I found a post that makes the claim and several arguments against the concept of biblical inerrancy. I am perhaps a little heavy on the rebuttals in this post and considered not linking to the original post as to avoid potential offense to the author of the post. I decided, ultimately, to include it, so as to allow the original poster their "fair shot" by allowing people reading this to read the original post, and to allow readers to know certainly that I did not make up these arguments.
The concept of biblical inerrancy is quite simple: the bible is the perfect word of God and nothing in it is wrong. People often try to claim there are errors in the bible by pointing out "contradictions", but research shows all of these contradictions to be conclusions forced by people seeking to discredit the bible and not actual contradictions. This person takes a different route and, from the perspective of a believer in Jesus, tries to argue against biblical inerrancy, for some reason. Here are his arguments and subsequent rebuttals.
1. The opposition argues that "trusting in the bible despite its errors" is actually faith. The comparison this person attempts to make is by comparing it to trusting his mother who correctly told him that he could be hit by a car while crossing the street, despite his mother's fallibility. This argument attempts to say that he trusts his mother, even if she does make errors sometimes, because she is right about other things.
A. The issue most glaring here is that the two things are not comparable - a fallible human whose ideas, opinions, and knowledge can dynamically change is not the same thing as the unchanging word of God. I would graciously assume that the opposition here was not actually trying to compare his mother to literally God, as if God himself could make mistakes in His word through the bible, but rather a new take on the "people wrote the bible" argument, where someone like his mother could perhaps write a book that may contain errors because she is fallible. Furthermore, this argument would then logically follow that this person believes
everything the bible says that he cannot otherwise prove to be wrong,
but simply believes it still could be wrong, which does not seem like "faith" to me.
The other problem here is we can physically prove in the material world many claims such as "if you walk in the street without looking, you could get hit by a car". We cannot prove one way or another what God's commandments are or that a man living over 2000 years ago told us what they are - we can only ever know these things by having them told to us through something like the bible. If your mother tells you an incorrect piece of information regarding the world around you, chances are you can test it to find the true answer. If any statements in the bible were actually wrong in regards to metaphysical reality, we could not possibly know, because we cannot test metaphysical reality. To continue to believe in the possibility of the fault of these claims is definitionally not faith, as (Hebrews 11:1) Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Being convicted about the truth of things you cannot prove is literally faith - to do the opposite cannot also be faith, thus the original argument here is nonsense.
The bible as a whole in every aspect and claimed truth must be trustworthy for it to be worth following at all. We find that trust and faith in the fact that there is a perfect God who intentionally had His word documented in perfect form. If any part of the bible is wrong, then the entire thing cannot be trusted, as there is absolutely no way to prove that Jesus was God in the flesh. The entirety of the historical events that took place within the bible could all be 100% true without Jesus being God in the flesh, but we have absolutely no way to prove it beyond the historical testimony left to us through the books that make up the bible and the logical arguments and conclusions that follow from this evidence. Without the bible to start with, we have no logical arguments or conclusions through which to base our faith in Jesus as God in the flesh.
2. The opposition posits the theory that it requires more faith to believe that the bible is fallible than it does to believe that the bible is infallible.
A. This statement is so absurd, honestly, that I barely know where to start beyond mocking it. The bible contains so many stories - documented as true, historical events - that are literally impossible to have happened without miracle work from God. To believe that it's possible that Noah's or Jonah's stories are fabricated myths is to explicitly weaken your faith in God's unfathomable control and power. Believing a man lived in a whale for 72 hours requires nothing short of immense faith in God to be able to perform such feats that sit directly opposed to everything we know about what stomachs are. To believe it's possible that any given story or statement in the bible is outright false brings what can only be described as doubt upon every metaphysical claim, every spiritual claim in the bible. If God can't keep a man alive in a whale for 72 hours, He very well isn't the God described in the bible, and this casts doubt on every claim made about God thereafter. Doubt, being the opposite of faith, means that this claim is simply the biggest cope I've ever read.
3a. The opposition quotes this verse in 1 Corinthians 13:12 - "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in
part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known." The opposition abuses this verse to contest that Paul is explicitly stating that his knowledge of the things he wrote that became part of the bible was flawed.
A. This verse is taken out of context. Paul is speaking in 1 Corinthians 13 to the people of Corinth who are taking too much pride in their knowledge and prophesy but are forgetting the commandments that Jesus gave to us - "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these." The people of Corinth are favoring works that are not valuable, because in eternity they will "pass away". The knowledge we have now will seem childish to us then, as compared to the way we understood the world when we were children to the way we understand things now. But love will not devalue in eternity, the charity we show and the love we show one another will be as valuable in eternity as it is now, and thus the investment in such things as prophesy and tongues is "childish", so to speak.
Now that we actually know what's going on in this verse, we can address if Paul is actually saying his personal testimonies written in the books that became the bible was flawed. The answer is no, we cannot rightfully extrapolate the idea that what Paul wrote into the bible was flawed because he said that his knowledge as a whole concept, constricted by earthly limitations, was not complete like it will be in heaven. It's not a conclusion that flows from this verse - we would have to be assuming that Paul is confessing literally everything he has ever said is false, at least to some degree. Paul clearly knew of and spoke of things other than what showed up in the bible, and obviously not everything he ever said was correct, but the argument that because Paul confessed to have his understanding of everything limited by his flesh (which we should have already known), that means everything he wrote in the bible could be erroneous, ignores what the bible is and how it came to be.
Obviously Paul was not all-knowing, but we have faith in the inerrancy of the bible in spite of the fact that the people who wrote it were flawed. We know they willingly and faithfully allowed God to use them to write down His word, God knowing what would become of those writings, and that we would use it today to know what God had to say. Indeed, this reads as a slightly different version of, yet again, "the bible was written by fallible humans" argument. How exhausting. No one ever claimed Paul was perfect, just that what he wrote in the bible was guided and inspired by God. This argument is honestly so draining. We never justified the inerrancy of the bible by proclaiming that the people who wrote it were perfect, nor did we ever say that everything they ever said was inerrant. Paul wrote and spoke, surely, a huge number of things throughout his lifetime, but none of the attributes of anything Paul did or said that did not make it into the bible affect the accuracy of the things he wrote that did make it into the bible.
3b. This argument further states that, somehow, by writing this, Paul is implying that to trust his writings is some sort of pompous faithlessness. The opposition goes on to restate his absurd claim that certainty in the bible is faithlessness based on this assumption he has made that Paul was saying that.
A. We are to trust and be faithful to the Lord. The scriptures are God-breathed, (more on this later) which means they are from God, who used humans for His purposes. Paul was a Christian killer who got blinded for three days by a flaming bush on a road, did he have a certainty that God was real? Is he suddenly a faithless man for being so thoroughly and unshakably convicted by God's truth? Do we lack faith when we could absolutely never be shaken from our belief in God? No, this is literally faith, to believe that God is powerful and trustworthy enough to deliver His word to us. We trust in the unseen God who said to us that He gave us the Bible. I trust him on that, because I have faith, not in spite of it. Paul trusted God to be able to inspire him to write perfect, inspired letters that reflected God's perfect truth and perfect will. Paul, despite being flawed, had faith in God so strong that he knew he could trust Him to guide him in his letters to other believers on how to properly follow God's commandments. I have no doubt that Paul was inspired by God and to cast doubt on that is to be faithless in God's ability to do as He pleases and use the people called to His purposes.
I do not believe everything I've ever written or said is inspired by God, but curiously, there have been times when I've written about scripture or biblical truths and suddenly felt "This is forced. Something is wrong." and erased entire paragraphs. I trust God to lead me to write truth and I trust that when, in my brokenness and fallibility as a person, I write something uninspired, God lets me know. God knew very well that what Paul would write would wind up in His word to be read for the next rest of existence, so I can only imagine that God really let Paul know when He didn't like something he wrote. To believe otherwise is, frankly, disgusting. This doubt in God's sovereignty is absolutely wild.
"But...", you say, "Paul could have, in his fallibility, ignored those feelings that "this is wrong" and chose not to omit faulty instruction!" Surely, people often ignore obvious hints from God. But many do not, and people who dedicate themselves fully to God, believing unwaveringly in Him and His power, would not dare to ignore when the spirit convicts them. These people have given up themselves and live for God and His purposes. I am not saying this describes me, but it almost certainly describes Paul. God explicitly chose him out of extraordinary circumstances, knowing what he would do and what he would write. You can't get any more chosen by God than being blinded by a spontaneously combusted bush on your way to kill some Christians and being miraculously converted to follow the God you've been staunchly opposed to your whole life. Doubt in Paul is doubt in God.
4. The opposition argues that "the scriptures are God-breathed" is not a testimony to the accuracy of the bible because Adam and Eve were God-breathed and were not perfect, and thus concludes that no things are perfect. He further states "God did not call His creations perfect, He called them good". He argues that God is the only perfect thing and nothing else can be perfect, thus the scriptures cannot be perfect and therefore must necessarily be flawed.
A. This seems believable at first, but it's sophistry, as several of the premises are false. Let me clear this up real quick: God-breathed means from God, not perfect. This applies differently to humans, who can take actions, than it does to words, which do not do anything. If the scriptures are from God, it means it's God's word. Humans are from God, meaning we were created in His image and likeness and for His purposes. If we had been God-breathed and then took no other actions, we would still be perfect, but we are not because we used our gift of free will from God to sin. The scriptures don't have free will because they are words, so they still exist exactly as God created them (through the humans He used to write them).
Furthermore, the claim that the only perfect thing is God is also actually wrong. The reason is very simple: to say that nothing could be perfect except for God actually puts a limitation on God, as it necessitates that God could not create something perfect. Perfect things that are not God must be able to exist, even if the only perfect things that exist are created by God. Whether or not anything else perfect exists may be up for debate, but you cannot posit that "no perfect things aside from God can exist" since even if no perfect things could exist without God's intervention, God can do anything and thus could create something perfect.
What does it mean for something to be perfect? Perfect things are not God, they are not all-powerful, eternal, or any of attributes of God. "Perfect" and "God" are not synonyms - perfect is merely a word among many that describes God. God created exactly specifically and perfectly precisely what He
intended to create. To call God's creation not perfect misunderstands
what is meant by perfection. You could, for example, bake the perfect cake. You could grow a perfect melon. You could say something perfect, at the perfect time. This is possible because things that are perfect are perfect within the understanding of that thing. It simply means that nothing else, given the circumstances, function, purpose, and other attributes of that thing, could have been better. The perfect thing to say in a particular moment could be devastating at a different time. What makes a melon perfect would make a terrible banana. Indeed, a perfect cake would make a poor meatloaf. "Perfection" is not limited to God, it's simply one of the many things God is, and it exists as a concept apart from God.
Furthermore, perfect is used in the bible many times, and not only to describe God. In fact, we are called to "...be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48) but we could not be God. Indeed, trying to be God is what got us in this big mess in the first place. (Genesis 3:5 [satan speaking] "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.")
5.The opposition claims that desiring inerrancy is reflective of "a need for control".
A. This is yet another claim so absurd it's difficult to explain why without being rude. The conclusion here that "believing biblical inerrancy results from a need for control" rests in, I'm guessing, a thought process that believes that the opposite - believing in fallibility - results in a lack of ability to have control, and thus people who do not wish to lack an ability to be in control believe in inerrancy as a means to retain the ability to be in control, and not for virtuous reasons. This is absurd, because the bible itself actually tells us to relinquish control to God. To believe that this statement in the bible is infallible, and thus must be obeyed, immediately destroys the argument that we would be believing in inerrancy in order to seek control. Believing in inerrancy necessitates giving up control, since it's the bible that tells us this.
What I truly believe the opposition did here was misunderstand and confuse the concepts of "control" versus "certainty". Accepting biblical inerrancy removes much uncertainty from our lives. Believing the bible is true in entirety gives us a firm foundation and allows us to rest easy in God's promise, because we have faith that everything we have been told is accurate. Indeed, these benefits are described in the bible itself as bonuses that followers of Jesus enjoy for our faithfulness. Believing that the bible is fallible makes us no better off than unbelievers, since we can never be sure of anything. This has nothing to do with control and has everything to do with peace of mind. We do not have "control" for our full and unwavering faith in the word of God, we have "peace beyond all understanding" (Philipians 4:7).
If the bible could be wrong, there is no peace beyond all understanding, since any given part of it could be wrong, including that God loves us, or even that He is real, let alone that Jesus died for our sins so we could be spared from eternal suffering. Being unable to be confident that God gave us a way out of death - unfathomable, never-ending torture - is exactly the life I led when I was an atheist. Constant and unshakable existential dread and knowledge of my unavoidable fate to one day die resulted in substance abuse, depression, an unbreakable habit of self-sabotage, and often a feeling I can only describe as a void opening up in the pit of my stomach, slowly expanding to absorb my entire being until I broke down into uncontrollable tears regularly. How do you separate the believer from the unbeliever if neither can rest easy in God's promises? Doubt on any part of God's word brings doubt to the whole, which includes big ticket items like God's love and mercy.
We can have certainty and fully lack control. Indeed, believing in the word of God through the bible results in an understanding that we lack control and are subject to horrible suffering at the hands of this broken world, but it allows us to rest easy in spite of this.
Indeed, the most charitable understanding of this argument I could make is that the opposition completely misunderstands the concept of "control". Barring that, this argument is simply nonsensical, claiming that we make an idol out of the bible itself instead of "simply trusting God", as if we could trust God without knowing anything about Him. We need the bible to have faith in God, or else we have zero evidence of Him or His promises. It is possible to worship the bible as an idol, but that is... not what this is. Without the bible there is no litmus test, just our own fallible brains believing we hear and feel God when, perhaps, we do not. We require a standard to test against when we believe we are being led by the spirit, and that test is the bible. Without being able to trust that the bible tells us the truth, we have no standard, no foundation upon which to trust. Without the word of God, we have only hearsay from humans just as fallible as the ones who wrote the bible to begin with. There is no virtue in dismissing the bible as possibly faulty because it was written by humans in favor of believing the whims and inklings of yet other humans.
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In conclusion, it turns out most arguments against inerrancy are just new and unique methods of finding ways to say "the people who wrote the bible were fallible". Following that, we had two arguments that required the full and complete misunderstanding of the definition of words in order to work.
We must always remember God's sovereignty and complete and total power over everything across dimensions, including through time, and we simply must stop making silly conclusions that ignore obvious facts, like that God knew what books would end up in the bible and it is entirely within the scope of His abilities to ensure that everything He wanted us to know would end up inside it.
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