Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Mon, 17 Aug 1992 10:57:33 CDT
From:         Tom Brewer <NOTTMB@LSUVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Bible - Part 2

   Defending the Bible, Part 2

Can there be inspiration without truth?

   "All scripture is given by inspiration of God," according to Paul in
II Tim 3:16. That also means that Paul wrote II Tim 3:16 as an inspired
Apostle of Jesus Christ. After all, Paul did say, "All scripture," which
includes his own writings as well.
   The English word "inspiration" in the Greek means "breathed out." In
other words, God did not breathe into the writings to add a touch of
inspiration, but rather He breathed out the very words themselves
through human vessels. The belief that God "inspired" or "breathed out"
all of the sacred scriptures recorded in the Bible is what is called
plenary inspiration. This also logically implies that the words recorded
in the Bible are the actual words of God, which is a belief called
verbal inspiration.
   Opponents to inspiration often call verbal inspiration a theory of
mechanical dictation. But again I would ask you to stop and think about
that objection. Why are there so many different styles of writing if God
supposedly dictated to a human tape recorder? No, instead God, in His
sovereign wisdom, ordained certain men to providentially lead certain
life styles with which they would perceive and understand the words
revealed to them by the Holy Spirit. At this point I must quote from Dr.
Gordon H. Clark's book, GOD'S HAMMER The Bible and its Critics.
Concerning verbal inspiration, Clark writes:

      Put it this way: God, who worketh all things according to His will
   and who hath done whatsoever He pleased, for no one can stay His hand
   or say, what doest Thou, from all eternity decreed to lead the Jews
   out of slavery by the hand of Moses. To this end He so controlled
   events that Moses was born at a given date, placed in the water to
   save him from an early death, found by Pharaoh's daughter, given the
   best Egyptian education possible, driven into the wilderness to learn
   patience, and in every detail so prepared by heredity and environment
   that when the time came, Moses's mentality and literary style were
   instruments precisely fitted to speak God's words. Between Moses and
   God there was an inner union, an identity of purpose, a co-operation
   of will, such that the words Moses wrote were God's own words and
   Moses's own words at the same time.

   The key point to remember is that the writers of the Bible claim that
God inspired the written word. Hence, when the Neo-orthodox theologians
say that the Bible is a "record" of God's revelation or that the Bible
"contains" the Word of God, what they really mean is that the Bible in
its entirety is not the inspired Word of God.
   But what good is an "inspired" Bible if it is not true in its
entirety? Or better yet, can there really be any inspiration without
truth? Certainly many "true" books have been authored by men that were
not "inspired," but the Bible claims (sorry, Darren; that is, those who
wrote it claim) to be written by men and authored by God.
   Simply put, there can be no inspiration without truth.

Tom Brewer
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