Title: "Inspiration, Infallibility, and Inerrancy: Hath God Said? with R.C. Sproul - YouTube"
Video Transcript: "SPROUL: Any time the subject of the authority of Scripture is raised and people engage in discussions about it, there are three pivotal concepts that inform the conversation. Those concepts, I’ll write on the board, and then we’ll take some time to define them. They include the concept of inspiration, the concept of infallibility, and the concept of inerrancy. Now, before I go into a development of these concepts here, I’d like you to just think within the quiet chambers of your own mind, what are your personal reactions to these concepts? What do you think of when you hear the word inspiration, and what goes through your mind when you think of the term infallible? And perhaps most importantly, how do you react viscerally to the term inerrant, or inerrancy? I ask these questions for a reason. There is a tremendous amount of emotion that casts a pall over each and all of these terms, and sometimes I find it in theology somewhat difficult for people to get past the emotion to examine carefully the content that is contained in these words. F or example, when I was in... in seminary, if somebody used the term inerrancy with respect to the Scripture that immediately categorized that person as being a back woods fundamentalist with no education whatsoever. The normal response would be, “How could anybody believe in the inerrancy of Scripture in this day and age after two hundred years of profound academic analysis and scholarly criticism?” And so, the term inerrancy emerges something of a shibboleth. As a word that became a passport for orthodoxy or opposed to orthodoxy, and so on. This issue became so severe that in the late seventies an organization was formed in America that included scholars from around the world. Several hundred of them as a matter of fact, but under the leadership of an executive committee of fifteen or sixteen of them to study the question of the authority, the inspiration, the infallibility, the inerrancy of the Bible. And this organization was called the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. And it devoted itself not only to ten years of study, but also of publications of various sorts and several conferences. And the first summit meeting of this organization was held in Chicago in 1978 when several hundred people came together and discussed and debated various issues about the integrity of Scripture. And what emerged from that event was a document that included a united statement on Scripture and then, a lengthier document that included affirmations, twenty-some affirmations and denials about Scripture. That is, careful definitions saying, “We affirm that the Bible is this, this, and this. We deny that it is this, this, and this.” So that it would be as clear as possible what was being stated on the matter. I was asked to write a commentary for the ICBI event on that document of affirmations and denials, and in brief form, so that the lay person could have it, and read through it and be educated and informed about some of these very subtle questions regarding sacred Scripture. We have these always available, it’s called, Explaining Inerrancy, a Commentary, by R.C. Sproul with a forward by Dr. Roger Nicole. We have these available at our Ligonier Ministries. I think they cost $2 or something like, that but in any case, if you write, we’ll be happy to send it. And I do recommend this for people who are trying to wade through the intricacies of this debate. Because, again, as we examine this term inerrancy, and how it has been used in church history, it’s a long way from this negative term that I had heard thrown around loosely and sardonically when I was in Seminary, but I’ll get to that in a moment. Let’s look, then, at these three concepts of inspiration, infallibility, and inerrancy. As I mentioned earlier in our session, when Paul says in second Timothy that all of the Scripture is inspired of God, that’s the English translation. I mentioned that the word he used there should be translated, expiration, rather than inspiration, because it is calling attention to the origin of the content of Scripture, not to the means or the method by which God endowed, or governed, or enabled human authors to become the instruments of or the agents of His divine revelation. But that’s what the word inspiration refers to. In theology, the term inspiration does not simply refer to somebody who is extraordinarily gifted or insightful or has a certain engaging charisma. Where we might hear a trumpet player play a triple tongue riff in jazz, and when he’s done we’ll says, “Wow. That was a inspired performance. ” We don’t mean by that that God Almighty enabled him in some supernatural way to play the trumpet. Although we may wonder about that with people like Dizzie Gillispie and so on. But, that was not what is meant by an inspired actor, or inspired football player, or somebody who gives an inspired performance about something. When we’re talking about inspiration in theology, we’re talking about an activity that takes place through divine and supernatural help, or the term that we use is superintendent. By which, the human author is enabled to be a vehicle for God’s Word to be set forth. That’s what we mean by inspiration. Now, in classical Christian theology, the church has not defined in detail exactly how that inspiration takes place, or what we would call the mode of the inspiration. And there is a world of misunderstanding about this. Some people, when they hear that word, inspiration, or verbal inspiration of the Bible, what immediately comes into their mind is the idea that the human authors, as they set about the task of writing the Gospel of Luke or of John or whatever, that they were virtual automatons. That their pen was seized supernaturally by the Holy Ghost in such a way as to bypass, to quench, to squelch altogether any of the humanity of that writer. So that his pen worked as a Ouija board, or as what we would call a kind of automatic writing, or where the humanity of the human author was so emptied, in this process, that the author became virtually a machine in the hands of God. Such a view of inspiration is called, therefore, a mechanical view of inspiration, meaning that the human author is reduced to the status of a machine. Now, I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people say to me, “I don’t believe in verbal inspiration, the orthodox view, because I don’t believe that God reduced people to puppets and made them machines.” And sometimes I get impatient, and I want to say. “Have you read anything in the history of Christian literature on this point, because for centuries those Christian theologians who have articulated the view of verbal inspiration have been super careful to point out that what they certainly did not mean by Divine superintendence was mechanical inspiration.” Another theory that is rejected in orthodoxy with respect to verbal inspiration is what is called the dictation theory. Again, if you hear the term inspiration maybe you’re thinking that what inspiration means or what it suggests to you is that while Luke was at his desk writing on the parchment, preparing the scroll of his book, God was dictating what he was to write down in his ear, just as I might pick up the telephone and call into the office, to my secretary, and say, “Can I ask you to take this down and send out this letter?” And I tell her what to write, word for word, and so, she types it up and sends it over my signature and her initials. She actually is the writer, but she’s not really the author because all she is doing is recording what I have dictated. They’re my words in her pen. Now, when I say orthodoxy does not subscribe to this notion of... of inspiration, dictation. out this letter?” And I t The Holy Spirit dictating. So there’s the word. If anybody wants to lay any blame for a dictation theory of inspiration, here’s historical evidence that someone somehow in a very important position in the Roman Catholic Church council of the highest magnitude uses the term. However, though the term dictating is used at Trent, the concept, the concept of God whispering words to a human writer or saying them aloud is not conveyed by that concept, even at Trent. And the Church has stopped short of defining precisely the mode of inspiration. Now, the second concept, infallibility, is one that has intrigued me considerably. Again, I go back to my... to my Seminary days when there was such a negative hostile reaction to the word inerrancy, but there wasn’t that same sort of violent vehement protest against the word infallibility. Now they consciously were trying to write a weaker statement, but in terms of the meaning of the words, ladies and gentlemen, they strengthened the statement. Because the term infallible means unable to fail, incapable of making a mistake, whereas the term inerrancy simply says that mistake is not made. Now, is it possible for human beings without the help of divine superintendence, without the assistance of God the Holy Spirit, to do anything inerrantly? Let me say it again, “Is it possible for a human being without any special help from God to do anything inerrantly?” I would be deceitful to take a point off. It wouldn’t be just. But he makes a hundred. He’s inerrant. But I know he’s not infallible. And that his inerrancy is temporary. I mean I could write an inerrancy, an inerrant grocery list. If you want to know what three items we need to buy at the store, and say, “We need bread; we need catsup; and we need salt. And, given the vast scope of Scripture if human beings were left to themselves without any special assistance from God, I would be the last person in the world to assume that what we would have would be an inerrant work. But what I’m saying is, “Inerrancy is not as strong as infallibility.” To be inerrant simply means one does not err. To be infallible means one cannot err. And the executive council debated the question, “How shall we define this organization? Should we define ourselves as theologians who are concerned to propagate the concept of inerrancy?” And I remember saying at that time that I think inerrancy is a bad word strategically. That the Word of God is true and trustworthy, that’s what we’re concerned about. Well, how could it be true and trustworthy if it weren’t inerrant? And if it has errors, it’s not altogether true, and if it has errors, it’s not altogether trustworthy. But I would say, I think we need a word that’s more neutral. I said it’s a shibboleth. J. ’” And people who weren’t Jewish couldn’t say “shibboleth.” They’d stutter all over that word. And so only a true Jew could utter it. I remember when I lived in Holland that the... the Dutch had the same kind of a shibboleth test during World War II, for... to keep the Germans from sneaking in places they weren’t supposed to be. They had a little seacoast town called Schaveningen. ” Which is sheer dishonesty. It happens every day, I’m sad to say, in the world of theology. But, he said, “People really choke on inerrancy.” He said, “They’re not going to say they believe inerrancy unless they really believe it. Why give them an easy way to cheat? Because every theologian knows what is meant by inerrancy and what isn’t meant by inerrancy, and it’s a perfectly meaningful and significant word, and it’s a good word historically, let’s stick with it.” And I was persuaded by that. I said, good for you. Here I was ready to And they’re going to say you’re not academic, you’re not intelligent, you’re not scholarly if you embrace a term like that. And if you’re not secure in your scholarship or in your intelligence, maybe you might be intimidated to negotiate. I think that’s one of the reasons why people change from inerrancy to infallible. The concept of infallibility is associated historically with what, with the institution of the Roman Catholic Church. Infallibility of the Church, infallibility of the Papacy, defined in 1870 by Pius the ninth, but a doctrine, which has been defended, for example, by Jesuit theologians. And whatever else you think about Jesuit theologians and Roman Catholic theologians, not too often that somebody says, “They’re stupid. Finally, before I finish this little time of definition, the other problem with inerrancy is inerrancy must be carefully defined. To mean... what it does not mean is that it does not mean that there aren’t grammatical crudities to be found in the Bible. Or, does it mean, that the Bible speaks with absolute scientific precision. Somebody who has objected to inerrancy because Jesus said that if you have faith as a grain of mustard, as like a mustard seed, you will be able to say to this mountain, and so on, say that the mustard seed is the smallest seed of all. And people say, well wait. We have found smaller seeds than the mustard seed. That’s the Biblical concept of truth. And all that orthodoxy has insisted is that the Bible, on every page and with every word, is utterly and completely consistent with the Bible’s own definition of truth. The Bible’s inspired, it’s infallible. Well, let me back up, it’s inspired; therefore, it’s infallible. And, it’s infallible; therefore, it is inerrant."
Video Summary: