Monday 27 August 2007

I want to run through this week with more stuff from William Placher in "Struggling with Scripture." Here he brings in some thought by Charles Hodge that he considers important.



The sacred writers, he said, "were infallible" only "for the special purpose for which they were employed." As to all matters of science, philosophy, and history, they stood on the same level as their contemporaries." So Hodge accepted that Isaiah made false assumptions about astronomy and Paul forgot how many people he had actually converted at Corinth. But these were not the matters they were teaching. "We must distinguish between what the sacred writers themselves thought or believed and what they teach. They may have believe [for example] that the sun moves round the earth, but they do not so teach."



After reading this, I was able to take my fighting gloves off. I usually don't like the use of the word infallible in regard to talking about scripture. It is too often a "baiting" term that really has to do with taking the scriptures literally...and then taking all that is said as the "truth" from God. But here, infallibility allows for an openness to time and wonder and context and world views that change. This really takes to issue the literalists who are arguing for a biblical timeline for the establishment of humanity and the creation of the world. The wonderful story of Genesis speaks an infallible truth about the rule of our God who cannot be subjected under any other power. It speaks a wonderful infallible truth about how we confess that our God, from nothing, creates and can create anew in any age and any time and any place. Does it mean to comment about actual time and how long it took God to create. No. It does say something infallible about our part in the creative process. We are the image of God...we care for all things -as God would care for all things-...we are not oppressive, we are creative and life giving even when we live in the face of powers that can be destructive and condemning and brutal. This is a word of hope that is eternally "infallible."



Connection: Sometimes we need to allow ourselves to think in the middle of our faithfulness. That may mean we don't simply let words like "infallible" have power over us. That would be downright "unfaithful."



Word of Life, we long to be fed by the life-giving truth of your Word so that in all times we can be people whose vision is always expanding and whose hope never is diminished by our shortsightedness. Amen.