Tag: ICBI

ICBI Article 5

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I apologize for the delays in writing. I have been busy. I also want to thank a kind reader who sent me a very encouraging message today. It is greatly appreciated.

I’m going to continue our look at Inerrancy tonight with article 5 of the ICBI statement which reads as follows:

We affirm that God’ s revelation in the Holy Scriptures was progressive.

We deny that later revelation, which may fulfill earlier revelation, ever corrects or contradicts it. We further deny that any normative revelation has been given since the completion of the New Testament writings.

This is something I can agree with easily a well. I do hold that there can be seeming contradictions between the Scriptures, but those are more apparent and not real. It can be difficult understanding the relation between Law and Grace for instance. Or there’s the eschatological debate of “Is there a distinction between Israel and the Church?”

At the same time, we do realize we are not a religion like Islam with one book that came down very quickly in a relatively short period, but a book that has a written history consisting of around 2,000 years or so, depending upon what date is given to Job and the Mosaic writings.

Since I have mentioned Islam, it could be asked if we have the problem of abrogated verses. No. We do not. While we do not live under the Theocracy of Israel any more, we do still acknowledge a rule of God. There is debate over how that is displayed in the world today depending on your view of eschatology, but all Christians affirm we are not in a state where we have to offer sacrifices and such.

However, does that mean that the laws that were given about sacrifices are absolutely useless to us? Not at all. We may not have to undergo the Levitical system today found in Leviticus, but that does not mean that we can cut Leviticus out of our Bibles, and it’s not just because there are moral passages in there. The passages on how to offer up offerings are important as well since we can find images of Christ in them and we can learn about the nature of God, forgiveness, how great it is today, and about the history of Israel.

It is important to include that revelation on a normative basis has ceased. Some Christians do think God still does speak some today, but few would say it is normative and what is said should be written down and included as Scripture. This would also present a problem to groups like the Mormons who believe in a living prophet today and who believe in extra books being Scripture outside of orthodox works and it would be a problem for Jehovah’s Witnesses who believe the Watchtower is a continuing channel of truth today giving meat in the proper time.

So we conclude then that we can agree with article 5.

We shall continue next time.

ICBI Article 4

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. Today, I’m going to be continuing our look at the topic of Inerrancy and seeing what is said in the fourth article of ICBI’s statement. This article reads as follows:

We affirm that God who made mankind in His image has used language as a means of revelation.

We deny that human language is so limited by our creatureliness that it is rendered inadequate as a vehicle for divine revelation. We further deny that the corruption of human culture and language through sin has thwarted God’s work of inspiration.

Again, I really do not see any problem with this and I would just like to comment. There can be no doubt that the fall tainted humanity so that there are consequences. Perhaps our minds do not reason as they should in some way. We have no evidence however that Adam was a super-genius before the fall nor does Christianity necessitate it. Thus, making such judgments is difficult as the data is really non-existent.

We do realize there are inadequacies in language as we indicate when we speak of something as so great as that words cannot contain it or there are just no words to describe it. It is the problem that the message we wish to convey is so incredible that the words do not seem to be sufficient containers of meaning.

I think immediately of the work of Dr. Habermas with near-death experiences as he talks about people who have an experience that is heavenly. They’ll often try to describe it and say “No. That’s not it. When I say that, you think of something else instead and that just won’t explain it.”

Language was what God had to use to make a revelation such as we find in Scripture. That is something that could be passed down and handed on to other generations. Of course, there are difficulties with such a procedure. Peter himself said that some of Paul’s writings were hard to understand.

We too often come to Scripture with the idea that it must surely be easy to understand because it is God’s Word. We say this while at the same time saying that God is magnificent and beyond our comprehension. You cannot really dumb down God as it were. Now I do think salvation can be learned from the Scripture, but I do not think that the Bible itself fits into the box of easy to understand.

Does that mean that there was a mistake in using language? No. It just means we have to do what we so often hate to do, work harder. If we believe that the message of Scripture is valuable however, we will do it. This will mean we can seek to learn the original languages as much as possible, understand the social context of the time, and get a grasp on other factors like textual criticism, philosophy history, etc. that are all relevant to understanding the biblical text.

Thus, we conclude with a hearty approval of article 4.

ICBI Article 2

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. Lately, we’ve been looking at Inerrancy and especially at the statement from the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. Tonight, I’m going to be looking at the second article.

It reads as follows:

We affirm that the Scriptures are the supreme written norm by which God binds the conscience, and that the authority of the Church is subordinate to that of Scripture.

We deny that Church creeds, councils, or declarations have authority greater than or equal to the authority of the Bible.

Once again, there is not much problem with this. I will list some brief concerns but overall, I don’t think I would have no problem signing this.

I don’t see the conscience as a phenomena that would have been understood in biblical times however seeing as their idea of shame and honor meant that the behavior one would have known was right and wrong would have come from external sources rather than internal. However, if all the statement is saying is that the Bible is the one that gives us ethical principles that we are to follow, well and good. I have no problem with that.

I would also not like to see the emphasis being on morality. A concern of mine is that for many of our youth, including myself when I was growing up in the church, is that Christianity is seen as only a system of ethics rather than a whole worldview. Being a Christian means that you are a good person. It does not include aspects such as having a belief system about reality as a whole and even with that ethical system, you don’t really know why you do something except that the Bible says so.

Of course, this could be cleared up later on, but the Bible is our guide not just in orthopraxy but orthodoxy, and even when it comes to right living, I would add that we do not need to be giving the idea that the Bible is the source of morality and that a person cannot know moral truths outside of the Bible. Even the Bible itself I believe disagrees with this.

I do however definitely agree that nothing has greater authority from the church save God Himself than the Bible. This includes councils and yes, that would also include the council of ICBI. As I had said earlier, ICBI does not equal Inerrancy. One could disagree with some points of ICBI and still uphold Inerrancy. I am of the understanding that Henry Morris would not sign the ICBI statement due to its allowing old-earth creation to be accepted, but would anyone really doubt that Morris did not believe in Inerrancy?

So when it comes to the second article, our conclusion is positive. The Bible is valid in all that it teaches for the practice of faith. Its power comes from that of God Himself and is thus greater than all the works of man including councils and churches.

We shall continue next time.

ICBI Article 1

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I am sorry I have not written in awhile, but our household has been busy. I will also be out of town Friday night speaking at a conference in Cherokee, NC. If you are interested in going there, I’d love to see you. I will be speaking on an apologetic of love. I also wish to think SBC Today for choosing my blog on if ICBI = Inerrancy for a top blog post of the week. It is a great honor.

I have been discussing Inerrancy and my plan has been to go through the articles of ICBI and examine them. Today, I will be looking at the first article.

The first states as follows:

We affirm that the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the authoritative Word of God.
We deny that the Scriptures receive their authority from the church, tradition, or any human source.

This is a statement I do not have a problem with and I see why it is at the start. The first point to appreciating the Inerrancy of the text is to recognize the source of the text. Of course, to say it is not the same as to demonstrate it, but that was not the purpose of ICBI. I simply say that to counter the rejoinder from someone who will think I am begging the question and assuming the Bible is inerrant.

No. I believe it is because after studying Bible contradictions, I have found that they are most often resolvable. I cannot really think of any glaring contradiction right now that I have not seen a valid answer to. This does not mean I consider myself a master of all of them, but I do trust in those who do know the Bible better than I.

I also have seen independent confirmation of the text such as other sources outside of the Bible that speak of events that the Bible records. There are also archaeological findings that have been made that have established the truthfulness of a biblical account when it had been doubted.

As for the denial, I agree with the denial as well. I think the Inerrancy of the Scriptures would be true regardless of if they were recognized or not. I also believe the texts are recognized as Scripture not based on what people say but based on that which is inherent to the text. I hold that men did not define the Scriptures but rather they discovered the Scriptures.

So at the end of the day on the first article, I do agree that the Bible alone stands in the unique position of all the books on the Earth. Of course, it bears many similarities to other books, but only in the Bible alone am I ready to grant sole trust. I will not give such trust to a favorite pastor, teacher, apologist, etc. Of course readers, do not ever give such trust here. If I am wrong about something, feel free to try to convince me. If any of us are wrong, we should want to know.

However, I do not have a problem with article 1. It is a good and basic start.

ICBI’s Statement

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. Lately, we’ve been looking at the topic of Inerrancy and right now, I’m taking a closer look at what ICBI concluded. We fortunately saw last time that they admitted they were a brief meeting and thus, some work would be left to do in the future. Hopefully what is going on here is a start of that work. Even if there is disagreement later on, there is no need to start all over again. There can be no doubt some good work was done concerning ICBI, but there is still much to do.

There’s not too much here and I will put up a link at the end. To begin with, there can be no doubt ICBI wanted to give the highest view they could to Scripture. I agree with that, but we should be careful we don’t worship the Bible, which I think ICBI would also agree. The Bible is a revelation, yet I have met Christians who actually seem to think John 1:1 is talking about the Bible.

The first point wishes to stress that the Bible is from the God of all truth who speaks the truth. That is then the purpose of hermeneutics. The reason for interpretation is to try to find the truth. In any case, if not the Bible, we seek to find the message the author wished to convey. In the case of Scripture, we know the message that was wished to be conveyed was true. (Excepting of course statements like the lies of the devil being recorded. In this case, we have a true report of someone making an untrue claim.)

The next point teaches that the Bible is to be believed in all that it teaches, obeyed in all that it commands, and embraced in all that it promises. We agree. In fact, this is a great fault in us in that often we have made it a point to know doctrine without knowing the Lord of doctrine. We can get so caught up in the apologetics community in knowing the fine points that we forget to really learn the impact of what we believe. We can spend so much time defending the Trinity against Jehovah’s Witnesses that we forget what difference it makes.

The third point is the only one thus far I think I’d raise some qualms over. For one thing, I do not see any testament in Scripture to the Holy Spirit authenticating that the text is true. I am cautious of this seeing as I think there are other means and I think this one can be badly misused by Mormons. Second, I also do not think the Holy Spirit tells us the meaning of a text. I believe it is the Spirit that convicts us ON the meaning of the text. When we realize a promise of God, the Holy Spirit can use that to help us celebrate and praise him. When we are convicted of a sin from the text, the Holy Spirit can bring that home to us.

The fourth point stresses again the truth in all that Scripture teaches in all areas including our own lives. Again, I do not have a problem with this. As we have discussed however, the problem more often than not can be asking what it is that Scripture is really teaching and before we do that, we often need to see what lies within orthodoxy. Do young-earth and old-earth creation both lie there? Does theistic evolution lie there?

The final point is a reminder to not lessen Inerrancy. With this, we do not have disagreement. However, the danger as has been shown is to move Inerrancy from the Scriptures to our interpretation. We do not wish to lessen the Scriptures or Inerrancy in this look. I have no problem saying I believe the Bible to be true in all that it teaches. The question to ask is “What is it teaching?”

That is not the subject matter really of our discussion. It might show up some, but that is the work of the student to figure out, to which we should all be in a sense.

The link to the statement can be found here:

Click to access ICBI_1.pdf

We shall continue next time.

ICBI Preface

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I’ve started us looking at the ICBI statement and going through and seeing what I think about each portion of it and what the ramifications are concerning the Geisler/Licona debate. Tonight, we look at the preface.

I do agree with the start definitely that Scripture is the authority and that has always been an issue. What Scripture says for the Christian should be taken with the utmost seriousness, which is something that makes this debate so serious. We want to know the message God wishes to convey to us through the original authors.

I do agree that the affirmation of Inerrancy is important. Note that the start says that it is being affirmed afresh, but each generation needs to make its own affirmation if need be. For instance, with Christology, Nicea was not enough. We also needed the council of Constantinople. Then, a new belief arose and we needed the Council of Ephesus. Finally, another heresy arose and we needed the Council of Chalcedon.

Of course, there are always going to be heretics and denials and there will be those who have not learned from the teachers of the past, but when the current debate was not found to be adequately dealt with in the past, then it was time to look again. In this case, we have an issue and since three signers of ICBI have different views, we need to look again at what was intended. We cannot just say one person is right. We need to find out why they are or are not.

In the next part, the writers acknowledge that the statement was made briefly in three days and despite what certain parties think, the statement itself says that it is not to be taken as a Creedal statement. In other words, ICBI is not infallible. That is reason enough that we can take a closer look and revise if need be. It is also reason enough for not using ICBI as a club.

Note also that the document is not offered in the spirit of contention, but in humility and love, with the request that that keep going in any dialogues that come out of the document. Unfortunately, this is not happening. The ICBI statement is being used in a way directly opposed to the way it was meant to be used according to the statement itself.

Finally, the preface says that response is invited to see if it needs to be amended. Again, it has been said that there is no personal infallibility for what has been said.

At this point, my thinking is that this is fine and all, but I fear that much is being made out of the three days when further refinement is necessary, especially since my ministry partner, J.P. Holding, has pointed out that most signers were pastors and/or theologians and not biblical scholars. Now a pastor and a theologian needs to know the Bible well, but that is not the same as being a biblical scholar. The pastor and/or theologian instead relies on the data of the scholar. Now one can be a scholar and be a pastor and/or theologian, but that does not necessitate one being so.

We shall continue our look tomorrow.

Does ICBI = Inerrancy?

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I’ve been looking lately at the Geisler/Licona debate and I begun pondering this point yesterday that I’m sure many have thought of but needs to be stated plainly for the sake of the discussion.

We need to realize that if one rejects or goes against ICBI, that does not mean that they are going against or rejecting Inerrancy.

For instance, there are some Christians out there who have a strange allergy to creeds. They don’t want to talk about the Nicene Creed and they would prefer to always use biblical language. They will not say they affirm the Trinity but will say they affirm the Godhead. Now if you ask them if Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit are each God and if each of them are distinct persons but yet one God, they would say yes. In other words, they affirm the concept that is taught in the Trinity, but they would prefer to not use that term.

Okay. I think that’s a bit odd, but it’s not unorthodox. As long as they have the content, it’s fine.

Now I have spoken about concerns with the ICBI statement and I do plan on reviewing it greatly in the near future. We have also seen in this debate that Geisler accuses Licona of going against what the ICBI framer intended (Even though I highly question that) with the implication that that would mean denying Inerrancy.

Just a question. Could it be, for the sake of argument, that the framers had a bad definition?

Let’s suppose that they did. Can Licona say that and say “I fully believe Matthew intended this to be interpreted as an apocalyptic event and that there are valid reasons for doing so.” I do not think someone could be consistently an anti-Christian type like Mary Baker Eddy and study the Scriptures in a consistent manner. Inerrancy would entail that all of Scripture would cohere together. Coherency is not sufficient for truth, but it is necessary for it.

I answer then that Licona can say what he said and could hypothetically think the framers are wrong. I am not saying he is saying that, but he could, and he could still be an Inerrantist. Even though I am related to Licona, this is not a statement he has in any way made or endorsed. I will be upfront about that. I’m speaking on my own behalf.

My only point is to say that Licona can say this and believe that the Bible did not error in any of its teachings, but that what it is teaching has to be properly understood. I think we should all agree to that part. If the authors intended something and we can find that, then we should accept if we believe in Inerrancy that what they intended to say is true.

ICBI put forward an important statement, and it will always be one, but as shown throughout history, it will be up to the future leaders of the church to help clarify the statement in their own times. We can look at an interpretation like Licona’s and say “Whoa. Even if I don’t agree, I can’t say he’s denying Inerrancy. If according to ICBI he is, then we need to redefine Inerrancy.”

That’s also not to disrespect the framers. They got things started. We carry on the torch and we look at what they did as a sort of opening statement and say “That was good. What more can we do to clarify this?” It’s apparent right now at least that what the framers meant is unclear. After all, you have Geisler saying one thing, and Moreland and Yamauchi saying another.

As I have stated before, to my fellow young evangelicals, let us not throw out the baby with the bathwater. We can tend to think in extremes. It can be that when you reject part of one system, you end up rejecting all of it. Hence, some I identify as fundy atheists reject one part of Christianity while Christians and then end up just throwing out everything. Not a good idea.

Do we agree or disagree with ICBI? Well let’s be fair and study the doctrine and see what we can. Of course, there has been a lot written and it’s doubtful an exhaustive look can be done, but let us see what can be done. Let us try to see what Inerrancy does mean and doesn’t mean.

In many ways, I think Inerrancy could be like beauty for some evangelicals. We say we believe it, but it is just really difficult to define. (I do believe beauty is that which pleases when seen, but even that raises some questions.) Perhaps this is the time where we follow the path of Credo Ut Intelligum. To pluralize it, we believe that we may understand.

Let’s begin to understand.