0009 How so?

Forty years after the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy is published, theologians are figuring ways to accommodate deniers by re-contextualizing the affirmations.

0010 I love sentences like that.

If a speaker utters that sentence from a podium at a science and religion conference, everyone nods in agreement.

0011 The scientists, sitting on one side of the auditorium, are interested in postulating extra-Biblical sources for Genesis 1-11, comparing the Creation Story to evolutionary science and finding it well… like I said… a flight of fancy, showing that the Biblical accounts are not historical in the modern sense of the word, and saving the best for last, guessing who the “redactor” must be.

These interests stem from the doctrine of scientific inerrancy and the somewhat foggy promise that scientists will become the high priests and priestesses of the emerging big(il)lib civilization.

That’s big government (il)liberalism.

The bigger that the government gets, the more illiberal the cult becomes.

0012 Christian theologians, sitting on the other side of the auditorium, are interested in using grammar and the milieu of ancient Near Eastern civilization to bury the hatchet of Biblical inerrancy and retain positions in the coming… how shall I say it?.. civilizational reorganization.

0013 I now ask, “Is there a certain ambiguity to the key word in Ross’s title.”

How can the term, “inerrant”, apply to both science and the Bible?

0014 May I recall a concept proposed by Razie Mah in How To Define The Word “Religion”, available at smashwords and other e-book venues?

Definition₃ brings a spoken term₂ into relation with the possibility of meaning, presence and message₁.

Say what?

Okay, it helps to start with A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction.  The category-based nested form manifests four statements.  The final statement goes like this.  A triadic normal context₃ brings a dyadic actuality₂ into relation with the monadic possibility of ‘something’₁.  The subscripts correspond to Peirce’s categories of thirdness, secondness and firstness.  So, the statement also says, “Thirdness brings secondness into relation with firstness.”

0015 Here is a way to script the category-based nested form along with its application to definition.

Ah, look, the actuality₂ in the application is the spoken word, “inerrancy”₂.

0016 Not to rush the issue, but I may now ask, “Does this definition of ‘inerrancy’ apply to article 18, mentioned above?”

The answer is “Yes, as seen in the following figure.”

0017 The normal context of definition₃ brings the actuality of the spoken word, “inerrancy”₂, into relation with the possibilities of ‘meaning, presence and message’₁.

0018 For the theologian, the meaning is history in the widest sense of the word.  In short, history serves as a witness, testifying to what happened.  The preservation of testimony through oral tradition may not be perfect, but those imperfections are expected for the operations of an oral tradition.  In that respect, apparent flaws serve as evidence of preservation across generations.

0019 Presence is much more difficult to assess.  Presence must concern the revelation itself.  Presence is what happened, stated plainly or “exoterically”.  Presence is also what happened, in regards to what cannot be stated plainlybecause witnesses cannot situate the content of their experiences.  The technical term is “esoteric”.

In Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, the apparently insane and distraught prince stages a play for the court that re-enacts the murder of his father.  Genesis 1-11 is not much different.  We are in the court, watching a play, completely unaware that what is happening on stage really happened.

Oh, but someone in Hamlet’s audience knows.  The murderer was there when it happened.

0020 Message is also exoteric and esoteric.

For example, everyone knows that “day” means day.  Yet, the same word may send an esoteric message about a span of time very different than a rotation of planet Earth… or the rising and setting of the sun.

That raises the question, “Who was there to witness the signs contained in each Genesis day?”

0021 What does article 18 say concerning what it denies?

How do the deniers regard “biblical inerrancy”?

Here is one way to look at it.

0022 Science is inerrant, not the Bible.

In terms of meaning, Genesis is not history in the modern sense.

In terms of presence, Genesis has nothing to do with the evolutionary sciences.  The word, “no thing” is synonymous with “no presence”.

In terms of message, Genesis is like any other mythology in the civilized ancient Near East.  Some Christians (such as theologian William Lane Craig) may call it “mytho-history”.  And, that label makes sense, in so far as myths are historical beings.  Well, it also makes sense in so far as a myth may descend from a real historic event.  But, one cannot reconstruct the historic event from the myth.  That must come from an extra-biblical source… er… hypothesis.

0023 The category-based nested form for the actuality of the spoken term, “Biblical inerrancy”, comports with Ross’s introductory argument.  At the same time, it does not.

Ross portrays a theodrama where a conclave of Protestant theologians meet in Chicago and set a standard.  Later, theologians start to compromise in the face of deniers.

He extends the theodrama to include the past few centuries.

0024 To this examiner, the theodrama is much older.   The separation of… what?… what the modern theologians will affirm… and what the modern theologians will deny…. has a mytho-history.  And, this now-esoteric theodramatic development is very much in evidence during the thirteenth century, the saeculorum when Saint Thomas Aquinas “baptized” the philosophy of Aristotle, whose writings had just been looted from Islamic jurisdictions by Christian Crusaders.

Or, were Aristotle’s writings “liberated”?

0025 Hmmm, before I go there, I want to dwell of the other key word in Ross’s title: “rescue”.

Here is a picture of what rescuing Biblical inerrancy may involve.

0026 As for meaning, Genesis 1-11 serves as an honest witness to the start of our world and our current Lebenswelt.  Obviously, these are not the same.  There is a disjuncture between Genesis 2.3, where the Creation Story closes, and Genesis 2.4, where the Primeval History begins.

Whoa!  “Primeval history” labels Genesis 1-11.  Doesn’t it?

Not in this examination.

Here, the Creation Story is Genesis:1 to 2.3.  The Primeval History is Genesis:2.4 to 11.

Keep that terminology in mind.

It plays a part in any rescue.

0027 As for presence, the Creation Story is a sign of the evolutionary record.  Ross does not fully articulate that concept in this book.  But, what Ross calls “moderate concordism” sounds like presence to me.  Just as Hamlet presents his play to the court in order to raise the awareness of one member of the audience, the person who killed his father, so God presents the Creation Story in order to raise the consciousness of a particular audience in our modern theodrama, the deniers.

Who could have imagined?

What crimes are the deniers guilty of?

I hope that they are not anything like the crimes committed by Adam and Eve.

0028 Finally, in regards to message, I have to ask, “What is it about spoken words?”

In the Creation Story, God speaks and nature (which is not God) constructs a reality that manifests God’s words.

In the Primeval History, there is a serpent with no hands, who speaks in such a way as to completely fool poor Eve, who walks right into a legal trap.

Oh, Eve will not “die”, because that is not how the serpent defines the word, “to die”.  In fact, the serpent has all sorts of alternate definitions to apply to the act of eating fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  None of them carry the suggestion that Eve keep the seed of that fruit in order to plant it outside of Eden, once she and Adam get tossed off the premises.

0029 It makes me wonder whether that is precisely what Eve does.

Okay, I admit, Ross does not go there.

Instead, the title says it all: Rescuing Inerrancy: A Scientific Defense.

I ask, “What does the spoken word, ‘inerrancy’ mean?  Why does it need to be ‘rescued’?  What does a ‘scientific defense’ entail?”

0030 In our postmodern world, the titular terms and my list of questions entail explicit abstraction.  “Inerrancy”, “rescue” and “scientific defense” are terms that hand-talking ancestral hominins could never sign… or manual-brachial word-gesture.  Why?  What is there to picture or point to?

Hand-talk words picture and point to their referents.  So, the meaning, the presence and the message of a manual-brachial word-gesture involves implicit abstraction.  The referent is implicit to the gesture-word.  The referent is what the gesture-word pictures or points to.

That is not the case with speech-alone talk.

Spoken words cannot picture or point to anything.

0031 Spoken words are purely symbolic labels.

I ask, “What happens to labels over time?”

One of the quirky theologians of the 20^th century, Henri de Lubac, notices that the meanings, presences and messages₁underlying spoken words₂ change over centuries.  He focuses on the words, “nature” and “grace.  Both these words are explicit abstractions.  They both must be defined₃.

0032 What about the term, “inerrancy”?

The first six chapters of Ross’s book (one through six) are devoted to “Biblical inerrancy” and its companion “dual revelation”.

The next five chapters (seven through eleven) argues that the first step in the rescue of “Biblical inerrancy” is concordism.  Concordism is the doctrine that um… the two revelations of… is it?… grace and nature?… or Bible and science?… are in harmony, if, for no other reason, they pertain to the same thing.

0033 I suppose that is why the old distinction between grace and nature, which is older than Saint Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274 AD), seems relevant.

0034 “Grace” goes with “Biblical inerrancy”.  Chapter six discusses this connection.  The Psalms declare that the Lord’s word is flawless and true.  Jesus embodies the life and the truth.

In a weird sort of way, “flawless” goes with “life”.  That would be an esoteric meaning, presence and message.  Life is not flawless unless… dare I say… it is compared to death.

Even a mortally wounded creature is alive… until… dead.  After I binge-watch dozens of medical podcasts on the most grotesque medical conditions, I marvel that people are alive.  There are so many things that can go wrong.  That is where truth comes in.  The multitude of subagencies within the agent remain true, living, and (relatively speaking) flawless, until, gasp, grace no longer inflows.

0036 “Nature” goes with “scientific inerrancy”.  Here, the thing itself (the noumenon) is disregarded.  The observable and measurable facets of the thing (its phenomena) are regarded.  Ideally, a disciplinary scientific language brings mathematical and mechanical models into relation with data (that is, observations and measurements of phenomena).

To many scientists, when a model works really well, it takes on a truth, a life and a flawlessness of its own.  It can take the place of the noumenon, the thing itself.  Until, of course, it is proven to be inadequate.  Newton’s mechanical physics is a case in point.  It worked really well until physicists could not account for the energy spectrum of light coming from a pinhole in a black metal box with a heated interior.  How crazy is that?

We still use Newton’s mechanics today, but almost all research goes into figuring out those odd exceptions.  The exceptional field is called “quantum mechanics”.  Quantum mechanics investigates light, among other things.  Atomic and subatomic nature is known through quantum mechanical models.

0037 The upper hylomorphe marks the beginning and the end of my examination of Ross’s text.

The lower hylomorphe suggests that maybe Henri de Lubac is on target.

0038 Inerrancy is tied to dual revelation.  Two aspects of one reality are revealed.  At the start, these two aspects are grace and nature.

0039 The philosophy of Charles Peirce enters here.  He proposes three categories: firstness, secondness and thirdness.  The category-based nested form contains all three categories.

Here, I want to drill down on secondness.  Secondness contains two contiguous real elements.  For Aristotle’s hylomorphe, the two real elements are matter and form.  The contiguity is placed in brackets for proper notation.  What word describes the contiguity between matter and form?  I choose the much abused term, “substance”.  A thing is matter [substance] form.

0040 Now, scholastics of the early medieval period (say, in the centuries leading to and including the founding of universities in Europe) express a theological hylomorphe that complements Aristotle’s hylomorphe.

Here is a picture.

0041 Of course, a modern may object that “grace” is not like matter because it is not material.

However, in reply, I note that “grace” is being, which stands at one end of a spectrum between relationality and materiality.  I could have written the following, “A purely relational being [substantiates] a natural form.”

Oh, the objections do not stop there.

The same modern may object that “nature” is not susceptible to immaterial, purely relational beings.

To which I reply, “Sign-relations are purely relational beings and creatures in nature are always dealing with signs.  Indeed, biologist Jakob von Uexkull comes up with a technical word for any living creature’s world of significance.  The term is ‘Umwelt’.  Yeah, the noun is capitalized in German.  Each noun is like an an-Noun-cement.”

0042 Now, I ask, “Why does Aristotle offer his hylomorphe as the first step in natural philosophy?”

Here is the answer, as far as I can see.

The normal context of Aristotle’s philosophy₃ brings the actuality of the hylomorphe, matter [substance] form₂, into relation with the potential of the material, efficient, formal and final causes₁.

A person encounters a thing.  An inquirer may understand this thing₂, starting with matter [substance] form₂.  Understanding provides a normal context₃ and potential₁.

0043 Now I ask, “Why do the early schoolmen offer their hylomorphe as the first step in bringing the revelations of the Old and New Testaments into harmony with the rationality of Greek philosophy?”

Obviously, the revelations of the Old and New Testaments enter into Greek natural reasonings and redeem them.  The revelations of Jerusalem bring Greek philosophy to life.

0044 Okay, when I want to understand how grace [inflows] nature₂, I place this hylomorphe into a normal context₃ and a potential₁.

How do I do this?

I take a guess.

Yes, that is a reasonable guess.

0045 However, this guess leads to another question, asking, “If grace₂ is like matter₂ and nature₂ is like shape₂, then what label do I put for the equivalent to Aristotle’s ‘thing’₂, given the normal context₃ of the Holy Spirit₃ and the potential for ‘bringing forth good’₁?”

Perhaps, the human as an image of God?

Well, whatever the label may be, it is not scientific.

0046 Does science have metrics to distinguish the phenomena of life from, say, the phenomena of death?

If so, there must be a caveat.

The phenomena of life indicate that the noumenon, life, is present.  But, these phenomena cannot objectify the thing itself.

I call this caveat, “Kant’s slogan”, because, if any Western philosopher is worthy of being falsely accused, that person is the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804 AD).

In other words, Kant may not explicitly state this slogan, but he comes close enough for the slogan to stick to him.  Slogans can be like tar-babies in this regard.  Once you touch a tar-baby, you are stuck with it.

Not surprisingly, that reminds me of Christians conjunct science.

0047 Kant’s slogan expresses what is of the Positivist’s judgment.  The Positivist’s judgment contains three elements: relation, what ought to be, and what is.

The relation is the positivist intellect.  The positivist intellect is imbued with thirdness, the realm of normal contexts. The positivist intellect has a rule.  Metaphysics is not allowed.

What ought to be is the empirio-schematic judgment.  In the empirio-schematic judgment, disciplinary language (relation, thirdness) brings mathematical and mechanical models (what ought to be, secondness) into relation with observations and measurements of phenomena (what is, firstness).  The empirio-schematic judgment is imbued with secondness, even though, technically, it should belong to thirdness.  After all, judgments are triadic relations.

What is is Kant’s slogan, rendered as a dyadic structure.  The structure appears to belong to secondness, the realm of actuality, but it really belongs to firstness, the realm of possibility.  Why?  The noumenon and its phenomena cannot be regarded independently, unlike matter and form, as well as grace and nature.  So, what is of the Positivist’s judgment does not depict two independent real elements.  The thing itself and its observable and measurable facets can be distinguished, but not separated.

0048 Here is a picture of what is of the Positivist’s judgment.

0049 Oh, there is a clue in this figure.

Aristotle’s thing goes with the noumenon.  So does grace [inflows] nature.

Science builds models on the basis of observations and measurements of phenomena.

Science ignores the noumenon because the thing itself cannot be reduced to what can be observed and measured.

0050 The question that I now address wonders, “How do I get from the dyad (in secondness) in the cloud to the noumenon (in firstness) that belongs to what is in the Positivist’s judgment?”

My starting point is grace [inflows] nature, rather than matter [substance] form.

Grace [inflows] nature belongs to secondness, the dyadic realm of actuality.  In order to bring this dyad into the noumenon, in the monadic realm of possibility, grace must be separated from nature.  That separation must be so complete that grace can potentially be regarded as totally independent of nature.  The same goes with nature.  Nature will need to be regarded as totally independent of grace.

0051 Here is one way to picture the trajectory.

0052 Before Aquinas, grace [inflows] nature describes… what?… health, well-being, redemption, happiness, the living human being?  By the time of Aquinas in the 1200s, the two labels, “grace” and “nature” are regarded as distinct and separate.  Grace [inflows] nature no longer indicates a living thing.  Rather, each term indicates its own ‘thing’.

In the centuries following Aquinas and before the mechanical philosophers of the 1600s, the distinction and separation becomes routine.

0053 From the above figure, it seems that the dyad saying that grace [is distinct and separate from] nature should lead to two associations.  Grace should associate to the noumenon.  Nature should associate to phenomena.

This does not happen, because the Positivist’s judgment is yet to be ideated.

0054 Instead, the separation solidifies.  After all, the terms, “grace” and “nature” are different terms, so they must refer to separate things, rather than real elements that constitute a thing.  Eventually, western Christendom will explore some very strange concepts, such as matter without form and form without matter.  But, the reification of these two spoken words begins by attributing completely distinct and separate referents to “grace” and “nature”.

0055 By the time of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642 AD), everyone agrees.  There are two books of revelation, the Bible (filled with grace) and the world (the stuff of nature).

0056 At this point,  judgment cannot be avoided.

Here is the general structure of judgment as a triadic relation.

0057 A relation (category) brings what ought to be (category) into relation with what is (category).  When each of the three elements is uniquely assigned to one of Peirce’s three categories, the judgment becomes actionable.  Actionable judgments unfold according to their categorical assignments.  Thirdness becomes normal context₃.  Secondness enters actuality₂.  Firstness glides into potential₁.

0058 What about this general agreement that is in the Zeitgeist in Europe between the so-called “Reformation” (1500s) and the so-called “Industrial Revolution” (1800s).  The agreement that “grace” and “nature” are distinct and separate (relation) anchors this element in secondness.

Everyone agrees that the separation is actual.  Plus, separation characterizes the relation between “grace” and “nature”.

What about the other elements of the judgment?

Of course, “grace” should go with what ought to be and “nature” with what is.

Here is a picture.

0059 The categorical assignments to “grace” and “nature” set the stage for the historical discussion in Ross’s book.

0060 Let me start with nature as thirdness and grace as firstness.

0061 Yes, this judgment is actionable.

Nature as what is will become the normal context₃ of an actionable judgment.

Grace as what ought to be will enter the realm of possibility₁.

Here is a picture of the resulting nested form.

“Grace” and “nature” have separate referents.  These referents now occupy different positions in a category-based nested form.

0062 To start, the actuality₂ looks awkward.  The normal context of nature₃ is separate from and distinct from the potential of grace₁.  Is that enough?  I don’t think so.  When the normal context is nature₃, the possibility of grace₁should be close to zero.

Why would this be so?

The logics of thirdness are exclusion, complement and alignment.  Grace does not complement or align with nature because it is distinct and separate.  So nature₃ as a normal context will strive to exclude grace₁ as a possibility.

I ask, “Is there a thing₂ that represents the dyadic actuality portrayed above, in a convincing manner?”

The first item that comes to my mind are organizational protocols₂.  Organizational protocols₂ systematically exclude chance events, which would include moments of grace₁, in the normal context of nature₃.

0063 If that is so, then organizational protocols₂ actualize the exclusion of the potential of grace₁.  After all, exclusion is one of the logics of thirdness.  So, I wonder, “What would go into the slot for possibility, that further indicates that grace₁ is excluded?”

Well, what about science, especially the philosophy of the mechanical philosophers?

Unfortunately, the empirio-schematic judgment, when unfolded into a content-level category-based nested form, looks like it would go into the slot for protocols_2b.

0064 So, what if I elevate nature₃ to the perspective_c level and put scientific inquiry₂ into the content_a level?  Then, scientific inquiry_2a provides models_1c that contribute to protocols_2c and exclude grace as a perspective_c-level potential_1c.

The nice feature of the content-level is that it fulfills the scientist’s self-impression that his work entails a search for truth.  The logos_3a (the word that is eventually codified in specialized disciplinary languages) brings the actuality of scientific inquiry_2a (manifesting the protocols_2c of the empirio-schematic judgment_2c) into relation with the potential for ‘truth’_1a.  Truth is not the same as grace.  Truth_1a is… well… what science reveals_1a.

0065 I am only missing the situation level, which must belong to the scientist.

The interscope is a category-based nested form composed of category-based nested forms.  See A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

Here is how to state the above figure.

On the perspective level, the normal context of nature_3c brings the actuality of protocols_2c into relation with the possibility of ‘models’_1c.  The models_1c contextualize both scientific specializations_2b and scientific inquiry_2a.

On the situation level, the normal context of expertise_3b brings the actuality of specialized jobs and research positions_2binto relation with the potential of ‘institutionalizing scientific inquiry’_1b.  Scientific work becomes more and more professional during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  Today, academic certification “guarantees” expertise_3b.

On the content level, the normal context of logos_3a (or the “words” of a disciplinary language) brings the actuality of scientific inquiry_2a (the empirio-schematic judgment) into relation with the potential of ‘truth’_1a (the validity of models accounting for observations and measurements of phenomena). Of course, the terms, “logos” and “truth” also have more expansive connotations.

0066 In sum, I have learned that the widespread acceptance of the distinction and the separation of grace and nature since the recovery of Aristotle by Saint Thomas Aquinas has significant consequences.  The distinction and separationare regarded as real as the distinction and separation of two referents or “things”.  These two “things” are products of explicit abstraction.

Explicit abstraction is potentiated when humans adopt speech-alone talk during the first singularity, starting around 7825 years ago.  No precise date has been set.  Before that transition, all human cultures practice hand-speech talk, which combines the iconicity and indexality of hand-talk with the symbol-generating qualities of speech.  Unlike hand talk, speech cannot picture or point to anything.  So, speech serves as an adornment to hand talk, even as it takes on a life of its own during the Upper Paleolithic.

0067 Hand-talk and hand-speech talk facilitate implicit abstraction in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

Speech-alone talk facilitates explicit abstraction in our current Lebenswelt.

0068 The three-level interscope pictured above allows the inquirer to conduct implicit abstraction based on explicit terms occupying locations in a purely relational structure called “an interscope”.  In the interscope, perspective_c brings situation_b into relation with the potential of content_a.  This interscope derives from imbuing nature (what is) with thirdness.

0069 Let me go to grace as thirdness and nature as firstness.

Here is a picture of the judgment.

0070 As before, the relation is imbued with secondness, so this term will enter actuality₂ for the following category-based nested form.

0071 Now I wonder, “What is an actuality₂ that coheres to the normal context₃ (of grace) while standing distinct and separate from its potential₁ (of nature)?”

If I choose the actuality₂ of redemption₂, then I can be assured of the possibility ‘that nature is excluded’₁, in the normal context of grace₃.

Redemption₂ does not have much to do when it comes to nature₁, in the same way that protocols₂ do not have much to do with grace₁.

0072 The abduction does not stop there, because redemption₂, as an actuality, engenders a nested form on the adjacent lower level.  Redemption₂ seems to situate the normal context of salvation₃ bringing the actuality of a personal relationship with God₂ into relation with the potential of the church₁.

At the moment, I am uncertain whether the two levels correspond to situation and content or to perspective and situation.  Let me continue.

0073 With this pairing of category-based nested forms in tow, I wonder about the possibility of ‘excluding nature’₁.  Is this potential compatible with the potential of the ‘church’?  Oh, I can think of a better term than “excluding nature”.  How about the word, “creation”?

Ah, if “creation” is the perspective-level potential_1c, then “creation_1c” contextualizes both the Bible_2a and theological formulations of my personal relationship with God_2b.

There is the resulting interscope.

0074 On a perspective level, the normal context of grace_3c brings the actuality of redemption_2c into relation with the possibility of ‘creation’_1c.

On the situation level, the normal context of salvation_3b brings the actuality of a personal relationship with God_2b into relation with the potential of ‘the church’_1b.  Theologians and pastors are crucial in manifesting the situation-level normal context_3b and potential_1b.

On the content level, the normal context of the logos_3a brings the actuality of the Bible_2a into relation with the possibility of ‘revelation’_1a.