around the earth, and such phenomenal language is neither false nor intended to be
scientifically informative. Richard Swinburne develops this point by making a distinction
between the informative content of a
end p.328
revelation and what he terms the “presuppositions” or “assumptions” of whatever culture
in which that revelation might occur, that are used to communicate that informative
content (1992, 84). On such a view, a revelation might communicate the truth that God
created the natural world but describe that natural world in terms that were culturally
common to the period of the revelation but are no longer scientifically acceptable. In such
a case, Swinburne argues that it is reasonable to disregard the falsity of the cultural
presupposition in judging the truth of the revelatory claim. In this way, one avoids the
inference that the Bible teaches that the world is flat or that the sky is a dome suspended
over it, and so forth. Another common qualification is that, because the biblical authors
use round numbers and assume only the standards of accuracy current in their culture, an
account of a speech, for example, does not have to be “word for word” to be true, but will
be counted true if it embodies the main thrust of what was said.
One can therefore see that when it is claimed that some revelation, such as the Bible, is
inerrant when properly interpreted, this claim is not as extreme and hard to defend as
might initially appear to be the case. A natural extension of these qualifications to
inerrancy, perhaps already implicit in them, is a doctrine of limited inerrancy. Limited
inerrancy is the claim that the Bible (or whatever book is claimed to be a true special
revelation) is inerrant only with respect to those areas in which God intends to reveal
truths. One might claim, for example, that the Bible is without error in its religious and
moral teachings (“in matters of faith and practice”) but deny that this inerrancy extends to
scientific and historical matters.
However, it is not always easy to determine what the scope of God's intended revelation
is. Some historical claims, such as the claim that Jesus was crucified and resurrected on
the third day, seem to have religious and theological importance. For some Christians,
even some apparently scientific claims, such as the claim that humans were created by
God in a special act, have theological and even ethical import. Perhaps, for example, the
special creation of humans in the image of God gives human persons a special moral
status. On the other side of the ledger, some teachings that are apparently explicitly
ethical in character, such as Old Testament regulations, are commonly interpreted as
applicable merely to the culture in which they were promulgated and not viewed as
having general moral significance. To be viable, then, a doctrine of limited inerrancy
should hold that inerrancy is not absent from all matters of history and science but only
those incidental or unimportant to what God intends to reveal. However, this does not
seem so different from the claim that a proper interpretation is one that disregards false
cultural presuppositions that are used to communicate a truth without being part of the
truth being communicated. In practice, then, it is not easy to distinguish a doctrine of
limited inerrancy from a doctrine of inerrancy with the usual qualifications.
Some theologians distinguish between a doctrine of inerrancy and a claim
end p.329