Inerrancy Of Scripture Essay

There wasn’t much debate prior to the Enlightenment about the Bible’s inerrancy, authority or sufficiency. Of course these topics were talked about, but never as debated as they were come the Enlightenment.

On the inerrancy of Scripture: During the enlightenment, biblical inerrancy underwent abuse with the rise of liberalism. A major force during the Enlightenment was Immanuel Kant. According to Wages (2015) account in his article on inerrancy, Kant “denied the possibility of objective truth of anything metaphysical. He argued we could have some knowledge, but only knowledge of things that would be tested” (Wages, 2015). Kant eventually concluded that God’s supposed working within Scripture was an unacceptable means of gaining solid knowledge. For Kant, religion could only be stood on a foundation of human reason, not an unknowable and untestable source such as the divine. Men like Kant said that revelation had to be examined using human reason and reason refused to accept the

This shift was very much linked to that which occurred with inerrancy. With the rise of liberalism, once disassociated with scriptural absolutes, people looked elsewhere for authority. If the Bible was no longer the ultimate source of truth, the liberal movement pointed to an alternative; reason. It was there that people placed ultimate authority instead of Scripture. Man's ability to reason, to think and evaluate became the highest source of authority. This had dramatic impact on how the Bible’s authority was viewed and what it meant at all. Many began to view the Bible like other books they read. This point was highlighted as Johann Semler wrote the, Treatise on the Free Investigation of the Canon. In it, Semler argued that the Bible has within it God’s words, but stated it is not the same as the actual Word of God. He felt the Bible should be read like all other books or ancient