The Basics of Biblical Inerrancy
The inerrancy of Scripture means that the original text is without error in all that it means to say. Each of those words is very important. That final clause in particular—all that it means to say—is especially crucial. The definition of inerrancy regards the concept being claimed by the biblical words, not the word pattern in the hands of “any old meaning.” Skeptics can turn into wooden literalists the moment that it suits them. However, to ignore the conventions of literary genre and a whole variety of contexts isn’t how any truth claim works.
Another important battleground exists at the definition level. We have all heard another word used in the same place as “inerrant,” and that is the word “infallible.” Indeed the Bible is infallible. It never fails to do that which God sent it to do (cf. Isa. 55:11).
So what is the real difference between using the words “inerrant” versus “infallible” here? Infallible is a broader word. We might ask: "It doesn't fail to do what?" for example.
One could use these as strict synonyms, but the problem comes with modern views, one of which has been the so-called "infallibilist" or "limited inerrancy" position.
Inerrant should mean: no errors of any kind. However, limited inerrancy (or ‘infallibilism’) slyly states that all Scripture is indeed God’s word and without error “in all matters of faith and practice.” But this is an equivocation. Under the influence of liberal theology, the terms “faith and practice” were morphed into “spiritual-not-literal.” So, in this qualifier, the spiritual and redemptive are separated from the mundane details of science and history.
The Challenges to Biblical Inerrancy
Now what do we say about the human element, given the sinfulness of all of its human authors? After all, we may reason: To err is human. Therefore, if humans wrote the Scriptures, then the Scriptures err. This is really one of the first objections against biblical inerrancy that crops up in our minds. The trouble is that the argument that “To err is human” is a double-edged sword. If it means that “All human statements are erring statements,” then that statement is an erring statement (being made by a mere human). Now if we want to modify things and say that only some (or even most) statements are erring statements, then this gives us no help whatsoever in the discussion. We have no way of knowing whether or not the biblical authors fall prey to this rule. So we will have to turn to other grounds to find out.
We agree with the words of The Chicago Statement, Article IX, which states:
“We affirm that inspiration, though not conferring omniscience, guaranteed true and trustworthy utterance on all matters of which the biblical authors were moved to speak and write.
We deny that the finitude or fallenness of these writers, by necessity or otherwise, introduced distortion or falsehood into God’s word.”
It may be helpful to categorize the kinds of objections that come against inerrancy. In doing so, we can get our minds wrapped around the whole theater of war against the Word. In so doing, a realistic strategy can emerge that is both polemically effective to the skeptic and intellectually satisfying to the believer. Notice that I did not conflate those two aims. We do not want to measure the success of our thinking by the affirmation of unbelief. Let us remember that sin—and therefore intellectual rebellion and dishonesty—is driving the skeptic’s mining of the biblical text .
As far as I can gather in my years of study and interaction with unbelievers, it has been most useful to divide alleged errors into five basic categories. There are alleged errors: (1) of textual variants; (2) of moral repugnance; (3) of primitivism; (4) of improbability, and (5) of contradiction. Doubtless other kinds can be conceived, but I would venture to say that those examples can fit into one of these five categories. Since each of these really deserves its own series to answer, it is best to do just that in another setting.
But what about that bit about the “autographs”? If we are all agreed that we do not possess the originals, how exactly is this a meaningful definition and how can the concept seriously be defended? Returning to that Chicago Statement, Article X states:
“We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original.
We deny that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.”
At this point we are simply introducing the lay of the land. We will have to return to our answers to these challenges as it is a vast subject. We might first ask what the Bible itself has to say on the matter. It should come as no surprise that another objection attacks here as well. We are told that the Bible “nowhere says” that the Bible is inerrant.
The Bible on Inerrancy
While the Bible nowhere uses the word “inerrancy,” the concept is taught in several ways: Inerrancy as purity. “The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times” (Ps. 12:6); Inerrancy as infallibility. “Scripture cannot be broken” (Jn. 10:35); Inerrancy as flawless record. “Every word of God proves true” (Prov. 30:5).
We may also consider this syllogism, with each premise backed up by Scripture:
(Premise 1) All Scripture is the word of God. “All Scripture is breathed out by God” (2 Tim. 3:16); “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:21).
(Premise 2) No word of God can be false. “Your word is truth” (Jn. 17:17); “All your words are true” (Ps. 119:160); “God does not lie” (Ti. 1:2); “It is impossible for God to lie” (Heb. 6:18); “for he cannot deny himself” (2 Tim. 2:13).
(Conclusion) Therefore, no part of Scripture can be false.
Now since this is purely a matter of logic, the argument can be valid as to its form, but give us no help at all as to whether it is sound. That is the business of apologetics. And there logic and evidence are joined together to make the total case.
What was Jesus’ own view of Scripture? Quite simply, Jesus viewed the Scriptures as inerrant in all of its parts. Matthew 5:17, John 10:34, and Luke 24:44 show us that he viewed the Hebrew canon as a unity, that not even its slightest nuance of language could be in error, and that the Scriptures could not be broken or “violated.” He treated as genuine history those portions of the Old Testament most regarded by critics as myth: namely the account of Adam and Eve (Matt. 19:4-5), Noah and the flood (Matt. 24:37-38), and Jonah and the whale (Matt. 12:39-41). He used the Scriptures to settle disputes (Mat. 24:41-46), to silence the devil (Matt. 4:4, 7, 10), and even as an authoritative confirmation of his own words (Jn. 8:17-18) and his works (Lk. 5:14).
Historical Considerations
Oddly enough, it is also alleged that the doctrine of inerrancy is a modern invention: a Fundamentalist doctrine of reaction against the Bible’s modern critics. This will take more specific iterations. Some will say that Reformed Scholasticism is responsible, and others that the Princeton dynasty—Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield in particular—pulled this doctrine out of thin air. Implicit is that no one else ever said any such thing before them.
But is this a fact? Augustine said, “I have learned to hold the Scriptures alone inerrant … not one of their authors has erred in writing anything at all.” (Letters to Jerome, No. 82); and “When you find in Holy Scripture anything you did not believe before, believe it without doubt” (De Trinitate). Luther wrote, “Not only the words which the Holy Spirit and Scripture use are divine, but also the phrasing” (Weimarer Ausgabe, 31.I.347; 40.III.254). Calvin called it “unassailable truth” (Institutes, I.7.5). Even the Roman Catholic Church has biblical inerrancy as part of their official teaching: “the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching firmly, faithfully, and without error that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation” (Dei Verbum, 3.11, in Abbott, Documents of Vatican II, 119).1
A detailed study of this would exceed our space here, but I would highly recommend the volume of essays edited by John Warwick Montgomery, entitled God’s Inerrant Word, as well as those essays in the work edited by Norman Geisler, Inerrancy.
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1. Quoted in Robert Letham, Systematic Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 192.
