My hermeneutics class has finished reading Grant Osborne's Hermeneutical Spiral and I plan to post my review of it Friday. In the final chapter, we came across Vanhoozer's definition of infallibility and inerrancy, which I thought was very nicely nuanced (and fairly easy to connect to my own understanding). Basically, Vanhoozer would say that the infallibility of the Bible means that God's word invariably accomplishes its purposes. In turn, inerrancy then means that when its purpose is assertion, the proposition of the speech-act is true.
This is very interesting and much more sophisticated than most people who use this language. For example, it recognizes that a good deal of the Bible is not "propositional" in nature. Genesis is a series of narratives, for example. Exodus, Numbers, Joshua through Kings, these are narratives rather than propositions. Sure, one might try to distill them into propositions, but it is a matter for serious debate whether this was their true purpose--at least when we look at the types of propositions that the "propositionalists" want to get from them.
So in what way is Psalm 137 infallible? This is the psalm that ends by applauding anyone who might bash the babies of the Babylonians against a rock. Clearly the purpose of this psalm is not to make propositional assertions. Indeed, this psalm is an expression of great grief. It does not really inform us about God or give us some deep theological truth. To me this psalm tells me that it is okay to cry out to God, okay to vent.
By Vanhoozer's definition, the term infallible applies to Psalm 137, but the term "inerrant" has no meaning because Psalm 137 does not make an assertion.
The word "inerrant" would thus apply only to statements like "God is love" or "If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another..." It would not apply, on the other hand, to "Love your neighbor as yourself," for this is not an assertion but a command. The command is certainly God's command and fully accomplishes God's purposes.
Very interesting!
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4 comments:
Ken,
I join you in affirming Vanhoozer's rehabilitation of these troublesome words. They remain troublesome words -- inerrancy more so than infallibility -- because, as you suggest, what comes to mind for most people when they hear the words is something rather different.
That reminds me of an encounter with a college student years ago who asked if I believed in "inerrancy." My response was "Well, maybe, depending on what is meant by the term," and I pointed him to the Chicago Statement (which, even though very conservative, makes all sorts of common sense allowances). He came back the next week and says: "I guess I believe in inerrancy, but I don't really understand why they are using that word if they meant something else." Indeed.
Oh, one more thing . . . could you say more about what counts as a "proposition"? Couldn't somebody say that narratives are nothing but a succession of propositions, but of a historical nature? You don't seem to be using the word that way though. Thoughts?
Woody
My main problem with the Chicago statement is that it has certain assumptions about what the proper standards of history or "scientific" writing would have been for the biblical authors. Jude 14 really brings it home. I don't know of anyone, conservative or liberal, who has concluded that 1 Enoch was actually written by Enoch. Yet Jude seems to quote it as if it were actually written by Enoch. The Chicago statement includes even such apparent references within ancient paradigms within its scope.
By propositions I primarily have "rational truth claims" in mind. Certainly one might say that biblical narratives are a sequence of statements. But even to say that biblical narratives are a sequence of historical propositions is, I think, to impose modern categories on them, as if a perspectiveless history is possible and, indeed, that history is their primary concern.
How's the first semester going?
What would Vanhoozer say about words in Scripture that come from the mouth of God regarding the killing of Amalekites or Midianites? Would he say that these are not assertions and rather parts of the narrative unique in of themselves? Perhaps a Kierkegardian "suspension of the ethical"?
I don't know about Vanhoozer on this topic at this point, but I've been pleasantly surprised to find that Osborne has room in his hermeneutic for a form of progressive revelation between the testaments. Now, whether they would include these sorts of statements in such a scheme, I'm slightly doubtful. But perhaps they might be happy to say that these sorts of actions pertained to key transition points in the history of Israel and so that they are not applicable to today...
I Howard Marshall has some interesting thoughts on these things in Beyond the Bible
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