For centuries, Christians believed that the Scriptures are God’s inspired word revealed to mankind. They also believed that the Bible is free from mistakes, and it is authoritative. But in the last two centuries many scholars started questioning the orthodox belief and the authority of the Bible. The orthodox view of the Scripture is that inspiration of the Bible is verbal and plenary. They also considered the Bible to be infallible and inerrant.
But now many modern scholars question this orthodox view of inspiration and authority of the Scriptures. They propose that the Bible contains the Word of God. They say that the Bible has errors and hence cannot be accepted as authoritative. They even say that the Bible contains myths and stories. They reject the creation account, miracles, the virgin birth, the deity of Jesus Christ. They see the Bible as a very useful literature with moral teachings but they fail to accept it as the authoritative Word of God. Let us see a few reasons why they do not accept the Bible as the final authority as given by Alban Douglas.
A. They think that the Bible and science disagree; it is true that many unproven unscientific theories disagree with the Bible; but it cannot be shown once where true proven science and the Bible disagree (1 Tim. 6:20).
B. They think that the Bible and geology disagree; Geologist Guyot affirms that true geology and the Bible agree perfectly.
C. They think that the Bible and general science disagree; the late Sir.G.G. Stokes, President of
the Royal Society flatly refutes this.
D. They think that the Bible and the chemistry disagree; Chemist Radar, a great American
chemist refutes this error, too.
E. Some think that Bible and geography disagree; Dr. Christie, an eminent geographer declares that there is not one geographical error in the Bible.
F. Some think that the Church is the final authority and not the Bible. The Church antedates the New Testament but the Old Testament, the infallible Word of God is much older and more accurate than the Church.
