Modern Evangelical Narrative
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You are of course free to read on, but it's really only half here in a way that guaranteed to create misunderstanding.
Very much a work in progress. This is a complex subject about which I have many things to say that need a lot of working out, polishing, and arranging.
Related:
Errata:
Two inerrant translations can't both be right... well, they could if maybe you thought that the "right one for you" is the one you find, but again, we must judge them by their own lights and Evangelicalism rejects relativism.
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Disclaimer
Ideally a reader would always take what they read with a grain of salt. Understand the author, where they're coming from, for whom they're writing, the bias, the history, etc. All that's necessary to really understand something. It would also be very, very hard to do. So, since I'm about to say some very incisive and harsh things, I wanted to open with a little nod to context.
I've studied religion my entire life. Informally, but consistently and deeply. I've been Catholic. I spent a good number of months attending 2-3 hours of services and young adult education at an Evangelical Bible church. I've read the Koran, Bhagavad Gita, Zen texts, classic sermons, modern sermons, deconstructed Evangelical works, attended every denomination I could find, spoken with priests, been impressed, disappointed, stuck with awe and disgust.
I've studied the history, culture, societies with a constant eye as to how these form and shape religion without, I hope, ever growing cynical or discounting the spark of the divine. What all this has done is forced me to abandon any pretense of dogmatism and adopt a kind of aggressively open mind to that necessarily admits more questions than answers. Some would say this is to my detriment and pity and perhaps they would be right.
I don't say that any of this has "given me the right" to opine on subjects, nor does it grant me any kind of authority. My bias and the veracity of what I say is best judged external to myself. I will say that I have a relatively unique point of view. I like to think it gives me some vantage on the objective truth of matters, but regardless of that, and at a minimum I will say this: this is a subject on which I have something useful to say.
I have two audiences in mind: the Evangelical and those hostile to the movement. To each, I intend the work to be both critique and apologia, to introduce and defend as well as point out weaknesses. To span the gap of a common language and say, "This is what you hear, but this is closer to what was meant." To point out what doesn't make sense, where communications break down, and above all to have a civil and meaningful dialogue on matters which are often radical and superficial.
The Starting Point
The fundamental starting point of the Evangelical proposition is this: "the Bible is the inerrant and literal word of God." Inerrant meaning that the Bible has been divinely protected from corruption so despite the necessity of transcription, translation, the loss of all the original manuscripts it is without error. God intends the Bible to be a certain way and that is the way it is.
Evangelicals are not unique in their belief in a an inerrant holy book, but they do take an extreme position. Part of this is the rejection of the idea that parts of the Bible, such as the opening passages in Genesis, are metaphorical. The Bible is inerrant and literal. Seven days is seven days. The presence or lack of an article can be proof or the correctness or falsehood of the trinity doctrine. The earth is 6000 years old and the Noah's flood killed the dinosaurs.
Though less often stated explicitly, there is also an idea of "sufficiency", meaning that not only is the Bible an inerrant source of knowledge, but it contains all the knowledge you need. At least all the important stuff. Put this all together, and the devil is really in the details.
The Bible is always correct. It is literal, and therefore the meaning is clear and accessible. It is also sufficient, so that means the answer is there if you bother to look.
For the Evangelical, God says something about everything important. Whereas most other Christians would focus on "render unto Ceasar" and other world religions have some sense of the separation of the divine and the temporal, for the Evangelical the answer is in the Bible.
While it would be a mistake to take this in the most reductive sense and ask "What passage tells you how to vote in the upcoming election?" it must be understood that the idealized Evangelical approaches important questions first and foremost from a Biblical perspective. The "Biblical perspective" should not be conflated with the "spiritual perspective" as it is commonly understood.
The spiritual perspective asks, "What would Jesus do?" or "What would be the right thing?" This is close, if not the same thing, as when an atheist "examines their conscience". "Could I live with myself?", "be proud of myself?", "Is this something I would be ashamed of?" These are searching, important questions that we should ask ourselves, but the Biblical perspective, as applied to the idealized Evangelical, is something different.
"What does the Bible say?" In some ways, this can be useful. If the Bible has clear instructions, then perhaps one need not spend the time to do soul searching to find the answer. "Just follow the manual." There is certainly an element of this.
In a more positive light, there's also the idea that if you are too weak, or are out of touch. soul searching won't help, but you can still do right by referring instead to the Bible. "If the junkie were ashamed, they'd stop using on their own, but they aren't and they don't so you need the Bible to set you right." From this point of view, the Biblical perspective is the superior one. "You don't know the answer, but here's the manual."
In some cases and some stripes, this idea goes even further. Not only don't you know the answer, but you can't know the answer yourself. You must seek it from God, and God's word is the Bible.
Original Sin, Accountability, and the Salvation Conundrum
Question: why is man incapable of coming to the correct answer on his own? Answer: original sin.
Original sin is both cause and proof of mans fallibility. It shows man cannot be trusted to make decisions on his own. It is also the story of humanity's fall from grace in which temptation and the devil entered into our collective hearts.
It is this conception of original sin which pushes the Evangelical to the idea of Biblical perspective. Man's spirit, being corrupted, is not a sufficient guide, and therefore we must rely on the Bible to make correct decisions.
Like most Christian groups, Evangelicals hold original sin to be a curse incurred by Adam that is now passed to all humanity: "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me." (Psalm 51:5)
This is why Catholics baptize children--to free them from original sin. Most non-Catholics (Evangelicals included) view baptism as an affirmation of faith and not a sacrament per se--meaning baptism itself has no spiritual consequences--so it makes sense that you wouldn't bother to or dilute the meaning of baptism by performing the ritual on infants.
Instead, Evangelicals rely on an idea that, while not truly innocent, an infant has has not and cannot commit any new sins even if stained by original sin. The idea is that Jesus' sacrifice was sufficient for the forgiveness of an infant's original sin, even if as an adult that infant must accept Jesus or suffer damnation.
Is this a consistent view, defensible from our inerrant, literal, and sufficient starting point? Not really. An Evangelical might point to First John 2:2 "the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world." Not only ours, the believers, but the sins of the whole world? Why, then surely infants are saved, as and also non-believers everywhere, right? Well... no.
"I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, except through Me" (John 14:6) and "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12) indicate that one must accept Jesus and follow the Christian faith to be saved. Especially the latter, and especially under a literal reading as required by the standards the Evangelicals set out for themselves.
Now, you could think the Bible was true, even inerrant, and still square this circle, but the self-imposed requirements of the Evangelical interpretation set a strict standard. To say, "It is rational to say that John 14:6 and Acts 4:12 apply to adults while First John 2:2 clearly makes some exceptions, which would justly apply to children" is absolutely man's logic. Nowhere in the Bible does it say on way or the other whether infants are damned, or saved or how one is to address the situation. A literal, sufficient, direct from the Bible, forget man's flawed reasoning, your conscience cannot be a guide reading of the Bible does not answer this question.[1]
By these standards, if asked "What is the fate an infant's soul?" the good Evangelical, it would seem, must conclude that first, based on inerrant literalism, "I don't know" and second, based on sufficiency, "it doesn't matter". Yet that is no the answer one would normally get.
Certainty
Personally, I would say that the Evangelical answer, which would be "Of course infant children are saved and go to heaven!" is motivated culturally and not from a reading of the Bible. If that's the answer you want, you can find verses to support it, but if you wanted it the other way--as the Medieval Catholic Church did--you can find support for the opposite view as well.
From a secular standpoint, there's nothing wrong with this, but the Evangelical should be judged first by their own criteria, which is not secular, but Biblical. I could go through other such doctrinal questions which--at least at first glance--seem to violate the principals of inerrancy and literalism. Some are theological--like the question of trinity--while others more practical--such as policy towards marriage and gay lifestyles--but this is all old hat. I bring up the questions not to poke at Evangelicals, but to get us to a deeper question: the question of certainty.
Not all religions are certain.
It would be a mistake to think of this in terms of the Bible containing Euclidean style axioms from which one derives provable theories and corollaries and the like. The Evangelicals themselves claim this process and "scripture A plus scripture B allows us to conclude C" is a common construct, but the process is only superficially similar. The Bible, whatever it may be, is math. You can certainly apply logic to it, but only in the same way you would apply logic to picking out your favorite sports car. In the best case, logic can guide and support, but it is never sufficient for logic itself is silent on many of the questions being asked. At worse, logic is merely abused and perverted to justify one's previously held beliefs.
In other words, there's nothing wrong with buying a Ferrari because you really want to and have worked hard to reach afford one. It is disingenuous to buy a Ferrari because it has good to power to weight ratio and is therefore "a logical choice of automobile".
Ineffable
What does certainty do to the ineffable?
Problems with Inerrancy
Whether the Bible--or some version of it--is or was or could be inerrant in some sense or another isn't a big deal. The problem with innerrancy is it makes Evangelicals arrogant and lazy. It stunts understanding
If you've read something true
References
- ↑ Good discussion on the "age of accountability and the state of infant souls: http://www.gotquestions.org/age-of-accountability.html I use numerous quotes here. The site is not Evangelical by my definition here as they "hold the Bible to be inerrant in the original writings" (emphasis added). The idea of the original manuscripts as having been inerrant is common and there has been much scholarly work done to recreate these original writings.
Also see:
