The Accuracy of Scripture

The Catholic blogosphere was recently set on fire by word of a document issued by the bishops of England, Wales, and Scotland entitled The Gift of Scripture.

The firestorm was triggered by an October 5 article in The Times of London carrying the inflammatory headline "Catholic Church no longer swears by the truth of the Bible."

The Times article contained a number of errors and distortions, but it also contained a number of quotes from the British bishops' document that were of concern to faithful Catholics.

For example, the document is quoted as saying that "we should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision" and that, while the Bible is reliable when expressing truths connected to salvation, "we should not expect total accuracy from the Bible in other, secular matters."

Such statements are common these days from catechists, theologians, and biblical scholars. They are trying to express something important — that there are certain things we should not expect from Scripture — but they have not used the right language in expressing these facts.

The Traditional View

Scripture presents itself to us as the very word of God, and the Christian Church has always honored it as such. Historically, Christians have held that the Bible is absolutely free of error, or inerrant.

Yet it has also been clear that there are many difficult and perplexing things in the Bible. This has led some to entertain the idea that Scripture may be protected from error in a way different than previous generations of Christians have held. Instead of being totally free of error, these thinkers have said, perhaps it is only free from error on certain matters.

For example, some have said that the Bible is meant for teaching us faith and morals, so perhaps it is inerrant on faith and morals but not on other matters. Other have suggested that Scripture is oriented toward our salvation, so maybe it is inerrant only on matters of salvation.

This might be called the limited or restricted inerrancy view, as opposed to the total or unrestricted inerrancy position.

As attractive as limited inerrancy may be, it faces significant problems.

Some Problems

It does not seem that the Bible understands itself in these terms. When the authors of Scripture quote each other, they speak in a way that suggests that every single word is authored by God.

The authors of the New Testament, for example, regularly quote the Old Testament with introductions such as "The Holy Spirit says" (Heb. 3:7), and Jesus himself said that "not an iota, not a dot" would pass away from the law of Moses before it was fulfilled (Matt. 5:18).

In the last couple of centuries the Church has weighed in on this question and rejected limited inerrancy. The First Vatican Council taught:

"These books [of the canon] the Church holds to be sacred and canonical, not because, having been composed by human industry, they were afterwards approved by her authority; nor only because they contain revelation without error; but because, having been written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author" (De Fide Catholica 2:7).

Pope Leo XIII stated that "it is absolutely wrong and forbidden either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of Holy Scripture or to admit that the sacred writer has erred" and condemned "the system of those who, in order to rid themselves of these difficulties, do not hesitate to concede that divine inspiration regards the things of faith and morals, and nothing beyond" (Providentissimus Deus 20).

Pius XII stated that the Vatican I passage cited above was a "solemn definition of Catholic doctrine, by which such divine authority is claimed for the 'entire books with all their parts' as to secure freedom from any error whatsoever." He repudiated those who "ventured to restrict the truth of Sacred Scripture solely to matters of faith and morals" (Divino Afflante Spiritu 1).

And then came Vatican II.

Vatican II

The Vatican II decree Dei Verbum taught:

"In composing the sacred books, God chose men and while employed by him they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things that he wanted. Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully, and without error that truth that God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation (DV 11).

The last phrase of this passage — "for the sake of salvation" — has become a sticking point, and many have argued that it restricts the scope of scriptural inerrancy to just those things that have to do with our salvation.

There was actually an intense behind-the-scenes controversy at Vatican II over this clause, which ended up being appealed to Pope Paul VI, and there is no doubt that some at the Council wanted the phrase understood as allowing restricted inerrancy. In fact, some wanted a formula that would even more clearly allow for restricted inerrancy.

But ultimately this position did not prevail. The text as it stands continues to affirm that the Bible contains all and only what God wanted written — that everything asserted by the human authors is asserted by the Holy Spirit.

There are countless instances where Scripture is clearly making an assertion that is neither of faith and morals nor connected in any direct way with our salvation. For example, the Bible clearly asserts that Andrew was the brother of Peter in some accepted first-century understanding of the word brother.

Dei Verbum thus teaches the unrestricted inerrancy of Scripture, and the "for the sake of our salvation" clause is thus most plausibly read as a statement of why God put his truth into Scripture, not a restriction on the scope of his truth.

What to Do?

That leaves us with the problem of how to explain the limits of what Scripture can be expected to do and how we can go wrong if we approach it the wrong way. How can these limitations be explained to the faithful in a way that does not charge Scripture with error?

Dei Verbum has given us an important tool for doing this. The Council spoke of those things "asserted by the inspired authors" as asserted by the Holy Spirit and thus protected from error. So we need to determine what the inspired author is trying to assert, for that is what is protected from error.

What a person asserts is not the same as what he says. Suppose someone says, "It's raining cats and dogs out there today." What he has said is perfectly obvious, but he is not asserting that cats and dogs are falling from the sky. Instead, he is asserting that it is raining hard.

His assertion may well be true. It may indeed be raining hard, and if so then he should not be charged with error.

Native English-speakers are familiar with the phrase "raining cats and dogs" and recognize what is meant. But non-native English-speakers could be perplexed by the statement. It's the same with Scripture.

The Example of Genesis

We don't come from the same culture that authored Scripture. We aren't ancient Israelites, and we don't have a native's feel for how their literature works. When people from our culture read the Bible they are particularly liable to miss symbolism that the text may be using. We know that God can do amazing, miraculous things, and if we don't know how ancient Hebrew literature worked, we can read perplexing things as miracles rather than symbols.

Throughout history many have taken the six days of creation in Genesis as six literal twenty-four-hour periods, but there are clues that this may not be what is meant. For example, the sun is not created until day four, though day and night were already in existence on day one. The ancients knew that it's the sun that causes it to be day as well as we do, and so this may mean that the passage is not to be understood literally.

By asking ourselves what it does mean — what the inspired author is asserting — then we see that he is asserting that the whole of the material world was created by God — the true God and not a bunch of pagan deities.

One could look at the passage and conclude that the inspired author is not trying to give us a scientific account of the creation of the world. The magisterium has recently favored this view (CCC 337, 283).

So would it be right to say, as The Gift of Scripture does, that "we should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy"?

Finding the Right Words

Because Genesis is not making scientific assertions, it is wrong to charge Genesis with scientific error. If someone draws erroneous scientific conclusions from a misreading of Genesis, the error belongs not to Genesis but to the person who has misread it.

Therefore we should not say that Genesis does not have "full scientific accuracy" — a statement that is bound to disturb the faithful and undermine their confidence in Scripture. Instead we should say that Genesis is not making scientific assertions and that we will draw erroneous conclusions if we treat the text as though it were.

The same applies to statements such as "We should not expect total accuracy from the Bible." In fact we should, for everything asserted in Sacred Scripture is asserted by the Holy Spirit, and he does not make mistakes.

The burden is on us to recognize what the Spirit is and is not asserting, and we may stumble into error if we make a mistake in doing this.

This applies to science or history or faith or morals or salvation or any other subject. The error belongs to us as interpreters, not to the Holy Spirit and not to the Scripture that he inspired.

Not a straw man if I leave the term "literal" open to other possible meanings.

I explicitly wrote (above),

However, there may be other ways to understand the word "literal" that are different than the way I am using it, in this case specifically to mean an objective record of natural science or history void of figurative significance.

I'm not reducing "literal" to only this one meaning, but simply pointing out that this is how I was using the term with regard to Genesis in the context of this discussion. Seven days is not literally seven 24-hour days, not literally seven revolutions of the earth on its axis. It must be read on a different level.

More later...

God's love never fails. And His Word is true

How do you know that?

The Bible is a 'threat' to you?

I am not threatened by a book that describes talking donkeys. But, the Bible, just like the Koran, does contain threats.

You feel you can't live in peace wondering 'what if it is the inspired Word of God?

I live in peace wondering why do people believe in assumptions and then speak of them as if they were facts?

Don't take that as a threat but wisdom working

Whose wisdom? Yours?

You wrote:

“Not a straw man if I leave the term “literal” open to other possible meanings.”

Which you didn’t do UNTIL AFTER you had put forward the straw man. Too late.

“I’m not reducing “literal” to only this one meaning,...”

You said that a literal view of Genesis would be the same as viewing it as science or history. How is that NOT reducing it to one meaning?

Again, I’m not attacking you, but I think you need to be more careful with how you word things.

“Or do you believe just an assumption?”

By definition, assumptions are not proven. It is up to the other side in a discussion to decide if they will agree on the assumption.

Most people who say, “Scripture is true” are using shorthand for “I believe Scripture is true”.

The idea that God is provable is contrary to faith.

Hebrews 11 says, “1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 For by it the people of old received their commendation. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”

The word translated faith means:

“1) conviction of the truth of anything, belief; in the NT of a conviction or belief respecting man’s relationship to God and divine things, generally with the included idea of trust and holy fervour born of faith and joined with it

a) relating to God - 1) the conviction that God exists and is the creator and ruler of all things, the provider and bestower of eternal salvation through Christ

b) relating to Christ - 1) a strong and welcome conviction or belief that Jesus is the Messiah, through whom we obtain eternal salvation in the kingdom of God

c) the religious beliefs of Christians

d) belief with the predominate idea of trust (or confidence) whether in God or in Christ, springing from faith in the same”

People regularly say they ‘know’ something, when what they really mean is that they have full confidence in it. If you wish for faith, ask God for it. If you do not wish, then do not ask.

From the beginning of the thread, I was using the term "literal" to mean a scientific or historical reading of Genesis. You came along and criticized this position. I clarified what I meant by "literal" as a way to avoid allowing you to reduce my argument to a straw man (not assuming you were doing so intentionally). At the same time, I was generous and left the meaning of literal open to interpretation, as I was not sure how you were using the term. Then you turned around and said I was mounting a straw man argument. On the contrary, I was attempting to avoid a battle of straw men. I am not interested in fighting a straw man, ok? That was the whole point of clearly define my terms, precisely to avoid boxing your position into a straw man -- why would I want to do that if I am sincerely interested in what you have to say? And I am. And I do not assume you are interested in mounting a straw man either -- unlike a lot of the Protestants who seem to make it their business to create straw man at the drop of a hat. So let's move on without the presumption of anyone intentionally mounting fallacious arguments and stick as best we can to rigorous logical procedure, as best as we can.

Apart from confusion over the term literal, which we really just need to move past, what I am saying follows from Vatican II:

"In determining the intention of the sacred writers, attention must be paid, inter alia, to 'literary forms for the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts,' and in other forms of literary expression" (Vatican II, Dei Verbum, no. 12).

The Bible needs to be interpreted as inerrant, but inerrant within its appropriate literary context. To take Genesis and read it as a science book is to misappropriate the creation story within a literature genre that did not exist at the time Genesis was written, which was directed at an audience for whom scientific language as we know it had no meaning. To unveil the true meaning of Genesis, we must adopt the text within its cultural and historical context, and the literary genre of the text, and read it accordingly. With those lenses on, Genesis is completely consonent with contemporary scientific evidence, which is not to say the materialistic assumptions that often go unquestioned by many scientists, but only the scientific evidence, which take to its limits, in fact undermine the assumptions of materialism.

You have agreed that Genesis should not be read as a science book, and we agree it should be read within its appropriate literary gentre, and as such reveals inerrant theological truths.

So, in that case, what do you object to in what I have said? Are we now on the same page?

The point I'm making is that numbers in the Bible often have symbolic significance, and are not necessarily to be taken literally. Seven, forty, twelve, etc., are numbers that appear repeatedly, and have symbolic significance representing holiness or a great multitude, etc, and are not to be taken as an exact 'head count,' per se.

Nope...While many of the numbers have symbolic or even prophetic significance, they are to be taken literally as well...

The Church is in a crisis because many young people would sooner give up belief in the Bible than dispense with belief in the overwhelming evidence the sciences have collected on the cosmogenesis of the universe and evolution.

Overwhelming evidence of evolution??? Science has never proven the scriptures to be wrong and never will...The scriptures on the other hand, have proven science to be wrong on more than one occasion...

When the Bible is understood on the appropriate literary terms, and not taken as a science text, it can be understood to be entirely consistent with current scientific understanding, and in fact the sciences imply the necessity of a Creator.

You may be right on that one...IF you want to read the scriptures as tho it is a novel or a cookbook, you may be able to come to that conclusion...

Was Ahasiah 22- (2 Ki. 8:26), 32- (2 Ch. 21:20), or 42-years-old (2 Ch. 21:20) when he began to reign? etc. But since they are usually more symbolic in value than an actual record of exact numerical measurements, then that is not something to be concerned about.

With a little research you will find that there are two Ahasiahs involved...One is a son, the other is a son-in-law or step-son...God did not just throw in random numbers to fill up space...

I meant wisdom working within you

My wisdom?

I am not threatened by a book that describes talking donkeys. And then you say..I live in peace wondering why do people believe in assumptions and then speak of them as if they were facts? So, therefore, the why do people includes you.

I am not sure I follow you. I made no assumptions. I read the thread and saw statements like "God wrote the scripture through man..." Is that a fact? If so, please provide proof. Facts are provable; assumptions are not. I wonder why people believe that a donkey can talk rationally, or that diseases are caused by 'demons' just because someone wrote that in the Bible.

Sorry for the cheap shot at Protestants in the last post. I meant to say that there are certain particular Protestant posters—who shall go unnamed—who seem to love mounting straw man arguments as a matter of habit. Catholics are not immune to fallacious arguments.

LOL! I'm not even a chr*stian, much less a Protestant! Of course I've told you that before and you didn't see it. So much for "empirical science!"

***I read the thread and saw statements like “God wrote the scripture through man...” Is that a fact? If so, please provide proof.***

We appear to be a little shy on proofs. There are many people who claim knowledge still. Yet, this Gnostic wisdom, although differing amongst most all of our our friends, does not appear to have any defined source.

***I read the thread and saw statements like “God wrote the scripture through man...” Is that a fact? If so, please provide proof.***

How do you know the bread and wine become "body and blood?" Gnostic knowledge of some kind?

While I of course as a non-Catholic don't accept the decrees of the First Vatican Council, I find it interesting that as a Catholic, neither do you.

***How do you know the bread and wine become “body and blood?” Gnostic knowledge of some kind? ***

Did I ever say that I know? Proofs, please.

***While I of course as a non-Catholic don’t accept the decrees of the First Vatican Council, I find it interesting that as a Catholic, neither do you.***

Which decree do I not accept?

***Nope...While many of the numbers have symbolic or even prophetic significance, they are to be taken literally as well...

According to what infallible authority? ***

The Church of Iscool (population 1) has come up with astounding theology. And very novel interpretations of Scripture.

***The scriptures on the other hand, have proven science to be wrong on more than one occasion...

LOL! This makes no sense. Do even understand what the scientific method is?***

When one confuses knowledge with belief, what importance does the scientific method have?

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