Thinking to Believe

I recently taught on the historical reliability of the Gospels and the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.  One of the areas I focused on was the apparent contradictions and errors in the Gospels, demonstrating how most of these are easily resolvable, and thus not contradictions/errors at all.  But not all Biblical difficulties are so easily resolved.  In fact, there are some for which I do not presently have a good answer.  If you are a careful reader of Scripture, I’d bet there are Biblical difficulties you have encountered for which you lack a good answer as well.  What are we to do with such difficulties given the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy?  What should our posture be toward the Christian faith once having discovered irresolvable difficulties in the text?

Some individuals respond by concluding that Christianity is not true.  Some go so far as to conclude that God does not even exist!  I submit to you that these responses are ill-founded; the result of elevating the doctrine of inerrancy to a status it should not be accorded in one’s theological taxonomy.  While the Bible is an indispensable aid to our faith and Christian growth, an inerrant Bible is not necessary for the truth of Christianity, and thus the doctrine of inerrancy—and Bibliology in general—should be subservient to more central doctrines such as the resurrection of Jesus in our theological taxonomy.  Let me explain.

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Many naturalists reject the Bible as veridical because it in contains reports of miracles, and yet many of these same individuals say they would be willing to believe the Bible if they ever experienced a miracle.  I’ve heard some Christians cry “Inconsistency!” at this point, noting that the atheist uses miracles as both his grounds for disbelieving as well as his grounds for believing.  If the miraculous is the reason for his disbelief, how could it serve as the basis for his belief?

I don’t think there is any inconsistency here at all.  While they reject the Bible because of their belief that miracles do not occur, they recognize that if they were to personally experience a miracle it would prove that miracles are possible after all, and thus the Biblical report of miracles would become plausible, and perhaps even credible.