The Maginot Line<\/a> was a series of fortifications built by the French after World War I.\u00a0 Its purpose was to prevent or slow down another attack and invasion by Germany.\u00a0 We all know how that turned out.\u00a0 Rather than come directly at these fortifications, which probably were impregnable and almost indestructible, the Germans simply went around them.<\/p>\n The Maginot Line was constructed to fight the last war, to address past strategies and threats.\u00a0 I think the belief in an inerrant Bible is much like a Maginot Line of sorts.\u00a0 It was something constructed by those who felt under threat, who felt their world was being invaded by hostile actors.\u00a0 And like with the historical Line, it has been bypassed, over-run, and the conversation has advanced far past whatever ground it was supposed to hold or protect.<\/p>\n I am not bothered much by its failure.\u00a0 I remember when the belief in inerrancy<\/a> was (is still?) weaponized and used more as a blunt object than it was for anything constructive.\u00a0 I saw it used as something to target, put down, terminate employment, quiet, and shun people.\u00a0 In my experience, it has left a lot of damage<\/a> in its wake.\u00a0 I shed no tears over its diminishing pertinence or relevance.<\/p>\n Inerrancy is mostly irrelevant due to the modern\/post-modern divide.\u00a0 Inerrancy was a way of defending the authority of scripture, when we all thought we had to play by the rules of modernity.\u00a0 It was an unconscious acceptance of the modern as the reigning narrative.\u00a0 Those the most invested in inerrancy never seemed to notice their capitulation to the modern rationalist mindset, even mistaking it for \u201chistoric\u201d or \u201cancient\u201d Christian understandings.<\/p>\n Merold Westphal gets to much of this in his wonderful little book entitled, \u201cWhose Community? Which Interpretation<\/a>,\u201d with the sub-title of, \u201cPhilosophical Hermeneutics for the Church.\u201d\u00a0 In the very first chapter he speaks of na\u00efve realism<\/a> and truth as correspondence<\/a>.\u00a0 These are two of the hallmarks of modernity.\u00a0 They both touch on epistemology and hermeneutics.<\/p>\n When we consider the Chicago Statement<\/a> and other articulations of inerrancy, we can see the underlying commitment to both these hallmarks.\u00a0 Bound up in na\u00efve realism is the idea of \u201ccommon sense.\u201d\u00a0 An object or a text is no more than it appears to be\u2014what does our \u201ccommon sense\u201d tell us about it?\u00a0 This should allow us all to \u201csee\u201d or interpret this object or text the same.\u00a0 Westphal writes:<\/p>\n \u201cCommon sense\u2026does claim to \u2018just see\u2019 its objects, free of bias, prejudice, and presuppositions (at least sometimes).\u00a0 We can call this \u2018just seeing\u2019 intuition.\u00a0 When the na\u00efve-realist view of knowledge and understanding is applied to reading texts, such as the Bible, it becomes the claim that we can \u2018just see\u2019 what the text means, that intuition can and should be all we need.\u00a0 In other words, \u2018no interpretation needed.\u2019\u00a0 The object, in this case the meaning of the text, presents itself clearly and directly to my reading.\u00a0 To interpret would be to interject some subjective bias or prejudice (pre-judgment) into the process.\u00a0 Thus the response, \u2018Well, that might be your interpretation, but my Bible clearly says\u2026\u2019\u00a0 In other words, \u2018You interpret (and thereby misunderstand), but I intuit, seeing directly, clearly, and without distortion.\u2019\u201d (Pg. 20)<\/p>\n Na\u00efve realism, Westphal goes on to note, is maintained to preserve truth as correspondence.\u00a0 These are complex terms and I would recommend one research them thoroughly; a single blog post cannot do either justice.\u00a0 However, one should not claim inerrancy or spend much time defending it unless one is familiar with these terms (na\u00efve realism, realism in general, and truth as correspondence) and the arguments for and against.<\/p>\n Westphal asks the critical question: \u201cWhy seek to avoid interpretation?\u201d\u00a0 And, he suggests one reason that, out of generosity of spirit I would guess, we should dismiss:<\/p>\n \u201cLet us turn to the question of motivation.\u00a0 Why would anyone want to hold to a hermeneutical version of na\u00efve realism?\u00a0 Let us dismiss (but not too quickly) the suspicion that this view is attractive because it makes it easy to say: \u2018I am (we are) right, and all who disagree are wrong\u2026\u2019\u201d (Pg. 20)<\/p>\n I love the qualifier we should not dismiss the reason, \u201ctoo quickly.\u201d\u00a0 One has to wonder if inerrancy isn\u2019t so much about protecting and defending the Bible (which needs protecting about as much as a lion might against a mouse), as it is protecting and defending personal or tribal interpretations<\/em>.\u00a0 We want to be able to say: \u201cYou are not just disagreeing with me<\/em>\u2014you are disagreeing with the Bible and thus God.\u201d<\/p>\n The Chicago Statement was put out in 1978.\u00a0 The conversation regarding the post-modern (which is not the bogey-man<\/a> many conservatives make it out to be) and how it applies to hermeneutics, the related issues raised by Heidegger<\/a>, Gadamer<\/a>, Ricoeur<\/a>, as treated by many scholars, and the more recent work of many evangelicals (Clark Pinnock, Peter Enns, Kenton Sparks, Kevin Vanhoozer, Andrew McGowan, Stanley Grenz\u2014and more) have all moved the conversation well past 1978.<\/p>\n Inerrancy is just one more area where fundamentalists and many evangelicals are simply too<\/a> modern<\/a>.\u00a0 N.T. Wright<\/a> sums up the problem nicely:<\/p>\n \u201cMy book on scripture\u2019s authority, Scripture and the Authority of God<\/em>, makes clear where I stand. I take the whole of scripture utterly seriously, and I regret that many who call themselves \u201cinerrantists\u201d manage to avoid the real challenge at its heart, that is, Jesus\u2019 announcing that in and through his work God really was \u2018becoming king\u2019 over the world in a whole new way. So I don\u2019t call myself an \u201cinerrantist\u201d (a) because that word means what it means within a modernist rationalism, which I reject and (b) because it seems to me to have failed in delivering a full-blooded reading and living of what the Bible actually says. It may have had a limited usefulness as a label against certain types of \u2018modernist\u2019 denial, but it buys into at least half of the rationalist worldview which was the real problem all along.\u201d<\/p>\n All this and more has made inerrancy, in my view, irrelevant to current theological and philosophical conversations regarding hermeneutics and epistemology.\u00a0 In my opinion, inerrancy should be seen, like the Maginot Line, as a historical footnote bearing witness to the futility of building defensive constructs based upon the last war and even, in this case, using the same philosophical building materials as the very opponents they feared.<\/p>\n