Christian priorities

What I tell my students every year is that it is imperative that they pursue truth rather than protect their presuppositions. And they need to have a doctrinal taxonomy that distinguishes core beliefs from peripheral beliefs. When they place more peripheral doctrines such as inerrancy and verbal inspiration at the core, then when belief in these doctrines start to erode, it creates a domino effect: One falls down, they all fall down. It strikes me that something like this may be what happened to Bart Ehrman. His testimony in Misquoting Jesus discussed inerrancy as the prime mover in his studies. But when a glib comment from one of his conservative professors at Princeton was scribbled on a term paper, to the effect that perhaps the Bible is not inerrant, Ehrman’s faith began to crumble. One domino crashed into another until eventually he became ‘a fairly happy agnostic.’ I may be wrong about Ehrman’s own spiritual journey, but I have known too many students who have gone in that direction. The irony is that those who frontload their critical investigation of the text of the Bible with bibliological presuppositions often speak of a ‘slippery slope’ on which all theological convictions are tied to inerrancy. Their view is that if inerrancy goes, everything else begins to erode. I would say that if inerrancy is elevated to the status of a prime doctrine, that’s when one gets on a slippery slope. But if a student views doctrines as concentric circles, with the cardinal doctrines occupying the center, then if the more peripheral doctrines are challenged, this does not have an effect on the core. 

http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2006/03/interview-with-dan-wallace.html

This argument seems to be increasingly popular among some scholars and apologists (e.g. Dan Wallace, Craig Blomberg, William Lane Craig, Mike Licona, Michael Patton). On this view, a dogmatic commitment to inerrancy is a "slippery slope" or "house of cards." Once you begin to question inerrancy, that has the "domino effect."

To this I'd say a few things:

i) Although we shouldn't make the Christian faith more demanding than God demands, by the same token, we shouldn't make the Christian faith less demanding than God demands. Indeed, we don't have the authority to tell people what biblical teachings they are free to jettison. 

ii) Some professing Christians lose their faith because they had very crude notions of what inerrancy requires. Their false expectations were dashed. But there are nuanced models of inerrancy, viz.

Darrell Bock, “Precision and Accuracy: Making Distinctions in the Cultural Context That Give Us Pause in Pitting the Gospels against Each Other,” in Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith? A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Postmodern Approaches to Scripture, ed. James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012) 367-381.

http://www.frame-poythress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/PoythressVernInerrancyAndTheGospels.pdf

http://www.frame-poythress.org/inerrancy-harmonization-and-the-synoptic-gospels-a-response-to-darrell-bock/

http://www.apologetics315.com/2008/03/book-review-historical-reliability-of.html

iii) As scholars like Warfield have documented, verbal inspiration is the Bible's own doctrine of inspiration. That's not one among several theories of inspiration. That's not a "peripheral" doctrine. That's the "core" of divine communication. 

iv) Finally, suppose, for the sake of argument, that Scripture is not inerrant. Suppose, when I die and go to heaven, I find out that I was wrong about inerrancy. Does that mean I was wrong to defend inerrancy in the here and now?

Although it's best to be right for the right reasons, it's better to be wrong for the right reasons than right for the wrong reasons. Let's take two examples:

a) Suppose I have a teenage daughter who's diagnosed with cancer. Unfortunately, it's a cancer with a 20% survival rate. Suppose I don't have her treated, because the odds are against her. Conversely, suppose I have her undergo treatment, but she dies anyway. 

Which was the right thing to do? Well, if I have her undergo treatment, then, in a sense I was wrong, because the treatment was futile. Put another way, if I don't have her undergo treatment, there's a sense in which I was right, because even if she had undergone treatment, she was doomed.

But, of course, even though she only had a 1 out of 5 chance of survival, it was my parental duty to try to save her life. I didn't know ahead of time if therapy would be successful or unsuccessful. But there was so much to gain if it succeeded, and so little to lose if it failed.

If I deny her treatment, I'm factually right, but morally wrong. If I order treatment, I'm factually wrong but morally right. 

We'd be justified in condemning a parent who denied her treatment, even if it might have proven futile.I didn't have the benefit of hindsight.

b) Let's take another example. Suppose I have a bedridden mother who lives with me. I have a nurse's aid visit everyday to change her or bathe her. 

Suppose a category-5 hurricane is making a beeline for our neighborhood. It isn't feasible to evacuate my mother in her frail condition. I can stay behind, but I'd be risking my own life in the process. Or I can leave her behind and come back after the hurricane has passed over. It's possible that the hurricane will weaken or swerve before it makes landfall, but if I wait until the last minute to decide what to do, it will be too late to escape because the evacuation routes will be gridlocked. I'd be overtaken by the hurricane.

Suppose I stay behind. As it turns out, the hurricane swerved. My mother was never in danger. It was unnecessary for me to stay by her side.

Suppose I leave her behind. As it turns out, it was safe to leave her alone, then return a few hours later. 

If I say behind, there's a sense in which I was wrong, since she was never actually threatened by the hurricane. 

But, of course, it's my filial duty to stay behind, even if that means we both die. If I leave her behind, and no harm comes to her, we both got lucky. But that hardly excuses me for deserting her in a crisis. 

If I leave her behind, I'm factually right, but morally wrong. If I stay behind, I'm factually wrong, but morally right.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that some Christians have too much faith in Scripture. Suppose their excessive faith is misplaced. 

Even if (ex hypothesi), they were wrong, they were wrong for the right reason. Their motives were God-honoring.

Even if (ex hypothesi), those who reject inerrancy turn out to be right, they were right for the wrong reason.  Their motives were God-dishonoring. 

Is inerrancy, at best, a secondary doctrine?

I'm going to comment on a recent statement by Mike Licona:

Third, the truth of Christianity is grounded in the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection rather than the inerrancy of the Bible. If Jesus rose from the dead, Christianity would still be true even if it were the case that some things in the Bible are not. In fact, because Jesus rose, Christianity was true in the period before any of the New Testament literature was written. So, how could an error in the Gospels nullify the truth of Christianity? This is not to say the Bible contains errors. It is to say that, since the truth of the Christian gospel does not hang on every word in the Bible being correct, the doctrine of biblical inerrancy is, at the very most, a secondary doctrine. 

This position is only an echo of that articulated in 1893 by B. B. Warfield, regarded as the father of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy:

Let it not be said that thus we found the whole Christian system upon the doctrine of plenary inspiration. We found the whole Christian system on the doctrine of plenary inspiration as little as we found it upon the doctrine of angelic existences. Were there no such thing as inspiration, Christianity would be true, and all its essential doctrines would be credibly witnessed to us in the generally trustworthy reports of the teaching of our Lord and of His authoritative agents in founding the Church, preserved in the writings of the apostles and their first followers, and in the historical witness of the living Church. Inspiration is not the most fundamental of Christian doctrines, nor even the first thing we prove about the Scriptures. It is the last and crowning fact as to the Scriptures. These we first prove authentic, historically credible, generally trustworthy, before we prove them inspired. And the proof of their authenticity, credibility, general trustworthiness would give us a firm basis for Christianity prior to any knowledge on our part of their inspiration, and apart indeed from the existence of inspiration. Warfield, "The Real Problem of Inspiration." 

http://www.risenjesus.com/chicagos-muddy-waters

i) I disagree with Warfield's methodology, for reasons I'll come to momentarily. But I'd also note that Warfield is using a different argument than Licona. Warfield didn't say: 

Even though the Bible claims to be plenarily inspired, if the self-witness of Scripture were proven false, Christianity would still be true.

Warfield is speaking hypothetically. This is even clearer from a similar statement he made:

We may say that without a Bible we might have had Christ and all that he stands for to our souls. Let us not say that this might not have been possible. But neither let us for- get that, in point of fact, it is to the Bible that we owe it that we know Christ and are found in him.  ‘‘The Inspiration of the Bible,’’ in Revelation and Inspiration, 72.

So Warfield is discussing a counterfactual scenario in which the Bible doesn't claim to be plenarily inspired in the first place. A counterfactual scenario in which there is no Bible. A possible world where Christianity is not a revealed religion. Where the knowledge of Christianity solely depends on collective memory. 

That wouldn't be the same religion. It would be significantly similar to Christianity inasmuch as many of the key events would be the same, but it would be significantly dissimilar as well. 

That is very different from Licona's argument that if, in the real world, Scripture was found to be errant in spite of Scripture's self-witness to the contrary, Christianity would still be true. Even if Licona's argument is a good argument, it's not the same argument as Warfield's. It's not the same position. 

ii) It's true that inspiration and the Resurrection are two causally independent events. In that sense, the truth of the Resurrection is not contingent on the truth or falsity of inspiration. Hypothetically speaking, you could have many of the same redemptive events with or without an inspired record.

That, however, doesn't mean Christianity would still be true. Rather, that would mean Christianity is partially true. 

For instance, imagine OT Judaism without the prophets. Imagine Judaism without Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, &c. You could still have many of the same events. The calling of Abraham could still be true. The Exodus could still be true. And so on and so forth. However, OT Judaism without the prophets would not be the same religion. 

iii) In addition, Licona is erecting a false dichotomy between divine words and divine works. But when God raised up prophets, that's a divine event. Sending prophets to Israel is something God does as well as something God says. So we can't neatly separate the works of God from the words of God. 

iv) To take another example: in Isa 40-48, one factor distinguishing the true God from false gods is that Yahweh says he's going to do something, then does it. Predictive prophecy is a fundamental element of OT theism. God does what he says he will do. God says what he will do before he does it. 

If, however, God simply did things without announcing his intentions in advance, you'd only have half the religion. There's far more to Biblical theism than what God does. God is a God who foretells his actions, then fulfills what he foretells. Among other things, inspiration points to a God who knows and controls the future. God gives a word (to or through a prophet), then acts on his word. That's an essential component of Biblical theism. A God who makes promises, then makes good on his promises. 

v) What about Warfield's argument? In addition to what Licona quoted, Warfield deploys variations on this same argument. For instance:

Inspiration, in its more exact sense, cannot come into the discussion until theism, the reality of revelation, the divine origin and character of the religion which they present, and the general trustworthiness of their presentation of it, have been already established. It is the crowing attribute of these sacred books, and is inconceivable and would not be affirmed if they were not previously believed to be the trustworthy records of a divinely given religion. Selected Shorter Writings, 2:632. 

But certainly, before we draw it from the Scriptures, we must assure ourselves that there is a knowledge of God in the Scriptures. And, before we do that, we must assure ourselves that there is a knowledge of God in the world. And, before we do that, we must assure ourselves that a knowledge of God is possible for man. And before we do that, we must assure ourselves that there is a God to know. Thus, we inevitably work back to first principles. Selected Shorter Writings, 2:98. 

In other words, Warfield is proposing a stepwise proof, in which one thing presupposes another, like a logical syllogism. But even if we grant his methodology, it doesn't follow from this that the order in which you prove something parallels the order of importance. 

Suppose we said, the resurrection of Christ presupposes the death of Christ, and the death of Christ presupposes the birth of Christ. Therefore, the Resurrection "is, at the very most, a secondary doctrine."

Likewise, the NT presupposes the OT. Does it follow that the NT is, at best, of secondary importance to the Christian faith? 

Even if you use a linear proof, the order in which you prove something is not a ranking system. It's not an argument in descending order of importance, where what is prior is more essential or fundamental than what is posterior in the logical or causal sequence. 

vi) Moreover, is Warfield's argument the only proper way to arrive at the conclusion? Must we always begin with first principles? 

Take a comparison: when I observe seagulls, I know a large body of water is nearby. Suppose I'm driving to the coast, but I'm lost. If, however, I begin to notice seagulls in the direction I'm driving, whereas there were no seagulls for miles behind, I can reasonable infer than I'm approaching the coast. I'm getting close to the ocean.

But suppose I'm Warfield. Suppose I say: 

In proving my proximity to the beach, seagulls are not the first thing I appeal to. For seagulls can't exist unless seagulls come from eggs. And seagulls can't make coastal waters their habitant unless there's an ocean in the first place. Therefore, I must first prove the existence of the sea, then prove that seagulls come from eggs, before I can appeal to sightings of seagulls as evidence for the nearby ocean.

That's clearly backwards. And that's because the order of knowing reverses the order of being. 

You don't have to begin with first principles. You don't have to begin with causes. You can begin with effects. The Bible is the effect of divine agency: revelation, inspiration, and historical causation. So it's not illicit to reason back from Scripture, as a starting-point, to its ultimate cause. 

vii) How did most Jews and Christians come to believe in the scriptures? Not through Warfield's argument. For Jewish and Christian believers who were raised in the faith, in many cases they can't remember a time when they didn't believe in the God of prophets. Their religious experience is a package. 

If, moreover, the God of Scripture exists, then these aren't separable elements in reality, even if they are logically separable. So why demand that we must take it apart and rearrange it in Warfield's schematic fashion? 

In fact, Warfield falls back on intuition when he's writing for a popular audience. He knows his methodology won't work for the average layman. Take his essay on the deity of Christ (from The Fundamentals):

A man recognizes on sight the face of his friend, or his own handwriting. Ask him how he knows this face to be that of his friend, or his handwriting to be his own, and he may be dumb [i.e. speechless], or, seeking to reply, may babble nonsense. Yet his recognition rests on solid grounds, though he lacks analytical skill to isolate and state these grounds. We believe in God and freedom and immortality on good grounds, though we may not be able to satisfactorily analyze these grounds. No true conviction exists without adequate rational grounding in evidence. So, if we are solidly assured of the deity of Christ, it will be on adequate grounds, appealing to the reason. But it may well be on grounds not analyzed, perhaps not analyzable, by us, so as to exhibit themselves in the forms of formal logic. 

We do not need to wait to analyze the grounds of our convictions before they operate to produce convictions, any more than we need to wait to analyze our food before it nourishes us. The Christian's conviction of the deity of his Lord does not depend for its soundness on the Christian's ability convincingly to state the grounds of his conviction. The evidence he offers for it may be wholly inadequate, while the evidence on which it rests may be absolutely compelling. 

What's a charismatic?

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2013/10/what-does-it-mean-to-be-charismatic/

Rating Jesus

I'm going to briefly comment on this post:

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2013/08/why-i-doubt-so-many-things-about-christianity/

Belief does not come easy for me. I have a little “unbeliever” who has set up camp in the back of my mind, and he has no idea when, or how, to shut up. He is always questioning everything, from the stories I hear to the beliefs which tie me down emotionally. (I borrowed this idea from Daniel Taylor’s The Skeptical Christian. Taylor is possibly the most profound and honest writer I have ever read.) This unbeliever’s goal is to make me less certain about my beliefs and, in doing so, render me spiritually impotent and sterile. I have found many ways to tame this unbelieving beast, but I have also come to the conclusion that he will never totally shut up.

Christians like Patton need to replace that chatty little unbeliever with a different unbeliever. Somebody like Daniel Dennett or Alex Rosenberg. If you think belief doesn't come easy, try unbelief. And I don't mean glib, superficial unbelief. I mean the kind of probing atheism that begins to consume itself from the inside out until nothing is left. 

Christians naturally focus on Christian issues. That can lead to a distorted emphasis on the perceived problems of the Christian faith. Try shifting your focus to the problems of the alternatives–like atheism. 

This way of thinking becomes even more beneficial when we place all of our beliefs along the scale. For example, I believe in the resurrection of Christ with less certitude than I do the existence of God.

How in the world is it supposed to be beneficial to rate belief in God higher than belief in Christ? Something has gone disastrously wrong with Patton's rating system.

Belief in God ought inseparable from belief in Christ. Speaking for myself, I barely thought about God until I became a Christian. 

If I were to lose my faith in Christianity, non-Christian theism wouldn't be my fallback position. Rather, at that point I'd be indifferent to the theist/atheist debate. I wouldn't care whether or not a non-Christian God existed. I wouldn't care about anything. 

Now, in fairness, Patton said "belief in the resurrection of Christ" rather than belief in Christ. And there are Jesus Questers who believe in a secularized "Jesus." But what's the point of that? 

Keeping the faith

1.  Focus only on the issues that make or break Christianity.

Realize this: People can and do easily get off course, discussing, debating, and getting depressed over issues that are not linchpin issues to Christianity. From the details of creation/evolution to the inerrancy of Scripture, some people’s faith can be quite disturbed—quite unnecessarily disturbed. For example, while I believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, if one of the authors happened to get a detail wrong, this does not mean that the entire Christ story is false. In what area of life do we find the same standards? This can be called a “house of cards” theology. In other words, if one card falls, they all fall. Our faith should never be a house of cards. There are so many things that we are all going to be wrong about when we get to heaven. I have often said that theologians need to be well rehearsed in recantations in order to get prepared for heaven!

However, while the Christian faith is not a “house of cards”, there is a definite foundation. This foundation, first and foremost, is the resurrection of Christ. If Christ rose from the grave, Christianity is true. If he did not, it is false (1 Cor. 15:3-4; 1 Cor 15:17). Since this is an historic event that took place in a public arena, with dates and people involved described, from a historians standpoint, it longs to be examined. As Daniel Wallace has put it, “The fact of the incarnation demands an incarnational method of inquiry and examination” (i.e. not a merely a “spiritual” examination).

Therefore, from a purely intellectual standpoint, I would set down all other studies, including conversations with those who are representing another religion, books about atheism, or the destiny of the unevangelized. Just to focus on this central issue of Christianity. There is so much good stuff out there on this subject, but I would start here and graduate to here and here. Listen or watch to the debates with William Lane Craig about the historicity of the resurrection. Again, if Christ rose from the grave, Christianity is true, God does love you, and we just have to work out the details. If he did not raise, the journey goes on and we look elsewhere. Rarely have I found someone who is in the crucible of intellectual doubt, yet has a strong conviction about Christ’s resurrection. A conviction about the resurrection goes a long way to stabilize your faith.

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2011/11/eight-points-of-encouragement-for-those-who-are-doubting-their-faith/

i) A basic flaw in Michael’s reductionistic approach is that he’s confusing theology with apologetics. He’s taking a particular school of apologetics, which centers on the Resurrection, as his theological yardstick. But apologetic priorities aren’t the same thing as theological priorities.

ii) His argument is patently fallacious. From the syllogism that if the Resurrection is false, then Christianity is false, it doesn’t follow that if the Resurrection is true, Christianity is true. Christianity has more than one foundational doctrine. What about the Incarnation? What about the redemptive death of Christ? What about the history of God’s providential dealings with the patriarchs? What about Messianic prophecy? And so on and so forth.

iii) He appeals to evidence for the Resurrection. Well, what about evidence for the Bible? Yes, “there’s so much good stuff out there” on the Resurrection. What is more, there’s so much good stuff out there on the Bible.

iv) Just from a practical standpoint, if a professing Christian suffers a crisis of faith, how does it help him to tell him to go through the Bible, cover to cover, marking each verse as either “essential” or “nonessential”? Doesn’t that impose a huge weight on his wobbly shoulders? It’s so much simpler to just believe the whole Bible.

v) Is it really easier to just believe one miracle rather than several? Don’t the dominical miracles in the Gospels furnish precedent for the climactic miracle of the Resurrection? Don’t OT miracles furnish precedent for NT miracles? If miracles are part of God’s modus operandi, then the Resurrection is part of a pattern. Doesn’t that make the Resurrection more credible than treating the Resurrection as a totally anomalous event, like a freak accident?

vi) How does the isolated truth of the Resurrection mean “God loves you”? How did Michael draw that inference?

vii) If the objective is to stabilize someone’s faith, then instead of comparing and contrasting faith in the whole Bible with faith in the Resurrection, they should compare and contrast Christianity with nihilism. That’s the real alternative.

The typical apostate is incredibly shallow. He thinks he knows what he’s against–he’s against Christianity. Mind you, the average apostate has a very crude understanding of Scripture and Christian theology.

But apostates have rarely thought through the implications of atheism. They just plunge straight into the murky frigid waters of atheism without any serious consideration of the ethical and intellectual cost. 

Substitute Jesus

13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:13-15).

Somewhere along the way, Michael Patton lost sight of a simple, vital truth. Christians are called upon to put their faith in the Jesus of the Gospels, not the Jesus of the scholars. In the Jesus of the Evangelists, not the Jesus of the apologists.

That’s how Christ chose to make himself known to posterity. These are the authorized biographies.

We are required to put our faith in the canonical Jesus of St. Matthew, not the reconstructed Jesus of Matthew Brook O’Donnell; in the canonical Jesus of St. Mark, not the reconstructed Jesus of Marcus Bockmuehl; in the canonical Jesus of St. Luke, not the reconstructed Jesus of Luke Timothy Johnson; in the canonical Jesus of St. John, not the reconstructed Jesus of John Meier.

Jesus is not a scholarly construct. If that’s the only Jesus you trust, your Jesus is an idol. The projection of a scholar’s redacted imagination.

I appreciate the work of Christian scholars who defend the historical Jesus. I appreciate the world of Christian apologists who defend the Resurrection. If that’s an aid to faith, fine.

But God gave us the four Gospels. There’s where we encounter Jesus.

The Gospels aren’t raw ore to sift for nuggets of the historical Jesus. God didn’t give us the Gospels to take apart, edit, then reassemble in some residual digest. That’s a substitute Jesus. 

The Gospels are interpretive histories, and rightly so. Facts without context are deceptive. 

Father, Son, and Holy Writ

I’m going to comment on this post:

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2013/03/the-father-son-and-the-holy-bible/

The problem with many Evangelicals is that we can come dangerously close to worshiping the Bible. As Evangelical theologian James Sawyer once said in jest, we worship the Trinity: the Father, Son, and Holy Bible.

So, in our best moments, we will condemn anything that smells of idolatry concerning the Scriptures. We know that the Bible is not the fourth member of the Trinity.

I am really saying nothing new or extraordinary here.

I agree with Michael. He’s not saying anything new or extraordinary. Rather, he’s recycling a stock rhetorical smear tactic which liberals use to slander Bible-believing Christians. If you’re a Bible-believing Christian, liberals accuse you of bibliolatry. You bow down to a paper pope.

It’s striking that Michael would resort to that impious, underhanded tactic.

Now, let me cease with the self-deprecation for a moment.

I don’t see any self-deprecation in Michael’s post. Rather, I see him deprecating Bible-believing Christians.

The historic message of the Bible needs to take precedence over the theological nature of the Bible. And here is where I feel we Evangelicals, in our zeal and love for the Bible, taint the Gospel with unnecessary additives. These additives, more often than not, create red herrings where we can end up leaving Jesus out altogether as we defend against thousands of claims of Bible contradictions. Further, I believe that this defense needs to be exclusively concerned with the historicity of the resurrection of Christ (“Resurrection Apologetics”). If Christ is risen from the grave, Christianity is true, no matter how many contradictions one thinks they have found. And if Christ did not rise from the grave, Christianity is false, no matter how harmonious the Bible shows to be. In short, I don’t have to convince anyone of the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture in order to introduce them to my Savior. I just have to make a case that the historicity of the story of Christ contained in the Bible is reliable enough to warrant their belief.

i) The “additives” that Michael excoriates are Biblical teachings. Teachings that he himself acknowledges to be Biblical. It’s interesting to see him characterize Biblical teachings as “additives.”

ii) An evangelistic message needn’t be centered on the Resurrection, or even mention the Resurrection. Typically, an evangelistic message is centered on the cross. An evangelistic message stresses our sinfulness, and desperate need for a Savior. Of course, we need a Risen Savior. A dead Savior won’t do. But that’s a presupposition of an evangelistic message.

iii) When Jesus spoke with Nicodemus (Jn 3), did he focus on the Resurrection? When Jesus spoke with the woman at the well (Jn 4), did he focus on the Resurrection? When Jesus spoke with the blind man (Jn 9), did he focus on the Resurrection? When Jesus delivered the Break of Life discourse (Jn 6), did he focus on the Resurrection?

iv) It’s one thing to say we should emphasize the Resurrection, quite another to say we should give both believers and unbelievers a list of optional Bible teachings.

Imagine attending a church pastored by St. John or St. Paul where the ushers distribute a brochure of Biblical teachings you can disbelieve and still be a “committed servant of God.”

Can Michael point to any place in the Gospels, Book of Acts, NT Epistles, or Revelation, where we’re told we can disregard various teachings of Scripture?

v) Speaking of which:

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, 2 just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, 3 it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught (Lk 1:1-4).

Does Luke say it’s okay if you only believe an “essential” core of his Gospel?

30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name (Jn 20:30-31).

Does John say it’s okay if you only believe an “essential” core of his Gospel?

Michael likes to drape himself in the mantle of the gospel and the Resurrection, which sounds very devout, and makes his critics look legalistic by comparison, but notice the glaring contrast between his approach and NT Christianity.

"The danger of inerrancy"

In his post I’m going to document Michael Patton’s position rather than evaluate his position. Patton has accused his critics (“watchblogs”) of missing the point he was trying to make. But it looks to me like Patton himself has muddied the waters regarding his position. Patton is making at least two different points rather than one.

Apologetic/evangelistic methodology:

These two stories are illustrations of the importance of keeping to the “make or break” issues of our faith when sharing the Gospel. The issues of origins, inspiration, and inerrancy are very important. We eventually need to discuss them. But they are not ”make or break” issues. And they can be used to sidetrack discussions of the Gospel into endless and fruitless debate. They can often keep you from getting to Christ. The two people above may have never really heard an actual argument for the Gospel. They were both intellectual types who were ready to debate so many things that did not matter. I don’t need to convince an unbeliever that the Bible is inspired or inerrant. The issue of evolution does not matter if it is only keeping you from sharing the Gospel. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes people will have legitimate hang-ups about these and other things that need to be dealt with. But sometimes we need to deal with them by explaining that they have no bearing on whether Jesus rose from the grave. Once we establish Christ’s resurrection, you can get back to those things. But in our apologetics, we need to do everything we can to get to the historicity of the resurrection.

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2013/03/what-about-evolution-and-errors/

Here Patton is talking about how to witness to unbelievers. He’s talking about how people come to the faith, how to bring them to the faith. This is directed at outsiders.

And he’s asserting that in those situations, inspiration, inerrancy, the historicity of Gen 1-11, are inessential.

Fallback position:

It is my argument that often – far too often – conservative Christians become identified with issues that, while important, do not make or break our faith. This creates extremely volatile situations (from a human perspective) as believers’ faith ends up having a foundation which consists of one of these non-foundational issues. When and if these issues are significantly challenged, our faith becomes unstable. I have seen too many people who walk away from the faith due to their trust in some non-essential issue coming unglued.

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2013/03/eight-issues-that-do-not-make-or-break-christianity/

One of the first things that I have to teach my students this: The Christian faith is not a house of cards.

Most assuredly, there are foundational issues of the faith that, if taken away, will destroy Christianity. Issues like the existence of God (there is no such thing as a “Christian atheist”), the resurrection of Christ, the reality of God’s judgment and grace through Jesus Christ, and Christ’s atoning death on the cross. However, there are many details of the Christian faith that can suffer adjustments without destroying the entire faith. Christianity is not like a house of cards where you can take any one card away and the rest fall.

I have seen many people leave the faith and the catalyst of their departure was a rejection of inerrancy (the belief that the Bible does not have any errors, historic, theological, or scientific). I have seen others leave because they felt they had to adjust their view of the early chapters of Genesis, creation and the flood. I have seen others who thought that if there was any redacting (editing by the authors) of the Gospel narratives, their faith was destroyed. Still, I have actually been in contact with one who was shaken to the point of petrification because he was starting to consider the multiple author theory for Isaiah. These are issues to be sure. But they are not issues which can cause any harm to the essence of Christianity in any way.

It is normally those who are brought up in rigidity who are susceptible building this house of cards theology and to letting non-cardinal issues crash their faith. This is why you see so many who are “former fundamentalists.” Fundamentalism feeds on unnecessary rigidity and therefore, unfortunately, is quite a seedbed for graveyards of Christians. As well, this type of thinking makes education—true education—virtually impossible.

While I believe strongly in many issues that are of non-cardinal value, I don’t hold on to these too tightly. This is a fundamental philosophical precursor to dealing with so many theological problems today. The inability to identify, isolate, and distinguish between essentials and non-essentials often causes the entire house of cards to fall.

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2010/09/house-of-cards-theology/

Greg Jones was an evangelical Christian, active in his church, a regular preacher, teacher and served on the elder board. He says that he was addicted  to fundamentalism. He slept, ate, and drank the truths of Christianity. After a decade of faithful service to the church, he is now a professing atheist who rejects the naivety  of all that he held to so dearly. Why? Well, as he tells the story, he says that he was awakened out of his slumber of fundamentalism through many encounters with the truth. Chief among these encounters was when he finally realized that the Bible was full of errors. 

This description is a common testimony of many who have  walked away from the faith.  But this blog is not about  walking away from the faith  per se, but with the dangers of the doctrine of inerrancy.

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2007/04/the-danger-of-inerrancy/

Here he’s talking about staying in the faith. This is directed at insiders. To those who are already in the faith (in some sense), but at risk of losing their faith.

And he’s asserting that in those situations, inspiration, inerrancy, the historicity of Gen 1-11, are inessential.

So he’s claiming that many Biblical teachings, which he himself considers to be Biblical, are equally expendable in evangelism, apologetics, and discipleship.

Can the Bible be proven wrong?

Some professing Christians reject a dogmatic commitment to the inerrancy or inspiration of Scripture. In some cases they actually reject the inerrancy and/or inspiration of Scripture, while in other cases they regard the inerrancy/inspiration of Scripture as a dispensable doctrine. I have in mind people like Michael Patton, F. F. Bruce, and Craig A. Evans.

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.

From their viewpoint, that’s a very brittle, precarious faith. One hairline crack in the granite façade and a moment later the entire edifice crumbles in a heap of dust.

And they’d say, in defense of their position, that this isn’t just a hypothetical danger. They can point out that in real life, you have devout Christians who lose their faith when they become disillusioned with the inerrancy of Scripture. One mistake, however trivial, and their whole faith came crashing down.

Therefore, it’s more prudent to have some expendable beliefs. Have something to throw over the back of the sled to distract the wolves. That includes inerrancy, inspiration, the historicity of Gen 1-11, perhaps the historicity of the Exodus, vaticina ex eventu (e.g. Dan 11; Isa 40ff.).

It’s sufficient for Christian faith to treat the Bible like any other generally reliable historical witness. That’s a safer position.

Notice that this isn’t a question of apologetic method or evangelistic strategy. This isn’t a question of how to witness to unbelievers. Rather, this is about how we should frame the Christian faith for ourselves.

Now, I’ll grant you that this concern points to a genuine danger, although I’d draw some distinctions. There are professing believers who commit apostasy because they had a very crude understanding of what inerrancy entails. Likewise, there are professing Christians who commit apostasy because they because they invested their lifesavings (as it were) in a particular interpretation of Scripture. And I do think Christians need to take precautions against simplistic defeaters like that. They need to distinguish between infallible Scriptures and their fallible interpretations. They need to develop a more sophisticated model of inerrancy. They need to appreciate the limitations of archeology.

However, the position I’m examining goes well beyond that. And it’s time to examine the operating assumption that undergirds that position. It assumes, in theory or practice, that we might discover some evidence which falsifies a Biblical claim. The question then is, how should we brace ourselves for that eventuality before it happens, assuming it ever happens, so that our faith won’t be reduced to rubble?

But what about that presupposition? Should we grant that presupposition?

Let’s begin with a question:

Can the Bible be proven false?

Some professing Christians take that possibility for granted. Given that Scripture can be proven false, we need to loosen or decouple the connection between the Bible and the Christian faith so that if the former takes a hit, the latter doesn’t suffer collateral damage.

But should we answer the question in the affirmative? Let’s explicate the question by rephrasing the question:

If the Bible is the word of God, can the Bible be proven false?

Which amounts to asking:

Can God be wrong?

Another variant:

Can God be shown to be wrong?

Now, if you’re an open theist, you could answer that reformulated question in the affirmative. Ditto: if you’re a pagan. But if you’re a classic Christian theist, then an omniscient God can’t be wrong.

To prove God wrong, you’d have to have some standard of comparison that’s superior to God. But if there is no higher standard, or even comparable standard, then there’s no benchmark against which to measure God, and conclude that God comes up short.

By the same token, if Scripture is the word of God, then how could Scripture be proven wrong? By what standard? Is there something more certain, more trustworthy than the Bible, which we can use to gauge the Bible?

Now at this point, some people might be getting nervous about where my argument is going. To preemptively immunize the Bible from possible disproof is special pleading. Fanatical or fideistic. The last-ditch refuge of desperate Christians on the run.

To that objection I’d say several things:

i) Seems to me that Christians who take the opposite position are open to the charge of special pleading. When they make preemptive concessions to shield their faith from disproof, why isn’t that special pleading? Why isn’t that last-ditch prepositioning to save face?

ii) If it’s legitimate to consider the possibility that Scripture could be proven wrong, why is it illegitimate to consider the possibility that Scripture could not be proven wrong?

iii) Moreover, my question is not an ad hoc question. The Bible claims to be the word of God. Well, if that’s true, then can the Bible be proven wrong? Seems to be that my question follows logically from an unavoidable premise. Even if you treat the Bible’s claim to be inspired as a hypothetical proposition, you still need to consider the implications of that hypothetical. A critic has to make allowance for whether his objections have any purchase if the hypothetical is true. Even if he lacks a dogmatic commitment to the inspiration of Scripture, he must still take that seriously as a hypothetical option. What if it’s true? Then what? What would follow, given that alternative?

iv) Suppose you say the Bible could be proven wrong by sense knowledge. But in that event, why do you privilege sense knowledge as your criterion? If sense knowledge is your standard of proof, how do you prove sense knowledge? Do you have some independent standard, over and above sense knowledge, to validate your empirical standard? If not, then why isn’t your appeal to sense knowledge special pleading?

And keep in mind that we do think sense knowledge is fallible, even if we regard sense knowledge is generally reliable. Moreover, what preconditions must be met for sense knowledge to be reliable? Does that require theistic preconditions?

Perhaps, though, someone would object that the question is misleading. The real question is whether the Bible is the word of God. If so, then, by definition, the Bible can’t be proven wrong. It could only be falsified if it was false. If not, then the Bible can be proven wrong. To stipulate that the Bible can’t be proven wrong because the Bible is the word of God begs the question.

i) But by converse logic, isn’t the opposing side begging the question? If they think the Bible could be proven wrong, which is why we need a fallback position, then aren’t they prejudging the status of the Bible? If they treat that as a live possibility, then they are striking a preliminary stance in reference to the Bible.

ii) They also seem to be assuming that if the Bible is true, it would always appear to be true. But is that a reasonable assumption? Surely there are truths which have the appearance of falsehood because we lack a larger context. Because we don’t have all the facts. Isn’t that a commonplace of human experience? Aren’t there often situations in life where two things both seem to be true–even though we can’t tell which is which (assuming one is wrong), or tell how to harmonize them (assuming both are right)?

This goes back to the issue of what they are judging the Bible by. What’s their frame of reference? This is a persistent difficulty in epistemology. Cf. Roderick Chisholm, “The Problem of the Criterion”; William Alston, The Reliability of Sense Knowledge; William Alston, Beyond “Justification”: Dimensions of Epistemic Evaluation.

Someone might also object that the alternative I’m proposing opens a Pandora’s box. Couldn’t Muhammad, Swedenborg, or Joseph Smith use the same defense?

i) First of all, there’s a difference between verification and falsification. To say the Bible can’t be proven wrong doesn’t mean it can’t be proven right. These are asymmetrical propositions.

Take prophecy. An explicitly short-term prophecy might be quite susceptible to falsification. Likewise, a long-term prophecy might be clearly verifiable–after the fact. Once it happens, you can see how everything falls into place.

However, a long-term prophecy might not be easily falsifiable. If you don’t know how long it’s supposed to take for the prophecy to be fulfilled, how can you know ahead of time if it’s true or false?

ii) If the Bible is true, then whatever contradicts the Bible is false. You wouldn’t have to directly disprove Muhammad or Swedenborg or Joseph Smith.

iii) Keep in mind, too, that both Muhammad and Joseph Smith did condition their claims on external standards. So we’re not imposing an external standard on their claims.

For instance, Muhammad set a trap for himself, then stepped into his own trap, when he made the Bible the standard of comparison.

Likewise, Smith snared himself in a trap of his own devising when he said he translated an Egyptian text. He also said an Egyptologist (Charles Anthon) vouched for his translation. Well, we have the Egyptian text. So we can compare that to the Book of Abraham. We also have a letter from the Egyptologist in which he denies vouching for the “translation.”

iv) There’s also the question of whether God has given us any reason to expect prophets to arise, centuries after the Bible was finished, and add their own revelations to the corpus of Scripture, as a supplementary canon–which effectively usurps the Biblical canon.

One can’t very well invoke passages like Num 11:29, Acts 2:17-18, and 1 Cor 14:5, for those don’t single out a select few prophets who pop up centuries apart. Even if we interpret those passages charismatically, to predict continuing revelation, they’d apply to Christians generally. (Of course, if most Christians don’t have that experience, then that’s a reason to question or qualify the charismatic interpretation.)

Don't be spooked by scarecrows!

66 After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. 67 So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life (Jn 6:66-68).

Michael Patton has done a follow-up post:

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2013/03/what-about-evolution-and-errors/

I’ll comment on his sequel post in combination with his prequel post:

i) Up to a point, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being flexible about our apologetic or evangelistic strategies. Normally we wouldn’t begin with controversial passages of Scripture.

ii) However, a Christian apologist or street evangelist doesn’t always have the luxury of picking his topics. Often the unbeliever will pick the topic for us.

If an unbeliever asks you point blank about a stock objection to the Bible, should you duck the question? You can try, but he can tell if you are being evasive. If you dodge objections, that weakens your position. The message that sends is that Christianity can’t handle the tough questions.

iii) Moreover, why should we be ashamed to repeat what the Bible says? Are we ashamed of God?

iv) We have a duty to be faithful to the revelation that God has entrusted to us. This isn’t an Arab bazaar, where you dicker over the price. Where you lower the price. Where you keep making concessions until you can sell your product to finicky customers. An apologist or evangelist isn’t bargaining with the unbeliever. He isn’t cutting a deal. God is not so desperate for converts that he must bribe sinners to accept his Word. God isn’t a beggar. We are the beggars.

If an unbeliever asks you point blank about some “objectionable” teaching of Scripture, there’s no reason you shouldn’t give him a straight answer. Like it or not, he has a duty to believe whatever God says. He can never be a Christian if he refuses to be a follower.

v) Instead of Scripture as our standard, Michael is making unbelief the standard. Whatever people are prepared to believe (or not) is where you set the bar. But that’s not a tenable position. Do we jettison from the Christian faith whatever unbelievers deem unacceptable? It becomes a striptease where the unbeliever demands one concession after another until the Christian faith is completely denuded.

That’s not how Christians did evangelism in the book of Acts. The Gospel was a take-it-or-leave-it affair.

vi) I don’t object to being flexible about how we interpret Scripture in cases where sound hermeneutics allows us to be flexible. I don’t object to having a fallback interpretation if a particular passage is genuinely ambiguous or fairly uncertain.

But we can’t contrive an artificial fallback. Alternative interpretations have to be principled alternatives. They must respect the grammatico-historical method. The passage itself has to be open to more than one viable interpretation. You can’t special order the interpretation of Scripture to cater to your felt needs. The interpretive process must have integrity. The text has objective meaning.

vii) Michael acts as if the real threat to Christian faith is coming from the Bible. That Christian faith needs buffers to protect itself from the Bible.

It reminds me of Jewish Democrats who don’t know who the real enemy is. They still think Christians are the enemy. They are oblivious to the threat to Jews and Judaism posed by Muslims and “secular progressives.”

We’re living in a very dangerous time. A time where there are no rules. The power elite has rebelled against Biblical values.

At first, that’s exhilarating. Like horror movies about teenagers who go hiking in the woods. They are free! Out of reach of their parents and other authority figures. They can do whatever they please!

That’s fun–at first. But if there are no rules, then there are no rules about what you can do to your fellow hiker. Suppose a hiker sprains his ankle. Should we leave him behind? Suddenly the Nietzschean ethic isn’t so fun anymore.

Having repudiated God’s rules, the power elite is making the rules from scratch. There are no boundaries on what the power elite can do. No external constraints.

The power elite redefines human nature. Redefines social duties. What was human yesterday is inhuman today. What was inhumane yesterday is human today. What’s prohibitory one day is obligatory the next day. What’s obligatory one day is prohibitory the next day.

Take transgender rights. To say humans have no intrinsic gender is one of the most irrational and perverse ideas that’s ever been foisted on society. Yet that’s now the law in many states.

Genesis is not the enemy. The real enemy is the enemy of Genesis. You cease to be what God made you, and become whatever the party in power says you are.

viii) Michael is anxious about a Maginot-Line mentality (as F. F. Bruce put it). Michael wants a margin for error in case the Bible is proven wrong. Michael wants a safe fallback position he can retreat to if the Bible is demonstrably wrong.

Michael is worried about a rigid commitment to Scripture where you have two stark choices: faith or apostasy. No middle ground.

It’s like the web of belief where some commitments are central while others are peripheral. Where you can afford to lose “nonessential” beliefs like inspiration, inerrancy, the historicity of Adam, &c., without losing your faith in a single stroke.

I understand Michael’s concern. However, he suffers from a superficial grasp of the would-be alternatives.

Can the Bible be proven wrong? What’s the frame of reference? Is there a higher standard of comparison?

The alternative is nihilism. And not just moral nihilism. But intellectual nihilism.

Ironically, hardcore atheists like Daniel Dennett, Alex Rosenberg, and the Churchlands are illustrating the fact that there is no bona fide alternative to a Christian worldview. Their position leads to global scepticism. Human reason is the first casualty of naturalistic evolution.

One reason I’m a Christian is because there is nowhere else for me to go. There is no back door. There is no escape route.

The ostensible alternatives are illusory. Apostasy is not a viable option. Atheism doesn’t offer a constructive alternative. Ultimately, atheism is self-refuting. Atheism is the annihilator of any and all normative values. Not just moral values. But intellectual norms. Ironically, Thomas Nagel perceives the issue more clearly than Michael Patton. That’s why the secular establishment has pronounced a fatwa on Nagel.

We have nothing to fear from the Bible. We have everything to fear without it. If you don’t have Christianity, you don’t have anything. There is no back-up system, waiting in the wings, to take up the slack. To take over from Christian faith.

It isn’t just pious Christians like Van Til who say that. We have bold unbelievers who are showing us where the roadmap of atheism leads to: a dead end.

Don’t be spooked by scarecrows.

A la carte Christianity

Michael Patton, who is president of Credo House Ministries, and the most active contributor to the Parchment & Pen blog, recently posted a deeply confused article:

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2013/03/eight-issues-that-do-not-make-or-break-christianity/

The article goes so wrong in so many ways that it’s hard to summarize, but I’ll try. I’m going to begin with some general observations, then shift to specifics:

1. Terminology

i) In his post, and a related post, Michael uses the following terms interchangeably: “central,” “foundational,” “essential,” “break.”

Now in many discussions I don’t object to using these terms as rough synonyms, but because of how Michael is setting up the contrast, it’s important to distinguish them.

“Central,” “foundational,” and “break” are metaphors. As metaphors, these have different nuances. They build on different images.

For instance, the Resurrection is a “central” event and central doctrine in the Christian faith. But is it “foundational”?

A foundation underlies whatever rests on the foundation. A foundation supports what lies on top of the foundation.

In that sense, the Resurrection is a foundational event for the Ascension, Session, and return of Christ. A precondition for those subsequent events. The Resurrection must happen before those other events can happen.

On the other hand, the Resurrection is not foundational to the Incarnation or the Crucifixion. Rather, the Incarnation and Crucifixion are foundational to the Resurrection. Christ can’t live again unless he died. And he can’t die unless he was alive.

Likewise, the Resurrection is not foundational to the creation or the fall. Rather, those are foundational to the Resurrection. No creation, no fall, no Resurrection.

To vary the metaphor, the Resurrection is more of a keystone or (headstone quoin) event than a foundational event. In redemptive history, there’s a series of divinely orchestrated events leading up to the Resurrection. Events which culminate in the Resurrection. They underlie the Resurrection.

If you remove the keystone, an arch or vault will collapse. If you remove a foundation, the building will collapse. But they collapse for different reasons.  The keystone is a building block that locks the other building blocks in place.

The keystone is also a central building block. It has a weight-bearing function in relation to other building blocks on either side and lower down.

The keystone occupies the apex, whereas the foundation is at the bottom. The foundation supports everything above it.

To take another example, the Exodus is central to Judaism in a way that’s not the case for Christianity. In Christianity, the first and second advents of Christ are central.

Yet the Exodus is a foundational event for Christianity as well as Judaism. The Exodus is one of those defining events which reveals the identity, character, and purposes of God. The Exodus is a past event which establishes a precedent for future events. Redemptive history repeats itself in the sense that God has common purposes for history. Every decade, century, generation, is driven and unified by God’s overarching purpose for world history.

Likewise, take the calling of Abraham. That event isn’t central to the Christian faith. It’s not the epicenter of our faith, from which everything else radiates out.

However, the calling of Abraham is surely a foundational event in redemptive history. By the same token, the calling of Abraham is an essential event in redemptive history. God does one thing in order to do another thing. The calling of Abraham is a precipitating cause of many other redemptive events down the line. If God hadn’t called Abraham, you’d have an alternate future without Christianity. No Abraham, no Israel, no Christianity.

History has a causal flow. Later events are effects of earlier events.

Or take the relationship of the OT to the NT. The OT is not as central to Christian faith as the NT. However, the OT is foundational to the NT. The OT lays the groundwork for the NT.

Not only does the NT fulfill the OT, but the NT must fulfill the OT. The NT requires OT warrant. In that respect (among others), the OT is essential to Christianity. To be the true Messiah, Jesus must match the Messianic job description laid out in the OT.

ii) I’m not quite sure how Michael is using the word “break.” Is that shorthand for “make-or-break” and/or “deal-breaker”?

iii) Unlike “central” and “foundational,” which are figurative adjectives, “essential” is abstract. Now one of Michael’s criteria for distinguishing what’s essential from what’s inessential is to invoke alternate possibilities. If God might have or could have done something differently, then that makes it inessential.

But that criterion is remarkably confused. It’s like saying that if there’s a possible world with non-carbon-based organisms, then carbon is inessential to biological life on earth. Needless to say, in the world we actually inhabit, carbon is essential to life.

Likewise, the Bible would not be essential to Christianity if, in fact, God revealed Biblical truths by some other means. However, that hypothetical scenario hardly justifies the claim that the Bible is inessential for us. After all, we’re not living in a parallel universe where God reveals Biblical truths by some other means. Christianity, as it actually exists, is dependent on Biblical revelation.

2. Essential for what?

Michael also equivocates on what it means for something to be essential or inessential. He oscillates between two fundamentally different referents:

i) Essential to be a Christian

ii) Essential to Christianity

But these aren’t interchangeable. Michael fails to distinguish what is essential for Christianity to be true from what is essential to be a true Christian. He fails to distinguish essential beliefs from essential events (or things or realities).

For instance, a young child can be saved without believing in the Trinity. But that doesn’t mean the Trinity is inessential to Christianity.

The Trinity is essential to reality. God is a Trinity is every possible world. God is the ultimate reality. If God is Triune, then the Trinity is essential to reality.

However, a Christian with Down syndrome could exercise saving faith even if he lacks the mental competence to assent to the Trinity. In that qualified sense, belief in the Trinity is inessential.

Moreover, I’m saying that belief in the Trinity is inessential in exceptional circumstances. Young children or the retarded are special cases. We make allowance for their cognitive impairment.

To take another comparison, a Christian who becomes senile, or comes down with brain cancer, or suffers severe head trauma, may cease to believe in the person and work of Christ. Yet he doesn’t lose his salvation, even though he can no longer exercise saving faith.

But that doesn’t mean lack of faith in the person and work of Christ is ordinarily inessential to saving faith. That’s not the norm. As a rule, belief and trust in the person and work of Christ are essential to saving faith.

3. Religious duties

For some reason, Michael has usurped the right to tell people that they don’t have to believe everything God says. Frankly, that’s blasphemous. God is telling us we ought to believe something, while Michael is saying, “You don’t really have to believe what God tells you to believe.”

Imagine if Michael accompanied the prophet Jeremiah. God commands Jeremiah to deliver an oracle of judgment. As Jeremiah is speaking, Michael Patton stands behind Jeremiah, giving thumbs up or thumbs down depending on whether or not the oracle is essential to Christianity, or essential to saving faith.

I don’t know how Michael worked himself into the mindset of imagining that he’s entitled to give people permission not to believe anything in Scripture that’s not “essential” or “central” or “foundational.” Michael is suffering from extreme spiritual arrogance.

People have an absolute obligation to believe whatever God reveals. It’s not Michael’s place to make faith easier for them by waiving their duty to believe each and everything God has taught us. Michael doesn’t have the authority to do that. If God wanted to make it easier for some people to believe, God didn’t have to reveal those hard truths in the first place. That is God’s call, not Michael’s.

Now Michael might say we must distinguish between Scriptural teaching and our fallible interpretations of Scripture. The problem, though, is that by relegating inspiration and inerrancy to nonessential or nonfoundational categories, Michael himself is erasing that distinction.

4. Nominal faith

A large part of Christian faith is to take things on faith. To believe something on the authority of God’s word. I didn’t personally witness Bible history.

What does it say about the quality of someone’s faith who only believes what he can see for himself? He doesn’t have to trust God to believe what he can see for himself.

Take the wilderness generation. They were condemned to wander and die in the wilderness because they were faithless. They could never bring themselves to trust God. They had to live by sight every step of the way. That theme that looms large in the book of Hebrews, as a warning to the church.

Michael’s a la carte Christianity reminds me of a scene from Brideshead Revisited. Rex Mottram wants to marry Julia. But Julia is Roman Catholic. Rex must convert to Catholicism to marry Julia.

Problem is, Rex is irreligious. Rex only wants to know the bare minimum he must profess to marry Julia:

So Rex was sent to Farm Street to Father Mowbray, a priest renowned for his triumphs with obdurate catechumens. After the third interview he came to tea with Lady Marchmain.

“Well, how do you find my future son-in-law?”

“He’s the most difficult convert I have ever met.”

“Oh dear, I thought he was going to make it so easy.”

“That’s exactly it. I can’t get anywhere near him. He doesn’t seem to have the least intellectual curiosity or natural piety. Yesterday I asked him whether Our Lord had more than one nature. He said: ‘Just as many as you say, Father.’”

“Julia,” said Lady Marchmain, when the priest had gone, “are you sure that Rex isn’t doing this thing purely with the idea of pleasing us?”

“I don’t think it enters his head,” said Julia.

“He’s really sincere in his conversion?”

Next week the Jesuit came to tea again. It was the Easter holidays and Cordelia was there, too.

“Lady Marchmain,” he said. “You should have chosen one of the younger fathers for this task. I shall be dead long before Rex is a Catholic.”

“Oh dear, I thought it was going so well.”

“It was, in a sense. He was exceptionally docile, and he accepted everything I told him, remembered bits of it, asked no questions.”

Imagine filling our pews with church members who ask what’s the very least they have to believe to get by with. It’s a recipe for nominal Christians.

Now let’s comment on some specifics:

I have seen too many people who walk away from the faith due to their trust in some non-essential issue coming unglued.

Ironically, this is exactly what happens to many who study the Bible. Charles Darwin tells about how his faith was initially dislodged due to discrepancies in the Scriptures. Bart Ehrman goes in the same direction.

Why does Michael assume that’s a bad thing? Why not view that as a winnowing process? It purifies the church to slough off nominal believers.

What’s the value of an untested faith that fails the test when put to the test? A time-tested faith is real faith.

There was nothing that obligated God to this form of revelation (or any form at all!). Christ could have come and lived a perfect life, gained representation, died on the cross, rose from the grave, and never had it recorded in the Scriptures. How would we know about the Gospel? I don’t know. Maybe angels, maybe word of mouth, maybe direct revelation, or maybe not at all. The point is that God did not have to inspire any books in order for him to be who he is and do what he did. The Bible does not make Christianity true; the Bible simply records true Christianity through inspired words and thoughts.

But by that logic, it’s not merely the inspiration of Scripture that’s inessential: Scripture itself is inessential. If God could have dispensed with Scripture altogether, then by Michael’s reasoning, the Bible is not essential or central or foundational to the Christian faith.

While I do believe a sustained argument can and should be made for the inclusion of these [Pastoral Epistles] in the canon, whether or not Paul wrote these letters does not affect the truthfulness of the Christian faith. While these letters are extremely valuable for issues of personal integrity and ecclesiology, the essence of the Christian faith remains intact without them. This goes for 2 Peter as well – by far the most contested book in the New Testament. William Barclay, author of the Daily Bible Study Series (as far as I know, still the best selling commentary set of all time), did not accept Petrine authorship of Second Peter. While I disagree (like Calvin, I believe that Peter was behind the letter, though he did not directly write it) this did not in any way disqualify Barclay from being a Christian and a committed servant of God.

i) If you keep whittling down the Bible to the bare essentials (as (Michael defines it), where do you stop? Does Michael think four gospels are essential? Or would one gospel suffice?

Does Michael think Christians aren’t required to believe all four gospels as long as they believe in the Gospel of Mark? Would a one-book canon suffice?

And it doesn’t stop there. Is everything in Mark’s Gospel essential (as Michael defines it)? Or does Michael think Christians are only required to believe an essential core of Markan teaching?

Mark’s gospel has lots of miracles. How many miracles do you have to believe in? Will one or two suffice?

What about the parables of Jesus? Can’t we just pick out our favorites?

ii) Why does Michael think God inspired, collected, and preserved all these superfluous books of the Bible? Isn’t that a stumbling block to faith?

There are many people who spend an enormous amount of money holding seminars, building museums, and creating curricula attempting to educate people on the importance and evidence for a six-thousand (give or take) year-old earth.

Considering all the natural history museums around the world that indoctrinate viewers in Darwinism, why is Michael bothered by the existence of a single Creation Museum in Kentucky?

There is simply no sustainable reason to believe that one’s interpretation about the early chapters of Genesis determines his or her status before God.

i) Surely that’s an overstatement. It depends, in part, on what motivates the denial. As long as exegetical considerations are foremost, rejection of young-earth creationism doesn’t cast doubt on their status before God. But if their denial is the reflexive response of an unbelieving mindset, then that does implicate their status before God.

ii) Also, when Michael refers to “the early chapters of Genesis,” he’s casting the net pretty wide. That’s not just a question of chronology, but historicity. Does disbelieving Gen 2-3 have no bearing on your status before God? Isn’t disbelief in God’s word the effect of an unbelieving heart?

iii) Moreover, the early chapters of Genesis are “foundational” for redemptive history.

Some believe that the entire earth was covered with water. Others believe it was a local flood, isolated in Mesopotamia. Some even believe that the whole event did not really take place and is not meant to be taken literally. These believe that the story itself is a polemic against other gods and other flood stories, essentially saying in a parabolic way that God is in charge, not your other gods. Whichever view one takes, this does not affect Christianity.

i) Again, it depends, in part, on what motives the interpretation. Is this primarily exegetical, or does it evince a lack of faith? Rank disbelief?

ii) And what about those who think the flood account is fictitious. Honestly, is that really a faithful attitude? Or is that driven by profound skepticism regarding God’s action in the world?

Once again, consider the attitude of the wilderness generation, which is paradigmatic for apostates (Heb 3-4). Unbelievers typically find Biblical miracles incredible. They balk at the supernatural. They have a fundamentally secular, closed-system outlook. God, if there is a God, doesn’t rupture the uniformity of nature. God, if there is a God, doesn’t break natural laws. God, if there is a God, doesn’t interrupt the causal continuum. Practical atheism.

Unfortunately, many Christians believe that the theory of evolution is somehow an anti-Christian theory invented by Satan to destroy Christianity.

If evolution is false, and if there is a devil, then why is it out of bounds to consider evolution the devil’s counter story to the true story? Writing over the true story? Isn’t the devil the master counterfeiter?