(=A response to the article "Broken Promise of Biblical Innerancy"=)

Paul Abeyta: The fact that people are their interpretations of Scripture are not inerrant, has nothing to do with the nature of Scripture and it's inerrancy. As God is without error, and Scripture comes from him (verbal plenary inspiration), it is of necessity that Scripture is inerrant. The author here advocates for a low view of God in claiming in that inerrancy is farce.

Button: So what does it mean for Christians, from a practical perspective, if Scripture is inerrant but no man can be trusted to interpret its meaning correctly? How does the distinction between potentially-errant, and inerrant-but-we-cannot-inerrantly-understand-it, change the ways in which we apply Scripture to our lives?

Paul Abeyta: No man can be trusted to interpret it's meaning correctly? Only the progressivists are saying that. I'm not. I'd argue that men have long been able to interpret it correctly and when false interpretations have risen, right ones have been maintained against them - sometimes in the minority even. Man can certainly interpret it correctly. He can also interpret it incorrectly of course. But we have a rich history of people in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit who have pursued God and Godliness and we can compare conclusions along those lines. The authors of the NT even warn us of people who would twist Scripture. To me the distinction seems clear. If the text is potentially errant, than it doesn't even matter. It holds absolutely no authority and every person's hunch is equal to it. To say that we cannot inerrantly understand it is a bit of an over statement. We can get all of it, we must simply remain humble and able to weigh evidence against our position and be willing to change it should we be made to see that our position is in error. This though is not a bleak position. As I said earlier - we have over nearly 2000 years of saints who have worked with the text.

Button: "people [and] their interpretations of Scripture are not inerrant" Sounds like you saying no one can be trusted to interpret it correctly. Though perhaps the lack of clarity was on my part: in this context "guaranteed" would have been clearer than "trusted."

Paul Abeyta: In general, I trust many, but at the same time, I know that I am responsible myself and so it's not a total trust that I have in any person to rightly handle God's Word. In Acts 17, the Apostle Paul commends the Berean's for testing what he was saying against that which they considered special revelation from God - the OT. Interestingly enough - we can do the same with every claim from the NT. So, as people, we trust the Scriptures and they have shown themselves trustworthy