Biblical authority and Christianity: Is the Bible infallible?
When people question whether the Bible has authority, they are often confused because the envision authority as coming from an external power. However, authority in the Bible is both internal and external. On one hand, when Jesus teaches in the Bible, he invokes the authority of his heavenly father and those prophets who taught and wrote scripture before him. He also invokes his own authority to teach as he is one with the father. The Bible has a conferred authority by pointing to God but also acts as a real authority as an agent of God's self-disclosure.[footnoteRef:1] Plenary inspiration is defined as finding inspiration from these Biblical authors rather than the text alone. It also suggests that while all authors are infallible or inerrant, some may be inspired in different ways. [footnoteRef:2] Verbal inspiration, in contrast, is text rather than author-oriented.[footnoteRef:3] [1: Walter A. Elwell, "Bible, Authority of," Evangelical commentary on the Bible (Baker reference library), (Baker Pub Group), 1989: 153] [2: Walter A. Elwell, "Plenary Inspiration," Evangelical commentary on the Bible (Baker reference library), (Baker Pub Group), 1989: 929] [3: Walter A. Elwell, "Verbal inspiration," Evangelical commentary on the Bible (Baker reference library), (Baker Pub Group), 1989: 1242]
Regardless of one's emphasis on plenary or verbal inspiration, the Bible is considered inerrant (i.e. without flaw) because it is directly inspired by God. Many theologians believe that inerrancy is defined as "when all facts become known, they will demonstrate…the Bible is entirely true…whether that relates to doctrine or
Another argument for inerrancy is historical precedent. Virtually all the major religions to derive from the Bible argue for its inerrancy. To deny inerrancy is to deny the philosophical foundations of the Judeo-Christian tradition. However, the problem with this argument is that it uses non-Biblical, human-derived sources to defend the notion of the God-generated source of Biblical doctrine. Related to this argument is the 'slippery slope' idea that to question the inerrancy of one aspect of the Bible will lead to a questioning of all doctrines, including that of the divinity of Christ. Finally, from an epistemological standpoint it is argued that all of the Bible must be true to create a comprehensive and defensible Christian worldview. [footnoteRef:7] [7: Elwell, 157-158]
One common argument against inerrancy is that many otherwise orthodox Christians do…
Some of America's oldest cities had been newly infused with evangelical faith, and most primitive frontier areas were filled with tent revivals. From a more liberal perspective, Unitarianism had taken root in New England universities. ("Toqueville and Religion," (http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/religion/intro.html) This strain of American religious thought stressed the connections between self and nature, even to the entire exclusion of a religious doctrine, dogma, and community, almost to the breaking point.
successfully does Thrasymachus contend that rulers cannot make mistakes? Thrasymachus and the case made for leaders not making mistakes is mixed at best. His argument seems to come from the concept that the power bestowed on the leader in and of itself gives a level of infallibility in terms of the decisions made and how just they are. He makes no exception as he is specifically mentioning the different leadership
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" It caused missionaries to deal with peoples of other cultures and even Christian traditions -- including the Orthodox -- as inferior. God's mission was understood to have depended upon human efforts, and this is why we came to hold unrealistic universalistic assumptions. Christians became so optimistic that they believed to be able to correct all the ills of the world." (Vassiliadis, 2010) Missiology has been undergoing changes in recent years
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Jesus of history, is the reflection of the social importance of Jesus in religious pretext, Jesus was famous in his region because he attempted to modify and improve the social and ethical setup of the society. Christ of Faith is the same Jesus, but not the one who is handling hardships from society, and is the one who struggled to improve the religious understanding and scope of people, to bring
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