If you’re familiar with Adventures in Odyssey, you might recall the classic episode where two boys obsess over using a misheard word that they don’t know the meaning of. That episode is called the War of the Words, if my memory serves me correctly. That scenario always makes me laugh. I mean, I didn’t know that many variations of the word “maladroit” were possible! The theme of the episode is pretty straight-forward, don’t use a word until you know what it means. Seems like pretty solid advice. However, things start to get rocky when you think you understand what a word means, but it ends up meaning something completely different.
If you go to your Church’s website and navigate over to the statement of faith, you’ll likely find either the word “infallible” or “inerrant” used when describing Scripture. The meaning of inerrancy is pretty undisputed. According to theologian Wayne Grudem, it means “that Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact.” In other words, it makes no errors. However, I find that a lot of people think they know what the word “infallible” means, (honestly I did until I began researching this article!) but it probably doesn’t mean what you think it does.
Most of the people I’ve talked with about this topic seem to believe that the word infallible means the ability to contain mistakes. When used to talk about Scripture, they take it to mean that Scripture, while divinely inspired, leans into its human authorship (and thus, the ability to have errors) when talking about matters not concerning faith. However, if you look it up in a dictionary you’ll probably find something along these lines.
“Infallible”
adjective
incapable of making mistakes or being wrong.
Yes, this is what it means. Weird, huh?
Infallibility Vs. Inerrancy
To quote Ligonier.org, “We can have inerrancy without infallibility, but we cannot have infallibility without inerrancy. Infallibility necessarily results in the text’s being free from error; without infallibility, the production of an inerrant text is accidental. It could have otherwise had errors.” This shows that the battle between inerrancy and infallibility really doesn’t exist. They go hand in hand.
But that doesn’t get to the heart of the issue people are talking about. People aren’t really taking sides on infallibility vs. inerrancy, they’re asking “can we trust the Bible completely?”
It’s a heavy and appropriate question to ask. But even hard questions have answers.
Objections To Innerancy
From my experience, people who hold an ‘infallibility’ position, meaning they think that the Bible has the ability to make mistakes, believe that the Bible is only authoritative when it comes to matters of faith. On a surface level, that sounds like a valid statement. However, the Omniscient Creator God of the Universe is the Author of Scripture. If He took the time to write a book, I think He’d know enough about what He was writing about (His own creation.) If He intentionally made mistakes in His own books just so He could emphasize matters of faith and practice, that would be ridiculous. In the words of Kronk, “by all accounts, it doesn’t make sense.”
The purpose of the Bible isn’t to be an instruction manual for not sinning and living a decent life. No, Scripture is fully authoritative regarding everything it talks about. According to Wayne Grudem, “It is better to say that the whole purpose of Scripture is to say everything it does say, on whatever subject.”
Plus, the people who wrote the Bible itself knew what they were doing. Let’s look at the writers of the New Testament. There was not one portion of the Old Testament that they disregarded as truth, in fact they referenced even so-called minor details in their books numerous times! All of Scripture was intended to be viewed as Authoritative, because it is. And Scripture has proved itself to be so.
However, one of the most common objections to inerrancy is the idea that there are in fact mistakes/contradictions in Scripture, and therefore it cannot be inerrant.
The first thing that I must say is that Scripture is Inerrant in its original manuscripts (Grudem). Some Hebrew/Greek/Aramaic words don’t directly translate into English, so they may appear to make mistakes according to the English reader. However, a lot of these so-called contradictions are resolved once you look at the meaning of the original texts. Not every idea can be clarified through looking at the original texts, but a surprising number of them can.
And, just because something doesn’t make sense to us humans doesn’t mean it’s unfounded. I know someone who insists that Algebra is useless, and while I’m tempted to agree with him I also know that it serves far more use than what we students can see as we’re learning it. Just because the Holy Spirit hasn’t revealed to us something about His word yet doesn’t mean it cannot be understood, or that we won’t understand it later.
Conclusion
If you ever come across a passage that you don’t understand or that’s troubling you, bring it up with a brother or sister in Christ who could give you some guidance. I also recommend seeing what solid theologians and apologists have to say on the subject you’re concerned about, because odds are somebody’s provided a solid answer to whatever question you’re asking. But more importantly, bring it up with the Lord in prayer. He is always ready and willing to speak to His children, if only we have the heart to receive what He has to say.