Heritage: Inerrancy Defined

                                                                     Vol. VIII, No. 1, January 1995

Please contrast the skeptical approach to the Bible expressed by Glenn Hinson just below in "Antiheritage" [Note: Available in the “Antiheritage” archive under the above date.] with the orthodox position taken by Duane Garrett in the following selection.

"Inerrancy means that we, as believers, have submitted ourselves to the authority of Christ, his apostles, and the Old Testament Scriptures that they themselves were under. And we cannot be under their authority while at the same time we consider ourselves free to declare what they assert to be wrong or erroneous. When we encounter historical or theological problems in the text, we deal with them honestly; happily, Christians of the present and former generations have already satisfactorily resolved many of the thorniest problems. But when we begin to say of the text, ‘This is in error,’ we have radically altered our position vis-a-vis the Word of God. We have assumed the position of its judge. Inerrancy is thus more than a theological domino theory. It is submission to God’s revelation and a confession of our own inadequacy to speak meaningfully about God or the history of His work in the world without that revelation. But when we say that the Bible has errors, we have placed ourselves over it, for we set ourselves in the position of deciding what parts are erroneous and what parts are not. Unresolved problems remain, but that is exactly what they are – unresolved problems. They are far from being compelling proofs of inaccuracy in the Bible. Therefore, we do not abandon our faith that the Bible is true just because problems exist, but we continue to study it with faith and trust while we rejoice at how past and present research vindicates that faith.”

[Excerpted from the article “Inerrancy as a Principle of Biblical Hermeneutics” by Duane A. Garrett published in the book by Duane A. Garrett & Richard A. Melick, Jr., Authority and Interpretation, A Baptist Perspective, Baker Book House, 1987, p. 67.]