tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post5232800353656402707..comments2024-03-27T17:15:37.606-04:00Comments on Triablogue: Can the Bible be proven wrong?Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17809283662428917799noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-55634566125627737572013-03-26T00:56:06.482-04:002013-03-26T00:56:06.482-04:00Resources for Dealing with Alleged Bible Contradic...<a href="http://www.gospelcrumbs.blogspot.com/2012/07/resources-for-dealing-with-alleged.html" rel="nofollow">Resources for Dealing with Alleged Bible Contradictions, Discrepancies and Errors</a>ANNOYED PINOYhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00714774340084597206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-80188725226980865402013-03-25T20:18:44.645-04:002013-03-25T20:18:44.645-04:00Thanks, David. Keep in mind my distinction between...Thanks, David. Keep in mind my distinction between verification and falsification. To expand on that in reference to your comment:<br /><br />There’s a difference between a claim that has some prima facie evidence in its favor, a claim that has no positive evidence, and a claim that is prima facie implausible.<br /><br />In the first case, there is some, perhaps modest, presumption in its favor, which counterevidence could overcome. That raises threshold issues. It’s a bit hard to quantify, but we’re comparing the quality or quantity of evidence and counterevidence. <br /><br />However, in the latter two cases, there is no onus to disprove something which we had no reason to believe in the first place. We don’t have to wait for a tipping point. We don’t even need evidence to the contrary. That’s where I’d put Muhammad, Swedenborg, and Joseph Smith (to take a few prominent examples). stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-71467221187730716312013-03-25T20:17:06.727-04:002013-03-25T20:17:06.727-04:00We would be justified in rejecting any source whic...We would be justified in rejecting any source which leads to contradiction. The question is whether the Bible can lead to contradiction. If it's the word of God, it can't. If it's not, then it can. It's either/or - there's no third option. But given that, we can't pretend to examine the consistency of the Bible from a position of neutrality. We either already accept that Scripture can't lead to contradictions or we don't. So how do you answer?<br /><br />If the latter, you've subjected the Bible to another criterion. Now, it may be that the Bible itself [implicitly] asserts that it satisfies this criterion - and so we can test such for purposes of confirmation and assurance - but you wouldn't be accepting such a criterion for the reason that the Bible states it. But in that case, why is it that you would consider the Bible's the satisfaction of said criterion (or criteria) to constitute sufficient reason for regarding the Bible as divine revelation?<br /><br />"But if there is a revelation, there can be no criterion for it. God cannot swear by a greater; therefore he has sworn by himself. One cannot ask one’s own experience to judge God and determine whether God tells the truth or not. Consider Abraham. How could Abraham be sure that God commanded him to sacrifice Isaac? Maybe this suggestion was of the devil; maybe it was a queer auto-suggestion. There is no higher answer to this question than God himself. The final criterion is merely God’s statement. It cannot be tested by any superior truth."<br /><br />Gordon Clark, <i>Today's Evangelism: Counterfeit or Genuine?</i> (pg. 113)Ryanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07883500968749756873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-72694887425936887502013-03-25T19:58:59.607-04:002013-03-25T19:58:59.607-04:00F. F. Bruce reportedly wrote a sympathetic forewor...F. F. Bruce reportedly wrote a sympathetic foreword to Dewey Beegle's Scripture, Tradition, and Infallibility. I haven't read the foreword. I have read Bruce's autobiography.<br /><br />He was a towering Bible scholar who generally defended the historicity of the Bible. But he approached it as a historian. stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-60854289618265396342013-03-25T17:46:11.442-04:002013-03-25T17:46:11.442-04:00Steve, I certainly wouldn't advocate the erran...Steve, I certainly wouldn't advocate the errancy "fallback" position (to say the least), but wouldn't we justly reject the Bible as being the Word of God if indeed it had the sorts of internal and external (historical, historico-theological, archeological, etc.) contradictions or, at least, "problems" that the Quran and the Book of Mormon have? Isn't there a breaking point where, on a cummulative basis, you just can't and shouldn't swallow all of the attempted harmonizations and explanations?<br /><br />Those cults have their own ways of dealing with apparent problems. The Muslim would, for instance, explain that the text of the Bible has been corrupted and that the "original Bible" was compatible with Islam. Now that is a flimsy and ad-hoc explanation, but that's the point. I don't believe the Bible has even an order of magnitude the level of difficulties those other texts have, nor does it require the level of epistemological sympathy to explain and massage the problems that those texts do. So I don't feel intellectually dishonest for chalking up the apparent difficulties of the Bible to be the product of my finitude, fallibility, and ignorance. I can't say that about the Bible's competitors.<br /><br />I suppose it is difficult to describe, in qualitative or quantitative terms, the threshold between giving a self-claimed deposit of divine revelation due sympathy in evaluating problems areas and, on the other end, the point where this sympathy rises to the level of gullibility or dishonesty in massaging away apparent problems. But I think the distinction is legitimate, and so I would not be concerned about leveling the same kind and level of scrutiny at the Bible that I would at competitors such as the Quran.<br /><br />It is worth noting that in practice the list of live candidates on the field that make formal claims to be inscripturated divine revelation (in the monotheistic sense) is quite short. Mormonism is polytheistic, so their supposed holy writings aren't even in the ballpark. The Quran is really the only major competitor. While there might be other claims to monotheistic revelation, they would belong to exceedingly obscure religions (certainly I couldn't name one). So, given all this, deism (the belief that God exists but hasn't spoken, at least propositionally, to man) is really the only logical alternative to the Bible and biblical religion.David Gadboishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18375984671877016361noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-79314491182500249102013-03-25T12:32:37.445-04:002013-03-25T12:32:37.445-04:00The council of Carthage was a local church council...The council of Carthage was a local church council. Are you claiming that local councils are infallible?<br /><br />The Bible is highly intertextual. You can learn a lot about which books belong to Scripture by connecting the dots. stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-36425206719614470882013-03-25T10:41:48.823-04:002013-03-25T10:41:48.823-04:00If your a general baptised Christian it's some...If your a general baptised Christian it's sometimes easy to doubt scripture as you don't really know if the books of your scripture your reading are the word of God or if some books are missing because your don't trust any source outside of scripture to tell you which books belong to scripture.<br /><br />However if your catholic you beieve the church is infallible when it defines canons or anathemas and therefore cannot doubt the the words of scripture with having this sort of belief in a protection foundation.<br /><br />The Catholic concil of Carthage defined the canon of scripture in A.D.397 as follows:<br /><br />Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua the son of Nun, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, two books of Paraleipomena, Job, the Psalter, five books of Solomon, the books of the twelve prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezechiel, Daniel, Tobit, Judith, Esther, two books of Esdras, two books of the Maccabees. Of the New Testament: four books of the Gospels, one book of the Acts of the Apostles, thirteen Epistles of the Apostle Paul, one epistle of the same writer to the Hebrews, two Epistles of the Apostle Peter, three of John, one of James, one of Jude, one book of the Apocalypse of John.Servant of Maryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04925549055628786875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-63394082072964456772013-03-25T08:28:12.008-04:002013-03-25T08:28:12.008-04:00Excellent.
If God is a perfect being; perfect in w...Excellent.<br />If God is a perfect being; perfect in wisdom, power, holiness, love, then He cannot lie, therefore His word is also perfect and inerrant. <br /><br />that doesn't mean there are no variants or copyist errors or passages that are hard to explain or mysterious to us. <br /><br />Anselm's Ontological proof for the existence of God is close to this.<br /><br />I remember in philosophy class in undergrad, the professor was very impressed with the Ontological argument and my brother and I were the only believers in the class and he admitted that we made the class fun and interesting; because all the other students just slept through the class or didn't pay much attention. <br /><br />That an unbeliever and philosopher was impressed with the Ontological argument is encouraging for witnessing and your article speaks to that. I think it helps our faith; and sometimes it is also a helpful argument with unbelievers. (but not all the time)<br /><br />I didn't know F. F. Bruce took that position. Craig Evans was very weak in his debate with Bart Ehrman; Muslims love to use that as an example of a Christian scholar being defeated.<br /><br />C. Michael Patton is frustrating indeed; on many issues. <br /><br /><i>Their justification for this position is that if your Christian faith is founded on the inerrancy or plenary-verbal inspiration of Scripture, then it only takes a single mistake to destroy your faith. There’s no give in your belief-system.</i> <br /><br />That seems to be what happened to Bart Ehrman, along with his struggle to understand suffering, sin and evil, and God as Sovereign and all wise and perfect in love.<br />Kenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17824685809003307918noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-49908490194737064152013-03-24T21:46:54.384-04:002013-03-24T21:46:54.384-04:00Thanks, Ryan. Nice to hear from you. Thanks, Ryan. Nice to hear from you. stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-11248946726764999152013-03-24T13:31:30.117-04:002013-03-24T13:31:30.117-04:00Good post.
Necessary truths obviously cannot be ...Good post. <br /><br />Necessary truths obviously cannot be falsified. So given that God is necessary and that what He speaks cannot be a lie, the Bible, God's word, cannot be falsified. That some do not take these divinely revealed truths as such does not imply we shouldn't.<br /><br />But our belief isn't arbitrary. For the Bible itself prescribes criteria against which we can test its claims. Prophecy is one example. Internal consistency is another necessary condition for some communication to have been revealed by God. Etc. <br /><br />But no matter how many of these subsidiary conditions we show the Bible must and does satisfy, our trust in it must ultimately be based on its own, self-authenticating claim to be God's word.Ryanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07883500968749756873noreply@blogger.com