Baylor University

George W. Truett Seminary

Introduction to Theology THEO 7345
Eli Gutierrez Briseño

Essay on the Inerrancy Debate

One of the central beliefs of Christianity is the inspiration of the Scripture. The three major

sections of world Christianity: Roman Catholicism, Orthodox Church and Protestantism, embrace

this belief. Especially among evangelicals, the conviction that the Bible is the inspired Word of

God above any other source is an essential distinctive. Nevertheless, there is no complete

agreement on how the process of God’s inspiration works, particularly on the issue whether there

can be factual errors in the biblical texts or not. Among evangelicals, some theologians have

proposed that the Bible is absolutely inerrant in all the matters it addresses, while others

recognize that it is infallible because does not fail in what God intended to inspire, but it is not

inerrant in every kind of matters, for example scientific and historical statements. Both sides hold

a view of Scripture as the inspired Word of God, and are defended by equal God-loving true

Christians. The common ground of evangelical theology about the belief of the Scripture is that

it is inspired in a unique way and thus has divine authority. Any theologian who rejects such

statements would not be called a proper Christian thinker. However, within this common ground

there is room for diversity. In this essay, I will defend that the Bible is the inspired Word of God,

infallible in matters of faith and practice but not inerrant in other matters.

The inerrantist view explains that though the word “inerrant” has been introduced in

recent years, the idea that Scripture has no error is present in Christianity since the beginning.

Defenders of this view recognize that the Bible may have apparent errors, but not actual errors.

About apparent mistakes, the problem, they would say, is not in the text itself but within our own

limitation to understand what it actually says. Furthermore, the inerrancy is related only to the

original manuscripts and not to later copies, which regardless their high grade of accuracy are
not identical to the originals. Thus, some apparent errors are mistakes of the copyist and not of

the inspired authors. Also, the inerrancy refers to the author’s original intent and not to our

interpretation. That means the text must be understood in accordance with the author’s own

context. Thus, we cannot say that a writing contains errors just because it does not fit with our

modern standards of precision, or for using metaphorical language. To defend this proposal a

biblical argument states that the Scripture supports the inerrancy when it says that God does not

lie or err, then what he inspires cannot err either. Also, Jesus and Paul were confident in the

Scripture, and the tradition supports the idea that Scripture has no mistakes as well. Moreover,

the inerrancy defenders maintain that the doctrine of inerrancy is necessary as a firm foundation

for our faith; without such doctrine, they say, we would decide what is true and what is relevant

based in our own wicked judgement. Finally, they hold that the rejection of the inerrancy of

Scripture always leads to some kind of heresy if not unbelieve. There is a fear that biblical criticism

leads to secularism.

The infallibilist view argues that the Bible is infallible in matter of Christian faith and

practice but not inerrant in other matters such as science and history. Theologians in this side

affirm that the confidence in Scripture, shown in the same biblical text, always relates to what

Christians should believe and how to live. No biblical author had a concern on how the process

of God’s inspiration works, and their attitude of confidence is not enough to prove exactly how

much control God exerted in the writers. There is no theory of inspiration within the Bible. We

rather must look at the text itself to determine how much God permitted that the limitations and

mistakes of the people he inspired appeared in the text. Infallibility defenders would say that it

is clear that while the Scripture is the inspired Word of God, it is also thoroughly human. All the

biblical writers presupposed a premodern understanding of the world, their view of the cosmos

was scientifically erroneous; however, their message teaches spiritual truths. That is why the

Bible is infallible, because it does not fail in the purpose of God to reveal himself to humanity,

even when it is not perfectly accurate in other issues. The infallibilist view accepts that some
biblical narratives may have contradictions; nevertheless, are minor contradictions that do not

affect, in any way, the major beliefs of Christian faith. Moreover, according to the defenders of

this view, the tradition also has considered, at least since Augustine, that the Bible should not be

used to settle scientific truths. They maintain that the inerrancy doctrine threatens the credibility

of the Bible, and makes it difficult to believe in it in our postmodern age.

I definitely support the infallibilist view against the inerrancy doctrine. To say that the

Bible is without err is to reject its human side, which for me is evident. Although they reject that

they are excluding the human side of the Scripture I maintain that, at least in some sense,

inerrancy defenders are doing so. A satisfactory argument for the inerrancy of Scripture should

contain an inspiration theory that explains how in the world God used people to write the

Scripture and avoided their human limitations. I think that it would be difficult to do so without

affirming in some sense the dictation model of inspiration. The mistakes are essentials to human

nature. There is no human free of errors, hence to say that the text is without mistakes is to

suppress its human side. Besides, that is not the way the Bible itself show us how God works. We

see that God uses people with their flaws and mistakes, and their limitations are shown in every

sacred story. Then why should we think that he acts differently in the writing process of the holy

texts. Even more if we admit that the process of transmitting the text is not inspired and is,

actually, errant. They must explain why God inspired a perfect text without any error and then

let it be distorted through the centuries, why did not he lead the process of transmission as

perfectly as he led the process of inspiration.

The difficulty of establishing a theory of inspiration is that the source for our beliefs is also

the subject of what we are trying to explain. However, paradoxes have been essential to

Christianity since the beginning: we believe that Jesus is human and God, that we gain life when

we lose it, that it is better to give than to receive, that the greater would be the servant, and so

on. Thus, it is not only possible but consistent with Christianity itself, to believe in the Scripture

as human and divine. It is interesting that among the divine gifts that Paul lists in 1 Cor. 12:4-10
he did not include the gift of writing inspired texts. In his own writings Paul only refers to a Lord’s

commandment when it is clearly supported by the Hebrew Scriptures or Christ’s words. For

example, in 1 Cor. 7:10 he clearly states that the command comes from the Lord and not from

himself. In other cases, Paul states that he is only giving his own opinion (1 Cor. 7:25). And

regarding his own opinions Paul never pretended to be infallible actually he considered that he

may be a “fool” (2 Cor. 11:1, 21), and sometimes he specifies that he was not speaking with the

authority of the Lord (2 Cor. 11:17). Paul knew that he was not inerrant, even when he was writing

inspired by God.

I could give dozens of examples of evident contradictions in the biblical text: narrative,

numeric, geographic, or scientific contradictions, but there is no need. Suffice it to say that it is

better to be honest and accept that the Bible may have errors than pretend we do not see them

in order to hold a doctrine that is not even contained in the Scripture. What does that mean?

That the Bible is full of errors and thus it is not reliable? Not at all! It only means that in some

matters it is not perfectly accurate, but it is absolutely authoritative in matters of Christian faith

and practice. It is infallible in the sense that it never fails in fulfilling the purpose of God: to reveal

himself through it, which is a spiritual miracle that he operates through his Holy Spirit. But that

issue is not to be addressed here. Here the question is whether the Bible is inerrant or not, to

which I have replied no. It is not inerrant and it may contain errors, mistakes and contradictions,

but it is infallible about what to believe and how to live. Besides, none of those errors or

contradictions affects any of the major beliefs of Christian faith. So, we can sleep easy.