R.C. Sproul: Defending the Doctrine of Inerrancy

Dr. R.C. Sproul, in his address at the 2015 Shepherds' Conference, defends the doctrine of inerrancy and calls the church to embrace Jesus' view of the Bible.

[aracelielardo]

Praise the Lord for His inerrant Word. Thanks R.C.S.

[matthewschraith]

Just discovered this video, this was instrumental to my understanding of inerrancy. Such clear logic presented through this video through a Classical approach.

[Fasted.carnivore]

Its 4:00am and I have come to RC Sproul after listening to Bart Ehrman. God help me

[ksgsherley]

I don't know if I've commented on this before, but Dr. Sproul "nailed it" on the inerrancy of scripture. Thank you so much.

[paulwells]

As a fairly new Christian, I knew from the very beginning of my new born again life by the Grace of God that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, what troubles me most is I’ve met many many Christians who believe the Bible has errors? Why? I struggle immensely how any Christian could feel they have the right to edit Gods living word?

[anabellebungay]

God is perfect, God is sovereign, the bible is the word of God. I believe this all. I would never dare question God. " Who are you O man to talk back to God?". When he talks I close my mouth.

[Degasbm]

Thank you so much for this. Praised be the Lord for this classical approach, free of fallacies and circular reasoning, such as found in presuppositional approaches

[Strandgat]

RC Sproul is such a good story teller as well

[tomking]

Another brilliant and impeccable exposition by RCS in defence of the Holy Bible based on the Word of Truth, reason and logic.
Thank you Father God for giving us such faithful erudite teachers.

[paul]

All he's talking about is the reliability of the Bible as a historical factual document. He isn't even addressing the inerrancy factor, which is to say it has no errors or contradictions whatsoever.

[viscache]

With each loss of the great apologeticists of the last generation we seem to lose another pillar of sound Christian doctrine. My generation, the generation that learned and appreciate sound logical reasoning, is passing quickly and we have not raised up enough young people of great spirits and minds with a love of the Gospel and are willing to urgently defend it. But as God has always done, He will retain a remnant to keep the Word pure and uncorrupted in both form and in understood argument. It will pass from the hands and nations who have lost faithfulness and pass to those minds, spirits and hands of one willing to stand for the integrity of God’s Word any cost. This is the minimum that God requires of us. It is the least we can do.

[kurtgundy]

Rest in peace RCS. You'll be missed.

[TheGospelAssociates]

Most of the contrary comments are those who hold to pressuppositional apologetics.
R.C gave an incredible defense

[truethinker]

Jesus was speaking of the word of God as in wisdom not book.

[thesongtowoody]

Just a note. Sproul is affirming his view on innerrancy but actually does not defend it any further than that he notes in scripture christ believed and affirmed innerrancy. To defend inerrancy is to reconcile whether mary went to galilee after jesus was born or wether she fled to egypt? reconcile these two apparent contradictory accounts and in this one small area you have defended it. anyone?

[simonthompson]

When it finished I thought: Is that it? You have done nothing to convince me at least. Sorry.

[dmustakasjr]

at 4:00 RC begins to describe the Presuppositional position and harkens back to his historic criticism of "circular reasoning" which he often puts alongside "fideism". This has been answers many times over both with RC in discussion and debate as well as in numerous scholarly articles. RC being a student of philosophy understands the transendental nature of the challenge at hand for any ultimate worldview. Any attempt to avoid the ultimate standard argument leaves even the smallest percentage of ones position to chance or enters probability into the equation which is devastating to RCs position. I am not sure if our wonderful brother ever came back around to reconcile this but it has been answered and solidly so.

[gwen]

"we know that god is incapable of falsehood or of deceit" ....how? how do you know that? what if god is capable of that, and regularly engages in it? how do you know for a fact that what god says is true? you're just taking that for granted

[nicholasdemaio]

I find Dr. Sproul's arguments to be only partially satisfying, but substantially incomplete. I do accept the premise that the Bible is "generally reliable." The way I see it, his key argument is ultimately that the Bible is inerrant because Jesus believed it was inerrant. But the only scriptures that Jesus could have treated as inerrant were those that already existed during his lifetime: the Old Testament. My objection is the same as Roxy Katt's on this thread: you cannot conclude that the New Testament is inerrant solely on the basis that Jesus treated it as such because it did not even yet exist. True, many of the events written in the NT were prophesied in the OT. However, that would merely establish that only those specific statements in the NT that were prophesied by the OT can be taken as authoritative, but not necessarily every single line and author.

[Tom-jvf]

Here's an argument from silence that, nevertheless, screams: If we can reasonably expect Jesus and the gospel authors to sufficiently disclose what Jesus thought important to salvation and growing in Christ...and yet we never find them instructing Christians to defend the OT from charges of error in the originals....we can also reasonably deduce that Jesus didn't think such defensive activity had anything to do with salvation or spiritual growth.

You can escape the dilemma by alleging that Jesus purposefully kept hidden a few requirements for salvation and spiritual growth.