01.04. The Church’s Testimony as the Basis for Bible Inerrancy

4º The Church’s Testimony as the Basis for Bible Inerrancy The very futility of the preceding views has led some to the church’s testimony as the basis of Inerrancy. Sensing that they cannot prove, even to themselves not to mention others, the Inerrancy of Scripture from something within themselves or within the Bible they succumb to the temptation of appealing to Mother Church. Yet, there is more here than that. It is not simply that many are thought to be able to do what a few cannot accomplish but that God does in the many what he has not chosen to do in the few. That is, God has promised guidance to the body of the faithful and will lead them into all truth and not permit them to be misled fatally.

Now, where does the church get the idea that it is the “pillar and ground of the truth”; that it is to bind and loose on earth? From the Bible! So it is the Bible which is the basis of the church’s authority, not the church which is the basis of the Bible’s authority. The Bible is the pillar on which the church rests, not the church the pillar on which the Bible rests. Incidentally, the expression in 1 Timothy 3:15 that the church is the pillar and ground of the truth does not point to a pillar on which truth rests but to a pillar on which truth was posted for public announcement in antiquity. In other words, it refers to the church as witness to the truth and not the basis of it. But some will say that the church came into existence before the Bible and then called everyone’s attention to the Bible as the Word of God. This is true in an irrelevant sense and false in a relevant sense. When we say that it is true in an irrelevant sense that the church existed before the Bible we mean that granting the church existed before the written and canonical form of the Bible is no proof of Inerrancy. If, for example, the church is thought of as beginning when the first sinners trusted in the mercy of God and if sinful Adam and Eve were the first sinners to trust in the mercy of God then the church existed centuries before the Bible was probably written and certainly many centuries before it was gathered into a canon of books recognized as Bible. If the church is thought of as coming into existence at Pentecost then the Bible (the Old Testament) preceded it by centuries. Still, the New Testament church would have preceded the New Testament Bible because there were New Testament Christians before a word of the New Testament was written.

All of this is obviously true and just as obviously irrelevant to the matter in hand. First, granted that the church, in a sense, existed before the Bible in its written form, what does this prove? According to the advocates of the view in question it is supposed to prove that the church’s testimony is the argument for Inerrancy. But does the church’s testimony, which preceded the Bible, prove the Inerrancy of the Bible? How does the fact that the church may have preceded the Bible in existence prove that the Bible is inspired and inerrant? How does the fact that the previously existing church testifies to the subsequently existing Bible prove the Bible to be what the church says that it is? It is no doubt true that if the church had not testified and did not continue to testify to the Bible as the Word of God the world might soon forget about the Bible and thus never come to realize its Inspiration. The church is indispensable to the Bible’s being considered for what it is. But, this fact is in no sense a proof that the Bible is what the church says it is. The Bible is, we believe, exactly what the church says that it is; but, it is not what the church says it is because the church says it is. Rather, in the true order of events, the church testifies because the Bible is what it is, rather than that the Bible is what it is because the church so testifies.

Perhaps it will become clearer if we outline the order of events:

1. God speaks (revelation).

2. Men respond in faith (church).

3. Revelation is recorded (inerrant Bible).

4. The church recognizes, receives and testifies to the inerrant Bible.

(The question is: What is the basis of the church’s testimony: Surely it is not the church’s testimony.)

Some will still say: Granted, that the church’s testimony is not the basis of Inerrancy but Inerrancy is the basis of the church’s testimony; still, is not the church’s testimony the basis of Inerrancy for us? That is, granted that the church had good and sufficient reasons for recognizing the Bible for what it is, nevertheless we do not have access to these reasons; or even if we did, we do not have the infallible divine guidance necessary for correctly perceiving them. So, we must rest on the church’s testimony as the basis for our belief in Inerrancy though the church herself must have another basis. We reply, that even if this were so it does grant our main point: namely, that the church’s testimony cannot be the basis for Inerrancy. But this point would still be important because it would terminate our search for the basis for Inerrancy. Our search would have ended in a realization that we should not search anymore; that the answer has been found by another (the church) and can be found by none other.

If this is so, so be it. But, is it so? It is not so, nor could it possibly be so. Why not? For the simple reason that if it be proposed that the church’s testimony must become our argument for Inerrancy, we must ask why? If the answer is: “Because the Bible says so,” it is obvious that we are right back where we began. It is the inerrant Bible itself which alone can tell us that the church alone can tell us that the Bible is inerrant! So, for us to accept this position that we can only know that the Bible is inerrant by the testimony of the church we must first know that the Bible is inerrant. For example, Rome claims papal authority from Matthew 16:18 but to do so she must first prove the authority of Matthew 16:18. If that church is to establish her authority, she must first establish the Inerrancy of the Bible. That is, even according to her own argument, she cannot establish the Bible’s authority, but the Bible must establish hers (which, incidentally, it does not do). This then is another wrong basis for a right answer. We must continue our search. We have not yet found the right basis for accepting the Bible’s Inerrancy.