Does the Bible Have to be Infallible?

Tom: Thanks, Gary. You are listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and for living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to Him. Today we’re concluding our discussion about the reliability of the Bible, which some of our listeners may think we have been belaboring, but, Dave, could we come up with a more important subject to talk about, especially on a program called, Search the Scriptures Daily?

Dave: Not much point in searching the Scriptures if they’re not true. That always astounds me, Tom, that we have so many professors in seminaries, we have pastors. We were recently in Germany, and I talked to a number of people there, raised in the state church, the Lutheran church, and they said the pastor made no bones about it. He didn’t believe the Bible. He didn’t believe this was true.

And you ask, well, what is the point? Well, of course, they generally didn’t read the Bible. They didn’t discuss the Bible. It was politics, or morals, or something like that. No, but what’s the point of searching the Scriptures? We have to have an authority. You have to have an authority—otherwise, how do we know what is right and what is wrong, what is true. And when it comes to eternity—and we all depart this life, one way or another—we’d better be sure where we are going, and it’s not enough just to hope.

Tom: Right. So, if the Bible has no authority, then we’re all left with everybody’s best guess or opinions, speculations.

Dave: That’s correct, but the Bible is our authority. This is God’s Word. It claims to be God’s Word. If God hasn’t spoken, we don’t have anything. We have men’s opinions, as you said. We need to hear from God, and if the Bible is not God’s Word, then we haven’t heard from God. But “it claims to be”—that doesn’t speak well, because that would be a lie. And, we have mentioned in the past—you’ve mentioned Ezekiel, for example, about 50 times he says, “The Word of the Lord came unto me,” saying. . . .

Tom: More than a dozen chapters begin right there—“The Word of the Lord came to me;” “The Word of the Lord came to me,” over and over again.

Dave: Now, if this is his imagination, or if this is—I’m sorry to mention it—like some of the so-called prophets we have today, let’s say, Oral Roberts, who said he saw a 900-foot-tall Jesus with whom he conversed for seven hours, who told him to build a hospital that anybody knew wasn’t needed, and, in fact, it went bankrupt—never had the miracles and the cure for cancer, and so forth, that this 900-foot-Jesus promised. Or Benny Hinn, claiming that God told him that (this was in 1989) there wouldn’t be a place safe in America from earthquakes, that in the 1990s America would be brought to its knees by economic collapse, that God would destroy the homosexual community no later than 1994-95. It simply isn’t true!

Now, if you have one—and we could give you dozens of false prophecies from some of these people today who still remain popular—they’re still followed and honored on Christian television and radio and in their books. If you had one—one mistake, by Jeremiah or by Ezekiel or Daniel or Moses—one mistake in the Bible, that indicates it’s not God’s Word. If it’s not all God’s Word, if it isn’t all infallible, then, as you just implied, it’s up to each of us to decide what is true and what isn’t in the Bible.

Tom: Dave, that brings us to our first question, which we’ve taken from your book, In Defense of the Faith. You have questions that people have asked you over the years, and you have some answers. And, if people are interested in getting hold of the book, Gary, at the end of the program, will give an 800 number so that they can order it. But the first question is: “There is no doubt that the Bible contains some of the most sublime teachings on morals to be found in the world’s literature. Whether these words were borrowed from other religions or came from the pen of Solomon or the lips of Christ, or were written centuries later and wrongly attributed to them, seems to me to be beside the point. It is the teachings that count. Nor does the fact that the Bible obviously has many errors and contradictions in it detract from its moral teachings. I don’t see why the Bible has to be defended as infallible.”

Dave: Well, Tom, on the one hand, you think that is an incredible question because, as we’ve already indicated, the Bible claims to be the Word of God, it claims to be infallible, it claims to be a direct revelation from God, and it also claims to be written, the New Testament for example, by eyewitnesses who were there, who were recording what happened. Now, if the Bible was not written by eyewitnesses who were actually there and recorded what happened, then whoever wrote it is lying, it’s that simple.

Now, that undercuts, that undermines, any moral authority that this book may have. I don’t care what seemingly good morals it comes up with, if it’s written by liars, if it makes false claims, then that doesn’t speak too well for the morals of this person who is giving us these “moral teachings”!

Now, this is a common argument of atheists. They say, “Well, you can have morals without God.” On what basis? I mean, this man says—or woman, I don’t know who it was—“Well, it contains some of the most sublime teachings on morals.” Who decides that? Why would the world agree? The Bible says that God has written His laws in our conscience, everything except . . . the Ten Commandments are written there, not the commandment to keep the Sabbath—something for Seventh Day Adventists to ponder.

Tom: . . .  on the heart—God has written these things on the heart.

Dave:  That’s right; this is what it says, Romans 2, and other places. So, we have the witness of conscience. I mean, I can sit down in some jungle area and discuss the morals of cannibalism with a cannibal. This has been his life. Nevertheless, I can appeal to his sense of right and wrong, which he has. People try to say, “Well, it’s just been imposed upon you by your society, and you can’t shake loose from this.” Well, we had a whole hippie generation who shook loose from it. “Do your own thing,” was their cry. How did they shake loose from this?

But you could still talk to hippies about morals. We could reason with them, not just on the basis of what would be most expedient for society, but there is a conscience in man, and you cannot explain it away! Otherwise, if there is no God, if He has not written His laws on our conscience, then what do we come up with? “Well, I suppose whatever the society finds is workable. The society works better when people don’t steal or commit adultery or whatever. Therefore, on that basis . . .”

No, you cannot maintain that. If you want to go around and discuss it with people in various cultures, there are cultural differences; there are things that have been adopted. Just like professing Christian churches have adopted traditions. Now, you visit a Hutterite community, as my wife and I have done—I mean, you ask these dear people why they believe this or that—it’s all tradition. It has nothing to do with truth! One Hutterite community we visited, we were asking a couple of young teenage girls who were taking us around, I was asking them when they would be accepted as members of the faith and so forth. And, they said, “Well, when we learn how to braid our hair and we learn the customs and so forth.” It has nothing to do with morals, has nothing to do with truth, has nothing to do with God.

So, it’s not just various cultures and societies, but Mennonites adopt certain traditions. The Catholics, of course, have hundreds and hundreds of traditions, which they say are apostolic traditions, but the apostles never knew anything about them, and we have talked about that in the past, too. If you can show me one tradition that you have as a Catholic, or whoever you are, that you can prove was taught by the apostles and it’s not in the Bible, I’ll become a Catholic or a Mennonite or whatever, you know.

So, yes, people go astray. The conscience can be seared with a hot iron, the Bible says. But when you pull that aside and you get down into the heart of man, there is a witness from God that cannot be denied. And, if not, then there is no basis for morals. And how does this person say, “It has sublime moral teachings”? How do you judge that? On what basis? What is the standard? Anyway, Tom, I’m sorry, I took too long on that, but this is a problem here.

Tom: Well, Dave, with many of the questions, and, as I mentioned, you have taken these questions from people who, there you are, face to face with them; these are concerns that they have.

Dave: Or some letters.

Tom: Right, but my point is that you’d wonder how somebody who is obviously thinking enough to ask the question where their heads are in this. How can you have morals without God, as you’ve addressed?

Dave: Well, you have to have an authority.

Tom: Of course, go ahead.

Dave: Well, you have to have an authority to make rules, and if there are rules, they must have been made by an authority. If they are recognized in the human heart, I mean, why would they be? Why would I accept the rules of some society, even the society I live in? We already gave the hippies as an example. They rebelled against society, okay?  So, you don’t just accept what your parents teach. You don’t . . . well, you do for a time, but then you come to a period of rebellion. But nevertheless, there is a recognition, and you wouldn’t even use the term “morals” or “ethics.” What would that mean? What would that refer to? Why would anyone come to an agreement on this, and why do we need it? What is the point? You cannot explain morals from an evolutionary standpoint, for example. There are no morals in the natural world.

So, Tom, you say, “Well, how could a thinking person come up with this?” The only explanation you have is that they do not want to accept an authority. They want to use their own judgment. And, when they say, “Well, there are some very sublime teachings.” Yes, but they do not accept all of the teachings of the Bible. So, they decide . . . so there is no authority.

Or you could take Bahá’u’lláh, for example, who, the founder from the Bahá’í faith. Bahá’u’lláh said, “The sublime teachings of Jesus are divine! They are to be accepted.” Really? But he doesn’t take all the teachings of Jesus. When Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, the life, no man cometh to the Father but by me,” that finishes Bahá’ísm right there, because Bahá’ísm accepts all religions, which you can’t rationally do because they contradict one another, okay?

So for a person to talk about morals—well, let’s probe a little bit, and we find out there are certain things in the Bible that they do not like, but they will accept what appeals to them.

Tom: Dave, let’s bring that home to this country. I know you’re familiar . . . but maybe many of our listeners are not—I’m thinking about the Jefferson Bible. Now, I will give you the subtitle of the Jefferson Bible. It’s The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. Now here’s Thomas Jefferson, our President—what, was he the third President of the United States? A champion of religious freedom.

Dave: Some people try to say he was a Christian.

Tom: Right, and he was a Christian in this sense—of his own making, of his own definition. But what he did—I’ll just give you the general background for our listeners. What he did, he took the New Testament—he went through the New Testament—he didn’t want these mysticisms, these miracles, the supernatural aspects, he just took out of the New Testament what he felt was morally and ethically efficacious, helpful, to the reader. And for those Christians listening to the program, let me tell you how the Jefferson Bible, that is, the New Testament, adaptation from the New Testament, abridged version, let me tell you how it ends. “Now, in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulcher, wherein was never a man yet laid. There laid they Jesus and rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher and departed.” That’s it. That’s the end.

Dave: (slight laugh) Well, we don’t want miracles, of course, because that sounds a little bit superstitious!

Tom: Superstitious—that was his concern there.

Dave: Right, yeah. So, what is the point of taking any of the Bible? I mean, why even imagine that Jesus lived and died? Why even take any of the teachings of Jesus? If this is a myth, if these writers who claim to be eyewitnesses were telling a lie about His resurrection, then they must have lied about other things. They must have lied about His teachings; they must have lied about the Sermon on the Mount . . .

Tom: Or been deluded.

Dave: Okay.

Tom: You know, Jefferson would say that. We have mystified Jesus when really all we want are principles; we want to do this ourselves. Dave, those are the times of Thomas Jefferson—you could add Benjamin Franklin, to a degree. Some say they were deists, but they were certainly influenced by the enlightenment; and the whole idea was, as Benjamin Franklin wrote in his Poor Richard’s Almanac, “God helps those who help themselves.” In other words, they were looking for principles that they could apply themselves and they could utilize—morals, good teachings, things that men would follow, but not Christ himself, not the princi-p-a-l, the princi-ple. They just wanted those sorts of things.

Dave: And, it doesn’t make any sense, because . . . how do we even know about Jesus? How do we know that He even lived? Of course, there’s the testimony of others. We go into that in this book—plenty of other testimonies, secular testimonies from that time; Josephus and Tacitus and others. But if we can’t take what the New Testament says about the miracles of Jesus—these are eyewitnesses supposedly—then, how do we know that they are writing accurately anything else about Jesus?

Furthermore, we need miracles. The great miracle we need is the resurrection from the dead. If there is to be a hereafter, and if man is to be forgiven by God, we’ve got to have some real miracles. And to suggest that the God who created the universe can’t do miracles, where does that leave us? That leaves us with nature—that leaves us with nothing! You might as well talk to a tree, or a chipmunk, or try to reason with a lion who is about to eat you! Tom, I just . . . if I had any hair left I would tear it out, you know. When I come to some of these people . . . But Tom, they’re not irrational, they’re not stupid. What drives them is, they do not want to submit to God, the Creator of the universe, because then they are accountable to Him, and they must either obey Him or suffer the consequences. And they do not want to allow that. Therefore, they’re driven into various irrationalities.

Tom: Dave, just going back to Jefferson—Jefferson kept his own Bible to himself for a number of years. Then the Smithsonian got a hold of it, and it was published. And from about 1904 to right to the middle of 1950s our legislators and our congressmen were given copies of this once they took the oath of office. So, we have this basic idea of principles, of moralities, and so you’d say, “That’s good!” But without the power of Christ, without the understanding that it only comes through Him, they’re armed with something that they are going to just corrupt and pervert. Now, look where we are today, with regard to Congress; with regard to many of our legislators, many of—well, the last president. Morality is a principle that’s not even applied even if they could.

Dave: Well, you can decide on your own morality. You legislate morality. You know, the psychiatrists, you know, they decide. At one point, homosexuality was deviant behavior. But then they voted in San Francisco, and you remember, the homosexuals threatened to pull the power on them if they didn’t come up with the right vote. I don’t remember the vote, but it was several thousand in favor and several thousand opposed. You don’t vote on morals, you don’t vote on science, you don’t vote on truth—but it doesn’t matter anymore. Now all that matters is public opinion.

So from that idea we have something called, “politically correct.” By politically correct we mean we don’t want to offend anyone. So, now the problem is, we’re more interested in the opinions of people than we are in the opinion of God. But ultimately, you know, God does run this universe, He did create it, and ultimately we will stand before Him in judgment. Then, let’s not delude ourselves into thinking that this life is all there is, and that all that matters is if we can become popular and if we can avoid offending people and if we can please man—that doesn’t even make sense.

If God doesn’t exist, forget it! Shut down the churches, shut down the seminaries. But if He does, He must have spoken to us; if He has spoken to us, we must be able to know that He has spoken to us. We must be able to know what He said and understand it, and that’s the Word of God. We’ve been talking about it; we can prove it from scripture. There is no scripture of any [other] religion that can prove that. Then we better pay attention, and that’s why we call this program, “Search the Scriptures Daily.”

Tom: Right and we would encourage everybody out there to do just that. Don’t take what we are saying as gospel. All we are trying to do is to point to the gospel. You study it for yourself. You come to take hold of this, and God will give you understanding. He will draw you unto Himself that you might know the truth and the truth will set you free.