INERRANCY AND INCONSISTENCY:
A REPLY TO TILL
1. Introductory Remarks
--------------------
Suppose someone foolishly suggests to you that _my shirt is not red_ entails that _my shirt is blue_. How should you respond? Well, one way of responding would be to give what philosophers call a counterexample. The basic idea here is to describe a possible situation (it doesn't have to be actual) which is consistent with your shirt's not being red, and which together with that state of affairs entails that your shirt isn't blue either. So we could argue that it is possible that _my shirt is green_. This is consistent with _my shirt is not red_ and together with it implies that _my shirt is NOT blue_. Hence, the inference in question is false; it is false that _my shirt is not red_ implies _my shirt is blue_.
Now I have alleged that Till wants to affirm:
(A4) Necessarily, if God is omnipotent and omniscient, then there will
be exactly one inerrant gospel record (if any).
I argued, first, that he doesn't prove it, and second, that it's false. My second post was really just a lengthy counterexample to (A4). There I described a possible (but not necessarily actual) state of affairs [namely, (A5c-e)] which is consistent with God's being omnipotent and omniscient, but which together with that fact implies there will be _more than one_ inerrant gospel record (if any).
2. The Status of (A4)
------------------
How does Till respond? He begins by saying that (A4) is "not exactly" what he meant. Why not? He needs (A4) to derive a contradiction between the propositions _God is omnipotent and omniscient_ and _There is more than one inerrant gospel record (if any)_. How can he possibly show that these propositions are logically inconsistent if he abandons (A4)? What is Till up to here?
We are first told that "Falwellian" and "DeHoffian" brands of inerrantism build compositional, geographic, scientific, historical, and chronological features into the doctrine. Fair enough. We then have the remark that
<<Therefore, a *verbally* inspired gospel account that was in any way
inadequate enough to require the writing of a second *verbally* inspired
gospel (not even to mention a third and a fourth) is completely inconsistent with the inerrantist line of reasoning.>>
And a bit later:
<<The writing of the second gospel necessarily implies that the first
one was in some way imperfect, for if the first one had really been
perfect (through the process of an omniscient, omnipotent deity's
directing Mark to put in the exact words that were needed), there would have been no need for a second gospel.>>
Right. But if you think about it long enough, you'll see that these remarks jointly entail (A4). So Till _does_ want to affirm (A4). His "not exactly" comment is just a minor distraction. So far then, Till has given us no reason for thinking that he isn't committed to (A4).
Till goes on to say that the inerrancy doctrine is therefore "illogical", and expresses his hope that:
<<Mr. Davis will direct his attention to this inconsistency and explain
to us how that it does not show fallacy in the inerrantist line of reasoning.>>
This is a very revealing comment. It shows that Till completely identifies the doctrine of inerrancy with the expression it finds in, say, Falwell and DeHoff. He uses the term `inerrancy' to refer only to what _these_ individuals have said about the doctrine. But then he wants to pull out of the hat at the end that inerrancy _tout court_ is irrational, which doesn't follow. (This was the essential point of my first post.) This point is accentuated by the fact that if libertarian versions of inerrancy are even _possibly true_, the inconsistency Till speaks of doesn't even exist. (This was the essential thrust of my second post).
Till goes on:
<<Now we are all willing to concede that Richard Davis has mastered the
art of laying information out in terms of (A1), (A2), (A3), (A1a),
(A2a), (A1ab), etc. (although I'm not so such that he is yet convinced
that when this is overdone it results in a complexity so confusing that
it is difficulty to follow his reasoning), so I will ask him to dispense
with the demonstrations of his competence in this area and get down to
the nitty gritty of dealing directly with the implications of what
inerrantists are saying and forget about his compulsion to demonstrate the trappings of his philosophical studies.>>
It is very difficult to see how this comment relates to the soundness of my argument at all. Suppose Till is right about this alleged character defect. Is this a suitable topic for discussion in a scholarly forum? If I suffer from an excess desire to let my fellows know how wonderful I am, wouldn't it be more appropriate to write my wife, or possibly my department chairperson?
3. The Status of my Counterexample to (A4)
---------------------------------------
What does Till have to say about my counterexample? In my second post, I argued that libertarianism was _possibly_ true, and that a libertarian version of the inerrancy doctrine was _possible_. I then argued that, if so, there is a _possible_ state of affairs [namely, (A5c-e)] which shows that (A4) is false.
How does Till respond? By conflating DeHoff's inerrantism with the libertarian brand I advanced as _possible_. He says that I need
<<to explain how that a perfect document would require the writing of a
second perfect document that would report biographical information about
the same person whose biography was recorded in the first. Here is a
simple question for him to answer: if someone writes a *perfect*
biography of Margaret Thatcher, why would there be a need for the same person to write a second biography of Thatcher?>>
That Till asks this question is again evidence that he equates inerrantism with `DeHoffian inerrantism'; he's got those DeHoffian blinders on again, causing him to treat all inerrantists as a monolithic voting block.
So what _is_ the answer to Till's question on my libertarian view? Simply that if libertarianism is possibly true, then it could be that it was not within God's power (though omnipotent) to _cause_ anyone to _freely_ write a perfect (i.e, complete and inerrant) biography of Jesus, Margaret Thatcher, or whomever. For if libertarianism is true, free will and causal determinism are logically incompatible. And, of course, if this view of things is possible, then comments such as
<<So would Davis explain to us how that an omniscient, omnipotent deity
*verbally* inspired Mark to write his gospel (so that Mark didn't use a
single word or leave out a single word that God wanted him to use) but
later *verbally* inspired Matthew to write a second version of the
gospel and had Matthew use words that were inconsistent with the way
that Mark had told the same story? I'd be very interested in hearing Davis's explanation of that>>
are entirely misplaced and evince a profound misunderstanding of the libertarian position. For if God verbally inspires X to write Y, then God _causes_ X to write Y. But if so, then if libertarianism is true, X does not write Y _freely_, which contradicts the libertarian construal of the inerrancy doctrine I laid out. If this libertarian scenario is even possibly true, then it could be that it was not within God's power (though omnipotent) to cause X to write Y freely, thus guaranteeing perfection "on the first try" so to speak. And, as I argued previously, this in no way denigrates God's power.
Till has a two-pronged response to libertarianism. First, in response to my laying out a definition of libertarian free will, Till says that
<<Davis is more interested in displaying his "expertise" in
philosophical jargon than in arriving at a decision about the soundness
of the inerrantist position? I know what he is saying, but I suspect
that there are some on the list who do not? I suspect that some were left scratching their heads and saying, "Huh?">>
Again, I don't see why Till felt compelled to say this. This kind of thing is unscholarly. My justification for the use of philosophical terminology (also used by Richard Gale, Quentin Smith, and Michael Martin) is twofold. First, philosophy is my field, so it comes with the territory. Secondly, I didn't write my pieces on Till for ERRANCY or APOLOGIA or even Till himself. They are the product of private study (where there is no audience). Subsequently, however, I thought subscribers to APOLOGIA might be interested. Subscribers to ERRANCY saw my posts only because Jeff Lowder asked permission to forward them to the list (which I gladly gave). So this oft-repeated remark about showing off for my audience is not only unworthy of a scholarly exchange, it's off the mark.
Secondly, my libertarian view:
<<simply conflicts with the inerrantist position that God never left the
writers free to practice libertarianism when (time) they (individuals)
were writing (action), because God did not allow them to use just any
words with reference to (w.r.t.) what they were writing, but he had them to use the very words he wanted used, and he did not leave a single "i" undotted that he wanted dotted or a single "t" uncrossed that he wanted crossed.>>
Till goes still further, claiming that what I have done
<<is to disregard completely what inerrantists actually believe about
biblical inerrancy and talk in philosophical circles about what might be true with "every possible person" in "every possible world," but [you]
have not addressed the logical implications of the inerrancy doctrine as
it is preached by Christian fundamentalists who presently live in *this* world.>>
What we have here, I think, is further confirmation of the fact that Till identifies `the inerrantist position' with `DeHoff's position'. Thus, he tries to rule out my view by claiming it isn't properly inerrantist (i.e., DeHoffian). But nothing is settled by a definition. Pointing out that my view isn't `DeHoffian' doesn't anywhere nearly suffice to show either (i) that my view isn't possible, or (ii) that my view is stuck with the difficulties attending _other_ views.
4. Concluding Remarks
------------------
So far as I can see, therefore, Till has said nothing that even remotely calls into question either the possibility of libertarianism, or the possibility of a libertarian construal of the inerrancy doctrine. Moreover, he never questioned the specifics of the possible state of affairs I described [i.e., (A5c-e)] to defeat (A4), apart from the _ad hominem_ remark that I should pay less attention to philosophical grandstanding and more attention to my audience. Hence, I can't see that he has done anything at all to call into question the counterexample I offered to (A4), a proposition which it does seem that he wants (and needs) to affirm.
************************************************************************
| Richard Davis, PhD (Cand), Dept of Philosophy, U Toronto, 215 Huron |
| St, M5S 1A1, Ph: (905) 727-0361, Email: davis@epas.utoronto.ca |
************************************************************************
Jeff Lowder <jlowder@southwind.com>