Christian: Is the Bible inerrantly true? (Jesus, gospel, tradition, evolution)

[Joannicius]

Chris:
So we also go into the area of the Church not being important, when we neglect dogma, tossing aside the avenue of our salvation, "the pillar and ground of the truth"?
1TM 3:15 but if I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

True Christianity isn't a mental/oral response only, it is a marriage to our Christ and His Church and Christ's authority IN His Church. (Not submission to His authority as my conjecture, in my mind, which as you know, there are thousands of opinions out there, without authority or responsibility, under subjection to their own god, their mind and their interpretation of Scripture)

and as a side note: our priests are married men and single men (their choice)

[Scuba Pete]

The church is important, but Christ's church, not man's church.

[Chris]

So we also go into the area of the Church not being important,

Correct.

when we neglect dogma, tossing aside the avenue of our salvation, "the pillar and ground of the truth"?

1TM 3:15 but if I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

That's a wonderful misrepresentation of scripture. Where do you get off equating salvation and the church??? Especially from that scripture??? Please elaborate how you twisted the pillar and ground of truth into meaning salvation? I think there is a bit more to salvation than truth. Otherwise we could be saved by mathematics.

Anyways, Paul's "pillar and ground of the truth" has changed quite a bit since then, hasn't it??
I'm assuming your response will be that the Orthodox Church is the church of Paul, and is the pillar and ground of truth. As That would be worth a laugh.

True Christianity isn't a mental/oral response only, it is a marriage to our Christ and His Church and Christ's authority IN His Church.

I'll argue that Christ's authority and power far extend that of the church's.

and as a side note: our priests are married men and single men (their choice)

That raises an interesting question. When you have conflicting dogmas within churches, which one is correct????

[Joannicius]

-------------CHRIS----------------

Anyways, Paul's "pillar and ground of the truth" has changed quite a bit since then, hasn't it?? NOT IN IT'S DOGMAS, NO

I'm assuming your response will be that the Orthodox Church is the church of Paul, and is the pillar and ground of truth. As That would be worth a laugh.
YOU MAY LAUGH IF YOU DESIRE

(HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO AN ORTHODOX SERVICE OR HAD ANY ORTHODOX TEACHINGS?)

I think there is a bit more to salvation than truth. Otherwise we could be saved by mathematics. THE TRUTH SPOKEN OF HERE IS NOTHING LESS THAN CHRIST HIMSELF "THE LIGHT, THE TRUTH, AND THE WAY!" IT IS NOT IMPERICAL TRUTH, IT IS ETERNAL IN CHRIST.

That raises an interesting question. When you have conflicting dogmas within churches, which one is correct????

HOW DO YOU GET TWO DOGMAS OUT OF A HAVING TWO CHOICES? -------- NAME ME A CONFLICT OF DOGMA AND YOU WILL HAVE A POINT........

I'll argue that Christ's authority and power far extend that of the church's.

I DEFINITELY AGREE WITH YOU ON THIS POINT, CHRIST HAS "ALL AUTHORITY IN HEAVEN AND ON EARTH" (ON EARTH HIS AUTHORITY IS EXPRESSED IN THE CHURCH-----HIS BODY, WITH HIM AS THE HEAD)
I don't see where I said His authority was limited to the Church, I said His Church HAS His authority ! ! !

By the way,,,,,,we can't separate Christ from His Body or His Body from Him.....

[Chris]

NOT IN IT'S DOGMAS, NO

Of course it has. Look at the church today, and compare it with scriptures. Even the Orthodox Church has its differences.

YOU MAY LAUGH IF YOU DESIRE

(HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO AN ORTHODOX SERVICE OR HAD ANY ORTHODOX TEACHINGS?)

Sorry, if that seemed a bit rude. But no, I haven't been to an Orthodox church. The only one in my area (Baton Rouge) that I know of is a very ethnic one, and you have to be Greek to participate.

THE TRUTH SPOKEN OF HERE IS NOTHING LESS THAN CHRIST HIMSELF "THE LIGHT, THE TRUTH, AND THE WAY!" IT IS NOT IMPERICAL TRUTH, IT IS ETERNAL IN CHRIST.

Cool. Then we don't need the Church if Christ is the Truth rather than the Church.

HOW DO YOU GET TWO DOGMAS OUT OF A HAVING TWO CHOICES? -------- NAME ME A CONFLICT OF DOGMA AND YOU WILL HAVE A POINT........

Haven't we had enough debates here to prove that???? The most current one would be the perpetual virginity of Mary....

I don't see where I said His authority was limited to the Church, I said His Church HAS His authority ! ! !

I disagree. And history provides enough evidences to prove that. (Indulgences, inquisition, genocide.... Hagia Sofia.....)

By the way,,,,,,we can't separate Christ from His Body or His Body from Him.....

True enough, but how is Christ's body limited to the Church?

[prosecutor]

The church, the body of Christ, is not the absolute authority. Christ is the absolute authority. The church has deligated authority to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Yet, each individual has the God given right and responsibility to interpret the Scriptures for themselves.
(Acts 17:11,12a) The church is all the people who are in it through conversion to Christ. Every member is a priest (I Peter 2:1-10). While there are evangelists, shepherds, deacons and teachers in the individual congregations who have accepted additional responsibilities, every member has the personal obligation to "understand what the will of the Lord is" (Ephesians 5:17). I totally reject the premise that any religious organization has the authority to interpret scripture. While there are those who may be helpful to me in understanding the Scriptures, the ultimate responsibility for understanding them belongs to me. How I view the subject of this thread has everything to do with me having a correct understanding. The Bible is inerrantly true. That understanding makes me more determined to interpret it correctly. After all, my soul is at stake.
Prosecutor

[Joannicius]

Originally Posted by Chris

Of course it has. Look at the church today, and compare it with scriptures. Even the Orthodox Church has its differences.
Sorry, if that seemed a bit rude. But no, I haven't been to an Orthodox church. The only one in my area (Baton Rouge) that I know of is a very ethnic one, and you have to be Greek to participate.

I don't mean to be rude by asking, I was curious and I hadn't experience the Orthodox until nine years ago myself and a year later I joined because I am convinced It is the Church in a way I never knew the Church existed. I understand your doubts and the Traditions that are in Protestantism for I experienced them as assistant pastor and youth pastor etc. (never ordained, for I couldn't confirm that any I was in was "the body of Christ").

I wrestled with one scripture specifically the whole time and that is "EPH 4:5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism;........" and I found the answer to this and many more questions I had, and even questions I am not smart enough to ask.

Anyhow, that was important to me along with finding the "thread" of the production of "Holy" men and women (the lives of the Saints) as I never experience or knew of in Protestantism......not that there aren't beautiful and well meaning Protestants (I know and am close friends with many) but the Historic thread from Christ til now is in the Orthodox along with the Keeping of the faith as given us by the Apostles. These give me all I was looking for and more.

The difficult part I found was being patient and spending the time to learn and listen to what was being said and research what had transpired in The Church from Christ til now without the influence of the "Romophobia" that I had been given for so many years.

I think one of the best ways to describe what I see in the whole of "Christendom" is likened to a corporation that was started toward perfection (which of course we are called to) and the corporation had a vice president (one of five) who decided on his own authority to take his portion of the companies employees and start a sister company for many manifold reasons. Since that vice president split off from the president others under him decided they could do the same, so today we have 3,000 plus companies that started the same way, leaving behind and ignoring the authority of the President of The Company. In the mean time the other four vice-presidents had many problems and trials but because they believed The Company was as started from the beginning toward perfection, being conciliar with the only head a perfect President, they kept the Faith by the power of The President, and Chaos in the West has destroyed unity, whereas in the East the unity AND CONSISTANCY remains despite loss of Millions and Millions of lives and even attacked directly by the vice president that split off from the others. If you can follow my short very simplified story you will see the timeline of the Church and all of Christendom from the world view. You do yourself injustice if you think we are the same as Roman Catholicism for the difference is one that made me take a second and third look at Orthodoxy and fall in love with it and my Lord more.

My persuasion is that the faith has stayed as is should in our Church. The dogma's were set "in stone" by the eighth century and we haven't changed one, for the whole of Christianity at that time agreed that they were of God and could not be changed as He never changes.

One of the main reasons I don't quote a lot of scriptures directly in most cases is because I am sure those who are here debating and discussing usually know them well enough to get what I'm talking about. If not forgive me for assuming, as I have a bad habit of that. No*s is a great detail man. I haven't the smarts that he does. But I have had a lot more experience that most on this board for reason of years and searching.

I have a lot more I would like to say but my eyes are getting heavy and I must work tomorrow, even though I have tried to retire, I just can't seem to stay out of work. So be it as God wills.............

Peace and Grace

[Joannicius]

I would like to ask a question of those who have sola scriptura as a dogma. I don't know the details as to when this doctrine/dogma was first documented. Can you help me find that?

[pcarl]

<....the overall tone of the "entire" Bible>

Absolutely! It is the Bible as a whole that is inerrant truth.

"For Roman Catholics, inerrancy is understood as a consequence of biblical inspiration; it has to do more with the truth of the Bible as a whole than with any theory of verbal inerrancy. Vatican II says that "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 11). What is important is the qualification of "that truth" with "for the sake of our salvation."

[No*s]

The funny thing about inerrancy is that it really requires several things to be true:

1). The group that selected the Bible must have been inerrant. The trustworthiness of the Bible is only as trustworthy as the group that selected the books. Unless someone wants to join the Church, it fails the test there, but the Church doesn' t make that claim about Scripture .

2). It should have been transmitted flawlessly. This is not true. There are textual variants within it.

3). If it hasn't been transmitted flawlessly, then there must be an inerrant means of determining the textual variants. No such means exists.

4). It becomes irrelevant in translation unless translations are also inerrant. If translations are not, nobody can have an inerrant Bible unless they read Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic.

5). Even if the Bible were inerrant, it only functions as such as long as its interpreter is as well. We know, though, that people read it in a variety of ways, so the inerrancy fails at the person...and if people could be inerrant, it removes all need for an inerrant Bible.

If one opts out of point #1, then one must explain why the decision on the contents of Scripture was inerrant while simultaneously rejecting the notably Orthodox and Catholic nature of the men who selected it. It becomes a bit of cherry-picking without such a principle.

If one opts out of point #2 by saying that only the originals were inerrant, but not the copies, then the entire issue becomes theologically moot. God did not see fit to preserve an inerrant Bible, so it has no bearing on our lives or the inspiration of Scripture. There is no point even wasting breath on it.

If one opts out of point #3 by saying that God chose certain men to select the text inerrantly, then we are back to the principles of point #1. Why not accept all their theological beliefs without picking and choosing what is often arbitrary decisions on the biblical texts? If their decisions on which text is valid is inerrant, and they claim not to be inerrant in their decisions, then is their claim not to be inerrant also inerrant?

If one opts out of #4, then one needs to explain the same problem as the preceding if there is not total agreement with the theology of the translators (which will come through in translation), and the same difficulty for any claims about not having inerrancy arises (the KJV translators, for instance, felt the need to footnote other translations where they thought they might not be adequately representing it).

If one opts out of #5 by saying that the Spirit will guide the individual if they simply open their heart, then people must either say that the Spirit hasn't led them, and thus, they aren't open to Christ which calls the doctrine of inerrancy into question, they must assert they understand it where everybody who disagrees is somehow dishonest, or that it is impossible to have any reliable interpretation because we cannot know which surrenders inerrancy in its turn. No other means of interpreting can even hope to offer an inerrant interpretation.

In the end, inerrancy cannot be sustained from either Scripture or Christian Tradition, and is utlimately self-defeating.