{"id":9242,"date":"2025-07-30T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=9242"},"modified":"2024-12-21T20:43:11","modified_gmt":"2024-12-21T20:43:11","slug":"looking-at-hugh-rosss-book-2023-rescuing-inerrancy-part-2-of-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=9242","title":{"rendered":"Looking at Hugh Ross’s Book (2023) “Rescuing Inerrancy” (Part 2 of 25)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

0009 How so?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forty years after the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy<\/em> is published, theologians are figuring ways to accommodate deniers by re-contextualizing the affirmations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0010 I love sentences like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If a speaker utters that sentence from a podium at a science and religion conference,<\/em> everyone nods in agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

That’s big government (il)liberalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bigger that the government gets, the more illiberal the cult becomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

0013 I now ask, “Is there a certain ambiguity to the key word in Ross’s title.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can the term, “inerrant”, apply to both science and the Bible?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Definition3<\/sub><\/em> brings a spoken term2<\/sub><\/em> into relation with the possibility of meaning, presence and message1<\/sub><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Say what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

0015 Here is a way to script the category-based nested form<\/em> along with its application to definition<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ah, look, the actuality2<\/sub> in the application is the spoken word, “inerrancy”2<\/sub>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The answer is “Yes, as seen in the following figure.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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

0018 For the theologian, the meaning is history in the widest sense of the word<\/em>.  In short, history serves as a witness, testifying to what happened<\/em>.  The preservation of testimony through oral tradition<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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<\/em> really happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, but someone in Hamlet’s audience<\/em> knows.  The murderer<\/em> was there when it happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0020 Message is also exoteric and esoteric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That raises the question, “Who was there to witness the signs contained in each Genesis day?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0021 What does article 18 say concerning what it denies?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do the deniers regard “biblical inerrancy”?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is one way to look at it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

0022 Science is inerrant, not the Bible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of meaning, Genesis is not history in the modern sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of presence, Genesis has nothing to do with the evolutionary sciences.  The word, “no thing” is synonymous with “no presence”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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. 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