CATHOLICISM AND INERRANCY OF THE BIBLE

http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/is-everything-in-the-bible-true
 
The Church of Rome claims to believe that human reason when correctly used is to be seen as inspired by God. But inspiration is not reason and reason is not inspiration. If God puts thoughts in your head that means you are not reasoning then.
 
Nevertheless, the Church opposes unbiased examination of the Bible's claim to be the word of God. It says it doesn't but when it pretends that reason is divine inspiration it clearly does oppose it.
 
The Church of Rome claims that Church tradition is the word of God. The teaching of the Fathers of the Church is tradition. This teaching states that ultimately, we must regard God as the author of the Bible (page 153, Was Jesus God?, Richard Swinburne, Oxford, 2008). This view implies that if we are to interpret the Bible we must interpret the Bible in the light of what God knows and teaches. In other words, if some Bible book is obscure, we can get light about how to interpret it from the teaching of another book. Even if two different men who knew nothing about each other wrote the books that does not matter. We ignore the rule that if you are interpreting any writings, you must interpret them in a way that is consistent with what you know the author knows or believes as long as he is sincere and you must work out the meaning from putting yourself in the shoes of the people for whom the book was written. To say that God wrote the men's books is to ignore all this and to resort to fundamentalism. Fundamentalism does not treat the Bible as human.
 
The Church of Rome and most of the Christian Churches no longer sees the Bible as totally infallible as a cursory reading of their modern biblical dictionaries will show. They repudiate Christianity by denying the perfection of the Bible. Jesus in Luke 21 told his disciples that they would have to answer their persecutors. He warned them not to try and plan what they had to say in order to defend themselves. He said that he himself would miraculously give them eloquence and wisdom and their critics and persecutors would be unable to contradict it or resist it. In other words, he was saying they would be divinely inspired and like God's mouthpieces. God would the talking through them. If they were promised this during their trials and persecutions, surely they would have this power in order to write the New Testament as well?
 
Yet official Catholic teaching says with Pope Leo XIII that God so worked on the writers of the Bible and put ideas in their mind so that they wrote only what he intended so that God is the author of the Bible and this is the only way he can be. The pope gave this teaching in 1893 in his encyclical Providentissimus Deus. The doctrine of inspiration implies that God has written the Bible in a special way. God creates all things and nobody can write a book unless he empowers them to. The Church denies that God writes the Bible in this way. He miraculously wrote the Bible.
 
In How to Interpret the Bible (pages 20,21) Francis Cleary S.J. repudiates the thesis that there is no error in the Bible at all and cites the cases in which it is known that the Medes did not rule Babylonia when Persia took it over though the Book of Daniel says they did and that God could not have observed the Sabbath himself on the seventh day of creation.
 
In 1972, Pope Paul VI accepted “Fr” Raymond Brown into the Roman Pontifical Biblical Commission though he denied the Bible’s inerrancy. Brown’s book, Biblical Exegesis and Church Doctrine, says that the star of Bethlehem though reported in the gospel of Matthew is questionable (page 16), that Matthew and Luke contradict each other in their stories of Jesus’ infancy (page 68) and that Matthew tried to cover up that Mary thought Jesus was mad (page 92). Brown is like an atheist who hides what he really is in order to subvert the Church by seeming to be its friend.
 
It is a fact that the infallible Roman Catholic ecumenical councils, the Council of Trent and the First Vatican Council, declared that the Bible is infallible in all its parts. Trent decreed that anybody who did not receive the Bible books as sacred and canonical in their entire parts and as they are in the Vulgate they are to be anathema and excommunicated (page 38, Reason and Belief). Vatican II rejected the fundamentalism of these councils (page 43, Reason and Belief). They excommunicated Vatican II which did not claim to be infallible. They were right to so no power can do away with the validity of the excommunication.

Pope Sixtus V published his revision of the Vulgate in 1590 and declared by the fullness of his apostolic power and the power that the Lord gave him that it was not to be questioned and must be taken as infallible and authentic. It was full of errors and proved to be a major embarrassment to the Church which was forced to withdraw it from circulation and issue what was falsely said to be the true version later. Notice too that his declaration befits the canonical conditions for a pope making an infallible statement.

Vatican II simply gave out the vague statement that the scriptures firmly and without error teach the truth that God put in them for our salvation. That makes it possible to hold that only the more advanced and sensible teachings of the Bible should be accepted. For example, you can say the commandment for killing homosexuals was an error that God corrected when he commanded that we must not murder. (In fact murder means illegal killing and since killing homosexuals for example was legal killing it is excluded from the command.) But this really means that you decide for yourself what is moral and then kid yourself that the Bible teaches it. What is the point of having a Bible to teach your morality when you can do better yourself? Jesus commanded faith in the Bible meaning that it must determine morality not us. Anyway, God’s ban on murder is a commandment to love which was why Jesus said that anybody who insults his brother breaks the commandment. In the same way, do not commit adultery implies you should not have the desires that lead to adultery or that make you want to commit it (page 63, Set My Exiles Free). Having the desires when they will not result in physical adultery is still forbidden so by implication the desire to have sex that is not adulterous is forbidden. So we gather that sex outside marriage is not love. We gather that it is love to kill homosexuals for their sin. For what Vatican II said to have any meaning you have to hold that there is no error in the Bible at all regarding faith and morals.

Regarding Catholicism, some would say, “The Catholic Church has added books and portions to the Bible which do err which is why she has to assert that the Bible is not wholly true. The real Bible consists of sixty-six books which are inerrant.” If that argument is correct then it is an utter disgrace for Protestants to have liberal notions about Bible inspiration which allow for the Bible getting it wrong. It proves that the Catholic Church would rather mutilate and destroy the Bible than admit that she was in error when she interfered with the Bible to expand the canon.

The Roman Catholic Church claims to be infallible. It says this infallibility is not the same thing as divine inspiration (page 224, Catholicism and Fundamentalism). Infallibility does not tell the Church which of several possibilities is right but prevents the Church from selecting the wrong one when it is trying to put something forward as a dogma and declare it revealed by God.   But inspiration does tell her what the right one is. It must. The Church cannot reach the right conclusion except with divine guidance. The doctrine of Church infallibility is totally absurd.
 
If it is possible then it follows that God had no need to inspire the Bible. He could have protected it from moral and doctrinal error the same way as he allegedly does the Catholic Church. Thus the doctrine of inspiration is totally ridiculous if so. If the Bible is inspired then it is because God wants to do more than protect it from moral and doctrinal error. He wants everything even down to the grammar and style and choice of material to be perfect. But the Bible is far from being totally perfect. And to inspire is just showing off so the Bible should put us off God. If that is not what he wants then he didn’t write it.
 
The Catholic Church says it used its infallibility that it inherited from Jesus to find out what books belonged in the Bible. Infallibility requires research to work for the Church says infallibility is not inspiration. An infallible statement that depends on the research being done carefully is not an infallible statement even if presented as one if the research was sloppy. The Church could not infallibly determine which books belong in the Bible without doing its homework so the infallibility does not guarantee inspiration of the Bible but the homework does. It is the homework that counts for even infallibility was impossible without it. That means that infallibility serves no purpose. It is meant to make you sure God revealed something and it cannot for you don’t know if the people that decided to make an infallible statement were fair and diligent when it came down to researching for their statement.

There is no mistake: any book that claims to be divinely inspired is thereby proving that it is not. It’s just a book. The only exception would be a book that man had nothing to do with and which provably dropped down from Heaven and was written by the finger of God in the sight of lots of reliable witnesses. But no such book ever existed.
 
CONCLUSION
 
Divine inspiration of prophets and scriptures is impossible. It is so absurd that it is plainly a scam by men to get you to believe that their writings or the writings they want you to submit in obedience to, to do what they want.
 
BOOKS CONSULTED
 
A Summary of Christian Doctrine, Louis Berkhof, The Banner of Truth Trust, London, 1971
Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible, John W Haley, Whitaker House, Pennsylvania, Undated
Answers to Tough Questions, Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Scripture Press Bucks, 1988
Attack on the Bible, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, 1965
Biblical Exegesis and Church Doctrine, Raymond E Brown, Paulist Press, New York, 1985
But the Bible Does Not Say So, Rev Roberto Nisbet, Church Book Room Press, London, 1966
Catholicism and Christianity, Cecil John Cadoux, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1928
Catholicism and Fundamentalism, Karl Keating, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1988
Creation and Evolution, Dr Alan Hayward, Triangle, London, 1994
Does the Bible Contradict Itself? Radio Bible Class, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1986
Encyclopaedia of Bible Difficulties, Gleason W Archer, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1982
Essentials, David L Edwards and John Stott, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1990
Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Vol 1, Josh McDowell, Alpha, Scripture Press Foundation, Bucks, 1995
Free Inquiry, Fall 1998, Vol 18, No 4, Council for Secular Humanism, Amherst, New York
God and the Human Condition, F J Sheed, Sheed & Ward, London, 1967
God Cannot Lie, David Alsobrook, Diasozo Trust, Kent, 1989
God, Science and Evolution, Prof E H Andrews, Evangelical Press, Herts, 1985
God’s Word, Final Infallible and Forever, Floyd C McElveen, Gospel Truth Ministries, Grand Rapids, 1985
How and Why Catholic and Protestant Bibles Differ, Carolyn Osiek, RSCJ and Donald Senior, CP, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota, 1983
How to Interpret the Bible, Fergus Cleary SJ, Ligouri Publications, Missouri, 1981
In Defence of the Faith, Dave Hunt, Harvest House, Eugene Oregon, 1996
Inspiration in the Bible, Fr Karl Rahner, Herder and Herder, New York, 1966
Jesus and Early Christianity in the Gospels, Daniel J Grolin, George Ronald, Oxford, 2002
Jehovah of the Watch-tower, Walter Martin and Norman Klann, Bethany House Publishers, Minnesota, 1974
Know What You Believe, Paul E Little, Scripture Union, London, 1973
Know Why You Believe, Paul E Little, Scripture Union, London, 1971
New Evangelicalism An Enemy of Fundamentalism, Curtis Hutson, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, 1984
None of These Diseases, SI McMillen MD, Lakeland, London 1966
Our Perfect Book the Bible, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, 1958
Proof the Bible is True, Rev JMA Willans BD, Dip.Theol. Vermont Press, Larne, 1982
Radio Replies Vol 3, Radio Replies Press, Minnesota, 1942
Reason and Belief, Bland Blanschard, London, George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1974
Return to Sodom and Gomorrah, Charles Pellegrino, The Softback Preview, New York, 1995
Science and the Bible, Henry Morris, Moody Press, Bucks, 1988
Science Held Hostage What’s Wrong With Creation Science and Evolutionism, Howard J Van Till/Davis A.Young/Clarence Menninga, IVP, Downer’s Grove, Illinois, 1988
Science Speaks, Peter W Stoner and Robert C Newman, Moody Press, Chicago, 1976
Set My Exiles Free, John Power, Logos Books, MH Gill & Son Ltd, Dublin, 1967
Testament, The Bible and History, John Romer, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1988
The Authority of the Bible, Ambassador College, Pasadena, California, 1980
The Bible is the Word of God, Jimmy Thomas, Guardian of Truth, Kentucky
The Bible, Questions People Ask, A Redemptorist Pastoral Publication, Liguori Publications, Missouri, 1980
The Canon of Scripture, FF Bruce, Chapter House, Glasgow, 1988
The Church of Rome and the Word of God, Rev Eric C Last, Protestant Truth Society, London, Undated
The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Edited by Raymond E Brown, Joseph A Fitzmyer, Roland E Murphy, Geoffrey Chapman, New York 1990
The Theology of Inspiration, John Scullion SJ, Mercier, Cork, 1970
The Unauthorised Version, Robin Lane Fox, Penguin, Middlesex, 1992
Verbal Inspiration of the Bible, John R Rice Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, 1943
What is the Bible? Henri Daniel-Rops, Angelus Books, Guild Press, New York, 1958
Why Does God..? Domenico Grasso SJ, St Pauls , Bucks, 1970