It has been argued (by Professor John Webster and others, I believe) that the Bible can’t be perfect since only God is perfect. But this is a very woolly spurious argument.
Since the Bible is God’s word, and words reflect the character of their speaker, there is a strong prima facia (is that right?) case that the Bible shares characteristics of God. Of course the Bible is not God or a god but it is God speaking. What the Bible says, God says. We would expect the perfect God’s words to be perfect.
As Carson comments in the latest Trinity Journal:
Webster has not listened carefully enough to what Scripture says of God’s word or of God’s words. Like God himself, God’s words and God’s word (the biblical writers can use both the singular and the plural) are frequently asserted to be faithful, true (Ps 118:160), righteous (Prov 8:8), pure or flawless (Ps 12:6; 118:40). Small wonder that the appropriate response to God’s word is humility, contrition, trembling (Isa 66:2)—exactly the appropriate response to God himself.
God certainly has incommunicable attributes (only God is omnipotent and God could not make another omnipotent thing) but God also has communicable attributes: God can make men can be strong or wise in their degree and manner. God is perfectly able to make a perfect book.
The Bible’s perfection is rather different from God’s, but true, nevertheless. God necessarily possesses the sum of all perfections. The Bible has a derived, contingent perfection in all that it affirms and is perfect for the roles God has ordained for it.
The Bible is a human book and to err is human, but to err is not necessary to humanity, as the Lord Jesus Christ demonstrates in his perfect true humanity. The analogy between inscripturation and incarnation of the Word of God still has legs.
Posts
1 comment:
prima facie
Post a Comment