Problems with "Reconciling"
Contradictions
Many fundamentalists will accuse people who claim that the Bible
is full of contradictions and errors of being biased and having a
skeptical ax to grind. Many fundamentalists will even suggest that if
skeptics of fundamentalism looked at the situation of errancy/inerrancy
objectively, they would see that the Bible is actually inerrant. But,
of course, skepticism is the practice of looking at things objectively.
Skeptics make decisions about truth by weighing evidence, not by going
through back flips and somersaults so that their particular position is
correct, as is the situation with fundamentalist Christianity.
The example below provides a case in point:
(F)orgive, if you have anything
against anyone so that your father in heaven will also
forgive your transgressions. But
if you do not forgive, neither will your father who is
in heaven forgive your
transgressions (Mark 11:25-26).
Jesus' statement above in the gospel of Mark seems to inflict mortal
damage to the doctrine of some fundamentalist churches, which is that
only by faith one is "saved" and that one cannot "lose one's
salvation." According to the gospel of Mark, even if someone is "born
again," if that person does not forgive those who have committed
transgressions against him or her, God will not forgive the born-again
Christian. Apparently, God somehow "revokes" the forgiveness
guaranteed by salvation through Jesus. And actually, the statement in
Mark 11:25-26 renders another contradiction because "speaking against
the Holy Spirit" is supposed to be the only unforgivable sin:
Therefore I say to you, any sin
and blasphemy shall be forgiven, but blasphemy
against the Holy Spirit shall not
be forgiven (Matthew 12:31).
Absolute Language: Whenever a passage suggesting questionable theology
surfaces, defenders of fundamentalism will reply that one cannot read
the Bible verse by verse, and insist that one must read the whole Bible
to "truly" understand it. Verses like Mark 11:25-26 cannot be
understood by themselves because there are other passages in the Bible
which may elaborate on it. To them, when asking whether or not those
who do not forgive will be forgiven, they must consider all Bible
verses relating to the subject, and not just highlight one.
But there is one important element that is ignored in this
interpretative philosophy: language. The fact of the matter is that the
writer of Mark 11:26 made an absolute statement. It is a
statement that is point-blank, clear and cannot be compromised in any
way. The passage says, in words just as plain as John 3:16, that
unforgiveness is an unforgivable sin. There is no
"how-it-could-have-been" scenario to insert that does not compromise
the language of this Markan passage. Regardless of how many passages
are found that suggest otherwise, no matter how many times one repeats,
"It is by grace, not works that you are saved," it cannot take away
from the absolute nature of Mark 11:26. While fundamentalists may claim
that one cannot focus on a single passage and accuse the Bible of
having a contradiction, the language in this case requires it. Mark
11:25-26 can and should be singled out because of the unequivocal
language used in the passage.
Which Passage Should Equivocate Which? If Mark 11:25 is equivocated,
one would have to explain why this particular passage must be
equivocated, as opposed to the ones that suggest that works are
required for salvation? (And Mark 11:25-26 are not the only verses that
suggest that one can lose one's salvation if proper "works" are not
performed--e.g., James 2, Revelation 3:5.) Fundamentalism faces a
serious paradox because if it is possible to just pick a verse that for
all intents and purposes is clear, and all of a sudden suggest that it
doesn't say what it really says, it is possible to do so with any
verse, so long as one can be found that "apparently contradicts" it!
This is where the biases of fundamentalists become particularly
evident. They choose (arbitrarily) not to equivocate the passages that
suggest that faith alone is sufficient for salvation because it is the
one that is most pleasing to them. But that conclusion is certainly not
based on any objective exegesis.
Incompetent Bible Writers: Lastly, what fundamentalists do when
they suggest that certain passages should not say what they "appear" to
mean is perpetuate the idea that the Bible writers often did not mean
what they said. It is completely arbitrary to suggest that Bible
writers did not mean what they said only in areas where there are
"alleged" contradictions and errors. What, did the rules of writing
suddenly get suspended in areas where there is an alleged
contradiction? If the Bible writers did not mean what they said in one
place, they could theoretically not mean what they said in other
places. It's a real problem if clear declarative statements don't
really mean what the text suggests they mean. This means that either
textual errors exist, or the Bible writers were too stupid to know that
when you make a statement using words like "all," "never," "always,"
"nothing," etc., the statement is an absolute declaration and there are
no exceptions. In Colossians 3:22, when it tells slaves to submit to
their masters on earth "in all things," if Paul (or the Deutero-Pauline
writer of Colossians) was too stupid to realize that all things in fact
means all things and not some things or almost everything, the writer
of Colossians doesn't deserve any credibility anyway.
In conclusion, I have to say that I really don't understand why
fundamentalists didn't sympathize with President Clinton when he was
going through his impeachment ordeal. He said, both in public and in a
civil disposition, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman,"
and then when it was revealed that he did have some kind of sexual
contact with "that woman," he claimed that he was not lying and that
"sexual relations" as he defined it, did not cover what he did with
"that woman." If this isn't like a resolution that a fundamentalist
would suggest regarding a contradiction, I don't know what is. The
American people weren't fooled by the President's "resolution" to this
"apparent contradiction" and neither will skeptics fall for the
ludicrous reconciliations of contradictions and errors in the Bible.
(The author's e-mail address is Brian_Rainey@brown.edu.)
Editor's Note:
I can't entirely agree that Mark 11:25-26 and Matthew 12:31 are
contradictory. In the former, one's sins are not forgiven because
he would have died in a state of having refused to forgive the sins of
other, so it is the sin of one's refusal to forgive others that "the
father" will not forgive him, but as long as the person is alive, he
would have the chance to forgive the sins of others and thereby obtain
forgiveness for himself. In that sense, adultery or
stealing or killing would also be unforgivable sins if the person died
in a state of not having sought forgiveness for those sins. Despite
this weakness, however, I thought that this article made some excellent
observations about the tactics that fundamentalists use to try to
reconcile discrepancies in the Bible. I especially liked the
Clinton example. Fundamentalist Christians were Clinton's chief
adversaries during his administration and especially during his
impeachment. They refused to accept his definition of sexual
relations, but they will twist themselves into all sorts of verbal
knots in order to assign meanings to biblical words in order to resolve
inconsistencies. Of course, no one can ever accuse biblical
fundamentalists of being consistent. - FT
