The Irrelevance of Inerrancy Debates for Today's Apologetics

Christians have historically believed that their Scriptures are true and trustworthy, sufficient, infallible, and even inerrant. Amen!

Moreover, I would argue that it is quite valid and even necessary for Christians to assert the truthfulness of the Holy Scriptures. As part of the church’s own internal discourse, we must explain how God’s authority is, through the Holy Spirit, mediated in Scripture; explain how Scripture is simultaneously divine and human; and explain how Scripture is authoritative and normative for Christian belief and practice.

There are different ways of doing that task and different challenges to be met in the process. As such, Christian theologians over the centuries have had to tackle different problems, with different tools, for different ends when it comes to explaining the veracity of Scripture. I mean, it is one thing to defend Scripture against Manichean claims that the Bible is full of contradictions (i.e., Augustine) and another thing to explain how a text such the Bible can communicate and carry intended meaning rather than unleash an infinite array of disparate interpretations (i.e., Kevin Vanhoozer). The Battle for the Bible is different in every age.

And that is precisely my point.

We are no longer arguing with nineteenth-century German biblical criticism.

We are no longer doing the modernist vs. fundamentalist debates of the early twentieth century.

We are no longer arguing about whether the Fuller Seminary faculty of the 1970s believed in inerrancy or not.

We are not arguing whether Robert Gundry or Michael Licona violated the canons of inerrancy by their interpretations of the Gospels.

Those debates are now history. By all means, file them away for reference, but we do not need to articulate biblical infallibility/inerrancy as if we are living in the 1920s or 1970s.

Consequently, asking someone, “Are you pro- or anti- the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy” is so 1980s that it’s like asking someone, “Do you prefer VHS or Beta for your VCR?”

Don’t get me wrong, those discussions and debates had their day and their purpose. But the discussions and debates have evolved over time. The Bible is still a contested book, and we must rise to meet the contest, it is just that the contest has changed.

As a result, we have to stop using 1970s arguments to defeat 2020s objections to Christianity and its Scriptures.

Accordingly, we have to articulate and defend a doctrine of Scripture in the face of several new challenges: