Look, I get it. There are a growing number of Christians who love Jesus and do not want to give Him up, but they are also uncomfortable with some of the teachings of what we might call “mainstream Christianity.” Especially those teachings that challenge the big issues we have to wrestle with today. Things like social justice, gender quality, women’s issues, and sexual issues like LGBTQ+.
There’s a tension there, especially for those who care deeply about these issues and want to be right with God. I feel the tension, too. And it raises a legitimate question: How do we balance our faith and our love of Jesus with these other important issues?
One approach currently growing in popularity is to retain the Bible as an authority but reject the belief that it is inerrant. This gives us some wiggle room to hold on to both Jesus and our social positions. Rejecting the inerrancy of the Bible can help to resolve a number of thorny moral issues. We can, for example, conclude that the teachings found in Scripture against homosexual behavior are outdated, ancient notions that are no longer appropriate. (See my LGBTQ+ sensitivity statement.)
However, rejecting the inerrancy of Scripture also introduces some very tricky complications. At first glance, rejecting inerrancy seems to allow us to cut off those old, dead branches from Christian teaching that are no longer bearing fruit. But in reality, we end up sawing through the very branch that holds up our faith. Let me explain what I mean.
What is Biblical Inerrancy?
Biblical Inerrancy is simply the teaching that the Bible is without fault or error in everything that it teaches or affirms.
This is, by nature, a binary issue. The Bible is either inerrant or it is not. It cannot be “partially inerrant,” since that would be the same thing as being errant. The 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy captures the mainstream Christian position on this issue. For our purposes, here’s a simple definition of the two possible positions:
| The Bible is Inerrant | The Bible is not Inerrant |
|---|---|
| The Bible was written by men but superintended by the Holy Spirit and is, therefore, without error or fault in all that it teaches or affirms. | The Bible is a collection of writings from good but fallible men. Therefore, some of the things it teaches or affirms may be wrong. |
Let’s take a brief look at four aspects of this issue.
“God is inerrant but the Bible is not.”
Many progressive Christians subscribe to the idea that God is inerrant, but the Bible is not. That seems reasonable on the surface. But it opens up the proverbial can of worms.
If God is without error, was it His intention to give us a set of writings that He knows contains errors? Was God unable to use human authors to successfully communicate His truths inerrantly? Or maybe the Bible was an entirely human idea that God did not intend we should have created? If that’s the case, what can we as Christians know about God apart from Scripture?
In Romans 1, Paul teaches that we can know some things about God from His creation. This is what theologians call general revelation. From the “book of nature” alone we can learn that God is powerful, creative, intelligent, majestic, and so on. But does the “book of nature” reveal to us a God who is loving and merciful? If we only study nature, we might come to the opposite conclusion. The world can be a violent and unfair and unforgiving place. Creatures violently killing other creatures for food or fun. Indeed, without the Bible how would we arrive at the idea that God is inerrant? Wouldn’t we see the violence and injustice and suffering and evil in the world and conclude that God probably got a few things wrong?
Aside from God appearing and speaking to us directly, the Bible is our only source of direct knowledge about God — including His perfection and goodness. It offers what theologians call special revelation. Scripture is God’s witness to Himself. And if that witness is full of errors, what do we really know? Can we even conclude that God is inerrant?
The Problem of Objectivity
A progressive Christian writer named Derek Vreeland brings up a compelling point against inerrancy. In a 2019 article, he claims that “Underneath the arguments for biblical inerrancy is the desire for pure objectivity.” He goes on to point out that there is really no such thing as pure objectivity. Any interpretation of the Bible is going to be subjective based on who is doing the interpreting. To underscore his point, he asks some tough questions:
- Who determines the difference between what the Bible is recording and what it is affirming?
- Who determines the criteria by which we judge the correctness of our interpretation?
- Who determines the meaning of each biblical text?
Vreeland summarizes the problem of objectivity by pointing out the inherent difficulties it presents:
Fallible people have to decide what the Bible is affirming. Mistaken-prone human beings must do the hard work of interpretation. Imperfect people have to determine the meaning and purpose of Scripture.
Derek Vreeland
Vreeland’s observations are valid. However, what he misses is that problem of objectivity gets worse—much worse—if we reject the inerrancy of the Bible. If we accept the idea that the Bible is a collection of historical writings from good but fallible men and, therefore, some of the things it teaches or affirms are in error, we are left with a scarier set of questions. Then we have to ask:
- Who determines which teachings in the Bible are right and which are wrong?
- Who determines which verses or passages can be ignored because they’re outdated?
- What is our criteria for making such judgments?
If we accept the Bible’s inerrancy, the differences of opinion between fallible human beings are naturally addressed by comparing divergent opinions against Scripture. The text of the Bible becomes the arena in which the battle of interpretation is waged. On the other hand, if the Bible is errant, we can only appeal to the ever-shifting arena of public opinion to work out the differences.
The Authority of Scripture
Vreeland claims that the language of inerrancy grows out of an “evangelical anxiety of elevating a human critique of Scripture over the intended divine revelation within the text.” And he’s not wrong. We should have serious anxiety about elevating our own opinions over the teachings of Scripture.
If we get to decide what parts of the Bible are right and which parts are in error, we are putting the Word of God under submission to what even Vreeland would concede are the opinions of fallible humans. In other words, we’re putting subjective human opinions in a position of authority over the Bible. If Vreeland is right and the Bible is errant, we need to update his quote to read:
Fallible people get to decide what the Bible got right and wrong. Mistaken-prone human beings get to determine the meaning and purpose of Scripture.
If the Bible is regarded as errant in its teachings, the question of authority becomes far more complicated. Scripture no longer functions as the final court of appeal; instead, it must be weighed and sifted by some external standard. That standard—whether cultural consensus, personal conscience, or scholarly judgment—inevitably takes on a governing role. Each of us get to decide which teachings seem right to us. The parts we don’t agree with, or we don’t understand, or don’t “feel” right can be dismissed as ancient human errors. And, as Augustine so eloquently wrote seventeen centuries ago:
If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.
—Augustine
We cannot claim that Scripture is our authority and at the same time exercise our own fallible human authority over what it says by vetoing or rejecting certain teachings.
Recognizing Error
Think about this way: In order to recognize that the Bible got a particular teaching wrong, we would need to know what the “right” teaching is. In other words, we need to claim that we have some level of knowledge over and above the Biblical authors. How else could we recognize an error unless we thought we knew the right answer?
And that brings up a big question: On what epistemic basis do we know better than Scripture? Is it because our parents or a modern author taught us? Is it based on the consensus of a particular society at a particular time in history? And that begs the question posed in this article: If we know better than the Bible, how can we claim it as an authority over our lives?
Here’s the thing: Affirming biblical inerrancy does not eliminate disagreement among interpreters. Faithful Christians who all affirm an inerrant Bible can still disagree on doctrine, application, and meaning. The difference is this: when Scripture is regarded as inerrant, the debate takes place under the authority of the text rather than over it. The question isn’t whether Scripture is correct, but how it should be rightly understood.
To claim that Scripture is mistaken in a particular teaching requires more than recognizing cultural distance or historical context. It requires a judgment that the biblical authors were wrong in what they affirmed. That judgment must be grounded in some authority outside the text—an authority that is presumed to be more reliable than Scripture at that point.
In Sum
The questions that progressive Christianity asks are hauntingly similar to the question that the devil asked Eve in the Garden of Eden.
“Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” (Gen 3:1)
This is how our spiritual enemy began his campaign to draw Eve into disobeying God, and in the process, brought down the whole human race. Progressive Christianity uses that same question today: “Did God actually say ________?” Fill in the blank with whatever biblical teaching you don’t like.
If we view the Bible as errant, these questions are fair game for changing the teachings handed down by Jesus and the Apostles into a faith we’re more comfortable with personally. On the other hand, if we regard the Bible as inerrant, when we come to passages that rub our modern sensibilities the wrong way, we’re forced to wrestle with them. And in the end the question is this. Do we adjust our beliefs to align with what God teaches, or do we adjust what God teaches to align with our beliefs?
Barry Jones
the CSBI says the bible is inerrant “only in the originals”. But a classic inerrancy proof text, 2nd Timothy 3:16, not only wasn’t ascribing inspiration to the originals, the context supplied in v. 15 makes it reasonable to assume Paul was ascribing inspiration to the COPIES Timothy knew in childhood…which obviously couldn’t have been the “originals”.
How brutally would inerrancy die, if somebody discovered that the biblical authors ascribed inspiration to COPIES, and never expressed or implied the “only in the originals” caveat so distinctive of the CSBI?
Peter
What if the principal and context the scripture is given in is holy but the context changes. For instance the context of homosexuality…could have been different than one of union. Or the context of a woman teaching or speaking…..could have been rebellious or flaunting it. Or a man being head of house..the principle being that there needs to be a set order determined..woman didn’t work outside the home as primary breadwinners…Context and principle and then..we could appeal the the spirit within as the ultimate judge for us (and just us) on those things we disagree with…sound good ? lol
Thomas Mason
How can the Bible be perfect? It wasn’t written in English. There are words that don’t translate. Part of the message is lost.
The overarching themes of the Bible are positive. Our walk with God is personal. Why don’t these things help us navigate inaccuracies?
Billions of people enjoyed relationships with God and Jesus not aware of inaccuracies. Why can’t we?
That said, I’m not a scholar and I’m not particularly versed in the Bible. Be gentle.
Anonymous
So, I have a lot of thoughts on this, but here’s one of my most pressing: if for years, we had translations that said one thing, and then later, we come across earlier manuscripts that don’t contain the same content, then we *know* that humans can and did change what was originally written. (I am, admittedly, referring to what many claim were likely clarifying additions made by scribes, and that don’t change doctrine.) Now, just because their changes and additions may not have changes doctrine, doesn’t mean somewhere along the way, there weren’t any that did. We *know* human fallibility has come into the equation of God’s Word. So, here’s what I believe. I believe that God is capable of retaining the message of Who He is, and His character in the Bible. But texts regarding, for example, whether women can be teachers (that frankly contradict themselves elsewhere), could be simply human fallibility in determining whether the text should dependent on context, place, and time, or not. We also know that ancient texts, including biblical texts, contains a LOT of pseudoepigrapha. So there is no way to guarantee that what we consider Canon really was written by who the early church fathers believed them to be written by. (which is the major basis for determining whether something should be Canon in the first place.) And lastly, Jesus didn’t tell His apostles that He’d send a bunch of letters to His people to teach them. He said He’d send a Counselor. That’s the Holy Spirit. And every believer has it. THAT is how we know the character of God. I believe the Bible is useful for teaching, correction, and reproof. But I don’t believe those that read it, and interpret it, and often teach it, to be so. (That last statement was not directed to you, personally. It was a general statement about those that use and twist scripture for their own benefit, power, and greed. Which, if I’m completely transparent, I believe many of the 2nd and 3rd century church fathers may have done. We know it happened later. No reason to believe it didn’t happen earlier too.)
R. L. Solberg
Thanks! That’s a thoughtful and carefully framed concern, and I appreciate the distinction you’re making between God’s faithfulness and human fallibility.
A few points may help clarify where I (and the historic Christian position) would differ. First, textual criticism actually strengthens confidence in the Bible’s preservation rather than undermining it. The reason we can identify later additions or clarifying glosses is because we possess a large number of early manuscripts. This allows scholars to compare readings and recover the original text with a high degree of confidence.
Second, human involvement in copying Scripture does not imply doctrinal corruption. Christianity has never claimed the text fell from heaven untouched, but that God faithfully preserved His Word through ordinary, fallible means. Human weakness in transmission does not negate divine oversight.
Third, regarding canon and pseudepigraphy, the early church was well aware of forged writings and rejected them precisely because they lacked apostolic origin, theological coherence, and widespread usage. The canon reflects careful discernment, not blind acceptance.
Finally, I agree that the Holy Spirit is the church’s teacher. Where I would differ is in separating the Spirit from the Scriptures He inspired. Jesus promised the Spirit would remind the apostles of His teaching and guide them into truth, and the NT writings are the enduring fruit of that work. Scripture and Spirit are not competitors but belong together.
Abuse of Scripture for power or control is real and tragic, but misuse does not invalidate proper use. The same Scriptures that have been twisted have also been the means by which such abuses were confronted and corrected. Blessings! Rob
Tom
Solberg: “I’ll let you set the table and throw out the opening question/challenge:”
Context for the readers: I gave Solberg 16 points of dispute explaining what it is that causes him and I to disagree about the authenticity of Paul’s apostleship. Solberg declined to debate any of them, but invited me to come to this forum to begin a discussion on why I reject biblical inerrancy. So these posts are with a purpose toward showing that rejecting the authenticity of Paul’s apostleship can be reasonable. Why I’m reasonable to reject biblical inerrancy would certainly be part of such a goal, since the bible most certainly asserts Paul to be a true apostle. I’m an atheist.
You plan on teaching me something about the gospel, since hopefully, as a Christian, you are not allowing this debate on inerrancy with an atheist to proceed merely because of the scholarly sparks it will generate.
“I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it.” (1 Cor. 9:23 NAU)
If you wish to “imitate Paul” (1st Cor. 11:1), then your ultimate motive in allowing an unbeliever to have a discussion with you about bible inerrancy, is with an eye toward convincing them the bible is true, thus Paul was a true apostle and can thus be trusted in his theological conclusions. Right?
My comments will never “refute” biblical inerrancy. They only refute your belief that it is always unreasonable for an unbeliever to reject the true gospel, or to reject bible inerrancy. Also, just like you can quote from early Mormons solely for the sake of argument, without thereby committing yourself to believing all such quotes are actual truth, I can similarly quote from the bible, solely for the sake of argument, and this does not commit me to accepting those quotes as actually truth. Yes, my argumentation will eventually draw conclusions such as “biblical logic often justifies drawing unbiblical inferences”. Arminians always accuse Calvinists of not going where Calvinist logic requires (i.e., that God is the author of evil). So the biblical authors’ errors may involve their refusal to go where their own logic leads.
Opening challenge:
On scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the “most dangerous”, how dangerous is it for an unbeliever to give serious consideration to bible interpretation originating with false Christians?
I say “10” for the following reasons:
1) Divine wrath awaits false Christians (Matthew 7:22-23), and thus, presumably also those who adopt the doctrines promoted by false Christians.
2) It doesn’t matter if a liberal can trifle that biblical hell is not eternal conscious torment (ECT). ECT has always been a major contender for the true doctrine of biblical hell, and its scholars continue to push back against that growing number of evangelicals who adopt Annihilationism. This forces the conclusion that ECT is at least a reasonable view on hell, even if not an infallible one. I think the doctrines of the apostle’s creed are reasonable, but I cannot grant reasonableness to the health and wealth gospel.
3) I can be reasonable to adopt, solely for the sake of argument, a “reasonable” view of biblical hell, and to thus presume that because I’m an unbeliever, I’m on my way to the ECT version of hell, and to therefore take steps to remove from my life things that are likely to send me to ECT hell.
4) You might possibly be too careful in your effort to avoid being deceived…if the effort was made to avoid being deceived by a person who asked you to loan them $1. After all, even if it was outright deception, you are out only $1. Of all the disasters and emergencies that dishonest people can create, cheating you out of a single dollar represents a trivially mild form of disaster and thus, most people would probably agree that you can possibly be “too” careful in your efforts to decide whether to loan somebody $1. You can make a reasonable decision on that without needing to miss work, skip meals or conduct biblical seminars about the state of modern Evangelicalism.
5) But, if biblical hell is ECT, which is the worst possible disaster to ever befall a human being, then he or she cannot be “too” careful when trying to guard against that fate. Making a reasonable decision on this greatest of all potential disasters may indeed justify the level of research that requires missing work, skipping meals and possibly conducting biblical seminars about the state of modern Evangelicalism. After all, our spiritual destiny, at least according to you, is always going to be more important than temporal earthly things.
6) If we can’t be too careful in guarding against ECT, then any effort that is reasonably calculated to protect me from ECT, is going to be reasonable, even if not infallible.
7) It hardly needs arguing that one way to avoid ECT is to give zero serious consideration to the gospel preaching conducted by false Christians. Thus Solberg would be forced to conclude that when I refuse to engage with a Jehovah’s Witness, a Mormon or a Oneness Pentecostal, such avoidance kills that present risk of them successfully convincing me to join their ranks and thus participate with them in that nasty surprise Jesus warned false Christians of in Matthew 7:22-23.
8) As an unbeliever, I lack ALL of the spiritually protective armor that Paul mentioned in Ephesians 6:13-17. I have no shield of faith, no helmet of salvation, etc., etc. If this is true about me, then I’m even more vulnerable to dangerous false doctrines than real Christians are…who are nevertheless known to adopt false doctrines. This then is ANOTHER reason to insist that the danger created when I give serious consideration to the preaching of false Christians is very high, and therefore, I do myself nothing but much-needed favors if I absolutely refuse to seriously consider the preaching of any false Christian.
Professor Solberg, would you agree with me that on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the “most dangerous”, it is reasonable for me to think it is “most dangerous” for unbelievers to give serious consideration to bible interpretations originating with false Christians? Or are you more liberal, and thus think that heretical preaching is somewhat less dangerous to unbelievers?
R. L. Solberg
Hi, Tom! If I were to accept all of your assumptions and presuppositions as true, it’s definitely a “10” for you. But from the Christian perspective, your question is confusing, if not nonsensical. You’re a self-avowed “atheist” (and I realize exactly what that means can vary), but I think it’s safe to say that an atheist, at a minimum, does not believe God exists. And if there is no God, there is no hell (ECT or otherwise), since hell is a concept tied to divine judgment and an afterlife.
So for an atheist to ask me to rate the danger of his going to hell strikes me as disingenuous. That’s like me asking you to rate the danger of my being attacked by a flying spaghetti monster (which I don’t believe exists). Your question suggests that either (a.) you’re an uncommitted atheist who is open to possibility that maybe there is a God after all, or (b.) you’re posing a hypothetical scenario as a philosophical premise in order to critique Christian truth claims. If it’s the former, I look forward to walking through this thought experiment with you. If it’s the latter, I would much prefer you were just upfront about what you’re trying to argue.
Here’s the issue from a Christian perspective: You said, “Divine wrath awaits false Christians.” But I think it’s more biblically accurate to say, “Divine wrath awaits unbelievers.” Because not believing is what makes a Christian “false,” not imperfect theology. “Whoever does not believe is condemned already” (John 3:18; cf. Rom 8:1). Perfect theology is not a prerequisite for heaven. That’s something I’m grateful for every day; we’re all fallen, imperfect, flawed sinners saved by the grace of God, not by our theology.
From a Christian perspective, God can and does use imperfect (and sometimes even “false Christians”) to spread the truth of his Gospel. Not because the truth doesn’t matter, but because the power of the Gospel outweighs the motives of the one sharing it: “What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.” (Phil 1:18).
I suppose if you believe that your eternal salvation depends on you—specifically on your ability to distinguish “false” from “true” Christians and successfully avoid being deceived by the false ones—then it’s reasonable for you to perceive the danger as a “10.” But that’s not a biblical view. Our salvation isn’t found in other Christians (true or false) but in Christ (John 14:6; Acts 4:12). Don’t get me wrong: false teachers can confuse, mislead, and delay people (Matt 7:15; 2 Pet 2:1), so discernment matters. But the weight of salvation doesn’t rest on our epistemic vigilance; it rests on Christ’s faithfulness (John 10:27–29).
So I would say this: Since you’re an atheist, it is unreasonable for you to presume that the God you don’t believe exists is going to send you to the hell you don’t believe exists because of false Christians. But from within the Christian worldview, the danger is real—not because of false Christians, but because continued rejection of Christ results in eternal separation from God (2 Thess 1:8–9). God ultimately honors human rejection of Him by allowing that separation. That, biblically speaking, is what hell is.
Tom
Wow, I did not expect to be so misunderstood!
I have now deleted about 4 pages of point to point response. I can fix this miscommunication, now that I know it exists.
1) What view of hell do you espouse? Is is eternal conscious torment (ECT), Annihilationism (permanent extinction of consciousness) or something else?
2) Is it possible, or impossible, for a person who was never a Christian and who died in unbelief, to be given a second chance to get saved in the afterworld? Does anything in the bible permanently close off the possibility of second chances after death, the way so many conservative Protestant Christians think?
3) What danger does a person create, if any, when they convert from unbelief to Mormonism (three gods, salvation by works), or to Jehovah’s Witnesses (denial of the Trinity, Jesus is not god and didn’t rise bodily from the dead, salvation by works), or to Oneness Pentecostalism (God is one person, the Father, he became the Son, the Son became the Holy Spirit, i.e., Modalism, and ye are not saved unless ye speak in tongues) or to one of those groups which conservative Evangelicals routinely characterize as “non-Christian cults”? Does a cultist’s generic “belief in Jesus” suffice for salvation? Or can such belief in Jesus be so heretical as to result in no salvation at all?
4) You said “If I were to accept all of your assumptions and presuppositions as true, it’s definitely a “10” for you.” Ok, then forget my assumptions and presuppositions. Using only YOUR assumptions and presuppositions as gained from your bible studies, on a scale from 1-10 with 10 being most dangerous, what level of spiritual danger does my atheism create for me? Some danger, or the most danger?
There’s a specific reason why I ask for YOUR assessment. You think I’m unreasonable to reject the gospel and apostle Paul. I intend to change your mind. I intend to do that by showing you that YOUR assumptions and presuppositions actually do something you don’t suspect they do: they support the proposition that atheists can possibly be reasonable to reject the gospel and Paul. That’s why it’s so important that YOUR presuppositions about matters be put on the table. What you personally believe, is going to help support the reasonableness of gospel-rejection. NO, I haven’t shown how yet, but we aren’t there yet, I first need your answers to the above-questions.
“Your question suggests that either (a.) you’re an uncommitted atheist who is open to possibility that maybe there is a God after all, or (b.) you’re posing a hypothetical scenario as a philosophical premise in order to critique Christian truth claims. If it’s the former, I look forward to walking through this thought experiment with you. If it’s the latter, I would much prefer you were just upfront about what you’re trying to argue.”
———It’s “(b.)”.
I realize that you think God doesn’t demand “perfect theology”. But Trinitarian Christians have been screaming for decades that the “belief in Jesus” exhibited by JW’s, Mormons and Oneness Pentecostals is not sufficient to save, because each type is afflicted with intolerable heresies. Paul cursed his former followers in Galatia because they replaced his gospel with the Judaizer gospel (Gal. 1:6-9), and it is by no means clear that he was merely spouting insubstantive literary rhetoric solely for dramatic flair. He appears to be deadly serious, thus, if Galatians is god-breathed, then it was god who was deadly serious in curing the Galatians, not merely Paul the advocate of Greco-Roman rhetoric. Yes, it IS possible to confidently view yourself as a saved Christian, and yet be divinely cursed and unsaved regardless.
The words spoken by the people whom Jesus plans to condemn indicate they didn’t view themselves as unbelievers, but as Christian believers serving Jesus (Matthew 7:22-23), so I can be reasonable to assume it is biblically possible to convince yourself you are a real Christian, and yet to wake up on Judgment Day to discover, too late to fix, that you were never truly saved.
According to Paul’s logic, if you disagree with him about Jesus, you are not harboring merely a “different perspective”, you are harboring a “different Jesus”. 2nd Cor. 11:3-4 (i.e., a Jesus different than Paul’s, thus, a Jesus who cannot save). Paul is “afraid” that his Corinthian church would bear beautifully those who preach this “another Jesus”. Id. Why be “afraid”? Probably because this “another Jesus” doctrine had genuine capability of deceiving people into a false sense of salvation.
These passages strongly support the mainline Trinitarian viewpoint that “belief in Jesus” cannot save unless it possesses minimally sufficient orthodoxy. In other words, accepting Jesus as your Savior is dangerous, because it is actually possible to do it in the wrong way and only discover on judgment day (when it is too late to change) that you had only accepted “another” Jesus.
If you are one of those liberal Trinitarians who doesn’t see significant divine judgment upon Christians who are heretical about Jesus’ nature and the doctrines of salvation, my argument probably won’t have any effect on you.