It’s LIVING and BREATHING they shriek at me, either out loud or in their minds (I’ve had both kinds of responses; the first is your classic “You idiot! It’s living and breathing…see? If it goes into cardiac arrest you could give it CPR, it’s living and breathing so literally!”; and the second is more like turning a shade of green, vomiting in their mouths, and googling “need an exorcist”).

But again…there goes the metaphorical language that makes the Bible so interesting.  Wave goodby to it as it spirals down the fundamentalist black hole that is their flawed metaphysics.  Flushed away, and simmered down to a steaming pile of rigid fundamentalist dogma.  Unbending, unmoving, smashing the backs of all who would come to it; devoid of any poetic or artistic color.  A stark, cold users’ manual for human failure.

It’s ALL God, you see.  Well, of course, it would have to be, now wouldn’t it?  If the Bible is inerrant, humans are screwed before they even pull it out of the pew in front of them.  As a human, you…well, you can’t possibly amount to anything, or add anything or any worth to the Bible.  It is perfect precisely because it can have nothing to do with you.  Which…makes no sense seeings as how if it wasn’t for man the Bible wouldn’t exist, as I’ve often said.  Hard to argue that something is as perfect as God because of man.  But it is equally as hard to argue that something which would not exist without man is as perfect as God.  So…it’s a paradox.  I know.  Everything always boils down to paradox (i.e. contradiction) with the neo-Reformed “genius”.  And, frankly, I’m almost tempted to say the western church in general thinks this way, for even hard core anti-Calvinists I know still ultimately appeal to paradox when they actually engage you long enough to get pushed into that corner.  Engage them on “election” or “predestination”, or even THIS topic, Biblical inerrancy, and I’m telling you that ten times out of ten you the most they will ever concede is:  “Look, it’s just true because it’s in the Bible.  No one can possibly know how it works.  It’s just God being God, [shrug].  It’s His “mystery.  For who are we to understand the greatness of His plans, and the enigma of His mind, and blah, blah, blah”. Gee, for possibly the greatest philosophical tradition in the history of the world (Judea-Christian) to simply concede impossible contradiction as the root of their faith for the last two thousand years and still exist as a force in the world to be reckoned with?  Wow.  THAT’S why I believe in the Jewish God.  God would HAVE to be involved with such a crowd of bleary-eyed passive thinkers for them to continue to function as a religious movement; even one as fractured as it is.

Well, I suppose it is a great way to never lose a debate:

“I don’t base my beliefs on what can be true, according to any rational understanding of the world and universe around me.  I base my faith on the opposite of reason. On ideas which are shimmering paragons of mutual exclusivity.”

“Er…oh well, then.  That’s game.  You…win?”

I would submit to you that if there is anything “living and breathing” about the Bible going on that that reference is to its application to HUMAN lives, which are quite literally living and breathing.  That is, the life and breath of God is found in the bodies and the minds of those human beings who are in the process of applying His truth to their lives.  The Bible lives and breaths through them, as they walk it out in their individual lives and in their individual contexts.  The Bible on the bookshelf has no life at all.  It is like any other book:  collecting dust and turning a bad-mayonnaise shade of yellow inside and reeking of grandma’s closet. The Bible, apart from MAN is merely a lifeless THING.  But it is the application of God’s revelations by mankind that makes the metaphor “living” and “breathing” applicable.  Apart from man, it is as pointless as any other book that has no reader.  Any book that can be “perfect truth” apart from the human reality, and apart from living and breathing human beings to read it, understanding it, and integrate it is a book that cannot possibly be written.  In other words, a Bible that is inerrant is a Bible that cannot exist because it could not have been written by God, nor written by man.  Even if it was written by God for man.  It still is NOT inerrant, because man is the functional TRUTH behind the Bible, not God (remember, God’s truth does not need the Bible, man’s does).  MAN’S context is the context of the Bible, and if that is true, then it cannot possible be inerrant, because it must conform to man’s life and environment.  And a thing that IS perfection–remember, inerrant, infallible is an IS; it cannot change because change is antithetical to inerrancy–cannot possibly conform, as the primary purpose of its existence, to the context of the errant.  And again and furthermore, inerrancy is an abstraction.  A literal thing cannot be abstract. 

Once more, gaze upon the shackled and ugly specter of neo-Reformed “paradox”. 

Now, the other way Christians either consciously or unconsciously bulwark and propagandize their false idea of biblical infallibility is to CONSTANTLY, INCESSANTLY, NAUSEATINGLY, and INCORRECTLY referring to the Bible as God’s Word…capital “w” Word.

Well, that pretty much settles that now, huh?  If it’s God’s Word, well, then it IS God, because…what do you think the capital “w” Word refers to? You read the beginning of John’s Gospel?  Do you realize that God cannot be defined by abstract ideas like “language”, “work”, “love”, etc….that there an be NO functional separation between what God does–that is, how He moves–and His utter and complete self?  God is ALL in ALL, He is I AM, and therefore ALL He does (including saying, working, loving, hating, etc.) IS God.

So then, what can the neo-Reformed mysticism possibly mean by referring to the Bible as God’s Word?  What is the underlying and could-not-be-more-obvious point behind that little grammatical wonder?  Yeah…the Bible IS God, Himself.

And…well, okay, point taken.  Can’t get much more infallible than that, by definition.

Of course, as with so many other neo-Reformed absolute “truths”, that description is nowhere found in the normal little old fallible Bible that the rest of us on planet Earth have.  Even Moses doesn’t put a capital “w” when referring to God’s words that he heard God speak.  You know, like the actual, audible words of God that Moses heard on the Mount when he spent the more than two months directly in His presence.  Those words…only garner a small “w”.  Yeah, even God’s words, literally heard by human ears, apparently aren’t as infallible as the Bible, which is a whole lot of other dudes’ words.  Ooops…sorry, Words.

Part of me says that the apostles might have a problem with being told their letters to those ragtag bands of confused churches who have trouble finding “sound doctrine” while in the presence of  real apostles (as opposed to the fake neo-Cal ones, like the Sovereign Grace Ministries hucksters) are actually THE Holy Spirit.

Yeah…something tells me there might be a forehead smack or two upon hearing that one.

But, whatever.  As with every other reformed “truth” the means, no matter how false or destructive, always justify the ends.  And the ends are usually found just over the pile of dead bodies and lost innocence.  But then, something has to give if the real truth of “inerrancy” of scripture (read, interpretive opinion) is to be found.  Death must always be the means to the truth in this case.  The greatest proof that God is perfect, it seems, is to sacrifice the imperfect to His “truth”.  For if man actually succeeds in attaining and effectively applying “truth”, then how perfect can this truth really be?  So, since humans are NOT perfect, at the end of the day there is only ever going to be a perpetual war between them and what IS.  And of course, by definition, humans MUST lose.  And that is precisely why it is just fine with so many neo-Reformed “leaders” and followers if men and women and children are abused and destroyed in service to “sound doctrine”.  Their destruction is just more proof that they are NOT good and God is; that they are NOT inerrant and the Bible is.  Indeed, and again, to their minds, the greatest proof of God’s perfection is an endless sea of corpses. 

Infallible.

Inerrant.

Hmm.  Have you ever stopped to consider just how curious those adjectives are, describing an inanimate object?  That object being, of course, the Bible.  Which is a book…with pages, and ink (even in the original manuscripts, by the way), and a cover, and a whole lot of gold leaf which never lasts very long.  Have you ever stopped to think about it?  Or did you, like me, just nod and swallow, like a fish on a hook.  Out of water, wriggling and raging, although not wholly conscious of it…fighting for life at the end of the church “authority’s” long and indifferent and rigid and hard and cold rod, forever and ever, fulfilling your role as stupid animal, compelled to eat the hook and be led around by it.  And, like me, you did, and do, because the hook is sweet.  Because all of that delicious, “Holy” goodness is like a box of chocolate to your spiritual ears.  Deep down you know you hate it.  But deep down is too deep to see clearly, and there’s nothing there but your black, blind depravity anyway, so you never trust the voices screaming at you from the pit the neo-Reformers helped you dig.

Of course the Bible is “inerrant”, and gulp, down the barb goes.  In fact, the hook is so delicious that many people refuse to vomit it up, no matter how much they bleed internally.  Oh…eventually they will see to an extent and will snap the line, and flee the false fishermen castigating and deploring and condemning and inventing at the podium.  But they leave the hook in.  The hooks all remain.  Original sin.  Total depravity.  Predestination and election.  All of the hooks continue to dig and dig and dig.  And people simply refuse to cough them up.  They have likened the hooks which first trapped them to the very TRUTH of what they believe.  The fisherman was the problem and that guy is gone, they say.  The hook…well, that’s simply God, seeking you first and choosing Himself for you, because you, ironically, are a blind worm.  And so you rightly forsake the false fisherman, yet continue to eat his hook.  And so it is, that even as you proclaim your “freedom” your are now just a new slave.  A  slave now to the master of abstraction.  And that master can NEVER be forsaken.  Because that master is in your own head.

Infallible.  Inerrant.

Yes.  Very curious adjectives to describe an inanimate object like the Bible.

And there of course is the rub.  Because I understand that there are those who will immediately protest.  I’m a fool, they say.  I cannot see the obvious.   The Bible isn’t “inanimate” they screech (like those guys who insist that the American Flag must be treated like a living thing…that’s just, er…weird to me).  It is alive!  Haven’t I read the Scriptures?  For it is written, “living and breathing”, they remind me.

And once again, the grammatical tool of the metaphor is lost on the Christians.  But I understand where they are coming from.  In a strange, irrational way, it makes perfect sense.  You see, if the Bible is infallible it simply cannot be metaphorical.  It MUST be perpetually literal.  LITERAL is as close to “infallible” as it can practically get.  And so everything, again, must be taken at utter face value.  If the Bible says that it is living and breathing, then it IS.  LITERALLY the book is living and breathing.  It is a living thing, it is not a metaphor.  In other words, the Bible is GOD.  And that is precisely why it is called inerrant and infallible…because there is NO difference between the Bible and God Himself.  This way of interpreting scripture AS a LITERAL abstraction (which is an oxymoron) is the only way you can even approach practically applying the Bible as God and not as the inanimate object that it really is.

The problem is that this still does not solve the problem.  At the end of the day, the application of even a literal Bible must still be wholly subjective.  The reason is this:  the Bible is for man.  Man is the only reason it exists.  So it does not matter how infallible you might think the Bible is, because since it must be applied contextually, the functional outcomes of its truths will always look different depending on the person.  There will never be a way to objectively prove your “literal” interpretation; the “inerrancy” will be lost in a sea of individual lives, cultures, contexts, experiences, and abilities.  If the Bible’s doctrines have a singular literal interpretation that is defined solely within its perfect self, it is impossible that it can be found in the context of man.  The root of  what is “inerrant” about the Bible is thus, totally open to subjective interpretation.  And that is precisely why this idea of inerrancy always leads to spiritual abuse in some degree.  Only ONE subjective opinion can be declared the “objective” and literal truth, and so what then becomes the the single greatest advantage which so deftly serves those who define what this singular interpretation is?

Force.

Violence.  Threats.  Excommunication.  Intimidation.  Fear.  Murder.  Death and tyranny.   He who has the most force gets to decide.  Period.  Physical destructive force, which is decidedly NOT abstract, becomes the TRUE infallibility of Scripture.  And that is the deadly little deception about this doctrine, found in almost every statement of faith in protestant Christendom.

You see, if the Bible is inerrant and infallible, then the believer has no use for the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit cannot help apply, interpret, or add to what is already as perfect as HE IS.  And when you create a doctrine that drives out the Spirit from the words the believer reads in the Scriptures, then you have destroyed the faith.  You have separated the believer from his or her literal LIFE LINE to God, and replaced it with a pile of papers in the glittery wrapping of a subjective, MAN-MADE abstraction.

People, we must see this, and must not be afraid to concede that even the most well-meaning doctrines, if they are not rooted in REASON, are doomed to become the tools of mystic destroyers. 

So, back to my first point…hyper and irrational literal interpretation is the only apparent plumb line, then, for interpreting the Bible.  And almost to a man/woman those who espouse “inerrancy/infallibility” declare that the Bible “has only one TRUE meaning” and that it “says what it says”, we just need to figure it out and “apply it right”.  Thus, the Bible has the same almost invincible philosophical defense against indictment as the Calvinist despots have.  If there is abuse and destructive fallout from its “inerrant” singular meaning, then, well…it’s man’s fault.  Obviously they just didn’t “do it right”.  Obviously it was their pride, stupidity, sin, lack of faith, and on and on that is to blame.  It could not be the Bible.  No, the Bible is inerrant you see.  If the human suffers, then it MUST be the human’s fault.

Where have we heard this before?  Anyone keeping up with the chain-gang of spiritual abuse news pouring out of Sovereign Grace Ministries (has there ever be a more hyper-Calvinist name for a church?) would understand this devious argument very well.  Oh yes…the “leaders” did nothing wrong of course.  Why, how dare you accuse your divinely-appointed church authorities of wrong-doing; of sin and abuse.  Who are YOU to judge your spiritual superiors, you totally depraved idiot!  Monster!  Steeped in sin from birth!  Obviously, the problem must be you, the sheep. For the sheep are obviously too depraved to discern anything.

So…, well, [shrug] if what they teach leads to the protection for serial child sex predators in the church, well, obviously the sheep just didn’t understand.  They were too stupid, stubborn, sinful, prideful, shameful, haughty, rebellious. The leaders are God in the stead.  They are, well…inerrant.

How convenient.

You see how easy it is to loathe and destroy flesh and blood when you hold it up to a perfect, absolute ABSTRACTION.  Like the infallibility of Scripture; like the pastors standing in the stead, and church “authority”.  Or ANY authority.  And this is why putting abstractions before objects is so backwards to reality.  It is a nightmare fantasyland where imperfect people are cajoled and punished in the name of fictitious perfect absolutes.  From spiritual tyrants to atheist egg heads, all humanity falls short of the inerrant abstractions that are the real masters, the REAL truths that we all must serve; which push us, control us, determine us. 

All of humanity exists solely to be perpetually in service to an IDEA.  A figment of man’s ability to abstract; to organize cognitively his environment.  Yes, they are slaves to the metaphor, the simile, the grammatical tool, the figurative example, the mathematical equation.

Now, of course, we are all conditioned early on to never mind that, like so many other “truths’ and “sound doctrines”, the Bible never describes itself as infallible or inerrant.  But, whatev….for people who should be terrified to add to the Bible, Christians do it incessantly.  Just recently I had a conversation with a person (I admire, actually) who was using the Trinity as proof of God’s mystery; proof that logic and reason could not be used as a THE solid premise for faith.  Now, of course, the doctrine of the Trinity is nowhere to be found in the cannon of scripture except via some seriously forensic speculation.  But again, it is like the old saying goes: repeat something long enough, and people begin to believe it, whether it is true or not.  There is no Biblical way to prove the Trinity, and yet…it is absolute.

Inerrant.  Infallible.  Nowhere to be found in Scripture.  And the same goes for “original sin” (nowhere in the Bible), or “expository preaching” (nowhere in the Bible), “total depravity” (nowhere in the Bible), or “Biblical Manhood/Womanhood” (nowhere), “Biblical roles” (nowhere), gospel-centered (nowhere), “God’s prophet John Piper” (NOWHERE).

Now, for the record, I DO deny the Trinity, in case that last part had you wondering (I’m already a heretic, in admitting my Pelagian concessions, so what’s the difference at this point)…BUT, let me qualify that.  I DO believe that God has at least three perfect attributes that are ALL God, 100%, in and of themselves.  But I also believe God has more attributes than just three, and they are ALL equally God.  Like God’s “work”, God’s “will”, God’s “knowledge”, God’s “love” (God IS love…love has GOT to be part of the “Trinity”), God’s power and His Peace.  Each and every functional attribute where human beings find themselves engaging God  as a function of OUR existential context are, actually and rationally, ALL God Himself.  There can be NO abstract part of God.  ALL of God is utterly and literally part of the real, and tangible, visceral, perfect and categorically existing I AM.  Thus, any aspect of God MUST be ALL God.  You cannot have a “part” of an I AM.  You cannot have something partly perfect; partly God.  It is a metaphysical impossibility. 

More later.  Oh…believe me, I’m nowhere near done destroying the false idea of Biblical inerrancy.

Infallible.  Inerrant.

Take your pick.

Frankly, it’s all the same to me.

I understand that there are those who love to parse meanings and use technicalities in order to obscure the real issue.  The neo-Reformed movement fancies themselves experts at this; and historically they are.  Today, however, without the force of the civil sword in their hands its not as easy, and after a few volleys with a Calvinist in a debate of ideas it soon becomes apparent that it is VERY difficult for them to both say and NOT say at the same time.  Which is too bad, because it really is upon this presumption that their “sound doctrine” depends.

But I digress.

The real problem is that these words–infallible/inerrant–are used at all, regardless of which, to describe the cannon of Scripture that has been organized over many thousands of years into what we know today as the Protestant’s handbook:  our version of the Holy Bible (and the Catholics, of course, have theirs; and before that, it was infallibly in Latin; and before that, infallibly Aramaic, infallibly Greek, infallibly Hebrew…take your pick.  Will the real infallible bible please stand up? I mean, what is infallible exactly, and how can there be another “version” of infallible?  How can there be an improvement on “WHOLLY useful and true”?  Does this not seem logically contradictory right off the bat? But never mind you, sinner, about what you THINK is contradictory.  For those who make their treasures and fortunes off of “revealing” such “truths” are in positions of the divine; straddling the boundary between human and deity.  An apparition is all you can comprehend when you seek to comprehend spiritual things.  You will be told; and then you will be compelled.  Welcome to the neo-Reformed movement.)

But I digress.

I use these terms interchangeably because the doctrine behind them regards them as functionally the same.  The Bible is, in and of itself, utterly perfect.  That is the root assumption.  I don’t care what they tell you it “really” means.  I don’t care what source they cite.  By now we should all understand that what a Calvinist says and what they mean/really-want-to-say are almost never consistent.  So, again, what biblical infallibility means is that the bible needs no help from anything outside of itself; it is as God.  And what I mean by that is that it is its own definition, like God; it is its own proof of truth.  What is the bible?  The bible is that which is considered the bible (of itself).  Why can we trust the bible?  Because it is the bible.

Oh.  Okay.  Well, who the heck needs God then?

I do not particularly care how Calvinists like to cull you with a myriad of heady-sounding technicalities, or appeals to mere “humble” and “innocent” meanings.

Them:  “Why, all infallible means is that we think the Bible is a helpful thing.”

Me:  “Then how is the bible different than a cook book?”

Them: “Because it’s the bible.”

Me:  “Huh?”

Them:  [shrug]

Behind all the equivocating is a false doctrine; a deception, and a hermeneutic tool used to separate the bible from other books, in order that it may be transformed into a hammer of the gnostic overlords.

But the problem is that the bible is just a book, and it is so obviously just a book that even a child will rightly define it thus.  Sooooo…the only way (and a creative way; reminiscent of the old mystic, shamanistic religions) to make it not just a book is to ascribe to it some kind of trait particular to a consciousness.  And since the Holy Spirit, it is declared, is its author, then that trait is, essentially, perfection.  The bible is infallible because it cannot do anything wrong…in and of itself lay the perfection of God.  Within its covers one finds utter completeness of TRUTH.  Because it is not just a book, it is the essence of God Himself.  Which, er…is God Himself.

In other words, the Bible is God in book form.  THAT is the only way the bible can be MORE than just a book.  Yes it is.  And the problem with that should be totally obvious by now, because I just wrote it:  this makes the Bible GOD.  And if the Bible is God, then it is to be worshiped.  It is to be served.  Anything in it about man is really God; all of it is the same thing; for there can be no interpretation, understanding, application beyond itself.  It is wholly USELESS to man, because it all is God, and means God, and there is nothing thus beyond it.  All meanings and interpretations point to a conclusion that is of no use to man’s context because, by definition, God is outside of Creation’s context.  If the bible is God, then there is NOTHING of man in it.

You cannot understand an infallible bible.  You can’t even begin to know it.

So who can?  Can you guess?  Is the whole point becoming clear?  Do you understand just who now stands to gain, and gain immeasurably from such a doctrine?  Think!  Think!  You’ve seen them, up there, behind the plexiglass.  Tie-less, khakis, sipping water, joking about sports, feigning humility and proof-texting.  Many of them rolling in a treasure and luxury that you could scarcely imagine; all the while telling you to “give until it hurts”.

Those who gain from “sound doctrine” generally gain what they crave the most:  money.  But that’s another story.  We shall examine the equivocations and excuses behind the vast earthly riches of the neo-Cal movement later.  For, now, let’s continue to put into the grave the false doctrine of biblical inerrancy/infallibility.

Regardless of which definition we choose to use, or where we pull it from—Wikipedia, Oxford, Webster’s, our ecclesiastical oligarchs in the stead, our devoted Calvinist friends—what we are really doing, I say again, when we declare the bible infallible is ascribing a living consciousness to it.  That is, the very consciousness and power and will of God’s Spirit BECOMES the written code, making the bible itself equal with God.  The Holy Spirit as a Spirit becomes a divine middle man, serving no real purpose at all, being the “author” of Himself, which is metaphysically impossible and redundant, because there then can be no interpretation of the bible other than what it says, because if the bible is the written Word (capital  W), then the bible is God, and there is no interpretation of God besides God.  The Holy Spirit didn’t write the bible, He became the bible.  Asking Him to become a tool for the profane (man) to then “apply” is utter blasphemy.  All of this, and more, you get in the mix of biblical infallibility.

In this sense, we should make clear–if we decide that we will continue to defend the idea of biblical infallibility regardless of the impossible and contradictory premises–that an appeal to biblical infallibility, and demanding an acceptance of it by our church members, is truly blasphemy at its root.  For if indeed the perfect essence of the Spirit of God is in the bible itself, then there is no need for the Holy Spirit at all, for the bible IS Him.

To be frank, and putting away all “whimsy” (don’t you love the neo-Cal lexicon; it is the most upbeat of all tyrannical propaganda) there is only one inevitable, practical, and logical reason to implement the concept of biblical infallibility:  the subjugation and destruction of man in service to the power and wealth of gnostic overlords.  For if the conviction and guidance of the Holy Spirit (what is necessary for the truths of the bible to be revealed as consistently true and efficacious in their application to man’s contexts) is removed by making it redundant and unnecessary via the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, then that leaves only one ultimate arbiter of TRUTH when people are disagreeing amongst themselves as to the interpretive definitions and root meanings, which, in light of infallibility can only be defined thus: they are what they are.  The only thing left to do when two people disagree, in other words, about what the bible really says, is not to look at outcomes or appeal to the guidance of the Spirit, but to defer all understanding and interpretations to the gnostic ecclesiastical authorities.  Man cannot understand God, and the Spirit cannot reinterpret Himself, and so only one thing remains: a “gifted” man, standing in the stead, will interpret for you.  He, as shaman, will proclaim the will of the gods in every situation.  Put your bible away, for he will tell you (and, you will even see this theme today in mainstream neo-Cal churches and movements:  apply sermons more, read the bible less), and he will explain what it says, depending on the day, time, person, and event.  What you see as capricious revelation, is merely the “authority” bestowed upon gnostic powers to tell you how to live, what to think, and what to do, since the bible, by definition, cannot.  You see, God tried to reveal to you…but the best he could do was recreate Himself on paper; and unfortunately you are too depraved to see Him.  In such a case, only the divines can interpret God’s will.  Only divines, by a mysterious power from on high, can read God’s thoughts from the incarnate pages and turn them into applicable and practical meaning for each and every person.

And so which makes more sense:  Worship God?  Or worship the man who can actually and pragmatically BE God to you?  Worship the One who cannot know you, and you cannot know Him? Or worship the one who can meet all your earthly needs by telling you just what is best for you in this life, and the next, without needing to consult God, because he himself is, according to his calling as divine interpreter, equally infallible…and yet, wholly one with whom you can relate, because he likewise is merely a poor, depraved sinner, saved by grace? (You see?  There it is again.  The IS/IS NOT dichotomy of Calvinist theology; impossible contradiction rearing its head again.)

The answer to that is still up in the air.  Of course the neo-Reformed/Calvinist pastors will declare this to be utter nonsense.  They’ll spurt and sputter their (feigned) astonishment at such a heinous and ridiculous accusation. Why, it’s mere sensationalism…a taking out of context; a building and burning of a straw man of my own angry, bitter, and excommunicated device.  Of course, worship only God, they will say.

Ah yes, but the truth and meaning behind their words lay in this question:  Who is God? Is it the one on whom your depraved prayers are wasted?  Or the one who is able to affirm or deny your every thought and action in this life which will lead you to the next?  In the IS/IS NOT dichotomy of Calvinist theology, the real truth is that there is NO difference between themselves and God.  So when they declare “Worship God!”, you must understand that this is functionally the exact same thing as submitting yourself to everything they are and declare.

Hmmm….

Ask them, and at best, I suspect you will find the a very muddy answer.  Only about as clear as a tyrant without the civil authority to kill and imprison can make it.  But the sword has a wonderful way of toning down the ambient noise.  Look to Calvin’s Geneva, and see just who it was men and women really worshiped and feared.  And, let’s be honest, no one gets away with a travesty of theological and metaphysical doublespeak like the Heidelberg Disputation unless they are pretty sure they have the divine right to institute “church discipline”.

So, according to the doctrine of biblical infallibility, the bible is the essence of the Spirit, Himself.  And so, if you are not getting it right, it is because you are, by Calvinist and neo-Reformed definition, unable to grasp the truth of the Spirit.  Indeed, your pervasive depravity is to blame if you have not “been given the grace to perceive” (-C.J. Mahaney on his “sins”).  But then, how is it that you can ever know if you have been given grace to perceive the infallible truth of the Spirit bible? Well, by definition, you can’t, can you? You, being wholly fallible and pervasively depraved, can never, by definition, be given or possess the grace to perceive any such thing as infallible truth, and so the only thing you can do  is accept the interpretation of your neo-Reformed pastor-in-the-stead. (NOTE:  By the way, “in the stead” means “instead”; that is, the pastor is God instead of God, is what they are saying; and this makes it a little less appetizing, doesn’t it?)  Any deviation from this, any different conclusion that you might draw from the text is merely proof that you have, indeed, not been given grace to perceive the infallible truths of the infallible bible.  And because you are depraved, you will never perceive them.  For that kind of perception is the privilege of the gnostic few.

How very convenient.

Another facet of my argument in service to dismantling heady-and-humble-sounding-yet-oppressive-doctrines-of-the-neo-reformed,-and-their-hammer,- the Calvinsts, is an appeal to rank logic:

The bible is an IT.  A created thing; inanimate, paper and ink, many translations, the linguistic representation of God’s revelation TO man about man and about God, through the context and perspective of its human authors.  Now, for the moment, let us assume that we all agree that the scriptures as we know them are, in fact, “utterly inspired” by the Spirit; that is, let’s not take the time right now to parse the definition of “inspired” and just what is meant by that term (e.g. I submit that many Christians, when they read “inspired”, think “dictated”).

The bible is an IT, as I said.  The Spirit is a HE.  The bible is inanimate.  The Spirit has a conscience.  The bible sits.  The Spirit moves.  The bible declares.  The Spirit thinks.  Man asks.  The bible states.  The Spirit answers.  The bible is static.  The Spirit acts.  Man grows.

If our definition of infallibility is the seemingly innocuous idea of the bible not being able to “lead astray”; incapable of error; utterly efficacious and useful in all it declares and counsels…then, if we are going to ascribe these attributes, which are decidedly a function of a living, self–aware conscience, then, by logical extension, we must apply them to ALL written works.  For if consciousness is no longer the worker of these ideas and actions, but they are now accepted as imputed to inanimate objects, like books (for all books are books; it is impossible that a thing can be a book AND something else, at its root, at the exact same time, even if the book is the bible), then what separates the infallibility of one inanimate work of literature from another?

This is a brief post on the ongoing battle between those who want to make the Bible God and those of us who declare that God is God, and that the Bible is, in fact, just a book.  It is an important book; yes, for it holds the revelation of God to man.  But it is a book in this sense:  that its meaning and truth are contextual to man.  It is first and foremost a true story about man.  And its efficacious meaning is revealed in how man applies the truths of the story to his own unique context, under the guidance of the only infallible thing:  God, as His Spirit.

This afternoon I spent some time thinking about how you reconcile “infallible” with “truth”.  After a while, it dawned on me that the two ideas are mutually exclusive to one another.  That is, they are completely separate concepts, and putting them together is like mixing sardines and cinnamon cereal.  There is no point, and forcing a point makes only a strange, incongruent, and ultimately confusing and ridiculous spectacle.  The cynic in me says that men do this to consolidate their selfish and wicked power over the barbarian masses.  This is not true in all cases, of course, but the bloody history of the Christian church indicates that it is true A LOT.

Truth and infallibility are incompatible ideas; it is senseless to put them together.  There is no such thing as infallible truth, there is just truth.  Truth doesn’t need to be infallible, it just needs to be true.  So then what we are really proclaiming when we appeal to biblical infallibility is a “special” sort of truth; an infallible truth, which isn’t really truth at all; it is God.

Infallibility is God.  And God just is (the I AM).  He is what He is.  Our appeal then to biblical infallibility means that we want to declare this of the Bible as well.  But that makes a created thing on par with God; meaning God has a created equal, which is metaphysically and physically impossible.  The Bible is either true, or it is not.  Infallibility can have nothing to do with it because infallibility can only be ascribed to God.  And again, if the Bible is indeed infallible, then it is the fourth member of the “Trinity” and as such, is useless to man, because man cannot apply God to his context because God is what He is apart from man; God creates man, man does not APPLY God to his own existence, then, he applies his knowledge about God, and that knowledge comes from a revealed truth ABOUT God; God HIMSELF is NOT the revelation; the revelation is the revelation.

When we say the Bible is infallible we declare falsely that the Bible also becomes an I AM.  Which means that it cannot be revealed or inspired by the Spirit, because it IS the Spirit, which makes it redundant, because the Spirit has no need to reveal Himself by recreating Himself.  The concept of biblical infallibility is therefore as ridiculous as it is impossible.

The Bible is how man can know how to live and who he is in light of his existence and God’s.  It is nothing more than that.  It is not divine in and of itself. It has no special powers.  It IS just a BOOK.  It is a book put together and written by MAN, canonized and organized in its present protestant form (speaking of the protestant churches) based on the actions and will of man, based upon what God has told him; a recreation in written language of God’s revelation. 

It is not supernatural, it is not to be worshiped, adored, followed AS God, idolized, or served.  It is not God.  It is a revelation of the truth of God.  And its meaning and relevance rests entirely upon the existence of, and application by man to man’s unique, individual context, guided by the Holy Spirit, who is the reason why the Bible does not need to be infallible, and furthermore, CANNOT be infallible.

Infallibility is a red herring issue, really, and that is my primary problem with it.  It can only confuse the faith, never clarify it. The idea of inerrancy or infallibility is, ultimately, completely irrelevant to our faith.  That is, in an attempt to say something about what we believe, we create a doctrine that is false because, among other things, it is simply not relevant to what we believe.