(A) If the God of evangelical Christianity were to exist, then the Bible would be God's only written revelation.
(B) Thus, if that deity were to exist, then he would probably see to it that the Bible is perfectly clear and authoritative, and lack the appearance of merely human authorship.
(C) Some facts about the Bible are the following:
(E) Hence [from B & D], probably the God of evangelical Christianity does not exist.
(B) Thus, if that deity were to exist, then he would probably see to it that the Bible is perfectly clear and authoritative, and lack the appearance of merely human authorship.
(C) Some facts about the Bible are the following:
- It contains forgeries.
- It contradicts itself or is very unclear in many places.
- It contains factual errors, including unfulfilled prophecies.
- It contains ethical defects (such as God committing or ordering atrocities).
- It contains interpolations (later insertions to the text).
- Different copies of the same biblical manuscripts say conflicting things.
- The biblical canon involves disputes and is apparently arbitrary.
- There is no objective procedure for settling any of the various disputes, especially since the original manuscripts of the Bible have been lost and there has been no declaration from God that would help resolve any of the disputes.
(E) Hence [from B & D], probably the God of evangelical Christianity does not exist.
As I understand this argument, it is saying the antecedent probability of a divinely inspired text containing so many human attributes and being preserved with such little care is good evidence against the conclusion that the Bible is divinely inspired since it seems all too human with no traces of divine origin or backing. For sake of argument (and in reality) I will agree that the Bible has the human properties attributed to it above; however, I still think the conclusion is false; if by the God of evangelical Christianity we mean to affirm the contents of the great creeds of the church and not the belief in biblical inerrancy. Specifically, we can know that the Bible is IN FACT inspired by God, even if the EXTENT of that inspiration is limited or circumscribed to some degree by 'a canon within in a canon.' In other words, we can grant all of the human properties evinced above as attaching to the Bible and still know that the Bible is in FACT inspired. However, if we accept the human properties above, then I think we must be fair and admit that the EXTENT of inspiration had by the Bible is limited to a certain degree. So, the question before us is, what reason(s) do we have to accept the FACT of inspiration in the face of the all the human properties it has? Here I think, John Hick is helpful,
"... If Jesus was literally God incarnate, and if it is by his death alone that men can be saved, and by their response to him alone that they can appropriate that salvation, then the only doorway to eternal life is Christian faith..."
John Hick, "Jesus and the World Religions," in The Myth of God Incarnate, ed. John Hick (London: SCM, 1977), pp. 179-80.
If Jesus was indeed God incarnate, Christianity is the only religion founded by God in person, and must as such be uniquely superior to all other religions and insofar as the texts contained within the Bible are our best sources for establishing this, we can see that the inspiration of the Bible has everything to do with the Christ-event and only secondarily to do with the human witness to this event with all its human properties. The Christ-event gives us as it were a structure for our ignorance for determining the EXTENT of inspiration and apart from which we would not know of the FACT of inspiration. The only step left now is to make a case that Jesus was God incarnate which I think the work of William Lane Craig, N.T. Wright, and others establishes via a case for the resurrection in conjunction with laying out reasons to think Jesus had a radical divine and messianic self-understanding (See my section: Biblical Studies/A Case For the Resurrection).
(Evangelical Christianity=Handbook Model
Handbook Model: The Bible teaches doctrine and morals with every
affirmation that it makes, so that together those affirmations comprise
something like a handbook or textbook for Christian belief and living, a
compendium of divine and therefore inerrant teachings on a full array of
subjects.This implies that all matters
of Christian belief and practice can be learned by sitting down with the Bible
and piecing together through careful study the clear ‘biblical’ truths that it
teaches.
Thus, what this argument shows is that the Handbook Model of the
Bible is false, and since evangelical Christianity presupposes this Model, it
too is false; but this argument doesn’t show that Christianity is false.In order to show that Christianity is false,
you would have to show that God does not exist and/or that Jesus was not the
Messiah.)
"... If Jesus was literally God incarnate, and if it is by his death alone that men can be saved, and by their response to him alone that they can appropriate that salvation, then the only doorway to eternal life is Christian faith..."
John Hick, "Jesus and the World Religions," in The Myth of God Incarnate, ed. John Hick (London: SCM, 1977), pp. 179-80.
If Jesus was indeed God incarnate, Christianity is the only religion founded by God in person, and must as such be uniquely superior to all other religions and insofar as the texts contained within the Bible are our best sources for establishing this, we can see that the inspiration of the Bible has everything to do with the Christ-event and only secondarily to do with the human witness to this event with all its human properties. The Christ-event gives us as it were a structure for our ignorance for determining the EXTENT of inspiration and apart from which we would not know of the FACT of inspiration. The only step left now is to make a case that Jesus was God incarnate which I think the work of William Lane Craig, N.T. Wright, and others establishes via a case for the resurrection in conjunction with laying out reasons to think Jesus had a radical divine and messianic self-understanding (See my section: Biblical Studies/A Case For the Resurrection).
(Evangelical Christianity=Handbook Model
Handbook Model: The Bible teaches doctrine and morals with every
affirmation that it makes, so that together those affirmations comprise
something like a handbook or textbook for Christian belief and living, a
compendium of divine and therefore inerrant teachings on a full array of
subjects.This implies that all matters
of Christian belief and practice can be learned by sitting down with the Bible
and piecing together through careful study the clear ‘biblical’ truths that it
teaches.
Thus, what this argument shows is that the Handbook Model of the
Bible is false, and since evangelical Christianity presupposes this Model, it
too is false; but this argument doesn’t show that Christianity is false.In order to show that Christianity is false,
you would have to show that God does not exist and/or that Jesus was not the
Messiah.)
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