From: mussack@innerdoor.austin.ibm.com (Christopher Mussack)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Biblical Inerrancy
Date: 13 Sep 92 03:15:49 GMT

Hello, 
I hope this gets through, I've been reading this group
for several months off and on when I have time, this is my first
posting so I hope I'm doing it right.
I've been following the ideas about "Biblical inerrancy" but frankly
I'm confused. Please realize that I am a Catholic and apparently
naive about "Protestant" theology.
To help me understand where everyone is coming 
from I'll ask some concrete questions:
- Did you accept the Bible as true and then read it or did you read
    it and then realize it was true? 
    How do you handle things you read that you disagree with? Do
    you just say "I don't quite understand this" or do you follow
    what you think it says no matter what?
- I would think that the words of Jesus supercede anything else. 
    Jesus said many things that were not recorded. If, for
    example, a letter that Jesus wrote was found, or a transcription
    of a lesson he taught that was definitely proven to be his
    words (disregard the potential of this actually happening)
    and it contradicted something in the Epistles, which would you
    accept. "That could never happen" is not an acceptable answer.
    Conversely, if the original letter of say, Paul to Romans was
    found, and it was discovered that it had been "edited" by the
    early Church for some reason in some critical way, would you
    follow the original letter or keep with your theology based
    on the edited version?

These questions might seem like pointless speculation to you but
I think they are critical. It seems so many people quote
Paul for all their theology.

I will give a (I hope bad) example: I was listening to a call-in
radio show hosted by Bob George. He seems to be kind of a "Taoist"
Christian, just relax and let Christ in your heart and don't worry
about anything. A caller asked about Jesus' discourse on the end
of the world when he criticizes those who didn't "clothe me when I
was naked, visit me in prison", etc. and then he commends those who
did those things, in other words those who showed love to their 
fellow humans. The caller's point was that this shows that we should
be active, do "good works", in fact Jesus implies that salvation
depends on us doing these things, regardless of whether we knew
it "was Him" or not. Bob George's answer was that Jesus said
these things before the crucifixion and therefore they didn't
apply anymore. Booiiinnnnnggggg!! I couldn't believe it. Do
people really think that Paul supercedes Jesus? I suddenly understood
the line from "Jesus Christ Superstar":
"You've begun to matter more than the things you say."

I hope I'm not being offensive but I really was shocked to find
that people think this way. Is this the main difference between
Catholic and Protestant? I grew up assuming that the differences
among Christians were minor variations, this difference seems to make 
two completely different religions.

Chris Mussack        

mussack@innerdoor.austin.ibm.com
IBM Advanced Workstation Division     
Graphics Development        
Austin, Texas (512) 838-1638

[I think the answer is pretty clear.  If there is actually a teaching
of Jesus that contradicts something in the Bible, then inerrancy is
false.  I don't see how it could survive a teaching of Jesus that
contradicts anything in the Bible.  But the practical difficulties of
actually using a hypothetical new teaching to demolish inerrancy would
be immense.  (1) how would you prove that the discovery is real?  (2)
There's a good deal of room for interpretation in both Jesus and Paul.

The most you can hope to gain from a hypothetical question is to
clarify what inerrancy means.  There's something to be said for the
idea that knowing what would disprove something helps you understand
what it means.  But you seem to think they would somehow lead to a
reevaluation of Paul.  I don't see how.  You may be anticipating that
people will say "if a teaching of Jesus were found that contradicts
Paul, we would of course ignore Paul".  I think instead you'll find
"if a teaching of Jesus were found that contradicts Paul, then our
whole concept of the Bible would be wrong."

I think the reason we depend upon Paul for theology is that he is
writing after Jesus' death and resurrection, and helped Christians to
formulate their ways of thinking about it.  For Christianity theology,
those events are critical.  If you believe the comments about the
disciples in the synoptic gospels, when Jesus tried to speak about his
death and its implications, the disciples didn't understand.
Christian theology as it exists now was impossible to talk about until
after his followers had seen him die and rise.  Since the gospels
report primarily what he taught during his life, these teachings don't
deal with many of the issues of theology.

You quote someone as saying that Jesus' teachings don't apply to us
because they were before the crucifixion.  I would say that such a
view is unusual.  Protestants do not believe that Paul supercedes
Jesus.  Rather they believe that he explains things in light of the
resurrection, but that his explanations are consistent with Jesus'
teachings, and ultimately must be tracable either to Jesus (e.g.  to
his conversations with his disciples after the resurrection, as
reported in Acts 1 and in the gospels), to Christian experience,
with the illumination of the Holy Spirit (see e.g. John 16:13 -- Jesus
is quoted as saying that the Spirit will guide the disciples to an
understanding of the truth), or to direct inspiration.  But none
of these sources would conflict with Jesus' teachings.  They might
however show things that Jesus could not reasonably have talked
about during his life.

I think you'll find the Catholic theology is as strongly based on Paul
as Protestant theology, except possibly in the area of free will and
grace.  But even there, you'll find strong Pauline influences in the
Catholic position.  I suspect maybe you haven't seen the full range of
Catholic theology, and thus are contrasting liberal Catholicism with
conservative Protestantism.

--clh]