Is Inerrancy Essential to the Gospel?
There have been some recent disagreements about the importance of the inerrancy of the Bible. That there is this disagreement means that there are disagreements over whether the Bible is inerrant, even among Christians.
There are Christians who believe that inerrancy is an essential doctrine. For some, this means that he Bible is inerrant on any subject it touches, including history, geography, science, and anything else.
One definition is found in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy:
Holy Scripture, being God’s own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God’s instruction, in all that it affirms, obeyed, as God’s command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God’s pledge, in all that it promises.
You can find the rest of the statement here.
There are other Christians who do not use terms such as inerrancy. They still hold to the inspiration of the Bible and affirm the reliability of the Bible in matters of faith but would not be able to agree to the Chicago statement.
Can someone still be a Christian and not hold to a specific definition of inerrancy? Actually, the doctrine of inerrancy has only be a topic of discussion for the last couple of centuries. Christians have always held the Bible to be authoritative, without getting into such strict definitions.
We should also note that none of the early creeds include a statement about belief in an inerrant Bible. The earliest Christians confessed Jesus as Lord, even before the New Testament was compiled.
Some might counter that you cannot believe in Jesus without an inerrant Bible. If the Bible has incorrect details about the history of Israel, then we cannot believe in the resurrection of Jesus.
I do not agree with that. We can believe all of the details about Jesus even if the Gospels are only reliable and not necessarily inerrant.
Does this mean that I reject inerrancy? I probably would not hold to the same definition of inerrancy as some of my more conservative brothers and sisters. I usually don’t use the word ‘inerrant’ because I’m not sure people really know what it means. I share some of my thoughts in the video at the bottom of this post.
What I want to say is that someone can be an orthodox, devout and faithful follower of Jesus without affirming inerrancy.
