Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look, and an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

In the 1980s and 90s, a controversy swirled within the evangelical world over the question of biblical

inerrancy. Now, it wasn't the first time the authority of the Bible was questioned, but a common

claim during this time was that the

doctrine of inerrancy was a mere innovation of late 19th century Princeton theologians,

theologians who were attempting to respond to higher biblical criticism. Before then, the claim

continued, Christians did not really believe the Bible to be without error, only to be infallible.

It's a distinction that makes a big difference. The Bible, they said, is accurate in matters of faith and practice, but it's not

without error in other areas like science or history. Though the word inerrancy may have been new at

the time, the idea of inerrancy was not new to the church. In fact, how the early church fathers

described scripture sounds exactly like what the Princeton theologians meant by inerrancy.

The same, in fact, can also be said about medieval or reformation or even modern theologians

before the rise of theological liberalism. The attack on the Bible of biblical inerrancy 40 years ago

is essentially the same as the attack on biblical authority that emerged during the Enlightenment.

Once reason and science were elevated to be the primary arbiters of truth, it was necessary

to reject things like the biblical claims to miracles. Aligning scripture, particularly

Genesis, with accepted science,

required assuming that the Bible was not reporting on literal history or attempting to make

scientific claims. Now, the attack on biblical inerrancy quickly became an attack on

literal interpretations of scripture. So-called literalists are often accused of biblioletry or the worshiping

of the Bible instead of God. However, inerrancy cannot be reduced to mere biblical literalism.

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