on on those things. I would guide my life on that basis. It's Monday evening, the moon is made of green cheese, etc. Etc. As you can see out of the circle of all of those beliefs, some of them are going to be knowledgeable and some are not. Okay, so my first point is that knowledge is a kind of belief. Well, now what makes the difference between tonight is Monday night and the moon is made out of green cheese? What distinguishes the beliefs? All of them are beliefs, but not all of them are knowledgeable. Well, knowledge is more than belief. For if we admit that P is false, we indicate that nobody can know that P. Although they may think that they know it, they may say that they know it, they may genuinely believe that they know it, but they can't know those things which are false. I may believe that San Francisco is south of Los Angeles, but I Can't. I can't know that. I can only believe it and act like a fool. And yet knowledge is not merely true belief either. Somebody might say, well, now, wait a minute. Those things I know are all those beliefs which are true, the beliefs I have which are true beliefs. But that's not good enough either. For you see, those beliefs that I have, even the ones that turn out to be true, can be somewhat arbitrary, somewhat accidental. What if I were to tell you tonight that I believe that there are 6,423,209 killer bees in South America and then there was assuming some way to count them, and somebody does a count and calls us up and says, you know what? There are number of bees and I turn out to be right. Now, by no stretch of the imagination, you say, oh, Dr. Bronson knew how many killer bees there were in South America. Now you'd say, well, that was a lucky guess. It was a hunch. He didn't know it. Even if he believed it, and even if it was true, he didn't know it. So at first sight it might seem that if we believe what is in fact true, then we have knowledge. But this is not the sense and which the word is commonly used. The definition of knowledge as true belief just turns out to be too broad. True conclusions can be drawn by invalid means or drawn from false premises. They can be based on very poor grounds indeed. I'll give you some other instances. Suppose a man believed that the president name, the present President's name began with the letter R. But he also believed this because he thought that Roy Rogers was. Was the present President of the United States. Now he would believe something that is true that the present President has as the first letter of his last name, R. But he would believe it for very bad reasons, and we would say he didn't know it. After all, what he believes is in fact true. Yet no one would say he knew that the President's name began with R. Then again, let us say that you look at a clock which you believe to be running, but which in fact has stopped, and you happen to look at it at just the moment when it so happens that the hands are pointing to the correct time. I don't think anybody would. You would acquire a true belief as to the time by looking at the clock and saying, oh, I see, that it is such and such a time. But nobody would say that you knew that it was that time because you were relying on poor evidence. You might believe something, you might misremember something about the Testimony of a notorious liar. And just because you happen to misremember what the liar said, you might get it right in the end, but you wouldn't have good reasons for what you believe. Okay, so we conclude that knowledge is a subclass of true beliefs, and every case of knowledge is a case of true belief. But not every true belief is a case of knowledge. And it's easy to indefinitely give examples that are not knowledgeable beliefs. And what they show us is that you cannot claim to have knowledge merely because you turn out to be right. The character in addition to truth that a belief must have if it's going to count as a knowledgeable belief is substantiation by good evidence. Knowledge is true belief held on good evidence. For you note takers, that's something you should write down. Okay, I'll try to stop my foot every time we get to one of those crucial premises. All right. Knowledge is truly held on good evidence. We now see that with respect to the theological assertions of Scripture, when a believer is challenged, how do you know that P. He is expected to offer good evidence for P, he's being asked to supply evidence of its truth. So now the moment of truth for us comes the moment of reckoning. What then is the warranting procedure for those theological assertions which, as Scripture says, we can and do know as Christians? The words of a well known children's hymn are both popular and profound, and I think they are near to the heart of every true child of God, whatever his age may be. The hymn says, jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. You know, There's a sharply delineated epistemology in that children's hymn. There's a very clear warranting procedure in that children's hymn. And if you wonder why we're talking about children's hymns and morning we don't become a little more sophisticated and talk adult stuff, it's because I'm afraid that the modern theological world perhaps has not gotten beyond even that elementary lesson. Look at that. Look at that epistemology. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Quite simply and sufficiently, a theological assertion is said to be warranted on the ground that it's taught in the Bible to restate the law. It amounts to this I know, P for the Bible tells me P. Or if you wish, because P is included in the set of scriptural assertions, it is said to be justified true belief, and therefore it's known the basis for the claim to know p is that it has scriptural justification, that it's evidenced in the Bible. Now, this is an obvious pattern for warranting theological beliefs. It's the. The obvious pattern that's been used throughout the history of evangelical Protestantism, certainly since the times of the Protestant Reformation. And it's this pattern that I think is in fact warranted by the Scripture itself. Scripture uses just that warranting procedure. But now, before we go on, we need to add another insight here. We've been talking about warranting procedures and patterns in epistemology, and our next authority observation is that an imperfect justification pattern for knowledge claims entails its insufficiency and the recognition finally of a higher epistemic authority. An imperfect justification pattern for knowledge claims entails its insufficiency and eventually the recognition of a higher epistemic authority. When a claim to knowledge is to be warranted, it is customary for people to appeal to sources of truth or sets of truths. For instance, a traveler says, I know the Golden Gate Bridge is orangish red, for I saw it with my own eyes. Or somebody says, I know that Grove City is 14 miles wide, because I read about it in the Encyclopedia Britannica. In actuality, appeals to a source of truths is itself an appeal to a set of truths, that is, that set of truths in the illustration given which are disclosed by perception. And appeals to sets of truths are ultimately appeals to sources of truths. For instance, those sources on which the encyclopedia authors drew and thus the warrant or the justification of a knowledge claim will be in terms of a source set. That is, particular assertions will be warranted in epistemology in terms of a justification pattern in terms of a set or a source of truths that is more general than that particular claim itself. So if I can expand on previous illustrations, we would say, I know the proposition. The Golden Gate Bridge is orangish red because it is among the same set of perceived truths. Or somebody might say, I know the proposition that Grove City is 14 miles wide, for it is among the set of truths presented in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Of course, there are good and not so good justification patterns used for knowledge claims. Consider the following instance. Somebody says, I know that Sam's phone number is 791, for I remember seeing it in Ray's address book 10 years ago. Now, in this case, people are not generally prone to grant reliability to this justification pattern. The set of truths in Ray's address book has proven to be less than accurate, and the truth source of memory is notoriously Faulty. Yet on the other hand, Ray's book does have much correct information, indeed even some information that's hard to find otherwise. And memory is not totally wrong at every point. So perhaps one does believe truly that Sam's phone number is 791-5644. But one does not know that Sam's phone number is that until his insufficient justification pattern has been improved upon, the set of propositions remembered from Ray's book phone book is not wholly true. And thus appeal to such an imperfect source of information will not in itself warrant a knowledge claim. Something more must be done to justify the claim that you know that Sam's number is 791-5644. One must either have some screening procedure that would detect the false claims among the set of propositions remembered from Ray's book, or. Or one must have some further warrant for confirming the true claims among that set. What I'm saying here is that if you use a justification pattern for your knowledge claims, that is an imperfect pattern, you're going to have to add to that either a screening procedure so that when you use the pattern you can now screen out the ones that shouldn't be appealed to, or a further warrant by which you can give double justification or recontent information, if you will, of the proposition that you're appealing to now. Oftentimes the screening procedure or further warrant can be one and the same. For instance, checking the remembered phone number against the directory or calling the information operator or dialing the number in a pragmatic test to find out if that really is Sam's number or not. The simple appeal to memory. Memory of Ray's phone book will not in itself be sufficient to justify the belief, even if it happens to be true, that Sam's number is 791-5644. And thus it constitutes the case of knowing the fact that some discriminating and or confirming procedure must be applied beyond the justification pattern of appealing to that set of propositions remembered in Ray's book indicates that there is an epistemic authorization or an epistemic standard that is ranked in a hierarchy above the present warranty procedure. You say, what is Sam's phone number? The answer I give is, well, his number is 791-5644. You say, how do you know that? I remember it from Ray's book 10 years ago. Well, I want a little bit more than that. You know what that tells me about you? That tells me about you that you consider something to have a higher epistemic authority than my memory of Ray's. Book from 10 years ago. And there's a hierarchy there, implicit, to be sure, but a hierarchy. When my memory of the number as found in Ray's book conflicts with what the information operator says, and I usually conclude that the remembered number is wrong. And when the information operator conflicts with what I directly see in the direction directory, I suppose that she has misread the book. And when I call the number that conflicts with the directory and it still reaches Sam, the intended party, I consider the possibility there's been a misprint in the telephone book. You see, there's this hierarchy of authorities. The insufficiency of a warranting procedure for a proposition that appeals to inclusion of that proposition. And a set of propositions, like remembered propositions in Ray's phone book will entail a hierarchy of epistemic authorities with the insufficient warranting procedure that is under consideration not being deemed supreme. Indeed, the very fact that this justification pattern can be discerned as faulty and inadequate indicates that this warrant is less authoritative than some other standard. For one must have a standard against which error could be detected. You're not able to tell me how many inches a device is unless you have some yardstick against which to measure. And the fact that a justification pattern is qualified and corrected at points indicates its position as a lesser authority. We've seen, then, that the justification of the belief as a case of knowledge calls for appealing to the fact that the believed proposition is included in, or as a member of a set source of propositions. It is an instance of a generally authorized set of propositions. However, the set to which appeal is made in justification patterns for knowledge claims is usually broader in scope than those propositions which are true, broader in scope than what actually and sufficiently qualifies as warranted true propositions. The imperfection of this set thus requires its qualification and supplementation. It will implicitly call for a screening procedure, I said, for the false propositions, or a further warrant for the true propositions. And finally, a hierarchy of epistemic authorities for standards. What this means is that it will not be sufficient for one to justify a claim to know P, since simply in virtue of P's inclusion in the allegedly warranting set of propositions, the insufficiency and the fallibilism of that set will require. Now we go further, will require that each member of the set receive further consideration in isolation from the others. If I appeal to the Encyclopedia of Britannica but it turns out that's a notoriously faulty source of information, then I can only appeal to the Encyclopedia Britannica. When I justify the propositions therein one by one, piecemeal fashion, I can't say there's this general package deal that you get in the Encyclopedia Britannica. And so that means that every proposition stands or falls on its own now. And it means, further, that confidence can be rebuilt in that set through inductive confirmation of many of its members and then generalization to cover the set. I don't want to go too fast here. I know some of this is perhaps unfamiliar with you, but that's why I'm using these mundane illustrations to make the point rather clear. I'm saying that if you have an imperfect justification pattern, you need screening procedure or a further warrant, and certainly a hierarchy of epistemic authorities. And those three things in turn will require that each member of that site will receive consideration in isolation, and that confidence will be rebuilt in the set only through inductive generalization. I look one by one and say, well, it was right in this case, it was right in this case, it was right in this case. Very likely it's right in the next case. That is, at this point, the justification pattern, with its warranting set of propositions, will either become a fruitful source or beginning point for hypotheses to be considered and tested one by one, or be made over into what I will call a presumptive authority, inductive generalization. It's been true so often that I presume that it's true in the case before me, and that is a presumptive authority. Because of the successive confirmations of many of its claims, many of the members of the set, according to that more reliable and higher authority that we've already talked about. So what? Those of you who have been holding your breath for a long time, you know, philosophy Ludwig Vitchi signs that it's like swimming underwater. You know, people who really do well at swimming underwater are the ones who can hold out just a little bit longer, hold your breath, make it to the end. Okay, you underwater swimmers, hold on now. We're going to get to the end. What's the point of all this? Simply that the errancy of Scripture, not inerrancy, but the errancy of Scripture, has thoroughly adverse implications for the epistemic justification of our theological assertions. We have earlier observed that in answer to the question, how do you know that, Pete? How do you know that Jesus rose from the dead, that God is one, that Jesus is now at the right hand of God interceding for the saints? How do you know these things. We've seen that evangelicals have answered such questions by warranting their theological assertions simply and sufficiently by pointing to their inclusion in the set of scriptural assertions. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. However, those who deny the inerrancy of Scripture render that justification pattern inadequate and imperfect. Isn't that obvious? To affirm the errancy of the set of scriptural assertions means that P is not justified simply in virtue of its inclusion in the biblical set of propositions. Now, P may be true, P may be believed, but I want to know, is P known? If it is known, it is not justified simply in virtue of the fact that that proposition is found in the Bible. Now, the consequences of this can be broadly indicated, corresponding to what we have observed in the case of justifying that Sam's phone number is 791-5644, by the way, is that what I said earlier is memory reliable? Corresponding to what we have observed about justifying that Sam's phone number is that by pointing to its inclusion in the set of remembered propositions from Ray's book, attempting to justify theological assertions by an errant set of propositions will eventually call for screening God's word, seeking a more sufficient authority outside of Scripture and having a higher authority than God's revealed word. Now, while those who deny inerrancy may personally resist these things by an exercise of their will, I mean, they say, oh, I don't want to be taken to that conclusion. I mean, they might exercise their will and say, no, I don't want to believe that they might resist those conclusions by an exercise of will. They are epistemologically unavoidable. With an errant Bible, it cannot be epistemologically sufficient to say, jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible test tells me so. For the Bible teaches error as well as truth. The set of its assertions, just like Ray's address book or even the Encyclopedia Britannica, is imperfect on this theory, and thus the inclusion of P in it is no guarantee of its truth. Something must be added to the picture. Something must be added to the justification pattern to render it a sufficient one. And the epistemological consequences of that, now that we are led down this path, are simply that we cannot know theological propositions on the evidence of sola scriptura. Protestant Reformation, of course, was founded on just that epistemological viewpoint. Scripture alone is the source of our theology, and secondly, we cannot know any theological propositions at all. I Don't mean we can't be leave them. I say, we cannot know them. Now, Stephen Davis, fellow who wrote the battle over the Bible that I spoke about earlier, the debate over the Bible, excuse me. He swallows this reductio ad absurdum that I presented to you tonight. He says, well, that's where you want to leave me, okay, that's where it leads. He says, nobody knows biblical doctrines with certainty anyway. Because you see, knowing things with certainty is available only in logic and mathematics. We do not have a sure guarantee of any doctrine. He says, and yet it's still possible to know these doctrines in a weaker sense. He says, I can believe them with good reasons. I can have evidence for them without knowing that the Bible is inerrant. But you see why, while that is true, it's open to him to know certain things out of the Bible. He can only know them if he can judge each proposition in isolation by a higher authority, and the epistemological consequences of that are grave and significant. Somebody says, well, all right, I see your point. No more sola scriptura, no more knowledge of certain theological truths. But after all, no present Bible is inerrant anyway. I mean, the Bibles we have have come to us. Somebody had to make some kind of choice about canonical inclusion of books. There have been transmission errors. There's a whole question of hermeneutics and how do we interpret the Bible. And so what you leave us with, Dr. Bonson, is only conditional inerrancy anyway. What you leave us with with is if P is taught in the Bible, then it's true. You know that's right. If P is taught in the Bible, then it's true is exactly the position I'm taking. Somebody says, but we're gonna have to do some homework now. Is it taught in the Bible? Was it in the original manuscripts? Is it properly part of the canon of Scripture? Has it been interpreted correct? When somebody argues that way, I have a tendency to say to them, did you think that inerrancy was a shortcut so that we didn't have to do our homework? Inerrancy was never intended to short circuit the idea of looking at the manuscripts of the Bible, interpreting them properly, understanding which books belong in the canon and which don't? That isn't the point of inerrancy. And so when somebody says, well, you end up opening with conditional inerrancy. I'm saying, yes, but the conditions don't hurt. They're the natural conditions of any intelligent commitment to the word of God anyway. But Just let me give you one example of how to handle those kinds of objections. I don't have time to take and give you a paradigm way of handling all such objections of this nature that we only have conditional inerrancy. I think there's circulating at the present time a rather serious misunderstanding of the evangelical restriction of inerrancy, for instance to the autographic text of the Bible. By autographic I mean that text which was on the first manuscript written by Paul or whomever we might think of. Lester De Coster, for instance, claims that there are only two options. Either the Bible on our pulpits is the inspired word of God, or it is the uninspired word of man. It says, because inspiration and inerrancy are are restricted to the autograph of the first manuscripts, which by the way, are lost and can't be found on our pulpits, then our Bibles must be the uninspired words of men and not the vitally needed word of God. Others have misconstrued an epistemological argument for inerrancy, as we've seen tonight, as holding that if the Bible contains even one mistake, it cannot be believed true at any point and we cannot rely upon any part of it. God cannot even use it to communicate authoritatively to us. Now, from this mistaken starting point, the critic goes on to say of the evangelical restriction of inerrancy to the autographer due to errors in our present manuscripts and Bibles that it entails that our Bibles today cannot be trusted at all, cannot communicate God's word to us, and cannot be the inspired word of God. And if the if the present Bible with its errors is not inspired, then we are left with nothing since the autographer are lost. The argument here very simply is, look, your present Bible has errors in it anyway, so why all the fuss about an error now? Such a dilemma rests on numerous fallacies and misunderstandings. However, in the first place, it confuses the autographic text of the Bible with an autographic co codex of the Bible. These are words that will not be familiar to many of you. The text of the Bible will be the words that are written on the manuscript. The codex will be the manuscript itself. And notice, we are not restricting inerrancy to the autographic codex. That inerrancy only applies to those manuscripts. We are rather restricting in transparency to the text that was on those original manuscripts. The loss of the manuscripts does not automatically entail the loss of the text. In fact, anybody who wants to do a little bit of reading on New Testament or Old Testament textual criticism. You will be amazed at the high degree of confirmation of the original text in the Bible that we have before us. Amazing. In fact, I'm something of a pundit in Plato. I read Plato. That's a little unusual these days, I think. And when you read Plato and want to do it seriously, you have to do some Greek textual criticism. And I'll tell you what it's like with Plato. Plato wrote at a particular point in history. And the first known manuscript of Plato's writings. Manuscript. The copy of his writings that we have dates from seven centuries later. The Gospel of John was written sometime midway through to the end of the first century. And we have a small shred of a manuscript that contains a portion of the Gospel of John which by all conservative and liberal estimates dates from about 95 to 105 AD. We're talking about a 40 year gap, perhaps not a 7th century gap. And yet nobody in their right mind, nobody, claims we don't know what Plato taught. Well, if that's true, how much more can be Weedy Shrimp of the text of the New Testament? I don't say that we have it infallibly at every point, but I tell you that the fact we don't have the manuscript does not by any stretch of the imagination imply that we don't have the text. Certain manuscripts may have decayed or been lost, but the words of those manuscripts are still with us in good copies of the same. And let me add also that evangelicals do not, by their commitment to inerrancy, necessarily commit that logical fallacy of saying that if one point in a book is mistaken, then all the points in it are likewise mistaken. What I'm saying tonight is that if one point is mistaken, then every point is less than reliable. It may turn out to be true. It doesn't have to be false just because one thing's false. The fact that Winston Churchill made one historical error in his book the Gathering Storm would not lead us to believe that everything in the Gathering Storm is wrong. But the fact that he made one mistake would convince us that he might have made a mistake elsewhere. Moreover, let's remember that this predicate, inerrant or inspired, is not the kind of predicate that can be applied only in what might be called an all or nothing fashion. It's just a false dilemma to say that a book either is totally inspired or totally uninspired, just as it's fallacious. I think that a book must be either completely true or completely false. There are predicates which are applied in degrees. You know, a man is not totally bald or totally not bald. Things are not totally warm or totally not warm, totally fast or totally not fast. And inerrancy is a predicate like that. Inerrant and inspired can be applied in degrees. So let's say we had an anthology of religious writings from the various religions of the world. I'd say that book is inerrant to the degree that it incorporates the Judeo Christian scriptures. So you see, inerrancy is not the kind of predicate that prevents us from saying that this Bible on my pulpit is inerrant to the degree that it reflects the original text. That having been said, then we don't have any of these false dilemmas to worry about any longer. Now, Stephen Davis tells us there's no certainty available to men anyway on things. I don't have time tonight to tell you why I think that is a bad epistemology. In fact, a good portion of my doctoral work is concerned precisely with the way to deal with that problem. But I want you to know his own perspective. Presumptive authority. Anyway, Davis says the Bible's not inerrant, but there are ways in which we can see the truth of certain propositions in the Bible, and therefore I can still think that it's authoritative and that it's true. Now, his position therefore must be that some inspired Scripture is in error, or on the other hand, that whatever is an error cannot be inspired. On the first hand, he might say God doesn't really care about geographical details and historical accuracy, and so there are some inspired Scriptures which are in error. On the other hand, he might say, well, I do find some errors in the Bible and whatever I find to be an error can't be inspired, because all Scripture is inspired. However, and this is going to be difficult. He's going to say there are some things in the Bible which are erroneous and therefore not inspired. And yet he's going to have to deal with the statement of Paul that all the scriptures inspired. Let's get down to the bottom line. Now, having set all this up, he wants a presumptive authority. The Bible has presumptive authority. I'm assuming that we wish non arbitrarily to grant some some form of epistemological superiority. Davis and myself, we don't want to treat the Bible just like any other book of claims. It must be at least generally reliable so that each claim is not weighed in isolation on its own merits. There must be some presumptive truth about the Bible and its Claims even where they are not tested. And consequently the Bible can be tested, taken as data control in my life, it can be considered an authority in my life, even in those areas where the evidence is only its own. Say so how does Stephen Davis know that Jesus is now at the right hand of God interceding for his saints? Well, I don't know of any empirical, logical, existential, pragmatic or any other way to justify that proposition. Davis would undoubtedly say, I know that because the Bible teaches it. And I say, but you think the Bible teaches error as well? And he'd say, yes, the Bible has presumptive authority because I can test it in some areas, okay, not those areas dealing with metaphysics and theology per se, but areas having to do with, say, the life of Christ or the resurrection miracle, matter of fact, such as those. I assume that we also want to grant that despite multiple authors and multiple books and multiple errors, I mean eras in which the books were written by these authors, that the reliability granted in one area of the Bible can be presumptively applied to other areas of the Bible as well. So that unlike liberal and neo orthodox theologians, evangelical believers will range over the web of their beliefs and they will treat the Bible, the Bible segment of their beliefs, as relatively firm and secure control beliefs. Moreover, I'm assuming in my lecture tonight that the critic does not wish that the critic does wish to maintain that we can know, using that word know, we can know truths about our salvation and other theological doctrines, even though we don't have an inerrant Bible. Well, having said all that up then I asked, why give the Bible presumptive authority? Why should Davis even grant presumptive authority to the Bible? Why is it that he gives presumptive authority to what the Bible says in its untestable areas? Or why does he give it presumptive authority? Authority in those areas which can be tested but have not yet been tested? How much of the Bible has Stephen Davis confirmed, after all, by his higher authorities, whatever they may be? Well, Davis is going to say I give presumptive authority to the Bible because God said these things. I believe the Bible to be inspired to be the word of God and God is in a position to know God is always what he says is true. But you see where the rub comes. Now if God's word is not always correct, then even a presumptive authority cannot be non arbitrarily affirmed. I cannot give presumptive authority to the Bible until I can test those theological areas. How do I know God is right when he says Jesus is at the right hand of God interceding for the saints. On what basis would I confirm even one proposition of that nature? So that I might go on to say, well, if he's been true in these propositions, very likely he's true in further propositions. How does one non arbitrarily decide where in the Bible God has actually spoken? Because Davis will say, well, if it's false, God didn't say it because God doesn't speak. But how do you know where God has spoken? What is the sufficient criteria for making that determination? A negative test is not going to be enough. Somebody says, well I know that God hasn't spoken when I see that it's false. But of course a proposition may be false even though you haven't proven it to be false or found it to be false yet. So a negative test isn't going to be enough. A presumptive authority granted to the Bible is just not reasonable given the Bible's diverse segments, given the Bible's diverse writers, the eras in which it is written, and given especially the supernatural areas in which the Bible declares certain truths. Since Davis cannot confirm even one such theological truth, he cannot tell us that the Bible is presented authoritative in the area of theology. Where is the evidence? What evidence is there for the isolated biblical claim that Christ intercedes for us? If somebody says it's not enough simply to tell us that it's in the Bible, I want to maintain there's no other available way to confirm that proposition. And thus we've reached the point where, where without inerrancy, we don't even know in a non arbitrary justified way. We don't even know our theological propositions about our salvation. Religious knowledge and certainty has in fact been destroyed. Now notice I didn't say religious truth or religious belief. Religious knowledge has been destroyed. If someone decides to are going to screen God's Word, then they're going to render the Bible simply a source of hypothesis to be tested. I say the Bible tells us P. Well, we've got to screen the Bible. Though certain things in the Bible are true, certain things are false, Then what he tells me is the Bible only gives me a hypothesis and I must go from that point to confirm or infirm the hypothesis. Moreover, if somebody believes the Bible to make mistakes, he must seek a more sufficient authority outside of the Scripture. And that violates the whole idea of sola scriptura and allows no more than a presumptive authority for the Bible. And we've gone on to see in our lecture tonight that since you can't confirm those propositions apart from God's, say so, you can't even give it presumptive authority. And if someone says that the Bible makes mistakes and we have to have a higher authority than God's word, I want to maintain tonight that he in fact rejects the lordship of Jesus Christ, for in the end he finally exalts reason over faith. And that unavoidably, therefore, inerrancy can be denied only at the expense of sacrificing even the infallibility of Scripture's theological statements. For none of them are sufficiently justified. And so none of them can be known, none can be given justification. We cannot justify these propositions by some other standard. How else would we know the person of Christ, the work of Christ, his intercession, or his return? We wouldn't know these things apart from the Bible. So we cannot even justify in terms of a presumptive authority what the Bible says, because no induction and generalization is possible. Not even one theological assertion has been separately verified by the critics of inerrancy. Well, I can give it to you then, in a closing remark, the Bible's claim that P is sufficient to guarantee its truth if you believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, because then Scripture is your final standard. But without that authority, there is no other sufficient warrant for believing that P, and as such, no other way of knowing that P. So that those who deny the inerrancy of Scripture are logically, even if not psychological, they are logically committed to walking the road of religious agnosticism and skepticism and walking it to its end. And I dare say the end of that road is a cliff. The end of that road is either a know nothing religion or we believe things. They might even be true, but we don't know anything. A know nothing religion which cannot commend itself to 20th century thought, and I would add, ought not to commit itself to 20th century thought, or it's going to be at the end of the road, no religion at all. For although people may psychologically resist that conclusion, the logical force of it will, I believe, in most cases, eat at them and eat at them and eat at them, until eventually they realize if we can't know anything in religion, we might as well give up religion altogether. And of course, any religion that is left will not be a biblical religion. Because I began my lecture by saying there's just too many statements in the Bible that we know this and we know that, and so a know nothing religion is not biblical religion. And I dare Say a know nothing religion is in fact going to become no religion at all. Well, we've made some real big jumps at the end here, but you begin to see how important it is if you don't hold to biblical inerrancy. My own personal conviction, and I think it's a defendable one epistemologically, is that you end up with a know nothing religion or no religion at all. One last caveat, and I think that the loss of knowledge and certainty about the Bible in fact leads to the loss of knowledge and certainty about any. Because my whole career has been given to writing and defending the proposition that you don't know that experience is reliable and that science is usable and that logic is valid. Unless you have a revelation from God that gives you a world view in terms of which experience, science, logic make any sense, I can't defend that tonight. I certainly wouldn't try to do it in 60 seconds. But if I am right in that regard, and I certainly believe I am, since God's revelation is a precondition to confidence concerning our sense experience, our induction, our memory, our science, our logic, since the Bible is a precondition to these things, if we can't know the Bible, then we can't know logic and sense experience and memory, and if we can't know those things, we can't know anything. So let me reformulate my conclusion. It isn't just that if you deny the inerrancy of the Bible, you're led down the road to a religious know nothing ism. It's that you're led down the road ultimately to knowing nothing at all. And I think at that point the options on the term are clear. I realized it's an embarrassing and sometimes awkward thing to defend the inerrancy of the bible in the 20th century, but it certainly beats the alternative. Yes, I do, and I think that's a very good question. The question is, doesn't the Bible put some emphasis upon indeed something of a moral premium, a value on faith? Not the idea of knowing for certain walking by sight, for instance, but faith, which of course is another way of saying belief. And the answer is it certainly does. However, that isn't the only thing the Bible talks about. We are to have faith. But it turns out that in terms of biblical teachings, those things about which we have faith, if they are taught in the Bible, are things which we always because according to the outlook of those who have the religious commitment of Scripture, God is the source of their information in those areas about which they have faith. And since God is the speaker, you couldn't have a better justification for it. Consequently, biblical religion in one sense is I believe the credo. I believe. And that emphasizes because of the faith nature of, then I'm bowing the head and submitting God. If you say it, it's true. But on the other hand, the Bible equally stresses, as I've read all those Bible verses for you at the beginning, that that amounts to knowledge, because if God has said it, how could it possibly be wrong? So an answer I'd say is equally true that the emphasis on faith is also an emphasis on knowledge in the Bible, depending from what perspective you approach the same. Sy? Yes, The question here again is a thoughtful one. The question is, I mentioned earlier, actually Pinnock mentioned, that according to liberalism, when new findings come, then we modify what, you know, the Bible taught us. We let the Bible be corrected by modern scholarship, and that is a distinctive liberalism. Now, if I hold to inerrancy rather than to a liberal approach, the question is, am I committed to saying that the Bible is true no matter what modern scholarship comes up with? I mean, am I really that kind of a throwback? Am I that obscure? That isn't the attitude of the questioner, but I mean, it leads to this. I mean, are we really saying we're going to hold of the Bible even when there's clear and sufficient evidence against it? Yeah. And the reason for that is because the only evidence that can be brought against the word of God would be apparent evidence against the word of God. Yeah, I would believe that scientific evidence or historical evidence contrary to the teaching of the book Bible can be harmonized with the Bible. When one studies science and history long enough and understands them properly. I'm especially concerned about scientific claims. There's an arrogance about 20th century science which is totally beyond anything which even unbelievers think it deserves. And let me give you an example from history. It used to be earlier in this century how people would ridicule the Bible for mentioning the Hittites, the Old Testament. Well, of course, we, we know more about the Hittites now than virtually any other ancient Near Eastern group because of archaeological finds. And so often it's the case that we walk by faith and not by sight, because I say if God said it, it's true. And what I have to do is I have to study the Bible further to make sure I haven't misinterpreted and that's the source of the conflict, or I have to study my science and history further to find out what Other facts have to be taken into account. But in a sense, that is the heart of religious commitment to say I believe it because God says it. And when the opposition is there, I continue to believe it. That you see, that's true existentialism, not irrational existentialism. That's the true existentialism of Abraham, who said God told me to do it. I know it's true, even if I have to raise, even if Isaac has to be raised from the dead. If God said it, this could be done. One more, At the end of my lecture, the reason that I said, I have one closing caveat, that's precisely the reason I put that in there, because I recognize that in a sense my lecture has been an inner house lecture up until the very end. What I'm saying is anybody who wants to take a religious approach to life is going to have to have a religious authority. And it's impossible to have that religious authority in the areas of metaphysics or theology unless you have an authority who doesn't. Err. For when God says to me certain things which are beyond my visibility, beyond my logical prowess and so forth, I, I have to take them on his say so. And if I can't know things on God's say so, I might believe them. But if I can't know them on his say so, I'm committed to agnosticism. But at the very end, what I added is now, lest anybody walk out here and say, yeah, well those Christians, they've got that problem, but we don't. What I wanted to say is can't be proven in one minute. But I also think that unbelievers have to have epistemological authorities also. They rely on their sensations or their memory or their logic or pragmatic test or whatever it is. But in the end, one has to ask, can those justification patterns be accepted? Are they reliable? And if not, then we have to ask, well, what worldview will make them use the one. It's my conviction we'll take time later if you want another lecture at another time. It's my conviction that you, you can't use logic, science, memory and all the rest unless you have a biblical worldview. Consequently, if we Christians have this problem that we can't know anything unless the Bible's in error, then I want to expand this further and say, you unbelievers, you non Christians in the audience tonight, you have an even further problem. Because since we can't supply you with a religious worldview in terms of which logic and science can be used, you don't know anything at all. And that's an apologetical challenge. That's not something that's been proven tonight. But for that reason, I think there's relevance in these remarks for everybody.