We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
Is the Bible a Legal Textbook?
Too much theology treats the Bible as if it were legal textbook. In the following except from Benefit of the Doubt, Greg addresses the problems when we approach theology and Scripture this way.
Incidentally, if you like these excerpts we’ve been posting from Benefit of the Doubt, you’re not going to want to miss tomorrow’s post. We’re going to be giving away some copies of the book as part of a promotion we’re doing. Stay tuned! Also, Frank Viola posted an article yesterday entitled 7 Reasons Why Christians Abandon the Faith, and he recommends Benefit of the Doubt in one of his points.
_____________
One more thing I’d like us to notice is that when Christians try to answer these sorts of legally framed questions, they typically do so by appealing to particular verses. It is, of course, appropriate and necessary to respond to questions by appealing to Scripture. But when we pose our questions in a legal way, we inevitably end up using the Bible in a legal manner—that is like a legal textbook. …
Not surprisingly, people often find that for every list of verses they’ve compiled to answer a question one way, someone else has compiled a different list to answer the same question a different way. A classic example is the…issue of eternal security. There are about an equal number of verses that people appeal to in order to prove that people can or cannot lose their salvation.
This is why debates that are framed within the legal paradigm of theology are often exercises in futility. Each person cites the list of verses that each think supports their side of the debate. Then, like two lawyers sparring in a courtroom over legal precedents that support or refute their respective cases, each offers alternative interpretations of the other’s verses, followed by a refutation of their opponents alternative interpretations, followed by a refutation of each other’s refutation, and so on.
Done in the right spirit, debates like this can be educational and fun. Unfortunately, the spirit with which they are often conducted is closer to the atmosphere of a courtroom. And far from being fun, in conservative circles this is the standard method used to differentiate orthodoxy from heresy and, on “doctrines necessary for salvation,” to differentiate the saved from the lost. …
One almost gets the impression from this line of questioning and arguing that God’s primarily concern was to form a kingdom of the world’s most competent lawyers. So he inspired the Bible to serve as a textbook of legal conundrums to separate the sharpest legal wits from the incompetent, with the latter group becoming fuel for hell’s fires. (119-120)
Category: General
Tags: Benefit of the Doubt, Bible, Fundamentalism, Salvation
Related Reading
Getting Behind the “Letter” of Violent Portraits of God
“I will do to you what I have never done before… in your midst parents will eat their children, and children will eat their parents…” Ezek. 5:9-10 In my previous post I offered a brief review of Matthew Bates’ fascinating work, The Hermeneutics of the Apostolic Proclamation by Matthew Bates (Baylor University Press, 2012). Among other…
Women, Leadership, & the Bible
Neither reason nor experience supports the notion that women cannot be gifted to exercise the highest levels of spiritual authority. There is simply no rationally discernable connection between a person’s gender and their natural ability to preach, teach, or lead others. Indeed, the experience of the last 150 years has indisputably demonstrated that women can…
An Alternative to Biblical Inerrancy
As with all other theological issues, when it comes to affirming that Scripture is “God-breathed,” everything hangs on where one starts. A dominant strand of the Evangelical tradition started with the assumption that, if God is perfect, and if Scripture is “God-breathed,” then Scripture must also be perfect or “inerrant.” Other “progressive” evangelicals have responded by…
Part Three of Greg’s Interview with David D. Flowers
Here’s the final interview that Greg did with David D. Flowers in which he discusses his upcoming book Benefit of the Doubt: Dismantling the Idol of Certainty. Check it out! From the interview: Faith in Scripture isn’t about striving for certainty: it’s about being willing to commit to a course of action — to a way…
Revelation 13:8 refers to “everyone whose names have not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life.” How does that square with open theism?
Three possibilities exist in terms of reconciling Revelation 13:8 with open theism. 1) First, the “from the foundation of the world” clause can attach to either “everyone whose names have not been written” or to “the lamb that was slain.” For example, the TNIV translates this passage “All inhabitants of the earth will worship the…
N.T. Wright on the Whole Sweep of Scripture
Here’s a really fine video message from N.T. Wright on how to read Scripture. So many of the misunderstandings we take away from Scripture happen when we pick out a verse here and there and neglect the whole story. We hope this will bless you and encourage you to “press your nose against the window.”