From the article: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> As Dr. Rhodes puts it: "the authority of Scripture cannot be separated from the authority of God. Whatever the Bible affirms, God affirms... that revelation is authoritative - just as authoritative as the One who gave it." Liberals do not and can not believe this, because in our view it simply is not true. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
This is the crux of the argument. There is a predisposition to distrust God and His revelation of Himeslf, or even the very notion that God can and would reveal Himself. Since Liberals openly assume this, then all bets are off.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> God's will to human beings. It does not do this by being the literal, verbally inspired, perspicuous and historically reliable Word of the divine, nor by being the only source of divine revelation to us. Instead, the Bible takes authority for Christians in spite of the fact that it is the limited, human expression of people; it assumes authority for us because it was written by people of faith who have passed on their faith as people of faith. They have given us their faith-filled understanding of themselves, their times, their people, and most importantly, of God. Our own experience of the enduring "truth" of their testimony is what renders the words of the Bible the Word of God. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
How do we know this? Why should we assume this? This is an assumption in its entirety. Why should we assume that the faith-filled people gave us something worth adhering to if God cannot be trusted to do the same?
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Our mission is not to "preach the bible", per se, but to preach Christ. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Why is Christ and the Bible assumed to be in opposition to one another? This is often argued in liberal circles but never really articulated reasonably.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> The classic fundamentalist proof-text which they believe supports the idea that the Bible is infallible actually says only that all scripture is inspired, and it makes the claim that the purpose of inspired scripture is to help prepare people for faith in Jesus as the Christ. It has no other purpose. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
To divorce inspiration from infallibility is a fallacy. And this is exegesis at its worst regarding 2 Timothy 3:16-17.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> This means that we are not to preach moral messages interpreted simply from the stories of the Old Testament, or say things like "Abraham was rich, so Christians can be rich." <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I'll buy that.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> The common practice among Conservatives is to regard every scriptural reference to God's Law or to God's Word as being a reference to the 66 books of the Protestant Bible. This view suggests that an ancient psalmist or wisdom writer, who was writing of the glories and wisdom of God's Word way back in the 10th century B.C. was in fact referring to your King James Version Bible. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Red herring.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> This view is held in spirte of the fact that the passage being considered might in fact have been written some 300 years before the Pentateuch (Genesis-Deuteronom -- no, it was not all or even mostly written by Moses, for it always refers to him in third person, does not identify its own author, and an account of his burial is found at its end). Besides being preposterous, this position is destructive to faith, because it denies and limits our understanding of the meaning of scripture. As many have quipped, "God gave you a brain, use it". The prophets and wisdom books frequently speak of the Law or of God's Word, or of Wisdom herself as an ineffable divine reality which is learned from God directly, not only by studying ancient scripture, but through prophets and teachers and people of knowledge. Therefore, we must reject out of hand the list of several scores of Biblical references to the "perfection" of God's Word or God's Law. These references do not support a 20th century protestant doctrine of scriptural inerrancy. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>An assertion without proof. If this "logic" is to be followed, then we cannot claim the OT points to Christ since obviously Christ came long after the prophecies were made....oops, wait, many liberals DO claim that don't they
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> A better way, a spiritual and true way for us to understand ancient references to this ineffable spiritual reality, God's Word, is to realize that as Christians, we inherit a tradition which understands Jesus Christ to be God's living WORD made into flesh. (John chapter 1). We do not believe that the psalmists knew that they were referring to Jesus hundreds of years before his birth, we simply believe and recognize for ourselves, after "encountering" God's Word in the life of Jesus, and recognizing in faith that God speaks to us through Jesus, that Christ is a perfect representation of the very Word which has always inspired the prophets of God.
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Not a better way, just an anti-supernatural way, an existential way filled with subjectivly flawed reasoning.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> But ultimately, God's word is external to scriptures. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Direct inconsistency. Earlier the writer claimed the Bible contained God's Word. Now, the Word of God is outside the Scriptures. Which is it?
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Scriptures are SIGNS ONLY, SIGNS WHICH POINT TO CHRIST.
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And according to the author, untrustworthy ones at that. Not compelling.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> If we preach the scriptures as the final, exclusive, inerrant and literal Word of God, then we in fact deny Christ, we deny the reality of the holy spirit, which inspired the prophets, which annointed Jesus in his life, and which is always present with us calling us into relationship with God. Instead, in preaching the Bible as the Word, we tread into legalism, literalism, and the preaching of the written code... something Paul warned about strenuously. We cannot preach a written code, but only the spirit of Christ, for "the written code kills, but the spirit gives life" (2 Corinthians 3:6).
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Sheer nonsense and prejudice. And does anyone else think it's amusing when liberals strip all the truthfulness away from Scripture then appeal to a text to prove something, when by their own assertions Scripture cannot be trusted?
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>There can be no credible claim that the Bible is anything but a human document. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Sheer prejudice based on ad-hominem
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Far from being "simple" or "clear", the bible's significance for individual modern lives depends entirely on perspectives and subjective factors brought by the readers to the text. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Hey, guys - you don't have to be faithful to your wives just because the Bible teaches it: bring your subjectivity to that text. Hey KKK: you don't have to repent of your racism - bring your subjectivity to the Bible.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Even if the Protestant Bible did claim its own infallibility in one or more verses of scripture, which it does not, such fact would not change the overall thrust of the Bible's own concepts of fallible human being, nor would it scuttle the obvious purpose of the Christian use of the Bible, which is to preach Christ, nor would it contradict the obvious and Biblical fact that Christ represents a re-evaluation of the whole idea of the legal and scriptural tradition itself. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Since the contradictions here are so obvious (and pathetic), let's wrap this up. I suspect you get the point. More could be said, but why bother?
