Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy 20

What do Christians mean when they say the Bible is inerrant? The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy tells us what leading inerrantist mean by inerrancy. I’ll be posting a section of this statement each week until I’ve posted the whole thing.

You can read previously posted sections of this statement in by clicking here. After a preface and a short statement, the Chicago Statement contains a section called Articles of Affirmation and Denial.

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Article XVIII.

We affirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico-historical exegesis, taking account of its literary forms and devices, and that Scripture is to interpret Scripture.

We deny the legitimacy of any treatment of the text or quest for sources lying behind it that leads to relativizing, dehistoricizing, or discounting its teaching, or rejecting its claims to authorship.

Claiming to Be Wise...

It seems that the first argument made here last fall by Godlessons, in which he argued that there is a contradiction between God’s omniscience (at least if that means knowing the future perfectly) and his omnipotence, is one put forward by Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion. All this time I thought it was just a very silly argument made up by some unthinking dude on the internet when it turns out instead that it’s “a very weak challenge coming from a superior intellect,” to quote Greg Koukl.

My Place 6

Night sky, 12:30AM, June 21

The summer solstice was early this morning, at 4:28AM, to be precise. This is what the sky looked like right before I went to bed last night. It was a little less than an hour after sunset and 4 hours before sunrise. So the sky would have been a little darker at, say, 2AM, but there’s no way I was staying up to photograph that for you. And I was pointing right at the place in the sky where the sun was below the horizon, so directly behind me the sky would have been darker.

You’ll see from the chart below (a screen shot from Weather Underground) that it never really got dark, because while we still have sunrise and sunset, there’s nothing at all in the boxes for the start and finish in the twilight categories.

We all, you know, had our summer solstice moment at exactly the same time—all of us in the northern hemisphere, that is. But what is 4:28 AM for me would be 7:28 AM for those of you on EDT.  Don’t ask me what it was for people in Newfoundland; I only work in full hours. And of course, for some, that moment might fall on a whole other day, datewise. I haven’t figured that out for sure yet, either. [Update: I think I’ve figured it out using this map. I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that we all had the solstice on the same date this year, but I don’t think it always works that way.* You are allowed to correct me on that.]

[*Update 2: Yes, most years the solstice occurs on two different dates. In 2000, for instance, the solstice was at 1:48AM June 21 UTC, which means it would have been June 20 anywhere in North America.]

Update 3: Here’s a picture of the sunset—at 11:30ish—on the 22nd.