that the Scriptures are infallible (though others use the terms “inerrancy” and
“infallibility” synonymously). There are various ways of making such a distinction. One
is to understand by infallibility simply limited inerrancy as explained in the previous
paragraph. Another is to interpret inerrancy as a characteristic of the propositions in the
text itself, while viewing infallibility as a characteristic of the text in relation to its
readers. An infallible text, it might be claimed, is one that will always guide its readers
properly. It might be claimed that a revelation can be infallible without being inerrant,
because any errors that the text contains will not affect its intended revelatory function.
Once again, it is not clear that such a claim of infallibility can be sharply distinguished
from a properly qualified doctrine of inerrancy, or at least some doctrine of limited
inerrancy. If one of the functions of a revelation is to convey truths about God, and if a
revelation contains propositions for this purpose, then it is hard to see how the question of
whether the revelation properly guides its readers can be sharply separated from the
question of whether the propositions, or at least some of the propositions, in the
revelation are true. The reader or hearer will not be properly guided if he or she is led to
believe falsehood (unless this is God's intention in giving the revelation, a possibility that
most would reject). If the proponent of infallibility responds that much of a revelation has
a different function from the conveying of information and is not intended as the
communication of truths, then he or she would seem to be making a claim that could also
be used by a defender of inerrancy, who could rightly affirm that such points must be
taken into account when arriving at the proper interpretation of a revelation. A revelatory
passage that makes no truth claims contains no falsehoods either. Such an infallible
revelation could be inerrant as well. A proper interpretation must certainly consider
questions of genre and the intentions of an author, including a divine coauthor.
The Nature of Faith
There is a dispute over the nature of faith that corresponds to the dispute between
propositional and nonpropositional accounts of revelation. If we think of faith as a human
response to God's revelation, then those who think of revelation as primarily
propositional in character naturally emphasize faith as consisting of belief. Those who
defend a nonpropositional account of revelation, in which God reveals himself through
events, naturally think of faith as consisting of something like personal trust. If we think
of these two views of revelation as complementary rather than rivals, as I argued above,
then we can take the same complementary view of faith. Trust and belief are intertwined
in a number of ways. Faith is primarily trust in God as a person. However, one can hardly
trust a person if one does not believe that the person exists, or if one does not believe the
person is good; hence, some beliefs seem necessary for trust. Furthermore, one of the
ways trust manifests itself is in a willingness to believe what another person tells me, not
merely in the case where I have independent reasons to believe what I have been told, but
precisely because of the person's testimony. So trust in God naturally mani-fests itself as
a willingness to believe what God has revealed because God has revealed it.