The Doctrine of Inerrancy

[In what follows, I use the word "inerrancy." While there are debates about the terms "inerrancy" and "infallibility," I do not take these debates as relevant to my thesis in this post, so substitute whichever term you like as you read.]

There are many variations on the idea that the scriptures are without error. According to the famous Chicago Statement, "Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God's acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God's saving grace in individual lives." This somewhat excessive rendition of the doctrine may be contrasted with the more modest and orthodox version promulgated by the Second Vatican Council: "Since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation." Other versions will differ in similar respects.

In any case, though, what is the epistemological status of such a doctrine? Specifically, is the doctrine of inerrancy a conclusion of interpretation or an assumption for interpretation? Is it descriptive or regulative? In other words, does one examine the biblical texts, measuring them carefully, and discover them to be inerrant, or does one approach them from the beginning under the assumption that they are so as a guiding principle for interpretation?

For many people, the doctrine of inerrancy is clearly intended to serve an assumptive function: the scriptures are interpreted in light of or through the lens of their inerrancy. When apparent errors are found, they are examined not under the question, "does the best interpretation leave us with an error?", but instead, "since there is no error, how can we interpret this in such a way as to cause it to vanish?" If the doctrine is taken as a conclusion, it cannot play any role in the relevant interpretation without begging the question, and this seems to be precisely where it is most commonly invoked.

But why treat the doctrine this way? Instead of laying down inerrancy at the outset as a principle for interpretation, why not treat the doctrine as a conclusion to be reached through the careful study of the scriptures? If the scriptures are inerrant, they hardly need the help of such an assumption and are quite capable of defending the doctrine on their own merits. If the scriptures are inerrant, then there will be no difference at all between an approach which says, "do everything good interpreters do, plus assume inerrancy", and one which simply says, "do everything good interpreters do." If one believes the scriptures to be inerrant, the assumption of inerrancy as a principle of interpretation is, at best, redundant.

Thus, the doctrine of inerrancy need be taken as a principle for interpretation only by those who want to secure for the biblical text a status they believe it cannot secure for itself. Only if the scriptures are not inerrant does inerrancy need to guide interpretation.

The Benefits of Poor Drainage

The city won't fix the drainage system for our street, but some of us seem quite content with this.

My Birthday

I started my birthday off early by going to work for a 5:30am shift. Joshua, ever optimistic, said I should think about how much of my birthday I got to be awake to enjoy. Things went pretty well at work though; I had extra stuff to bake off because we were giving away mini cookies for my birthday, so it kept me busy, but was fun to have cookies everywhere. With all the cookies to give away and everyone wishing me a happy birthday, it did make the morning feel celebratory.

Here's the picture Heidi took and put on the bakery's facebook page with the caption, "Today is our sweet roll master baker Sarah's birthday! We've got little mini cookies we're handing out to celebrate today. Yay!" These three trays are about half of the sweet rolls I bake on Saturday mornings.

I got home to discover that Joshua had added a beautiful rose to the collection of birthday love on the table. I opened a couple presents after our late breakfast, but saved the rest to open after dinner. Joshua took me to get tacos for lunch at a place he just recently went to for the first time and that was fun and delicious. We got to watch most of the SHEMA concert that Evan, Micah, and Natalie were performing in through a live stream of the show. It was fun to be able to see that even though we are a state away. After the performance, we hurried outside to do some planting during a period of sun. We ended up missing the sun and got some rain on us instead, but we were able to plant two raspberry bushes that one of my coworkers brought to work last week; her parents have a lot of bushes at their house so she had dug some up from there to share with us. We also planted rhubarb, strawberries, and chamomile. I'm pretty excited about our coming garden, so that was a fun birthday activity even though we got rather wet and dirty and my old outdoor shoe fell apart during the project.

For dinner, we got to try out another new restaurant. We don't go out to eat often and there are so many great restaurants in Eugene, so it was really fun to get to try two new places. 

One of my fellow bakers has told me a few times about a place she really likes called Party Downtown, so we decided to try it out. The name seems strange to me and didn't fit the restaurant, which was really well designed, but we were impressed. They sat us a great little table by the window and we got the kitchen's choice dinner where they bring out a number of small dishes to share so you get to try out a bunch of different things and never know what's coming next. Our dinner included a variety of pickled vegetables, a deep fried egg, fried king oyster mushrooms with a buffalo sauce, dates stuffed with duck confit and topped with candied pumpkin seeds, beef tongue with a soft boiled egg, shrimp on toast, a baby kale salad, pacific cod with charred cabbage, horseradish, and sorrel, and pan seared duck breast. Everything was delicious and the presentation was beautiful. It was a long relaxed dinner with great food; we both really enjoyed it. 

 

 Back at home, I finished opening the presents my family sent me and my gift from Joshua, then we completed the great day of celebrating with a board game and, of course, apple pie.

Pizza Party Craziness

We have had three pizza parties with the philosophy graduate students within the past week and a half as part of our efforts to host the prospective students who are visiting the school. The philosophy department accepted a number of students to start the graduate program in the fall and offered all of those students the opportunity to come to the school to meet the faculty and students and attend classes for a couple days before they have to decide if they will accept the offer to come in the fall. Joshua was part of the committee that was responsible for hosting the visiting students and this year there where eight who decided to visit, which is a lot. I think last year there were four. He was working with another student to find current students who were willing to host the visitors, give rides to and from the airport, take them to dinner, take them to campus in the mornings, meet for coffee breaks, and give tours of the campus. With eight students visiting, it ended up being a lot of work. They not only had to find people who were available, but also tried to match them up with visitors who had similar interests, plus some other logistical details. It involved a lot of emails. All of this came during the last three weeks of classes when things are crazy anyway, so this term has been one of the most challenging since we have been here. But I think things went well and the visitors seemed to have good experiences.

 As I mentioned, we had department pizza parties with the visitors and I got to be part of those. It was fun to get to meet new people, hang out with friends from the department, and eat free pizza, but having three so close together was a lot and two of them didn't start until 9pm, which is pretty late for us. Needless to say, there have been lots of good things about the past few weeks and Joshua and his fellow committee member did a great job, but we were relieved when the final visitors left yesterday.

Goodbye Van

We had to say goodbye to the van today. We decided it was time to sell it because it needed some major repairs and we haven't used it much since moving to Oregon. This was another hard vehicle to get rid of. I felt like in some sense it was our first home, and is the only home we have ever owned. It was a lot of fun to remodel the whole thing with Dad and fix it up just the way we wanted it. Then it served us well on our over two month road trip. We have many good memories from that trip, plus some weekend camping trips. There were a couple camping trips in the rain made much more pleasant by the fact that we had a roof over our heads and not a tent. Just the smell of the van invokes in me a feeling of adventure and longing for the open road. Today it drove off with someone else; someone named Sara, appropriately enough. The new owners seem really nice and are super excited about the van. It is just what they have been looking for and they are planning to get it all fixed up and take it back out on the road to tour the country. So we will miss the van, but I'm happy that it will be well taken care of and back out adventuring.

Spring is Coming

Our first flower of spring bloomed yesterday. Of course, it is still winter and we are reminded of that with cold rainy days and morning temperatures that are still often around freezing. But spring is coming and you can feel the change in the air. We are starting to have some warm sunny afternoons; yesterday it was 68 when I was leaving work, which is the warmest it has been for months. There are flowers starting to pop up around town and by the side of the freeway. It is an exciting time of year.

A Special Guest

We had a special visitor yesterday; Grandad had some shopping to do in Eugene, so he came over for the afternoon and brought crab for dinner. What a treat to come home from work to such good company and delicious food.

Valentine's Day

I came out to the kitchen Sunday morning to find this display on the table. I was surprised and touched by it and have been enjoying all of it since then.

When we got home from church, we had pink heart-shaped pancakes and pink grapefruit juice for Valentine's Day breakfast.

 We decided to stay home to celebrate with a fancy four-course meal for dinner as we often like to do. Here's our menu from this year:

Caramelized onion, pear, and feta savory tarts

Steak and salad

Chocolate cranberry bread

Sugar cookies

We enjoyed a leisurely and delicious dinner, including a walk around the block before the bread course. It was a great day.

I Brought Home Some Flour

One of the great things about working at a bakery is that occasionally there is something they can't use anymore and the employees get to take it. This week I came home with about fifty pounds of flour. There were five different kinds so I spent some time looking them up online to find out what they were and discovered that I had a couple different bread flours, a regular unbleached flour, a barley flour, and another bread flour that is also supposed to be good in quick breads and cookies. Then I started putting them to good use. Over the past couple days, I've probably used four or five pounds of flour making pizza dough, pie crust, sugar cookies, and bagels. Everything seems to be turning out well with the new flours; the pizza dough in particular seemed better than usual.

 This was my first attempt at making bagels and there is room for improvement, but I was happy with how they turned out. I was also excited to make and frost heart-shaped sugar cookies, which is a favorite baking activity. The past couple weeks have been busy at work as we get ready for Valentine's Day, but I have gotten to frost some sugar cookies there too and enjoyed doing that.

Welcome Amari

Our newest nephew arrived today! Baby Amari was born at 1:18am, 7lbs 4oz, 19.5 in. Welcome to the world, little guy. We made monkey bread for brunch to celebrate.

California Holidays

I haven't blogged in a long time and realized I didn't take many pictures while we were in California over the holidays, so here is a make-up post of a few of the highlights from our trip, with some picture help from Heather. To start things off, we made shortbread cookies on Christmas Eve with Dave and Laura.

I had fun making teddy bears for Solace and Ezra and I love the mug that Evan made for me. I thought it was so special that he picked all the pictures and designed it himself. I also received a beautiful table topper that Gayle made for me. I love all the homemade things!

Natalie and I had a fun time with my present to her, which was time to be crafty together.

 One of the afternoons, we got to go on a lovely walk through the countryside.

Mom and Joshua made breakfast burritos and I squeezed grapefruit juice for a delicious breakfast.

We took the Nickell kids out for hot chocolate.

Isaac and I contributed to the delicious spread on New Year's Eve.

We spent a lot of time working on this difficult puzzle that the Nickells got for Christmas.

 There were a few laughter-filled rounds of Foodie Fight with both families.

 We finally finished the puzzle just minutes before midnight.

Welcoming the new year with sparkling beverages and party poppers.

 Heading home, there was snow on the passes.

We returned to a very cold house and frozen yard, but everything was in good order and we warmed up inside quickly.

Summary of Spinoza

The following is a summary of the first few pages of Spinoza's ethics, written up in such a way that I think some of you will find it interesting. I have given it my own spin, including significant re-ordering. (Note that much of the exact wordage is his, and I do not use quotation marks to indicate this.) I have divided it into "series" of arguments consisting of explanation followed by summary definitions ("D...") and propositions ("P...").

Series 1: What is substance?

1.1. There are two sorts of things: those which are in themselves and are conceived through themselves, and those which are in another and are conceived through another. Note that this is an exhaustive categorization: everything fits into at least one of these two categories. (The demonstration is simple. First, conceive of something. Is it in itself? Then it fits the categorization. Does it not qualify as being in itself? Then it fits the categorization.) Let us call the first “substances” and the second “modes.” As an example, let us take a physical object, such as a pencil. The pencil has such-and-such a size and shape. We conceive this size and shape through extension: the pencil is an extended thing, and it is only as such that its size and shape is conceivable. Thus, in this example, the pencil is “substance” (extended thing) in a particular “mode” (namely, pencil-shaped). The point is that we cannot conceive pencil-shape in itself; rather, we conceive it through extension. Conversely, “extension” is conceived only in and through itself.

P1: All things that are, are either in themselves or in another.D1: “Substance” means that which is in itself and is conceived through itself.D2: “Mode” means that which is in another and is conceived through another.

1.2. Let us introduce a further distinction. For purposes which will later become clear, let us distinguish between substance “in itself” and substance as it is perceived. We will name this latter “attribute.” By analogy, if a “perfect plane” is a plane surface which uniformly reflects all light, we may also name it a “white plane” insofar as it is perceived by an observer. The crucial point here is that it is conceivable that a single substance occur under more than one attribute.

D3: “Attribute” means that which the intellect perceives of substance as constituting its essence.

Series 2: There is a substance that necessarily exists

2.1. Since a substance is precisely that which is only in itself and is conceived only in itself, two substances can have nothing in common. Otherwise, either one would be and be conceived in the other or the two would together be or be conceived in something else; in either case, they would not both be substances. Now, if one thing is the cause of another, the knowledge of the latter depends upon the former; that is, the latter is conceived through the former. But this means they have something in common, according to which such conception is possible. Therefore, two things which have nothing in common cannot be the cause of each other. Since two substances have nothing in common, one substance cannot be the cause of another substance. The same argument militates against a substance being produced by a mode, and so we arrive at the corollary: a substance cannot be produced by anything else.

P2: Two substances have nothing in common.P3: Things that have nothing in common cannot be the cause of each other.P4: One substance cannot be the cause of another substance. (Corollary: substance cannot be caused by anything else.)

2.2. To say something is “self-caused” is to say that it is not caused by another: that is, it does not depend upon any other thing for its existence, but rather only upon itself. To say something is “self-caused” is to say that its essence entails existence. Substance, however, is self-caused, since it cannot be caused by anything else (P4, corollary). Therefore, substance is such that its essence entails existence, or, to say the same thing, substance necessarily exists.

D4: “Self-caused” means that whose essence involves existence.P5: Existence belongs to the nature of substance.

2.3. To conceive of something is to grasp its essence. If it is possible to conceive of something as not existing, then its essence does not entail existence. Now, consider a substance consisting of infinite attributes. Attempt to conceive of this substance as not existing. This means conceiving of a substance whose essence does not involve existence. But this is impossible, as we demonstrated (P5). Therefore, a substance consisting of infinite attributes necessarily exists.

P6: If a thing can be conceived as not existing, its essence does not involve existence.P7: A substance consisting of infinite attributes necessarily exists.

Series 3: There exists only one substance

3.1. If two things are to be taken as different from one another, they must be distinguished in some way. Now, as we know from P1, all things are either in themselves (substances) or in another (modes). Any distinction between things, then, must be a distinction of substance or mode. But substance, insofar as it is perceived by the intellect, is attribute, so it is more correct to say that any distinction between things must be a distinction of either attribute or of mode.

P8: Two things are distinguished only by a difference of attribute or a difference of mode.

3.2. When it comes to substances, two different substances must be distinguished by a difference of attribute, not mode. This is because “substance” is that which is conceived through itself (D1), not in another. If something could be distinguished by mode—that is, distinguished in such a way that the distinction occurs through another—then it would itself be a mode, not a substance. To say the same thing in another way: substance is logically prior to its modes, because that which is in itself is prior to that which is in another. Therefore, substances must be distinguished by a difference of attribute. In other words, there cannot be two or more different substances of the same attribute. 

P9: Substance is logically prior to its modes.
P10: There cannot be two or more substances of the same attribute.

3.3. If there were any substance other than absolutely infinite substance (that is, substance consisting of infinite attributes), it would have to be perceived through some attribute of absolutely infinite substance. This would mean that two substances would share the same attribute, which is impossible (P10). Therefore no other substance can exist. But if no other substance can exist, neither can it be conceived, because any substance that can be conceived necessarily exists (P5). Therefore, there is only one substance, consisting of infinite attributes, other than which none can exist or be conceived.

P11: There can be, or be conceived, no other substance but that consisting of infinite attributes.

Addendum: The name “God.”

4. If we wish to speak of “God,” do we take “God” to be a substance or a mode? If God is a mode of the one substance, then God is caused by and exists in and through another, namely, absolutely infinite substance. God is a dependent and caused being, the same sort of existence as humans, trees, and chairs. Such a god is far from the monotheistic traditions. On the other hand, absolutely infinite substance—that is, that which is in and is conceived through only itself, is self-caused, necessarily exists, and consists of infinite attributes—is precisely the sort of thing that is called “God” in these traditions. Thus, all that exists is either God a mode of God.