Inerrancy, Sufficiency & Authority | thebereancall.org

Inerrancy, Sufficiency & Authority

October 1, 1993
Hunt, Dave

If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

John:8:31-32

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable [to be used] for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

2 Timothy:3:16-17

Last month we noted what is clear to every God-fearing person: that the increasing evil of today's world stems from the tragic fact that mankind, following in the steps of Adam and Eve, is in rebellion against God. That rebellion, so brazenly displayed in the secular world, works most subtly under the cover of religion. It operates through false doctrines and the perversions and pious rationalizations that justify a devout disobedience to God's Word—a disobedience which, sadly, is growing even among evangelicals.

Satan's primary tactic in opposing God and evading the sword of the Spirit is not to foster atheism but religion; not to prove there is no God but to be worshiped as God. Satan's boast, "I will be like the most High" (Isa:14:14), admits God's existence but exalts self to the same lordly level. Satan became, in fact, "the god of this world" (2 Cor:4:4). He damns far more souls with the lure of power and success and with pride than with overt degradation. He didn't tempt Eve with alcohol or bestiality but with the highest ambition: to be like God. Satan's purpose is not to prove that Christ never existed, but to have his man, Antichrist, worshiped as Christ. A perverted "Christianity" is Satan's ultimate weapon.

One example of Satan's subtle tactics is found in Masonry. Its influence permeates both the world and the church. A Masonic- dominated Supreme Court legalized abortion and put Christianity out of public schools. Masonry is an anti-Christian religious cult rooted in Hinduism, occultism and other forms of paganism (see our resource materials on Masonry). Masonry assures members that through good works and obedience to its tenets they will reach the Celestial Lodge in the Sky presided over by the G.A.O.T.U. (Great Architect of the Universe), which is "God as you conceive him to be." Masonic authority Carl H. Claudy writes, "Masonry ...requires merely that you believe in some deity, give him what name you will, any god will do." Yet more than 1 million Southern Baptist laymen and clergy are in the "brotherhood" and most of them would defend it as "Christian." In fact, this year's annual convention of Southern Baptists voted that being a Mason was compatible with Christianity.

Mormonism is another astonishing example. On June 8, 1873, speaking from the Salt Lake City Tabernacle, Brigham Young said, "The Devil told the truth....I do not blame Mother Eve. I would not have had her miss eating the forbidden fruit for anything...." Another Mormon president declared, "The fall of man came as a blessing in disguise....We can hardly look upon anything resulting in such benefits [i.e., godhood] as a sin." Incredibly, Mormonism is based upon the belief that Satan's central lie is the gospel truth!

Psychology reflects the same satanic perversion. For example, in The Courage to Create, Rollo May, who had a B.A. from Union Theological Seminary, commends Eve for her self-assertive rebellion against God. What the Bible calls sin May calls felex culpa, the "fortunate fall" that emancipated humanistic psychology's Self. As we noted last month, Carl Rogers called self "the god within" and advocated worshiping at its altars. Such theories have given Christian psychology its belief in self-love, self-image, self-esteem, etc.

Mankind's essential need, according to the Bible, is not self-esteem, as we're being told, but deliverance from self, sin and Satan. Human concern is for economic, political or other physical freedoms. What man needs, however, is moral and spiritual liberation, both now and eternally. God's only and complete solution is redemption: the purchase of mankind with Christ's blood from sin's penalty and from Satan's slave market of sin. Christ declares that the practical outworking of this God-given freedom in the lives of the redeemed comes through obeying the truth (Jn:8:31-32).

Pilate cynically asked, "What is truth?" (Jn:18:38). Christ's response"—Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice"—tells us that the truth differs from facts. Scientific facts are available to all mankind through observation of nature. The truth, which alone sets free, is known only by Christ's followers. Nobel Laureate Sir John Eccles wrote, "In the mindless universe of mere nature...there is neither justice nor mercy, neither liberty nor fairness. There are only facts; and no fact...seeks or requires a justification." Facts are true, but facts are not "the truth" of which the Bible speaks.

Christ's words in John:8:31-32 reveal three things about truth and Scripture: 1) God's Word is 100 percent true without any error ("my word...the truth"); 2) all truth is in God's Word ("ye will know the truth," not part of the truth); and 3) knowing the truth is contingent upon obedience to the authority of God's Word ("if ye continue in my word"—obviously not just reading or memorizing but obeying). These attributes of Scripture (inerrancy, sufficiency and authority) are like the legs of a three-legged stool: remove any one and the whole cannot stand.

Once faith is lost in the inerrancy of the Bible, for example, the door is opened to all manner of error and perversion. Liberalism long ago abandoned this essential pillar of truth, and with it went sufficiency and authority. Biblical morals hung on for a generation as tradition in a society which had lost its faith; but without that foundation "traditional morals" are now generally passé and won't be recovered without submission to God's Word.

Roman Catholicism, which denies all three (inerrancy, sufficiency and authority), provides an amazing example of the rationalizations which ensue. While claiming to stand strictly against divorce, it grants in the United States alone "annulments" by the tens of thousands each year (National Catholic Reporter, 8/27/93). Rome's use of psychology is particularly perverse. Many annulments are granted for "psychological" reasons; e.g., being raised in a "dysfunctional" family or being "psychologically unprepared" for marriage. Annulments often end long-term marriages involving numerous children. While Rome outwardly stands firmly against fornication, thousands of its priests upon whom it has imposed the unbiblical pledge of celibacy engage habitually in sex outside of marriage. NCR 9/3/93 reported, "Seven French women...companions of priests who...are forced to 'live clandestinely, for a lifetime, the love they share with a priest' [and who] represent thousands of women in similar relationships...arrived at the Vatican Aug. 20. [They] asked the pope to...look into the reality faced by 'thousands of priest's companions who live in the shadows, often with the approval of church superiors, and by the children who can't know their fathers and are raised by their mothers alone or are abandoned.'"

The only remedy for such perversion, as the Reformers well knew, is sola scriptura. That the Bible alone is all we need to live joyful and fulfilled lives of fruitfulness pleasing to God is affirmed by Paul's assurance "that the man [or woman] of God may be perfect [all that God wants], throughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Tim:3:17).

That sufficiency is denied by the saying, "All truth is God's truth"—the Christian psychologist's excuse for looking outside God's Word to Freud, Jung, et al., for "truth." Yet Christ declared that "the world cannot receive" (Jn:14:17) "the Spirit of truth [who leads] into all truth" (Jn:16:13). Hence no unsaved person knows God's truth, which can only be revealed by the Holy Spirit through His Word to those who open their hearts to Christ. Contrary to Catholicism's and Christian psychology's claim, there is no extrabiblical source of "the truth."

Though many Christian psychologists affirm the inerrancy of Scripture, they all deny its sufficiency. Consider a paper delivered by John Coe to conventions of both ETS (Evangelical Theological Society) and CAPS (Christian Association for Psychological Studies), entitled, incredibly, "Why Biblical Counseling is Unbiblical"! In it he denounces the belief that "the Bible is the only legitimate and authoritative source" of moral values and spiritual guidance for mankind. Astonishingly, Coe sat for 16 years under the ministry of John MacArthur (who opposes Christian psychology) and taught apologetics and contemporary theology for five years at Talbot Theological Seminary. He then joined Clyde Narramore's Rosemead Graduate School of Psychology staff. His paper was so well received that Coe is expanding it into a book.

So flagrant is Coe's denial of the sufficiency, and thus the authority, of Scripture, as to claim that the Bible itself "mandates the church to develop a science of [moral and spiritual] values and human nature" from extrabiblical sources. Yet common sense recognizes that "good" and "evil" do not apply to nature. That moral values are outside of science, and thus human behavior cannot be explained by science, has been stated by numerous Nobel Laureate scientists. Erwin Schroedinger, for example, declared that science "knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity." Sir Arthur Eddington added that to imagine that consciousness is ruled by scientific laws "is as preposterous as the suggestion that a nation could be ruled by...the laws of grammar.... 'Ought' takes us outside chemistry and physics."

In his attempt to justify Christian psychology's rejection of the sufficiency of Scripture, Coe declares that whatever is "natural" is good and that one can deduce a "science of [moral] values" simply from observing nature or by following one's natural impulses. Of course, nothing is more "natural" than to eat the fruit of a tree––and what could be more beneficial than to eat of a tree whose fruit is not only delicious and nutritious but which will impart the knowledge of good and evil! As for making "natural" human behavior the standard, nothing seems more natural to modern man than fornication. Does that make fornication normal and thus "good"? Is human sacrifice normal and good because it has been practiced by many pagan societies? Homosexuals argue that homosexuality is "natural," that they were born that way. This claim is false, but so-called social science is still in flux on this issue.

The Bible's declaration that the "natural man" cannot know God's truth, which is only revealed by the Spirit of God (1 Cor:2:14), thoroughly demolishes the Coe/Christian psychology thesis. Observation of nature reveals only that God is eternal and infinite in wisdom and power (Rom:1:20). A personal revelation from God by His Spirit is required to know more than that. Mankind's common recognition of moral standards comes not from observing nature but from acknowledging God's laws written in the conscience (Rom:2:14-15). As Herbert Schlossberg reminds us, "A system of ethics that says human beings ought to base their behavior on nature therefore justifies any behavior, because nature knows no ethic." In The Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom writes,

Biologists can't even account for consciousness within their science, let alone the unconscious. So psychologists...are in an impossible halfway house between science, which does not admit the existence of the phenomena they wish to explain, and the unconscious, which is outside the jurisdiction of science....[T]he natural and social sciences [purport to] account [for] things [they] cannot possibly explain....

Far from establishing God's truth, as Coe and other Christian psychologists assert, "social science" has opposed God's Word and promoted an amoral lifestyle. For example, Margaret Mead's book, Coming of Age in Samoa, sold millions of copies in numerous languages, was the recognized standard in anthropology for decades, and provided a key "scientific" justification for the sexual revolution which is still perverting both today's world and much of the church. The book, however, was a fraud put forth to justify her own adultery and lesbianism. More recent research in Samoa has shown that Mead's representation of an idyllic native society unspoiled by sexual restrictions was totally false. The facts about Samoan life are exactly the opposite, yet the lie continues to provide "scientific" excuse for immorality worldwide.

Last month we quoted Thomas Szasz, a Jewish psychiatrist, to the effect that Freud's motive was revenge against Christianity. Szasz adds, "The popular image of Freud as an enlightened... person who, with the aid of psychoanalysis, 'discovered' that religion is a mental illness is pure fiction." Freud's theories were founded upon his warped view that all thought, feeling and motivation have their roots in sexual cravings. His "Oedipus complex," for which no evidence can be found in the general population, clearly reflected his own obsession with incest. It makes sense only, as E. Michael Jones points out, "when seen in the context of Freud's own life."

Indeed, some of Freud's case studies put forth to support his theories are disguised autobiographical sketches. His "discoveries" reflect his own perverted sexual fantasies and obsessions, as did Jung's. Early correspondence between them involved Jung's efforts to have Freud advise him re his seduction of a patient, Sabina Spielrein. Jung had other mistresses, just as Freud was not limited to his sister-in-law, Minna Bernays. Likewise, Carl Rogers' worship of self, expressed in the theories of self-love, self-esteem, etc. which have so influenced the church, finds its roots in his rejection of Christianity and in his attempt to justify his own infidelity. There is no doubt that the entire structure of modern psychology/sociology, far from being scientific, springs in large part from rebellion against God and the sexual depravity of its honored "discoverers."

While professing Christian faith, the Clintons have long been in the forefront of dethroning God and putting a "new, liberated person" in His place. Hillary, a long-time fierce proponent of the radical Left, chaired the New World Foundation 1987-88, ranked by the Capitol Research Center as "one of the ten most liberal foundations in the United States." It has not hesitated even to support communist causes. From 1986-92 she chaired the Children's Defense Fund, which promotes an amoral approach to sex education and other means of destroying the very moral values which most parents want to pass on to their children.

The major social theories which revolutionized society during the last 100 years were not, as claimed by academia, "scientific" advancements, but the immorality of their "discoverers" under a thin veneer of scientific language. Peace, Prosperity and The Coming Holocaust and Global Peace and the Rise of Antichrist document that Marx, though Jewish, was a professing Christian who turned to Satan and became the sworn enemy of God. His socialistic theory was an attempt at revenge against the One he hated. In a poem he wrote, "I wish to avenge myself against the One who rules above." A friend, Georg Jung, remarked, "Marx will surely chase [the biblical] God from His heaven!" Lenin became the Marxist god.

Most disturbing is the fact that many of today's leading evangelicals who affirm inerrancy undermine the Bible's sufficiency and authority. They seek "the counsel of the ungodly" (Ps:1:1) and insist that to do so is biblical. Satan has perverted the church by appealing to the pride that desires to be respected by sinners, and especially by the academic world. That world is hopelessly corrupt. Let us diligently look to God and His Word for guidance and stand firm for its inerrancy, sufficiency and absolute authority. TBC
 

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