Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: jhpb@granjon.garage.att.com Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: inerrancy (Re: Wanted: Non-Fundamentalist Christian sect) Message-ID: Date: 29 Jul 90 21:23:40 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: AT&T Bell Labs (Liberty Corner) Lines: 71 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Chuck Hedrick (our moderator) wrote: The largest group that does not accept inerrancy is the Catholic Church. Which is curious. I may not understand what you meant by "inerrancy". Here is some official Catholic teaching on the subject: From the encyclical letter of Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus, 1893, on the study of Sacred Scripture: The books, all and entire, which the Church accepts as sacred and canonical, with all their parts, have been written at the dictation of the Holy Spirit; so far is it from the possibility of any error being present to divine inspiration, that it of itself not only excludes all error, but excludes it and rejects it as necessarily as it is necessary that God, the highest Truth, be the author of no error whatsoever. (Please don't anyone get too worked up over the word "dictation" in that paragraph. I am quoting passages dealing with inerrancy, not the meaning or mode of inspiration. The word "dictation" is not being used in a literal sense here.) (I am also not going into the exact meaning of "inerrancy".) The following proposition was condemned in a famous 1907 decree of the Holy Office concerning the "Errors of the Modernists": 11. Divine inspiration does not so extend to all Sacred Scripture that it fortifies each and every part of it against all error. Benedict XV also issued an encyclical on Sacred Scripture on the 15th centenary of the death of St. Jerome (1920), called Spiritus Paraclitus, which goes into some detail on Catholic doctrine of inerrancy. I will not quote it for brevity's sake. Joe Buehler [The question is what it means to be free of error. My classification of the Catholic Church as rejecting inerrancy is based on two things: a detailed treatment of the doctrine on inspiration in the material accompanying the New American Bible, and observation of recent Catholic Biblical scholarship. The article in the NAB (which comes with an imprimatur) quotes Prov. Deus of Leo XIII as allowing for scientific errors. It says that God was not trying to teach science, but salvation, and spoke of material things "according to their appearances". It comments that Benedict XV, in Spir. Par., rejected the equivalent treatment of historical matters on a blanket basis, as history was often part of the message being conveyed. However it left open the nature of the historical truth in the Bible. Pius XII in Divino Afflanto Spiritu asked scholars to look into the issue for the OT. Verbum Dei of the 2nd Vatican Council emphasizes the salvific character of revelation. The NAB prefatory material goes on to suggest a model of revelation that emphsizes what the authors, and God through them, was trying to say. Thus matters are inerrant only to the extent that they are affirmed by the authors. This means considering what point the author is trying to make, and what degree of certainty is indicated. The authors are free to venture opinions and even make guesses, and I get the impression that material referred to in passing but not crucial to the point being made is not necessary considered inerrant. In fact Catholic scholars participate in the general Biblical scholarly community. I've read a number of commentaries by Catholic authors, all with imprimaturs. I'd say that they are generally at the conservative end of those who reject inerrancy. The article quoted above seems to characterize pretty accurately the basis on which the Catholic scholars I've read seem to be operating. --clh]