Yesterday, I attended a very good class by a theologian. There were 8 pastors present, and we represented a variety of backgrounds, from me being the only “liturgical” person, and most definitely the only one calling himself a priest to African Methodist Episcopal, Presbyterian, independent Pentecostal, Disciples of Christ, etc. The nine of us have formed a good bond, as we are working in Clinical Pastoral Education. Our stories go from laying hands on people to my raising up the bread and wine (ta sa ek ton son, si prospheromen …). But, yesterday we were working theology.
Something the professor said was most enlightening. He made it clear that he thoroughly believes that the Bible is the infallible Word of God. He is convinced that when God looks at the Bible, he sees it that way. But, he said, the problem is not a Biblical problem or a problem with God. The problem is that of a two-pound brain with very limited experience of reality that we all have in our bodies. The Word of God is infallible; but our interpretation of the Word of God is most certainly fallible. God knows all that has happened. He fully sees reality. He knows that what is in the Bible is infallible. But, we only see a very small part of reality. And even what we see of reality is conditioned by our experiences and our culture.
So, the Bible is infallible, but our interpretations are not. He said that this is why it is so important to read theological writings from other faith traditions. We read so that we may compare our interpretation to other interpretations. Being Protestant, he did not deal with Holy Tradition. Nevertheless, all Orthodox priests know that there are very many areas of theology that are not covered by Holy Tradition. Even where Holy Tradition speaks to a subject, the papers leading up to the Pan-Orthodox Council of last year show that there are differing interpretations of even the pronouncements of an Ecumenical Council, though there is significantly more unity on the interpretation of the doctrinal pronouncements of the Councils.
He mentioned that the believer in most local congregations who says that he believes that the Bible is the Word of God is actually saying that my interpretation is more correct than your interpretation. S/he makes the mistake of confusing their private interpretation of Scripture with what God has said. When you are accused of not believing in the Word of God, it most often means that your interpretation does not agree with their interpretation.
But, it is also not merely relativism. It is not true that your interpretation is every bit as good as my interpretation. If you are a Greek scholar, raised in the Church, having attended Orthodox seminary and having finished a doctorate, the probability is rather high that your interpretation is much closer to what God would say than my interpretation. In the same vein, if you are a holy monk who has spent decades in prayer and fasting and growing in the likeness of God, it is much more likely that you have an innate understanding of God that is deeper than my understanding. We should not sink into relativism when we consider that our brains are fallible. It should force us to sink into humility and to consider that our brother or sister needs to have a hearing from us and should have their words and interpretations deeply considered before being either accepted or rejected.
Bottom line? I believe that the Bible is the infallible Word of God. But that infallibility will not thoroughly show through until and unless it is correctly interpreted. I believe that my approach to interpretation needs to be a humble approach, in which I am conscious of my limitations that impede me when I try to read the Bible correctly. Finally, I believe that I need to consult my brothers and sisters, the saints of old, and the Church, on the adequacy of my interpretations. Let me remain humble, Lord.
When most Protestants speak of the “Inerrant Word of God,” they actually mean a straightforward-to-understand text that tells them how to replicate Church. And to the extent that there are things in it that seem to be errors, they even retreat to an admission that “errors” may have entered manuscripts of the “Inerrant Word of God,” but such errors were not in the original manuscripts. In other words, God gave us an inerrant Bible, but we lost it. Luckily, we can still replicate Church with the sullied thing we have left, even though the current manuscript can’t be trusted on things like whether Methuselah died in the flood. On the other side of the coin, your professor is claiming that the Bible is inerrant and infallible, it’s just that our weak brains can’t grasp it. Either way, this is a story of a God who either drops truth into a hole or dangles it in front of chimps. I believe instead in a God who wanted all to know him, from the least to the greatest (Jer 31:34). And this happens because it is “through the Church that the manifold Wisdom of God is made known” (Eph 3:10).
A couple of comments:
First, the professor never used the word inerrant. You have added that word into the mix. There are a whole set of different issues with that word, none of which he was defending. Notice, in that vein, that the meme I chose for the blog post speaks of unfailing.
Second, having set up an untenable dichotomy (the famous two choices, either of which is bad, akin to the “if God is all-powerful and people suffer, then he is not good; but if God is good and people suffer, then he is not all-powerful”) you then proceed from the idea of truth to what appears to be some type of touchy-feely relationship with the Church that lets us know that all is right in the world.
Frankly, truth is a more complex construct. The Orthodox claim is that one is not a theologian if one is not also practicing the faith. Truth is neither merely propositional nor merely relational. Both propositional statements and the practice of the faith, in the context of the Church are necessary in order for truth to manifest.
My blog post dealt only with the propositional side of truth. But, let me mention that there is actually an interesting parallel in another statement made by both Orthodox and Roman Catholic. Both claim that the Church is infallible in its doctrinal pronouncements (generally understood as being in the context of Ecumenical Councils and Holy Tradition), yet imperfect in its life.
Your points are very well taken. And my comments were somewhat tangential to the main points of your post. I can only write from my own experience. Back in my Lutheran days, the debate on infallibility was indeed simply one of inerrancy vs. non-inerrancy. And I’m sure you know that inerrancy remains the sine qua non basis for the infallibility of the Bible for many Christians.
As a Radical Protestant with whom I studied once put it, “If only the Bible is true, then it has to all be true. And if there is any error in it, then everything in it could be an error.” And so, the term “unfailing” (while intentionally avoiding “inerrant”) seemed, from the sweep of my experience and discussions with fellow Christians on the topic, to be a retreat from a focus on inerrancy to a new defensive position in which one exonerates themselves from having to believe in harmonizing absurdities, while then still continuing to use the Bible as one’s sole authority for faith and morals.
I knew a man who left Christianity because he finally had to admit the Bible contained errors. I felt this to be tragedy. It would seem he actually had believed in the Bible first, and Jesus only as a secondary implication. Find a flaw in the Bible, and Jesus was gone for him.
As deeper study of the Bible only made me more aware that it could not stand under the weight that the doctrine of Sola Scriptura demanded of it, my faith in Jesus made me look for a place where that wasn’t necessary. On re-reading your post, I agree, the Bible is indeed the infallible word of God, which we only properly interpret from within the life of the Church. But I believe the Bible is a unique written component of the infallible Word of God, which also includes the living tradition of 2000 years.
The New Testament is like a diary that the Church kept for a short while in her adolescence. As such, it will always be to her a fond and cherished window into her person and her past. But it certainly doesn’t define the adult woman. Using that diary to then determine what the adult woman should be would be erroneous. And you are very correct to assert that errors in the text, as well as errors in the men and women who lived that tradition, do not invalidate the ultimate infallibility of the Word of God.
Char Besedick I don’t believe that St. Paul can be implying that God makes his Wisdom known to Heavenly Powers *through* the Church, but not *to* the Church.
I wonder how this applies to the simple, yet sincere believer who is not theologically trained. How are they to approach the word of God?
The same exact way as a theologian. We are all theologians. Some of us have more training; some of us have less training. But, all of us parse what we read and interpret it. What I would say is that Orthodox believers are expected to stay within the bounds of the Ecumenical Councils and Holy Tradition. They may not fully understand why, but there is still that expectation. Within that expectation, they are free to roam, provided they are also working on a life that reflects Jesus.
The sincere believer who is not theologically trained needs to have a certain humility that recognizes their lack of training. They should not fear to question what an authority says while at the same time, they should not question for the sake of questioning. A non-trained believer may yet have a deeper spirituality than a trained, but dry, theologian. Yet, in all things all of us should express ourselves with humility.