I will copy and paste the short sermon from Page 7 of the 11/12/25 edition of The Cavalier Chronicle’ Here it is:
“The Beginning and The End
God was there before it all began. God will be there when what we know will end. Because God is, God will continue. Everlasting life with God is the promise that we can continue, too. Learn more of the promise this week in church. I am the Alpha and the Omega. Revelation 1:4b-8.”
From Page 7 of the 11/26/25 edition of The Cavalier Chronicle is a sermon entitled We Beheld His Glory. I write out the short sermon below: “The earliest people who encountered Jesus knew He was the son of God.”
My response: Natural great souls know from early on that they are exceptional (The rest of humans must grow in self-esteem, love, imagination, knowledge, hard work, and much creative experimenting to develop into individuators who actually are and are deservingly referred to by themselves and others as “great-souled”.).
A great, good divinity like Jesus would know from Day 1 one he was a Very Great Soul or even The Greatest Great Soul, and those around such a child prodigy would know or guess as to His special status.
Chronicle: “Even as an infant, for them who Jesus was and the good He would do was obvious. Can we see the same truth?”
My response: It is not at all obvious that most people, nonindividuators, living lives of lying and avoiding life and truth, would recognize, accept and celebrate the presence of a deity like Jesus in their personal lives if they encountered Him directly.
Chronicle: “This week in church, come to know your Savior better.
He has raised up a mighty Savior for us. Luke 1:68-79.”
When the sons of the Hebrews started engaging in illicit relations with the daughters of the pagan Moabites, pretty soon the men were drawn into and worshiped Baal. It takes no rocket scientist to concluded that Yahweh would wish for the death penalty against these faithless covenant-breakers.
The message to any of us is, if we have sworn to serve God, we must not walk away from our personal covenant with the good deity whom we serve and worship. Dire consequences, in this life or in the next life will follow most assuredly.
When Balak is flush with the ambition to have Balak curse the Hebrews lest they overthrow his (Balak’s) kingdom, Yahweh sends his angel to thwart Balak.
What I love about the Old Testament are the stories about Yahweh making contact with the people, even allowing his angels to interact with and even converse with humans. These interactions are absent today.
Is it because we are sinners, secularists and unbelievers? I wonder but do not know.
Numbers 11:1-3
When the complaining, ungrateful Hebrews spoke disrespectfully of Yahweh, on at least on this one occasion he burned fire close to them, consuming some of them, to warn them to shape up. Wow. Don’t mess with God.
Here are these lines from Chapter 11, Numbers, entitled Discontent of
the People, from my The New American Bible: “Now the people
complained in the hearing of the Lord, and when he heard it, his
wrath flared up so that the fire of the Lord burned among them and
consumed the outskirt of the camp. Hence that place was called
Taberah, because there the fire of the Lord burned among them.
Here are these same verses from the Holy Bible (KJV): “And when the people complained, it displeased the Lord; and the Lord heard it and his anger was kindled; and the fire of the Lord burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost part of the camp.
And the people cried unto Moses; and when Moses prayed unto the Lord, the fire was quenched.
And he called the name of the place Taberah: because the fire of the Lord burnt among them.”
My response: What do I conclude from this? It seems to me that God can be angry if humans disobey De, and God’s punishment of humans can be violent, even a death sentence. God will use force to make De’s point and to punish transgressors.
This informs me that good people are not to be gentle, Quaker-like pacifists, but be armed and violent if necessary, but limited mostly to self-defense or only whenever absolutely required, no alternative being available. Therefore, some wars are just.
From my The New American Bible, I will quote some verses about if the Hebrews—and by logical extension all peoples, everywhere—disobey God, God will punish them, ever increasing the pain until they return to the fold. This treatment may seem harsh, but God created us to enjoy our company, and our immorality and unholiness anger and distress the good deities mightily. We have free will, so we will be judged and punished should we not straighten up and fly right. Here are the verses: “But if you do not heed me and do not keep all these commandments, if you reject my precepts and spurn my decrees, refusing to obey all my commandments and breaking my covenant, then I, in turn will give you your deserts.
I will punish you with terrible woes—with wasting and fever to dim the eyes and sap the life. You will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will consume the crop. I will turn against you, till you are beaten down before your enemies and lorded over by your foes. You will take to flight though no one pursues you.”
Here is these same lines from the Holy Bible (KJV): “But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; and if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant.”
My response: Yahweh is a covenant maker, and an oath-taker, and oath/covenant keeper. He is honest, keeping His word to humans after giving His word, but capricious, backsliding humans are less faithful, often openly defiant, and Yahweh will not tolerate such lying, rebellion and open defiance; it goes neither unnoticed or unpunished.
Holy Bible: “I also will do this unto you: I will even appoint over you terror, consumption and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your see in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.
And I will set my face against you, and you shall be slain before your enemies, and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.”
My response: If God sets His face against you, you are in a world of hurt: if that doesn’t scare someone straight, nothing will. I am no saint, but I do not want so to anger God that De sets De’s face against me.
10132025
Moderation D
Biblical Inerrancy
I am having trouble moving copy and paste articles, but the one below on the clarity of scripture is so important that, if lost in cyberspace, it would be an irretrievable loss. To prevent that possibility, I will take it out of order of presentation that I had previously arranged. It is now presented first. I copied it from GRACE TO YOU off the Internet on 10/27/25, for its thematic assertion that literal, scriptural, textual clarity is easily available intellectually to anyone, from the highly educated, or modestly educated Bible reader, of average intelligence.
This assertion, theirs—which I have made mine and apply to to all religious and secular holy texts--is that the 66 books of the Bible have an objective meaning that does not require deconstruction nor an elite, priestly minister or theologian to interpret and provide translation for the masses as to what the text indicates and means. The average reader is intellectually competent to read most any text and construe its meaning, much more so if she is intellectually an individuation. In conclusion, the average reader’s intellectual competence seems adequate to capture textual meaning, usually rather clear, present and evident to the careful reader. Therefore, the masses, without a priestly intercessor, can readily glean the intended, available message sent to the reader by the author and Author of the chapter from the Bible or to most any text, be it one of Ayn Rand’s books.
In my rambling way, I intend to build upon my assumption that the masses are generally competent to construe the intent of most any text or any author, that this cognitive mastery will allow each average reader to master said text being read, so each reader, one of the masses, for herself can serve as the arbiter to the main concern of this lengthy blog entry, to individually adjudicate how the concepts of biblical inerrancy and biblical infallibility are to be accepted, rejected or characterized by each reader, and that by extension each reader is cognitively equipped to grasp textual abstraction, and the principle of textual clarity renders the text to being open to being correctly deciphered by the personal, private reader, reading the text.
Having established her facility to judge any text, it is obvious that she can distinguish to what degree the principles of textual inerrancy or textual infallibility apply to any text, as they surely do. She must decide for herself if the text’s author can justifiably claim that his communicated message is inerrant, infallible or written for public review or not.
It will be my project below to extend consideration of the principles of textual inerrancy and textual fallibility from the Bible to Ayn Rand’s works . This hermeneutics is my way of suggesting that textual inerrancy, textual fallibility and clearness of expression and conveyed intent on the part of the author to the reader are properties universally intrinsic to all holy texts, secular or religious, and that each reader must decide for herself to what degree she will accept or deny the author’s message. Will she emerge as a fanatic proponent of the author’s point of view or emerge as his most virulent critic?
Will her stance in regard to his message be that of moderate responder, pro or con? It is my conclusion in advance that the wise interpreter of any text and the holy cause it represents is best understood and responded to as a moderate reader could highlight how any text is to be interpreted and should be interpreted, no longer misinterpreted (over-praised or deliberately undervalued) and no longer should be interpreted as it has been interpreted. That biblical inerrancy, biblical fallibility and clarity of prose should be moderately reconfigured is this moderate insistence since this reader is opposed to a dogmatic, totalist reading of the text under scrutinty.
The Protestants got this right: that all people are created equal intellectually more or less within the modest range of limited range of human intelligence (Yes some are smarter and some are more average.), that anyone with an IQ above 87 should be able to read and master the Bible, and presumably any other text, or most of them, including Ayn Rands works.
Humans, being either latently, sleepily discontented or occasionally, actively, overtly frustrated, passionate true believers who have blossomed into joining a mass-movementized, a corporate entity as fiery true believers: these zealots require absolute standards, conditions and expectations—to be met in theory if not in practical reality—when also they demand of their good deities, their possession of and commanding reign over their perfect, divine nature: this is what people expect and demand of their good deities. People, in their lives the humans, they require that the nature and character of their adopted good deities in their lives to be totally good, totally totally perfect, totally all-knowing, totally all-loving, and totally all powerful. But that is not the nature of the good deities nor do they want to be worshiped as perfect in all ways for it goes against their ethical, spiritual, social and natural law of moderation. This misattributing characteristics to good deities worshipped makes prayer and worship unheard by these disgusted deities. Humans are so confused. They are so insecure that only as fanatics seeing the world in literal, black and white terms is how they find comfort and make sense of the world. And that religious stance is evil. It is sinful and insulting as enthusiastic humans excessively praise and labels their favorite deity as all good and by downgrading the good deities worship by rival tribes as false, nonexistent or wicked.
Tragically, these fervent ism adherents, some religious and some secular, find easy, fulfilling justification in going to holy war to wipe out heretics and rival, differing internal and foreign tribes of competing believers. Allying to good deities or to rival believers the terms all good or all bad, or all wrong and all right are false dilemmas and apply more to demons and bad deities than good deities and angels, and rival tribes of believers.
The true believer is insecure and lacks self-esteem so this is why they believe for or against anything and everthing, and completely boast that their sacred text or holy cause is all correct and perfect and the sacred, holy text and holy cause of rival tribes is all bad, that God will praise and reward us wiping them out, killing them all to rid the world of evil people and evil ways.
The claim that they have the one truth faith is nonsense but these absolutists and totalists cannot get through another day without such radicalized stances for or against any issue. They do these things too because they are ignorant.
A
Here is the text: Grace: “
John MacArthurThe Clarity of Scripture, Part 1
The doctrine of the clarity (or perspicuity) of Scripture (that the central message of the Bible is clear and understandable, and that the Bible itself can be properly interpreted in a normal, literal sense) has been a cornerstone of evangelical belief ever since the Reformation.”
My response: I agree.
Grace: “The dominant Roman Catholic idea had been that the Bible was obscure and difficult to understand. But the Reformers disagreed, arguing instead that anyone who could read could understand biblical teaching. Rather than limiting biblical interpretation to the clergy or the Magisterium, the Reformers encouraged lay Christians to study and interpret God's Word on their own. All of this was premised on the Reformed belief that the Bible itself was inherently clear, and that God had been able to communicate His message to men in an understandable fashion. As Luther explained to Erasmus:
But, if many things still remain abstruse to many, this does not arise from obscurity in the Scriptures, but from [our] own blindness or want [i.e. lack] of understanding, who do not go the way to see the all-perfect clearness of truth. . . . Let, therefore, wretched men cease to impute, with blasphemous perverseness, the darkness and obscurity of their own heart to the all-clear Scriptures of God. . . . If you speak of the internal clearness, no man sees one iota in the Scriptures but he that hath the Spirit of God. . . . If you speak of the external clearness, nothing whatever is left obscure or ambiguous; but all things that are in the Scriptures, are by the Word brought forth into the clearest light, and proclaimed to the whole world. (Bondage of the Will, 25-29)
While such an understanding, as Luther openly admits, did not demand complete agreement among Protestants on every secondary doctrine, it did establish an important principle: That the Word of God was revealed in an understandable way, that its central message is clear, and that (because it is clear) all men are fully accountable to its message.
In contrast to this, the teachings of Brian McLaren (and others of his Emergent persuasion) directly assault the doctrine of biblical clarity. Instead of promoting a settled confidence in the fact that the Bible can be understood, McLaren does just the opposite. And he does so in at least five important ways.”
My response: It would seem that Brian Mclaren is a Christian postmodernist, and, if he is a follower knowingly or unknowingly of Jacques Derrida, then with his postmodernist/deconstructive biblical interpretation, he denies that the Bible is clear and understandable as constructed by Western people and Modernists in general.
Grace: “1. McLaren and Doctrinal Uncertainty
First, McLaren undermines the clarity of Scripture by denying that biblical doctrine can be held with any degree of certainty. Certainty, of course, comes from clarity. Where there is no clarity, there is no certainty. And vice versa.”
My response: As an epistemological moderate, I am a modernist, not much a postmodernist, I avow that biblical text or secular texts for the most part, are clearly written by the authors, and can be clearly with almost certain understanding (The reader is certain as to the meaning of the message consciously delivered to the reader by the author, not certaint in stating that the message delivered in the text is certainly true or false, for that is a separate application of the word certainty.) be understood by the average reader, who actually captures the intent of the author-messenger without undue strain and with typical success in ascertaining the delivered message.
Texts do deliver a clear message that can be clearly apprehended by the average reader with certainty and confidence about having it right, and this is a modernistic generalization about authors, their texts, their reading audience.
Derrida, postmodernists, Mclaren and fellow deconstructivists may seem more open-minded, skeptical and relativistic about text interpretation than modernists, and, in a way they are, but their failure and unwillingness to grant that textual message is clear and graspable with near certainty, is actually the interpretation of the fanatic: with their lack of valuational assessment—pro or con-of the text as metanarratively delivered by the author, their lack of values and extreme value-relativism will be unsustainable for them personally, and these readers are left without a critically needed grand narrative: they are deprived of meaning, identity, a noble goal or reason for living.
Consequently, those in need of meaning in their lives but being utterly deprived of meaning, people usually resort to radical ideology to compensate, to fill the gap. Then they become rabid true believers following a holy cause, and as totalist ideologists, their claims of complete textual clarity, textual inerrancy and textual infallibilism will be the expressions and assertions of ultraists claiming to have the absolute truth, right on heaven and earth with perfect clarity, and that all must accept and adopt their views on what the authors of their sacred texts and its messages deserve from the reading audience.
The ultraists feel pure, saved and justified to take up the sword to convert or kill any withstanding the advance of their glorious ism and its sacred texts. Postmodernists who seem completely tolerant and relativistic are either confused in their thinking, lying until they get enough power to impose their holy creed upon a resisting world, or they have not come out into the public to wage their holy war, because the establishment is still to strong to overthrow.
Grace: “For the Reformers, it was because the Bible was clear that they were certain about its central message. But not so for McLaren, who says : "Certainty is overrated . . . History teaches us that a lot of people thought they were certain and we found out they weren't." And in another place :
When we talk about the word 'faith' and the word 'certainty,' we've got a whole lot of problems there. What do we mean by 'certainty'? . . . Certainty can be dangerous. What we need is a proper confidence that's always seeking the truth and that's seeking to live in the way God wants us to live, but that also has the proper degree of self-critical and self-questioning passion.
In A Generous Orthodoxy, McLaren even makes it a point to champion ambiguity. He writes,
A warning: as in most of my other books, there are places here where I have gone out of my way to be provocative, mischievous, and unclear, reflecting my belief that clarity is sometimes overrated, and that shock, obscurity, playfulness, and intrigue (carefully articulated) often stimulate more thought than clarity. (pp. 22-23)
So it comes as no surprise, then, when he readily admits that he is not even sure if what he is espousing is correct.
If I seem to show too little respect for your opinions or thought, be assured I have equal doubts about my own, and I don't mind if you think I'm wrong. I'm sure I am wrong about many things, although I'm not sure exactly which things I'm wrong about. I'm even sure I'm wrong about what I think I'm right about in at least some cases. So wherever you think I'm wrong, you could be right. If, in the process of determining that I'm wrong, you are stimulated to think more deeply and broadly, I hope that I will have somehow served you anyway. (Ibid., 19-20)
For McLaren, benefit comes not from being right, but from dialoguing with those of all different viewpoints. Thus, there is great reward in always pursuing but never finally arriving at truth. Correctness in doctrine is something that cannot be attained—at least not with any degree of certainty. In McLaren's words, "The achievement of 'right thinking' therefore recedes, happily, farther beyond our grasp the more we pursue it. As it eludes us, we are strangely rewarded: we feel gratitude and love, humility and wonder, reverence and awe, adventure and homecoming"(Generous Orthodoxy, 296). In his view, Christians "must be open to the perpetual possibility that our received understandings of the gospel may be faulty, imbalanced, poorly nuanced, or downright warped and twisted . . . [and must] continually expect to rediscover the gospel" (Ibid., 261).
McLaren rightly anticipates the fact that theological conservatives will find such an approach to biblical doctrine unacceptable.
If, for you, orthodox means finally "getting it right" or "getting it straight," mine is a pretty disappointing, curvy orthodoxy. But if, for you, orthodoxy isn't a list of correct doctrines, but rather the doxa in orthodoxy means "thinking" or "opinion," then the lifelong pursuit of expanding thinking and deepening, broadening opinions about God sounds like a delight, a joy. (Ibid., 293-94)
By reducing biblical doctrines to "opinions," McLaren denies both Scripture's clarity and its authority. Because the Bible is unclear, the chorus of divergent interpretations are all granted equal validity. This means, then, that the authority of any one viewpoint (as that which is correct) vanishes, since all sides are equally reduced to nothing more than personal opinion.
This article is adapted from the Fall issue of The Master's Seminary Journal. The full text of this article can be read by obtaining a copy of thejournal .
“
My response: The Bible or any text is not inerrant, but it, is generally ascertainable, objective and truth-oriented, generally readable with clarity and with near certainty. The average reader with most passages most of the time will get it right and its authors deliver its messages with authority and credibility. I do not like or approve of Mclaren’s or any postmodernists take on texts.
Introduction
It is my core or one of my core assumptions and hunches that moral and spiritual goodness are moderate and mixed more than purist and without extraneous, “impurities”.
My belief that the middle is the way is a fundamental a proposition or concept as are Ayn Rand’s three core axiomatic concepts: identity, consciousness and existence.
The inverse assumption that accompanies this core assumption is that moral and spiritual evil are immoderate and unadulterated.
As a metaphysical, epistemological, practical, moral and spiritual moderate, I aver that the exception proves the rule, for occasionally the moderate and compromiser may be evil, and the fanatic and unyielding voice my be virtuous.
These assumptions color all of this long blog entry, for I have long been fascinated with the human proclivity to engage in tribal rivalry and warfare: faction versus faction quarreling viciously over whose ideology, faith, political stance or holy faith will prevail.
To move away from vicious warring between competing tribes and groups, each with their holy cause and clashing cultural stories, we need modernist and moderate assertion of our own views, and agree to tolerant (universally accepted near complete free speech, free thinking and holding of competing narratives and views base on favored text).
We need people to abandon altruism, group-living, nonindividuating, group identifying left for assuming moral egoism, individuating, individual-living and individual-identifying. Should these improve condition become normalized, then a multicultural blended society permeated by genuine harmony, coexistence, peace and cooperation may flourish, with a host of conflicting points of view harmlessly shared and bouncing off of each others’ supporters. Yes, all will still be sure of themselves that they alone have the answer but no one is willing to use force to intimidate others to surrender to pressure to accept what they disagree with. Common will become the egoist libertarian take that we never use to sword to force others to convert or practice our faith involuntarily because they were coerced or threatened with violeance.
To flesh this out, in the blog entry below I want to look at biblical inerrancy as one fanatical stance, and I will look at how the Leonard Peikoff and David Kelley rupture in 1989 is a secular example of what goes on in bitter religious or substitute religious disputes.
There is a tendency for humans to be passionate: emotionally fanatical and their words, reasoning and rationalization are to serve this holy cause, and all most conform to the official viewpoint and adhere to the party line, no independent thought, to free speech, no public heresy against official orthodoxy being it secular or religious.
People are born wicked which means they are emotional-passionate, low self-esteeming, unsure of themselves so they demand all live and breathe their lie to come to love what they hate and hate what they love. People want and demand from their leaders pat answers, and they seek power over others forcing others privately and publicly to bend the knee to the mightier, so dissident others conform to their own pat answers. Creedal uniformity and assent is to be impinged upon everyone that one is strong enough to conquer and convert.
I love moderation and I love truth, and I believe that more or less, and approximately true and approximately good or approximately false or evil are the most truthful, the most accurate. I do not like criterions of total certainty absolutist, totalist claims of infallible leader and doctrine
Purist biblical inerrancy goes with lies, evil, emotionalism collectivism.
ARI members and followers are guilty of secular inerrancy concerning Ayn Rand works. These pseudo-individualists have loyalty oaths, or something close to it, as do other collectivists whose lies, power-seeking, power-struggling, and embracing of incessant conflict and war are the root cause of most evil and unnecessary suffering engendered by humans in the world.
Just say no to impossibly high standards, an impossible expectation anyway. Standards should be had and maintained but not as not impossibly high, unrealistic standards. Rather these unreasonable set of standards needs to be replaced a by a standard which is practical, reasonable, generally achievable and grounded in common sense, not my tribe vs your tribe with each side claiming utter certainty about their doctrine.
Go ahead, as a private person, have, live by and proclaim impossibly high standards but do not spread it by violence, tyrannical dictate.
It is okay to take the pure, ultraist position but it is not to be allowed that any fanatic is allowed socially or legally to suppress free speech. Understanding and peace grow and abide among a people where what matters is viewing things from all angles to arrive at the truth. What is not permitted is persecution of dissenters. Eliminated will be cancel culture, demonizing and marginalizing any dissident.. I later will address Leonard Peikoff's paper, Facts and Values versus David Kelley’s open letter, A Question of Sanction.
Egoist ethics and egoist spirituality are moderate more than immoderate, or good more than evil. Altruist ethics and altruist spirituality are immoderate more than moderate, so they are evil more than good.
Where altruist ethics and altruist spirituality reign, there the group, the hierarchy, the mass movement, socialist economy, collectivized masses and authoritarian or totalitarian political systems are evil and fanatical more than good and moderate.
What is preferable: a society of organized, individuated loners living in such social structures which are the deinstitutionalized, non-hierarchical (We still need to keep a social, intact skeleton of small sized, limited in scope and reach hierarchies for society to hold together.) structures, a non-mass movement political and social organization, informal and yet strong and coherent of the masses by the masses for the masses, populated by a populism comprised of a conservative anarchist individuating bunch of supercitizens, a great-souled populist association, whose citizens live in an advanced society, capitalist, constitutionally republican, with free political and social associating. There moderation and goodness would the norm, and immoderation and evil are no longer dominant if ever-present, able to rebound should each generation fail to keep its guard up.
* * * * * *
BIBLICAL INERRANCY
B
This copied and pasted article is from Wikipedia on biblical inerrancy from about 10/13/25. I will quote from the article and then make responses.
Wikipedia (W after this): “Biblical inerrancy
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the Christian doctrinal position. For Jewish doctrinal positions, see Rabbinic literature. For Islamic doctrine, see Quranic inerrancy.
Not to be confused with Biblical infallibility, Biblical literalism, Biblical inspiration, or Clarity of Scripture.
Part of a series on the |
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Biblical inerrancy is the belief that the Bible, in its original form, is entirely free from error.[1][2] “
My response: All good deities are moderate, so they are nearly perfect and nearly omniscient—Only Fate is all-knowing but is all not-knowing at the same time. So, from my perspective the sacred texts (the Bible included), in their original language and form, is mostly free from but not entirely free from error.
W: “The belief in biblical inerrancy is of particular significance within parts of evangelicalism, where it is formulated in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. In contrast to American evangelicalism, it has minimal influence on contemporary British evangelicalism.[3][4] Some groups equate inerrancy with biblical infallibility or with the necessary clarity of scripture; others do not.[5][6] “
My response: Sorry to use AI characterization of the difference between biblical infallibility vs biblical inerrancy but this Google search on this matter provided the following result on 10/27/25: “AI Summary
To understand the differences between biblical infallibility and inerrancy, consider the following points:
Definition: Infallibility refers to the Bible's ability to convey truth without error in matters of faith and practice.” My response: I deny infallibility that the Bible conveys truth without error in matters of faith and practice, though it comes real close to being infallible. Infallibility is about limited inerrancy in matters of faith and practice while claims of inerrancy about a text are total claims of being without error, and I as a moderate reject both the concepts of inerrancy and infallibility, but a text, sacred or secular can be mostly inerrant and mostly infallible, more mostly errant and mostly fallible, but not totally inerrant and totally fallible.
AI: “Scope: Inerrancy asserts that the Bible is free from all errors, including historical and scientific details.” My response: I deny biblical inerrancy especially if it conflicts with historical and scientific acocunts.
AI” “Theological Implications: Infallibility emphasizes the Bible's authority in guiding believers, while inerrancy defends its complete accuracy.” My response; I can accept thee definitions as representative of these doctrines and their implications, though I disagree with all of it partially as immoderate, not completely true, not completely good, not completely without error.
AI: “Interpretation: Infallibility allows for some interpretative flexibility, whereas inerrancy demands a literal understanding of the text.” My response it sounds like under this point infallibility is modest inerrancy requiring interpretation and insistence of inerrancy necessitate a literal understanding of the text., but all texts can be read literally and metaphorically and if done right, they need not conflict with each other.
AI: “Historical Context: Infallibility is often associated with Catholic doctrine, while inerrancy is more common in evangelical circles.” My response: I agree.
Debate: The two concepts are often debated among theologians regarding their implications for biblical interpretation and authority.” My response: I agree.
W: “The Catholic Church also holds a limited belief in biblical inerrancy,[7] affirming that the original writings in the original language, including the Deuterocanonical books, are free from error insofar as they convey the truth God intended for the sake of human salvation.[8] However, descriptions of natural phenomena are not to be taken as inspired and inerrant scientific assertions, but reflect the language and contemporary understanding of the writers.
Critics argue that total biblical inerrancy conflicts with empirical science by treating ancient texts as authoritative on natural phenomena, despite contradictions with observable evidence, such as the age of the Earth or the historicity of Noah’s Ark. In contrast, many Christian scholars and the Catholic Church emphasize interpretive flexibility, viewing certain biblical accounts as allegorical or contextually framed, allowing for revision and alignment with modern knowledge while maintaining the spiritual authority of scripture.”
My response: A limited belief in biblical or textual inerrancy is one that I can provisionally agree with. If the sacred text is from a good deity, it is to be believed much of the time as it literally its conveyed by its divine Author working through His or Her human author.
Texts from scientists and historians or philosophers, obviously would not reach nearly the level of claimed total textual inerrancy or infallibility claimed zealous followers of the good deities, unless the scientist-author and his readers are true believers and the author is the writer of the mass movement’s holy text.
W: “Terms and positions
See also: Biblical inspiration, Biblical infallibility, Biblical literalism, Biblical authority, Clarity of Scripture, Criticism of the Bible, Internal consistency of the Bible, and The Bible and history
Inerrancy
The word inerrancy comes from the English word inerrant, literally meaning 'not wandering', from the Latin inerrāns (parsable as in-, a negative prefix + errāns – the present participle of errāre, "to err" or "wander"). The Oxford English Dictionary defines inerrant as "That does not err; free from error; unerring."[9]
Complete and restricted inerrancy
Some literalist or conservative Christians teach that the Bible lacks error in every way in all matters: chronology, history, biology, sociology, psychology, politics, physics, math, art, and so on.[10] Other Christians believe that the scriptures are always right (do not err) only in fulfilling their primary purpose: revealing God, God's vision, God's purposes, and God's good news to humanity.[11]
Inerrancy and Infallibility
Some theologians speak of the "infallibility" of the Bible. This can be understood in one of three ways.
Some authors use "inerrancy" and "infallibility" interchangeably.
For others, "inerrancy" refers to complete inerrancy and "infallibility" to the more limited view that the Bible is without error in conveying God's self-revelation to humanity.[5][12] On this understanding, "infallibility" claims less than "inerrancy".
Citing dictionary definitions, Frame (2002) claims "infallibility" is a stronger term than "inerrant": "'Inerrant' means there are no errors; "infallible" means there can be no errors".[13] Yet he acknowledges that "modern theologians insist on redefining that word also, so that it actually says less than 'inerrancy.'" Harold Lindsell states: "The very nature of inspiration renders the Bible infallible, which means that it cannot deceive us. It is inerrant in that it is not false, mistaken, or defective".[14]
Positions
Judaism: according to H. Chaim Schimmel, Judaism had never promulgated a belief in the literal word of the Hebrew Bible, hence the co-existence of the Oral Torah.[15] The significance of most phrases, their parts, grammar, and occasionally individual words, letters and even pronunciation in the Hebrew Bible are the subject of many rabbinic discussions in the Talmud.
Catholic Church: the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) authoritatively expressed the Catholic Church's view on biblical inerrancy.
Citing earlier declarations, it stated:[8] "Since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation." But theologians disagree as to whether the words "for the sake of our salvation" in that sentence represent a shift from complete to limited inerrancy.[16]
The Council did not endorse the necessary clarity of scripture: "Since God speaks in Sacred Scripture through men in human fashion, the interpreter of Sacred Scripture, in order to see clearly what God wanted to communicate to us, should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended, and what God wanted to manifest by means of their words."[17]
The Church interprets the Scripture as part of the Deposit of Faith with Sacred Tradition, and not in an apostolic vacuum: interpretations of Scripture which contradict magisterial teaching to that extent fail to capture the inerrant meaning.
Evangelical Christianity: Evangelicals generally affirm that the Bible, and the Bible alone, is inspired by God and is the final authority on matters of faith and practice. However, there is an ongoing debate between two primary factions:
The inerrant view - the Bible is absolutely inerrant on all matters that it affirms.
The infallible but not inerrant view - while the Bible is infallible in that it does not fail believers when trusted to do what God inspired it to do, it is not absolutely inerrant in all matters it affirms, especially in some of its tangential scientific and historical statements.[18]
History
According to Coleman (1975), "[t]here have been long periods in the history of the church when biblical inerrancy has not been a critical question. It has in fact been noted that only in the last two centuries can we legitimately speak of a formal doctrine of inerrancy."[19] The first formulations of the doctrine of inerrancy were not established according to the authority of a council, creed, or church, until the post-Reformation period.[20]
Early Church
Origen of Alexandria thought there were minor discrepancies between the accounts of the Gospels but dismissed them due to their lack of theological importance, writing "let these four [Gospels] agree with each other concerning certain things revealed to them by the Spirit and let them disagree a little concerning other things" (Commentary on John 10.4).
Later, John Chrysostom was also unconcerned with the notion that the scriptures were in congruence with all matters of history unimportant to matters of faith:
But if there be anything touching time or places, which they have related differently, this nothing injures the truth of what they have said [...] [but those things] which constitute our life and furnish out our doctrine nowhere is any of them found to have disagreed, no not ever so little
— Homily on Matthew 1.6
John D. Woodbridge disputes this claim about Chrysostom writing, "In fact, Chrysostom apparently believed in biblical infallibility extended to every detail. He does not set forth a comprehensive discussion of the subject, but scholars who have surveyed the corpus of his work usually affirm that this is case."[21]
In his Commentary on Galatians, Jerome also argued that Paul's rebuke of Peter in Galatians 2:11–14[22] for acting like a Jew around the Jewish faction of the early Church was an insincere "white lie" as Paul himself had done the same thing.[23] In response, Augustine rebuked Jerome's interpretation and affirmed that the scriptures contained no mistakes in them, and that admitting a single mistake would shed doubt on the entire scripture:[24] “
My response: In the paragraph just above, to admit that scriptures contained a single mistake is considered by fanatical believers and followers of Christianity to shed doubt about on all of scripture: the ultraists insist that either the Bible is infallibly inerrant in all of its text, or it is completely false and unworthy of following. That take (Something remarkably similar is stated by the take of closed ARI-Peikoff Objectivists—Ayn Rand’s works are perfect and inerrant or nothing at all--versus the more moderate Atlas Society Open Kelley Objectivists). is unreasonable and is not what God wants from us: The Mother and the Father are very secure psychically and do not self-conceive, nor want us to conceive and believe of them that they are purely good, utterly perfect, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving; they are overwhelmingly these attributes but not completely for that would be immoderate, evil, collectivist and altruist, all characteristics that are sinful and demonic and refuted patently by these Great Individuators.
W: “It seems to me that the most disastrous consequences must follow upon our believing that anything false is found in the sacred books: that is to say that the men by whom the Scripture has been given to us, and committed to writing, did put down in these books anything false. [...] If you once admit into such a high sanctuary of authority one false statement [...] there will not be left a single sentence of those books which, if appearing to any one difficult in practice or hard to believe, may not by the same fatal rule be explained away, as a statement in which, intentionally, [...] the author declared what was not true
— Letters of St Augustine 28.3
For I confess to your Charity that I have learned to yield this respect and honour only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error. And if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the manuscript is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it. As to all other writings, in reading them, however great the superiority of the authors to myself in sanctity and learning, I do not accept their teaching as true on the mere ground of the opinion being held by them; but only because they have succeeded in convincing my judgment of in truth either by means of these canonical writings themselves, or by arguments addressed to my reason
— Letters of St Augustine 82.3
However, John D. Hannah argues that Jerome did indeed affirm the historical nature of the Bible. For example, Jerome believed in the historicity of the book of Jonah.[25] He further argues that while Origen resorted to allegorical interpretation, he held a high view of inerrancy.[26]
Biblical inerrancy adherents say that the Early Church Fathers did hold to biblical inerrancy, even if it was not articulated that way. In particular, Shawn Nelson cites Clement of Rome, Papias, Ignatius of Antioch, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache, and the Epistle to Diognetus as examples of those whom held to inerrancy.[27]
Clement of Rome said to his readers:[28]
You have looked into the holy scriptures, which are true, which were given by the Holy Spirit. You know that nothing unrighteous or falsified is written in them.
— First Epistle of Clement 45:2-3
Medieval era
The medieval church fathers held to the divine origin of scripture and most believed there could not be any error in scripture as interpreted by the Church.[29] The most prominent theologian of the Medieval era was Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas wrote:
It is heretical to say that any falsehood whatever is contained either in the Gospels or in any canonical Scripture.
— In John 13. Lect. 1
Another theologian, Hugh of St. Victor, is known for stressing the importance of the historical and literal senses of the Bible in the face of the strong allegorizing tendency of the age.[30] He wrote: “
My response: I think that any text, sacred or secular, conveys meaning on both the literal level of reading and in a metaphorical level, but that the clarity and clarity of message delivered would be graspable considerable certainty by the average reader, so the extreme relativism of a postmodernist interpreter like Mclaren need not be a majority or canonical interpretation of text messaging imparted by the author to the reading audience.
W: “The mystical sense is only gathered from what the letter says, in the first place. I wonder how people have the face to boast themselves teachers of allegory, when they do not know the primary meaning of the letter. "We read the Scriptures," they say, "but we don't read the letter. The letter does not interest us. We teach allegory." How do you read Scripture then, if you don't read the letter? Subtract the letter and what is left?”
My response: It the Bible is not to be read literally but allegorically, then that is a modified version of biblical inerrancy, one which I subscribe to.
W: “
— De Scripturis V 5:13-15
Philosopher John Wycliff proposed an extreme version of inerrancy, that meant that even parables must have been factually true, in the book De Veritate Sacrae Scripturae (On the Truthfulness of Holy Scripture, c.1378). Wycliffe's dictum omnis veritas est ex scriptura, et ut necessarior est expressior says that all truths necessary to faith are found clearly and expressly in the Bible, and the more necessary, the more expressly.[31]: 67 This later influenced Martin Luther. “
My response: Any advocate of extreme inerrancy is a fanatic by definition, and thus this is an evil reading of text, sacred or secular.
W: ‘
Scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam, who published the first Latin-Greek New Testament in print, believed not only that translation between languages was always imperfect, that transmission errors had occurred by scribes, and that Scripture was sometimes deliberately obscure, but also that "the sayings of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) were slightly different in each. He suggested that the Holy Spirit had not bothered to correct the faulty memories of the evangelists."[32] “
My response: The writer of sacred or secular text might deliberately be obscure or so subconsciously, but, for the most part, text is clearly written and clearly understandable by the average reader.
W: “Reformation era
By the time of the Reformation, there was still no official doctrine of inerrancy. Although the term was not used, some scholars argue the Reformers did believe in the concept of inerrancy.[33]
For Martin Luther (1483–1546), for example, "inspiration did not insure inerrancy in all details. Luther recognizes mistakes and inconsistencies in Scripture and treated them with lofty indifference because they did not touch the heart of the Gospel."[34] When Matthew appears to confuse Jeremiah with Zechariah in Matthew 27:9,[35] Luther wrote that "Such points do not bother me particularly."[34] However, other Luther scholars have pointed out that Luther, in other places, said the Scripture cannot contradict itself.[36] Luther said in regards to whether the Bible had errors or not, "the Scriptures cannot err."[37] Other statements made by Luther seem to contradict that, e.g. he stated that he found numerous errors in the Bible, and lambasted a couple of books of the Protestant Bible as worthless; he also stated that his idea of Christ trumps the letter of the Scripture, especially when the Scripture is cited in order to give the lie to his idea.[38] “
My response: When as careful a reader of the Bible as Matin Luther detected errors and inconsistencies, and then contradicts himself by insisting that Scripture cannot contradict itself, we are dealing with a theologian and religious giant struggling to identify errors while then backing total biblical inerrancy and infallibility. When push comes to shove, he has to side with the principles of inerrancy and infallibility or face losing his flock.
I just admit to the errors, inconsistencies, and contradictions and largely conclude, “So What?” As a theological moderate, I think the Bible is a pretty cool document, and will go with largely but not totally inerrancy and complete infallibility, rejecting these claims in favor of believing the Bible is largely inerrant and infallible, letting it go at that.
W: “The Christian humanist and one of the leading scholars of the northern Renaissance, Erasmus (1466–1536), was also unconcerned with minor errors not impacting theology, and at one point, thought that Matthew mistook one word for another. In a letter to Johannes Eck, Erasmus wrote that "Nor, in my view, would the authority of the whole of Scripture be instantly imperiled, as you suggest, if an evangelist by a slip of memory did put one name for another, Isaiah for instance instead of Jeremiah, for this is not a point on which anything turns."[24]
The same point of view held true for John Calvin (1509–1564), who wrote that "It is well known that the Evangelists were not very concerned with observing the time sequences."[20] However, Calvin also said that Scripture is the "certain and unerring rule."[39] Calvin scholars are divided on whether Calvin actually held to inerrancy or not. Some scholars such as Jack B. Rogers and Donald McKim said Calvin "was unconcerned with normal, human inaccuracies in minor matters" in Scripture.[40] Other scholars such as John D. Woodbridge and J.I. Packer said Calvin did adhere to a position equivalent to biblical inerrancy.[41][42]
The doctrine of inerrancy, however, began to develop as a response to these Protestant attitudes. Whereas the Council of Trent only held that the Bible's authority was "in matters of faith and morals", Jesuit cardinal Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621) argued in his 1586 De verbo Dei, the first volume of his multi-volume Disputationes de controversiis christianae fidei adversus hujus temporis haereticos that "There can be no error in Scripture, whether it deals with faith or whether it deals with morals/mores, or whether it states something general and common to the whole Church, or something particular and pertaining to only one person." Bellarmine's views were extremely important in his condemnation of Galileo and in Catholic–Protestant debate, as the Protestant response was to also affirm his heightened understanding of inerrancy.[20] “
My response: I will grant more credence to the idea of biblical inerrancy and infallibility in areas of faith and morals, but not cede to them the state of being wholly inerrant or wholly infallible.
W: “
Post-Reformation
In the 17th century, Quaker apologist Robert Barclay took a step away from Biblical Inerrancy while continuing to affirm Biblical inspiration and the Bible's place in Christian doctrine. Barclay said that "errors [in the Bible] may be supposed by the injury of the times to have slipped in", but that because of inspiration from the Holy Spirit, all necessities remained.[43]
During the 18th and 19th centuries and in the aftermath of the Enlightenment critique of religion, various episodes of the Bible (for example the Noahide worldwide flood,[44] the creation in six days, and the creation of women from a man's rib) began increasingly to be seen as legendary rather than as literally true. This led to further questioning of the veracity of biblical texts.
My response: Enlightenment thinkers begin to question if the Bible was literally true or even contradictory or false in some instances.
W: “Modern Protestant discussion
The Fuller Theological Seminary formally adopted inerrancy restricted to theological matters (what some authors now call "infallibility"). It explained:
Where inerrancy refers to what the Holy Spirit is saying to the churches through the biblical writers, we support its use. Where the focus switches to an undue emphasis on matters like chronological details, precise sequence of events, and numerical allusions, we would consider the term misleading and inappropriate.[45]”
My response: Details like chronology, imprecise sequencing of events and numerical allusions do point away from the claim of total biblical inerrancy, do do not void the concept of inerrancy that much.
W: “A more comprehensive position was espoused particularly in the magazine Christianity Today and the book entitled The Battle for the Bible by Harold Lindsell. Lindsell asserted that losing the doctrine of the inerrancy of scripture was the thread that would unravel the church and conservative Christians rallied behind this idea.[46]
Arguments in favour of inerrancy
Norman Geisler and William Nix (1986) write that scriptural inerrancy is typically argued by a number of observations and processes, which include:[10]
The alleged historical accuracy of the Bible
The Bible's alleged claims of its own inerrancy
General church history and tradition
One's individual experience with God
Daniel B. Wallace, Professor of New Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary, divides the various evidences into two approaches: deductive and inductive approaches.[47]
Deductive justifications
The first deductive justification is that the Bible says it is inspired by God (for instance "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness", 2 Timothy 3:16)[48] and because God is perfect, the Bible must also be perfect and, hence, free from error. For instance, the statement of faith of the Evangelical Theological Society says, "The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs".[49]
Supportive of this is the idea that God cannot lie. W. J. Mcrea writes:
The Bible then makes two basic claims: it asserts unequivocally that God cannot lie and that the Bible is the Word of God. It is primarily from a combination of these facts that the argument for inerrancy comes.[50]””
My response: This argues goes: God is perfect, and the Bible is God’s holy text to be read and followed by believers, so because all that flows from God is perfect, the Bible is perfect and inerrant by God spoke to us through the Bible, and God only speaks the truth. The Bible is completely true.
I do not dismiss this powerful argument, but, I suggest that all good deities are Individuators and moderate in nature, thought, communication, speech and in writing, so great inerrancy is their message, not total inerrancy, no matter the claims of God’s most zealous followers, for the claim of total inerrancy is theirs, not God’s claim.
W: “Stanley Grenz states that:
Because God cannot lie and because scripture is inspired by God, the Bible must be wholly true. This syllogism may be valid for establishing inerrancy, but it cannot define the concept.[51]
Also, from Geisler:
Those who defend inerrancy are deductivists pure and simple. They begin with certain assumptions about God and the scriptures, namely, that God cannot lie and the scriptures are the Word of God. From these assumptions, inerrantists deduce that the Bible is without error.[52]
A second reason offered is that Jesus and the apostles used the Old Testament in a way that assumes it is inerrant. For instance, in Galatians 3:16,[53] Paul bases his argument on the fact that the word "seed" in the Genesis reference to "Abraham and his seed" is singular rather than plural. This (as stated) sets a precedent for inerrant interpretation down to the individual letters of the words.[54]
Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, "And to seeds", as (referring) to many, but (rather) to one, "And to your seed", that is, Christ.
— Galatians 3:16
Similarly, Jesus said that every minute detail of the Old Testament Law must be fulfilled,[55] indicating (it is stated) that every detail must be correct:[54]
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
— Matthew 5:18 KJV[56]
Although in these verses, Jesus and the apostles are only referring to the Old Testament, the argument is considered by some to extend to the New Testament writings, because 2 Peter 3:16[57] accords the status of scripture to New Testament writings also: "He (Paul) writes the same way in all his letters ... which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other scriptures".[58]
Inductive justifications
Wallace describes the inductive approach by enlisting the Presbyterian theologian Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield:
In his Inspiration and Authority of the Bible,[59] Warfield lays out an argument for inerrancy that has been virtually ignored by today's evangelicals. Essentially, he makes a case for inerrancy on the basis of inductive evidence, rather than deductive reasoning. Most evangelicals today follow E. J. Young's deductive approach toward bibliology, forgetting the great articulator of inerrancy. But Warfield starts with the evidence that the Bible is a historical document, rather than with the presupposition that it is inspired.[60]”
My response: It seems factually accurate to me to claim that the Bible is a historical document as well as inspired by God who breathed De’s spirit and thought into the writer of the books of the Bible.
W: “Inspiration
In the Nicene Creed, Christians confess their belief that the Holy Spirit "has spoken through the prophets". This creed has been normative for Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans and all mainline Protestant denominations except for those descended from the non-credal Stone-Campbell movement. As stated by Alister E. McGrath, "An important element in any discussion of the manner in which scripture is inspired, and the significance which is attached to this, is 2 Timothy 3:16–17, which speaks of scripture as 'God-breathed' (theopneustos)". According to McGrath, "the reformers did not see the issue of inspiration as linked with the absolute historical reliability or factual inerrancy of the biblical texts". He says, "The development of ideas of 'biblical infallibility' or 'inerrancy' within Protestantism can be traced to the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century".[61]
People who believe in total inerrancy think that the Bible does not merely contain the Word of God, but every word of it is, because of verbal inspiration, the direct, immediate word of God.[62] The Lutheran Apology of the Augsburg Confession identifies Holy Scripture with the Word of God[63] and calls the Holy Spirit the author of the Bible.[64] Because of this, Lutherans confess in the Formula of Concord, "we receive and embrace with our whole heart the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the pure, clear fountain of Israel".[65] Lutherans (and other Protestants) believe apocryphal books are neither inspired nor written by prophets, and that they contain errors and were never included in the "Palestinian Canon" that Jesus and the Apostles are said to have used,[66] and therefore are not a part of Holy Scripture.[67] The prophetic and apostolic scriptures are authentic as written by the prophets and apostles. A correct translation of their writings is God's Word because it has the same meaning as the original Hebrew and Greek.[67] A mistranslation is not God's word, and no human authority can invest it with divine authority.[67]
However, the 19th-century Anglican biblical scholar S. R. Driver held a contrary view, saying that, "as inspiration does not suppress the individuality of the biblical writers, so it does not altogether neutralise their human infirmities or confer upon them immunity from error".[68] Similarly, J. K. Mozley, an early 20th-century Anglican theologian has argued:
That the Bible is inspired is, indeed, a primary Christian conviction; it is from this that certain consequences have been drawn, such as infallibility and inerrancy, which retain their place in Christian thought because they are held to be bound up with the affirmation of inspiration. But the deductions can be rejected without any ambiguity as to the fact of inspiration. Neither 'fundamentalists' nor sceptics are to be followed at this point... the Bible is inspired because it is the adequate and indispensable vehicle of revelation; but inspiration does not amount to dictation by God.[69]”
My response: I find interesting and compelling the idea that the Holy Spirit inspired all of the writers of Biblical books, but that inspiration from God is not the same as dictation from God to these authors word for word. It is impossible to tell who is right, but certainly the Holy Spirit is guiding the hands of the writers of Biblical books.
W: “Divine authority
For a believer in total (or "plenary") biblical inerrancy, Holy Scripture is the Word of God, and carries the full authority of God. Every single statement of the Bible calls for instant and unqualified acceptance.[70] Every doctrine of the Bible is the teaching of God and therefore requires full agreement.[71] Every promise of the Bible calls for unshakable trust in its fulfillment.[72] Every command of the Bible is the directive of God himself and therefore demands willing observance.[73] “
My response: Based upon claims of total or plenary biblical inerrancy many clergy demand full agreement and unshakable trust from any follower or reader of any sacred or secular text; this unqualified command or demand is not a just or moderate imposition upon the reader/follower.
W: “Sufficiency
According to some believers, the Bible contains everything that they need to know to obtain salvation and live a Christian life,[74] and there are no deficiencies in scripture that need to be filled with tradition, pronouncements of the Pope, new revelations, or present-day development of doctrine.[75] “
My response: I cannot disagree with evangelicals who assert that the Bible contains everything they need to know to obtain salvation and live a Christian life. Deficiencies is too strong a word, but tradition, Papal pronouncements, new revelations and present-day development of doctrine may be welcomed and instructive if the believer of a sacred or secular text is open-minded.
It is not hard to imagine that followers of ARI would not accept that followers of David Kelley are correct in looking at other sources of enlightenment outside the works of Ayn Rand, and that this secular feud is not dissimilar to the war between evangelicals and Roman Catholics and Reverend Mclaren.
W: “Clarifications”
My response: These entries under clarifications seem to moderate or qualify claims about total textual inerrancy.
W: “Accuracy vs. truth
Harold Lindsell points out that it is a "gross distortion" to state that people who believe in inerrancy suppose every statement made in the Bible is true (as opposed to accurate).[76] He says there are expressly false statements in the Bible, but they are reported accurately.[76] He notes that "All the Bible does, for example in the case of Satan, is to report what Satan actually said. Whether what he said was true or false is another matter. Christ stated that the devil is a liar".[76]
Inerrancy vs. infallibility
Many who believe in the inspiration of scripture teach that it is infallible but not inerrant. Those who subscribe to infallibility believe that what the scriptures say regarding matters of faith and Christian practice are wholly useful and true. Some denominations that teach infallibility hold that the historical or scientific details, which may be irrelevant to matters of faith and Christian practice, may contain errors. Those who believe in total or plenary inerrancy hold that the scientific, geographic, and historic details of the scriptural texts in their original manuscripts are completely true and without error, though the scientific claims of scripture must be interpreted in the light of its phenomenological nature, not just with strict, clinical literality, which was foreign to historical narratives.[10] “
My response: I would be more inclined to read the Bible as nearly infallible rather that mostly inerrant—which I agree with—for we must account for scientific, historic and geographical differences between modern research and ancient text. Just below the moderate inerrants regard the Bible as metaphorically true rather than always literally true, but it is both, often at the same time regarding the same biblical passage.
W: “
Metaphor and literalism
Even if the Bible is inerrant, it may need to be interpreted to distinguish between what statements are metaphorical, and which are literally true. Jeffrey Russell writes that "Metaphor is a valid way to interpret reality. The 'literal' meaning of words – which I call the overt reading – is insufficient for understanding reality because it never exhausts reality." He adds:
Originating in Evangelicalism, the Fundamentalists affirmed that the Bible is to be read "literally" or overtly, leading some to reject not only physicalist evolution but even evolution science and to deny that life developed over billions of years. Evangelicals tended to believe in the "inerrancy" of the Bible (though they defined that term variously), a view that sometimes could unhelpfully turn the Bible into an authority on science and history.[77]
Figures such as Scot McKnight have also argued that the Bible clearly transcends multiple genres and Hebrew prose poems cannot be evaluated by a reader the same as a science textbook.[78]
Criticism
See also: Criticism of the Bible, Internal consistency of the Bible, and The Bible and history
Theological criticism
Proponents of Biblical inerrancy often cite 2 Timothy 3:16[79] as evidence that scripture is inerrant. For this argument, they prefer translations that render the verse as "All scripture is given by inspiration of God," and they interpret this to mean that the whole Bible must therefore be in some way inerrant. However, critics of this doctrine think that the Bible makes no direct claim to be inerrant or infallible.”
My response: As with all other sacred texts, one can pull passages from the Bible to support whatever position one takes, so likely there are biblical passages promoting inerrancy or infallibility or hinting at it. I would not quibble over this but suggest that God is truth which is moderate, and God is not a perfectionist, but pretty darn good is sufficient, so near biblical inerrancy and infallibility is a claim about the Bible which God would convey, consistent with God’s truth-telling and moderate speaking.
W: “C. H. Dodd argues the same sentence can also be translated "Every inspired scripture is also useful", nor does the verse define the Biblical canon to which "scripture" refers.[80] In addition, Michael T. Griffith, the Mormon apologist, writes:
Nowhere within its pages does the Bible teach or logically imply the doctrine of scriptural inerrancy. [Concerning] 2 Timothy 3:16 [...] this passage merely says that "all scripture" is profitable for doctrine, reproof, etc. It says nothing about scripture being "perfect", or "inerrant", or "infallible", or "all-sufficient". If anything, Paul's words constitute a refutation of the idea of scriptural inerrancy [...] What it does say is that scripture is useful, profitable, for the needs of the pastoral ministry. The only "holy scriptures" Timothy could have known from childhood were the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament. And yet, would any Christian assert that in Paul's view the Old Testament was the final and complete word of God to man? Of course not. In any event, verse 15 makes it clear that in speaking of "all scripture" Paul was referring to the Jewish scriptures and perhaps to some of his own epistles. The New Testament as we know it simply did not exist yet. Furthermore, it is fairly certain that Paul's canon included some Jewish scriptures no longer found in the Old Testament, such as the book of Enoch.[81]
The Catholic New Jerusalem Bible also has a note that this passage refers only to the Old Testament writings understood to be scripture at the time it was written.[82] Furthermore, the Catholic Veritas Bible website says that "Rather than characterizing the Old Testament scriptures as required reading, Paul is simply promoting them as something useful or advantageous to learn. [...] it falls far short of a salvational requirement or theological system. Moreover, the four purposes (to teach, correct, etc.) for which scripture is declared to be 'profitable' are solely the functions of the ministry. After all, Paul is addressing one of his new bishops (the 'man of God'). Not a word addresses the use of scripture by the laity."[83] Another note in the Bible suggests that there are indications that Paul's writings were being considered, at least by the author of the Second Epistle of Peter,[84] as comparable to the Old Testament.[85]
The view that total Biblical inerrancy can be justified by an appeal to prooftexts that refer to its divine inspiration has been criticized as circular reasoning, because these statements are only considered to be true if the Bible is already thought to be inerrant.[86]
In the introduction to his book Credible Christianity, Anglican Bishop Hugh Montefiore, comments:
The doctrine of biblical inerrancy seems inherently improbable, for two reasons. Firstly, the Scriptures contain what seem to be evident errors and contradictions (although great ingenuity has been applied to explain these away). Secondly, the books of the Old and New Testaments did not gain their place within the "canon", or list of approved books, as soon as they were written. The Old Testament canon was not closed until late in the Apostolic age, and the New Testament canon was not finally closed until the fourth century. If all the Bible's contents were inerrant, one would have thought that this would have become apparent within a much shorter period.[87]
Liberal Christianity
In general, liberal Christianity has no problem with the thought that the Bible has errors and contradictions.[88] Liberal Christians reject the dogma of inerrancy or infallibility of the Bible,[88] which they see as the idolatry (fetishism) of the Bible.[38] Martin Luther emphatically declared: "if our opponents allege Scripture against Christ, we allege Christ against Scripture."[38] “
My response: Liberal Christians who have no problems with the thought that the Bible has errors and contradictions—it has both—but its greatness transcends humans nonetheless, so I refuse to completely discard the dogmas in inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible.”
W: “William John Lyons quoted William Wrede and Hermann Gunkel, who affirmed: "Like every other real science, New Testament Theology has its goal simply in itself, and is totally indifferent to all dogma and Systematic Theology [...] the spirit of historical investigation has now taken the place of a traditional doctrine of inspiration".[89]
John Shelby Spong, author and former bishop of the Episcopal Church who was well-known for his post-theistic theology, declared that the literal interpretation of the Bible is heresy.[90][91]
Meaning of "Word of God"
Much debate over the kind of authority that should be accorded biblical texts centers on what is meant by the "Word of God". The term can refer to Christ himself as well as to the proclamation of his ministry as kerygma. However, total biblical inerrancy differs from this orthodoxy in viewing the Word of God to mean the entire text of the Bible when interpreted didactically as God's teaching.[92] The idea of the Bible itself as the Word of God, as being itself God's revelation, is criticized in neo-orthodoxy. Here the Bible is seen as a unique witness to the people and deeds that do make up the Word of God. However, it is a wholly human witness.[93] All books of the Bible were written by human beings. Thus, whether the Bible is—in whole or in part[94]—the Word of God is not clear. However, some argue that the Bible can still be construed as the "Word of God" in the sense that these authors' statements may have been representative of, and perhaps even directly influenced by, God's own knowledge.[95] :
My response: I do not doubt that most perhaps all of the Bible is the Word of God, God-inspired and often God-dictated to the human author, but not always.
W: “There is only one instance in the Bible where the phrase "the Word of God" refers to something written. The reference is to the Decalogue. However, most other references are to reported speech preserved in the Bible. The New Testament also contains a number of statements that refer to passages from the Old Testament as God's words, for instance Romans 3:2,[96] d (which says that the Jews have been "entrusted with the very words of God"), or the book of Hebrews, which often prefaces Old Testament quotations with words such as "God says". The Bible also contains words spoken by human beings about God, such as Eliphaz (Job 42:7)[97] and the prayers and songs of the Psalter. That these are God's words addressed to humanity was at the root of a lively medieval controversy.[98] The idea of the word of God is more that God is encountered in scripture, than that every line of scripture is a statement made by God.[99]
While the phrase "the Word of God" is never applied to the modern Bible within the Bible itself, supporters of total inerrancy argue that this is because the Biblical canon was not closed. In 1 Thessalonians 2:23[100] the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica, "When you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God."[101]
Translation
See also: Bible errata, Bible translations, English translations of the Bible, and Virgin birth of Jesus
Translation has given rise to a number of issues, as the original languages are often quite different in grammar as well as word meaning. Some believers trust their own translation to be the accurate one. One such group of believers is known as the King James Only movement. For readability, clarity, or other reasons, translators may choose different wording or sentence structure, and some translations may choose to paraphrase passages. Because some of the words in the original language have ambiguous or difficult-to-translate meanings, debates over the correct interpretation occur.[102] “
My response: The books of the Bible, written in the native language of the writer, say Greek or Hebrew, are already a bit obscure, because we cannot ever totally capture our message in spoken or written words. And the non-native readers always miss something in which the speaker or author communicates.
Then to make matters worse and more complicated, the Bible is translated into many different languages, where, even more meaning and nuance is lost in translation. Plenary biblical inerrancy just is not possible.
W: “Autographic texts and modern versions
Those who hold the total inerrancy of the Bible have a variety of views as to whether inerrancy refers to modern Bibles or only to the original, autographic texts. There are also disagreements about whether, because the autographic texts no longer survive, modern texts can be said to be inerrant.[103] Article X of the Chicago statement agrees that the inspiration for the words of the Bible can only strictly be applied to the autographs. However, the same article asserts that the original text "can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy", so that the lack of the originals does not affect the claim of biblical inerrancy of such recovered, modern texts.[104] Robert Saucy, for instance, reports that writers have argued that "99 percent of the original words in the New Testament are recoverable with a high degree of certainty."[105] “
My response: Despite the problems posed by translations, biblical inerrancy and transfer of core meaning can still be transferred and certainly shared and comprehended.
W: “For the Catholic church, the Latin Vulgate translation has been declared "authentic", meaning that where the Latin Vulgate diverges from the original languages, for example by translator or scribal error, it is either not significant for faith or morals or is true in its own right.
Textual tradition of the New Testament
See also: Biblical canon, Bible translations, and Textual criticism of the New Testament
Most of these manuscripts date to the Middle Ages. The oldest complete copy of the New Testament, the Codex Sinaiticus, which includes two other books (the Epistle of Barnabas and The Shepherd of Hermas) not now included in the accepted NT canon, dates to the 4th century. The earliest fragment of a New Testament book is the Rylands Library Papyrus P52 which dates from 125–175 AD,[106] recent research pointing to a date nearer to 200 AD.[107]
The average NT manuscript is about 200 pages, and in all, there are about 1.3 million pages of text. No two manuscripts are identical, except in the smallest fragments, and the many manuscripts that preserve New Testament texts differ among themselves in many respects, with some estimates of 200,000 to 300,000 differences among the various manuscripts.[108] According to Bart Ehrman:
Most changes are careless errors that are easily recognized and corrected. Christian scribes often made mistakes simply because they were tired or inattentive or, sometimes, inept. Indeed, the single most common mistake in our manuscripts involves "orthography", significant for little more than showing that scribes in antiquity could spell no better than most of us can today. In addition, we have numerous manuscripts in which scribes have left out entire words, verses, or even pages of a book, presumably by accident. Sometimes scribes rearranged the words on the page, for example, by leaving out a word and then reinserting it later in the sentence.[109]
In the 2008 Greer-Heard debate series, New Testament scholars Bart Ehrman and Daniel B. Wallace discussed these variances in detail. Wallace mentioned that understanding the meaning of the number of variances is not as simple as looking at the number of variances, but one must consider also the number of manuscripts, the types of errors, and among the more serious discrepancies, what impact they do or do not have.[110]
For hundreds of years, Biblical and textual scholars have examined the manuscripts extensively. Since the eighteenth century, they have employed the techniques of textual criticism to reconstruct how the extant manuscripts of the New Testament texts might have descended, and to recover earlier recensions of the texts. However, King James Version (KJV)-only inerrantists often prefer the traditional texts (i.e., Textus Receptus, which is the basis of KJV) used in their churches to modern attempts of reconstruction (i.e., Nestle-Aland Greek Text, which is the basis of modern translations), arguing that the Holy Spirit is just as active in the preservation of the scriptures as in their creation.[111] “
My response: I too believe the Holy Spirit is just as active in the preservation of the scriptures as in their creation.
W: “
KJV-only inerrantist Jack Moorman says that at least 356 doctrinal passages are affected by the differences between the Textus Receptus and the Nestle-Aland Greek Text.[112]
Some modern Bibles have footnotes to indicate areas where there is disagreement between source documents. Bible commentaries offer discussions of these.[113][114]
Inerrantist response
Evangelical Christians generally accept the findings of textual criticism,[115] and nearly all modern translations, including the New Testament of the New International Version, are based on "the widely accepted principles of [...] textual criticism".[116]
Since textual criticism suggests that the manuscript copies are not perfect, strict inerrancy is only applied to the original autographs (the manuscripts written by the original authors) rather than the copies. However total inerrantists usually claim that imperfect manuscripts have a negligible effect on our ability to know what the autographs said. For example, evangelical theologian Wayne Grudem writes:
For most practical purposes, then, the current published scholarly texts of the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament are the same as the original manuscripts. Thus, when we say that the original manuscripts were inerrant, we are also implying that over 99 percent of the words in our present manuscripts are also inerrant, for they are exact copies of the originals.[2]
The "Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy" says, "We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture". However, it also reads: "We deny that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant."[117]
Less commonly, more conservative views are held by some groups.
Textus Receptus
Main article: Textus Receptus
A minority of total biblical inerrantists go further than the Chicago Statement, arguing that the original text has been perfectly preserved and passed down through time. This is sometimes called "Textus Receptus Onlyism", as it is believed the Greek text by this name (Latin for received text) is a perfect and inspired copy of the original and supersedes earlier manuscript copies. This position is based on the idea that only the original language God spoke in is inspired, and that God was pleased to preserve that text throughout history by the hands of various scribes and copyists. Thus the Textus Receptus acts as the inerrant source text for translations to modern languages. For example, in Spanish-speaking cultures the commonly accepted "KJV-equivalent" is the Reina-Valera 1909 revision (with different groups accepting, in addition to the 1909 or in its place, the revisions of 1862 or 1960). The New King James Version was also translated from the Textus Receptus.
King James Only inerrantists
A faction of those in the "King James Only movement" rejects the whole discipline of textual criticism and holds that the translators of the King James Version English Bible were guided by God and that the KJV thus is to be taken as the authoritative English Bible. One of its most vocal, prominent and thorough proponents was Peter Ruckman.
Michael Licona
In 2010, Michael Licona published a book defending the resurrection of Jesus called, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach. In one part of the book, Licona raised questions about the literal interpretation of the resurrection of the saints in Matthew 27:51-53. He suggests the passage of scripture is an apocalyptic genre.[118] Scholars such as Norman Geisler accused Licona of denying the full inerrancy of the Bible in general and the Gospel narratives in particular.[119] As a result, Licona resigned from his position as research professor of New Testament at Southern Evangelical Seminary and apologetics coordinator for the North American Mission Board.[120]
Modern Catholic discussion
In Catholic discussion, the Bible is not inerrant or infallible as a document interpreted independently of teaching of the Church on matters of faith and morals.
Before Vatican II
St. John Henry Newman, writing in 1884, acknowledged the "human side" of biblical inspiration which "manifests itself in language, style, tone of thought, character, intellectual peculiarities, and such infirmities, not sinful, as belong to our nature, and which in unimportant matters may issue in what in doctrinal definitions is called an obiter dictum (said in passing)." In this view, the Bible contains many statements of a historical nature that have no salvific content in themselves and so need not be inerrant.[121] Often called the "absent father of Vatican II" (absent because he died 72 years before it began), the wording of Dei Verbum recalls Newman’s position. The theologians who wrote it knew and positively appreciated his views.[122]
In 1907, Pope Pius X condemned historical criticism in the 1907 Lamentibili sane exitu.[123] However, around the time of the mid-twentieth century, attitudes changed. In 1943, Pope Pius XII issued the encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu, making historical criticism not only permissible but "a duty".[124] Catholic biblical scholar Raymond E. Brown described this encyclical as a "Magna Carta for biblical progress".[125]
Vatican II
After several years discussion and numerous drafts, on 18 November 1965 the Vatican II Council adopted the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, known as Dei verbum from its first Latin words.[126] The document's teaching on inerrancy is found in a single sentence:
11. [...] Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures.
The first draft schema on the Sources of Revelation included "inerrancy" within one chapter heading but this word was dropped in later drafts in favour of the term "without error", used with specific reference to the truth necessary for salvation.[127]
Since Vatican II, there has been no official pronouncement on the meaning of this phrase. Article 107 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992) simply quotes the sentence from Dei verbum without any further explanation:[128]
107. The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures." (DV 11)
Present-day Catholic teaching
Some theologians and apologists defend the view that total inerrancy is still the Church's teaching. For instance, articles defending this position can be found in the 2011 collection For the Sake of Our Salvation.[129] On a more popular level, on the apologetic website Catholic Answers there is no lack of articles defending the same position.[130][131][132][133]
For instance, Raymond E. Brown, "perhaps the foremost English-speaking Catholic Biblical scholar",[134] writes:[16]
On inerrancy Vatican II made an important qualification as our italics indicate: "The Books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching firmly, faithfully, and without error that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation." Some have tried to interpret the italicized phrase to cover everything the human author expressed, but pre-voting debates show an awareness of errors in the Bible. [...] Thus, it is proper to take the clause as specifying: Scriptural teaching is truth without error to the extent that it conforms to the salvific purpose of God.
And also:[135]
In the last hundred years we have moved from an understanding wherein inspiration guaranteed that the Bible was totally inerrant to an understanding wherein inerrancy is limited to the Bible's teaching of "that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation." In this long journey of thought the concept of inerrancy was not rejected but was seriously modified to fit the evidence of biblical criticism which showed that the Bible was not inerrant in questions of science, of history, and even of time-conditioned religious beliefs.”
My response: One can see that the Catholic Church was modifying its stance from inspired total inerrancy for the Bible, to settle for what is inerrant is what God wanted his authors to write as His core message to people is that is what is inerrant or nearly so.
W: “Similarly, Scripture scholar R. A. F. MacKenzie,[136] in his commentary on Dei verbum, said:[137]
The Bible was not written in order to teach the natural sciences, nor to give information on merely political history. It treats of these (and all other subjects) only insofar as they are involved in matters concerning salvation. It is only in this respect that the veracity of God and the inerrancy of the inspired writers are engaged.
In a speech to German bishops during the Second Vatican Council, the future Pope Benedict XVI described inerrancy as referring to everything which scripture intended to affirm, but not necessarily in how it is expressed, saying:[138]
"It is not surprising that according to a practically irrefutable consensus of historians there definitely are mistakes and errors in the Bible in profane matters of no relevance for what Scripture properly intends to affirm."
And that:[139]
Scripture is and remains inerrant and beyond doubt in everything that it properly intends to affirm, but this is not necessarily so in that which accompanies the affirmation and is not part of it. As a result, [...] the inerrancy of Scripture has to be limited to its vere enunciata [what is really affirmed].
These views are shared by many Church officials and as a result are taken for granted in some Church documents. For instance:
An official report (1999) on theological conversations between the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Southern Baptist Convention, to be found on the website of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops:[140]
For Roman Catholics, inerrancy is understood as a consequence of biblical inspiration; it has to do more with the truth of the Bible as a whole than with any theory of verbal inerrancy. Vatican II says that "the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching firmly, faithfully, and without error that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation" (Dei verbum 11). What is important is the qualification of "that truth" with "for the sake of our salvation."
A 2005 "teaching document" issued by the Bishops' Conferences of England and Wales, and of Scotland, entitled The Gift of Scripture:[141]
14. [...] The books thus declared canonical and inspired by the Spirit of God contain 'the truth which God wished to be set down in the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation' (Dei verbum 11). It is important to note this teaching of the Second Vatican Council that the truth of Scripture is to be found in all that is written down 'for the sake of our salvation'. We should not expect total accuracy from the Bible in other, secular matters. We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision.
The instrumentum laboris (working paper) for the 2008 Synod of Bishops on the Word of God:[142]
15. [...] even though all parts of Sacred Scripture are divinely inspired, inerrancy applies only to 'that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation" (DV 11).[a]
Criticism and scope of inerrancy
Empirical evidence and testability
Critics argue that total biblical inerrancy undermines the empirical basis of science by treating ancient religious texts as authoritative on natural phenomena, even when these texts conflict with observable evidence. For example, a literal reading of the creation narrative in Genesis, which suggests a young Earth created in six days (Genesis 1:1–31), is inconsistent with the scientific consensus on the age of the Earth (approximately 4.54 billion years) and the process of evolution through natural selection. These discrepancies have led scholars like Richard Dawkins to criticize biblical inerrancy as being "indifferent to the evidence".[143][page needed] “
My response: The Bible is God’s word to humans so if the literal or metaphorical language in the Bible directly contradicts scientific and historic theories and evidence, it bothers me not too much. The world of spirit, which is the Bible’s home-ground, is above, in and around natural phenomena, so divinely inspired Bible book writers could well be referring to that world of spirit which may conflict with how things operate in the natural world.
W: “Many secular scholars highlight apparent scientific and historical inaccuracies in the Bible as evidence against its inerrancy. For instance, the story of Noah's Ark (Genesis 6:9–9:17), when taken literally, describes a global flood, which lacks geological evidence and contradicts known principles of hydrology and biology. The lack of supporting evidence for other events described as historical in the Bible, such as the Exodus, further calls into question the claim of total inerrancy.[144][page needed]
However, biblical inerrancy is not synonymous with biblical literalism, and Christians often focus more on what is intended to be written by a biblical author than the veracity of what is actually written. Pope John Paul II wrote to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on the subject of cosmology and how to interpret Genesis, describing it as teaching God as the author of all creation in a way expressed within the context of knowledge contemporary to the ancient author:
Cosmogony and cosmology have always aroused great interest among peoples and religions. The Bible itself speaks to us of the origin of the universe and its make-up, not in order to provide us with a scientific treatise, but in order to state the correct relationships of man with God and with the universe. Sacred Scripture wishes simply to declare that the world was created by God, and in order to teach this truth it expresses itself in the terms of the cosmology in use at the time of the writer. The Sacred Book likewise wishes to tell men that the world was not created as the seat of the gods, as was taught by other cosmogonies and cosmologies, but was rather created for the service of man and the glory of God. Any other teaching about the origin and make-up of the universe is alien to the intentions of the Bible, which does not wish to teach how heaven was made but how one goes to heaven.[145]
Catholic priest and philosopher of science Stanley Jaki blamed the Protestant Reformation for biblical literalism, which resulted in the Bible being construed as a literal source of scientific knowledge:”
My response: It seems right that biblical inerrancy is not the same as biblical literalism.
W: “
Insofar as the study of the original languages of the Bible was severed from authoritative ecclesiastical preaching as its matrix, it fueled literalism... Biblical literalism taken for a source of scientific information is making the rounds even nowadays among creationists who would merit Julian Huxley's description of 'bibliolaters.' They merely bring discredit to the Bible as they pile grist upon grist on the mills of latter-day Huxleys, such as Hoyle, Sagan, Gould, and others. The fallacies of creationism go deeper than fallacious reasonings about scientific data. Where creationism is fundamentally at fault is its resting its case on a theological faultline: the biblicism constructed by the [Protestant] Reformers.[146]
As for specific events in the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament, Christians and scholars alike tend to view certain sections as either allegorical, or as stories based on past events but embellished with hyperbolic and figurative language, such as with Genesis, Exodus, and Joshua.[147][148]
Resistance to revision
Another point of contention is the resistance of biblical inerrancy to revision, which is at odds with the self-correcting nature of the idealized scientific process. While science progresses through the refinement of theories based on new evidence, total biblical inerrancy maintains that the (original) text is immutable, preventing reinterpretation in light of new discoveries. Philosopher Daniel Dennett has criticized this rigidity, suggesting that it hampers intellectual progress and fosters dogmatism.[149][page needed] “
My response: It could be dogmatic for Christians to defend the Bible from the need for to be changed or revised in light of new evidence and discoveries, but where does the boudnary of going to far fit with traveling down the slippery slope of changing until a faith is unrecognizable, if its theologians agree to modify it? Some revision might be applicable, but could lead to religious decline.
W: “The Catholic Church has embraced divergent interpretations of different books in the Bible in light of modern discoveries, while maintaining the inerrancy of scripture, insofar as such interpretations don't diverge from Catholic teaching. In 1943, Pope Pius XII issued the encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu, making historical criticism not only permissible but "a duty" for the study of scripture,[150] while today there exists learned groups such as the Catholic Biblical Association dedicated to the academic study of the Bible. As far back as late antiquity, Saint Augustine of Hippo taught that Christians should change their minds when interpretating scripture (in his case, Genesis) in light of any new knowledge.[151]
C
I know it is cheap scholarship, but my pulling the AI notes on biblical inerrancy on 10/14/25,will suffice for what I am seeking to achieve here, which is to gain a sufficient understanding of biblical inerrancy as a doctrine to compare and contrast it with the unstated (I am stating it and bringing it to public awareness.) doctrine of textual inerrancy commanded any sacred text pushed by true believers (fanatics), who build their lives around reading and living in accordance with what is written in that sacred text—does anyone remember Mao’s little red book? Hitler’s Mein Kampf might fill the bill here too.
Textual inerrancy can be the stance claimed by ideological zealots, and that is an evil stance, an evil demand to make upon all citizens, that the read the sacred text, that they make a god of the text, and bow down and worship it and its author. Here are my AI notes: “
Biblical inerrancy is the doctrine that the Bible is without error in its original writings, meaning it is completely truthful in all that it teaches. This belief is based on the nature of God as perfect and unable to lie. Proponents of inerrancy argue that the Bible is true in historical and scientific statements, as well as matters of faith and practice. The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978) is a key document that defines inerrancy, stating the Bible is without error in all its teaching, including its witness to God's acts in creation and world history.
Key aspects of biblical inerrancy.”
My response: Good deities are mostly perfect, good and truthful so their sacred texts, written by inspired human authors, are mostly without error. That is my moderate response and is the truth.
Now if sacred texts and the faith being proselytized, even if representing a good deity, is hijacked and ideologized by true-believing adherents, it is a false religion, an evil transmutation of a good faith, and is not a reflection upon the good deity, though if he or she had pushed moderation in all things a bit more (not the spirit of the age when they introduced themselves to the world), it would be more difficult for their errant, wayward followers to distort a beautiful faith, rendering it, reducing it some unrecognizable, spurious and mean, a sacred ideology.
When secular prophets like Karl Marx invented Communism, this secular ideology or faith was cruel, false and wicked from the start, yet the principle of textual inerrancy has been championed and pushed forward by the millions of adoring adherents of this bloody secular faith.
AI: “
Truthfulness:
Proponents of inerrancy believe the Bible is completely truthful and without error.
Original autographs:
The doctrine applies to the original manuscripts of the Bible, not necessarily to all copied versions.
Scope:
It is often applied to all subjects the Bible addresses, including historical and scientific accounts, in addition to spiritual truths.
Foundation in God's character:
The belief is rooted in the conviction that God is perfect and truthful, and therefore his Word must also be truthful.
Divine inspiration:
Inerrancy is linked to the idea that God inspired the writers of Scripture.
Debates and challenges
While inerrancy is a significant position for many Christians, particularly within parts of evangelicalism, it is not universally accepted among all denominations.
Some scholars argue that the Bible contains contradictions or lacks modern precision and that inerrancy should be evaluated within the context of its purpose and genre.
Debates exist about the exact meaning and application of inerrancy, with some scholars saying the Bible is inerrant in its theological teachings but not necessarily in every single historical or scientific detail.”
My response: I can accept provisional textual inerrancy in that the Bible does contain contradictions, lacks modern precision in historical and scientific detail, that the Bible is divinely inspired and pretty darn good, despite some deficiencies. That is my moderate stance.
AI: “
Despite differing views, the belief remains foundational for many who see the Bible as the authoritative and trustworthy source for faith and life.
D
I took this article from Bible Hub, for they seem informative and authoritative to me on all things concerning the Bible; once again this recurring Internet source for me is good enough for my purposes, so I copied and pasted it on 10/14/25. Here it is: “
Bible Hub 10/14/25:
What does Biblical inerrancy mean?
Definition and Core Concept
Biblical inerrancy refers to the belief that the Scriptures, in their original manuscripts, are wholly true and without error in all they affirm. This concept encompasses historical details, doctrinal teachings, ethical instructions, and other claims found in the biblical text. It arises from the conviction that Scripture is divinely inspired and reflects the flawless truth of the eternal God. As it is written, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16).
Biblical inerrancy asserts not only that the Bible’s teaching is reliable but that it coheres seamlessly and truthfully across its sixty-six books. This conviction holds that what the Bible states-whether about past events, spiritual realities, moral commands, or prophetic anticipations-accurately corresponds to God’s revelation.”
My response: If the Bible’s teaching is reliable and inerrant, that it coheres seamlessly and truthfully across its sixty-six books, then how can contradictions occur in the Bible, which seem to require that the Believer accept them as a logical mystery, but also as a spiritual reality to be accepted on faith alone?
Bible Hub: “
Scriptural Foundations
The principle of inerrancy is drawn directly from the high view of Scripture found in both the Old and New Testaments:
1. Divine Inspiration: The prophets repeatedly declare, “Thus says the LORD” (e.g., Jeremiah 1:9), attributing their words to God himself. Peter explains that “no prophecy of Scripture comes from one’s own interpretation. For no such prophecy was ever brought about through human initiative, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:20-21).
My response: It seems pretty impressive and conclusive to declare that God say thus and so. If the prophet or writer is sane, sober and well-intentioned, representing a good deity, then likely his message from God and his written rendition of God’s message is largely credible, and likely God speaks through his willing messenger.
Bible Hub: “
2. Unity of Scriptural Witness: Jesus himself unreservedly trusted the writings of the Old Testament, citing them as authoritative (Luke 24:44) and stating, “Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). The New Testament authors similarly treat all Scripture-Old and New-as the reliable word of God.
Because God does not lie (Titus 1:2) and is all-knowing (Psalm 147:5), it follows that his word, communicated through human authors, remains trustworthy in all it affirms.”
My response: I would say that God the Father or God the Mother do not lie, or almost never, and that Satan and Sa’s wife, Lera, almost never tell the truth, but they do occasionally.
To assert that the ontological law of moderation, created or always existing as constituted by Fate, who may be a Being/NonBeing apart from reality, or pervasive in every cell and molecule of reality, requires that the Light Couple lie upon occasion. This scandalous opinion offered by me is not any attempt by me to slander, blaspheme or rebel against those I love and serve as faithfully as I can—the good deities. Complete perfection is fanatical and evil somehow. That is what moderation means. Complete imperfection as assigned to Satan and Lera is also a fanatical, evil lie.
The Divine Couple are almost always perfect, loving and truth-speaking, and the Dark Couple are almost always imperfect, hating and lie-pedaling, but that they have mixed natures is desirable so that the world can exist and operate as it hurls itself through time and history, and that they are able to relate to and know each other; otherwise the parents of good and the parents of evil would be alien and strange to one another, for these eternal enemies, each a bit like the other, thus are able to understand each other and thus are able to fight the adversary while understanding that adversary in the eternal war between good and evil.
I will denominate free willed, achieved goodness as morally superior to and more meritorious than innate goodness, which is naturally bestowed on the agent, not achieved by the agent over and above the urgings of the worse angels of his nature.
With this denomination made, that earned goodness is superior to natural goodness, I will make the bold leap of intuiting that this redounds to far-reaching metaphysical consequences of Becoming is morally superior to Being, perfect, eternal, unchanging, a natural and supernatural condition not predicated on merit or earned.
The good deities, themselves almost perfectly good and almost omnipotent, almost omniscient, almost all-loving, their moral superiority is based upon their earning it, not being self-granted or granted unearned moral perfection and these other almighty attributes as a free gift, a natural state of existing, but not an achieved, impressive state of being. On this way the good deities are moderate, and rebuke and reject those pushing to story that God is perfect in all ways, for that is extreme, the eternal stance of an all-powerful robot, not a living breathing good deity.
It is to align with Satan and Lera, in demanding of one’s sacred deities or one secular deities and the sacred texts written indirectly or directly by them or the spokespersons and agents. Satan wants a perfect God or a completely imperfect Devil, for these idealistic and rigid extremes serve Sa’s purposes nicely by making fanaticism and extremism the universal law.
It may be the Fate, the One, the creator of the Divine Couple and the Dark Couple is all perfect and imperfect at the same time, but I cannot talk knowingly of Fate’s nature so will not type much about Fate, other than a few general remarks about Fe’s nature and relationship the good deities and the evil deities.
And the law of moderation, for the nature of the good deities, they would aver that they are more about becoming and static Being, but they are and do both.
Fanatics demand ruthless perfection and purity of thought word and deed, because, behind their idealistic, totalist expectations is moral nihilism no standards whatsoever just wholesale nihilism, hatred, violence, destruction and wanton lust to hurt smash and maim. The extreme standard of excellence soon swings in the passionate moody pendulum to the other extreme of no standards whatsoever, never freedom, prudence, temperance, sensible half-measures, reasonableness and judicious decision making. When the person is passionate, excessively emotional and enthusiastic, that is when demons are let loose in the soul and out into society.
Where standards of perfection or no moral standards exist at all in a polity, then there not operating for the collective humanity is innate but stunted individual rational, logical free will and sensible, judicious consideration; where utter conformity is demanded of everyone, where collectivism, mass moments, totalitarianism are the norm, there evil reigns, and the tribal ascription of its deity as a perfect deity conceptualization somehow is meant to justify perfect human behavior where all are robots and determined by the state and the collective.
We need almost perfect good deities to be the standard exemplars for moderate, temperate individuators not to be extreme and wicked on earth in actions but moderate and just and loving here, self-controlling, and not group-identifying.
Bible Hub: “
Historical Development of the Teaching
Early believers accepted the authority and trustworthiness of the biblical writings from their inception. Over centuries, theologians formulated clearer statements:
• Council of Hippo (AD 393) and Council of Carthage (AD 397): These councils recognized the canon of Scripture, testifying to the Church’s early and formal acceptance of the biblical texts as authoritative.”
My response: I have no problem accepting the authority and trustworthiness of biblical text, the holy writ of a good deity, or a secular text, written by a human human author. My allegiance would not be insignificant nor without some reservation either.
Bible Hub: “
• The Reformation Era: Reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin consistently taught that Scripture stands as the primary and infallible rule of faith.
• Modern Statements: In the modern era, theological consensus documents-such as the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978)-clarified that Scripture, being divinely inspired in all its parts, is wholly inerrant and infallible.
Philosophical and Theological Underpinnings
1. God’s Nature: Since God is perfectly holy (Leviticus 19:2), omniscient, and truthful, his word must reflect the fullness of his character and be devoid of error.”
My response: Again God is not perfectly holy, nor so claims to be: these mischaracterizations of God as perfectly holy, omniscient, and utterly truthful is not real or true, and God loves truth. This fanatical mischaracterization of God’s nature is used by religious zealots and true believers everywhere pushing their various ideologies to justify extreme violence towards, intolerance, suppression and attacks on unbelievers. That is most wicked misbehavior, which God does not condone, but will judge and punish accordingly.
Bible Hub: “
2. Conflation of Inspiration and Inerrancy: If Scripture is “breathed out by God” (2 Timothy 3:16), many conclude it cannot include falsehood. Philosophically, a perfect being imparts truthful revelation.
3. Authority and Human Responsibility: While Scripture is inerrant, human interpreters can err. Thus, humility, prayer, and a willingness to learn are needed to interpret it accurately.”
My response: yes, human interpreters are errant and fallible, so we need to be careful as to how we interpret the Bible or any other text.
Bible Hub: “
Clarifying Key Misconceptions
Biblical inerrancy is frequently misunderstood or conflated with concepts unrelated to its core meaning:
1. Inerrancy vs. Overly Literalistic Interpretations: Inerrancy does not necessitate rigid literalism where the text is clearly poetic, metaphorical, or apocalyptic. Equally, it does not dismiss the use of parables, figures of speech, or symbolic language.
2. Inerrancy vs. Variant Translations: Minor scribal or translational issues do not undermine inerrancy. Rather, inerrancy applies to the original autographs. Close textual studies (including those by modern scholars such as Dan Wallace and James White) demonstrate remarkable fidelity of the preserved manuscripts.
3. Inerrancy vs. Understanding Cultural Context: Acknowledging ancient cultural contexts and literary genres (e.g., genealogies, covenant language, court chronicles) does not negate inerrancy; instead, it provides a more accurate reading of what the text truly conveys.
Manuscript Evidence and Reliability
Archaeological and manuscript discoveries uphold the Bible’s trustworthiness:
1. Dead Sea Scrolls (Discovered 1947-1956): Containing numerous Old Testament books, these scrolls demonstrate the Hebrew text’s consistency over centuries. They confirm that key passages, such as Isaiah 53, remained faithfully transmitted.
2. New Testament Manuscripts: Over 5,800 Greek manuscripts, along with thousands of translations into Latin, Syriac, and other languages, buttress the textual reliability of the New Testament. While there are minor variations, none affect core doctrines nor the thrust of the biblical message.”
My response: All the points in this section undergird the significance of denying plenary inerrancy of Biblical text.
Bible Hub: “
3. Early Church Fathers’ Citations: Patristic writers, in quoting large portions of the biblical text, provide external checkpoints for establishing textual fidelity.
Archaeological Insights and Historical Corroboration
Archaeological findings have consistently supported biblical records:
• Hezekiah’s Tunnel (2 Kings 20:20): Discovered late in the 19th century, the tunnel’s existence and inscription corroborate the biblical account of King Hezekiah’s preparations for the Assyrian siege.
• Tel Dan Stele: This fragmentary inscription references the “House of David,” confirming the historical standing of the Davidic dynasty.
• Pontius Pilate Inscription: Unearthed in Caesarea Maritima, this inscription establishes the historical reality of Pilate’s governorship, lining up with the New Testament narrative (Matthew 27:2).
These excavations align with the biblical records of events, kingdoms, places, and figures, demonstrating a noteworthy harmony between Scripture and historical artifacts.
Harmonization of Apparent Contradictions”
My response: Some apparent contradictions likely can be smoothed over and reconciled, but there are likely several contradictions in Scripture which cannot be identified as being anything other than contradictory, but these dialetheisms are just baked in mysteries, which I accept on faith.
Bible Hub: “
Some perceive contradictions within Scripture, yet deeper study often reveals:
1. Contextual Nuances: Different Gospel accounts may highlight varied aspects of the same event or emphasize unique theological points.
2. Cultural and Literary Approaches: Ancient writings might not follow modern Western standards of precise chronologies or quotations, but they remain truthful within historical and literary conventions of their own era.
3. Progressive Revelation: Biblical themes unfold progressively, finding fulfillment in later passages or in Christ himself. This fullness of revelation naturally can appear disjointed until viewed within the overarching biblical message.
Practical Implications of Inerrancy”
My responses: Reasonable defenses of biblical inerrancy. Biblical contradictions can be problematical, but some deep, not easily explainable or refutable contradictions are baked into reality itself. For example, humans live and die, so these contradictory existential states are inextricably bound together, not quite explainable, they are just the human condition.
Also, humans are half-beast and half-angel, so humans are living contradictions down to their subconscious cores. This is our predicament and our opportunity, depending on what we intend to do about it and what we plan to make of ourselves or not.
Bible Hub”
1. Authority for Christian Living: Believers rely on Scripture for life guidance, knowing it is trustworthy: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105).
2. Doctrinal Certainty: Doctrines such as salvation in Christ, the nature of God, and ethical teachings rest on the reliability of Scripture (Romans 10:9-10). Inerrancy undergirds the stability and consistency of these truths.
3. Evangelistic Confidence: Proclaiming the message of Jesus’ death and resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:3-4) rests upon the conviction that the biblical testimony is factual and divinely guaranteed.
Interaction with Other Doctrines
1. Inspiration and Illumination: The Holy Spirit not only inspired Scripture but also illuminates it to readers, ensuring that those who seek truth may understand the living message (John 16:13).”
My response: I am heartened by this view that the Holy Spirit not only inspired Scripture but also illuminaates it for readers. No matter what text one reads, one should pray to the Holy Spirit or the Good Spirits who work for Him, to aid and ensure that the reader seeking truth can understand textual message and make it come alive in all of its semantical dimensions, rational, spiritual, etc.
Bible Hub: “
2. Christ’s Resurrection: The reliability of resurrection accounts (Matthew 28; Mark 16; Luke 24; John 20-21) remains foundational for Christian faith. Inerrancy reinforces confidence in these events, confirmed by historical and manuscript evidence.
3. Worldview and Creation: A biblical view of God as Creator (Genesis 1-2) aligns with intelligent design. Scientific implications-such as the complexity in biology or the precise fine-tuning of physical constants-bolster the conviction that the biblical record and observable data are compatible.”
My response: I find intelligent design likely and appealing, but we cannot prove it or disprove it, but I accept it based on faith.
Bible Hub: “
Concluding Summary
Biblical inerrancy asserts that the Bible, in its original form, wholly embodies God’s truthful revelation without error. Far from an abstract doctrine, it serves as a bedrock for Christian living, theological formulation, evangelistic outreach, and a consistent worldview. Rooted in the character of a perfect, all-knowing Deity, inerrancy provides believers with unwavering confidence in the Scriptures’ ability to instruct, correct, and lead to a knowledge of salvation through Christ.
“Every word of God is flawless; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him” (Proverbs 30:5).”
My response: This articulate defense of biblical inerrancy is appealing and impressive, but again, if moderation is goodness, a good deity will promote neither total inerrancy nor total perfection as qualities of a good deity, for they are extreme or wicked standards of behavior. Ideologues waver wildly between epistemic claims of extreme scepticism and manic omniscience, eventually settling for true belief in their holy cause and is allegedly, absolutely truthful, errorless, final doctrines, eternally right, the final word on everything. The totalist claims are used to make hordes of shattered, egoless true believers feel good about themselves, and propels them to declare holy war upon the entire earth, seeking to spread the ism to every corner of the world by force, war, invasion and conquest. Altruistic-collectivist cruelty is most intense and destructive when justifying the barbarous acts of the faithful on the march.
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This article by Keven Vanhoozer is well written. Vanhoozer will be V after this: “
By Kevin J. Vanhoozer on March 1, 2010 Knowing and Doing, Must Reads: Trusting the Bible, Knowing & Doing 2010 Spring, Kevin J. Vanhoozer
Whereas inspiration concerns the origin of the Bible’s authority, inerrancy describes its nature. By inerrancy we refer not only to the Bible’s being “without error” but also to its inability to err (we might helpfully illustrate this point by comparing it to the distinction between Jesus’ sinlessness or being without sin, on the one hand, and his impeccability or inability to sin on the other). Inerrancy, positively defined, refers to a central and crucial property of the Bible, namely, its utter truthfulness.”
My response: The great and awesome Jesus would not want us to regard him as innately sinless for he was ½ human and humans are basically evil by nature. He would not accept that he had an inability to sin for a good sentient being utterly good, would not have free will, and therefore would be an intelligent robot. Jesus had the ability to sin, so that He could understand humans and die on the cross to open a way for humans; Jesus was able to sin but choose rarely or never to sin, and that is the greatest moral victory achievable. It is a willed, achieved significant, superior victory of a free-willing deity choosing to be perfect or near perfect it is not just an intrinsic moral pefection not willed but granted by nature, super-nature or God the Creator.
Utter truthfulness is not possible for a good deity and her sacred text, nor would she desire it, so humans should not characterize the divinity they love and worship in this light.
V: “The basis for the doctrine of biblical inerrancy is located both in the nature of God and in the Bible’s teaching about itself. First, if God is perfect—all-knowing, all-wise, all-good—it follows that God speaks the truth. God does not tell lies; God is not ignorant. God’s Word is thus free from all error arising either from conscious deceit or unconscious ignorance. Such is the unanimous confession of the psalmist, the prophets, the Lord Jesus and the apostles. Second, the Bible presents itself as the Word of God written. Thus, in addition to its humanity (which is never denied), the Bible also enjoys the privileges and prerogatives of its status as God’s Word. God’s Word is thus wholly reliable, a trustworthy guide to reality, a light unto our path.
If the biblical and theological basis of the doctrine is so obvious, however, why have some in our day suggested that the inerrancy of the Bible is a relatively recent concept? Is it true, as some have argued, that the doctrine of inerrancy was “invented” in the nineteenth century at Princeton by B.B. Warfield and Charles Hodge and is therefore a novelty in the history of theology? In answer to this question, it is important to remember that doctrines arise only when there is need for them. Doctrine develops when something implicit in the faith is denied; false teaching provokes an explicit rebuttal. This is as true of inerrancy as it is of the doctrines of the Trinity, or of justification by faith.”
My response: It may be that the formal assertion of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy is a recent historical development, but there is strong biblical evidence to cite and quote as supporting this view—it is embedded in biblical text, though I deny it, as total textual inerrancy, is an acceptable doctrine defended by any good deity (if he or she would sit down with us today have coffee and discuss inerrancy of text with us) or by a decent, smart author of a secular text, if the author was wise and sensible.
V:”
The notion of the Bible’s truthfulness was implicitly assumed throughout the history of the church. Theologians were only reflecting the view of the biblical authors themselves. Jesus himself quotes Scripture and implies that its words are true and trustworthy—wholly reliable. The New Testament authors share and reflect this high estimate of the Old Testament. The question is whether this “high estimate” of Scripture pertained to its reliability in matters of faith and salvation only or whether it involved a trust in all matters on which the Bible speaks, including science and history.
One difficulty with this question is that it is anachronistic: it reflects the concerns of our times (including the dubious dichotomy between fact and value) rather than that of the Fathers and Reformers. With regard to the Fathers, we know that they held to the divine authorship of Scripture. Behind the many voices of the human authors is the voice of the Holy Spirit, the ultimate author of Scripture. While some used this as an excuse to search for hidden truths through allegorical interpretation, if anything the tendency was to ascribe too much truth to Scripture rather than too little. For the Fathers, to suggest that there were errors in the Bible would have been unthinkable.
Augustine, for instance, wrote that biblical authority would be overthrown if the authors had stated things that were not true. Though Augustine warned Christians not to hide their ignorance of scientific fact by easy appeals to Scripture, he also believed that the biblical writers did not make any scientific errors. True scientific discoveries will always be capable of being reconciled with the Scriptures. Augustine is at pains to show that there are no contradictions, either between one part of the Bible and another, or between the Bible and truth gleaned from elsewhere. Whatever we think of such attempts, they are at least compelling evidence of the widespread Patristic presupposition of the Bible’s truthfulness.
The Reformers similarly affirmed the truthfulness of the Bible. There is some debate among scholars whether Luther and Calvin limited Scripture’s truthfulness to matters of salvation, conveniently overlooking errors about lesser matters. It is true that Luther and Calvin are aware of apparent discrepancies in Scripture and that they often speak of “errors.” However, a closer analysis seems to indicate that the discrepancies and errors are consistently attributed to copyists and translators, not to the human authors of Scripture, much less to the Holy Spirit, its divine author. Calvin was aware that Paul’s quotations of the Old Testament (e.g., Romans 10:6 and Deuteronomy 30:12) were not always exact, nor always exegetically sound, but he did not infer that Paul had thereby made an error. On the contrary, Calvin notes that Paul is not giving the words of Moses different sense so much as applying them to his treatment of the subject at hand. Indeed, Calvin explicitly denies the suggestion that Paul distorts Moses’ words.
Doctrines are formulated in order to refute error and to preserve revealed truth.”
My response: Doctrines like plenary textual inerrancy are formulated in order to refute and defeat criticis. Ayn Rand, like other gurus, implied textual inerrancy to preserve her revealed truth, but that is not the proper mission for the author of a sacred religious text or a sacred, secular text. The smart, truthful, wise author, divine or human, will settle for advertising that his holy text is promulgating stories of near but not complete inerrancy, in line with the axiom that moderate truth is truth. Pure truth and pure lies are variations of the same false set of assertions.
V: “ Just as biblical authority only became part of Protestant confessions in the sixteenth century to counter the idea that tradition is the supreme authority of the church, so the doctrine of biblical inerrancy was only explicitly formulated to counter explicit denials of the Bible’s truthfulness. These denials arose about the same time as did modernity and the distinctively modern way of interpreting the Bible: biblical criticism. Many so-called “enlightened” thinkers of the eighteenth century accepted the Deists’ belief that the source of truth was reason rather than revelation. Increasingly, the Bible came to be studied like any other book, on naturalistic assumptions that ruled out the possibility of divine action in history. Accordingly, biblical critics grew skeptical of Scripture’s own account of its supernatural origin and sought to reconstruct the historical reality. Advances in knowledge and a changed view of the world were thought to necessitate a rethinking of biblical authority.”
My response: Sources of truth in the supernatural world as well as in the natural world and the social world are both reason and revelation, and this can be compatible with biblical authority and largely biblical inerrancy.
V: “
Historical critics argued that the authors of the Bible were children of their age, limited by the worldviews that prevailed when they wrote. It was against this backdrop of widespread suspicion of the supernaturalist appearance of Scripture, and the virtually taken-for-granted denial of divine authorship, that the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, implicit from the first, was explicitly formulated (e.g., by Warfield and Hodge). What is explicitly expressed in the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, however, is not a theological novelty so much as an articulation of what was implicitly, and virtually always, presupposed through most of church history.
What then does the doctrine of biblical inerrancy explicitly articulate? We can refine our provisional definition of inerrancy in terms of truthfulness as follows: The inerrancy of Scripture means that Scripture, in the original manuscripts and when interpreted according to the intended sense, speaks truly in all that it affirms. These specifications, by identifying the conditions under which Scripture speaks truly, do not hasten the death of inerrancy by qualification; they rather acknowledge two crucial limitations that enable believers to keep the doctrine in its proper perspective. Let us examine these two qualifications in more detail.
First: the Bible speaks truly “in the original manuscripts.” We have already seen that the Reformers were able to affirm the truthfulness of the Bible and to acknowledge errors due to faulty translation or transmission. To the objection that we do not now possess the original manuscripts, it must be pointed out that textual critical studies have brought us extremely close to the original text. The relatively small number of textual variations do not for the most part affect our ability to recognize the original text. At the same time, it is important not to ascribe inerrancy to the copies of the originals, since these are the products of an all-too human process of transmission.
The second qualification is just as important: “when interpreted according to the intended sense.” It is often tempting to claim the same authority for one’s interpretations as for the biblical text itself. The thrust of the doctrine of inerrancy, however, like that of sola Scriptura, is to stress the distinction between the Word of God and the words of men. Interpretations of the Bible fall under the category “words of men.” It is thus important not to ascribe inerrancy to our interpretations. To the objection that we do not possess the correct interpretation, we must appeal not to inerrancy but to the perspicuity of Scripture. What conflicts there are about biblical interpretation ultimately must be ascribed to the fallible interpreter, not to the infallible text.”
My response: I agree that Scripture is nearly an infallible text, and that the errancy and misinterpretation largely is the fault of fallible human interpreters, who fail to interpret the Bible in the sense intended by God. I generally agree that perspicuity generally is the graspable message from Scripture available to the average reader and believer. I suggest that interpretive errancy may be a human frailty, but the moderate, good deities would not claim for themselves the property of pure biblical inerrancy in the original texts but largely inerrancy in sacred message extended to the human reader.
V: “Does inerrancy do justice to the humanity of the Scriptures? Some critics of inerrancy have suggested that God had to “accommodate” his message to the language and thought-forms of the day in order effectively to communicate. In taking on forms of human language and thought, does God’s communication simultaneously take on outmoded views of the world or of human nature? For example, could God speak truthfully of the sun “rising” when he knows full well that the sun does not move? In speaking of the sun rising, does not the Bible make a scientific mistake?
To this objection it may be replied that using the common language of the day is not the same as committing oneself to its literal truth. One must not confuse a social convention with a scientific affirmation. To say that the sun rises is to employ a metaphor—one, moreover, that is true to human experience. The objection proves too much: if the inspired authors have used ancient thought forms that led to scientific errors, would not these same thought forms have led to errors in matters of faith and practice too? After all, “To err is human”—or is it? Though proverbial wisdom equates humanity with fallibility, the paradigm of Christ’s sinless life shows that the one concept need not follow from the other. God’s Word, we may conclude, can take on human form—incarnate, inscripturate—without surrendering its claim to sinlessness and truth.”
My response: I would not sweat that the language of the day is literally true, for there is never perfect clarity available, and nor is it desirable.
V: “
Does inerrancy therefore mean that every word in Scripture is literally true? There has been a great deal of confusion on this point, both in the media and in academia. It should first be noted that mere words are neither true nor false; truth is a property of statements.”
My response: I agree that truth is found in statements, not in isolated words.
V: “
Second, those who oppose biblical inerrancy have all too often contributed to the confusion by caricaturing the notion of literal truth. Critics of inerrancy typically speak of “literal truth” when what they really mean is “literalistic truth.” Defenders of inerrancy must take great care to distinguish the notion of literal truth from the kind of literalistic interpretation that runs roughshod over the intent of the author and the literary form of the text.
Perhaps
the best way to resolve this confusion is to begin at the other end.
What counts as an error? If I say that my lecture lasts an hour, when
in fact it lasts only fifty-nine minutes, have I made an error? That
depends on your expectation and on the context of my remark. In
everyday conversation round figures are perfectly acceptable; no one
would accuse me of getting my figures wrong. In other contexts,
however, a different level of precision is required. A BBC television
producer, for instance, would need to know the exact number of
minutes. The point is that what counts as an error depends upon the
kind of precision or exactness that the reader has a right to expect.
“Error” is thus a context-dependent notion. If I do not claim
scientific exactitude or technical precision, it would be unjust to
accuse me of having erred. Indeed, too much precision (“my lecture
is fifty-nine minutes and eight seconds long”) can be distracting
and actually hinder clear communication.
Let us define error, then, as a failure to make good on or to redeem one’s claims. The Bible speaks truly because it makes good its claims. It thus follows that we should first determine just what kind of claims are being made before too quickly ruling “true” or “false.” If error is indeed a context-dependent notion, those who see errors in Scripture would do well first to establish the context of Scripture’s claims. To interpret the Bible according to a wooden literalism fails precisely to attend to the kinds of claims Scripture makes. To read every sentence of the Bible as if it were referring to something in the world, or to a timeless truth, may be to misread much of Scripture. Just as readers need to be sensitive to metaphor (few would react to Jesus’ claim in John 10:9, “I am the door,” by searching for a handle) so readers must be sensitive to literary genre (e.g., to the literary context of biblical statements).
Is every word in Scripture literally true? The problem with this question is its incorrect (and typically unstated) assumption that “literal truth” is always literalistic—a matter of referring to history or to the “facts” of nature. It is just such a faulty assumption—that the Bible always states facts—that leads certain well-meaning defenders of inerrancy desperately to harmonize what appear to be factual or chronological discrepancies in the Gospels. In the final analysis, what was new about the Princetonians’ view of Scripture was not their understanding of the Bible’s truthfulness but rather their particular view of language and interpretation, in which the meaning of the biblical text was the fact—historical or doctrinal—to which it referred. Their proof-texting was more a product of their view of language and interpretation than of their doctrine of Scripture.
What
if the intent of the Evangelists was not to narrate history with
chronological precision? What if the Evangelists sometimes intended
to communicate only the content of Jesus’ teaching rather than his
very words? Before extending the Bible’s truth to include history
or astronomy, or restricting to matters of salvation for that matter,
we must first ask, “What kind of literature is this?” The
question of meaning should precede the question of truth. We must
first determine what kind of claim is being made before we can rule
on its truthfulness. The point of biblical apocalyptic is quite
distinct from the point of Jesus’ parables, from that of the
Gospels themselves, or of Old Testament wisdom. We must, therefore,
say that the literal sense of Scripture is its literary sense: the
sense the author intended to convey in and through a particular
literary form. Inerrancy means that every sentence, when interpreted
correctly (i.e., in accordance with its literary genre and its
literary sense), is wholly reliable.”
My response: This definition of inerrancy is useful but is still unacceptable to me.
V: “
The older term to express biblical authority—infallibility—remains useful. Infallibility means that Scripture never fails in its purpose. The Bible makes good on all its claims, including its truth claims. God’s Word never leads astray. It is important to recall that language may be used for many different purposes, and not to state facts only. Inerrancy, then, is a subset of infallibility: when the Bible’s purpose is to make true statements, it does this too without fail. Yet the Bible’s other speech acts—warnings, promises, questions—are infallible too.”
My responseL His definition of infallibility as biblical authority is useful but not reality for me.
V: “
The Bible’s own understanding of truth stresses reliability. God’s Word is true because it can be relied upon—relied upon to make good its claim and to accomplish its purpose. We may therefore speak of the Bible’s promises, commands, warnings, etc., as being “true,” inasmuch as they too can be relied upon. Together, the terms inerrancy and infallibility remind us that the Word of God is wholly reliable not only when it speaks, but also when it does the truth.
Professor, Senior Fellow for Systematic Theology, CSLI Kevin J. Vanhoozer is the Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School; serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Systematic Theology and the Journal of Theological Interpretation. He earned his M.Div. from Westminster Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from Cambridge University. Previously, he served as Blanchard Professor of Theology at Wheaton College and as Senior Lecturer in Theology and Religious Studies at New College, University of Edinburgh. He has edited multiple books, including The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology and Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible. He is the author of many books, most notably, Is There a Meaning in this Text? and The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to
F
I f I found this article on Biblical Inerrancy on the Internet of 10/4/25, so I will copy and paste it below. I will introduce pieces of it in success for commentary with the letter BI: “
Biblical
Inerrancy: 10/4/25:
It’s been said that a table must have at least three legs to stand. Take away any of the three legs and it will surely topple. In much the same way, the Christian faith stands on three legs. These three legs are the inspiration, infallibility, and inerrancy of Scripture. Take away one, and like the table, the divine authority of the Christian faith will surely topple. These three “in’s” complement each other, yet each expresses a slightly different distinction in our understanding of Scripture.
Inspiration. The first “in” is inspiration and this deals with the origin of the Bible. Evangelicals believe that “God breathed out” the words of the Bible using human writers as the vehicle. Paul writes,
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God (literally “is God-breathed”), and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim. 3:16-17)
Infallibility. The next “in,” infallibility, speaks to the authority and enduring nature of the Bible. To be infallible means that something is incapable of failing and therefore is permanently binding and cannot be broken. Peter said “the word of the Lord endures forever” (1 Pet. 1:23-25) and therefore its authority cannot be broken. When addressing a difficult passage, Jesus said, “the Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:34-35). In fact, He said, “one jot or one tittle will by no means pass away from the law till all is fulfilled” (Mat. 5:18). These speak to the Bible’s infallibility.
Inerrancy. The last “in,” inerrancy, simply means that the Bible is without error. It’s a belief in the “total truthfulness and reliability of God’s words” (Grudem, Systematic Theology, Inter-Varsity, 2004, 90). Jesus said, “Your word is truth” (John 17:17). This inerrancy isn’t just in passages that speak about salvation, but also applies to all historical and scientific statements as well. It is not only accurate in matters related to faith and practice, but it is accurate and without error regarding any statement, period (John 3:12).
My response: This article is a bit different, and I like the metaphor of inspiration, infallibility and inerrancy as the three legs of a stool, but of course I see these three properties of asserted biblical perfection without error as mostly accurate, not completely accurate.
BI: “
Yes, inerrancy is extremely important because: (1) it is attached to the character of God; (2) it is taught in the Scriptures; (3) it is the historic position of the Christian Church, and (4) it is foundational to other essential doctrines.
Inerrancy is based on the character of God who cannot lie (Heb. 6:18; Titus 1:2). God cannot lie intentionally because He is an absolute moral law-giver. He cannot err unintentionally because He is omniscient. And if the Bible is the written Word of God (and it is), then it is without error.
Inerrancy was taught by Christ and the apostles in the New Testament. This should be our primary basis for believing it. B.B. Warfield said,
“We believe this doctrine of the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures primarily because it is the doctrine which Christ and his apostles believed, and which they have taught us.” (Limited Inspiration, 1962 cited by Mohler, 42)
To quote Jesus himself, “the Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35) and “until heaven and earth pass away not an iota, not a dot, will pass away from the Law until all is accomplished” (Matt 5:18).
Inerrancy is the historic position of the Christian Church. ICBI produced a whole book demonstrating this point (see John Hannah, Inerrancy and the Church, Moody). As Al Mohler pointed out (Mohler, 48-49), even some errantists have agreed that inerrancy has been the standard view of the Christian Church down through the centuries. He cites the Hanson brothers, Anthony and Richard, Anglican scholars, who said,
“The Christian Fathers and the medieval tradition continued this belief [in inerrancy], and the Reformation did nothing to weaken it. On the contrary, since for many reformed theologians the authority of the Bible took the place which the Pope had held in the medieval scheme of things, the inerrancy of the Bible became more firmly maintained and explicitly defined among some reformed theologians than it had even been before.”
They added, “The beliefs here denied [viz., inerrancy] have been held by all Christians from the very beginning until about a hundred and fifty years ago.” (cited by Mohler, 41)
Inerrancy is foundational to all other essential Christian doctrines. It is granted that some other doctrines (like the atoning death and bodily resurrection of Christ) are more essential to salvation. However, all soteriological (salvation-related) doctrines derive their divine authority from the divinely authoritative Word of God. So, epistemologically (in a knowledge-related sense), the doctrine of the divine authority and inerrancy of Scripture is the fundamental of all the fundamentals. And if the fundamental of fundamentals is not fundamental, then what is fundamental? Fundamentally nothing! Thus, while one can be saved without believing in inerrancy, the doctrine of salvation has no divine authority apart from the infallibility and inerrancy of Scripture.
Inerrancy deserves high regard among evangelicals and has rightly earned the status of being essential (in an epistemological sense) to the Christian Faith. Thus, to reduce inerrancy to the level of non-essential or even “incidental’ to the Christian Faith, reveals ignorance of its theological and historical roots and is an offense to its “watershed” importance to a consistent and healthy Christianity. Inerrancy simply cannot be rejected without grave consequences, both to the individual and to the Church.
The International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI) was founded in 1977 specifically over concerns about the erosion of inerrancy. Christian leaders, theologians and pastors assembled together three times over the course of a decade to address the issue. At the first meeting, a doctrinal statement was jointly created titled “The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy” (see full text here). This document has been described as “a landmark church document” created
“by the then largest, broadest, group of evangelical protestant scholars that ever came together to create a common, theological document in the 20th century. It is probably the first systematically comprehensive, broadly based, scholarly, creed-like statement on the inspiration and authority of Scripture in the history of the church.” (Dallas Theological Seminary, “Records of the International Council On Biblical Inerrancy”)
Despite this modern safeguard, in 2010, Dr. Mike Licona, an evangelical professor, wrote a book titled The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach. In this book, he suggested that the account of the resurrected saints walking through the city might be “apocalyptic imagery” (Mat. 27:51-53). In other words, he suggested that the events did not actually happen, but that it was lore or legend. Subsequently, Licona resigned from his position with the Southern Baptists and at Southern Evangelical Seminary. What followed is rather alarming. Incredibly, some notable evangelical scholars began to express their support for Licona’s view, considering it consistent with a belief in inerrancy.
Of course, in order to defend Licona’s view they had to redefine inerrancy to include what were previously considered to be errors. Some did this by misinterpreting inerrancy as expressed by the ICBI framers.
Since 2011, more alarming statements from Licona have surfaced, including: (1) A denial of the historicity of the mob falling backward at Jesus’ claim “I am he” in John 18:4-6 (RJ, 306, note 114); (2) A denial of the historicity of the angels at the tomb recorded in all four Gospels (Mat. 28:2-7; Mark 16:5-7; Luke 24:4-7; John 20:11-14) (RJ, 185-186); (3) A denial of the accuracy of the Gospel of John by claiming it says Jesus was crucified on the wrong day (debate with Bart Ehrman at Southern Evangelical Seminary, Spring, 2009); (4) A claim that the Gospel genre is Greco-Roman biography which he says is a “flexible genre” in which “it is often difficult to determine where history ends and legend begins” (RJ, 34). Amazingly, these views continue to gain support among the evangelical community.
These are the professors of some of the finest evangelical schools in the nation, who are responsible for training the pastors of today and future generations, and they are saying that they are comfortable with these verses not being factual. This is an outright departure from the historic definition of inerrancy.”
My response: I would not like to see the Bible lose to skeptics and liberal interpreters of this sacred text, its status as mostly textually infallible and mostly textually infallible.
BI: “
This is why the Defending Inerrancy initiative was created. We’ve already lost a growing list of evangelical scholars over the issue of inerrancy. Now we are trying to reach the latest generation of Christian leaders before it is too late. Would you please consider signing our petition and taking a stand for biblical inerrancy.”
G
I found this article by Mike Leake on the Internet in Ocotober , 2025 and I copied it and pasted it below and I will refer to it as L for Leake and make comments: “
BibleStudy Tools
Borrowed Light
Updated January 10, 2023
“The Bible is filled with errors.”
Those who make such a claim will point to many places in Scripture. Some will cite historical errors, scientific errors, contradictions, and impossibilities as evidence that the Bible is filled with tons of errors.”
My response: The Bible may contain historical errors, scientific errors, contradiction or impossibilities, but, in the main, the principle if biblical inerrancy is its pattern and result.
L: “
But what does God’s Word claim for itself? Does it claim to be without error? Gregg Allison is likely correct when he says, “the church from the outset was united in its belief that the Word of God is true and contains no error.” But in the 1830’s a new word arose as an attempt to further define this doctrine. That term was “inerrancy.”
What does it mean when people claim that the Bible is inerrant? And is the Bible inerrant? Read on to find answers to this question.
Put simply, inerrant means to be “free from error.” But this is also a somewhat loaded theological term. In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, the doctrine of inerrancy was a hotbed of discussion, even going so far as to divide the Southern Baptist Convention. In the minds of many, to affirm “inerrancy” was to believe that the Bible is true. Others held that inerrancy was an unhelpful or unnecessary term.”
My response: No, the term inerrancy is not unhelpful or unnecessary for we need to openly debate this textual concept in order to learn approximately what is true and what is not, and how to interpret text carefully but openly, honestly.
L: “
In 1978 a group of conservatives published the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy. In the eyes of many, this has become the gold standard for whether or not one adheres to the doctrine of inerrancy. It’s a bit of a loaded question to ask whether or not one affirms inerrancy.
Do you mean, “do you affirm the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy” or do you believe that the Bible is “without error”? There are some who would heartily affirm that “the Word of God is true and contains no error” but would not sign the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy. So, it’s important from the outset to agree upon a meaning.
Wayne Grudem gives this as a definition:
“The inerrancy of Scripture means that the Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact.”
In his book, 40 Questions About Interpreting the Bible, Robert Plummer gives 8 qualifying statements to further help us understand what is meant by inerrancy:
1. Inerrancy applies only to the autographs.
2. Inerrancy respects the authorial intent of the passage and the literary conventions under which the author wrote.
3. Inerrancy allows for partial reporting, paraphrasing, and summarizing.
4. Inerrancy allows for phenomenological language.
5. Inerrancy allows the reporting of speech without the endorsement of the truthfulness of that speech.
6. Inerrancy does not mean that the Bible provides definitive or exhaustive information on every topic.
7. Inerrancy is not invalidated by colloquial or nonstandard grammar or spelling.
That helps to outline what is meant by inerrancy. Understanding these qualifications helps us to understand that many supposed contradictions and difficulties are not really against inerrancy.
Kevin Vanhoozer gives another good definition of inerrancy that might be helpful in moving the discussion forward. Vanhoozer defines inerrancy this way, “God’s authoritative Word is wholly true and trustworthy in everything it claims about what was, what is, and what will be.” This helps us to get at the crux of the issue. Is the Bible true? Is it authoritative? Is it trustworthy? That is what is at stake in this discussion.”
My response: These three questions about the Bible or any holy text, sacred or secular are vital to ask and seek to answer: Is it true? Is it trustworthy? Is it authoritaive?
L: “
You will not find the word inerrancy anywhere in Scripture. It is a relatively newer term. The first known use of the term, with the present meaning, is found in 1837. It’s not shocking, then, that this word does not appear in the Bible. But the concept of a true, trustworthy, and authoritative Bible certainly does appear in Scripture.
First, in 2 Timothy 3:16 we read that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.” That is making the claim that if something is Scripture then it is “God-breathed”. This means that it is inspired/written by God.
Secondly, Numbers 23:19 tells us that “God is not a man, that he should lie…” Many Scriptures testify that God does not lie and that He always tells the truth. Therefore, we can conclude, then, that if the Bible is written by God, then every jot and tittle that is written by God is true.
Lastly, Jesus himself said that “the Scripture cannot be broken” in John 10:35. He treated the Scripture as an authority. We see in the temptation in the wilderness how Scripture was used by the Lord. He considered it to be the bread on which He lived.
Therefore, we see that the Scriptures declare of themselves that they are true, trustworthy, and authoritative.
This is where our definition of inerrancy matters. Does affirming inerrancy mean that you have to affirm all of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy? Or does it mean that you simply affirm the Bible is authoritative, trustworthy, and true? This might seem like splitting hairs, but Michael Bird has shown the problem with what he calls the American inerrancy tradition (AIT).
“This is the problem with AIT and its advocates. They merge their interpretation with the text so that to disagree with their interpretation is to deny the inerrancy of the text. This alone is enough to turn many Christians off to the doctrine of inerrancy.” (Five Views, 69)
And yet Bird would not disagree with a definition similar to that of Vanhoozer’s on inerrancy. If you simply mean, “the Bible is without error” I believe that we must affirm that the original manuscripts were God-breathed, and as such everything which is contained therein is without error.
Of course, we no longer have the original manuscripts. So, in one sense we are arguing for a moot point. But just because we no longer have the original manuscripts does not mean that we have not accurately preserved the Word of God. Asking a few questions here can help us.
I use the English Standard Version of the Bible. Is that inerrant? No. Not technically. What if I switched to the King James Version of the Bible? Though, some might claim inerrancy for this particular translation, the position of inerrancy is that the original manuscripts are inerrant. No translation is without error.
That does not mean, however, that my ESV translation of the Bible is untrue, untrustworthy, or filled with errors. We can with much precision determine what was in the original manuscripts. Yes, there will be some meaning that is difficult to discern through translation. Yes, there might be a few places where we have textual variants that are difficult to make a definitive decision upon. But you can trust your Bible.
Yes, the original manuscripts are without error in that they proclaim everything in which the truth-telling God intended to proclaim. And yes, that which God spoke to the original authors has been preserved for us through many generations and across languages. You can trust the Bible you are reading.
I like to think about doctrine and orthodoxy like standing on an elevated mesa. There is much room on this mesa. But there are also steep drops if you go outside the parameters. Doctrine is the same way. There are some things which one cannot affirm and be considered a Christian in any meaningful sense.
As an example, you cannot deny the truthfulness of the resurrection and still be considered orthodox. Likewise, a denial of the humanity of the deity of Christ puts one off the cliff of orthodoxy. You’re no longer on the mesa if you are making such claims.
But consider something like the second coming of Christ. If you outright deny that Christ is living and that He will one day return, then you cannot rightly be said to believe in Christian doctrine. You are outside the bounds of the mesa. But on that mesa, there will be many different opinions about the specifics of the return of Christ. So long as you believe in the return of Christ, you’re on the mesa — and there is room for disagreement there.
I would use a similar illustration in discussing inerrancy. It is important that we affirm that the Bible is “God’s authoritative Word.” It’s also important that we affirm that it is “true and trustworthy in what it claims.” This, I would argue, is what it means to be on the mesa of historic and faithful belief on the nature of the Bible.
The same is true when we talk about inerrancy. These beliefs about the nature of the Bible are important to maintain for a few reasons. It’s important first and foremost because that is the claim that the Bible makes for itself. Secondly, it is important that we consider the Scriptures to be authoritative, true, and trustworthy, because this is what Jesus believed about the “unbroken Scripture” (see John 10).
It is also important because a belief in the truthfulness and trustworthiness of the Bible is essential for other Christian doctrines. If we deny that God’s Word is our authority, and that it tells the truth, then we could make Scripture as a wax nose. We could bend it to our individual whims. It’s also important because the church has historically believed this about the Scriptures. We ought to be connected with what the church everywhere and for all of history has affirmed.
Again, there might be some divergence in what we mean by some of these things upon that mesa. We might not even prefer a term like inerrancy. But at the end of the day, it is important for us to affirm the nature of God’s Word as authoritative, trustworthy, and true.
Sources
Allison, Gregg R., and Wayne A. Grudem. Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine : a Companion to Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology. (Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan, 201), 99
Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 90
Robert Plummer, 40 Questions About Interpreting the Bible, 41-44
Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy, 203
Photo credit: Unsplash
Mike Leake is husband to Nikki and father to Isaiah and Hannah. He is also the lead pastor at Calvary of Neosho, MO. Mike is the author of Torn to Heal and Jesus Is All You Need. His writing home is http://mikeleake.net and you can connect with him on Twitter @mikeleake. Mike has a new writing project at Proverbs4Today.
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G
Here is an internet article from 0/14/25 from Awk Pastor John: I pasted the article below and will comment on it. Here it is (J is for John): “
Ask
Pastor John: 10/14/25:
Interview with
John Piper
Founder & Teacher, Desiring God
Pastor John, in its most basic form, how do you define biblical inerrancy?
Before I go to the definition of inerrancy, let me give you the soil or the roots of why you would even ask that question. The 66 books of the Christian canon are what I am talking about when I say “Scripture” or “Bible.” They are, we believe, inspired by God (see 2 Timothy 3:16). Or, to say it another way, “No prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21).
So, the reason inerrancy arises is because we claim this book is the very word of God. The center of God’s revelation is Jesus. And he is called the Word of God incarnate. And he said Scripture cannot be broken. He said, “Until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot” — not the littlest of dots in an iota — “will pass away from the Law until all is accomplished” (Matthew 5:18). So the Word of God validates the word of God written. The Word of God incarnate validated the word of God written in the Old Testament and then he commissioned apostles to speak his word as the foundation of the church. And he promised, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). So Jesus stands at the center as the Word of God incarnate, and looking back, he validates the word of God written, and looking forward, he validates the word of God written. And the apostles took it that way because they said amazing things about their authority.
Paul said, for example, in 1 Corinthians 14:37–38, “If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized.” That is incredible. And the only reason he has the right to say that is because he said, “We are teaching in words, spoken not from men, but from the Holy Spirit, because Jesus promised I am going to guide my apostles into all truth.”
So there is the reason why the whole issue of inerrancy even arises. We have a book in front of us that claims to be the inspired word of God. And since God doesn’t lie and doesn’t make mistakes, we say the Bible doesn’t lie, doesn’t make mistakes.
So what does error mean here if we are going to say “inerrant”? By the way, I am not one who gets bent out of shape about using the word “inerrancy” as over “infallibility” or “truthfulness.” If you say the Bible is completely and totally true, and the Bible is completely and totally infallible, and the Bible is completely and totally inerrant, the average person is not hearing any distinctions. And I am not either. I don’t like it when people quibble about these words. I think it is good to use them all.”
My response: Pastor John, though not 100% that inerrancy, infallibility and truthfulness are perfectly synonymous, but they are semantically close enough in meaning, that the doctrine of plenary biblical inerrancy could also be labeled plenary biblical truthfulness or plenary biblical infallibility.
J: “
To make sense out of the word “inerrant” — no error — we have to define “error.” What is it that isn’t in this book? What is its error? And we have to define “error” in terms of the author’s intention. And in the Bible, since we have got God inspiring this book, we’ve got God’s intention mediated through the intention of human authors and going beyond them — I would say always going beyond them — because he sees all the innumerable, necessary implications of what they can’t see. I include in meaning or intention the necessary implications of what an author says, some of which he can see, and some of which he can’t. And God can see them all. And, therefore, when I think of the intention of the author, I am thinking of all that the human author intended to teach and all that God intended to teach, which is always bigger than what humans can see in their implications of what God inspired them to write.”
My response: I agree God utilizes human authors to write out the inspired communication which God breathes into the human author, but that also the author may be communicating more than he intends or realizes that he is communicating.
J: “
Now, the reason intention is crucial is because there are all kinds of ways that we say things that could be taken as error which aren’t error if people didn’t pay attention to our intention. I might say, “Tony, you scared me to death walking in here like that.” You would not respond to me, “You are a liar. You are a liar, or you are a fool because you are still breathing.” You wouldn’t, because you would know this is an idiom for, “You really scared me.” You wouldn’t quibble over the fact that I am not dead. You wouldn’t say, “Error, error.” And so, we have to be alert to those kinds of things in the Bible. What did the author mean or what did he intend?
“The biblical authors with God as their guide do not teach anything false or command as God’s will anything displeasing to God.”
Another example would be the book of Job. You’ve got 29 chapters of erroneous theology. Job is putting sentences in his inerrant book that are full of errors. The counsel of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar is bad counsel. And Job is telling the story and including the bad counsel. So what you have to do is ask, “Now how is the book of Job inerrant?” The book of Job is inerrant, not because it doesn’t include stupid sentences from Eliphaz, but because Job is written in such a way that we know the sentences are stupid, and we know they are erroneous and, thus, he makes a true point by pointing out the falsehood of the bad theology in his book. That is the way literature works. That is the way we talk. We are inerrant when the thing we are teaching is true and not false.
So what I mean by the Bible being inerrant is that the biblical authors, with God as their guide, do not teach anything false or command as God’s will anything displeasing to God. Or to say it another way, What the authors intend for us to understand or obey, properly understood in its nearer and wider context, is true. It is not misleading. It is not errant. It is not false. It corresponds to the way things really are. It commends behaviors and attitudes that God really wills. And it raises many questions.
I would refer people to The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (CSBI) because that document is sometimes treated superficially as being naïve. It is not naïve. If you read carefully the distinctions that are made in that document, it is a good guide for us, I think.
Let me just close this by saying, I love this truth, because I love the Bible, because I love God. God, Word, inerrant to me are continuous. I can’t break off anywhere in there and feel like I have treated God or his word or the truth honorably. From history and from my own experience, it is almost impossible to exaggerate the importance of the truth of the Bible. We humans are incapable of finding out what we absolutely have to know. We can’t overcome sin. We can’t escape the wrath of God. We can’t become new creatures. We can’t walk pleasing to the Lord. God must reveal these things to us, or we perish. And this he has done and continues to do by means of written word — the Bible. And when a person has understood what the Bible teaches, he has understood the revelation of God infallibly, inerrantly, verbally.
John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of Desiring God and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Foundations for Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy. Read more about John.
My response: it is written that to be defining inerrancy is to say that is to be free of error.
H
I have not been demure in asserting in this lengthy blog entry that textual inerrancy is very similar to the concept of biblical inerrancy. Below I will entertain commentary on the famous sectarian split between Leonard Peikoff/ARI Randians versus David Kelley/Atlas Society Randians. It is my thesis that the works of Ayn Rand orthodox traditionalists (ARI) are fervent believers in perfect or total secular textual inerrancy, and that they are fanatical in this regard. Secular conservative humanism is their religion, and Ayn Rand is their prophet, and her literary and philosophical works are their holy, inerrant texts.
The David Kelley Randians, I suggest, are the moderates in this sectarian dispute, that textual near inerrancy is as far as they would go in declaring Ayn Rand’s text and theories to be perfectly right and necessarily without error.
I recommend to the reader that the ARI adherents of Randianism are true believers, and that followers of Atlas Society are more moderate, more virtuous, or sensible and correct.
The backing of total textual inerrancy is not a policy from God, neither among followers of the Bible, nor among Randians, reading Ayn Rand’s secular text, but instead fanatics of all stripes are working for the Devil. Their militant, intolerant pronouncements of total holy text inerrancy are applied by them to their ism and its sacred texts. These dogmatists categorically so presuming and proclaiming are true-believing secular atheists, radical Christians, nationalists, racists of various stripes, religionists of various stripes, political ideologues, and zealous Jews; quite identical are they too each other in their absolutist claims of possessing infallible dogma. These ultraists, all alike in that all are fundamentalists or people of low self-esteem lack the confidence to allow for doubt, contradiction and complexity in the world, so they resort to totalist assertion of utter inerrancy to be found when one reads their sacred texts; Their resulting doctrinal conclusions true are beyong inspect, contradicting or denying without exception.
I
Here was where David Kelley’s famous open article, A Question of Sanction was found by me—in the blog site of an Objectivist influencer from about 20 years ago, Michaael Stuart Kelly, so I will label this section Kelly or K below and then comment on it: “
Posted August 10, 2006
(The following is David Kelley's famous essay roughly as it appears in The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand. - Michael)
A Question of Sanction
An Open Letter, March, 1989
[This open letter was written in response to an article Peter Schwartz published in
The Intellectual Activist
in early 1989. I sent copies to about 30 people, including Schwartz himself and Leonard Peikoff, and authorized anyone to copy and distribute it further. Within a few weeks it had circulated widely in the Objectivist movement. Peikoff’s “Fact and Value” was written in response to it.]
A number of people have asked me about “On Sanctioning the Sanctioners” (The Intellectual Activist 2/27/89), which was in part an attack on me for speaking to libertarian groups. In response, I want to set the record straight regarding my own actions, and to identify certain attitudes in the article that I think are incompatible with a philosophy of reason. “
My response: David is denouncing certain fanatical attitudes of the orthodox Randians as unreasonable, cruel, or passionate, not sensible, prudent, temperate and reasonabole.
K: “
* * *
In addition to my philosophical work over the last fifteen years, I have been a polemicist for freedom. In scores of articles and speeches, my goal has been to defend individual rights on an Objectivist foundation—as clearly and forcefully as I can, to as wide an audience as possible. As a polemicist, my efforts are naturally directed at people who are not already Objectivists. To reach that audience I must speak to groups and write for publications that do not share my ideas. In using these channels of communication, I try to make sure that my association with them does not put me in the position of endorsing ideas I reject. That would defeat my purpose. But I cannot engage my opponents without conferring some benefit on them, in some indirect and attenuated fashion—buying their books, helping them retain their audience, or the like. If every such benefit is to be condemned as aiding the enemy, then one cannot participate in the marketplace of ideas. One can only preach to the converted—a sorry sort of ingrown activism.”
My response: David is correct here, that we need to engage our enemies in an open, courteous, frank exchanges of opinions in the marketplace of ideas. Recently assassinated Charlie Kirk operated upon the same principle, that we must continue to dialogue with our intellectual enemies, neither intellectually ghettoizing them or ourselves.
In the long run the truth will come out, and that is how we peacefully, civilly, voluntarily change and win over hearts and minds, by sharing good ideas with enemies and opponents, and learning from them in exchange for no one has all the answers.
ARI loyalist but hated ARI outsider Craig Biddle is loathed and deplatformed by the jealous ARI insiders: he agrees with ARU purists on most everything Randian, but this unpopular but sterling, independent voice, who lacks a doctorate in philosophy like some of the leading voices at ARI, and operator amongst the proponents of ARI orthodox Randianism rightly demands that ARI reach out to enemies and intellectual competitors to reach and win over a larger audience.
Biddle is completely anti-David Kelley, Stephen Hicks and the Atlas Society, but he was willing to debate impressive Atlas Society Star, Stephen R Hicks in 2023 because Biddle like David Kelley knows we need to reach out to our enemies and discuss unpleasant differences of opinion in a civilized manner, talking with them so that knowledge can grow and the public can learn from different perspectives shared.
The ARI zealots say do not even talk to enemies and opponents lest they too be guilty of sanctioning false and evil thinking, rewarding enemies for their evil thoughts.
Craig Biddle, I assume by extension, implicitly disagrees both with Leonard Peikoff and Ayn Rand herself on the need to debate opponents, letting them have their say, if only on the need to reach out to intellectual opponents, not as a submissive sanctioning of their “heresy” but as a realistic understanding that to grow the cause, exponents need to be out there advertising, proselytizing and debating competitors in order to reach and hopefully win over the public and grow their audience. I suspect that Peikoff and Rand would be very much in the ARI camp. Biddle agrees with ARI Randians, as far as I know, on the bulk of Ayn Rand’s philosophy, but he has shown a willingness, like Kelley to talk to opponents, like Dennis Prager. Biddle is a hardcore ARI Randian on substance but he disagree with ARI insularism from contact with others, as he genially reaches out to the public and other secular sects of Objectivism, such as followers of David Kelley.
Kelley is elderly now in 2025, and I watched an old interview with him being asked to explain the differences between objectivism, subjectivism and intrinsic ism. He comes across as a nice man, an introvert, and a gentleman. He is not nearly as articulate as Craig Biddle or Jordan Peterson, nor nearly as rhetorically militant as Ayn Rand herself and Leonard Peikoff, but, as far as I can tell, his verbal inarticulateness is no reflection on his brilliance of thought, his strong will (No one tells him what to do or how to think or speak.) and his written performances, articulate, forceful and well reasoned.
I believe him entirely above when he declares he is a polemicist for freedom, that every individual has a natural right (He would not approve of my intrinsicist claim that human enjoy natural rights, be they grounded in natural reality or supernatural reality, which Randian monist, whether of the ARI or Atlas Society sects, denies the existence of.
Nonetheless, Kelley is a staunch, proud individualist who would not let Pope Peikoff bully him into submission, and the Pope banished him from the ARI kingdom for his defiance and effrontery. Neither has bud for the past 36 years, so give them kudos for consistency and strong willedness.
Kelley promotes and lives the moral requirement that each human being, as a rational egoist and rugged individualist, must be free to think what she will and do as she conceives—within reasonable moral and legal limits. She must be allowed to be free to think as she will, speak as she will, to do her own thing, and run her life without moral, social or legal interference and attempts to dominate her by fanatics and collectivists of any stripe. These intolerant tribalists enforcing the silencing of competing opinions, and demanding intellectual conformity to the party line, are not individualist buts are collectivist, false-thinking, intolerant, and evil insofar as they seek to break dissidents and shut down rival groups. ARI appears close to such a mistaken plan of mistreatment of dissidents, and this renders their love of rationality and individualism to be distorted and corrupted.
K: “
In any given case, therefore, I weigh the costs of association against the possible gains. Before I accept a writing or speaking engagement, I consider whether my sponsors are offering me access to an audience I could not otherwise have reached; or whether I would be helping them attract an audience they could not otherwise have earned. I consider whether my sponsors have a definite editorial policy or ideological commitment opposed to Objectivism, and, if so, whether they are willing to have me state my disagreement explicitly. I consider whether the format of my appearance would suggest that I endorse other speakers and their views. And I consider what I know of their moral and intellectual character. In weighing these and other matters, I am always looking for long-range strategic gain at minimal cost. That's how you fight a war of ideas.
In the case of libertarians, I have turned down many invitations because I felt the costs outweighed any likely gain. But the balance sometimes tips the other way. I recently spoke at the Laissez-Faire Supper Club on the role of Objectivism in defending freedom—the incident to which Peter Schwartz refers in his articles. I have also accepted an invitation to speak on the ethical foundations of rights at the Cato Institute's Summer Seminar in July. Of the factors that affected these decisions, the following are the most important:
Libertarianism is a broadly defined movement. The subjectivists represent one definite wing of the movement, and we cannot make common cause with them. But they are not the only or even the predominant wing. Many who describe themselves as libertarians recognize that rights must be grounded in a rational, secular, and individualist moral philosophy. I know and have worked with many such people, and I regard them as potential allies in the cause of liberty. I have generally found them open to Objectivist ideas, so long as one doesn't harangue them in a spirit of sectarian hostility. When I was invited to speak at the Cato seminar, for example, the organizers were enthusiastic about my proposal to explain why Ayn Rand's ethics is a better foundation for rights than any alternative.”
My response: David is explaining that if subjectivist Libertarians, the minority of Libertarians, are in his audience, he will not speak to them, but the Objectivist leaning wing of the Libertarian group—the majority of Libertarians--are generally sympathetic to Objectivism, so he felt justified in connecting with them, and he has a point for they might well see the world as members of Atlas Society do, if they would reach out to by him, and that was what he was doing, but the ARI crowd accused him of consorting with the enemy, of sanctioning and growing false, stupid ideas, and evil, in the world, thereby betraying Randians and tainting himself in the process.
K: “
Laissez Faire Books is not a magazine with an editorial policy, or a party with a platform. It is a book service, selling works that take many different positions on philosophical issues. Unlike a general-purpose book store, it deals primarily with works that are relevant to a free market, but within that range the owners select books primarily on the basis of what will interest their customers. This includes virtually anything on Objectivism, pro or con. One can certainly quarrel with some of their selections, but one cannot accuse them of loading the dice against us. They are eager to sell Ayn Rand's own works, as well as the contributions her followers have made to the literature. I am delighted that they have brought our work to the attention of their customers, some of whom were not previously familiar with Objectivism, and I have autographed copies of The Evidence of the Senses as a way to help sales. In doing so, I was not endorsing or supporting any work but my own. Nor do I “promote” the bookstore, as Schwartz claims, except in the sense of regarding it as a legitimate commercial enterprise.”
My response: Peter Schwartz accused David of promoting a Libertarian bookstore, a sinful act of sanctioning those with bad or evil ideas, thus accusing David of growing evil in the world, which is a picky, nonnsensical conclusion to reach.
In fairness to Schwartz, whom I have not read, it is my take that Leonard Peikoff, and Ayn Rand herself would agree wholeheartedly agree with Schwartz in attacking and attempting to toss David out of the orthodox Randian fold.
K: “
The same principle applies to the Supper Club they sponsor. In appearing there, I was not, as Schwartz says, an after-dinner speaker at a libertarian function. I was the function. The sole purpose of the occasion was to hear my explanation of why individual rights and capitalism cannot be established without reference to certain key principles of Objectivism: the absolutism of reason, the rejection of altruism, and the commitment to life in this world as a primary value. Since I explicitly criticized libertarian ideas that are incompatible with those principles, I was obviously not endorsing them.
* * *
Such, in brief, is the reasoning that has governed my conduct as a public advocate of Objectivism. Peter Schwartz regards it as transparently wrong, beyond any possibility of honest disagreement. He asserts that libertarians are the moral “equivalent” of the Soviet regime, and I the equivalent of Armand Hammer. These are wild accusations, preposterous on their face. But they exhibit a kind of zealotry that has a wider significance than the fact that Second Renaissance doesn't carry my works. I want to comment on three specific issues.”
My response: Schwartz is wildly accusative, but he is a purist, disallowing any, even the most minor deviance, from Randian canon, let alone Kelley’s “scandalous” associating with heretics. David’s deviancy makes David a heretic to be banned too, wow? It occurs to me that ideologues are groupists and groupists are fanatical in that all must conform utterly in thought, word and deed, no deviance is allowed, no separation in thinking or willing. Epistemological radicalism, and utter groupthink are reinforced where enforced conformity to defined group identity among the orthodox insiders, is the practice of the members of a cult. Cultists will tolerate no disagreement with the doctrine of biblical or holy text inerrancy, accompanied by the requirement that all accept and enforce this doctrine upon all insiders and all outsiders. These true believers uphold group power at all costs, and in solidarity these fanatics, should the need arise, exhibit an utter readiness to self-sacrifice and eve die for the holy cause. The ARI Randians suffer from a dose of this extremism as do fundamentalist religionists of all kinds throughout human history. ARI orthodoxs have much in common with adherents of religious and political cults which sprang up over the centurie.
K: “
1) A sense of proportion. Even if we accepted the premise that libertarianism as such is a vice, there would be a vast difference of degree between libertarians and a regime that has the blood of millions on its hands. When we formulate moral principles, we may abstract from such differences of degree; we omit measurements, as Ayn Rand explained. But when we apply the principles in forming moral judgments about particulars, we must reintroduce the relevant measurements. Just as one diminishes the good by praising mediocrity, one trivializes evil by damning the venial.”
My response: Kelley the sensible, ethical moderate warns that without a sense of proportion, one’s reaction will be unethical. It will not do to push the false equivalency that the venial sins of the backers of false and evil ideas—someone who does not practice them—is as bad and to be crushed as are the mortal sins of Stalinist killers. It is ethical to denounce the nonviolent Marxists and Leftists, but it is never acceptable to violently suppress them, but it is one’s duty to take up arms against violent, totalitarian Communists. The ARI Randians have no sense of proportion, which is moderation in judgment and action.
K: “
If libertarians are no better than Soviet dictators, then Soviet dictators are no worse than libertarians. Those who indulge in moral hysteria—condemning all moral error with the same fury, without regard to differences of degree—destroy their own credibility when it comes to the depths of evil: the Stalins, the Hitlers, the Ayatollah.”
My response: David is moderate here for just because someone has bad, even evil ideas, the holder of the bad idea is not the moral equivalent to a murderous Communist or Nazi. No sense of proportion is held by the Ari thinkers, and that is a disproportionate evil reaction, which they claim wrong is a virtue. Kelley is right that thinkers of bad thought are not as evil as those that do those bad thoughts with violence and murder. Oppose the nonviolent thinkers of violent and evil ideas, but do not imprison or kill them.
K: “
2) Evil vs. error. A cardinal principle of Objectivist ethics is that one should not give evil the moral sanction it needs to justify itself and disarm its victims. And a principle of responsible advocacy is that one should not endorse false ideas. These principles are related but they are not the same, because evil and error are not the same. “
My response: Kelley is wrong here more than not: evil and error are mostly the same, but the mistaken evil thinker is not to be physically attacked, while taking up arms against the evil thinker who is practicing his evil and false ideas in the world, is unavoidable, Peikoff is right here more than Kelley.
K: “
The concept of evil applies primarily to actions, and to the people who perform them. Schwartz asserts that we should not sanction the Soviets because they are “philosophical enemies.” This is a bizarre interpretation of their sins. Soviet tyrants are not evil because they believe in Marxian collectivism.”
My response: Kelley is flat wrong here. Schwartz is correct in condemning Soviet tyrants are initially and venially evil because they believe in and practice Marxist, totalitarian collectivism, and they are far more guilty of mortally sinning as they inflict their murderous ideology upon suffering humanity.
They are evil because they have murdered millions of people and enslaved hundreds of millions more. An academic Marxist who subscribes to the same ideas as Lenin or Stalin does not have the same moral status. He is guilty of the same intellectual error, but not of their crimes (unless and to the extent that he actively supported them, as many did in the 1930s, although even here we must recognize a difference in degree of culpability).”
David agrees that Objectivists should not give sanction to evildoers acting upon their false or bad ideas, but that is different from reacting by ostracizing those promoting false ideas, but whose personal moral character is average or even impeccable.
Kelley disagrees with Schwartz that intellectual errors are evil and as evil as the Stalinist acting viciously in honor of his erroneous ideas. I do agree with Schwartz that bad ideas, erroneous idea, false values can lead to evil down the road if the masses come to believe in them and implement them, but there are different levels of culpability for those thinking evil and bad thoughts and those that implement them.
K: “
Truth and falsity, not good or evil, are the primary evaluative concepts that apply to ideas as such. It is true that the horrors of this century were made possible by irrationalist and collectivist ideas. Bad ideas can be dangerous; that's one reason we shouldn't endorse them. But they are dangerous because people use them to perpetrate evil. We are not Hegelians: ideas per se are not agents in the world.”
My response: I think this is a critical mistake which Kelley has made: Though the Randian orthodoxs would deny that they are Hegelians, that ideas per se are not agents in the world, in effect, these Randian orthodoxs—including Rand herself—contradict themselves as they are asserting that ideas can be agents in the world—a point which I accept as a mostly objectivist thinker, with some intrinsicist and subjectivist components in my epistemology.
I know not the exact connection between spiritual energies or entities/forces/fields/consciousnesses as ontological, real entities in the world, and the ideas or messages which they convey and project, but somehow each spiritual consciousness or supernatural being, as part of its trans-physical properties, displays, reveals or communicates to the world the inner rationale, the essence of its being expressed in language as an idea, but the thought preceded the stated proposition, the idea. Where the idea which is the essential nature or current status of the spiritual entity is false or evil, then the soul pushing bad ideas is to be opposed and condemned—with the firm caveat where Kelley is correct, that thinking bad and false thoughts should be criticized but the thinkers not imprisoned, whereas Stalinist killers inflicting their bad and evil ideas upon the world, are to be physically and violently halted to save the world.
K: “Truth or falsity is the essential property of an idea; the good or ill it produces is derivative. It is also true that a given person may adopt false ideas through evasion, which is morally wrong. But another person might adopt the same idea through honest error. The assumption that libertarians as such are immoral is therefore an egregious insult. Some are honest and rational, some are not. The same is true for any other ideological group, including Objectivists. It is a gross non-sequitur to infer that because an idea is false, its adherents are evil for holding it.”
My response: Orthodox Randians, though thoroughly and officially non-Hegelian, are unaware that they like all fantics are actual Hegelians like all secular and religious ideologues, who do evil by promoting the violent attacking—should they promote it and do it—all dissidents who do or seem to proclaim false and evil ideas, whether they just talk about doing it or actually carry out their plan.
I, like the fanatical ideologues, sacred or secular, who are Hegelians insisting that ideas are agents in the world, but I am moderate in allowing the attacking and suppressing of thinkers of false and evil thoughts only if they are criminal and violent in the world. If they only talk such nonsense, but do not act upon it, then moderates like Kelley and myself will disallow that the peaceful and behaving bad and false thinkers not be given sanction (sanction to think as they do as long as they do not act upon them.
Fanatics of all stripes will demand that no sanction be given those who think bad and false ideas or even if these disagreers think good and true ideas which conflict with the ideas promoted by any specific holy cause to which the fanatic belongs and holds dear, so dissidents will be attacked and suppressed legally and violently not only for what they think but whether or not they act upon such held and cherished ideas, and that is immoderate, evil and needs to stop—this is what Kelley and I are concluding.
Kelley would not agree with me that I am in league with the conclusion held by all fanatics—be they supernaturalists or naturalists, realists or antirealists, monists or dualists, immaterialists or materialist – that ideas are agents in the word, that the true idea is a good and moral idea, and that a false idea is a bad and immoral idea.
Unlike them, I would if necessary use force to stop the criminal activities of the evil dissidents only if they acted violently, grounded inn their bad and false idea, not if they just thought them
I would remind the reader, that Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff and the ARI orthodox thinkers likely would be lockstep in agreement, roundly condemning the thinkers and proponents of bad ideas as being wicked people, provided no tolerance, no benevolence, sanction, that they are to be denounced and vigorously opposed for what they think, write, and say, not for just what they do. From their point of view, David Kelley consorting with detested Libertarians makes him as treacherous and evil, like they are, not to be countenanced, tolerated or shown quarter at all.
I would regard these Orthodox Randians as evil because they are fanatical and are ideologues about the total textual inerrancy of Randian texts and literature, and about the tenets and doctrines of Objectivism, which she propounded.
I do not much mind if orthodox Randians or religious believers who are sectarian fundamentalists, are the rigid, black-and-white thinking, purist, dogmatic, uncompromising, intolerant enemies of any dissenters from their views, but moderation is also or mostly about toleration as moral action, that to suppress dissent and use the sword and social pressure to crush all dissent and independent thinking, even if the dissidents competing doctrines are false and lead to actual evil unfolding in the world, these sinners and false reasoners, must be persuaded, never coerced, for violent force to convert an unwilling opponent is the pure evil of fanaticism that is demonic and undercuts and corrupts even the most noble intentions and most lovely idealistic plans, views and noble motives.
So I say to orthodox Randians, religious zealots, nationalist movements or ethnic movements, once they become mass movements, then they use tyranny and violence to force others to convert those resistant to and unwilling to join, of their own free will, their holy cause: I say to them go ahead and believe fanatically in your cause, but we in the civil society of anarchist individuating supercitizens in our laissez faire constitutional republic of limited government size will allow you your militancy unless you riot, for mobs, or literally seek to overthrow the government, then we will see authorities arrest you, prosecute and jail you. If you seek to take up arms to convert us violence, we, armed to the teeth will take up arms to stop you.
K: “
The failure to draw these distinctions has a pernicious effect. If we approach ideas with the question: true or false?, we stand ready to combat bad ideas by the only means appropriate to intellectual issues: open, rational discussion and debate. But if we approach ideas with the question: good or evil?, we will avoid debate for fear of sanctioning evil-doers. We will substitute condemnation for argument, and adopt a non-intellectual, intolerant attitude toward any disagreement with our views.”
My response: I agree with the orthodox Randians that bad ideas are false and evil, and that good ideas are true and good, but this being the case does not allow the orthodox to put thinkers of bad thoughts in the same degree of moral corruption as implementers of bad thoughts, thereby all should be put to the sword. That is substituting condemnation for argument, there by adopting a non-intellectual, intolerant attitude and hostile reaction that those disagreeing with our views, for these approaches of those preaching doctrinal or textual total inerrancy.
K: “
3) Tolerance. Tolerance is not a virtue where evil is concerned; evil flourishes by the tolerance of good people. But it is a virtue in the cognitive realm. It is appropriate not only among people who disagree about the application of principles they share, but also among people who disagree on the principles themselves. Tolerance is not a weak-kneed confession of uncertainty. It is a recognition that certainty is contextual. It is a recognition of the fact that knowledge is neither revealed nor invented, but acquired by an active process of integration; that any conclusion we reach is tied to reality by a long chain of reasoning, and presupposes an enormous context; and that open discussion and debate are the proper means of intellectual exchange. “
My response: Tolerance is not a virtue in tolerating evil and false ideas if that means anything goes, that we have no values and stand for nothing. But opposing nonviolent backers of evil and false ideas is morally limited to arguing against them in the marketplace of ideas, in opposing their spread and increased popularity socially, and opposing vigorously legislating bad ideas when fanatics propose converting bad ideas into established public policy and law. But to censor, deny rights or to take up arms against dissident thinkers by conducting a civil war/holy war against them for disagreeing one one, or even going to far as to kill dissidents with false or bad ideas is not moral or justified. Such immoderate overreaction are the epitome of evil action on earth. God disapproves and will punish the perpetrators in this world and the next.
If these people with false and evil ideas take action immorally and illegally we have a right to prosecute them and defend ourselves against their violent assaults and effort to use force and coercion to intolerantly force general complains with their evil ideas and doctrines.
Tolerance is a civilized, peaceful willingness and commitment to not use coercion, government fiat or intimidation to force others to accept our view or to silence dissenters. We agree to disagree peacefully and coexist nonviolent in civil society while debating these peddlers of erroneous ideas To change someone with erroneous and bad ideas thinking, we must respect their individuality that they are free to choose to work with us or not or reject our good and true ideas or not for only reform possible is through individual choice.
David is right that tolerance is a virtue more in the cognitive realm than in the action realm.
K: “
To have any hope of persuading others, we must take the trouble to understand their context; we must approach them on an equal footing, a mutual willingness to be persuaded by the facts; and we must grant them time to sort through the issues and make sure that any new conclusion is rooted in their own grasp of reality. If we find that the other person is not open to reason, we should abandon the effort. Tolerance does not require that we beat our heads against the wall, or put up with willful irrationality. But we should assume that people are rational until we have evidence to the contrary. In this respect, tolerance is the intellectual expression of benevolence.”
My response: I like and accept David’s description of tolerance as the intellectual expression of benevolence, but in all honesty this is his view, not Ayn Rand’s view at all. I do not like calling her a true believer in her own ideology thereby revealed as a fanatic and ideologue not willing to compromise, but her treatment of dissidents in her life time show that she flirted with being an authoritarian fanatic and ideologue—when she played the guru to her horde of adoring, pliable, young disciples. She has been gone for 43 years, and still, at ARI there seems to be a persistent interest in electing or anointing a guru or Pope to enforce standards of universal obedience and universal acceptance among Randians to ARI doctrinal orthodoxy.
But it is clear that Kelley veered far enough away from Randian orthodoxy that the purists and proponents of closed Randianism may be right that he is not an Objectivist at all and has no right to call himself an Objectivist, though he approves much of what Rand preached, and disagrees with some of which she pushed. They are not without cause when they accuse Kelley and his followers of being hybrid-Randians as the Atlas Society Randians espouse open-Randianism. They probably should not refer to themselves as Objectivists, but proudly proclaim their hybrid status which where I am at personally. I differ too much from Rand to self-refer as an Objectivist, though I admire many of her brilliant theses.
I side with Kelley more than the orthodox Randi ans but they are more faithful to her philosophy than he is, and it is worth studying them to receive an understanding of those who read her as she needed to be read, for Kelley hybridizes her philosophy with non-Objectivist elements like tolerance and benevolence, both of low significance and value for Ayn Rand, BUT these salient, critical virtues are intellectual and moral traits of enormous value and significance for moderates like Kelley, me and the good deities.
Some have complained that the open Canadianism of the Atlas Society is now so watered down and multicultural and pluralistic, that it has no standards and rigor, and that complaint is not completely accurate, but it is easy to decline into an easy acceptance of any point of view, so tolerant that one ends up believing nothing and standing for nothing—this is a collapse of standards which The Atlas Society types need to be fearful of degenerating into. To their credit, the ARI orthodox make a might, consistent attempt to maintain intellectual and moral rigor in the Randian community.
ARI orthodox Randi ans seem to me to have declined into being a ultraist ideology, verging on being a cult so their radicalism and fanaticism makes them turn towards evil intolerance of and suppression of dissidents, free thinkers and free speakers, and that harsh reaction against disagreers is immoral, irrational and self-defeating for all and for human advancement in the end, but the orthodox Randi ans are likely what Rand herself would be if she was alive today.
K: “
Benevolence has another and to my mind more important benefit; the growth of our own knowledge. There is much we can learn from others if we are willing to listen. And even where they are wrong, we strengthen the foundations of our own beliefs—the accuracy and range of our observations, the validity of our concepts, the rigor of our arguments—by the effort to prove why they are wrong.”
My response: David the wise moderate hits it out of the park with this paragraph, highlighting that an important if indirect benefit of benevolence towards others is that it allows our knowledge to grow, because we are inviting access to competing points of view.
Again, benevolence is his idea, not Ayn Rand’s at all. David calls himself an Objectivist, but he and his followers have strayed far from the path. At best, he is a hybrid Randian, not an orthodox ARI purist similar if not identical to what Ayn Rand spoke and wrote.
K: “
That's why every age of reason has welcomed diversity and debate. The great minds of the Enlightenment declared war on the entire apparatus of intolerance: the obsession with official or authorized doctrine, the concepts of heresy and blasphemy, the party lines and intellectual xenophobia, the militant hostility among rival sects, the constant schisms and breaks, the character assassination of those who fall from grace. These are the techniques of irrational philosophies, such as Christianity or Marxism, and may well have been vital to their success. But they have no place in a philosophy of reason.”
My response: Here Kelley the soft-spoken, introverted, brilliant intellectual, moderate and moral giant is at his finest. This whole paragraph defines what the moderate stance against the fanatical assertions by ideologues looks like and how one should practice moderation in the world.
I envision a future of upper middle-class anarchist individuator super citizens with almost no fear of tolerating even the most vicious, false, spiteful, evil, dangerous, pornographic and revolutionary from being expressed and tossed into the marketplace of ideas in America for comment, reaction, dialogue and argumentation invited and demanded.
Individuals cannot self-realize, and do God’s work if they are not intellectually unshackled, so intolerance of bad and false ideas is to promote fanatical uniformity of thinking and purity of thought test, which are demonic not angelic. Both Randian and religious fundamentals preaching and practicing thought suppression by claims of secular or religious textual inerrancy, are wide of the mark they are sinning badly and hurting all, including themselves.
The Age of Enlightenment’s perhaps greatest gift to human kind was its wholesale rejection of intolerance of competing worldviews, complete with attacks on intellectual rivals. David is onto something when his notes that reasoners advocate and tolerate radical free speech and free thinking, while irrationalist movements, passionate true believers pedaling their collectivist holy cause, suppress all opponents and internal dissenters.
K: “
Ayn Rand left us a magnificent system of ideas. But it is not a closed system. It is a powerful engine of integration. Let us not starve it of fuel by shutting our minds to what is good in other approaches. Let us test our ideas in open debate. If we are right, we have nothing to fear; if we are wrong, we have something to learn. Above all, let us encourage independent thought among ourselves. Let us welcome dissent, and the restless ways of the explorers among us. Nine out of ten new ideas will be mistakes, but the tenth will let in the light.
—David Kelley
My response: I can just imagine Leonard Kickoff and the orthodox Randians in 1989 reading this last paragraph while melting down completely and quivering with rage and revulsion. For them, in practice if not in open admittance, they regard Ayn Rand’s body of work as inerrant, closed and perfect. As absolutists and dogmatists, her philosophical system is good for all and cannot be improved. To hybridize it as Kelley has done, to introudce foreign elements into her system while calling himself an Objectivist for him to suggest that an open philosophical system and its practitioners remain open to what is good in other approaches is to be a smart, conscious, willful advocate of sullying what is perfect and beautiful with inferior, false and wicked concepts and theories from alien philosophical system unworthy to be heard, accepted, adopted in part, or allowed to coexist. To welcome dissidence and independent thought when one has all the best, right and morally perfect and certain answers about everything is to be so evil and deserving to be censored at the minimum and to earn a death sentence for the dissident should the authoritarian purists and their faction ever gain totalitarian control of the machinery of government in the polity under which they live and reside.
What is a closed system? Is Objectivism closed because the orthodox like Craig Biddle in his famous 2023 debate with Stephen Hicks asserting that it closed when she died? Or is their true belief—what I think they really believe--that Objectivism is the one true system of philosophy inerrant, infallible and not to be improved upon? I suggest that the ARI Randians are fanatics or close to it, and that Kelley and the Atlas Society Objectivists are more open, more moderate, and perhaps not as intellectually rigorous in support of Ayn Rand’s clear, almost dogmatic statements.
K
Now we hear from the Pope, Leonard Kickoff, quite brilliant but perhaps intolerant of dissent and half-measures. He never, to my knowledge, spoke of secular totally inerrancy as applicable to all Ayn Rand wrote and thought but it seems implicit in his dogmatic assertions. Here is his responding letter to David Kelley, Fact and Value. I will refer to him as P: “
By Leonard Kickoff, Ph. D.
I agree completely with “On Sanctioning the Sanctioned,” Peter Schwartz’s article in the last issue of TIA. That article has, however, raised questions in the mind of some readers. In particular, David Kelley, one of the persons whom the article implicitly criticizes, has written an articulate paper in reply, identifying his own philosophy on the relevant topics. He has sent a copy of this paper to me and to many other individuals.
In my judgment, Kelley’s paper is a repudiation of the fundamental principles of Objectivism. His statements make clear to me, in purely philosophic terms and for the first time, the root cause of the many schisms that have plagued the Objectivist movement since 1968. The cause goes to the essentials of what Objectivism is. I have, therefore, decided to interrupt my book on Objectivism in order to name this cause once and for all.
In the following, I am presupposing a basic knowledge of Ayn Rand’s ideas. I am writing to and for Objectivists, whether or not they have seen Kelley’s paper.
The fundamental issue raised by
Kelley concerns the relationship between the true and the good. What
kind of thing, Kelley asks, can be true or false, and what kind good
or evil? In other words (my words): what is the relationship between
fact and value? Kelley takes a definite stand on
this issue, one which leads him, logically, to uphold “tolerance”
as “a virtue in the cognitive realm,” and to accuse Schwartz and
others like him (myself and Ayn Rand presumably included) of
“zealotry,” “hysteria,” “non-intellectuality,”
“malevolence,” “closed-mindedness” and the like.”
My response: If I interpreting Leonard correctly, he is arguing that the true and false propositions are also respectively good and evil propositions. Leonard, ARI and Ayn Rand herself would argue that there is no fact-value gap, that moral facts or truths can be cognitively, intellectually, certainly, truthfully and consciously derived from natural facts. They are naturalists, monists, realists, materialists and atheists, but they epistemologically and objectively conclude that moral properties can be assigned to natural properties, that everything occurring in and among objects in reality out there can be truthfully, teleologically interpreted, judged and normatively characterized largely without making the wrong assessment or judgement of what is unfolding before one’s eyes.
Pettifog and his allies are arguing that Kelley is violating the Objectivist stand there there is no fact-value distinction that moral facts exist that it is wrong to sanction false or evil ideas in the cognitive realm as well as in the action realm where humans commit crimes, that both the realm of cognition and action are equally and interchangeably deserving of being morally judged by Objectivist code of ethics. Leonard is demanding that bad and false concepts are as evil as bad and false actions, so sanction cannot be granted ever to the thinker of evil as well as the doer of evil. For Kelley to tolerate or show benevolence or sanction to those arguing for false and evil concepts to be adopted by people is his being weak, evil and a traitor to the Objectivist cause, that his open Objectivism is siding with the subjectivists and antirealists who uphold the fact-value distinction. Because Kelley have sinned against closed Randianism, no sanction can be given him.
Kelley accuses Leonard and his allies of being fanatical and intolerant (they are) for fanatically insisting that the fact-value gap is always erased whenever a moderate Objectivists or hybrid Objectivist like Kelley moderately characterize the gap as mostly but not always existing (moral facts exist), but that sometimes it holds, and, that it does not hold in the realm of cognitive action. Besides, we should show civility, tolerance and benevolence to the opinions of others and share the platform and dialogue with those committing the sins of promoting bad and false ideas as long as they do not criminally, authoritarian and violently coerce others to join their cause.
Now intrinsic (Christian, Platonic, Idealistic or a mathematician assuming that numbers exists as real unobservable objets) will likely not deny the is-ought gap, declaring cognitive and teleological assessment of natural facts will construe a normative and valuational judgment which is certainly true. They will ascertain the nature of facts, relationships and actions among objects, beings and entities in reality, but their epistemological tool for ascertaining how to label and define natural facts normatively will be gained as their rational intuition or revelation of the nature of the essences of things in nature is laid before them consciously, which they just absorb or cognitively realize without reasoning or abstracting. This epistemological and teleological, automatic recognition of the jumping over the alleged is-ought gap works, the suggest, as the intellect assessing, judging and labeling each action and event, receives supernatural guidance and messages as to what they are sensing and characterizing.
Therefore, those with false thinking are also evil, and thus should not be sanctioned but should be ostracized, deplatformed, even banished from society. Ayn Rand and Leonard dismiss the fact-value dichotomy, where as David Kelley is a bit more sympathetic to it, so Kelley is suggesting that we can criticize while debating those with false ideas, we cannot refer to them as evil, and thereby attack them. Kelley argues that we only condemn and attack those whose actions are evil and reprehensible.
I asked Google this question on 11/26/25: Does an anti-realist believe there is a gap between fact and value. Here is the AI response that day that I copied and pasted and will comment on: AI Summary:”
To understand the anti-realist perspective on the relationship between fact and value, consider the following points:
Anti-realists often argue that facts and values are fundamentally different kinds of entities. “My response: Antrealists support the view that the fact-value distinction holds, while Objectivists and Christian intrinsicists deny that it holds.
AI: “They believe that moral values cannot be derived from factual statements alone.” My response moral realists like Objectivists and me hold that moral values can be derived from factual statements alone, but Leonard holds this position absolutely and fanatically while Kelley holds it provisionally and moderately.
AI: “This perspective suggests a gap exists, as values are seen as subjective or socially constructed.” My response: The anti-realists, logical positivists and postmodernists insist that values are subjective and socially constructed while Leonard objects that values are objectively reached rationally by studying nature and reality.
AI: “Anti-realists contend that facts do not inherently possess moral implications.” My response: Rand and Leonard insist that facts inherently possess moral implications, certainly and always, while moderate like Kelley and me settle for facts inherently possessing moral implications provisionally most of the time but with some excpetions.
AI: “They emphasize the importance of context and interpretation in understanding values.” My response: Subjective or intrinsic context and interpretation are important for understanding values in part, but in the main Kelley and I push the view that we objectively can find moral facts when we study reality, and I maintain that one intrinsically and subjectively can study the world as minority epistemological positions and as a hermeneutic approach to reality. Fanatical Leonard will pooh pooh this, dismissing it as subjectivst nonsense that values can only be reached and validated in reality objectively and raitonally.
AI: “Overall, anti-realism posits that the connection between fact and value is not straightforward or direct.” My response: Leonard would counter-argue that the connection between fact and value is straightforward, direct, intelligible and communicable with pure clarity and utter certainty. Kelley and I would modify that immoderate, absolutist stance by reacting that Leonard position is mostly correct but not entirely coreect.
I asked Google this question on 11/26/25: Does a realist accept the fact-value gap? From that same day, here was the AI response which I copy and paste below and will comment on. Peikoff is suggesting he the Objectivist is a realist and that Kelly with some justification is more of a subjectivist and intrinsicist because he accepts a bit the fact-value gap.
Herr is the AI response: AI Summary: “
To understand the realist's stance on the gap between fact and value, consider the following points:
AI: “Realists typically assert that facts and values are distinct but interconnected.” My response: I think Leonard, Kelley and I could accept this assertion.
AI: “They do not outright deny the existence of a gap; rather, they acknowledge it.” My response: Leonard might refute the existence of the gap, whereas Kelly and I likely would acknowledge its existence which mostly can be objectively and cognitively surmounted and explained explicitly as moral facts.
AI: “Realists argue that facts can inform values, influencing moral and ethical judgments.” My response: I think all of we realists would accept this proposition.
AI: “They maintain that while values may be subjective, facts remain objective.” My response: All of we realists likely would conclude that values are both subjective and objective and that facts are both objective and subjective so there is not fact-value gap in any meaningful sense.
AI: “Realists often emphasize the importance of empirical evidence in shaping values.” My response: We realists all could agree with this statement.
AI: “The relationship between fact and value is seen as complex, not simply a denial of a gap.” My response: We hybrid Objectivists might regard that relationship as complex, but Leonard and the orthodox Randians would be more unforgiving, arguing that the unreality of the gap assertion is clearly validated by the complicated interrelationship between facts and values in the world out there.
Kelley is likely a bit more intrinsicist and subjective than is the severe, purist objectivist who is Peikoff, recordsing any movement moving toward subjectivist and intrinsicist direction or moderate acknowledgement of those positions at all as totally capitulating and leaving Objectivism behind, betraying Objectivism. In Rand’s, Peikoff’s and ARI minds, one is 100% right or 100% wrong, one is 100% evil or 100% good. If one, like Kelley, is but a bit false or a bit evil, then one is totally false and totally evil. Such strident, stringent ideological dogmatism is unworthy of the orthodox Objectivists and reveals their affinity to the doctrine of holy textual inerrancy, and their fanatical or evil stand or taking a position on everything and anything.
Is an anti-realist an intrinsicist or a objectivist? I think the answer is obvious: The anti-realist is neither an intrinsicist nor an objectivist but a subjectivist.
AI answer: :AI Summary
To understand whether an anti-realist is an intrinsicist or an objectivist, consider the following points:
AI: “Definition of Anti-Realism: Anti-realism denies the existence of an objective reality independent of our perceptions.” My response: We would all accept this AI definition of anti-realism.
AI: “Intrinsicism Explained: Intrinsicism holds that values or properties exist within the objects themselves, independent of observers.” My response: None of we realists would fight this definition of intrinsicism.
AI: “Objectivism Defined: Objectivism asserts that certain things exist independently of human thoughts or beliefs.” My response: We realists might well accept that certain things exist independently of human thoughts or beliefs.
AI: “Anti-Realism vs. Intrinsicism: An anti-realist may reject intrinsicism, as it implies an objective existence of properties.” My response: We realists should not fight this proposition by AI.
AI: “Anti-Realism vs. Objectivism: Anti-realists typically oppose objectivism, as they deny the existence of objective truths.” My response: This definition seems accurate: anti-realists/subjectivists would deny the correspondence theory of truth, would deny that there are objective truths and moral facts, so they uphold the existence and legitimacy of the fact-value gap.
AI: “Conclusion: An anti-realist is neither an intrinsicist nor an objectivist; they challenge both views.” My response: We realists would agree with this conclusion by AI
Now I asked Google this question on 11/26/25: Is an anti-realist an intrinsicist or a subjectivist? Here was the
AI answer: “AI Summary
To understand whether an antirealist is an intrinsicist or a subjectivist, consider the following points:
AI: “Antirealism generally denies the existence of objective truths independent of perception.” My response: We realists and objectivists would accept this definition.
AI: “Intrinsicism posits that properties exist independently of observers, which contradicts antirealism.” My response: We realists can accept this AI definition.
AI: “Subjectivism asserts that knowledge and truth are dependent on individual perspectives.” My response: We realists would acknowledge that this is the subjectivist position.
AI” “Antirealists align more closely with subjectivism due to their emphasis on perception and interpretation.” My response: We realists would agree that this is the anti-realist affinity to subjectivism, not intrinsicism.
AI: “Different forms of antirealism may lean towards varying degrees of subjectivism.” My response: We realists would agree that anti-realists would vary in their degree of subjectivism.
AI: “Overall, antirealists are typically considered subjectivists rather than intrinsicists.” My response: We realists would not go against this conclusion.
P”
Let me begin by summarizing, without reference to Kelley, the essence of the Objectivist view on the relationship between fact and value.
Objectivism holds that value is objective (not intrinsic or subjective); value is based on and derives from the facts of reality (it does not derive from mystic authority or from whim, personal or social).”
My response: If value is objective, there is not fact-value gap.
P: “
Reality, we hold — along with the decision to remain in it, i.e., to stay alive — dictates and demands an entire code of values. Unlike the lower species, man does not pursue the proper values automatically; he must discover and choose them; but this does not imply subjectivism. Every proper value-judgment is the identification of a fact: a given object or action advances man’s life (it is good): or it threatens man’s life (it is bad or an evil). The good, therefore, is a species of the true; it is a form of recognizing reality. The evil is a species of the false; it is a form of contradicting reality. Or: values are a type of facts; they are facts considered in relation to the choice to live.””
My response: Rand and Leonard with their dogmatic/absolute dismissal of the fact-value gap, and with their dogmatic (Dogmatic as in being epistemologically certain and knowledge-identifying and knowledge-accruing, as that the human perceive is able to observe and experience reality directly and his percepts and concepts which he abstracts from the Given sensations fed to his consciousness, which gives him a true and good characterization of reality.) claim that knowledge about reality is available to the logical, illusionless, rational observer and student of reality, conclude that what is true is good, and what is false is bad.
Fanatically, because they presuppose and presume that they know what is true in most all cases, by means of their perfect philosophical system, whose holy texts written by Ayn Rand enjoy the property of plenary textual inerrancy. They feel justified in condemning, punishing and refusing to sanctions inventors of bad or false thoughts, not just not tolerating the implementers of these false and bad thoughts. They ridicule Kelley for half-measures, and when he is accused of being intrinsicist or subjectivist, they are calling him morally evil.
Fanatics regard a dissident who is only partially evil as equivalent to or the same as if he is totally evil, and if he is mistaken in some of his facts, he is mistaken in all of his facts. This absolutist reasoning is not only evil, it is untrue, oversimplifying and mischaracterizing the mixed nature of a dissidents blend of true and false ideas and good and evil ideas, not giving credit where it is due. We cannot know anything for certain but we can with great probably certainly declare moral facts, which goes against the totalists’ claims of orthodox objectivists, or pure doubting nature of the totalist claims of denying any worth, goodness or truth by the postmodernist nihilists in their criticism of objectivist, traditionalist and realist favoring Western culture and civilizaiton.
I mostly agree with orthodox Randians that the good is true and the true is good, and that the false is bad, and that the bad is false, but to a lesser degree I accept Kelley’s claim that the fact-value dichotomy applies to all human propositions, that one can be a promoter of a lie, but that does not make then evil unless they act upon the lie in an evil way.
By contrasting the differing and competing take on the fact-value dichotomy expressed by the orthodox Randians and the Kelley Randians, it is not difficult to see why Peikoff rejects tolerance of those thinking evil, false thoughts as well as practicing them in the world, while Kelley is willing to tolerate those in error or holding false beliefs, versus those putting false ideas into the world as evil practices.
P: “
In the objective approach, since every fact bears on the choice to live, every truth necessarily entails a value-judgment, and every value-judgment necessarily presupposes a truth. As Ayn Rand states the point in “The Objectivist Ethics”: “Knowledge, for any conscious organism, is the means of survival; to a living consciousness, every ‘is‘ implies an ‘ought.'” Evaluation, accordingly, is not a compartmentalized function applicable only to some aspects of man’s life or of reality; if one chooses to live and to be objective, a process of evaluation is coextensive with and implicit in every act of cognition.
This applies even to metaphysically given facts (as distinguished from man-made facts). Metaphysically given facts, Miss Rand points out, cannot as such be evaluated. Sunlight, tidal waves, the law of gravity, et al. are not good or bad; they simply are; such facts constitute reality and are thus the basis of all value-judgments. This does not, however, alter the principle that every “is” implies an “ought.” The reason is that every fact of reality which we discover has, directly or indirectly, an implication for man’s self-preservation and thus for his proper course of action. In relation to the goal of staying alive, the fact demands specific kinds of actions and prohibits others; i.e., it entails a definite set of evaluations. For instance, sunlight is a fact of metaphysical reality; but once its effects are discovered by man and integrated to his goals, a long series of evaluations follows: the sun is a good thing (an essential of life as we know it); i.e., within the appropriate limits, its light and heat are good, good for us; other things being equal, therefore, we ought to plant our crops in certain locations, build our homes in a certain way (with windows), and so forth; beyond the appropriate limits, however, sunlight is not good (it causes burns or skin cancer); etc. All these evaluations are demanded by the cognitions involved — if one pursues knowledge in order to guide one’s actions. Similarly, tidal waves are bad, even though natural; they are bad for us if we get caught in one, and we ought to do whatever we can to avoid such a fate. Even the knowledge of the law of gravity, which represents a somewhat different kind of example, entails a host of evaluations — among the most obvious of which are: using a parachute in midair is good, and jumping out of a plane without one is bad, bad for a man’s life.
Just as there can be no dichotomy between mind and body, so there can be none between the true and the good. Even in regard to metaphysically given facts, cognition and evaluation cannot be sundered.”
My response: Leonard allows for no dichotomy between fact, mind, the true and the cognitive versus value, the body, the good, and the evaluative. Leonard’s orthodox Randianism combine the true and the good, but it is not a moderate blend, with literal obedience to the good and true in conceiving as well as acting, to be severely enforced for violators. This unacceptably intolerant, rigid and severe treatment if dissidents and sinners might well contribute to the fanaticism and intellectual rigidity of Ayn Rand and her ARI devotees.
P: “Cognition apart from evaluation is purposeless; it becomes the arbitrary desire for “pure knowledge” as an end in itself. Evaluation apart from cognition is non-objective; it becomes the whim of pursuing an “I wish” not based on any “It is.”
THE SAME PRINCIPLE applies in regard to man-made facts — which brings us to the virtue of justice. Justice is an aspect of the principle that cognition demands evaluation; it is that principle applied to human choices and their products. Since man is volitional, evaluation of the man-made is of a special kind: it is moral evaluation.
The virtue of justice is necessary, at root, for the same reason that evaluation in relation to any fact is necessary: the character and behavior of other men are facts, which have effects on one’s own well-being. To an individual in a division-of-labor society, it makes a life-or-death difference whether he is surrounded by producers or parasites, honest men or cheats, independent men or power-lusters. Just as one must distinguish between good and bad in relation to the realm of nature, so one must distinguish between good and bad in relation to the realm of man.
In Objectivist terms, this means a single fundamental issue: in the human realm, one must distinguish the rational from the irrational, the thinkers from the evaders. Such judgment tells one whether a man, in principle, is committed to reality — or to escaping from and fighting it. In the one case, he is an ally and potential benefactor of the living; in the other, an enemy and potential destroyer. Thus the mandate of justice: identify the good (the rational) and the evil (the irrational) in men and their works — then, first, deal with, support and/or reward the good; and, second, boycott, condemn and/or punish the evil. (One aspect of this second policy is the principle of not granting to evil one’s moral sanction.)
Evaluation, though it is essential in every field of cognition, is especially urgent in regard to the man-made. When, through the default of the better men, evil (evasion) wins out in a human society, man’s life is thereby doomed, however great the scientific knowledge at the time and however beneficent the conditions of physical nature. By contrast, when, through the scrupulous justice of the better men, the good (the mind) wins out, there is virtually no form of ignorance or natural disaster that men cannot successfully combat.
Justice — being an aspect of the principle that every cognition demands an evaluation — requires moral judgment of men and their works across-the-board, with no areas of life excepted or exempted. In Ayn Rand’s words (from “How Does One Lead a Rational Life in an Irrational Society?”): “one must know clearly, in full, verbally identified form, one’s own moral evaluation of every person, issue and event with which one deals, and act accordingly.” How does one reach a moral evaluation of a person? “A man’s moral character,” Miss Rand writes in “The Psychology of Psychologizing,” “must be judged on the basis of his actions, his statements and his conscious convictions…” (The word “statements” here denotes a broad, somewhat overlapping category. All morally revealing statements imply the speaker’s premises or ideas, even if they do not explicitly assert them; but some statements do assert them — just as some statements are themselves actions: e.g., a declaration of war.)
Now let us consider what is involved in judging a man’s actions morally. Two crucial, related aspects must be borne in mind: existence and consciousness, or effect and cause. Existentially, an action of man (as of sunlight) is good or bad according to its effects: its effects, positive or negative, on man’s life. Thus creating a skyscraper is good, murdering the architect is bad — both by the standard of life. But human action is not merely physical motion; it is a product of a man’s ideas and value-judgments, true or false, which themselves derive from a certain kind of mental cause; ultimately, from thought or from evasion. Human action is an expression of a volitional consciousness. This is why human action (as against sunlight) is morally evaluated. The skyscraper’s creator, one infers in pattern, functioned on the basis of proper value-judgments and true ideas, including a complex specialized knowledge; so he must have expended mental effort, focus, work; so one praises him morally and admires him. But the murderer (assuming there are no extenuating circumstances) acted on ideas and value-judgments that defy reality; so he must have evaded and practiced whim-worship; so one condemns him morally and despises him.
Both these aspects, I repeat, are essential to moral judgment. An action without effects on man’s life (there are none such) would be outside the realm of evaluation — there would be no standard of value by which to assess it. An action not deriving from ideas, i.e., from the cognitive/evaluative products of a volitional mental process, would be the reflex of a deterministic puppet or of an animal; it could not be subject to moral judgment.”
My response: I agree with Leonard wholeheartedly that because humans are volitionally empowered moral creatures, they require a code of ethics to live by and to be judged by. Randi ans-especially the orthodox—judge everyone, and for the religious, the good deities judge their followers in this world and in the next.
P; “
THE SAME FACTORS apply in regard to the other main branch of moral judgment: judging a man’s conscious convictions or ideas. In judging an idea morally, one must (as in the action case) determine, through the use of evidence, whether the idea is true or false, in correspondence with reality or in contradiction to it.”
My response: Leonard and Rand herself define as idea as good or true if it corresponds to reality, and bad and false if it contradicts reality. As a moral, ontological, and epistemological moderate, it is my contention that generally an idea that contradicts reality is bad, false to be condemned and punished in the holder of the idea gently by criticism if he just thinks it but, bad if he enacts his evil idea, he should be opposed, perhaps arrested if hie violates legal statutes.
Too pure a standard on believing, based on no contradictions exist in reality and are unrealistic and thereby false and evil, to condemn any dissident disagreeing with ones version of moral facts—even when one is mostly right and moral though one contends one is totally right and totally moral and consistent with the nature of reality, is to practice intolerance and tyrannical pressure upon dissidents and violations of their power, liberty and freedom of choice. This intolerance is evil and corrupts the practitioners of Randians or any other ideology.
P: “Then, in exact parallel to the case of action, there are two crucial aspects to be identified: the mental process which led to the idea, and the existential results to which the idea itself leads (which means in its case: the kind of action that flows from it). In judging an idea morally, it is not relevant whether its results are enacted by the idea’s originator or by his later followers. The existential issue here is: what kind of effects — pro-life or anti-life — will this idea have by its very nature, if and when men start to act on it?”
My response: Leonard is mostly correct that the rational is pro-life and good, and that the irrational is bad and anti-life.
P: “
Just as every “is” implies an “ought,” so every identification of an idea’s truth or falsehood implies a moral evaluation of the idea and of its advocates. The evaluation, to repeat, comes from the answer to two related questions: what kind of volitional cause led people to this idea? and, to what kind of consequences will this idea lead in practice?
Let me pause to indicate certain ramifications involved in answering the first of these questions. The general principle here is: truth implies as its cause a virtuous mental process; falsehood, beyond a certain point, implies a process of vice. The proper understanding of this principle, however, requires some discussion.
It is possible for a man to embrace an idea blindly, on faith from others or simply by his own whim, without the effort of understanding or integrating it. In such a case, the idea, no matter what its content, reflects negatively on the individual. For Objectivism, an idea thus embraced is not “true” (or “false”). In relation to such a mind, the idea is without cognitive status; it is the arbitrary, and is analogous to the sounds emitted by a parrot. The true qua true, by contrast, does imply a process of understanding and integration, and therefore some degree of effort, focus, work. The degree of the effort may differ, of course, according to circumstances, such as whether one is the originator of the true idea or has learned it from others.
Now we must note that falsehood does not necessarily imply vice; honest errors of knowledge are possible. But such errors are not nearly so common as some people wish to think, especially in the field of philosophy. In our century, there have been countless mass movements dedicated to inherently dishonest ideas — e.g., Nazism, Communism, non-objective art, non-Aristotelian logic, egalitarianism, nihilism, the pragmatist cult of compromise, the Shirley MacLaine types, who “channel” with ghosts and recount their previous lives; etc. In all such cases, the ideas are not merely false; in one form or another, they represent an explicit rebellion against reason and reality (and, therefore, against man and values). If the conscientious attempt to perceive reality by the use of one’s mind is the essence of honesty, no such rebellion can qualify as “honest.””
My response: I admire Leonard’s analogy that to rebel against reason and reality is to argue against man and values, to be anti-life rather than pro-life.
Heed that Leonard puts down the pragmatist cult of compromise as evil and false, against man and reality and against man and values. He and Ayn Rand seem to full stop reject compromising, even honorable, principled compromise, as David Kelley would support.
The orthodox Randians hatred of compromise is a false way of thinking, and a wicked moral conclusion,, so they are immoral and mistaken, whereas as Kelley’s moderate compromising is more moral and cognitively correct than the reactions of the orthodox Randians.
P: “
The originators, leaders and intellectual spokesmen of all such movements are necessarily evaders on a major scale; they are not merely mistaken, but are crusading irrationalists. The mass base of such movements are not evaders of the same kind; but most of the followers are dishonest in their own passive way. They are unthinking, intellectually irresponsible ballast, unconcerned with logic or truth. They go along with corrupt trend-setters because their neighbors demand it, and/or because a given notion satisfies some out-of-context desire they happen to feel. People of this kind are not the helplessly ignorant, but the willfully self-deluded.”
My response: Leonard makes a valid point that those that follow a lying leader cannot escape some blame for being willfully self-deluded.
P: “
EVEN IN REGARD to inherently dishonest movements, let me now add, a marginal third category of adherent is possible: the relatively small number who struggle conscientiously, but simply cannot grasp the issues and the monumental corruption involved. These are the handful who become Communists, “channelers,” etc. through a truly honest error of knowledge. Leaving aside the retarded and the illiterate, who are effectively helpless in such matters, this third group consists almost exclusively of the very young — and precisely for this reason, these youngsters get out of such movements fast, on their own, without needing lectures from others; they get out as they reach maturity. Being conscientious and mentally active, they see first-hand what is going on in their movement and they identify what it means; so their initial enthusiasm turns to dismay and then to horror. (Andrei in We the Living may be taken as a fictional symbol here.) The very honesty of such individuals limits their stay in the movement; they cannot tolerate for long the massiveness of the evil with which they have become involved. Nor, when such youngsters drop out, do they say to the world belligerently: “Don’t dare to judge me for my past, because my error was honest.” On the contrary — and here I speak from my own personal experience of honest errors that I committed as a teenager — the best among these young people are contrite; they recognize the aid and comfort, inadvertent though it be, which they have been giving to error and evil, and they seek to make amends for it. They expect those who know of their past creeds and allegiances to regard them with suspicion; they know that it is their own responsibility to demonstrate objectively and across time that they have changed, that they will not repeat their error tomorrow in another variant, that their error was innocent.
We need not pursue the issue of honest errors any further. As one of his examples of an intellectually honest man, to whom others should show “tolerance” and “benevolence,” David Kelley offers not a groping teenager, but “an academic Marxist,” i.e., an adult who devotes his life to the job of teaching unreason, self-sacrifice and slavery to generations of young minds. When I speak of truth and falsehood in what follows, therefore, I am presupposing a definite (adult) context. I am speaking of truth qua truth (not of the arbitrary) — and of falsehood on the kind of scale and issues that preclude honest, short-lived errors.”
My response: Here again Leonard makes a valuable point, that tolerance and benevolence towards a sophisticated, adult Marxist professor teaching unreason, self-sacrifice and slavery to hundred of young people is a stupid and immoral response, yet, the principle of intellectual and moral justice requires of the offended Randian that tolerance and benevolence be practiced towards the offending Marxist professor in that though condemned and opposed by the Randian, no effort will be made to threaten or coerce him violently by any other forceful means, to recant his heresy or being attacked. That is fanatical, evil and prohibited.
P: “
Now let me return to the issue of evaluating an idea morally, and of doing so by means of identifying its cause and its effects. The crucial point is that such evaluation is not something arbitrarily added to the judgment of true and false; on the contrary, it is logically implicit in such judgment. Implicit in saying that a certain idea is true is a positive moral estimate of the mental processes that led to it (a credit to the individual for having worked to grasp reality), and a positive estimate of the existential results to come (a true idea will have to yield pro-life results when men act on it). The same applies mutatis mutandis to false ideas. Implicit in saying that an idea contradicts the facts of reality is a negative estimate of the processes that led to it, and also of the effects the idea will have in practice, which have to be harmful. If one’s ideas are tied to reality at all and if one is guided by life as the standard, there is no way to identify an idea’s truth or falsehood without in some form also making such evaluations.
There is only one basic issue in philosophy and in all judgment, cognitive and evaluative alike: does a man conform to reality or not? Whether an idea is true or false is one aspect of this question — which immediately implies the other aspects I mentioned: the relation to reality of the mental processes involved and of the actions that will result. Truth is a product of effort and leads in action to value(s); hence, one says, the true idea is not only true: it is also good. Falsehood, assuming it reaches a certain scale, is a product of evasion and leads to destruction; such an idea is not only false; it is also evil.
An employee, to take a relatively modest positive example, offers a man an idea for improving the operation of his business. His idea, the boss concludes after weighing the evidence, takes into account all the relevant facts; he’s right. So far, this is pure cognition, the outcome of which is expressed in a statement like: “I agree with you.” But no decent person, whether he knows philosophy or not, would stop there; he would not say unemotionally, like a dead fish: “Your idea is correct. Good day.” On the contrary, precisely because the new idea represents a new grasp of reality, the moral kind of boss is enthusiastic, i.e., he evaluates the idea. He cannot avoid seeing two things: this employee of mine had to innovate, struggle, think to reach the idea when no one else did, and: the idea will cut my costs, increase my customers, double my profits. The boss, accordingly, is excited, he likes his employee, he praises him, he rewards him. He not only says about the idea: “true.” As an inevitable corollary, he says about it: “good.” That “good” is the evaluation or the “ought”; it represents the practice of justice and the tie to life.
NOW TAKE THE CASE of Ayn Rand, who discovered true ideas on a virtually unprecedented scale. Do any of you who agree with her philosophy respond to it by saying “Yeah, it’s true” — without evaluation, emotion, passion? Not if you are moral. A moral person (assuming he understands philosophy at all) greets the discovery of this kind of truth with admiration, awe, even love; he makes a heartfelt positive moral evaluation. He says: Objectivism is not only true, it is great! Why? Because of the volitional work a mind must have performed to reach for the first time so exalted a level of truth — and because of all the glorious effects such knowledge will have on man’s life, all the possibilities of action it opens up for the future. And this latter applies whether Ayn Rand herself actualized these possibilities or left that feat (as she had to) to the generations still to come.
There are degrees in this issue; there are modest attainments and enormous ones; but the differences pertain only to measurement. The principle in all such cases is the same: correspondence to reality (and its causes and effects) deserves and must be given a positive moral evaluation.
The same kind of analysis applies to the negative cases. An employee comes up, say, with a stupid suggestion, which flies in the face of the facts. The boss inevitably thinks not just “false,” but “bad.” Which latter means: the man must have been out-of-focus, plus: look at the grief his idea would cause in practice. Such an idea, the boss has to feel, cannot be tolerated. No rational man can tolerate — i.e., abide, stand, or put up with — that which he sees to be false, not in his own life, mind or actions, not when he has any alternative in the matter. Since dedication to reality is the essence of the moral and of the practical, the false qua false is precisely the intolerable. (In what form a boss should express his intolerance to his employee depends on the full context.)
Now consider the case of Kant, whom I take to be the negative counterpart of Ayn Rand. To anyone capable of understanding Kant’s ideas, the first thing to say about them is: “false.” But implicit in the all-embracing war on reality they represent is a second verdict: “wicked.” The cause of such ideas has to be methodical, lifelong intellectual dishonesty; the effect, when they are injected into the cultural mainstream, has to be mass death. There can be no greater evasion than the open, total rejection of reality undertaken as a lifetime crusade. And only evasion on this kind of scale, evasion as the motor of an entire philosophic system, makes possible and necessary all the atrocities of our age. (For details, see The Ominous Parallels.)”
My response: I accept that Kant’s wholesale rejection of any human ability to know objective reality is irrational, anti-life, false and wicked, but we must be careful not to crush dissenters just because they willingly or inadvertently come up with false and wicked ideas upon which they suggest acting in the world.
Kelley and I would claim that humans cannot become more realistic, smarter, wiser and better unless new concepts are always being introduced into the marketplace of ideas by creative, originally thinking individuators. There is a risk that some of their conceptual inventions will be harmful, but that is a risk which society must face, and must allow, in order that humans can advance, be happy, be free, serve God and live meaningful lives.
Immoderates like orthodox Randians and orthodox, fundamentalist religionists around the world are to eager and willing to such down free-thinking and free speech for the same of the common good, they announce as if that justifies their wicked suppression of free-thinking individual supercitizens.
P: “
Whoever understands the Critiques, yet urges “toleration” of Kant (or his ilk), or tells us to practice cognition on his ideas but not moral evaluation, has rejected self-preservation as a goal. He has rejected the principle of justice and the entire realm of moral value. He has said that man’s life or death should not be a ruling concern in anyone’s mind.
In the final issue of The Objectivist, Ayn Rand described Kant as “the most evil man in mankind’s history.” She said it knowing full well that, apart from his ideas, Kant’s actions were unexceptionable, even exemplary. Like Ellsworth Toohey, he was a peaceful citizen, a witty lecturer, a popular dinner guest, a prolific writer. She said it because of what Kant wrote — and why — and what it would have to do to mankind. She held that Kant was morally much worse than any killer, including Lenin and Stalin (under whom her own family died), because it was Kant who unleashed not only Lenin and Stalin, but also Hitler and Mao and all the other disasters of our disastrous age. Without the philosophic climate Kant and his intellectual followers created, none of these disasters could have occurred; given that climate, none could have been averted.”
My response: Kant may have been evil for his wicked philosophy, but he did not take up the sword and bloodily spread them, so he should be tolerated and treated benevolently in that his right to be false and evil in his propositions and theories is protected under the law of moral moderation that freedom of thought and expression is radically protected: the nonviolent offender is left unmolested, period, full stop. If he takes up the sword or joins a mass movement conducting revolution upon a just, free political dispensation, or if that mass movement is a crusade warring against other peoples, nations and tribes, then tolerance and benevolence may be withheld from them, and this is where Kelley is at.
He is moderate and good, and the orthodox Randians are immorderate and evil; they will be the proponents of claiming total textual inerrancy for their sacred texts.
P: “
IN SOME CONTEXTS, a man is properly held blameless for an unreasonable idea, so long as he himself does not act on it. For example: if I conclude that, though you are innocent of any wrongdoing, your death would be a wonderful thing, but I then remind myself of your rights, hold myself in check and refrain from killing you, I may be free of blame and can even be given a certain moral credit: “He kept his idea within his own mind,” one could say, “he did not allow it to lead to the destruction of the innocent; to that extent, in actual practice, he was moved by the recognition of reality.” But this kind of analysis does not exonerate the philosophic advocate of unreason. In regard to him, one cannot say: “He implicitly advocates murder, but does not himself commit it, so he is morally innocent.” The philosopher of irrationalism, though legally innocent of any crime, is not “keeping his ideas within his own mind.” He is urging them on the world and into actual practice. Such a man is moved not by the recognition of reality, but by the opposite: by the desire to annihilate it. In spiritual terms, he is guilty of a heinous crime: he is inciting men to commit murder on a mass scale. Advocacy of this kind is a form of action: it represents an entire life spent on subverting man’s mind at its base. Can anyone honestly hold that such advocacy pertains not to “action,” but merely to the world of “ideas,” and therefore that verdicts such as “good” and “evil” do not apply to it?””
My response: To deny reality is to deny life, and it is an attempt to annihilate. Of course the verdicts of good and evil apply to all ideas, be they true or false. But shutting off freshideas being allowed in the public square and going after irrational creators of bad ideas is not moral just, so orthodox Randians, or mullahs running the Iranian theocracy, or the CCP Communist atheists in Red China shutting down Christian believers, true believers all, feel justified in suppressing dissent and free thinkers, a most wicked practice.
It occurred to me that true believers, even smart, idealistic thinkers like the orthodox Randians, in their extremism, are so immoral and immoral, paradoxically, because they so self-consciously assess themselves as the virtuous elite, who tolerate no evil deviance either in the realm of ideas/cognition or in the realm of action with its worldly consequences. The 20th century has shown repeatedly how vicious zealous ideologues and idealists become in enforcing their values upon an unwilling public. None are more cruel than they, and their exaggerated sense of being virtuous and their radicalized taste for the highest standards being coerced upon all all the time—this leads to totalitarian enslavement of the masses and horrible human rights abuses.
Yes, irrational, wicked ideas, once they leave the creative brain of a malicious creator who does not act on his destructive idea, but, as it becomes popularized and practiced by thousands, perhaps millions of people, it cannot be denied that evil ideas lead to evil consequences in society as criminal or authoritarian behaviors.
What we cannot do as just moderates is to criminalize free speech and free thought which may lead to harmful outcomes in the future. Our best bet is to campaign heavily against such views, and appeal to each citizen to become smart, wary and skeptical, so that she can be prepared to ward off foolish people’s ideas while society protects their free speech and free thought rights to make fools of themselves verbally even pronouncing hateful and dangerous statements.
Peikoff is wildly mistaken, we can never criminalize false and bad ideas, for we must tolerate someone’s natural right to speak and think freely and to publicly share nonsense, for the sake of all because individuators require maxim free speech and free thought so that they can generate new creative ideas, though a few will take advantage of such a natural right and privilege.
P: “
Yet such is the essence of David Kelley’s viewpoint. “Truth” and “falsity,” he says, apply primarily to “ideas”; “good” and “evil,” to “actions, and to the people who perform them.” In regard to evil, he says, we must not be tolerant; but in regard to ideas, moral judgment is a mistake. In the cognitive realm, he says, the virtue to be practiced in regard to all comers, no matter what their viewpoint, is “tolerance” and “benevolence,” i.e., cool, open-minded, friendly discussion among civilized moral equals. Stalin, in this view, has killed people, so he is evil and intolerable; but Kant or “an academic Marxist” — he is merely a thinker of a different school, with whom one happens to disagree (and from whom, Kelley adds, we might even learn something “if we are willing to listen”). In regard to Kant and his academic progeny, therefore, moral judgment is inapplicable and even “hysterical.”
Kelley adds that if, after a discussion, a particular intellectual proves to be “not open to reason,” then we no longer have to be tolerant of him. But a man’s viewpoint as such, he insists, no matter what its content, does not justify such a negative verdict. What then does or ever could? If the content of a man’s ideas, even when they are openly at war with reason and reality, does not necessarily indicate a process of evasion on his part, how can we ever know that a man who disagrees with us after a discussion is being irrational? How can we know that he is not merely “honestly mistaken” still? Kelley does not address such questions, because the only answer to them is: on Kelley’s premises, one never can know that a man is being irrational and, therefore, one never does pronounce moral judgment.”
My response: Kelley should not have denied that false ideas are wicked, but the orthodox Randians need to accept Kelley’s moderation principle, based in reality and that this principle should guide our ethical and epistemological standards of evaluating ideas and responding to them socially and legally, lest authoritarian and totalitarian suppression of free speaking and free thinking not grow evil, irrationality and suffering in the world.
P: “
Kelley’s viewpoint is an explicit defense of a dichotomy between fact and value, or between cognition and evaluation, and thus between mind and body.””
My response: Kelley does not go far enough in rejecting the dichotomy between fact and value, between cognition and evaluation, and thus between mind and body, but he does introduce strictly non-Randian concepts of benevolence, tolerance and a near absolutist defense of freedom of thought and expression, instantiated in the rational, originally thinking individual as individuator and supercitizen.
These principles of moderation introduced by Kelley were meant to and do thwart the attempt by fanatics pushing their holy cause, its sacred texts, its doctrines, to silence all opposition.
I separated out this last sentence from Leonard because he rejects the dichotomy between fact and value, or between cognition and evaluation, and thus between mind and body. I do not mind that he--and Ayn Rand likely—withdraw moral sanction from moderates like Kelley, but their principled, well-reasoned fanatical statement of opposition to offering sanction to those with false and bad ideas may veer over into vicious, authoritarian persecution of dissenters, always a bad idea.
P: “ If ideas cannot be judged morally in terms of their causes and effects, why and how can a man’s actions — his bodily movements — be judged morally? No answer. If justice is a crucial virtue, how can the base and ruler of man’s life — his mind and its intellectual products — be outside of justice’s domain? No answer. If value-judgments do not flow inexorably from the judgment of truth or falsehood, if the “ought” does not flow inexorably from the “is,” where do value-judgments come from and on what are they based? No answer. What then is left of the objectivity of values, and thus of the whole Objectivist ethics, politics, esthetics? Nothing.’”
My response: Leonard the purist and ultraist, insists that Kelley be a pure Objectivist or he is pedaling a version of it that is pernicious, a lie and leads to the utter destruction of Objectivism. Either one accepts what Ayn Rand espoused whole cloth, or one rejects in plenary refutation. Either/or, no but/and objections or additions. Orthodox Randians push pure conformity to the doctrines of their ism, Objectivism, as interpreted by the ARI faithful, or they are to be condemned and punished.
The orthodox justify their coercive, vindictive intolerance base on the claim that they are to maintain standards to protect both truth, goodness and beauty, but these ultraist idealists and intellectuals will, in a generation or too, if their rule a country upon totalitarian lines, will usher in a culture of ideas like what holds in North Korea, ideas neither free, noble, good or uplifting; this is what fanaticism always degenerates into.
My responseL I am a moderate moral realist, so I believe that an ought flows from and is most of the time whether it is someone’s bad and wicked ideas or their bad and wicked ideas implemented in action. We should not tolerate acted out false and evil ideas, especially if violent and criminal, and we should judge and oppose false and bad ideas expressed by Kant or whomever, but we do not censor, imprison or drive out that offender for their dangerous free speech. Ever suppressing public free speech and free thought is perilous to the common weal and civil society, not a slippery slope which any people ore individual should slide down in the name of being moral, and Randian and the religious ideologues to often suppress dissent or consider it for the sake of the good of all the people, but that cannot be accepted as a way for a free people to live.
P; “
FOR DECADES, onetime advocates of Objectivism who have turned into champions of “tolerance” (or “kindness” or “compassion”) have leveled a specific accusation against Ayn Rand and against anyone else who pronounces moral judgment. (Kelley a few years ago accused Ayn Rand and me of it to my face, and I broke off all relations with him.) The accusation is that we are “dogmatic moralizers” or “angry emotionalists.” Up to now, I could explain these attacks only psychologically, in terms of the attackers’ cowardice or psychopathology. But now I understand the basic cause; I see the attacks’ philosophic meaning. In the minds of the “tolerance”-people, there are only two possibilities in regard to moral judgment: moralizing or emotionalism, dogma or whim, i.e., intrinsicism or subjectivism.”
My response: Leonard is accusing Kelley of starting off as a dogmatic moralizer, obsequious to the guru and cause he serves, and, then, feeling embarrassed and degraded, he lurches away from his former intrinsicist valuative view, and adopts an emotional, whimsical subjectivism demand tolerance of any view because anything goes.
Leonard devalues and dismisses both intrinsicism and subjectivism as non-objective about valuing.
P: “
Such people literally have no concept of “objectivity” in regard to values. Their accusations, therefore, are expressions of their own actual philosophy and inner state. The typical (though not invariable) pattern in this kind of case is that the accuser started out in Objectivism as a dogmatist, cursing or praising people blindly, in obedience, as he thought, to his new-found “authorities.” Then at last his pent-up resentment at this self-made serfdom erupts — and he becomes an angry subjectivist, denouncing the “excessive anger” of those who make moral judgments. The swing from intrinsicism to subjectivism, however, is not a significant change; these philosophies are merely two forms in which the notion of “non-objective value” rules a man’s brain.
The intellectual corruption involved here goes deeper. The good, as I have been stressing, derives from facts; i.e., “objective value” is a logical consequence of “objective truth.” The man whose ideas are tied to reality, I have said, cannot avoid grasping at least their obvious value-implications. The man who can (or wants to) avoid it does so only through one means: his ideas are cut off from reality. In regard to theoretical issues, his very process of cognition is corrupted: it is rationalistic, floating, detached from fact.”
My response: I don’t disagree with Leonard that, in his rejecting the fact-value split, that the good derives from facts, that objective value is a consequence of objective truth. Leonard declares that his ideas are tied to reality, and, as a consequence, he is aware of their obvious value implications.
On the other hand, he characterizes Kelley as a moral anti-realist, that his ideas and values are cut off from reality, so there would be only intrinsicist or subjective moral values arising from such disembodied ideas and statements.
My question I: how do Objectivists like Leonard become corrupt and fanatical in their willingness to deny others free speech, free though and free action? How can slightly more hybrid-Objectivists like Kelley, with his more emotional evaluative approach, end up being more truthful, smart, good and moderate than the orthodox Randians?
I know not the answer but I suspect that Ayn Rand is the source of Peikoff’s uncompromising and ruthless approach to and treatment of heretics, because she was a guru pursuing the spread and popularization of her holy cause, allowing no dissidence, no veering from shared dogma.
P: “
To such a person, intellectual discussion is a game; ideas are constructs in some academic or Platonic dimension, unrelated to this earth — which is why, to him, they are unrelated to life or to morality. Inside this sort of mind, there is not only no concept of “objective value”; there is no objective truth, either — not in regard to intellectual issues. What this sort knows is only the floating notions he happens to find congenial, out of context, at and for the moment. Ideas severed from evaluation, in short, are ideas severed from (objective) cognition; i.e., from reason and reality. (Those who know formal logic will recognize that the last sentence is merely the contrapositive of my main point in this article: if cognition implies evaluation, then non-evaluation implies non-cognition.)”
My response: Leonard labels Kelley as a moral anti-realist, that his ethical concepts are unrelated to life or morality, for cognition is severed from objective truth, objective valuing, and the anti-realists ethical statements necessarily are amoral, immoral or false because they are divorced from reason, reality and life, the ontological and epistemological preconditions to arriving at objective or moral valuing and characterizing of one concepts arrived at based on one’s experiences and observatons.
P: “
The absence or rejection of the concept of “objectivity” on this profound a level means the rejection not only of Ayn Rand’s ethics, but also of her epistemology: it is the rejection of her view of truth, of her theory of concepts, of her fundamental position on the proper relationship between a volitional consciousness and existence. In methodological terms, it is the rejection of her view of logic, which demands that one integrate every idea with perceptual data and with all one’s other ideas, including one’s code of moral values. To tear values from facts and concepts from percepts is to explode any such integration and thus to defy the essence of the philosophy which demands it. Such is the result of trying to combine Objectivism with “tolerance” (or with “compassion” or “kindness” in the Brandens’ sense).”
My response: Leonard lays out an articulate criticism of moral anti-realists in this paragraph, but his fanaticism reveals itself: if one alters one iota of Rand’s system, or the orthodox reading of her system then one is a traitor to that system, a destroyer of that system , 100% false and evil, utterly to be cast out into the darkness. If one rejects one iota of Rand’s system, one one has rejected it all, and the excommunication sentenced will be applied by the Pope to the heretic.
P: “
“Tolerance,” as used by Kelley, is a concept (or anti-concept) out of the modern liberals’ world-view; it is a further expression of the philosophy of subjectivism; it conveys the notion that one must be fair to one’s opponents by means of not judging them, by being “open-minded” and saying, in effect: “Who am I to know? Maybe I have something to learn from this person.” The term means, in essence, “fairness through skepticism.” So crude a package-deal does not need much analysis. (In a political context, the term could be taken to mean that no one may initiate governmental force against others. But the proper concept to identify such a political condition is “rights” or “freedom,” not “tolerance.”)
IN HIS LAST PARAGRAPH, Kelley states that Ayn Rand’s philosophy, though magnificent, “is not a closed system.” Yes, it is. Philosophy, as Ayn Rand often observed, deals only with the kinds of issues available to men in any era; it does not change with the growth of human knowledge, since it is the base and precondition of that growth. Every philosophy, by the nature of the subject, is immutable. New implications, applications, integrations can always be discovered; but the essence of the system — its fundamental principles and their consequences in every branch — is laid down once and for all by the philosophy’s author. If this applies to any philosophy, think how much more obviously it applies to Objectivism. Objectivism holds that every truth is an absolute, and that a proper philosophy is an integrated whole, any change in any element of which would destroy the entire system.”
My response: It sure seems to me, in this paragraph, wherein Leonard insists that Objectivism is a closed philosophical system—in complete refutation of Kelley’s conclusions that Objective is an open system—that truths its founder arrived at are absolute, and nothing may be changed. If this is not a fanatical stance of secular textual inerrancy, I cannot think of what is.
P: “
In yet another expression of his subjectivism in epistemology, Kelley decries, as intolerant, any Objectivist’s (or indeed anyone’s) “obsession with official or authorized doctrine,” which “obsession” he regards as appropriate only to dogmatic viewpoints. In other words, the alternative once again is whim or dogma: either anyone is free to rewrite Objectivism as he wishes or else, through the arbitrary fiat of some authority figure, his intellectual freedom is being stifled. My answer is: Objectivism does have an “official, authorized doctrine,” but it is not dogma. It is stated and validated objectively in Ayn Rand’s works.
“Objectivism” is the name of Ayn Rand’s achievement. Anyone else’s interpretation or development of her ideas, my own work emphatically included, is precisely that: an interpretation or development, which may or may not be logically consistent with what she wrote. In regard to the consistency of any such derivative work, each man must reach his own verdict, by weighing all the relevant evidence. The “official, authorized doctrine,” however, remains unchanged and untouched in Ayn Rand’s books; it is not affected by any interpreters.
The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence state the “official” doctrine of the government of the United States, and no one, including the Supreme Court, can alter the meaning of this doctrine. What the Constitution and the Declaration are to the United States, Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand’s other works are to Objectivism. Objectivism, therefore, is “rigid,” “narrow,” “intolerant” and “closed-minded.” If anyone wants to reject Ayn Rand’s ideas and invent a new viewpoint, he is free to do so — but he cannot, as a matter of honesty, label his new ideas or himself “Objectivist.””
My response: Leonard has a point in demanding that Kelley and liberal Randians are not to self-refer to themselves as Objectivists, because they do allow some subjective, anti-realistic qualifications on Rand’s stringent views. It might be better for Kelley and the Randian dissidents to refer to themselves as leaning towards Objectivist views or as hybrid-Objectivists, but quit referring to themselves as Objectivists.
We are to refute Leonards approach: either you accept her writings and theories on Objectivism as they are, unchanged, and utterly without qualification, or you will destroy her entire system, and you are wholly a non-Objectiist even when you claim to mantle of Objectivism for yourself as Kelley and his followers have done.
P: “
Objectivism is not just “common sense”; it is a revolutionary philosophy, which is a fact we do not always keep in mind. Ayn Rand challenges every fundamental that men have accepted for millennia. The essence of her revolution lies in her concept of “objectivity,” which applies to epistemology and to ethics, i.e., to cognition and to evaluation. At this early stage of history, a great many people, though bright and initially drawn to Ayn Rand, are still unable (or unwilling) fully to grasp this central concept. They accept various ideas from Ayn Rand out of context, without digesting them by penetrating to the foundation; thus they never uproot all the contradictory ideas they have accepted, the ones which guided the formation of their own souls and minds. Such people are torn by an impossible conflict: they have one foot (or toe) in the Objectivist world and the rest of themselves planted firmly in the conventional world. People like this do not mind being controversial so long as they are fashionable or “in”; i.e., so long as they can be popular in their subculture, or politically powerful or academically respectable; to attain which status, they will “tolerate” (or show “compassion” for) whatever they have to.
The real enemy of these men is not Ayn Rand; it is reality. But Ayn Rand is the messenger who brings them the hated message, which, somehow, they must escape or dilute (some of them, I think, never even get it). The message is that they must conform to reality 24 hours a day and all the way down.
THIS, I FINALLY SEE, is the cause of all the schisms which have plagued the Objectivist movement through the years, from the Brandens in 1968 on through David Kelley, and which will continue to do so for many years to come. The cause is not concrete-bound details — not differences in regard to love affairs or political strategy or proselytizing techniques or anybody’s personality. The cause is fundamental and philosophical: if you grasp and accept the concept of “objectivity,” in all its implications, then you accept Objectivism, you live by it and you revere Ayn Rand for defining it. If you fail fully to grasp and accept the concept, whether your failure is deliberate or otherwise, you eventually drift away from Ayn Rand’s orbit, or rewrite her viewpoint or turn openly into her enemy.
The most eloquent badge of the authentic Objectivist, who does understand Ayn Rand’s philosophy, is his attitude toward values (which follows from his acceptance of reason). An Objectivist is not primarily an academician or a political activist (though he may well devote his professional life to either or both pursuits). In his soul, he is essentially a moralist — or, in broader terms, what Ayn Rand herself called “a valuer.”
A valuer, in her sense, is a man who evaluates extensively and intensively. That is: he judges every fact within his sphere of action — and he does it passionately, because his value-judgments, being objective, are integrated in his mind into a consistent whole, which to him has the feel, the power and the absolutism of a direct perception of reality. Any other approach to life comes from and pertains to another philosophy, not to Objectivism.”
My response: I admire Leonard for reminding us that we have to live with truth or reality 24 hours a day, even if we deny its impact on us altogether. I also appreciate his stand that all facts are moral facts, and that all true, good normative propositions are facts in the real world. I accept this absolutist claim with near certain approval, but not with the orthodox Objectivist utter, supreme conviction of owning 100% textual and doctrinal inerrancy.
P:”
Now I wish to make a request to any unadmitted, anti-Objectivists reading this piece, a request that I make as Ayn Rand’s intellectual and legal heir. If you reject the concept of “objectivity” and the necessity of moral judgment, if you sunder fact and value, mind and body, concepts and percepts, if you agree with the Branden or Kelley viewpoint or anything resembling it — please drop out of our movement: drop Ayn Rand, leave Objectivism alone. We do not want you and Ayn Rand would not have wanted you — just as you, in fact, do not want us or her. As a matter of dignity and honor, tell yourself and the world the exact truth: that you agree with certain ideas of Ayn Rand, but reject Objectivism.”
My response: Notice how Leonard the black-and-white thinker or immoderate dogmatists accuses moral anti-realists of sundering fact and value, mind and body, concepts, that they have not accepted or rejected Rand and her Objectivists wholly and without reservation like Peikoff and like Rand herself would conclude, being the secular, total textual inerrancy true believers that they are.
P: “
It is perhaps too early for there to be a mass movement of Objectivists. But let those of us who are Objectivists at least make sure that what we are spreading is Ayn Rand’s actual ideas, not some distorted hash of them. Let us make sure that in the quest for a national following we are not subverting the integrity of the philosophy to which we are dedicated. If we who understand the issues speak out, our number, whether large or small, is irrelevant; in the long run, we will prevail.
If we engage in quality-control now, refusing to sanction the rewriters of Objectivism whatever the short-term cost and schisms, the long-range result will be a new lease on life for mankind. If we don’t, we are frauds in the short-term and monsters long-range.
Let us not cohabit with or become alchemists in reverse, i.e., men who turn the gold of Ayn Rand into lead.
Paraphrasing Marx: in demanding intellectual consistency, we have nothing to lose but our deluders — and we have the world to win.
— First published in The Intellectual Activist Volume V, Number 1””
L
Here is a thoughtful response written in 2015 by D. Moskovitz against ARI leaders for dismissing him as one of their students, because he refused to comply with their either/or ultimatum to go fully ARI or TAS, either/or not both/and.
Here it is: Moskovitz: “
Subject: An Open Letter to the Ayn Rand Institute
From: D. Moskovitz
Date: 3 Apr 2015
Dear Onkar and Yaron,
I want to thank you again for the student scholarship you gave me to attend this summer's Second Renaissance/Lyceum Conference; I hope your investment in me will prove fruitful. I appreciated your cordial response when I told you that I was interning at The Objectivist Center (TOC) this summer, but I was saddened when I received your ultimatum, which stated, "Until and unless you decide to cut off association with [David Kelley's] group, we cannot admit you into other classes in the OAC."”
My response: D. is ordered by ARI to choose them or TOC, one or the other must go: this is how fanatics talk to the young.
Moskovitz: “
I have spent the last two months considering the issue carefully. I read and re-read the articles you, Onkar, suggested reading: Leonard Peikoff's Fact and Value, Peter Schwartz's On Moral Sanctions and Libertarianism: The Perversion of Liberty, Bennett Karp's Reintroducing the Measurements: An Old Fallacy with a New Name, and Robert Tracinski's Notes On A Question of Sanction.
At first, I found them somewhat persuasive. I did not want to support subjectivism or skepticism, sunder fact and value, or promote the corruption of Objectivism, as these writers say Kelley does. However, I thought that to evaluate the issue independently, I had to examine Kelley's position first-hand, so I read his original article, A Question of Sanction. After thinking about it, I realized that Peikoff, Schwartz, Karp, and Tracinski misrepresent his position.
To understand Kelley's position more clearly, I also read two replies to "Fact and Value"--Kirsti Minsaas's open letter to Harry Binswanger and Robert Bidinotto's "Facts, Values and Moral Sanctions: An Open Letter to Objectivists." Furthermore, I thought that to do Kelley's position justice, I had to read The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand: Truth and Toleration in Objectivism, Kelley's own book-length reply to "Fact and Value." Only then did I understand precisely what his positions are on judgment, sanction, toleration, the scope of honest error, and the definition of Objectivism, and why they are justified.
And only then did I understand the extent to which Peikoff, Schwartz, Karp, and Tracinski misrepresent these positions.
For example: Peikoff claims that Kelley offers the academic Marxist "as one of his examples of an intellectually honest man" (Fact and Value 4). But Kelley says only that academic Marxists are not necessarily guilty of the same crimes as Lenin or Stalin; he neither says nor implies anything about the academic Marxist's honesty in this essay (A Question of Sanction 2).
Moreover, there are substantive issues on which Kelley and Peikoff disagree, and on which I find Kelley's arguments convincing.
For example: The original cause of the split was the fact that Kelley spoke to a group of libertarians. Kelley did not "sanction" them in any meaningful sense by speaking to them, as Peikoff claims; on the contrary, he explicitly criticized them for trying to defend liberty without a sound philosophical foundation. Peikoff assumes that -- except in exceptionally rare cases -- a person who believes a false idea is irrational and should not be talked to. But Kelley argues effectively that one must know more than the mere fact that someone believes a false idea to conclude that the person arrived at the false idea through evasion, and even if a person is irrational in a particular instance, that does not mean that the person is characteristically irrational. Kelley "tolerated" or "sanctioned" the libertarians only in the sense that he did not, a priori, dismiss them all as irrational or conclude that none of them would be open to persuasion by rational argument. Indeed, Kelley has since persuaded many libertarians that they need a sound philosophical foundation to defend liberty.
These are just two examples of the many problems I found in Fact and Value.
I looked for a public reply to Truth and Toleration by Peikoff, Schwartz, Karp, or Tracinski, but I could find none. In fact, I could find no substantive reply to _Truth_and_Toleration_ by anyone at ARI. If you, Onkar, are going to continue telling people that Kelley carries "out activities that we know are harmful to the spread of Ayn Rand's philosophy," as you wrote in your e-mail to me, I think you should also offer a comprehensive response to Truth and Toleration.
I realize that you must receive great value by associating yourselves with ARI to promote Objectivism. I certainly received value by taking your course from the OAC, Onkar, and by attending the Second Renaissance/Lyceum Conference this summer. However, TOC -- which promotes Objectivism just as ARI does -- also has great value to offer, even though TOC is rarely discussed publicly by the leaders of ARI. David Kelley is one of the most intelligent, rational, honest men I know. TOC has thousands of members -- many of whom left ARI because they shared Kelley's dissatisfaction -- and it has a summer conference of comparable size and quality to the Second Renaissance/Lyceum Conference. Most people I've met through TOC agree with the basic principles of Ayn Rand's philosophy -- including the self-described "libertarians" (who are not necessarily members of the Libertarian Party), most of whom are opposed to anarchism and nihilism and dissociate themselves from that wing of the libertarian movement.
It saddens me to know that you do not want to work towards common goals with me and other rational, honest people who affiliate themselves with TOC. The Objectivist movement is much less powerful than it could be because of this.”
My response: Yes, the factional wars reduce the power and influence of the entire Objectivist movement.
Moskovitz: “
I thought your speech, Yaron, at the anti-"living wage" rally I led at Harvard was very effective, and I was flattered that you, Onkar, expressed your confidence in me as a promising scholar when you wrote, "I hope you continue to take courses with us and I hope you end up pursuing an academic career" after I completed your course. I would like to continue trading values and furthering common values with ARI, but I am not willing to betray my philosophical convictions nor sacrifice the values I gain from TOC in order to do so.
I hope you will reconsider your position, and I hope we can work together in the future.
Sincerely,
D. Moskovitz”
M
Either/or thinking is fanatical, untruthful and not how the world works for some contradictions are true and actual.
Moderate thinking is both/and, truthful and how the world works.
N
In this section I am copy and pasting, on 11/15/2025, the entire A.3 section from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy supplemental entry on Ayn Rand’s epistemology and metaphysics. This remarkably clear and in-depth article on Ayn Rand’s epistemology and metaphysics was written and copyrighted (2020) by two collaborating professors of philosophy, Neera K. Badhwar and Roderick T. Long.
The professors in this excellent article have 4 sections included: A.1, A.2, A.3, and A.4.
A.3 is my sole focus below and I am not spending much time on it, but I will concentrate on one sentence in it in particular which bears directly on my main topic in this extensive blog entry where I focused on my hypothesis that when true believers report that total textual inerrancy applies both to their holy text and their official doctrines.
These worshipers of the ism they idolize, whether said holy cause is racial, religious, nationalist or political, claim the status of absolute inerrancy and epistemological, complete, certain knowledge for the entire content of their favored holy writs and texts, as the way to explain and interpret the core principles of their favored ideology.
I focus on how inerrancy is a symptom of ideologues’ or true believers’ totalist assertion of complete, perfect and total understanding of everything through the lens of their held concepts, I am going to include a paragraph for analysis and response, in which these two professors use the words inerrancy and infallibility in regards to Rand epistemological claims. It interests me and seems relevant to supporting my hypothesis that Rand is a rather typical example of the founder and guru running a movement, and who claims intellectual infallibility and total textual inerrancy regarding the text she writes and publishes, that she unwittingly, unconsciously and subconsciously assumes the role of fanatical, dogmatic assertion of total rightness in all her views, and that the world of people need to obey her without reserve or objection, to act like her, to think like her and do, say and write only what she does, thinks, says and writes.
Any deviation from this standard of enforced compliance and conformity will be severely and promptly punished upon the deviant each and every time they stray from the straight and narrow path of orthodoxy. Leonard Peikoff and the ARI faithful maintain that her Objectivism is a closed system, not in the sense alone that it was completed and is unalterable when she died—this seems a reasonable claim to make that any system of thought is closed and unchangeable once the thinker and originator dies.
This is the defense of Objectivism which Objectivist Craig Biddle makes when he debated Stephen Hicks in 2023 about whether Objectivism is open or closed. I like Biddle but he seemed to evade making the stronger, more representative, actually believed claim, the now embarrassing (No American wants to admit he is a fanatic a culturally unpopular claim to make in America.) claim the orthodox really hold that Rand’s philosophical system if closed because it is permanently a flawless system teaching absolute truth about reality and humans, so eternally perfect and complete that no more remains to be said.
Those adding to it while calling themselves like Objectivists like Kelley does are labeled by the orthodox Randians as being frauds who destroy it and cheapen it. Only a secular fanatic would make so bold and sweeping a claim, false and wicked, though they view themselves as true, good and noble.
If Leonard or Onkar Ghate debated Hicks in 2023, I believe either of them would have made it clear to Hicks and the audience that the primary reason Objectivism is a closed system is because Objectivism is closed because it is the one true philosophy, as crafted, that it was perfect as originally crafted by Rand, that altering it at all and calling oneself an Objectivist while altering it, like The Atlas Society, open-or hybrid Objectivism camp members declare, is to destroy a perfect philosophy with all the answers. I think this is the orthodox stance shared by Leonard and the orthodox. This is their take and what they think if they are honest openly about their beliefs in Objectivism. I believe this absolutist orthodox claim would be the one currently held by Leonard and the orthodox, and by implication this claim is the one held by Rand herself. To alter it or add to it in any way is to be a devious, gaslighting, irrational subjectivist or intrinsicist, converting Ayn Rand gold into lead, and these modified Objectivist claims are false, evil and immoral, worthy of no sanction, unworthy of debate, and those for open Objectivism deserve to be silenced, canceled and punished.
It is not what the orthodox Objectivist claim is false or evil per se: much of Randian thought and philosophy is true and good. It, its practitioners, Rand herself and her followers ,when they totalized and converted it into a holy cause, inerrant and infallible, then it transformed into something ugly, false an evil, like when any claim is transformed into a holy cause as defined by Eric Hoffer. When and where it or any ism turns false, evil, immoderate and fanatical is when they use, or would use--if they were able to conquer a society, methods so totalitarian, authoritarian, or violent, coercive that the society’s social, institutional, cultural and governmental structures are run along lines dictated by the true believers. These zealots would universally enforce group speech, group think and total conformity to and adopting the creedal statements espoused by mass movement now in control.
The common people would become wholly dominated and directed by the purists, the absolutists, those black-and-white thinkers inflicting their way of life upon civil society under the guise of working for the general welfare, as benevolent, human intellectuals with their dictatorship of the elite tyrannically running things for the people until they are all reeducated and compliant.
Human nature is evil mostly and we are addicted to collective, altruist power over our neighbors and this sickness and immoral addiction motivates all group living people striving for ever increased social and corporatist, institutional power and social status. This is the immoral power of powerlessness in actual, factual real practice is terribly destructive, causing enormous unnecessary suffering and universals unhappiness.
Here is Section A.3: “
Epistemologically, the most important concepts are those Rand identifies as axiomatic concepts. (Axioms themselves are secondary, being propositional expressions of the corresponding concepts, which themselves are non-propositional.) The three axiomatic concepts to which Rand devotes the most attention are existence, identity, and consciousness. These three, she tells us, are implicit in all knowledge, and cannot be rejected without being relied upon in the course of the attempted rejection. Unlike ordinary concepts, they are not susceptible of definition (except ostensively), because there are no more basic concepts in terms of which they could be defined. Nor are the axioms that express them susceptible of proof, since they are presupposed by all proof (ITOE; Peikoff 1991).
The concept of existence identifies as basic and unquestionable the fact that something exists; to ask for a cause or explanation of there being something rather than nothing is to misunderstand the place of existence in the hierarchy of concepts. (This is one of Rand’s reasons for rejecting the idea of a divine creator as the cause of the universe; though it is a matter of dispute whether this objection works if such a creator is merely supposed to be responsible for the existence of everything other than itself.) Rand’s expression of this concept in propositional form, as the axiom that “existence exists”, is intended not as the mere tautological observation that “whatever exists, exists”, but rather as a recognition that something does indeed exist.
The concept of identity identifies the fact that everything that exists is some kind of thing or other—that it has a specific, non-contradictory nature. This concept—which Rand often expresses in propositional form as the Law of Identity, “A is A”—has as a corollary the principle of causality: since everything has a specific nature, a thing can act only in ways consistent with that nature.
Finally, the concept of consciousness identifies the fact that consciousness exists; Rand agrees with the Cartesian view that one cannot coherently deny the existence of one’s own consciousness. Unlike Descartes, however, Rand denies the “prior certainty of consciousness”, i.e., the idea that we can be aware of the contents of our own minds without knowing whether any extramental reality corresponds to them; for Rand, there can be no content without an external reality. Rand regards consciousness as inherently relational: to be conscious is to be conscious of something beyond one’s own consciousness, and of one’s consciousness itself only secondarily.
Existence has primacy over consciousness both epistemologically and metaphysically (with the latter explaining the former): epistemologically, because consciousness has to be aware of a distinct object before it can be aware of itself; metaphysically, because consciousness is a response to its objects and so cannot precede them—thus ruling out metaphysical theories like theism and idealism that, in Rand’s view, make existence dependent on consciousness.
From the fact that consciousness—both perceptual and conceptual—is an active and causally complex process, it does not follow that it is creative or distortive with regard to its objects. To suppose otherwise, Rand holds—to demand that consciousness, in order to be in contact with reality, must be purely passive and not involve any sort of processing—is to object to consciousness on the absurd grounds that it has a specific identity and employs specific means, and thus, once again, to regard us as blind because we have eyes and deaf because we have ears.
According to Rand, as we’ve seen, our senses cannot deceive us; and in forming conceptual judgments on the basis of sensory evidence, we can be deceived only if we allow ourselves to fall into inattention or evasion. Hence certainty is always available to us. But while Rand takes knowledge to require certainty, she distinguishes certainty from infallibility or inerrancy: a judgment can be certain, within a given context of available knowledge, even if it needs to be revised in the light of new information. Peikoff interprets Rand to hold that, so long as a contextual qualifier is understood to be implicit in one’s judgments at each stage (e.g., “So far as can be determined in the light of present knowledge …”), the revised judgments need not contradict the original ones (Peikoff 1991). But this is a problematic notion, and Rand herself never makes any statement to this effect.”
My response: This is the paragraph that interests me for this blog subject of plenary textual inerrancy as a symptom of a fanatical, intolerant, coercive mindset.
Rand the epistemological optimist postulates that our senses do not deceive us, so we can form conceptual judgements which are true and certain, reliable knowledge. Rand distinguishes certainty of knowledge, graspable within a given context of knowledge, from claims of inerrancy and infallibility, according to Badwhar and Long.
A.3: “
Rand rejects both dogmatism (asserting knowledge or demanding assent in the absence of contextually sufficient evidence) and skepticism (denying knowledge, or demanding the withholding of assent, in the presence of contextually sufficient evidence). Mysticism—in the sense of claims to a non-rational, non-sensory mode of knowledge—is likewise rejected as a form of dogmatism. The application of logic—the “art of non-contradictory identification”—to sensory data should be the sole ultimate determinant of belief.”
My response:
From these two reputable Randian scholars and philosophers, it seems correct, their conclusion that Rand believed the objective knower, who did not deceive herself, could generate concepts of certain knowledge and worth, contingent upon her observations and experiences which she has had so far, and thus how she abstract judgements from these percepts reasoned over, so she gains contextually certain knowledge, but it never rises to the level of inerrancy and infallibility.
If Rand is explicitly denying that the knower can reach the level of errorless, absolute certainty, which is inerrancy and infallibility, how do I get away with claiming she insisted that her disciples read her texts as without error, thus allowing her to claim for her written works the titles of textual plenary inerrancy and textual plenary infallibility?
I have two answers to resolve this seeming inconsistency. First, Rand took the intellectual high road officially in refusing to ascribe to her Objectivism and its holy texts, the property of inerrancy and infallibility, but, unofficially and in how she despised and resisted compromising or tolerating dissidents in practice, she actually, at the same time in a mode of self-contradiction, an act she may not consciously have realize she had committed herself to saying--believed her Objectivism and its holy texts were inerrant and infallible, not just contextually certain.
Second, she prided herself on crisp, clear definitions, and she was positive that her definitions captured and bracketed a concept exactly as it should be described and featured with language, without imperfection, vagueness or ambiguity. No human mind and likely not language itself allows any human to communicate with words which describe and define any concept with utter, tehcnical precision, clarity and perfect conciseness.
She thought she was linguistically performing at an almost deity-like level of using language, so it is understandable that it is just a short step from there to fanatical conclusions about one’s texts being governend by the doctrines of textual inerrancy and infallibility.
Conclusion
In this lengthy blog entry, I have tried to, from various angles, to support my hypothesis that the claim to total textual inerrancy is a symptom of an underlying moral lie, that a fanatical, totalistic take on how to think, speak and act is virtuous, when it is the definition of vice.
All humans are born evil more than good, and since fanaticism is emotionalism and evil, and we are innately emotional more than rational, we must learn to be good, moderate, individualistic and rational.
As, evil, insecure creatures, we overcompensate by claiming our views and values are absolutely, necessarily correct and always true. Then, we being born corrupt and groupist, seek total group control over others to feel good about ourselves; going further into moral ruination; then we conclude we should gather all the power in the world to ourselves—the power of powerlessness—under the justification that we are doing all a favor by violently, coercively compelling all to accept our cause and doctrine unreserved y and enthusiastically, all across the globe.
Elites always conspire to control the masses, to wipe out dissent, individualism, free thought, free public speech.
It occurs to me that another way that we express our extremism is by praising God, as perfect, errorless, all-loving, all-powerful and all-knowing. God is not these traits perfectly but is these traits mostly so, so being perfect and without error is not who God is or as the Self-made Creator, or even wants to be so characterized by us. For being perfect is a form of evil, and perfect is an undesirable state of highest standards as immoderate expectations to be strived for. For the sake of the noblest motives, zealots and idealists commit acts of monstrous mass, collective evil when they strive to bring heaven to earth, to establish perfect goodness and perfection for humans on earth, seeking to introduce utopian, whole excellence here in thought, word and deed.
Humans are born insecure and without self-esteem, so they need to exaggerate and make grand claims to feel a little bettered about their batter self-conceptions. One of the two key ways to achieve this exaggerated status is to boast that one’s cultural story/stories or grand narrative/narratives are the best in the world, superior to all other people’s culture and stories.
The other means of bragging about how tall we stand is to associate ourselves with our name and conception of the supreme deity we worship as possessing perfect , incomparable magnificence and substance. We make these grandiose, totalistic claims about our supreme deity in order that by reflection our own flawed and tarnished consciousnesses might show a bit of polish and worth by association with this almighty deity. These traits are not God’s but have everything to do with humans who attribute perfect characteristics to their favored, named deity. These stellar adjectives describing the supreme deity have everything to do with poor limited perishable mortals requiring some embellishing to compensate by characterizing God as perfect, errorless, all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful, everlasting, while God is actually mostly but not entirely perfect, errorless, all-loving, all-knowing all -powerful and likely everlasting.
In other words God either created the principle of moderation which governs the world or lives in accordance with it which has existed eternally though God would live consistently with it even if God created the principle governing the universe. God wants not be be acknowledging or all-knowing but mostly knowing and that is how God is good or moderate as well as staying good and moderate.
Evil is perfection and leads to or is revealed as what it mostly is, the other extreme complete chaos and imperfection, so God want us to worship God moderately and not turn any religion or any cause into a radicalized holy cause or ideology preaching the worship of an all-powerful God who knows and speak the official truth, so his inspired or breathed upon holy text is inerrant for God cannot lie or be wrong. Thus a fanatical attitude towards dissidents and nonbelievers is justified so convert them by the sword, that is evil incarnate for the Devil is immoderate.
God the moderate wants us to be moderate in our faith or any ism we worship, so we treat others as separate individuals whose power to choose is respected and inviolate. By persuasion alone we invite them to check our our ism as we evangelize our faith or cause, but never do we coerce or demand conformity and surrender or else.
It is blasphemy and insulting to God and God forbids us to sin by attributing to God the trait of complete perfection in all of His aspects; these attribution are not actual in God and nor does God desire to be praised as such. To praise God as perfect is usually done by people that mean well, but these way of approaching and talking about God is the upside of evil thinking and evil speech and God forbids it.
I am having trouble moving copy and paste articles, but the one below on the clarity of scripture is so important that, if lost in cyberspace, it would be an irretrievable loss. To prevent that possibility, I will take it out of order of presentation that I had previously arranged. It is now presented first. I copied it from GRACE TO YOU off the Internet on 10/27/25, for its thematic assertion that literal, scriptural, textual clarity is easily available intellectually to anyone, from the highly educated, or modestly educated Bible reader, of average intelligence. This assertion, theirs—which I have made mine and apply to to all religious and secular holy texts--is that the 66 books of the Bible have an objective meaning that does not require deconstruction nor an elite, priestly minister or theologian to interpret and provide translation for the masses as to what the text indicates and means. The average reader is intellectually competent to read most any text and construe its meaning, much more so if she is intellectually an individuation. In conclusion, the average reader’s intellectual competence seems adequate to capture textual meaning, usually rather clear, present and evident to the careful reader. Therefore, the masses, without a priestly intercessor, can readily glean the intended, available message sent to the reader by the author and Author of the chapter from the Bible or to most any text, be it one of Ayn Rand’s books. In my rambling way, I intend to build upon my assumption that the masses are generally competent to construe the intent of most any text or any author, that this cognitive mastery will allow each average reader to master said text being read, so each reader, one of the masses, for herself can serve as the arbiter to the main concern of this lengthy blog entry, to individually adjudicate how the concepts of biblical inerrancy and biblical infallibility are to be accepted, rejected or characterized by each reader, and that by extension each reader is cognitively equipped to grasp textual abstraction, and the principle of textual clarity renders the text to being open to being correctly deciphered by the personal, private reader, reading the text. Having established her facility to judge any text, it is obvious that she can distinguish to what degree the principles of textual inerrancy or textual infallibility apply to any text, as they surely do. She must decide for herself if the text’s author can justifiably claim that his communicated message is inerrant, infallible or written for public review or not. It will be my project below to extend consideration of the principles of textual inerrancy and textual fallibility from the Bible to Ayn Rand’s works . This hermeneutics is my way of suggesting that textual inerrancy, textual fallibility and clearness of expression and conveyed intent on the part of the author to the reader are properties universally intrinsic to all holy texts, secular or religious, and that each reader must decide for herself to what degree she will accept or deny the author’s message. Will she emerge as a fanatic proponent of the author’s point of view or emerge as his most virulent critic? Will her stance in regard to his message be that of moderate responder, pro or con? It is my conclusion in advance that the wise interpreter of any text and the holy cause it represents is best understood and responded to as a moderate reader could highlight how any text is to be interpreted and should be interpreted, no longer misinterpreted (over-praised or deliberately undervalued) and no longer should be interpreted as it has been interpreted. That biblical inerrancy, biblical fallibility and clarity of prose should be moderately reconfigured is this moderate insistence since this reader is opposed to a dogmatic, totalist reading of the text under scrutinty. The Protestants got this right: that all people are created equal intellectually more or less within the modest range of limited range of human intelligence (Yes some are smarter and some are more average.), that anyone with an IQ above 87 should be able to read and master the Bible, and presumably any other text, or most of them, including Ayn Rands works. Humans, being either latently, sleepily discontented or occasionally, actively, overtly frustrated, passionate true believers who have blossomed into joining a mass-movementized, a corporate entity as fiery true believers: these zealots require absolute standards, conditions and expectations—to be met in theory if not in practical reality—when also they demand of their good deities, their possession of and commanding reign over their perfect, divine nature: this is what people expect and demand of their good deities. People, in their lives the humans, they require that the nature and character of their adopted good deities in their lives to be totally good, totally totally perfect, totally all-knowing, totally all-loving, and totally all powerful. But that is not the nature of the good deities nor do they want to be worshiped as perfect in all ways for it goes against their ethical, spiritual, social and natural law of moderation. This misattributing characteristics to good deities worshipped makes prayer and worship unheard by these disgusted deities. Humans are so confused. They are so insecure that only as fanatics seeing the world in literal, black and white terms is how they find comfort and make sense of the world. And that religious stance is evil. It is sinful and insulting as enthusiastic humans excessively praise and labels their favorite deity as all good and by downgrading the good deities worship by rival tribes as false, nonexistent or wicked. Tragically, these fervent ism adherents, some religious and some secular, find easy, fulfilling justification in going to holy war to wipe out heretics and rival, differing internal and foreign tribes of competing believers. Allying to good deities or to rival believers the terms all good or all bad, or all wrong and all right are false dilemmas and apply more to demons and bad deities than good deities and angels, and rival tribes of believers. The true believer is insecure and lacks self-esteem so this is why they believe for or against anything and everthing, and completely boast that their sacred text or holy cause is all correct and perfect and the sacred, holy text and holy cause of rival tribes is all bad, that God will praise and reward us wiping them out, killing them all to rid the world of evil people and evil ways. The claim that they have the one truth faith is nonsense but these absolutists and totalists cannot get through another day without such radicalized stances for or against any issue. They do these things too because they are ignorant. A Here is the text: Grace: “ John MacArthurThe Clarity of Scripture, Part 1 The doctrine of the clarity (or perspicuity) of Scripture (that the central message of the Bible is clear and understandable, and that the Bible itself can be properly interpreted in a normal, literal sense) has been a cornerstone of evangelical belief ever since the Reformation.” My response: I agree. Grace: “The dominant Roman Catholic idea had been that the Bible was obscure and difficult to understand. But the Reformers disagreed, arguing instead that anyone who could read could understand biblical teaching. Rather than limiting biblical interpretation to the clergy or the Magisterium, the Reformers encouraged lay Christians to study and interpret God's Word on their own. All of this was premised on the Reformed belief that the Bible itself was inherently clear, and that God had been able to communicate His message to men in an understandable fashion. As Luther explained to Erasmus: But, if many things still remain abstruse to many, this does not arise from obscurity in the Scriptures, but from [our] own blindness or want [i.e. lack] of understanding, who do not go the way to see the all-perfect clearness of truth. . . . Let, therefore, wretched men cease to impute, with blasphemous perverseness, the darkness and obscurity of their own heart to the all-clear Scriptures of God. . . . If you speak of the internal clearness, no man sees one iota in the Scriptures but he that hath the Spirit of God. . . . If you speak of the external clearness, nothing whatever is left obscure or ambiguous; but all things that are in the Scriptures, are by the Word brought forth into the clearest light, and proclaimed to the whole world. (Bondage of the Will, 25-29) While such an understanding, as Luther openly admits, did not demand complete agreement among Protestants on every secondary doctrine, it did establish an important principle: That the Word of God was revealed in an understandable way, that its central message is clear, and that (because it is clear) all men are fully accountable to its message. In contrast to this, the teachings of Brian McLaren (and others of his Emergent persuasion) directly assault the doctrine of biblical clarity. Instead of promoting a settled confidence in the fact that the Bible can be understood, McLaren does just the opposite. And he does so in at least five important ways.” My response: It would seem that Brian Mclaren is a Christian postmodernist, and, if he is a follower knowingly or unknowingly of Jacques Derrida, then with his postmodernist/deconstructive biblical interpretation, he denies that the Bible is clear and understandable as constructed by Western people and Modernists in general. Grace: “1. McLaren and Doctrinal Uncertainty First, McLaren undermines the clarity of Scripture by denying that biblical doctrine can be held with any degree of certainty. Certainty, of course, comes from clarity. Where there is no clarity, there is no certainty. And vice versa.” My response: As an epistemological moderate, I am a modernist, not much a postmodernist, I avow that biblical text or secular texts for the most part, are clearly written by the authors, and can be clearly with almost certain understanding (The reader is certain as to the meaning of the message consciously delivered to the reader by the author, not certaint in stating that the message delivered in the text is certainly true or false, for that is a separate application of the word certainty.) be understood by the average reader, who actually captures the intent of the author-messenger without undue strain and with typical success in ascertaining the delivered message. Texts do deliver a clear message that can be clearly apprehended by the average reader with certainty and confidence about having it right, and this is a modernistic generalization about authors, their texts, their reading audience. Derrida, postmodernists, Mclaren and fellow deconstructivists may seem more open-minded, skeptical and relativistic about text interpretation than modernists, and, in a way they are, but their failure and unwillingness to grant that textual message is clear and graspable with near certainty, is actually the interpretation of the fanatic: with their lack of valuational assessment—pro or con-of the text as metanarratively delivered by the author, their lack of values and extreme value-relativism will be unsustainable for them personally, and these readers are left without a critically needed grand narrative: they are deprived of meaning, identity, a noble goal or reason for living. Consequently, those in need of meaning in their lives but being utterly deprived of meaning, people usually resort to radical ideology to compensate, to fill the gap. Then they become rabid true believers following a holy cause, and as totalist ideologists, their claims of complete textual clarity, textual inerrancy and textual infallibilism will be the expressions and assertions of ultraists claiming to have the absolute truth, right on heaven and earth with perfect clarity, and that all must accept and adopt their views on what the authors of their sacred texts and its messages deserve from the reading audience. The ultraists feel pure, saved and justified to take up the sword to convert or kill any withstanding the advance of their glorious ism and its sacred texts. Postmodernists who seem completely tolerant and relativistic are either confused in their thinking, lying until they get enough power to impose their holy creed upon a resisting world, or they have not come out into the public to wage their holy war, because the establishment is still to strong to overthrow. Grace: “For the Reformers, it was because the Bible was clear that they were certain about its central message. But not so for McLaren, who says : "Certainty is overrated . . . History teaches us that a lot of people thought they were certain and we found out they weren't." And in another place : When we talk about the word 'faith' and the word 'certainty,' we've got a whole lot of problems there. What do we mean by 'certainty'? . . . Certainty can be dangerous. What we need is a proper confidence that's always seeking the truth and that's seeking to live in the way God wants us to live, but that also has the proper degree of self-critical and self-questioning passion. In A Generous Orthodoxy, McLaren even makes it a point to champion ambiguity. He writes, A warning: as in most of my other books, there are places here where I have gone out of my way to be provocative, mischievous, and unclear, reflecting my belief that clarity is sometimes overrated, and that shock, obscurity, playfulness, and intrigue (carefully articulated) often stimulate more thought than clarity. (pp. 22-23) So it comes as no surprise, then, when he readily admits that he is not even sure if what he is espousing is correct. If I seem to show too little respect for your opinions or thought, be assured I have equal doubts about my own, and I don't mind if you think I'm wrong. I'm sure I am wrong about many things, although I'm not sure exactly which things I'm wrong about. I'm even sure I'm wrong about what I think I'm right about in at least some cases. So wherever you think I'm wrong, you could be right. If, in the process of determining that I'm wrong, you are stimulated to think more deeply and broadly, I hope that I will have somehow served you anyway. (Ibid., 19-20) For McLaren, benefit comes not from being right, but from dialoguing with those of all different viewpoints. Thus, there is great reward in always pursuing but never finally arriving at truth. Correctness in doctrine is something that cannot be attained—at least not with any degree of certainty. In McLaren's words, "The achievement of 'right thinking' therefore recedes, happily, farther beyond our grasp the more we pursue it. As it eludes us, we are strangely rewarded: we feel gratitude and love, humility and wonder, reverence and awe, adventure and homecoming"(Generous Orthodoxy, 296). In his view, Christians "must be open to the perpetual possibility that our received understandings of the gospel may be faulty, imbalanced, poorly nuanced, or downright warped and twisted . . . [and must] continually expect to rediscover the gospel" (Ibid., 261). McLaren rightly anticipates the fact that theological conservatives will find such an approach to biblical doctrine unacceptable. If, for you, orthodox means finally "getting it right" or "getting it straight," mine is a pretty disappointing, curvy orthodoxy. But if, for you, orthodoxy isn't a list of correct doctrines, but rather the doxa in orthodoxy means "thinking" or "opinion," then the lifelong pursuit of expanding thinking and deepening, broadening opinions about God sounds like a delight, a joy. (Ibid., 293-94) By reducing biblical doctrines to "opinions," McLaren denies both Scripture's clarity and its authority. Because the Bible is unclear, the chorus of divergent interpretations are all granted equal validity. This means, then, that the authority of any one viewpoint (as that which is correct) vanishes, since all sides are equally reduced to nothing more than personal opinion. This article is adapted from the Fall issue of The Master's Seminary Journal. The full text of this article can be read by obtaining a copy of thejournal . “ My response: The Bible or any text is not inerrant, but it, is generally ascertainable, objective and truth-oriented, generally readable with clarity and with near certainty. The average reader with most passages most of the time will get it right and its authors deliver its messages with authority and credibility. I do not like or approve of Mclaren’s or any postmodernists take on texts. Introduction It is my core or one of my core assumptions and hunches that moral and spiritual goodness are moderate and mixed more than purist and without extraneous, “impurities”. My belief that the middle is the way is a fundamental a proposition or concept as are Ayn Rand’s three core axiomatic concepts: identity, consciousness and existence. The inverse assumption that accompanies this core assumption is that moral and spiritual evil are immoderate and unadulterated. As a metaphysical, epistemological, practical, moral and spiritual moderate, I aver that the exception proves the rule, for occasionally the moderate and compromiser may be evil, and the fanatic and unyielding voice my be virtuous. These assumptions color all of this long blog entry, for I have long been fascinated with the human proclivity to engage in tribal rivalry and warfare: faction versus faction quarreling viciously over whose ideology, faith, political stance or holy faith will prevail. To move away from vicious warring between competing tribes and groups, each with their holy cause and clashing cultural stories, we need modernist and moderate assertion of our own views, and agree to tolerant (universally accepted near complete free speech, free thinking and holding of competing narratives and views base on favored text). We need people to abandon altruism, group-living, nonindividuating, group identifying left for assuming moral egoism, individuating, individual-living and individual-identifying. Should these improve condition become normalized, then a multicultural blended society permeated by genuine harmony, coexistence, peace and cooperation may flourish, with a host of conflicting points of view harmlessly shared and bouncing off of each others’ supporters. Yes, all will still be sure of themselves that they alone have the answer but no one is willing to use force to intimidate others to surrender to pressure to accept what they disagree with. Common will become the egoist libertarian take that we never use to sword to force others to convert or practice our faith involuntarily because they were coerced or threatened with violeance. To flesh this out, in the blog entry below I want to look at biblical inerrancy as one fanatical stance, and I will look at how the Leonard Peikoff and David Kelley rupture in 1989 is a secular example of what goes on in bitter religious or substitute religious disputes. There is a tendency for humans to be passionate: emotionally fanatical and their words, reasoning and rationalization are to serve this holy cause, and all most conform to the official viewpoint and adhere to the party line, no independent thought, to free speech, no public heresy against official orthodoxy being it secular or religious. People are born wicked which means they are emotional-passionate, low self-esteeming, unsure of themselves so they demand all live and breathe their lie to come to love what they hate and hate what they love. People want and demand from their leaders pat answers, and they seek power over others forcing others privately and publicly to bend the knee to the mightier, so dissident others conform to their own pat answers. Creedal uniformity and assent is to be impinged upon everyone that one is strong enough to conquer and convert. I love moderation and I love truth, and I believe that more or less, and approximately true and approximately good or approximately false or evil are the most truthful, the most accurate. I do not like criterions of total certainty absolutist, totalist claims of infallible leader and doctrine Purist biblical inerrancy goes with lies, evil, emotionalism collectivism. ARI members and followers are guilty of secular inerrancy concerning Ayn Rand works. These pseudo-individualists have loyalty oaths, or something close to it, as do other collectivists whose lies, power-seeking, power-struggling, and embracing of incessant conflict and war are the root cause of most evil and unnecessary suffering engendered by humans in the world. Just say no to impossibly high standards, an impossible expectation anyway. Standards should be had and maintained but not as not impossibly high, unrealistic standards. Rather these unreasonable set of standards needs to be replaced a by a standard which is practical, reasonable, generally achievable and grounded in common sense, not my tribe vs your tribe with each side claiming utter certainty about their doctrine. Go ahead, as a private person, have, live by and proclaim impossibly high standards but do not spread it by violence, tyrannical dictate. It is okay to take the pure, ultraist position but it is not to be allowed that any fanatic is allowed socially or legally to suppress free speech. Understanding and peace grow and abide among a people where what matters is viewing things from all angles to arrive at the truth. What is not permitted is persecution of dissenters. Eliminated will be cancel culture, demonizing and marginalizing any dissident.. I later will address Leonard Peikoff's paper, Facts and Values versus David Kelley’s open letter, A Question of Sanction. Egoist ethics and egoist spirituality are moderate more than immoderate, or good more than evil. Altruist ethics and altruist spirituality are immoderate more than moderate, so they are evil more than good. Where altruist ethics and altruist spirituality reign, there the group, the hierarchy, the mass movement, socialist economy, collectivized masses and authoritarian or totalitarian political systems are evil and fanatical more than good and moderate. What is preferable: a society of organized, individuated loners living in such social structures which are the deinstitutionalized, non-hierarchical (We still need to keep a social, intact skeleton of small sized, limited in scope and reach hierarchies for society to hold together.) structures, a non-mass movement political and social organization, informal and yet strong and coherent of the masses by the masses for the masses, populated by a populism comprised of a conservative anarchist individuating bunch of supercitizens, a great-souled populist association, whose citizens live in an advanced society, capitalist, constitutionally republican, with free political and social associating. There moderation and goodness would the norm, and immoderation and evil are no longer dominant if ever-present, able to rebound should each generation fail to keep its guard up. * * * * * * BIBLICAL INERRANCY B This copied and pasted article is from Wikipedia on biblical inerrancy from about 10/13/25. I will quote from the article and then make responses. Wikipedia (W after this): “Biblical inerrancy Bottom of Form > ◄ ► Biblical Foundation The concept of infallibility is closely linked to the doctrine of inspiration. 2 Timo 2. (a.) Not liable to fail, deceive, or disappoint; indubitable; sure; certain; as, infallible evidence; infallible success; an infallible remedy. 3. (a.) Incapable of error in defining doctrines touching faith or morals. See Infallibility. Bottom of Form From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article is about the Christian doctrinal position. For Jewish doctrinal positions, see Rabbinic literature. For Islamic doctrine, see Quranic inerrancy. Not to be confused with Biblical infallibility, Biblical literalism, Biblical inspiration, or Clarity of Scripture. Part of a series on the Bible Biblical inerrancy is the belief that the Bible, in its original form, is entirely free from error.[1][2] “ My response: All good deities are moderate, so they are nearly perfect and nearly omniscient—Only Fate is all-knowing but is all not-knowing at the same time. So, from my perspective the sacred texts (the Bible included), in their original language and form, is mostly free from but not entirely free from error. W: “The belief in biblical inerrancy is of particular significance within parts of evangelicalism, where it is formulated in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. In contrast to American evangelicalism, it has minimal influence on contemporary British evangelicalism.[3][4] Some groups equate inerrancy with biblical infallibility or with the necessary clarity of scripture; others do not.[5][6] “ My response: Sorry to use AI characterization of the difference between biblical infallibility vs biblical inerrancy but this Google search on this matter provided the following result on 10/27/25: “AI Summary To understand the differences between biblical infallibility and inerrancy, consider the following points: 1. Definition: Infallibility refers to the Bible's ability to convey truth without error in matters of faith and practice.” My response: I deny infallibility that the Bible conveys truth without error in matters of faith and practice, though it comes real close to being infallible. Infallibility is about limited inerrancy in matters of faith and practice while claims of inerrancy about a text are total claims of being without error, and I as a moderate reject both the concepts of inerrancy and infallibility, but a text, sacred or secular can be mostly inerrant and mostly infallible, more mostly errant and mostly fallible, but not totally inerrant and totally fallible. 2. AI: “Scope: Inerrancy asserts that the Bible is free from all errors, including historical and scientific details.” My response: I deny biblical inerrancy especially if it conflicts with historical and scientific acocunts. 3. AI” “Theological Implications: Infallibility emphasizes the Bible's authority in guiding believers, while inerrancy defends its complete accuracy.” My response; I can accept thee definitions as representative of these doctrines and their implications, though I disagree with all of it partially as immoderate, not completely true, not completely good, not completely without error. 4. AI: “Interpretation: Infallibility allows for some interpretative flexibility, whereas inerrancy demands a literal understanding of the text.” My response it sounds like under this point infallibility is modest inerrancy requiring interpretation and insistence of inerrancy necessitate a literal understanding of the text., but all texts can be read literally and metaphorically and if done right, they need not conflict with each other. 5. AI: “Historical Context: Infallibility is often associated with Catholic doctrine, while inerrancy is more common in evangelical circles.” My response: I agree. 6. Debate: The two concepts are often debated among theologians regarding their implications for biblical interpretation and authority.” My response: I agree. W: “The Catholic Church also holds a limited belief in biblical inerrancy,[7] affirming that the original writings in the original language, including the Deuterocanonical books, are free from error insofar as they convey the truth God intended for the sake of human salvation.[8] However, descriptions of natural phenomena are not to be taken as inspired and inerrant scientific assertions, but reflect the language and contemporary understanding of the writers. Critics argue that total biblical inerrancy conflicts with empirical science by treating ancient texts as authoritative on natural phenomena, despite contradictions with observable evidence, such as the age of the Earth or the historicity of Noah’s Ark. In contrast, many Christian scholars and the Catholic Church emphasize interpretive flexibility, viewing certain biblical accounts as allegorical or contextually framed, allowing for revision and alignment with modern knowledge while maintaining the spiritual authority of scripture.” My response: A limited belief in biblical or textual inerrancy is one that I can provisionally agree with. If the sacred text is from a good deity, it is to be believed much of the time as it literally its conveyed by its divine Author working through His or Her human author. Texts from scientists and historians or philosophers, obviously would not reach nearly the level of claimed total textual inerrancy or infallibility claimed zealous followers of the good deities, unless the scientist-author and his readers are true believers and the author is the writer of the mass movement’s holy text. W: “Terms and positions See also: Biblical inspiration, Biblical infallibility, Biblical literalism, Biblical authority, Clarity of Scripture, Criticism of the Bible, Internal consistency of the Bible, and The Bible and history Inerrancy The word inerrancy comes from the English word inerrant, literally meaning 'not wandering', from the Latin inerrāns (parsable as in-, a negative prefix + errāns – the present participle of errāre, "to err" or "wander"). The Oxford English Dictionary defines inerrant as "That does not err; free from error; unerring."[9] Complete and restricted inerrancy Some literalist or conservative Christians teach that the Bible lacks error in every way in all matters: chronology, history, biology, sociology, psychology, politics, physics, math, art, and so on.[10] Other Christians believe that the scriptures are always right (do not err) only in fulfilling their primary purpose: revealing God, God's vision, God's purposes, and God's good news to humanity.[11] Inerrancy and Infallibility Some theologians speak of the "infallibility" of the Bible. This can be understood in one of three ways. • Some authors use "inerrancy" and "infallibility" interchangeably. • For others, "inerrancy" refers to complete inerrancy and "infallibility" to the more limited view that the Bible is without error in conveying God's self-revelation to humanity.[5][12] On this understanding, "infallibility" claims less than "inerrancy". • Citing dictionary definitions, Frame (2002) claims "infallibility" is a stronger term than "inerrant": "'Inerrant' means there are no errors; "infallible" means there can be no errors".[13] Yet he acknowledges that "modern theologians insist on redefining that word also, so that it actually says less than 'inerrancy.'" Harold Lindsell states: "The very nature of inspiration renders the Bible infallible, which means that it cannot deceive us. It is inerrant in that it is not false, mistaken, or defective".[14] Positions • Judaism: according to H. Chaim Schimmel, Judaism had never promulgated a belief in the literal word of the Hebrew Bible, hence the co-existence of the Oral Torah.[15] The significance of most phrases, their parts, grammar, and occasionally individual words, letters and even pronunciation in the Hebrew Bible are the subject of many rabbinic discussions in the Talmud. • Catholic Church: the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) authoritatively expressed the Catholic Church's view on biblical inerrancy. ◦ Citing earlier declarations, it stated:[8] "Since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation." But theologians disagree as to whether the words "for the sake of our salvation" in that sentence represent a shift from complete to limited inerrancy.[16] ◦ The Council did not endorse the necessary clarity of scripture: "Since God speaks in Sacred Scripture through men in human fashion, the interpreter of Sacred Scripture, in order to see clearly what God wanted to communicate to us, should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended, and what God wanted to manifest by means of their words."[17] ◦ The Church interprets the Scripture as part of the Deposit of Faith with Sacred Tradition, and not in an apostolic vacuum: interpretations of Scripture which contradict magisterial teaching to that extent fail to capture the inerrant meaning. • Evangelical Christianity: Evangelicals generally affirm that the Bible, and the Bible alone, is inspired by God and is the final authority on matters of faith and practice. However, there is an ongoing debate between two primary factions: 1. The inerrant view - the Bible is absolutely inerrant on all matters that it affirms. 2. The infallible but not inerrant view - while the Bible is infallible in that it does not fail believers when trusted to do what God inspired it to do, it is not absolutely inerrant in all matters it affirms, especially in some of its tangential scientific and historical statements.[18] History According to Coleman (1975), "[t]here have been long periods in the history of the church when biblical inerrancy has not been a critical question. It has in fact been noted that only in the last two centuries can we legitimately speak of a formal doctrine of inerrancy."[19] The first formulations of the doctrine of inerrancy were not established according to the authority of a council, creed, or church, until the post-Reformation period.[20] Early Church Origen of Alexandria thought there were minor discrepancies between the accounts of the Gospels but dismissed them due to their lack of theological importance, writing "let these four [Gospels] agree with each other concerning certain things revealed to them by the Spirit and let them disagree a little concerning other things" (Commentary on John 10.4). Later, John Chrysostom was also unconcerned with the notion that the scriptures were in congruence with all matters of history unimportant to matters of faith: But if there be anything touching time or places, which they have related differently, this nothing injures the truth of what they have said [...] [but those things] which constitute our life and furnish out our doctrine nowhere is any of them found to have disagreed, no not ever so little — Homily on Matthew 1.6 John D. Woodbridge disputes this claim about Chrysostom writing, "In fact, Chrysostom apparently believed in biblical infallibility extended to every detail. He does not set forth a comprehensive discussion of the subject, but scholars who have surveyed the corpus of his work usually affirm that this is case."[21] In his Commentary on Galatians, Jerome also argued that Paul's rebuke of Peter in Galatians 2:11–14[22] for acting like a Jew around the Jewish faction of the early Church was an insincere "white lie" as Paul himself had done the same thing.[23] In response, Augustine rebuked Jerome's interpretation and affirmed that the scriptures contained no mistakes in them, and that admitting a single mistake would shed doubt on the entire scripture:[24] “ My response: In the paragraph just above, to admit that scriptures contained a single mistake is considered by fanatical believers and followers of Christianity to shed doubt about on all of scripture: the ultraists insist that either the Bible is infallibly inerrant in all of its text, or it is completely false and unworthy of following. That take (Something remarkably similar is stated by the take of closed ARI-Peikoff Objectivists—Ayn Rand’s works are perfect and inerrant or nothing at all--versus the more moderate Atlas Society Open Kelley Objectivists). is unreasonable and is not what God wants from us: The Mother and the Father are very secure psychically and do not self-conceive, nor want us to conceive and believe of them that they are purely good, utterly perfect, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving; they are overwhelmingly these attributes but not completely for that would be immoderate, evil, collectivist and altruist, all characteristics that are sinful and demonic and refuted patently by these Great Individuators. W: “It seems to me that the most disastrous consequences must follow upon our believing that anything false is found in the sacred books: that is to say that the men by whom the Scripture has been given to us, and committed to writing, did put down in these books anything false. [...] If you once admit into such a high sanctuary of authority one false statement [...] there will not be left a single sentence of those books which, if appearing to any one difficult in practice or hard to believe, may not by the same fatal rule be explained away, as a statement in which, intentionally, [...] the author declared what was not true — Letters of St Augustine 28.3 For I confess to your Charity that I have learned to yield this respect and honour only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error. And if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the manuscript is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it. As to all other writings, in reading them, however great the superiority of the authors to myself in sanctity and learning, I do not accept their teaching as true on the mere ground of the opinion being held by them; but only because they have succeeded in convincing my judgment of in truth either by means of these canonical writings themselves, or by arguments addressed to my reason — Letters of St Augustine 82.3 However, John D. Hannah argues that Jerome did indeed affirm the historical nature of the Bible. For example, Jerome believed in the historicity of the book of Jonah.[25] He further argues that while Origen resorted to allegorical interpretation, he held a high view of inerrancy.[26] Biblical inerrancy adherents say that the Early Church Fathers did hold to biblical inerrancy, even if it was not articulated that way. In particular, Shawn Nelson cites Clement of Rome, Papias, Ignatius of Antioch, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache, and the Epistle to Diognetus as examples of those whom held to inerrancy.[27] Clement of Rome said to his readers:[28] You have looked into the holy scriptures, which are true, which were given by the Holy Spirit. You know that nothing unrighteous or falsified is written in them. — First Epistle of Clement 45:2-3 Medieval era The medieval church fathers held to the divine origin of scripture and most believed there could not be any error in scripture as interpreted by the Church.[29] The most prominent theologian of the Medieval era was Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas wrote: It is heretical to say that any falsehood whatever is contained either in the Gospels or in any canonical Scripture. — In John 13. Lect. 1 Another theologian, Hugh of St. Victor, is known for stressing the importance of the historical and literal senses of the Bible in the face of the strong allegorizing tendency of the age.[30] He wrote: “ My response: I think that any text, sacred or secular, conveys meaning on both the literal level of reading and in a metaphorical level, but that the clarity and clarity of message delivered would be graspable considerable certainty by the average reader, so the extreme relativism of a postmodernist interpreter like Mclaren need not be a majority or canonical interpretation of text messaging imparted by the author to the reading audience. W: “The mystical sense is only gathered from what the letter says, in the first place. I wonder how people have the face to boast themselves teachers of allegory, when they do not know the primary meaning of the letter. "We read the Scriptures," they say, "but we don't read the letter. The letter does not interest us. We teach allegory." How do you read Scripture then, if you don't read the letter? Subtract the letter and what is left?” My response: It the Bible is not to be read literally but allegorically, then that is a modified version of biblical inerrancy, one which I subscribe to. W: “ — De Scripturis V 5:13-15 Philosopher John Wycliff proposed an extreme version of inerrancy, that meant that even parables must have been factually true, in the book De Veritate Sacrae Scripturae (On the Truthfulness of Holy Scripture, c.1378). Wycliffe's dictum omnis veritas est ex scriptura, et ut necessarior est expressior says that all truths necessary to faith are found clearly and expressly in the Bible, and the more necessary, the more expressly.[31]: 67 This later influenced Martin Luther. “ My response: Any advocate of extreme inerrancy is a fanatic by definition, and thus this is an evil reading of text, sacred or secular. W: ‘ Scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam, who published the first Latin-Greek New Testament in print, believed not only that translation between languages was always imperfect, that transmission errors had occurred by scribes, and that Scripture was sometimes deliberately obscure, but also that "the sayings of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) were slightly different in each. He suggested that the Holy Spirit had not bothered to correct the faulty memories of the evangelists."[32] “ My response: The writer of sacred or secular text might deliberately be obscure or so subconsciously, but, for the most part, text is clearly written and clearly understandable by the average reader. W: “Reformation era By the time of the Reformation, there was still no official doctrine of inerrancy. Although the term was not used, some scholars argue the Reformers did believe in the concept of inerrancy.[33] For Martin Luther (1483–1546), for example, "inspiration did not insure inerrancy in all details. Luther recognizes mistakes and inconsistencies in Scripture and treated them with lofty indifference because they did not touch the heart of the Gospel."[34] When Matthew appears to confuse Jeremiah with Zechariah in Matthew 27:9,[35] Luther wrote that "Such points do not bother me particularly."[34] However, other Luther scholars have pointed out that Luther, in other places, said the Scripture cannot contradict itself.[36] Luther said in regards to whether the Bible had errors or not, "the Scriptures cannot err."[37] Other statements made by Luther seem to contradict that, e.g. he stated that he found numerous errors in the Bible, and lambasted a couple of books of the Protestant Bible as worthless; he also stated that his idea of Christ trumps the letter of the Scripture, especially when the Scripture is cited in order to give the lie to his idea.[38] “ My response: When as careful a reader of the Bible as Matin Luther detected errors and inconsistencies, and then contradicts himself by insisting that Scripture cannot contradict itself, we are dealing with a theologian and religious giant struggling to identify errors while then backing total biblical inerrancy and infallibility. When push comes to shove, he has to side with the principles of inerrancy and infallibility or face losing his flock. I just admit to the errors, inconsistencies, and contradictions and largely conclude, “So What?” As a theological moderate, I think the Bible is a pretty cool document, and will go with largely but not totally inerrancy and complete infallibility, rejecting these claims in favor of believing the Bible is largely inerrant and infallible, letting it go at that. W: “The Christian humanist and one of the leading scholars of the northern Renaissance, Erasmus (1466–1536), was also unconcerned with minor errors not impacting theology, and at one point, thought that Matthew mistook one word for another. In a letter to Johannes Eck, Erasmus wrote that "Nor, in my view, would the authority of the whole of Scripture be instantly imperiled, as you suggest, if an evangelist by a slip of memory did put one name for another, Isaiah for instance instead of Jeremiah, for this is not a point on which anything turns."[24] The same point of view held true for John Calvin (1509–1564), who wrote that "It is well known that the Evangelists were not very concerned with observing the time sequences."[20] However, Calvin also said that Scripture is the "certain and unerring rule."[39] Calvin scholars are divided on whether Calvin actually held to inerrancy or not. Some scholars such as Jack B. Rogers and Donald McKim said Calvin "was unconcerned with normal, human inaccuracies in minor matters" in Scripture.[40] Other scholars such as John D. Woodbridge and J.I. Packer said Calvin did adhere to a position equivalent to biblical inerrancy.[41][42] The doctrine of inerrancy, however, began to develop as a response to these Protestant attitudes. Whereas the Council of Trent only held that the Bible's authority was "in matters of faith and morals", Jesuit cardinal Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621) argued in his 1586 De verbo Dei, the first volume of his multi-volume Disputationes de controversiis christianae fidei adversus hujus temporis haereticos that "There can be no error in Scripture, whether it deals with faith or whether it deals with morals/mores, or whether it states something general and common to the whole Church, or something particular and pertaining to only one person." Bellarmine's views were extremely important in his condemnation of Galileo and in Catholic–Protestant debate, as the Protestant response was to also affirm his heightened understanding of inerrancy.[20] “ My response: I will grant more credence to the idea of biblical inerrancy and infallibility in areas of faith and morals, but not cede to them the state of being wholly inerrant or wholly infallible. W: “ Post-Reformation In the 17th century, Quaker apologist Robert Barclay took a step away from Biblical Inerrancy while continuing to affirm Biblical inspiration and the Bible's place in Christian doctrine. Barclay said that "errors [in the Bible] may be supposed by the injury of the times to have slipped in", but that because of inspiration from the Holy Spirit, all necessities remained.[43] During the 18th and 19th centuries and in the aftermath of the Enlightenment critique of religion, various episodes of the Bible (for example the Noahide worldwide flood,[44] the creation in six days, and the creation of women from a man's rib) began increasingly to be seen as legendary rather than as literally true. This led to further questioning of the veracity of biblical texts. My response: Enlightenment thinkers begin to question if the Bible was literally true or even contradictory or false in some instances. W: “Modern Protestant discussion The Fuller Theological Seminary formally adopted inerrancy restricted to theological matters (what some authors now call "infallibility"). It explained: Where inerrancy refers to what the Holy Spirit is saying to the churches through the biblical writers, we support its use. Where the focus switches to an undue emphasis on matters like chronological details, precise sequence of events, and numerical allusions, we would consider the term misleading and inappropriate.[45]” My response: Details like chronology, imprecise sequencing of events and numerical allusions do point away from the claim of total biblical inerrancy, do do not void the concept of inerrancy that much. W: “A more comprehensive position was espoused particularly in the magazine Christianity Today and the book entitled The Battle for the Bible by Harold Lindsell. Lindsell asserted that losing the doctrine of the inerrancy of scripture was the thread that would unravel the church and conservative Christians rallied behind this idea.[46] Arguments in favour of inerrancy Norman Geisler and William Nix (1986) write that scriptural inerrancy is typically argued by a number of observations and processes, which include:[10] • The alleged historical accuracy of the Bible • The Bible's alleged claims of its own inerrancy • General church history and tradition • One's individual experience with God Daniel B. Wallace, Professor of New Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary, divides the various evidences into two approaches: deductive and inductive approaches.[47] Deductive justifications The first deductive justification is that the Bible says it is inspired by God (for instance "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness", 2 Timothy 3:16)[48] and because God is perfect, the Bible must also be perfect and, hence, free from error. For instance, the statement of faith of the Evangelical Theological Society says, "The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs".[49] Supportive of this is the idea that God cannot lie. W. J. Mcrea writes: The Bible then makes two basic claims: it asserts unequivocally that God cannot lie and that the Bible is the Word of God. It is primarily from a combination of these facts that the argument for inerrancy comes.[50]”” My response: This argues goes: God is perfect, and the Bible is God’s holy text to be read and followed by believers, so because all that flows from God is perfect, the Bible is perfect and inerrant by God spoke to us through the Bible, and God only speaks the truth. The Bible is completely true. I do not dismiss this powerful argument, but, I suggest that all good deities are Individuators and moderate in nature, thought, communication, speech and in writing, so great inerrancy is their message, not total inerrancy, no matter the claims of God’s most zealous followers, for the claim of total inerrancy is theirs, not God’s claim. W: “Stanley Grenz states that: Because God cannot lie and because scripture is inspired by God, the Bible must be wholly true. This syllogism may be valid for establishing inerrancy, but it cannot define the concept.[51] Also, from Geisler: Those who defend inerrancy are deductivists pure and simple. They begin with certain assumptions about God and the scriptures, namely, that God cannot lie and the scriptures are the Word of God. From these assumptions, inerrantists deduce that the Bible is without error.[52] A second reason offered is that Jesus and the apostles used the Old Testament in a way that assumes it is inerrant. For instance, in Galatians 3:16,[53] Paul bases his argument on the fact that the word "seed" in the Genesis reference to "Abraham and his seed" is singular rather than plural. This (as stated) sets a precedent for inerrant interpretation down to the individual letters of the words.[54] Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, "And to seeds", as (referring) to many, but (rather) to one, "And to your seed", that is, Christ. — Galatians 3:16 Similarly, Jesus said that every minute detail of the Old Testament Law must be fulfilled,[55] indicating (it is stated) that every detail must be correct:[54] For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. — Matthew 5:18 KJV[56] Although in these verses, Jesus and the apostles are only referring to the Old Testament, the argument is considered by some to extend to the New Testament writings, because 2 Peter 3:16[57] accords the status of scripture to New Testament writings also: "He (Paul) writes the same way in all his letters ... which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other scriptures".[58] Inductive justifications Wallace describes the inductive approach by enlisting the Presbyterian theologian Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield: In his Inspiration and Authority of the Bible,[59] Warfield lays out an argument for inerrancy that has been virtually ignored by today's evangelicals. Essentially, he makes a case for inerrancy on the basis of inductive evidence, rather than deductive reasoning. Most evangelicals today follow E. J. Young's deductive approach toward bibliology, forgetting the great articulator of inerrancy. But Warfield starts with the evidence that the Bible is a historical document, rather than with the presupposition that it is inspired.[60]” My response: It seems factually accurate to me to claim that the Bible is a historical document as well as inspired by God who breathed De’s spirit and thought into the writer of the books of the Bible. W: “Inspiration In the Nicene Creed, Christians confess their belief that the Holy Spirit "has spoken through the prophets". This creed has been normative for Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans and all mainline Protestant denominations except for those descended from the non-credal Stone-Campbell movement. As stated by Alister E. McGrath, "An important element in any discussion of the manner in which scripture is inspired, and the significance which is attached to this, is 2 Timothy 3:16–17, which speaks of scripture as 'God-breathed' (theopneustos)". According to McGrath, "the reformers did not see the issue of inspiration as linked with the absolute historical reliability or factual inerrancy of the biblical texts". He says, "The development of ideas of 'biblical infallibility' or 'inerrancy' within Protestantism can be traced to the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century".[61] People who believe in total inerrancy think that the Bible does not merely contain the Word of God, but every word of it is, because of verbal inspiration, the direct, immediate word of God.[62] The Lutheran Apology of the Augsburg Confession identifies Holy Scripture with the Word of God[63] and calls the Holy Spirit the author of the Bible.[64] Because of this, Lutherans confess in the Formula of Concord, "we receive and embrace with our whole heart the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the pure, clear fountain of Israel".[65] Lutherans (and other Protestants) believe apocryphal books are neither inspired nor written by prophets, and that they contain errors and were never included in the "Palestinian Canon" that Jesus and the Apostles are said to have used,[66] and therefore are not a part of Holy Scripture.[67] The prophetic and apostolic scriptures are authentic as written by the prophets and apostles. A correct translation of their writings is God's Word because it has the same meaning as the original Hebrew and Greek.[67] A mistranslation is not God's word, and no human authority can invest it with divine authority.[67] However, the 19th-century Anglican biblical scholar S. R. Driver held a contrary view, saying that, "as inspiration does not suppress the individuality of the biblical writers, so it does not altogether neutralise their human infirmities or confer upon them immunity from error".[68] Similarly, J. K. Mozley, an early 20th-century Anglican theologian has argued: That the Bible is inspired is, indeed, a primary Christian conviction; it is from this that certain consequences have been drawn, such as infallibility and inerrancy, which retain their place in Christian thought because they are held to be bound up with the affirmation of inspiration. But the deductions can be rejected without any ambiguity as to the fact of inspiration. Neither 'fundamentalists' nor sceptics are to be followed at this point... the Bible is inspired because it is the adequate and indispensable vehicle of revelation; but inspiration does not amount to dictation by God.[69]” My response: I find interesting and compelling the idea that the Holy Spirit inspired all of the writers of Biblical books, but that inspiration from God is not the same as dictation from God to these authors word for word. It is impossible to tell who is right, but certainly the Holy Spirit is guiding the hands of the writers of Biblical books. W: “Divine authority For a believer in total (or "plenary") biblical inerrancy, Holy Scripture is the Word of God, and carries the full authority of God. Every single statement of the Bible calls for instant and unqualified acceptance.[70] Every doctrine of the Bible is the teaching of God and therefore requires full agreement.[71] Every promise of the Bible calls for unshakable trust in its fulfillment.[72] Every command of the Bible is the directive of God himself and therefore demands willing observance.[73] “ My response: Based upon claims of total or plenary biblical inerrancy many clergy demand full agreement and unshakable trust from any follower or reader of any sacred or secular text; this unqualified command or demand is not a just or moderate imposition upon the reader/follower. W: “Sufficiency According to some believers, the Bible contains everything that they need to know to obtain salvation and live a Christian life,[74] and there are no deficiencies in scripture that need to be filled with tradition, pronouncements of the Pope, new revelations, or present-day development of doctrine.[75] “ My response: I cannot disagree with evangelicals who assert that the Bible contains everything they need to know to obtain salvation and live a Christian life. Deficiencies is too strong a word, but tradition, Papal pronouncements, new revelations and present-day development of doctrine may be welcomed and instructive if the believer of a sacred or secular text is open-minded. It is not hard to imagine that followers of ARI would not accept that followers of David Kelley are correct in looking at other sources of enlightenment outside the works of Ayn Rand, and that this secular feud is not dissimilar to the war between evangelicals and Roman Catholics and Reverend Mclaren. W: “Clarifications” My response: These entries under clarifications seem to moderate or qualify claims about total textual inerrancy. W: “Accuracy vs. truth Harold Lindsell points out that it is a "gross distortion" to state that people who believe in inerrancy suppose every statement made in the Bible is true (as opposed to accurate).[76] He says there are expressly false statements in the Bible, but they are reported accurately.[76] He notes that "All the Bible does, for example in the case of Satan, is to report what Satan actually said. Whether what he said was true or false is another matter. Christ stated that the devil is a liar".[76] Inerrancy vs. infallibility Many who believe in the inspiration of scripture teach that it is infallible but not inerrant. Those who subscribe to infallibility believe that what the scriptures say regarding matters of faith and Christian practice are wholly useful and true. Some denominations that teach infallibility hold that the historical or scientific details, which may be irrelevant to matters of faith and Christian practice, may contain errors. Those who believe in total or plenary inerrancy hold that the scientific, geographic, and historic details of the scriptural texts in their original manuscripts are completely true and without error, though the scientific claims of scripture must be interpreted in the light of its phenomenological nature, not just with strict, clinical literality, which was foreign to historical narratives.[10] “ My response: I would be more inclined to read the Bible as nearly infallible rather that mostly inerrant—which I agree with—for we must account for scientific, historic and geographical differences between modern research and ancient text. Just below the moderate inerrants regard the Bible as metaphorically true rather than always literally true, but it is both, often at the same time regarding the same biblical passage. W: “ Metaphor and literalism Even if the Bible is inerrant, it may need to be interpreted to distinguish between what statements are metaphorical, and which are literally true. Jeffrey Russell writes that "Metaphor is a valid way to interpret reality. The 'literal' meaning of words – which I call the overt reading – is insufficient for understanding reality because it never exhausts reality." He adds: Originating in Evangelicalism, the Fundamentalists affirmed that the Bible is to be read "literally" or overtly, leading some to reject not only physicalist evolution but even evolution science and to deny that life developed over billions of years. Evangelicals tended to believe in the "inerrancy" of the Bible (though they defined that term variously), a view that sometimes could unhelpfully turn the Bible into an authority on science and history.[77] Figures such as Scot McKnight have also argued that the Bible clearly transcends multiple genres and Hebrew prose poems cannot be evaluated by a reader the same as a science textbook.[78] Criticism See also: Criticism of the Bible, Internal consistency of the Bible, and The Bible and history Theological criticism Proponents of Biblical inerrancy often cite 2 Timothy 3:16[79] as evidence that scripture is inerrant. For this argument, they prefer translations that render the verse as "All scripture is given by inspiration of God," and they interpret this to mean that the whole Bible must therefore be in some way inerrant. However, critics of this doctrine think that the Bible makes no direct claim to be inerrant or infallible.” My response: As with all other sacred texts, one can pull passages from the Bible to support whatever position one takes, so likely there are biblical passages promoting inerrancy or infallibility or hinting at it. I would not quibble over this but suggest that God is truth which is moderate, and God is not a perfectionist, but pretty darn good is sufficient, so near biblical inerrancy and infallibility is a claim about the Bible which God would convey, consistent with God’s truth-telling and moderate speaking. W: “C. H. Dodd argues the same sentence can also be translated "Every inspired scripture is also useful", nor does the verse define the Biblical canon to which "scripture" refers.[80] In addition, Michael T. Griffith, the Mormon apologist, writes: Nowhere within its pages does the Bible teach or logically imply the doctrine of scriptural inerrancy. [Concerning] 2 Timothy 3:16 [...] this passage merely says that "all scripture" is profitable for doctrine, reproof, etc. It says nothing about scripture being "perfect", or "inerrant", or "infallible", or "all-sufficient". If anything, Paul's words constitute a refutation of the idea of scriptural inerrancy [...] What it does say is that scripture is useful, profitable, for the needs of the pastoral ministry. The only "holy scriptures" Timothy could have known from childhood were the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament. And yet, would any Christian assert that in Paul's view the Old Testament was the final and complete word of God to man? Of course not. In any event, verse 15 makes it clear that in speaking of "all scripture" Paul was referring to the Jewish scriptures and perhaps to some of his own epistles. The New Testament as we know it simply did not exist yet. Furthermore, it is fairly certain that Paul's canon included some Jewish scriptures no longer found in the Old Testament, such as the book of Enoch.[81] The Catholic New Jerusalem Bible also has a note that this passage refers only to the Old Testament writings understood to be scripture at the time it was written.[82] Furthermore, the Catholic Veritas Bible website says that "Rather than characterizing the Old Testament scriptures as required reading, Paul is simply promoting them as something useful or advantageous to learn. [...] it falls far short of a salvational requirement or theological system. Moreover, the four purposes (to teach, correct, etc.) for which scripture is declared to be 'profitable' are solely the functions of the ministry. After all, Paul is addressing one of his new bishops (the 'man of God'). Not a word addresses the use of scripture by the laity."[83] Another note in the Bible suggests that there are indications that Paul's writings were being considered, at least by the author of the Second Epistle of Peter,[84] as comparable to the Old Testament.[85] The view that total Biblical inerrancy can be justified by an appeal to prooftexts that refer to its divine inspiration has been criticized as circular reasoning, because these statements are only considered to be true if the Bible is already thought to be inerrant.[86] In the introduction to his book Credible Christianity, Anglican Bishop Hugh Montefiore, comments: The doctrine of biblical inerrancy seems inherently improbable, for two reasons. Firstly, the Scriptures contain what seem to be evident errors and contradictions (although great ingenuity has been applied to explain these away). Secondly, the books of the Old and New Testaments did not gain their place within the "canon", or list of approved books, as soon as they were written. The Old Testament canon was not closed until late in the Apostolic age, and the New Testament canon was not finally closed until the fourth century. If all the Bible's contents were inerrant, one would have thought that this would have become apparent within a much shorter period.[87] Liberal Christianity In general, liberal Christianity has no problem with the thought that the Bible has errors and contradictions.[88] Liberal Christians reject the dogma of inerrancy or infallibility of the Bible,[88] which they see as the idolatry (fetishism) of the Bible.[38] Martin Luther emphatically declared: "if our opponents allege Scripture against Christ, we allege Christ against Scripture."[38] “ My response: Liberal Christians who have no problems with the thought that the Bible has errors and contradictions—it has both—but its greatness transcends humans nonetheless, so I refuse to completely discard the dogmas in inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible.” W: “William John Lyons quoted William Wrede and Hermann Gunkel, who affirmed: "Like every other real science, New Testament Theology has its goal simply in itself, and is totally indifferent to all dogma and Systematic Theology [...] the spirit of historical investigation has now taken the place of a traditional doctrine of inspiration".[89] John Shelby Spong, author and former bishop of the Episcopal Church who was well-known for his post-theistic theology, declared that the literal interpretation of the Bible is heresy.[90][91] Meaning of "Word of God" Much debate over the kind of authority that should be accorded biblical texts centers on what is meant by the "Word of God". The term can refer to Christ himself as well as to the proclamation of his ministry as kerygma. However, total biblical inerrancy differs from this orthodoxy in viewing the Word of God to mean the entire text of the Bible when interpreted didactically as God's teaching.[92] The idea of the Bible itself as the Word of God, as being itself God's revelation, is criticized in neo-orthodoxy. Here the Bible is seen as a unique witness to the people and deeds that do make up the Word of God. However, it is a wholly human witness.[93] All books of the Bible were written by human beings. Thus, whether the Bible is—in whole or in part[94]—the Word of God is not clear. However, some argue that the Bible can still be construed as the "Word of God" in the sense that these authors' statements may have been representative of, and perhaps even directly influenced by, God's own knowledge.[95] : My response: I do not doubt that most perhaps all of the Bible is the Word of God, God-inspired and often God-dictated to the human author, but not always. W: “There is only one instance in the Bible where the phrase "the Word of God" refers to something written. The reference is to the Decalogue. However, most other references are to reported speech preserved in the Bible. The New Testament also contains a number of statements that refer to passages from the Old Testament as God's words, for instance Romans 3:2,[96] d (which says that the Jews have been "entrusted with the very words of God"), or the book of Hebrews, which often prefaces Old Testament quotations with words such as "God says". The Bible also contains words spoken by human beings about God, such as Eliphaz (Job 42:7)[97] and the prayers and songs of the Psalter. That these are God's words addressed to humanity was at the root of a lively medieval controversy.[98] The idea of the word of God is more that God is encountered in scripture, than that every line of scripture is a statement made by God.[99] While the phrase "the Word of God" is never applied to the modern Bible within the Bible itself, supporters of total inerrancy argue that this is because the Biblical canon was not closed. In 1 Thessalonians 2:23[100] the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica, "When you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God."[101] Translation See also: Bible errata, Bible translations, English translations of the Bible, and Virgin birth of Jesus Translation has given rise to a number of issues, as the original languages are often quite different in grammar as well as word meaning. Some believers trust their own translation to be the accurate one. One such group of believers is known as the King James Only movement. For readability, clarity, or other reasons, translators may choose different wording or sentence structure, and some translations may choose to paraphrase passages. Because some of the words in the original language have ambiguous or difficult-to-translate meanings, debates over the correct interpretation occur.[102] “ My response: The books of the Bible, written in the native language of the writer, say Greek or Hebrew, are already a bit obscure, because we cannot ever totally capture our message in spoken or written words. And the non-native readers always miss something in which the speaker or author communicates. Then to make matters worse and more complicated, the Bible is translated into many different languages, where, even more meaning and nuance is lost in translation. Plenary biblical inerrancy just is not possible. W: “Autographic texts and modern versions Those who hold the total inerrancy of the Bible have a variety of views as to whether inerrancy refers to modern Bibles or only to the original, autographic texts. There are also disagreements about whether, because the autographic texts no longer survive, modern texts can be said to be inerrant.[103] Article X of the Chicago statement agrees that the inspiration for the words of the Bible can only strictly be applied to the autographs. However, the same article asserts that the original text "can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy", so that the lack of the originals does not affect the claim of biblical inerrancy of such recovered, modern texts.[104] Robert Saucy, for instance, reports that writers have argued that "99 percent of the original words in the New Testament are recoverable with a high degree of certainty."[105] “ My response: Despite the problems posed by translations, biblical inerrancy and transfer of core meaning can still be transferred and certainly shared and comprehended. W: “For the Catholic church, the Latin Vulgate translation has been declared "authentic", meaning that where the Latin Vulgate diverges from the original languages, for example by translator or scribal error, it is either not significant for faith or morals or is true in its own right. Textual tradition of the New Testament See also: Biblical canon, Bible translations, and Textual criticism of the New Testament Most of these manuscripts date to the Middle Ages. The oldest complete copy of the New Testament, the Codex Sinaiticus, which includes two other books (the Epistle of Barnabas and The Shepherd of Hermas) not now included in the accepted NT canon, dates to the 4th century. The earliest fragment of a New Testament book is the Rylands Library Papyrus P52 which dates from 125–175 AD,[106] recent research pointing to a date nearer to 200 AD.[107] The average NT manuscript is about 200 pages, and in all, there are about 1.3 million pages of text. No two manuscripts are identical, except in the smallest fragments, and the many manuscripts that preserve New Testament texts differ among themselves in many respects, with some estimates of 200,000 to 300,000 differences among the various manuscripts.[108] According to Bart Ehrman: Most changes are careless errors that are easily recognized and corrected. Christian scribes often made mistakes simply because they were tired or inattentive or, sometimes, inept. Indeed, the single most common mistake in our manuscripts involves "orthography", significant for little more than showing that scribes in antiquity could spell no better than most of us can today. In addition, we have numerous manuscripts in which scribes have left out entire words, verses, or even pages of a book, presumably by accident. Sometimes scribes rearranged the words on the page, for example, by leaving out a word and then reinserting it later in the sentence.[109] In the 2008 Greer-Heard debate series, New Testament scholars Bart Ehrman and Daniel B. Wallace discussed these variances in detail. Wallace mentioned that understanding the meaning of the number of variances is not as simple as looking at the number of variances, but one must consider also the number of manuscripts, the types of errors, and among the more serious discrepancies, what impact they do or do not have.[110] For hundreds of years, Biblical and textual scholars have examined the manuscripts extensively. Since the eighteenth century, they have employed the techniques of textual criticism to reconstruct how the extant manuscripts of the New Testament texts might have descended, and to recover earlier recensions of the texts. However, King James Version (KJV)-only inerrantists often prefer the traditional texts (i.e., Textus Receptus, which is the basis of KJV) used in their churches to modern attempts of reconstruction (i.e., Nestle-Aland Greek Text, which is the basis of modern translations), arguing that the Holy Spirit is just as active in the preservation of the scriptures as in their creation.[111] “ My response: I too believe the Holy Spirit is just as active in the preservation of the scriptures as in their creation. W: “ KJV-only inerrantist Jack Moorman says that at least 356 doctrinal passages are affected by the differences between the Textus Receptus and the Nestle-Aland Greek Text.[112] Some modern Bibles have footnotes to indicate areas where there is disagreement between source documents. Bible commentaries offer discussions of these.[113][114] Inerrantist response Evangelical Christians generally accept the findings of textual criticism,[115] and nearly all modern translations, including the New Testament of the New International Version, are based on "the widely accepted principles of [...] textual criticism".[116] Since textual criticism suggests that the manuscript copies are not perfect, strict inerrancy is only applied to the original autographs (the manuscripts written by the original authors) rather than the copies. However total inerrantists usually claim that imperfect manuscripts have a negligible effect on our ability to know what the autographs said. For example, evangelical theologian Wayne Grudem writes: For most practical purposes, then, the current published scholarly texts of the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament are the same as the original manuscripts. Thus, when we say that the original manuscripts were inerrant, we are also implying that over 99 percent of the words in our present manuscripts are also inerrant, for they are exact copies of the originals.[2] The "Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy" says, "We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture". However, it also reads: "We deny that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant."[117] Less commonly, more conservative views are held by some groups. Textus Receptus Main article: Textus Receptus A minority of total biblical inerrantists go further than the Chicago Statement, arguing that the original text has been perfectly preserved and passed down through time. This is sometimes called "Textus Receptus Onlyism", as it is believed the Greek text by this name (Latin for received text) is a perfect and inspired copy of the original and supersedes earlier manuscript copies. This position is based on the idea that only the original language God spoke in is inspired, and that God was pleased to preserve that text throughout history by the hands of various scribes and copyists. Thus the Textus Receptus acts as the inerrant source text for translations to modern languages. For example, in Spanish-speaking cultures the commonly accepted "KJV-equivalent" is the Reina-Valera 1909 revision (with different groups accepting, in addition to the 1909 or in its place, the revisions of 1862 or 1960). The New King James Version was also translated from the Textus Receptus. King James Only inerrantists A faction of those in the "King James Only movement" rejects the whole discipline of textual criticism and holds that the translators of the King James Version English Bible were guided by God and that the KJV thus is to be taken as the authoritative English Bible. One of its most vocal, prominent and thorough proponents was Peter Ruckman. Michael Licona In 2010, Michael Licona published a book defending the resurrection of Jesus called, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach. In one part of the book, Licona raised questions about the literal interpretation of the resurrection of the saints in Matthew 27:51-53. He suggests the passage of scripture is an apocalyptic genre.[118] Scholars such as Norman Geisler accused Licona of denying the full inerrancy of the Bible in general and the Gospel narratives in particular.[119] As a result, Licona resigned from his position as research professor of New Testament at Southern Evangelical Seminary and apologetics coordinator for the North American Mission Board.[120] Modern Catholic discussion In Catholic discussion, the Bible is not inerrant or infallible as a document interpreted independently of teaching of the Church on matters of faith and morals. Before Vatican II St. John Henry Newman, writing in 1884, acknowledged the "human side" of biblical inspiration which "manifests itself in language, style, tone of thought, character, intellectual peculiarities, and such infirmities, not sinful, as belong to our nature, and which in unimportant matters may issue in what in doctrinal definitions is called an obiter dictum (said in passing)." In this view, the Bible contains many statements of a historical nature that have no salvific content in themselves and so need not be inerrant.[121] Often called the "absent father of Vatican II" (absent because he died 72 years before it began), the wording of Dei Verbum recalls Newman’s position. The theologians who wrote it knew and positively appreciated his views.[122] In 1907, Pope Pius X condemned historical criticism in the 1907 Lamentibili sane exitu.[123] However, around the time of the mid-twentieth century, attitudes changed. In 1943, Pope Pius XII issued the encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu, making historical criticism not only permissible but "a duty".[124] Catholic biblical scholar Raymond E. Brown described this encyclical as a "Magna Carta for biblical progress".[125] Vatican II After several years discussion and numerous drafts, on 18 November 1965 the Vatican II Council adopted the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, known as Dei verbum from its first Latin words.[126] The document's teaching on inerrancy is found in a single sentence: 11. [...] Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures. The first draft schema on the Sources of Revelation included "inerrancy" within one chapter heading but this word was dropped in later drafts in favour of the term "without error", used with specific reference to the truth necessary for salvation.[127] Since Vatican II, there has been no official pronouncement on the meaning of this phrase. Article 107 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992) simply quotes the sentence from Dei verbum without any further explanation:[128] 107. The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures." (DV 11) Present-day Catholic teaching Some theologians and apologists defend the view that total inerrancy is still the Church's teaching. For instance, articles defending this position can be found in the 2011 collection For the Sake of Our Salvation.[129] On a more popular level, on the apologetic website Catholic Answers there is no lack of articles defending the same position.[130][131][132][133] For instance, Raymond E. Brown, "perhaps the foremost English-speaking Catholic Biblical scholar",[134] writes:[16] On inerrancy Vatican II made an important qualification as our italics indicate: "The Books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching firmly, faithfully, and without error that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation." Some have tried to interpret the italicized phrase to cover everything the human author expressed, but pre-voting debates show an awareness of errors in the Bible. [...] Thus, it is proper to take the clause as specifying: Scriptural teaching is truth without error to the extent that it conforms to the salvific purpose of God. And also:[135] In the last hundred years we have moved from an understanding wherein inspiration guaranteed that the Bible was totally inerrant to an understanding wherein inerrancy is limited to the Bible's teaching of "that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation." In this long journey of thought the concept of inerrancy was not rejected but was seriously modified to fit the evidence of biblical criticism which showed that the Bible was not inerrant in questions of science, of history, and even of time-conditioned religious beliefs.” My response: One can see that the Catholic Church was modifying its stance from inspired total inerrancy for the Bible, to settle for what is inerrant is what God wanted his authors to write as His core message to people is that is what is inerrant or nearly so. W: “Similarly, Scripture scholar R. A. F. MacKenzie,[136] in his commentary on Dei verbum, said:[137] The Bible was not written in order to teach the natural sciences, nor to give information on merely political history. It treats of these (and all other subjects) only insofar as they are involved in matters concerning salvation. It is only in this respect that the veracity of God and the inerrancy of the inspired writers are engaged. In a speech to German bishops during the Second Vatican Council, the future Pope Benedict XVI described inerrancy as referring to everything which scripture intended to affirm, but not necessarily in how it is expressed, saying:[138] "It is not surprising that according to a practically irrefutable consensus of historians there definitely are mistakes and errors in the Bible in profane matters of no relevance for what Scripture properly intends to affirm." And that:[139] Scripture is and remains inerrant and beyond doubt in everything that it properly intends to affirm, but this is not necessarily so in that which accompanies the affirmation and is not part of it. As a result, [...] the inerrancy of Scripture has to be limited to its vere enunciata [what is really affirmed]. These views are shared by many Church officials and as a result are taken for granted in some Church documents. For instance: • An official report (1999) on theological conversations between the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Southern Baptist Convention, to be found on the website of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops:[140] For Roman Catholics, inerrancy is understood as a consequence of biblical inspiration; it has to do more with the truth of the Bible as a whole than with any theory of verbal inerrancy. Vatican II says that "the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching firmly, faithfully, and without error that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation" (Dei verbum 11). What is important is the qualification of "that truth" with "for the sake of our salvation." • A 2005 "teaching document" issued by the Bishops' Conferences of England and Wales, and of Scotland, entitled The Gift of Scripture:[141] 14. [...] The books thus declared canonical and inspired by the Spirit of God contain 'the truth which God wished to be set down in the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation' (Dei verbum 11). It is important to note this teaching of the Second Vatican Council that the truth of Scripture is to be found in all that is written down 'for the sake of our salvation'. We should not expect total accuracy from the Bible in other, secular matters. We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision. • The instrumentum laboris (working paper) for the 2008 Synod of Bishops on the Word of God:[142] 15. [...] even though all parts of Sacred Scripture are divinely inspired, inerrancy applies only to 'that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation" (DV 11).[a] Criticism and scope of inerrancy Empirical evidence and testability Critics argue that total biblical inerrancy undermines the empirical basis of science by treating ancient religious texts as authoritative on natural phenomena, even when these texts conflict with observable evidence. For example, a literal reading of the creation narrative in Genesis, which suggests a young Earth created in six days (Genesis 1:1–31), is inconsistent with the scientific consensus on the age of the Earth (approximately 4.54 billion years) and the process of evolution through natural selection. These discrepancies have led scholars like Richard Dawkins to criticize biblical inerrancy as being "indifferent to the evidence".[143][page needed] “ My response: The Bible is God’s word to humans so if the literal or metaphorical language in the Bible directly contradicts scientific and historic theories and evidence, it bothers me not too much. The world of spirit, which is the Bible’s home-ground, is above, in and around natural phenomena, so divinely inspired Bible book writers could well be referring to that world of spirit which may conflict with how things operate in the natural world. W: “Many secular scholars highlight apparent scientific and historical inaccuracies in the Bible as evidence against its inerrancy. For instance, the story of Noah's Ark (Genesis 6:9–9:17), when taken literally, describes a global flood, which lacks geological evidence and contradicts known principles of hydrology and biology. The lack of supporting evidence for other events described as historical in the Bible, such as the Exodus, further calls into question the claim of total inerrancy.[144][page needed] However, biblical inerrancy is not synonymous with biblical literalism, and Christians often focus more on what is intended to be written by a biblical author than the veracity of what is actually written. Pope John Paul II wrote to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on the subject of cosmology and how to interpret Genesis, describing it as teaching God as the author of all creation in a way expressed within the context of knowledge contemporary to the ancient author: Cosmogony and cosmology have always aroused great interest among peoples and religions. The Bible itself speaks to us of the origin of the universe and its make-up, not in order to provide us with a scientific treatise, but in order to state the correct relationships of man with God and with the universe. Sacred Scripture wishes simply to declare that the world was created by God, and in order to teach this truth it expresses itself in the terms of the cosmology in use at the time of the writer. The Sacred Book likewise wishes to tell men that the world was not created as the seat of the gods, as was taught by other cosmogonies and cosmologies, but was rather created for the service of man and the glory of God. Any other teaching about the origin and make-up of the universe is alien to the intentions of the Bible, which does not wish to teach how heaven was made but how one goes to heaven.[145] Catholic priest and philosopher of science Stanley Jaki blamed the Protestant Reformation for biblical literalism, which resulted in the Bible being construed as a literal source of scientific knowledge:” My response: It seems right that biblical inerrancy is not the same as biblical literalism. W: “ Insofar as the study of the original languages of the Bible was severed from authoritative ecclesiastical preaching as its matrix, it fueled literalism... Biblical literalism taken for a source of scientific information is making the rounds even nowadays among creationists who would merit Julian Huxley's description of 'bibliolaters.' They merely bring discredit to the Bible as they pile grist upon grist on the mills of latter-day Huxleys, such as Hoyle, Sagan, Gould, and others. The fallacies of creationism go deeper than fallacious reasonings about scientific data. Where creationism is fundamentally at fault is its resting its case on a theological faultline: the biblicism constructed by the [Protestant] Reformers.[146] As for specific events in the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament, Christians and scholars alike tend to view certain sections as either allegorical, or as stories based on past events but embellished with hyperbolic and figurative language, such as with Genesis, Exodus, and Joshua.[147][148] Resistance to revision Another point of contention is the resistance of biblical inerrancy to revision, which is at odds with the self-correcting nature of the idealized scientific process. While science progresses through the refinement of theories based on new evidence, total biblical inerrancy maintains that the (original) text is immutable, preventing reinterpretation in light of new discoveries. Philosopher Daniel Dennett has criticized this rigidity, suggesting that it hampers intellectual progress and fosters dogmatism.[149][page needed] “ My response: It could be dogmatic for Christians to defend the Bible from the need for to be changed or revised in light of new evidence and discoveries, but where does the boudnary of going to far fit with traveling down the slippery slope of changing until a faith is unrecognizable, if its theologians agree to modify it? Some revision might be applicable, but could lead to religious decline. W: “The Catholic Church has embraced divergent interpretations of different books in the Bible in light of modern discoveries, while maintaining the inerrancy of scripture, insofar as such interpretations don't diverge from Catholic teaching. In 1943, Pope Pius XII issued the encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu, making historical criticism not only permissible but "a duty" for the study of scripture,[150] while today there exists learned groups such as the Catholic Biblical Association dedicated to the academic study of the Bible. As far back as late antiquity, Saint Augustine of Hippo taught that Christians should change their minds when interpretating scripture (in his case, Genesis) in light of any new knowledge.[151] C I know it is cheap scholarship, but my pulling the AI notes on biblical inerrancy on 10/14/25,will suffice for what I am seeking to achieve here, which is to gain a sufficient understanding of biblical inerrancy as a doctrine to compare and contrast it with the unstated (I am stating it and bringing it to public awareness.) doctrine of textual inerrancy commanded any sacred text pushed by true believers (fanatics), who build their lives around reading and living in accordance with what is written in that sacred text—does anyone remember Mao’s little red book? Hitler’s Mein Kampf might fill the bill here too. Textual inerrancy can be the stance claimed by ideological zealots, and that is an evil stance, an evil demand to make upon all citizens, that the read the sacred text, that they make a god of the text, and bow down and worship it and its author. Here are my AI notes: “ —AI: Biblical inerrancy is the doctrine that the Bible is without error in its original writings, meaning it is completely truthful in all that it teaches. This belief is based on the nature of God as perfect and unable to lie. Proponents of inerrancy argue that the Bible is true in historical and scientific statements, as well as matters of faith and practice. The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978) is a key document that defines inerrancy, stating the Bible is without error in all its teaching, including its witness to God's acts in creation and world history. Key aspects of biblical inerrancy.” My response: Good deities are mostly perfect, good and truthful so their sacred texts, written by inspired human authors, are mostly without error. That is my moderate response and is the truth. Now if sacred texts and the faith being proselytized, even if representing a good deity, is hijacked and ideologized by true-believing adherents, it is a false religion, an evil transmutation of a good faith, and is not a reflection upon the good deity, though if he or she had pushed moderation in all things a bit more (not the spirit of the age when they introduced themselves to the world), it would be more difficult for their errant, wayward followers to distort a beautiful faith, rendering it, reducing it some unrecognizable, spurious and mean, a sacred ideology. When secular prophets like Karl Marx invented Communism, this secular ideology or faith was cruel, false and wicked from the start, yet the principle of textual inerrancy has been championed and pushed forward by the millions of adoring adherents of this bloody secular faith. AI: “ • Truthfulness: Proponents of inerrancy believe the Bible is completely truthful and without error. Original autographs: The doctrine applies to the original manuscripts of the Bible, not necessarily to all copied versions. Scope: It is often applied to all subjects the Bible addresses, including historical and scientific accounts, in addition to spiritual truths. Foundation in God's character: The belief is rooted in the conviction that God is perfect and truthful, and therefore his Word must also be truthful. Divine inspiration: Inerrancy is linked to the idea that God inspired the writers of Scripture. • Debates and challenges • While inerrancy is a significant position for many Christians, particularly within parts of evangelicalism, it is not universally accepted among all denominations. Some scholars argue that the Bible contains contradictions or lacks modern precision and that inerrancy should be evaluated within the context of its purpose and genre. Debates exist about the exact meaning and application of inerrancy, with some scholars saying the Bible is inerrant in its theological teachings but not necessarily in every single historical or scientific detail.” My response: I can accept provisional textual inerrancy in that the Bible does contain contradictions, lacks modern precision in historical and scientific detail, that the Bible is divinely inspired and pretty darn good, despite some deficiencies. That is my moderate stance. AI: “ Despite differing views, the belief remains foundational for many who see the Bible as the authoritative and trustworthy source for faith and life. D I took this article from Bible Hub, for they seem informative and authoritative to me on all things concerning the Bible; once again this recurring Internet source for me is good enough for my purposes, so I copied and pasted it on 10/14/25. Here it is: “ Bible Hub 10/14/25: What does Biblical inerrancy mean? Definition and Core Concept Biblical inerrancy refers to the belief that the Scriptures, in their original manuscripts, are wholly true and without error in all they affirm. This concept encompasses historical details, doctrinal teachings, ethical instructions, and other claims found in the biblical text. It arises from the conviction that Scripture is divinely inspired and reflects the flawless truth of the eternal God. As it is written, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). Biblical inerrancy asserts not only that the Bible’s teaching is reliable but that it coheres seamlessly and truthfully across its sixty-six books. This conviction holds that what the Bible states-whether about past events, spiritual realities, moral commands, or prophetic anticipations-accurately corresponds to God’s revelation.” My response: If the Bible’s teaching is reliable and inerrant, that it coheres seamlessly and truthfully across its sixty-six books, then how can contradictions occur in the Bible, which seem to require that the Believer accept them as a logical mystery, but also as a spiritual reality to be accepted on faith alone? Bible Hub: “ Scriptural Foundations The principle of inerrancy is drawn directly from the high view of Scripture found in both the Old and New Testaments: 1. Divine Inspiration: The prophets repeatedly declare, “Thus says the LORD” (e.g., Jeremiah 1:9), attributing their words to God himself. Peter explains that “no prophecy of Scripture comes from one’s own interpretation. For no such prophecy was ever brought about through human initiative, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:20-21). My response: It seems pretty impressive and conclusive to declare that God say thus and so. If the prophet or writer is sane, sober and well-intentioned, representing a good deity, then likely his message from God and his written rendition of God’s message is largely credible, and likely God speaks through his willing messenger. Bible Hub: “ 2. Unity of Scriptural Witness: Jesus himself unreservedly trusted the writings of the Old Testament, citing them as authoritative (Luke 24:44) and stating, “Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). The New Testament authors similarly treat all Scripture-Old and New-as the reliable word of God. Because God does not lie (Titus 1:2) and is all-knowing (Psalm 147:5), it follows that his word, communicated through human authors, remains trustworthy in all it affirms.” My response: I would say that God the Father or God the Mother do not lie, or almost never, and that Satan and Sa’s wife, Lera, almost never tell the truth, but they do occasionally. To assert that the ontological law of moderation, created or always existing as constituted by Fate, who may be a Being/NonBeing apart from reality, or pervasive in every cell and molecule of reality, requires that the Light Couple lie upon occasion. This scandalous opinion offered by me is not any attempt by me to slander, blaspheme or rebel against those I love and serve as faithfully as I can—the good deities. Complete perfection is fanatical and evil somehow. That is what moderation means. Complete imperfection as assigned to Satan and Lera is also a fanatical, evil lie. The Divine Couple are almost always perfect, loving and truth-speaking, and the Dark Couple are almost always imperfect, hating and lie-pedaling, but that they have mixed natures is desirable so that the world can exist and operate as it hurls itself through time and history, and that they are able to relate to and know each other; otherwise the parents of good and the parents of evil would be alien and strange to one another, for these eternal enemies, each a bit like the other, thus are able to understand each other and thus are able to fight the adversary while understanding that adversary in the eternal war between good and evil. I will denominate free willed, achieved goodness as morally superior to and more meritorious than innate goodness, which is naturally bestowed on the agent, not achieved by the agent over and above the urgings of the worse angels of his nature. With this denomination made, that earned goodness is superior to natural goodness, I will make the bold leap of intuiting that this redounds to far-reaching metaphysical consequences of Becoming is morally superior to Being, perfect, eternal, unchanging, a natural and supernatural condition not predicated on merit or earned. The good deities, themselves almost perfectly good and almost omnipotent, almost omniscient, almost all-loving, their moral superiority is based upon their earning it, not being self-granted or granted unearned moral perfection and these other almighty attributes as a free gift, a natural state of existing, but not an achieved, impressive state of being. On this way the good deities are moderate, and rebuke and reject those pushing to story that God is perfect in all ways, for that is extreme, the eternal stance of an all-powerful robot, not a living breathing good deity. It is to align with Satan and Lera, in demanding of one’s sacred deities or one secular deities and the sacred texts written indirectly or directly by them or the spokespersons and agents. Satan wants a perfect God or a completely imperfect Devil, for these idealistic and rigid extremes serve Sa’s purposes nicely by making fanaticism and extremism the universal law. It may be the Fate, the One, the creator of the Divine Couple and the Dark Couple is all perfect and imperfect at the same time, but I cannot talk knowingly of Fate’s nature so will not type much about Fate, other than a few general remarks about Fe’s nature and relationship the good deities and the evil deities. And the law of moderation, for the nature of the good deities, they would aver that they are more about becoming and static Being, but they are and do both. Fanatics demand ruthless perfection and purity of thought word and deed, because, behind their idealistic, totalist expectations is moral nihilism no standards whatsoever just wholesale nihilism, hatred, violence, destruction and wanton lust to hurt smash and maim. The extreme standard of excellence soon swings in the passionate moody pendulum to the other extreme of no standards whatsoever, never freedom, prudence, temperance, sensible half-measures, reasonableness and judicious decision making. When the person is passionate, excessively emotional and enthusiastic, that is when demons are let loose in the soul and out into society. Where standards of perfection or no moral standards exist at all in a polity, then there not operating for the collective humanity is innate but stunted individual rational, logical free will and sensible, judicious consideration; where utter conformity is demanded of everyone, where collectivism, mass moments, totalitarianism are the norm, there evil reigns, and the tribal ascription of its deity as a perfect deity conceptualization somehow is meant to justify perfect human behavior where all are robots and determined by the state and the collective. We need almost perfect good deities to be the standard exemplars for moderate, temperate individuators not to be extreme and wicked on earth in actions but moderate and just and loving here, self-controlling, and not group-identifying. Bible Hub: “ Historical Development of the Teaching Early believers accepted the authority and trustworthiness of the biblical writings from their inception. Over centuries, theologians formulated clearer statements: • Council of Hippo (AD 393) and Council of Carthage (AD 397): These councils recognized the canon of Scripture, testifying to the Church’s early and formal acceptance of the biblical texts as authoritative.” My response: I have no problem accepting the authority and trustworthiness of biblical text, the holy writ of a good deity, or a secular text, written by a human human author. My allegiance would not be insignificant nor without some reservation either. Bible Hub: “ • The Reformation Era: Reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin consistently taught that Scripture stands as the primary and infallible rule of faith. • Modern Statements: In the modern era, theological consensus documents-such as the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978)-clarified that Scripture, being divinely inspired in all its parts, is wholly inerrant and infallible. Philosophical and Theological Underpinnings 1. God’s Nature: Since God is perfectly holy (Leviticus 19:2), omniscient, and truthful, his word must reflect the fullness of his character and be devoid of error.” My response: Again God is not perfectly holy, nor so claims to be: these mischaracterizations of God as perfectly holy, omniscient, and utterly truthful is not real or true, and God loves truth. This fanatical mischaracterization of God’s nature is used by religious zealots and true believers everywhere pushing their various ideologies to justify extreme violence towards, intolerance, suppression and attacks on unbelievers. That is most wicked misbehavior, which God does not condone, but will judge and punish accordingly. Bible Hub: “ 2. Conflation of Inspiration and Inerrancy: If Scripture is “breathed out by God” (2 Timothy 3:16), many conclude it cannot include falsehood. Philosophically, a perfect being imparts truthful revelation. 3. Authority and Human Responsibility: While Scripture is inerrant, human interpreters can err. Thus, humility, prayer, and a willingness to learn are needed to interpret it accurately.” My response: yes, human interpreters are errant and fallible, so we need to be careful as to how we interpret the Bible or any other text. Bible Hub: “ Clarifying Key Misconceptions Biblical inerrancy is frequently misunderstood or conflated with concepts unrelated to its core meaning: 1. Inerrancy vs. Overly Literalistic Interpretations: Inerrancy does not necessitate rigid literalism where the text is clearly poetic, metaphorical, or apocalyptic. Equally, it does not dismiss the use of parables, figures of speech, or symbolic language. 2. Inerrancy vs. Variant Translations: Minor scribal or translational issues do not undermine inerrancy. Rather, inerrancy applies to the original autographs. Close textual studies (including those by modern scholars such as Dan Wallace and James White) demonstrate remarkable fidelity of the preserved manuscripts. 3. Inerrancy vs. Understanding Cultural Context: Acknowledging ancient cultural contexts and literary genres (e.g., genealogies, covenant language, court chronicles) does not negate inerrancy; instead, it provides a more accurate reading of what the text truly conveys. Manuscript Evidence and Reliability Archaeological and manuscript discoveries uphold the Bible’s trustworthiness: 1. Dead Sea Scrolls (Discovered 1947-1956): Containing numerous Old Testament books, these scrolls demonstrate the Hebrew text’s consistency over centuries. They confirm that key passages, such as Isaiah 53, remained faithfully transmitted. 2. New Testament Manuscripts: Over 5,800 Greek manuscripts, along with thousands of translations into Latin, Syriac, and other languages, buttress the textual reliability of the New Testament. While there are minor variations, none affect core doctrines nor the thrust of the biblical message.” My response: All the points in this section undergird the significance of denying plenary inerrancy of Biblical text. Bible Hub: “ 3. Early Church Fathers’ Citations: Patristic writers, in quoting large portions of the biblical text, provide external checkpoints for establishing textual fidelity. Archaeological Insights and Historical Corroboration Archaeological findings have consistently supported biblical records: • Hezekiah’s Tunnel (2 Kings 20:20): Discovered late in the 19th century, the tunnel’s existence and inscription corroborate the biblical account of King Hezekiah’s preparations for the Assyrian siege. • Tel Dan Stele: This fragmentary inscription references the “House of David,” confirming the historical standing of the Davidic dynasty. • Pontius Pilate Inscription: Unearthed in Caesarea Maritima, this inscription establishes the historical reality of Pilate’s governorship, lining up with the New Testament narrative (Matthew 27:2). These excavations align with the biblical records of events, kingdoms, places, and figures, demonstrating a noteworthy harmony between Scripture and historical artifacts. Harmonization of Apparent Contradictions” My response: Some apparent contradictions likely can be smoothed over and reconciled, but there are likely several contradictions in Scripture which cannot be identified as being anything other than contradictory, but these dialetheisms are just baked in mysteries, which I accept on faith. Bible Hub: “ Some perceive contradictions within Scripture, yet deeper study often reveals: 1. Contextual Nuances: Different Gospel accounts may highlight varied aspects of the same event or emphasize unique theological points. 2. Cultural and Literary Approaches: Ancient writings might not follow modern Western standards of precise chronologies or quotations, but they remain truthful within historical and literary conventions of their own era. 3. Progressive Revelation: Biblical themes unfold progressively, finding fulfillment in later passages or in Christ himself. This fullness of revelation naturally can appear disjointed until viewed within the overarching biblical message. Practical Implications of Inerrancy” My responses: Reasonable defenses of biblical inerrancy. Biblical contradictions can be problematical, but some deep, not easily explainable or refutable contradictions are baked into reality itself. For example, humans live and die, so these contradictory existential states are inextricably bound together, not quite explainable, they are just the human condition. Also, humans are half-beast and half-angel, so humans are living contradictions down to their subconscious cores. This is our predicament and our opportunity, depending on what we intend to do about it and what we plan to make of ourselves or not. Bible Hub” 1. Authority for Christian Living: Believers rely on Scripture for life guidance, knowing it is trustworthy: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105). 2. Doctrinal Certainty: Doctrines such as salvation in Christ, the nature of God, and ethical teachings rest on the reliability of Scripture (Romans 10:9-10). Inerrancy undergirds the stability and consistency of these truths. 3. Evangelistic Confidence: Proclaiming the message of Jesus’ death and resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:3-4) rests upon the conviction that the biblical testimony is factual and divinely guaranteed. Interaction with Other Doctrines 1. Inspiration and Illumination: The Holy Spirit not only inspired Scripture but also illuminates it to readers, ensuring that those who seek truth may understand the living message (John 16:13).” My response: I am heartened by this view that the Holy Spirit not only inspired Scripture but also illuminaates it for readers. No matter what text one reads, one should pray to the Holy Spirit or the Good Spirits who work for Him, to aid and ensure that the reader seeking truth can understand textual message and make it come alive in all of its semantical dimensions, rational, spiritual, etc. Bible Hub: “ 2. Christ’s Resurrection: The reliability of resurrection accounts (Matthew 28; Mark 16; Luke 24; John 20-21) remains foundational for Christian faith. Inerrancy reinforces confidence in these events, confirmed by historical and manuscript evidence. 3. Worldview and Creation: A biblical view of God as Creator (Genesis 1-2) aligns with intelligent design. Scientific implications-such as the complexity in biology or the precise fine-tuning of physical constants-bolster the conviction that the biblical record and observable data are compatible.” My response: I find intelligent design likely and appealing, but we cannot prove it or disprove it, but I accept it based on faith. Bible Hub: “ Concluding Summary Biblical inerrancy asserts that the Bible, in its original form, wholly embodies God’s truthful revelation without error. Far from an abstract doctrine, it serves as a bedrock for Christian living, theological formulation, evangelistic outreach, and a consistent worldview. Rooted in the character of a perfect, all-knowing Deity, inerrancy provides believers with unwavering confidence in the Scriptures’ ability to instruct, correct, and lead to a knowledge of salvation through Christ. “Every word of God is flawless; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him” (Proverbs 30:5).” My response: This articulate defense of biblical inerrancy is appealing and impressive, but again, if moderation is goodness, a good deity will promote neither total inerrancy nor total perfection as qualities of a good deity, for they are extreme or wicked standards of behavior. Ideologues waver wildly between epistemic claims of extreme scepticism and manic omniscience, eventually settling for true belief in their holy cause and is allegedly, absolutely truthful, errorless, final doctrines, eternally right, the final word on everything. The totalist claims are used to make hordes of shattered, egoless true believers feel good about themselves, and propels them to declare holy war upon the entire earth, seeking to spread the ism to every corner of the world by force, war, invasion and conquest. Altruistic-collectivist cruelty is most intense and destructive when justifying the barbarous acts of the faithful on the march. E This article by Keven Vanhoozer is well written. Vanhoozer will be V after this: “ The Inerrancy of Scripture By Kevin J. Vanhoozer on March 1, 2010 Knowing and Doing, Must Reads: Trusting the Bible, Knowing & Doing 2010 Spring, Kevin J. Vanhoozer Inerrancy of Scripture Whereas inspiration concerns the origin of the Bible’s authority, inerrancy describes its nature. By inerrancy we refer not only to the Bible’s being “without error” but also to its inability to err (we might helpfully illustrate this point by comparing it to the distinction between Jesus’ sinlessness or being without sin, on the one hand, and his impeccability or inability to sin on the other). Inerrancy, positively defined, refers to a central and crucial property of the Bible, namely, its utter truthfulness.” My response: The great and awesome Jesus would not want us to regard him as innately sinless for he was ½ human and humans are basically evil by nature. He would not accept that he had an inability to sin for a good sentient being utterly good, would not have free will, and therefore would be an intelligent robot. Jesus had the ability to sin, so that He could understand humans and die on the cross to open a way for humans; Jesus was able to sin but choose rarely or never to sin, and that is the greatest moral victory achievable. It is a willed, achieved significant, superior victory of a free-willing deity choosing to be perfect or near perfect it is not just an intrinsic moral pefection not willed but granted by nature, super-nature or God the Creator. Utter truthfulness is not possible for a good deity and her sacred text, nor would she desire it, so humans should not characterize the divinity they love and worship in this light. V: “The basis for the doctrine of biblical inerrancy is located both in the nature of God and in the Bible’s teaching about itself. First, if God is perfect—all-knowing, all-wise, all-good—it follows that God speaks the truth. God does not tell lies; God is not ignorant. God’s Word is thus free from all error arising either from conscious deceit or unconscious ignorance. Such is the unanimous confession of the psalmist, the prophets, the Lord Jesus and the apostles. Second, the Bible presents itself as the Word of God written. Thus, in addition to its humanity (which is never denied), the Bible also enjoys the privileges and prerogatives of its status as God’s Word. God’s Word is thus wholly reliable, a trustworthy guide to reality, a light unto our path. If the biblical and theological basis of the doctrine is so obvious, however, why have some in our day suggested that the inerrancy of the Bible is a relatively recent concept? Is it true, as some have argued, that the doctrine of inerrancy was “invented” in the nineteenth century at Princeton by B.B. Warfield and Charles Hodge and is therefore a novelty in the history of theology? In answer to this question, it is important to remember that doctrines arise only when there is need for them. Doctrine develops when something implicit in the faith is denied; false teaching provokes an explicit rebuttal. This is as true of inerrancy as it is of the doctrines of the Trinity, or of justification by faith.” My response: It may be that the formal assertion of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy is a recent historical development, but there is strong biblical evidence to cite and quote as supporting this view—it is embedded in biblical text, though I deny it, as total textual inerrancy, is an acceptable doctrine defended by any good deity (if he or she would sit down with us today have coffee and discuss inerrancy of text with us) or by a decent, smart author of a secular text, if the author was wise and sensible. V:” The notion of the Bible’s truthfulness was implicitly assumed throughout the history of the church. Theologians were only reflecting the view of the biblical authors themselves. Jesus himself quotes Scripture and implies that its words are true and trustworthy—wholly reliable. The New Testament authors share and reflect this high estimate of the Old Testament. The question is whether this “high estimate” of Scripture pertained to its reliability in matters of faith and salvation only or whether it involved a trust in all matters on which the Bible speaks, including science and history. One difficulty with this question is that it is anachronistic: it reflects the concerns of our times (including the dubious dichotomy between fact and value) rather than that of the Fathers and Reformers. With regard to the Fathers, we know that they held to the divine authorship of Scripture. Behind the many voices of the human authors is the voice of the Holy Spirit, the ultimate author of Scripture. While some used this as an excuse to search for hidden truths through allegorical interpretation, if anything the tendency was to ascribe too much truth to Scripture rather than too little. For the Fathers, to suggest that there were errors in the Bible would have been unthinkable. Augustine, for instance, wrote that biblical authority would be overthrown if the authors had stated things that were not true. Though Augustine warned Christians not to hide their ignorance of scientific fact by easy appeals to Scripture, he also believed that the biblical writers did not make any scientific errors. True scientific discoveries will always be capable of being reconciled with the Scriptures. Augustine is at pains to show that there are no contradictions, either between one part of the Bible and another, or between the Bible and truth gleaned from elsewhere. Whatever we think of such attempts, they are at least compelling evidence of the widespread Patristic presupposition of the Bible’s truthfulness. The Reformers similarly affirmed the truthfulness of the Bible. There is some debate among scholars whether Luther and Calvin limited Scripture’s truthfulness to matters of salvation, conveniently overlooking errors about lesser matters. It is true that Luther and Calvin are aware of apparent discrepancies in Scripture and that they often speak of “errors.” However, a closer analysis seems to indicate that the discrepancies and errors are consistently attributed to copyists and translators, not to the human authors of Scripture, much less to the Holy Spirit, its divine author. Calvin was aware that Paul’s quotations of the Old Testament (e.g., Romans 10:6 and Deuteronomy 30:12) were not always exact, nor always exegetically sound, but he did not infer that Paul had thereby made an error. On the contrary, Calvin notes that Paul is not giving the words of Moses different sense so much as applying them to his treatment of the subject at hand. Indeed, Calvin explicitly denies the suggestion that Paul distorts Moses’ words. Doctrines are formulated in order to refute error and to preserve revealed truth.” My response: Doctrines like plenary textual inerrancy are formulated in order to refute and defeat criticis. Ayn Rand, like other gurus, implied textual inerrancy to preserve her revealed truth, but that is not the proper mission for the author of a sacred religious text or a sacred, secular text. The smart, truthful, wise author, divine or human, will settle for advertising that his holy text is promulgating stories of near but not complete inerrancy, in line with the axiom that moderate truth is truth. Pure truth and pure lies are variations of the same false set of assertions. V: “ Just as biblical authority only became part of Protestant confessions in the sixteenth century to counter the idea that tradition is the supreme authority of the church, so the doctrine of biblical inerrancy was only explicitly formulated to counter explicit denials of the Bible’s truthfulness. These denials arose about the same time as did modernity and the distinctively modern way of interpreting the Bible: biblical criticism. Many so-called “enlightened” thinkers of the eighteenth century accepted the Deists’ belief that the source of truth was reason rather than revelation. Increasingly, the Bible came to be studied like any other book, on naturalistic assumptions that ruled out the possibility of divine action in history. Accordingly, biblical critics grew skeptical of Scripture’s own account of its supernatural origin and sought to reconstruct the historical reality. Advances in knowledge and a changed view of the world were thought to necessitate a rethinking of biblical authority.” My response: Sources of truth in the supernatural world as well as in the natural world and the social world are both reason and revelation, and this can be compatible with biblical authority and largely biblical inerrancy. V: “ Historical critics argued that the authors of the Bible were children of their age, limited by the worldviews that prevailed when they wrote. It was against this backdrop of widespread suspicion of the supernaturalist appearance of Scripture, and the virtually taken-for-granted denial of divine authorship, that the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, implicit from the first, was explicitly formulated (e.g., by Warfield and Hodge). What is explicitly expressed in the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, however, is not a theological novelty so much as an articulation of what was implicitly, and virtually always, presupposed through most of church history. What then does the doctrine of biblical inerrancy explicitly articulate? We can refine our provisional definition of inerrancy in terms of truthfulness as follows: The inerrancy of Scripture means that Scripture, in the original manuscripts and when interpreted according to the intended sense, speaks truly in all that it affirms. These specifications, by identifying the conditions under which Scripture speaks truly, do not hasten the death of inerrancy by qualification; they rather acknowledge two crucial limitations that enable believers to keep the doctrine in its proper perspective. Let us examine these two qualifications in more detail. First: the Bible speaks truly “in the original manuscripts.” We have already seen that the Reformers were able to affirm the truthfulness of the Bible and to acknowledge errors due to faulty translation or transmission. To the objection that we do not now possess the original manuscripts, it must be pointed out that textual critical studies have brought us extremely close to the original text. The relatively small number of textual variations do not for the most part affect our ability to recognize the original text. At the same time, it is important not to ascribe inerrancy to the copies of the originals, since these are the products of an all-too human process of transmission. The second qualification is just as important: “when interpreted according to the intended sense.” It is often tempting to claim the same authority for one’s interpretations as for the biblical text itself. The thrust of the doctrine of inerrancy, however, like that of sola Scriptura, is to stress the distinction between the Word of God and the words of men. Interpretations of the Bible fall under the category “words of men.” It is thus important not to ascribe inerrancy to our interpretations. To the objection that we do not possess the correct interpretation, we must appeal not to inerrancy but to the perspicuity of Scripture. What conflicts there are about biblical interpretation ultimately must be ascribed to the fallible interpreter, not to the infallible text.” My response: I agree that Scripture is nearly an infallible text, and that the errancy and misinterpretation largely is the fault of fallible human interpreters, who fail to interpret the Bible in the sense intended by God. I generally agree that perspicuity generally is the graspable message from Scripture available to the average reader and believer. I suggest that interpretive errancy may be a human frailty, but the moderate, good deities would not claim for themselves the property of pure biblical inerrancy in the original texts but largely inerrancy in sacred message extended to the human reader. V: “Does inerrancy do justice to the humanity of the Scriptures? Some critics of inerrancy have suggested that God had to “accommodate” his message to the language and thought-forms of the day in order effectively to communicate. In taking on forms of human language and thought, does God’s communication simultaneously take on outmoded views of the world or of human nature? For example, could God speak truthfully of the sun “rising” when he knows full well that the sun does not move? In speaking of the sun rising, does not the Bible make a scientific mistake? To this objection it may be replied that using the common language of the day is not the same as committing oneself to its literal truth. One must not confuse a social convention with a scientific affirmation. To say that the sun rises is to employ a metaphor—one, moreover, that is true to human experience. The objection proves too much: if the inspired authors have used ancient thought forms that led to scientific errors, would not these same thought forms have led to errors in matters of faith and practice too? After all, “To err is human”—or is it? Though proverbial wisdom equates humanity with fallibility, the paradigm of Christ’s sinless life shows that the one concept need not follow from the other. God’s Word, we may conclude, can take on human form—incarnate, inscripturate—without surrendering its claim to sinlessness and truth.” My response: I would not sweat that the language of the day is literally true, for there is never perfect clarity available, and nor is it desirable. V: “ Does inerrancy therefore mean that every word in Scripture is literally true? There has been a great deal of confusion on this point, both in the media and in academia. It should first be noted that mere words are neither true nor false; truth is a property of statements.” My response: I agree that truth is found in statements, not in isolated words. V: “ Second, those who oppose biblical inerrancy have all too often contributed to the confusion by caricaturing the notion of literal truth. Critics of inerrancy typically speak of “literal truth” when what they really mean is “literalistic truth.” Defenders of inerrancy must take great care to distinguish the notion of literal truth from the kind of literalistic interpretation that runs roughshod over the intent of the author and the literary form of the text. Perhaps the best way to resolve this confusion is to begin at the other end. What counts as an error? If I say that my lecture lasts an hour, when in fact it lasts only fifty-nine minutes, have I made an error? That depends on your expectation and on the context of my remark. In everyday conversation round figures are perfectly acceptable; no one would accuse me of getting my figures wrong. In other contexts, however, a different level of precision is required. A BBC television producer, for instance, would need to know the exact number of minutes. The point is that what counts as an error depends upon the kind of precision or exactness that the reader has a right to expect. “Error” is thus a context-dependent notion. If I do not claim scientific exactitude or technical precision, it would be unjust to accuse me of having erred. Indeed, too much precision (“my lecture is fifty-nine minutes and eight seconds long”) can be distracting and actually hinder clear communication. Let us define error, then, as a failure to make good on or to redeem one’s claims. The Bible speaks truly because it makes good its claims. It thus follows that we should first determine just what kind of claims are being made before too quickly ruling “true” or “false.” If error is indeed a context-dependent notion, those who see errors in Scripture would do well first to establish the context of Scripture’s claims. To interpret the Bible according to a wooden literalism fails precisely to attend to the kinds of claims Scripture makes. To read every sentence of the Bible as if it were referring to something in the world, or to a timeless truth, may be to misread much of Scripture. Just as readers need to be sensitive to metaphor (few would react to Jesus’ claim in John 10:9, “I am the door,” by searching for a handle) so readers must be sensitive to literary genre (e.g., to the literary context of biblical statements). Is every word in Scripture literally true? The problem with this question is its incorrect (and typically unstated) assumption that “literal truth” is always literalistic—a matter of referring to history or to the “facts” of nature. It is just such a faulty assumption—that the Bible always states facts—that leads certain well-meaning defenders of inerrancy desperately to harmonize what appear to be factual or chronological discrepancies in the Gospels. In the final analysis, what was new about the Princetonians’ view of Scripture was not their understanding of the Bible’s truthfulness but rather their particular view of language and interpretation, in which the meaning of the biblical text was the fact—historical or doctrinal—to which it referred. Their proof-texting was more a product of their view of language and interpretation than of their doctrine of Scripture. What if the intent of the Evangelists was not to narrate history with chronological precision? What if the Evangelists sometimes intended to communicate only the content of Jesus’ teaching rather than his very words? Before extending the Bible’s truth to include history or astronomy, or restricting to matters of salvation for that matter, we must first ask, “What kind of literature is this?” The question of meaning should precede the question of truth. We must first determine what kind of claim is being made before we can rule on its truthfulness. The point of biblical apocalyptic is quite distinct from the point of Jesus’ parables, from that of the Gospels themselves, or of Old Testament wisdom. We must, therefore, say that the literal sense of Scripture is its literary sense: the sense the author intended to convey in and through a particular literary form. Inerrancy means that every sentence, when interpreted correctly (i.e., in accordance with its literary genre and its literary sense), is wholly reliable.” My response: This definition of inerrancy is useful but is still unacceptable to me. V: “ The older term to express biblical authority—infallibility—remains useful. Infallibility means that Scripture never fails in its purpose. The Bible makes good on all its claims, including its truth claims. God’s Word never leads astray. It is important to recall that language may be used for many different purposes, and not to state facts only. Inerrancy, then, is a subset of infallibility: when the Bible’s purpose is to make true statements, it does this too without fail. Yet the Bible’s other speech acts—warnings, promises, questions—are infallible too.” My responseL His definition of infallibility as biblical authority is useful but not reality for me. V: “ The Bible’s own understanding of truth stresses reliability. God’s Word is true because it can be relied upon—relied upon to make good its claim and to accomplish its purpose. We may therefore speak of the Bible’s promises, commands, warnings, etc., as being “true,” inasmuch as they too can be relied upon. Together, the terms inerrancy and infallibility remind us that the Word of God is wholly reliable not only when it speaks, but also when it does the truth. Kevin J. Vanhoozer Professor, Senior Fellow for Systematic Theology, CSLI Kevin J. Vanhoozer is the Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School; serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Systematic Theology and the Journal of Theological Interpretation. He earned his M.Div. from Westminster Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from Cambridge University. Previously, he served as Blanchard Professor of Theology at Wheaton College and as Senior Lecturer in Theology and Religious Studies at New College, University of Edinburgh. He has edited multiple books, including The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology and Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible. He is the author of many books, most notably, Is There a Meaning in this Text? and The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to F I f I found this article on Biblical Inerrancy on the Internet of 10/4/25, so I will copy and paste it below. I will introduce pieces of it in success for commentary with the letter BI: “ Biblical Inerrancy: 10/4/25: It’s been said that a table must have at least three legs to stand. Take away any of the three legs and it will surely topple. In much the same way, the Christian faith stands on three legs. These three legs are the inspiration, infallibility, and inerrancy of Scripture. Take away one, and like the table, the divine authority of the Christian faith will surely topple. These three “in’s” complement each other, yet each expresses a slightly different distinction in our understanding of Scripture. Inspiration. The first “in” is inspiration and this deals with the origin of the Bible. Evangelicals believe that “God breathed out” the words of the Bible using human writers as the vehicle. Paul writes, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God (literally “is God-breathed”), and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim. 3:16-17) Infallibility. The next “in,” infallibility, speaks to the authority and enduring nature of the Bible. To be infallible means that something is incapable of failing and therefore is permanently binding and cannot be broken. Peter said “the word of the Lord endures forever” (1 Pet. 1:23-25) and therefore its authority cannot be broken. When addressing a difficult passage, Jesus said, “the Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:34-35). In fact, He said, “one jot or one tittle will by no means pass away from the law till all is fulfilled” (Mat. 5:18). These speak to the Bible’s infallibility. Inerrancy. The last “in,” inerrancy, simply means that the Bible is without error. It’s a belief in the “total truthfulness and reliability of God’s words” (Grudem, Systematic Theology, Inter-Varsity, 2004, 90). Jesus said, “Your word is truth” (John 17:17). This inerrancy isn’t just in passages that speak about salvation, but also applies to all historical and scientific statements as well. It is not only accurate in matters related to faith and practice, but it is accurate and without error regarding any statement, period (John 3:12). My response: This article is a bit different, and I like the metaphor of inspiration, infallibility and inerrancy as the three legs of a stool, but of course I see these three properties of asserted biblical perfection without error as mostly accurate, not completely accurate. BI: “ But Is It Really Important? Yes, inerrancy is extremely important because: (1) it is attached to the character of God; (2) it is taught in the Scriptures; (3) it is the historic position of the Christian Church, and (4) it is foundational to other essential doctrines. 1. It’s Based on the Character of God Inerrancy is based on the character of God who cannot lie (Heb. 6:18; Titus 1:2). God cannot lie intentionally because He is an absolute moral law-giver. He cannot err unintentionally because He is omniscient. And if the Bible is the written Word of God (and it is), then it is without error. 2. It was Taught by Christ and the Apostles Inerrancy was taught by Christ and the apostles in the New Testament. This should be our primary basis for believing it. B.B. Warfield said, “We believe this doctrine of the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures primarily because it is the doctrine which Christ and his apostles believed, and which they have taught us.” (Limited Inspiration, 1962 cited by Mohler, 42) To quote Jesus himself, “the Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35) and “until heaven and earth pass away not an iota, not a dot, will pass away from the Law until all is accomplished” (Matt 5:18). 3. It’s the Historic Position of the Church Inerrancy is the historic position of the Christian Church. ICBI produced a whole book demonstrating this point (see John Hannah, Inerrancy and the Church, Moody). As Al Mohler pointed out (Mohler, 48-49), even some errantists have agreed that inerrancy has been the standard view of the Christian Church down through the centuries. He cites the Hanson brothers, Anthony and Richard, Anglican scholars, who said, “The Christian Fathers and the medieval tradition continued this belief [in inerrancy], and the Reformation did nothing to weaken it. On the contrary, since for many reformed theologians the authority of the Bible took the place which the Pope had held in the medieval scheme of things, the inerrancy of the Bible became more firmly maintained and explicitly defined among some reformed theologians than it had even been before.” They added, “The beliefs here denied [viz., inerrancy] have been held by all Christians from the very beginning until about a hundred and fifty years ago.” (cited by Mohler, 41) 4. It’s Fundamental to All Other Doctrines Inerrancy is foundational to all other essential Christian doctrines. It is granted that some other doctrines (like the atoning death and bodily resurrection of Christ) are more essential to salvation. However, all soteriological (salvation-related) doctrines derive their divine authority from the divinely authoritative Word of God. So, epistemologically (in a knowledge-related sense), the doctrine of the divine authority and inerrancy of Scripture is the fundamental of all the fundamentals. And if the fundamental of fundamentals is not fundamental, then what is fundamental? Fundamentally nothing! Thus, while one can be saved without believing in inerrancy, the doctrine of salvation has no divine authority apart from the infallibility and inerrancy of Scripture. It’s an Essential Inerrancy deserves high regard among evangelicals and has rightly earned the status of being essential (in an epistemological sense) to the Christian Faith. Thus, to reduce inerrancy to the level of non-essential or even “incidental’ to the Christian Faith, reveals ignorance of its theological and historical roots and is an offense to its “watershed” importance to a consistent and healthy Christianity. Inerrancy simply cannot be rejected without grave consequences, both to the individual and to the Church. It’s Under Attack… Right Now! The International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI) was founded in 1977 specifically over concerns about the erosion of inerrancy. Christian leaders, theologians and pastors assembled together three times over the course of a decade to address the issue. At the first meeting, a doctrinal statement was jointly created titled “The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy” (see full text here). This document has been described as “a landmark church document” created “by the then largest, broadest, group of evangelical protestant scholars that ever came together to create a common, theological document in the 20th century. It is probably the first systematically comprehensive, broadly based, scholarly, creed-like statement on the inspiration and authority of Scripture in the history of the church.” (Dallas Theological Seminary, “Records of the International Council On Biblical Inerrancy”) Despite this modern safeguard, in 2010, Dr. Mike Licona, an evangelical professor, wrote a book titled The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach. In this book, he suggested that the account of the resurrected saints walking through the city might be “apocalyptic imagery” (Mat. 27:51-53). In other words, he suggested that the events did not actually happen, but that it was lore or legend. Subsequently, Licona resigned from his position with the Southern Baptists and at Southern Evangelical Seminary. What followed is rather alarming. Incredibly, some notable evangelical scholars began to express their support for Licona’s view, considering it consistent with a belief in inerrancy. Scholars Trying to Redefine Inerrancy Of course, in order to defend Licona’s view they had to redefine inerrancy to include what were previously considered to be errors. Some did this by misinterpreting inerrancy as expressed by the ICBI framers. Since 2011, more alarming statements from Licona have surfaced, including: (1) A denial of the historicity of the mob falling backward at Jesus’ claim “I am he” in John 18:4-6 (RJ, 306, note 114); (2) A denial of the historicity of the angels at the tomb recorded in all four Gospels (Mat. 28:2-7; Mark 16:5-7; Luke 24:4-7; John 20:11-14) (RJ, 185-186); (3) A denial of the accuracy of the Gospel of John by claiming it says Jesus was crucified on the wrong day (debate with Bart Ehrman at Southern Evangelical Seminary, Spring, 2009); (4) A claim that the Gospel genre is Greco-Roman biography which he says is a “flexible genre” in which “it is often difficult to determine where history ends and legend begins” (RJ, 34). Amazingly, these views continue to gain support among the evangelical community. These are the professors of some of the finest evangelical schools in the nation, who are responsible for training the pastors of today and future generations, and they are saying that they are comfortable with these verses not being factual. This is an outright departure from the historic definition of inerrancy.” My response: I would not like to see the Bible lose to skeptics and liberal interpreters of this sacred text, its status as mostly textually infallible and mostly textually infallible. BI: “ Standing Up For The Bible Before It’s Too Late This is why the Defending Inerrancy initiative was created. We’ve already lost a growing list of evangelical scholars over the issue of inerrancy. Now we are trying to reach the latest generation of Christian leaders before it is too late. Would you please consider signing our petition and taking a stand for biblical inerrancy.” G I found this article by Mike Leake on the Internet in Ocotober , 2025 and I copied it and pasted it below and I will refer to it as L for Leake and make comments: “ BibleStudy Tools Bible Inerrant? Mike Leake Borrowed Light Updated January 10, 2023 “The Bible is filled with errors.” Those who make such a claim will point to many places in Scripture. Some will cite historical errors, scientific errors, contradictions, and impossibilities as evidence that the Bible is filled with tons of errors.” My response: The Bible may contain historical errors, scientific errors, contradiction or impossibilities, but, in the main, the principle if biblical inerrancy is its pattern and result. L: “ But what does God’s Word claim for itself? Does it claim to be without error? Gregg Allison is likely correct when he says, “the church from the outset was united in its belief that the Word of God is true and contains no error.” But in the 1830’s a new word arose as an attempt to further define this doctrine. That term was “inerrancy.” What does it mean when people claim that the Bible is inerrant? And is the Bible inerrant? Read on to find answers to this question. What Does "Inerrant" Mean? Put simply, inerrant means to be “free from error.” But this is also a somewhat loaded theological term. In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, the doctrine of inerrancy was a hotbed of discussion, even going so far as to divide the Southern Baptist Convention. In the minds of many, to affirm “inerrancy” was to believe that the Bible is true. Others held that inerrancy was an unhelpful or unnecessary term.” My response: No, the term inerrancy is not unhelpful or unnecessary for we need to openly debate this textual concept in order to learn approximately what is true and what is not, and how to interpret text carefully but openly, honestly. L: “ In 1978 a group of conservatives published the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy. In the eyes of many, this has become the gold standard for whether or not one adheres to the doctrine of inerrancy. It’s a bit of a loaded question to ask whether or not one affirms inerrancy. Do you mean, “do you affirm the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy” or do you believe that the Bible is “without error”? There are some who would heartily affirm that “the Word of God is true and contains no error” but would not sign the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy. So, it’s important from the outset to agree upon a meaning. Wayne Grudem gives this as a definition: “The inerrancy of Scripture means that the Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact.” In his book, 40 Questions About Interpreting the Bible, Robert Plummer gives 8 qualifying statements to further help us understand what is meant by inerrancy: 1. Inerrancy applies only to the autographs. 2. Inerrancy respects the authorial intent of the passage and the literary conventions under which the author wrote. 3. Inerrancy allows for partial reporting, paraphrasing, and summarizing. 4. Inerrancy allows for phenomenological language. 5. Inerrancy allows the reporting of speech without the endorsement of the truthfulness of that speech. 6. Inerrancy does not mean that the Bible provides definitive or exhaustive information on every topic. 7. Inerrancy is not invalidated by colloquial or nonstandard grammar or spelling. That helps to outline what is meant by inerrancy. Understanding these qualifications helps us to understand that many supposed contradictions and difficulties are not really against inerrancy. Kevin Vanhoozer gives another good definition of inerrancy that might be helpful in moving the discussion forward. Vanhoozer defines inerrancy this way, “God’s authoritative Word is wholly true and trustworthy in everything it claims about what was, what is, and what will be.” This helps us to get at the crux of the issue. Is the Bible true? Is it authoritative? Is it trustworthy? That is what is at stake in this discussion.” My response: These three questions about the Bible or any holy text, sacred or secular are vital to ask and seek to answer: Is it true? Is it trustworthy? Is it authoritaive? L: “ Do We See This Word Anywhere in Scripture? You will not find the word inerrancy anywhere in Scripture. It is a relatively newer term. The first known use of the term, with the present meaning, is found in 1837. It’s not shocking, then, that this word does not appear in the Bible. But the concept of a true, trustworthy, and authoritative Bible certainly does appear in Scripture. First, in 2 Timothy 3:16 we read that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.” That is making the claim that if something is Scripture then it is “God-breathed”. This means that it is inspired/written by God. Secondly, Numbers 23:19 tells us that “God is not a man, that he should lie…” Many Scriptures testify that God does not lie and that He always tells the truth. Therefore, we can conclude, then, that if the Bible is written by God, then every jot and tittle that is written by God is true. Lastly, Jesus himself said that “the Scripture cannot be broken” in John 10:35. He treated the Scripture as an authority. We see in the temptation in the wilderness how Scripture was used by the Lord. He considered it to be the bread on which He lived. Therefore, we see that the Scriptures declare of themselves that they are true, trustworthy, and authoritative. Is the Bible Inerrant? This is where our definition of inerrancy matters. Does affirming inerrancy mean that you have to affirm all of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy? Or does it mean that you simply affirm the Bible is authoritative, trustworthy, and true? This might seem like splitting hairs, but Michael Bird has shown the problem with what he calls the American inerrancy tradition (AIT). “This is the problem with AIT and its advocates. They merge their interpretation with the text so that to disagree with their interpretation is to deny the inerrancy of the text. This alone is enough to turn many Christians off to the doctrine of inerrancy.” (Five Views, 69) And yet Bird would not disagree with a definition similar to that of Vanhoozer’s on inerrancy. If you simply mean, “the Bible is without error” I believe that we must affirm that the original manuscripts were God-breathed, and as such everything which is contained therein is without error. Of course, we no longer have the original manuscripts. So, in one sense we are arguing for a moot point. But just because we no longer have the original manuscripts does not mean that we have not accurately preserved the Word of God. Asking a few questions here can help us. I use the English Standard Version of the Bible. Is that inerrant? No. Not technically. What if I switched to the King James Version of the Bible? Though, some might claim inerrancy for this particular translation, the position of inerrancy is that the original manuscripts are inerrant. No translation is without error. That does not mean, however, that my ESV translation of the Bible is untrue, untrustworthy, or filled with errors. We can with much precision determine what was in the original manuscripts. Yes, there will be some meaning that is difficult to discern through translation. Yes, there might be a few places where we have textual variants that are difficult to make a definitive decision upon. But you can trust your Bible. Yes, the original manuscripts are without error in that they proclaim everything in which the truth-telling God intended to proclaim. And yes, that which God spoke to the original authors has been preserved for us through many generations and across languages. You can trust the Bible you are reading. Why Does It Matter That the Bible Is Inerrant? I like to think about doctrine and orthodoxy like standing on an elevated mesa. There is much room on this mesa. But there are also steep drops if you go outside the parameters. Doctrine is the same way. There are some things which one cannot affirm and be considered a Christian in any meaningful sense. As an example, you cannot deny the truthfulness of the resurrection and still be considered orthodox. Likewise, a denial of the humanity of the deity of Christ puts one off the cliff of orthodoxy. You’re no longer on the mesa if you are making such claims. But consider something like the second coming of Christ. If you outright deny that Christ is living and that He will one day return, then you cannot rightly be said to believe in Christian doctrine. You are outside the bounds of the mesa. But on that mesa, there will be many different opinions about the specifics of the return of Christ. So long as you believe in the return of Christ, you’re on the mesa — and there is room for disagreement there. I would use a similar illustration in discussing inerrancy. It is important that we affirm that the Bible is “God’s authoritative Word.” It’s also important that we affirm that it is “true and trustworthy in what it claims.” This, I would argue, is what it means to be on the mesa of historic and faithful belief on the nature of the Bible. The same is true when we talk about inerrancy. These beliefs about the nature of the Bible are important to maintain for a few reasons. It’s important first and foremost because that is the claim that the Bible makes for itself. Secondly, it is important that we consider the Scriptures to be authoritative, true, and trustworthy, because this is what Jesus believed about the “unbroken Scripture” (see John 10). It is also important because a belief in the truthfulness and trustworthiness of the Bible is essential for other Christian doctrines. If we deny that God’s Word is our authority, and that it tells the truth, then we could make Scripture as a wax nose. We could bend it to our individual whims. It’s also important because the church has historically believed this about the Scriptures. We ought to be connected with what the church everywhere and for all of history has affirmed. Again, there might be some divergence in what we mean by some of these things upon that mesa. We might not even prefer a term like inerrancy. But at the end of the day, it is important for us to affirm the nature of God’s Word as authoritative, trustworthy, and true. Sources Allison, Gregg R., and Wayne A. Grudem. Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine : a Companion to Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology. (Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan, 201), 99 Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 90 Robert Plummer, 40 Questions About Interpreting the Bible, 41-44 Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy, 203 Photo credit: Unsplash Mike Leake is husband to Nikki and father to Isaiah and Hannah. He is also the lead pastor at Calvary of Neosho, MO. Mike is the author of Torn to Heal and Jesus Is All You Need. His writing home is http://mikeleake.net and you can connect with him on Twitter @mikeleake. Mike has a new writing project at Proverbs4Today. . G Here is an internet article from 0/14/25 from Awk Pastor John: I pasted the article below and will comment on it. Here it is (J is for John): “ Ask Pastor John: 10/14/25: Ask Pastor John What Is Inerrancy? Interview with John Piper Founder & Teacher, Desiring God Pastor John, in its most basic form, how do you define biblical inerrancy? Before I go to the definition of inerrancy, let me give you the soil or the roots of why you would even ask that question. The 66 books of the Christian canon are what I am talking about when I say “Scripture” or “Bible.” They are, we believe, inspired by God (see 2 Timothy 3:16). Or, to say it another way, “No prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). Words from The Word So, the reason inerrancy arises is because we claim this book is the very word of God. The center of God’s revelation is Jesus. And he is called the Word of God incarnate. And he said Scripture cannot be broken. He said, “Until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot” — not the littlest of dots in an iota — “will pass away from the Law until all is accomplished” (Matthew 5:18). So the Word of God validates the word of God written. The Word of God incarnate validated the word of God written in the Old Testament and then he commissioned apostles to speak his word as the foundation of the church. And he promised, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). So Jesus stands at the center as the Word of God incarnate, and looking back, he validates the word of God written, and looking forward, he validates the word of God written. And the apostles took it that way because they said amazing things about their authority. Paul said, for example, in 1 Corinthians 14:37–38, “If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized.” That is incredible. And the only reason he has the right to say that is because he said, “We are teaching in words, spoken not from men, but from the Holy Spirit, because Jesus promised I am going to guide my apostles into all truth.” So there is the reason why the whole issue of inerrancy even arises. We have a book in front of us that claims to be the inspired word of God. And since God doesn’t lie and doesn’t make mistakes, we say the Bible doesn’t lie, doesn’t make mistakes. Makes No Mistakes So what does error mean here if we are going to say “inerrant”? By the way, I am not one who gets bent out of shape about using the word “inerrancy” as over “infallibility” or “truthfulness.” If you say the Bible is completely and totally true, and the Bible is completely and totally infallible, and the Bible is completely and totally inerrant, the average person is not hearing any distinctions. And I am not either. I don’t like it when people quibble about these words. I think it is good to use them all.” My response: Pastor John, though not 100% that inerrancy, infallibility and truthfulness are perfectly synonymous, but they are semantically close enough in meaning, that the doctrine of plenary biblical inerrancy could also be labeled plenary biblical truthfulness or plenary biblical infallibility. J: “ To make sense out of the word “inerrant” — no error — we have to define “error.” What is it that isn’t in this book? What is its error? And we have to define “error” in terms of the author’s intention. And in the Bible, since we have got God inspiring this book, we’ve got God’s intention mediated through the intention of human authors and going beyond them — I would say always going beyond them — because he sees all the innumerable, necessary implications of what they can’t see. I include in meaning or intention the necessary implications of what an author says, some of which he can see, and some of which he can’t. And God can see them all. And, therefore, when I think of the intention of the author, I am thinking of all that the human author intended to teach and all that God intended to teach, which is always bigger than what humans can see in their implications of what God inspired them to write.” My response: I agree God utilizes human authors to write out the inspired communication which God breathes into the human author, but that also the author may be communicating more than he intends or realizes that he is communicating. J: “ Attention to Intention Now, the reason intention is crucial is because there are all kinds of ways that we say things that could be taken as error which aren’t error if people didn’t pay attention to our intention. I might say, “Tony, you scared me to death walking in here like that.” You would not respond to me, “You are a liar. You are a liar, or you are a fool because you are still breathing.” You wouldn’t, because you would know this is an idiom for, “You really scared me.” You wouldn’t quibble over the fact that I am not dead. You wouldn’t say, “Error, error.” And so, we have to be alert to those kinds of things in the Bible. What did the author mean or what did he intend? “The biblical authors with God as their guide do not teach anything false or command as God’s will anything displeasing to God.” Another example would be the book of Job. You’ve got 29 chapters of erroneous theology. Job is putting sentences in his inerrant book that are full of errors. The counsel of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar is bad counsel. And Job is telling the story and including the bad counsel. So what you have to do is ask, “Now how is the book of Job inerrant?” The book of Job is inerrant, not because it doesn’t include stupid sentences from Eliphaz, but because Job is written in such a way that we know the sentences are stupid, and we know they are erroneous and, thus, he makes a true point by pointing out the falsehood of the bad theology in his book. That is the way literature works. That is the way we talk. We are inerrant when the thing we are teaching is true and not false. God’s Written Revelation So what I mean by the Bible being inerrant is that the biblical authors, with God as their guide, do not teach anything false or command as God’s will anything displeasing to God. Or to say it another way, What the authors intend for us to understand or obey, properly understood in its nearer and wider context, is true. It is not misleading. It is not errant. It is not false. It corresponds to the way things really are. It commends behaviors and attitudes that God really wills. And it raises many questions. I would refer people to The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (CSBI) because that document is sometimes treated superficially as being naïve. It is not naïve. If you read carefully the distinctions that are made in that document, it is a good guide for us, I think. Let me just close this by saying, I love this truth, because I love the Bible, because I love God. God, Word, inerrant to me are continuous. I can’t break off anywhere in there and feel like I have treated God or his word or the truth honorably. From history and from my own experience, it is almost impossible to exaggerate the importance of the truth of the Bible. We humans are incapable of finding out what we absolutely have to know. We can’t overcome sin. We can’t escape the wrath of God. We can’t become new creatures. We can’t walk pleasing to the Lord. God must reveal these things to us, or we perish. And this he has done and continues to do by means of written word — the Bible. And when a person has understood what the Bible teaches, he has understood the revelation of God infallibly, inerrantly, verbally. John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of Desiring God and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Foundations for Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy. Read more about John. My response: it is written that to be defining inerrancy is to say that is to be free of error. H I have not been demure in asserting in this lengthy blog entry that textual inerrancy is very similar to the concept of biblical inerrancy. Below I will entertain commentary on the famous sectarian split between Leonard Peikoff/ARI Randians versus David Kelley/Atlas Society Randians. It is my thesis that the works of Ayn Rand orthodox traditionalists (ARI) are fervent believers in perfect or total secular textual inerrancy, and that they are fanatical in this regard. Secular conservative humanism is their religion, and Ayn Rand is their prophet, and her literary and philosophical works are their holy, inerrant texts. The David Kelley Randians, I suggest, are the moderates in this sectarian dispute, that textual near inerrancy is as far as they would go in declaring Ayn Rand’s text and theories to be perfectly right and necessarily without error. I recommend to the reader that the ARI adherents of Randianism are true believers, and that followers of Atlas Society are more moderate, more virtuous, or sensible and correct. The backing of total textual inerrancy is not a policy from God, neither among followers of the Bible, nor among Randians, reading Ayn Rand’s secular text, but instead fanatics of all stripes are working for the Devil. Their militant, intolerant pronouncements of total holy text inerrancy are applied by them to their ism and its sacred texts. These dogmatists categorically so presuming and proclaiming are true-believing secular atheists, radical Christians, nationalists, racists of various stripes, religionists of various stripes, political ideologues, and zealous Jews; quite identical are they too each other in their absolutist claims of possessing infallible dogma. These ultraists, all alike in that all are fundamentalists or people of low self-esteem lack the confidence to allow for doubt, contradiction and complexity in the world, so they resort to totalist assertion of utter inerrancy to be found when one reads their sacred texts; Their resulting doctrinal conclusions true are beyong inspect, contradicting or denying without exception. I Here was where David Kelley’s famous open article, A Question of Sanction was found by me—in the blog site of an Objectivist influencer from about 20 years ago, Michaael Stuart Kelly, so I will label this section Kelly or K below and then comment on it: “ Michael Stuart Kelly • Posted August 10, 2006 (The following is David Kelley's famous essay roughly as it appears in The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand. - Michael) A Question of Sanction An Open Letter, March, 1989 [This open letter was written in response to an article Peter Schwartz published in The Intellectual Activist in early 1989. I sent copies to about 30 people, including Schwartz himself and Leonard Peikoff, and authorized anyone to copy and distribute it further. Within a few weeks it had circulated widely in the Objectivist movement. Peikoff’s “Fact and Value” was written in response to it.] A number of people have asked me about “On Sanctioning the Sanctioners” (The Intellectual Activist 2/27/89), which was in part an attack on me for speaking to libertarian groups. In response, I want to set the record straight regarding my own actions, and to identify certain attitudes in the article that I think are incompatible with a philosophy of reason. “ My response: David is denouncing certain fanatical attitudes of the orthodox Randians as unreasonable, cruel, or passionate, not sensible, prudent, temperate and reasonabole. K: “ * * * In addition to my philosophical work over the last fifteen years, I have been a polemicist for freedom. In scores of articles and speeches, my goal has been to defend individual rights on an Objectivist foundation—as clearly and forcefully as I can, to as wide an audience as possible. As a polemicist, my efforts are naturally directed at people who are not already Objectivists. To reach that audience I must speak to groups and write for publications that do not share my ideas. In using these channels of communication, I try to make sure that my association with them does not put me in the position of endorsing ideas I reject. That would defeat my purpose. But I cannot engage my opponents without conferring some benefit on them, in some indirect and attenuated fashion—buying their books, helping them retain their audience, or the like. If every such benefit is to be condemned as aiding the enemy, then one cannot participate in the marketplace of ideas. One can only preach to the converted—a sorry sort of ingrown activism.” My response: David is correct here, that we need to engage our enemies in an open, courteous, frank exchanges of opinions in the marketplace of ideas. Recently assassinated Charlie Kirk operated upon the same principle, that we must continue to dialogue with our intellectual enemies, neither intellectually ghettoizing them or ourselves. In the long run the truth will come out, and that is how we peacefully, civilly, voluntarily change and win over hearts and minds, by sharing good ideas with enemies and opponents, and learning from them in exchange for no one has all the answers. ARI loyalist but hated ARI outsider Craig Biddle is loathed and deplatformed by the jealous ARI insiders: he agrees with ARU purists on most everything Randian, but this unpopular but sterling, independent voice, who lacks a doctorate in philosophy like some of the leading voices at ARI, and operator amongst the proponents of ARI orthodox Randianism rightly demands that ARI reach out to enemies and intellectual competitors to reach and win over a larger audience. Biddle is completely anti-David Kelley, Stephen Hicks and the Atlas Society, but he was willing to debate impressive Atlas Society Star, Stephen R Hicks in 2023 because Biddle like David Kelley knows we need to reach out to our enemies and discuss unpleasant differences of opinion in a civilized manner, talking with them so that knowledge can grow and the public can learn from different perspectives shared. The ARI zealots say do not even talk to enemies and opponents lest they too be guilty of sanctioning false and evil thinking, rewarding enemies for their evil thoughts. Craig Biddle, I assume by extension, implicitly disagrees both with Leonard Peikoff and Ayn Rand herself on the need to debate opponents, letting them have their say, if only on the need to reach out to intellectual opponents, not as a submissive sanctioning of their “heresy” but as a realistic understanding that to grow the cause, exponents need to be out there advertising, proselytizing and debating competitors in order to reach and hopefully win over the public and grow their audience. I suspect that Peikoff and Rand would be very much in the ARI camp. Biddle agrees with ARI Randians, as far as I know, on the bulk of Ayn Rand’s philosophy, but he has shown a willingness, like Kelley to talk to opponents, like Dennis Prager. Biddle is a hardcore ARI Randian on substance but he disagree with ARI insularism from contact with others, as he genially reaches out to the public and other secular sects of Objectivism, such as followers of David Kelley. Kelley is elderly now in 2025, and I watched an old interview with him being asked to explain the differences between objectivism, subjectivism and intrinsic ism. He comes across as a nice man, an introvert, and a gentleman. He is not nearly as articulate as Craig Biddle or Jordan Peterson, nor nearly as rhetorically militant as Ayn Rand herself and Leonard Peikoff, but, as far as I can tell, his verbal inarticulateness is no reflection on his brilliance of thought, his strong will (No one tells him what to do or how to think or speak.) and his written performances, articulate, forceful and well reasoned. I believe him entirely above when he declares he is a polemicist for freedom, that every individual has a natural right (He would not approve of my intrinsicist claim that human enjoy natural rights, be they grounded in natural reality or supernatural reality, which Randian monist, whether of the ARI or Atlas Society sects, denies the existence of. Nonetheless, Kelley is a staunch, proud individualist who would not let Pope Peikoff bully him into submission, and the Pope banished him from the ARI kingdom for his defiance and effrontery. Neither has bud for the past 36 years, so give them kudos for consistency and strong willedness. Kelley promotes and lives the moral requirement that each human being, as a rational egoist and rugged individualist, must be free to think what she will and do as she conceives—within reasonable moral and legal limits. She must be allowed to be free to think as she will, speak as she will, to do her own thing, and run her life without moral, social or legal interference and attempts to dominate her by fanatics and collectivists of any stripe. These intolerant tribalists enforcing the silencing of competing opinions, and demanding intellectual conformity to the party line, are not individualist buts are collectivist, false-thinking, intolerant, and evil insofar as they seek to break dissidents and shut down rival groups. ARI appears close to such a mistaken plan of mistreatment of dissidents, and this renders their love of rationality and individualism to be distorted and corrupted. K: “ In any given case, therefore, I weigh the costs of association against the possible gains. Before I accept a writing or speaking engagement, I consider whether my sponsors are offering me access to an audience I could not otherwise have reached; or whether I would be helping them attract an audience they could not otherwise have earned. I consider whether my sponsors have a definite editorial policy or ideological commitment opposed to Objectivism, and, if so, whether they are willing to have me state my disagreement explicitly. I consider whether the format of my appearance would suggest that I endorse other speakers and their views. And I consider what I know of their moral and intellectual character. In weighing these and other matters, I am always looking for long-range strategic gain at minimal cost. That's how you fight a war of ideas. In the case of libertarians, I have turned down many invitations because I felt the costs outweighed any likely gain. But the balance sometimes tips the other way. I recently spoke at the Laissez-Faire Supper Club on the role of Objectivism in defending freedom—the incident to which Peter Schwartz refers in his articles. I have also accepted an invitation to speak on the ethical foundations of rights at the Cato Institute's Summer Seminar in July. Of the factors that affected these decisions, the following are the most important: • Libertarianism is a broadly defined movement. The subjectivists represent one definite wing of the movement, and we cannot make common cause with them. But they are not the only or even the predominant wing. Many who describe themselves as libertarians recognize that rights must be grounded in a rational, secular, and individualist moral philosophy. I know and have worked with many such people, and I regard them as potential allies in the cause of liberty. I have generally found them open to Objectivist ideas, so long as one doesn't harangue them in a spirit of sectarian hostility. When I was invited to speak at the Cato seminar, for example, the organizers were enthusiastic about my proposal to explain why Ayn Rand's ethics is a better foundation for rights than any alternative.” My response: David is explaining that if subjectivist Libertarians, the minority of Libertarians, are in his audience, he will not speak to them, but the Objectivist leaning wing of the Libertarian group—the majority of Libertarians--are generally sympathetic to Objectivism, so he felt justified in connecting with them, and he has a point for they might well see the world as members of Atlas Society do, if they would reach out to by him, and that was what he was doing, but the ARI crowd accused him of consorting with the enemy, of sanctioning and growing false, stupid ideas, and evil, in the world, thereby betraying Randians and tainting himself in the process. K: “ • Laissez Faire Books is not a magazine with an editorial policy, or a party with a platform. It is a book service, selling works that take many different positions on philosophical issues. Unlike a general-purpose book store, it deals primarily with works that are relevant to a free market, but within that range the owners select books primarily on the basis of what will interest their customers. This includes virtually anything on Objectivism, pro or con. One can certainly quarrel with some of their selections, but one cannot accuse them of loading the dice against us. They are eager to sell Ayn Rand's own works, as well as the contributions her followers have made to the literature. I am delighted that they have brought our work to the attention of their customers, some of whom were not previously familiar with Objectivism, and I have autographed copies of The Evidence of the Senses as a way to help sales. In doing so, I was not endorsing or supporting any work but my own. Nor do I “promote” the bookstore, as Schwartz claims, except in the sense of regarding it as a legitimate commercial enterprise.” My response: Peter Schwartz accused David of promoting a Libertarian bookstore, a sinful act of sanctioning those with bad or evil ideas, thus accusing David of growing evil in the world, which is a picky, nonnsensical conclusion to reach. In fairness to Schwartz, whom I have not read, it is my take that Leonard Peikoff, and Ayn Rand herself would agree wholeheartedly agree with Schwartz in attacking and attempting to toss David out of the orthodox Randian fold. K: “ • The same principle applies to the Supper Club they sponsor. In appearing there, I was not, as Schwartz says, an after-dinner speaker at a libertarian function. I was the function. The sole purpose of the occasion was to hear my explanation of why individual rights and capitalism cannot be established without reference to certain key principles of Objectivism: the absolutism of reason, the rejection of altruism, and the commitment to life in this world as a primary value. Since I explicitly criticized libertarian ideas that are incompatible with those principles, I was obviously not endorsing them. * * * Such, in brief, is the reasoning that has governed my conduct as a public advocate of Objectivism. Peter Schwartz regards it as transparently wrong, beyond any possibility of honest disagreement. He asserts that libertarians are the moral “equivalent” of the Soviet regime, and I the equivalent of Armand Hammer. These are wild accusations, preposterous on their face. But they exhibit a kind of zealotry that has a wider significance than the fact that Second Renaissance doesn't carry my works. I want to comment on three specific issues.” My response: Schwartz is wildly accusative, but he is a purist, disallowing any, even the most minor deviance, from Randian canon, let alone Kelley’s “scandalous” associating with heretics. David’s deviancy makes David a heretic to be banned too, wow? It occurs to me that ideologues are groupists and groupists are fanatical in that all must conform utterly in thought, word and deed, no deviance is allowed, no separation in thinking or willing. Epistemological radicalism, and utter groupthink are reinforced where enforced conformity to defined group identity among the orthodox insiders, is the practice of the members of a cult. Cultists will tolerate no disagreement with the doctrine of biblical or holy text inerrancy, accompanied by the requirement that all accept and enforce this doctrine upon all insiders and all outsiders. These true believers uphold group power at all costs, and in solidarity these fanatics, should the need arise, exhibit an utter readiness to self-sacrifice and eve die for the holy cause. The ARI Randians suffer from a dose of this extremism as do fundamentalist religionists of all kinds throughout human history. ARI orthodoxs have much in common with adherents of religious and political cults which sprang up over the centurie. K: “ 1) A sense of proportion. Even if we accepted the premise that libertarianism as such is a vice, there would be a vast difference of degree between libertarians and a regime that has the blood of millions on its hands. When we formulate moral principles, we may abstract from such differences of degree; we omit measurements, as Ayn Rand explained. But when we apply the principles in forming moral judgments about particulars, we must reintroduce the relevant measurements. Just as one diminishes the good by praising mediocrity, one trivializes evil by damning the venial.” My response: Kelley the sensible, ethical moderate warns that without a sense of proportion, one’s reaction will be unethical. It will not do to push the false equivalency that the venial sins of the backers of false and evil ideas—someone who does not practice them—is as bad and to be crushed as are the mortal sins of Stalinist killers. It is ethical to denounce the nonviolent Marxists and Leftists, but it is never acceptable to violently suppress them, but it is one’s duty to take up arms against violent, totalitarian Communists. The ARI Randians have no sense of proportion, which is moderation in judgment and action. K: “ If libertarians are no better than Soviet dictators, then Soviet dictators are no worse than libertarians. Those who indulge in moral hysteria—condemning all moral error with the same fury, without regard to differences of degree—destroy their own credibility when it comes to the depths of evil: the Stalins, the Hitlers, the Ayatollah.” My response: David is moderate here for just because someone has bad, even evil ideas, the holder of the bad idea is not the moral equivalent to a murderous Communist or Nazi. No sense of proportion is held by the Ari thinkers, and that is a disproportionate evil reaction, which they claim wrong is a virtue. Kelley is right that thinkers of bad thought are not as evil as those that do those bad thoughts with violence and murder. Oppose the nonviolent thinkers of violent and evil ideas, but do not imprison or kill them. K: “ 2) Evil vs. error. A cardinal principle of Objectivist ethics is that one should not give evil the moral sanction it needs to justify itself and disarm its victims. And a principle of responsible advocacy is that one should not endorse false ideas. These principles are related but they are not the same, because evil and error are not the same. “ My response: Kelley is wrong here more than not: evil and error are mostly the same, but the mistaken evil thinker is not to be physically attacked, while taking up arms against the evil thinker who is practicing his evil and false ideas in the world, is unavoidable, Peikoff is right here more than Kelley. K: “ The concept of evil applies primarily to actions, and to the people who perform them. Schwartz asserts that we should not sanction the Soviets because they are “philosophical enemies.” This is a bizarre interpretation of their sins. Soviet tyrants are not evil because they believe in Marxian collectivism.” My response: Kelley is flat wrong here. Schwartz is correct in condemning Soviet tyrants are initially and venially evil because they believe in and practice Marxist, totalitarian collectivism, and they are far more guilty of mortally sinning as they inflict their murderous ideology upon suffering humanity. They are evil because they have murdered millions of people and enslaved hundreds of millions more. An academic Marxist who subscribes to the same ideas as Lenin or Stalin does not have the same moral status. He is guilty of the same intellectual error, but not of their crimes (unless and to the extent that he actively supported them, as many did in the 1930s, although even here we must recognize a difference in degree of culpability).” David agrees that Objectivists should not give sanction to evildoers acting upon their false or bad ideas, but that is different from reacting by ostracizing those promoting false ideas, but whose personal moral character is average or even impeccable. Kelley disagrees with Schwartz that intellectual errors are evil and as evil as the Stalinist acting viciously in honor of his erroneous ideas. I do agree with Schwartz that bad ideas, erroneous idea, false values can lead to evil down the road if the masses come to believe in them and implement them, but there are different levels of culpability for those thinking evil and bad thoughts and those that implement them. K: “ Truth and falsity, not good or evil, are the primary evaluative concepts that apply to ideas as such. It is true that the horrors of this century were made possible by irrationalist and collectivist ideas. Bad ideas can be dangerous; that's one reason we shouldn't endorse them. But they are dangerous because people use them to perpetrate evil. We are not Hegelians: ideas per se are not agents in the world.” My response: I think this is a critical mistake which Kelley has made: Though the Randian orthodoxs would deny that they are Hegelians, that ideas per se are not agents in the world, in effect, these Randian orthodoxs—including Rand herself—contradict themselves as they are asserting that ideas can be agents in the world—a point which I accept as a mostly objectivist thinker, with some intrinsicist and subjectivist components in my epistemology. I know not the exact connection between spiritual energies or entities/forces/fields/consciousnesses as ontological, real entities in the world, and the ideas or messages which they convey and project, but somehow each spiritual consciousness or supernatural being, as part of its trans-physical properties, displays, reveals or communicates to the world the inner rationale, the essence of its being expressed in language as an idea, but the thought preceded the stated proposition, the idea. Where the idea which is the essential nature or current status of the spiritual entity is false or evil, then the soul pushing bad ideas is to be opposed and condemned—with the firm caveat where Kelley is correct, that thinking bad and false thoughts should be criticized but the thinkers not imprisoned, whereas Stalinist killers inflicting their bad and evil ideas upon the world, are to be physically and violently halted to save the world. K: “Truth or falsity is the essential property of an idea; the good or ill it produces is derivative. It is also true that a given person may adopt false ideas through evasion, which is morally wrong. But another person might adopt the same idea through honest error. The assumption that libertarians as such are immoral is therefore an egregious insult. Some are honest and rational, some are not. The same is true for any other ideological group, including Objectivists. It is a gross non-sequitur to infer that because an idea is false, its adherents are evil for holding it.” My response: Orthodox Randians, though thoroughly and officially non-Hegelian, are unaware that they like all fantics are actual Hegelians like all secular and religious ideologues, who do evil by promoting the violent attacking—should they promote it and do it—all dissidents who do or seem to proclaim false and evil ideas, whether they just talk about doing it or actually carry out their plan. I, like the fanatical ideologues, sacred or secular, who are Hegelians insisting that ideas are agents in the world, but I am moderate in allowing the attacking and suppressing of thinkers of false and evil thoughts only if they are criminal and violent in the world. If they only talk such nonsense, but do not act upon it, then moderates like Kelley and myself will disallow that the peaceful and behaving bad and false thinkers not be given sanction (sanction to think as they do as long as they do not act upon them. Fanatics of all stripes will demand that no sanction be given those who think bad and false ideas or even if these disagreers think good and true ideas which conflict with the ideas promoted by any specific holy cause to which the fanatic belongs and holds dear, so dissidents will be attacked and suppressed legally and violently not only for what they think but whether or not they act upon such held and cherished ideas, and that is immoderate, evil and needs to stop—this is what Kelley and I are concluding. Kelley would not agree with me that I am in league with the conclusion held by all fanatics—be they supernaturalists or naturalists, realists or antirealists, monists or dualists, immaterialists or materialist – that ideas are agents in the word, that the true idea is a good and moral idea, and that a false idea is a bad and immoral idea. Unlike them, I would if necessary use force to stop the criminal activities of the evil dissidents only if they acted violently, grounded inn their bad and false idea, not if they just thought them I would remind the reader, that Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff and the ARI orthodox thinkers likely would be lockstep in agreement, roundly condemning the thinkers and proponents of bad ideas as being wicked people, provided no tolerance, no benevolence, sanction, that they are to be denounced and vigorously opposed for what they think, write, and say, not for just what they do. From their point of view, David Kelley consorting with detested Libertarians makes him as treacherous and evil, like they are, not to be countenanced, tolerated or shown quarter at all. I would regard these Orthodox Randians as evil because they are fanatical and are ideologues about the total textual inerrancy of Randian texts and literature, and about the tenets and doctrines of Objectivism, which she propounded. I do not much mind if orthodox Randians or religious believers who are sectarian fundamentalists, are the rigid, black-and-white thinking, purist, dogmatic, uncompromising, intolerant enemies of any dissenters from their views, but moderation is also or mostly about toleration as moral action, that to suppress dissent and use the sword and social pressure to crush all dissent and independent thinking, even if the dissidents competing doctrines are false and lead to actual evil unfolding in the world, these sinners and false reasoners, must be persuaded, never coerced, for violent force to convert an unwilling opponent is the pure evil of fanaticism that is demonic and undercuts and corrupts even the most noble intentions and most lovely idealistic plans, views and noble motives. So I say to orthodox Randians, religious zealots, nationalist movements or ethnic movements, once they become mass movements, then they use tyranny and violence to force others to convert those resistant to and unwilling to join, of their own free will, their holy cause: I say to them go ahead and believe fanatically in your cause, but we in the civil society of anarchist individuating supercitizens in our laissez faire constitutional republic of limited government size will allow you your militancy unless you riot, for mobs, or literally seek to overthrow the government, then we will see authorities arrest you, prosecute and jail you. If you seek to take up arms to convert us violence, we, armed to the teeth will take up arms to stop you. K: “ The failure to draw these distinctions has a pernicious effect. If we approach ideas with the question: true or false?, we stand ready to combat bad ideas by the only means appropriate to intellectual issues: open, rational discussion and debate. But if we approach ideas with the question: good or evil?, we will avoid debate for fear of sanctioning evil-doers. We will substitute condemnation for argument, and adopt a non-intellectual, intolerant attitude toward any disagreement with our views.” My response: I agree with the orthodox Randians that bad ideas are false and evil, and that good ideas are true and good, but this being the case does not allow the orthodox to put thinkers of bad thoughts in the same degree of moral corruption as implementers of bad thoughts, thereby all should be put to the sword. That is substituting condemnation for argument, there by adopting a non-intellectual, intolerant attitude and hostile reaction that those disagreeing with our views, for these approaches of those preaching doctrinal or textual total inerrancy. K: “ 3) Tolerance. Tolerance is not a virtue where evil is concerned; evil flourishes by the tolerance of good people. But it is a virtue in the cognitive realm. It is appropriate not only among people who disagree about the application of principles they share, but also among people who disagree on the principles themselves. Tolerance is not a weak-kneed confession of uncertainty. It is a recognition that certainty is contextual. It is a recognition of the fact that knowledge is neither revealed nor invented, but acquired by an active process of integration; that any conclusion we reach is tied to reality by a long chain of reasoning, and presupposes an enormous context; and that open discussion and debate are the proper means of intellectual exchange. “ My response: Tolerance is not a virtue in tolerating evil and false ideas if that means anything goes, that we have no values and stand for nothing. But opposing nonviolent backers of evil and false ideas is morally limited to arguing against them in the marketplace of ideas, in opposing their spread and increased popularity socially, and opposing vigorously legislating bad ideas when fanatics propose converting bad ideas into established public policy and law. But to censor, deny rights or to take up arms against dissident thinkers by conducting a civil war/holy war against them for disagreeing one one, or even going to far as to kill dissidents with false or bad ideas is not moral or justified. Such immoderate overreaction are the epitome of evil action on earth. God disapproves and will punish the perpetrators in this world and the next. If these people with false and evil ideas take action immorally and illegally we have a right to prosecute them and defend ourselves against their violent assaults and effort to use force and coercion to intolerantly force general complains with their evil ideas and doctrines. Tolerance is a civilized, peaceful willingness and commitment to not use coercion, government fiat or intimidation to force others to accept our view or to silence dissenters. We agree to disagree peacefully and coexist nonviolent in civil society while debating these peddlers of erroneous ideas To change someone with erroneous and bad ideas thinking, we must respect their individuality that they are free to choose to work with us or not or reject our good and true ideas or not for only reform possible is through individual choice. David is right that tolerance is a virtue more in the cognitive realm than in the action realm. K: “ To have any hope of persuading others, we must take the trouble to understand their context; we must approach them on an equal footing, a mutual willingness to be persuaded by the facts; and we must grant them time to sort through the issues and make sure that any new conclusion is rooted in their own grasp of reality. If we find that the other person is not open to reason, we should abandon the effort. Tolerance does not require that we beat our heads against the wall, or put up with willful irrationality. But we should assume that people are rational until we have evidence to the contrary. In this respect, tolerance is the intellectual expression of benevolence.” My response: I like and accept David’s description of tolerance as the intellectual expression of benevolence, but in all honesty this is his view, not Ayn Rand’s view at all. I do not like calling her a true believer in her own ideology thereby revealed as a fanatic and ideologue not willing to compromise, but her treatment of dissidents in her life time show that she flirted with being an authoritarian fanatic and ideologue—when she played the guru to her horde of adoring, pliable, young disciples. She has been gone for 43 years, and still, at ARI there seems to be a persistent interest in electing or anointing a guru or Pope to enforce standards of universal obedience and universal acceptance among Randians to ARI doctrinal orthodoxy. But it is clear that Kelley veered far enough away from Randian orthodoxy that the purists and proponents of closed Randianism may be right that he is not an Objectivist at all and has no right to call himself an Objectivist, though he approves much of what Rand preached, and disagrees with some of which she pushed. They are not without cause when they accuse Kelley and his followers of being hybrid-Randians as the Atlas Society Randians espouse open-Randianism. They probably should not refer to themselves as Objectivists, but proudly proclaim their hybrid status which where I am at personally. I differ too much from Rand to self-refer as an Objectivist, though I admire many of her brilliant theses. I side with Kelley more than the orthodox Randi ans but they are more faithful to her philosophy than he is, and it is worth studying them to receive an understanding of those who read her as she needed to be read, for Kelley hybridizes her philosophy with non-Objectivist elements like tolerance and benevolence, both of low significance and value for Ayn Rand, BUT these salient, critical virtues are intellectual and moral traits of enormous value and significance for moderates like Kelley, me and the good deities. Some have complained that the open Canadianism of the Atlas Society is now so watered down and multicultural and pluralistic, that it has no standards and rigor, and that complaint is not completely accurate, but it is easy to decline into an easy acceptance of any point of view, so tolerant that one ends up believing nothing and standing for nothing—this is a collapse of standards which The Atlas Society types need to be fearful of degenerating into. To their credit, the ARI orthodox make a might, consistent attempt to maintain intellectual and moral rigor in the Randian community. ARI orthodox Randi ans seem to me to have declined into being a ultraist ideology, verging on being a cult so their radicalism and fanaticism makes them turn towards evil intolerance of and suppression of dissidents, free thinkers and free speakers, and that harsh reaction against disagreers is immoral, irrational and self-defeating for all and for human advancement in the end, but the orthodox Randi ans are likely what Rand herself would be if she was alive today. K: “ Benevolence has another and to my mind more important benefit; the growth of our own knowledge. There is much we can learn from others if we are willing to listen. And even where they are wrong, we strengthen the foundations of our own beliefs—the accuracy and range of our observations, the validity of our concepts, the rigor of our arguments—by the effort to prove why they are wrong.” My response: David the wise moderate hits it out of the park with this paragraph, highlighting that an important if indirect benefit of benevolence towards others is that it allows our knowledge to grow, because we are inviting access to competing points of view. Again, benevolence is his idea, not Ayn Rand’s at all. David calls himself an Objectivist, but he and his followers have strayed far from the path. At best, he is a hybrid Randian, not an orthodox ARI purist similar if not identical to what Ayn Rand spoke and wrote. K: “ That's why every age of reason has welcomed diversity and debate. The great minds of the Enlightenment declared war on the entire apparatus of intolerance: the obsession with official or authorized doctrine, the concepts of heresy and blasphemy, the party lines and intellectual xenophobia, the militant hostility among rival sects, the constant schisms and breaks, the character assassination of those who fall from grace. These are the techniques of irrational philosophies, such as Christianity or Marxism, and may well have been vital to their success. But they have no place in a philosophy of reason.” My response: Here Kelley the soft-spoken, introverted, brilliant intellectual, moderate and moral giant is at his finest. This whole paragraph defines what the moderate stance against the fanatical assertions by ideologues looks like and how one should practice moderation in the world. I envision a future of upper middle-class anarchist individuator super citizens with almost no fear of tolerating even the most vicious, false, spiteful, evil, dangerous, pornographic and revolutionary from being expressed and tossed into the marketplace of ideas in America for comment, reaction, dialogue and argumentation invited and demanded. Individuals cannot self-realize, and do God’s work if they are not intellectually unshackled, so intolerance of bad and false ideas is to promote fanatical uniformity of thinking and purity of thought test, which are demonic not angelic. Both Randian and religious fundamentals preaching and practicing thought suppression by claims of secular or religious textual inerrancy, are wide of the mark they are sinning badly and hurting all, including themselves. The Age of Enlightenment’s perhaps greatest gift to human kind was its wholesale rejection of intolerance of competing worldviews, complete with attacks on intellectual rivals. David is onto something when his notes that reasoners advocate and tolerate radical free speech and free thinking, while irrationalist movements, passionate true believers pedaling their collectivist holy cause, suppress all opponents and internal dissenters. K: “ Ayn Rand left us a magnificent system of ideas. But it is not a closed system. It is a powerful engine of integration. Let us not starve it of fuel by shutting our minds to what is good in other approaches. Let us test our ideas in open debate. If we are right, we have nothing to fear; if we are wrong, we have something to learn. Above all, let us encourage independent thought among ourselves. Let us welcome dissent, and the restless ways of the explorers among us. Nine out of ten new ideas will be mistakes, but the tenth will let in the light. —David Kelley My response: I can just imagine Leonard Kickoff and the orthodox Randians in 1989 reading this last paragraph while melting down completely and quivering with rage and revulsion. For them, in practice if not in open admittance, they regard Ayn Rand’s body of work as inerrant, closed and perfect. As absolutists and dogmatists, her philosophical system is good for all and cannot be improved. To hybridize it as Kelley has done, to introudce foreign elements into her system while calling himself an Objectivist for him to suggest that an open philosophical system and its practitioners remain open to what is good in other approaches is to be a smart, conscious, willful advocate of sullying what is perfect and beautiful with inferior, false and wicked concepts and theories from alien philosophical system unworthy to be heard, accepted, adopted in part, or allowed to coexist. To welcome dissidence and independent thought when one has all the best, right and morally perfect and certain answers about everything is to be so evil and deserving to be censored at the minimum and to earn a death sentence for the dissident should the authoritarian purists and their faction ever gain totalitarian control of the machinery of government in the polity under which they live and reside. What is a closed system? Is Objectivism closed because the orthodox like Craig Biddle in his famous 2023 debate with Stephen Hicks asserting that it closed when she died? Or is their true belief—what I think they really believe--that Objectivism is the one true system of philosophy inerrant, infallible and not to be improved upon? I suggest that the ARI Randians are fanatics or close to it, and that Kelley and the Atlas Society Objectivists are more open, more moderate, and perhaps not as intellectually rigorous in support of Ayn Rand’s clear, almost dogmatic statements. K Now we hear from the Pope, Leonard Kickoff, quite brilliant but perhaps intolerant of dissent and half-measures. He never, to my knowledge, spoke of secular totally inerrancy as applicable to all Ayn Rand wrote and thought but it seems implicit in his dogmatic assertions. Here is his responding letter to David Kelley, Fact and Value. I will refer to him as P: “ Fact and Value By Leonard Kickoff, Ph. D. I agree completely with “On Sanctioning the Sanctioned,” Peter Schwartz’s article in the last issue of TIA. That article has, however, raised questions in the mind of some readers. In particular, David Kelley, one of the persons whom the article implicitly criticizes, has written an articulate paper in reply, identifying his own philosophy on the relevant topics. He has sent a copy of this paper to me and to many other individuals. In my judgment, Kelley’s paper is a repudiation of the fundamental principles of Objectivism. His statements make clear to me, in purely philosophic terms and for the first time, the root cause of the many schisms that have plagued the Objectivist movement since 1968. The cause goes to the essentials of what Objectivism is. I have, therefore, decided to interrupt my book on Objectivism in order to name this cause once and for all. In the following, I am presupposing a basic knowledge of Ayn Rand’s ideas. I am writing to and for Objectivists, whether or not they have seen Kelley’s paper. The fundamental issue raised by Kelley concerns the relationship between the true and the good. What kind of thing, Kelley asks, can be true or false, and what kind good or evil? In other words (my words): what is the relationship between fact and value? Kelley takes a definite stand on this issue, one which leads him, logically, to uphold “tolerance” as “a virtue in the cognitive realm,” and to accuse Schwartz and others like him (myself and Ayn Rand presumably included) of “zealotry,” “hysteria,” “non-intellectuality,” “malevolence,” “closed-mindedness” and the like.” My response: If I interpreting Leonard correctly, he is arguing that the true and false propositions are also respectively good and evil propositions. Leonard, ARI and Ayn Rand herself would argue that there is no fact-value gap, that moral facts or truths can be cognitively, intellectually, certainly, truthfully and consciously derived from natural facts. They are naturalists, monists, realists, materialists and atheists, but they epistemologically and objectively conclude that moral properties can be assigned to natural properties, that everything occurring in and among objects in reality out there can be truthfully, teleologically interpreted, judged and normatively characterized largely without making the wrong assessment or judgement of what is unfolding before one’s eyes. Pettifog and his allies are arguing that Kelley is violating the Objectivist stand there there is no fact-value distinction that moral facts exist that it is wrong to sanction false or evil ideas in the cognitive realm as well as in the action realm where humans commit crimes, that both the realm of cognition and action are equally and interchangeably deserving of being morally judged by Objectivist code of ethics. Leonard is demanding that bad and false concepts are as evil as bad and false actions, so sanction cannot be granted ever to the thinker of evil as well as the doer of evil. For Kelley to tolerate or show benevolence or sanction to those arguing for false and evil concepts to be adopted by people is his being weak, evil and a traitor to the Objectivist cause, that his open Objectivism is siding with the subjectivists and antirealists who uphold the fact-value distinction. Because Kelley have sinned against closed Randianism, no sanction can be given him. Kelley accuses Leonard and his allies of being fanatical and intolerant (they are) for fanatically insisting that the fact-value gap is always erased whenever a moderate Objectivists or hybrid Objectivist like Kelley moderately characterize the gap as mostly but not always existing (moral facts exist), but that sometimes it holds, and, that it does not hold in the realm of cognitive action. Besides, we should show civility, tolerance and benevolence to the opinions of others and share the platform and dialogue with those committing the sins of promoting bad and false ideas as long as they do not criminally, authoritarian and violently coerce others to join their cause. Now intrinsic (Christian, Platonic, Idealistic or a mathematician assuming that numbers exists as real unobservable objets) will likely not deny the is-ought gap, declaring cognitive and teleological assessment of natural facts will construe a normative and valuational judgment which is certainly true. They will ascertain the nature of facts, relationships and actions among objects, beings and entities in reality, but their epistemological tool for ascertaining how to label and define natural facts normatively will be gained as their rational intuition or revelation of the nature of the essences of things in nature is laid before them consciously, which they just absorb or cognitively realize without reasoning or abstracting. This epistemological and teleological, automatic recognition of the jumping over the alleged is-ought gap works, the suggest, as the intellect assessing, judging and labeling each action and event, receives supernatural guidance and messages as to what they are sensing and characterizing. Therefore, those with false thinking are also evil, and thus should not be sanctioned but should be ostracized, deplatformed, even banished from society. Ayn Rand and Leonard dismiss the fact-value dichotomy, where as David Kelley is a bit more sympathetic to it, so Kelley is suggesting that we can criticize while debating those with false ideas, we cannot refer to them as evil, and thereby attack them. Kelley argues that we only condemn and attack those whose actions are evil and reprehensible. I asked Google this question on 11/26/25: Does an anti-realist believe there is a gap between fact and value. Here is the AI response that day that I copied and pasted and will comment on: AI Summary:” To understand the anti-realist perspective on the relationship between fact and value, consider the following points: • Anti-realists often argue that facts and values are fundamentally different kinds of entities. “My response: Antrealists support the view that the fact-value distinction holds, while Objectivists and Christian intrinsicists deny that it holds. • AI: “They believe that moral values cannot be derived from factual statements alone.” My response moral realists like Objectivists and me hold that moral values can be derived from factual statements alone, but Leonard holds this position absolutely and fanatically while Kelley holds it provisionally and moderately. • AI: “This perspective suggests a gap exists, as values are seen as subjective or socially constructed.” My response: The anti-realists, logical positivists and postmodernists insist that values are subjective and socially constructed while Leonard objects that values are objectively reached rationally by studying nature and reality. • AI: “Anti-realists contend that facts do not inherently possess moral implications.” My response: Rand and Leonard insist that facts inherently possess moral implications, certainly and always, while moderate like Kelley and me settle for facts inherently possessing moral implications provisionally most of the time but with some excpetions. • AI: “They emphasize the importance of context and interpretation in understanding values.” My response: Subjective or intrinsic context and interpretation are important for understanding values in part, but in the main Kelley and I push the view that we objectively can find moral facts when we study reality, and I maintain that one intrinsically and subjectively can study the world as minority epistemological positions and as a hermeneutic approach to reality. Fanatical Leonard will pooh pooh this, dismissing it as subjectivst nonsense that values can only be reached and validated in reality objectively and raitonally. • AI: “Overall, anti-realism posits that the connection between fact and value is not straightforward or direct.” My response: Leonard would counter-argue that the connection between fact and value is straightforward, direct, intelligible and communicable with pure clarity and utter certainty. Kelley and I would modify that immoderate, absolutist stance by reacting that Leonard position is mostly correct but not entirely coreect. I asked Google this question on 11/26/25: Does a realist accept the fact-value gap? From that same day, here was the AI response which I copy and paste below and will comment on. Peikoff is suggesting he the Objectivist is a realist and that Kelly with some justification is more of a subjectivist and intrinsicist because he accepts a bit the fact-value gap. Herr is the AI response: AI Summary: “ To understand the realist's stance on the gap between fact and value, consider the following points: • AI: “Realists typically assert that facts and values are distinct but interconnected.” My response: I think Leonard, Kelley and I could accept this assertion. • AI: “They do not outright deny the existence of a gap; rather, they acknowledge it.” My response: Leonard might refute the existence of the gap, whereas Kelly and I likely would acknowledge its existence which mostly can be objectively and cognitively surmounted and explained explicitly as moral facts. • AI: “Realists argue that facts can inform values, influencing moral and ethical judgments.” My response: I think all of we realists would accept this proposition. • AI: “They maintain that while values may be subjective, facts remain objective.” My response: All of we realists likely would conclude that values are both subjective and objective and that facts are both objective and subjective so there is not fact-value gap in any meaningful sense. • AI: “Realists often emphasize the importance of empirical evidence in shaping values.” My response: We realists all could agree with this statement. • AI: “The relationship between fact and value is seen as complex, not simply a denial of a gap.” My response: We hybrid Objectivists might regard that relationship as complex, but Leonard and the orthodox Randians would be more unforgiving, arguing that the unreality of the gap assertion is clearly validated by the complicated interrelationship between facts and values in the world out there. Kelley is likely a bit more intrinsicist and subjective than is the severe, purist objectivist who is Peikoff, recordsing any movement moving toward subjectivist and intrinsicist direction or moderate acknowledgement of those positions at all as totally capitulating and leaving Objectivism behind, betraying Objectivism. In Rand’s, Peikoff’s and ARI minds, one is 100% right or 100% wrong, one is 100% evil or 100% good. If one, like Kelley, is but a bit false or a bit evil, then one is totally false and totally evil. Such strident, stringent ideological dogmatism is unworthy of the orthodox Objectivists and reveals their affinity to the doctrine of holy textual inerrancy, and their fanatical or evil stand or taking a position on everything and anything. Is an anti-realist an intrinsicist or a objectivist? I think the answer is obvious: The anti-realist is neither an intrinsicist nor an objectivist but a subjectivist. AI answer: :AI Summary To understand whether an anti-realist is an intrinsicist or an objectivist, consider the following points: 1. AI: “Definition of Anti-Realism: Anti-realism denies the existence of an objective reality independent of our perceptions.” My response: We would all accept this AI definition of anti-realism. 2. AI: “Intrinsicism Explained: Intrinsicism holds that values or properties exist within the objects themselves, independent of observers.” My response: None of we realists would fight this definition of intrinsicism. 3. AI: “Objectivism Defined: Objectivism asserts that certain things exist independently of human thoughts or beliefs.” My response: We realists might well accept that certain things exist independently of human thoughts or beliefs. 4. AI: “Anti-Realism vs. Intrinsicism: An anti-realist may reject intrinsicism, as it implies an objective existence of properties.” My response: We realists should not fight this proposition by AI. 5. AI: “Anti-Realism vs. Objectivism: Anti-realists typically oppose objectivism, as they deny the existence of objective truths.” My response: This definition seems accurate: anti-realists/subjectivists would deny the correspondence theory of truth, would deny that there are objective truths and moral facts, so they uphold the existence and legitimacy of the fact-value gap. 6. AI: “Conclusion: An anti-realist is neither an intrinsicist nor an objectivist; they challenge both views.” My response: We realists would agree with this conclusion by AI Now I asked Google this question on 11/26/25: Is an anti-realist an intrinsicist or a subjectivist? Here was the AI answer: “AI Summary To understand whether an antirealist is an intrinsicist or a subjectivist, consider the following points: 1. AI: “Antirealism generally denies the existence of objective truths independent of perception.” My response: We realists and objectivists would accept this definition. 2. AI: “Intrinsicism posits that properties exist independently of observers, which contradicts antirealism.” My response: We realists can accept this AI definition. 3. AI: “Subjectivism asserts that knowledge and truth are dependent on individual perspectives.” My response: We realists would acknowledge that this is the subjectivist position. 4. AI” “Antirealists align more closely with subjectivism due to their emphasis on perception and interpretation.” My response: We realists would agree that this is the anti-realist affinity to subjectivism, not intrinsicism. 5. AI: “Different forms of antirealism may lean towards varying degrees of subjectivism.” My response: We realists would agree that anti-realists would vary in their degree of subjectivism. 6. AI: “Overall, antirealists are typically considered subjectivists rather than intrinsicists.” My response: We realists would not go against this conclusion. P” Let me begin by summarizing, without reference to Kelley, the essence of the Objectivist view on the relationship between fact and value. Objectivism holds that value is objective (not intrinsic or subjective); value is based on and derives from the facts of reality (it does not derive from mystic authority or from whim, personal or social).” My response: If value is objective, there is not fact-value gap. P: “ Reality, we hold — along with the decision to remain in it, i.e., to stay alive — dictates and demands an entire code of values. Unlike the lower species, man does not pursue the proper values automatically; he must discover and choose them; but this does not imply subjectivism. Every proper value-judgment is the identification of a fact: a given object or action advances man’s life (it is good): or it threatens man’s life (it is bad or an evil). The good, therefore, is a species of the true; it is a form of recognizing reality. The evil is a species of the false; it is a form of contradicting reality. Or: values are a type of facts; they are facts considered in relation to the choice to live.”” My response: Rand and Leonard with their dogmatic/absolute dismissal of the fact-value gap, and with their dogmatic (Dogmatic as in being epistemologically certain and knowledge-identifying and knowledge-accruing, as that the human perceive is able to observe and experience reality directly and his percepts and concepts which he abstracts from the Given sensations fed to his consciousness, which gives him a true and good characterization of reality.) claim that knowledge about reality is available to the logical, illusionless, rational observer and student of reality, conclude that what is true is good, and what is false is bad. Fanatically, because they presuppose and presume that they know what is true in most all cases, by means of their perfect philosophical system, whose holy texts written by Ayn Rand enjoy the property of plenary textual inerrancy. They feel justified in condemning, punishing and refusing to sanctions inventors of bad or false thoughts, not just not tolerating the implementers of these false and bad thoughts. They ridicule Kelley for half-measures, and when he is accused of being intrinsicist or subjectivist, they are calling him morally evil. Fanatics regard a dissident who is only partially evil as equivalent to or the same as if he is totally evil, and if he is mistaken in some of his facts, he is mistaken in all of his facts. This absolutist reasoning is not only evil, it is untrue, oversimplifying and mischaracterizing the mixed nature of a dissidents blend of true and false ideas and good and evil ideas, not giving credit where it is due. We cannot know anything for certain but we can with great probably certainly declare moral facts, which goes against the totalists’ claims of orthodox objectivists, or pure doubting nature of the totalist claims of denying any worth, goodness or truth by the postmodernist nihilists in their criticism of objectivist, traditionalist and realist favoring Western culture and civilizaiton. I mostly agree with orthodox Randians that the good is true and the true is good, and that the false is bad, and that the bad is false, but to a lesser degree I accept Kelley’s claim that the fact-value dichotomy applies to all human propositions, that one can be a promoter of a lie, but that does not make then evil unless they act upon the lie in an evil way. By contrasting the differing and competing take on the fact-value dichotomy expressed by the orthodox Randians and the Kelley Randians, it is not difficult to see why Peikoff rejects tolerance of those thinking evil, false thoughts as well as practicing them in the world, while Kelley is willing to tolerate those in error or holding false beliefs, versus those putting false ideas into the world as evil practices. P: “ In the objective approach, since every fact bears on the choice to live, every truth necessarily entails a value-judgment, and every value-judgment necessarily presupposes a truth. As Ayn Rand states the point in “The Objectivist Ethics”: “Knowledge, for any conscious organism, is the means of survival; to a living consciousness, every ‘is‘ implies an ‘ought.'” Evaluation, accordingly, is not a compartmentalized function applicable only to some aspects of man’s life or of reality; if one chooses to live and to be objective, a process of evaluation is coextensive with and implicit in every act of cognition. This applies even to metaphysically given facts (as distinguished from man-made facts). Metaphysically given facts, Miss Rand points out, cannot as such be evaluated. Sunlight, tidal waves, the law of gravity, et al. are not good or bad; they simply are; such facts constitute reality and are thus the basis of all value-judgments. This does not, however, alter the principle that every “is” implies an “ought.” The reason is that every fact of reality which we discover has, directly or indirectly, an implication for man’s self-preservation and thus for his proper course of action. In relation to the goal of staying alive, the fact demands specific kinds of actions and prohibits others; i.e., it entails a definite set of evaluations. For instance, sunlight is a fact of metaphysical reality; but once its effects are discovered by man and integrated to his goals, a long series of evaluations follows: the sun is a good thing (an essential of life as we know it); i.e., within the appropriate limits, its light and heat are good, good for us; other things being equal, therefore, we ought to plant our crops in certain locations, build our homes in a certain way (with windows), and so forth; beyond the appropriate limits, however, sunlight is not good (it causes burns or skin cancer); etc. All these evaluations are demanded by the cognitions involved — if one pursues knowledge in order to guide one’s actions. Similarly, tidal waves are bad, even though natural; they are bad for us if we get caught in one, and we ought to do whatever we can to avoid such a fate. Even the knowledge of the law of gravity, which represents a somewhat different kind of example, entails a host of evaluations — among the most obvious of which are: using a parachute in midair is good, and jumping out of a plane without one is bad, bad for a man’s life. Just as there can be no dichotomy between mind and body, so there can be none between the true and the good. Even in regard to metaphysically given facts, cognition and evaluation cannot be sundered.” My response: Leonard allows for no dichotomy between fact, mind, the true and the cognitive versus value, the body, the good, and the evaluative. Leonard’s orthodox Randianism combine the true and the good, but it is not a moderate blend, with literal obedience to the good and true in conceiving as well as acting, to be severely enforced for violators. This unacceptably intolerant, rigid and severe treatment if dissidents and sinners might well contribute to the fanaticism and intellectual rigidity of Ayn Rand and her ARI devotees. P: “Cognition apart from evaluation is purposeless; it becomes the arbitrary desire for “pure knowledge” as an end in itself. Evaluation apart from cognition is non-objective; it becomes the whim of pursuing an “I wish” not based on any “It is.” THE SAME PRINCIPLE applies in regard to man-made facts — which brings us to the virtue of justice. Justice is an aspect of the principle that cognition demands evaluation; it is that principle applied to human choices and their products. Since man is volitional, evaluation of the man-made is of a special kind: it is moral evaluation. The virtue of justice is necessary, at root, for the same reason that evaluation in relation to any fact is necessary: the character and behavior of other men are facts, which have effects on one’s own well-being. To an individual in a division-of-labor society, it makes a life-or-death difference whether he is surrounded by producers or parasites, honest men or cheats, independent men or power-lusters. Just as one must distinguish between good and bad in relation to the realm of nature, so one must distinguish between good and bad in relation to the realm of man. In Objectivist terms, this means a single fundamental issue: in the human realm, one must distinguish the rational from the irrational, the thinkers from the evaders. Such judgment tells one whether a man, in principle, is committed to reality — or to escaping from and fighting it. In the one case, he is an ally and potential benefactor of the living; in the other, an enemy and potential destroyer. Thus the mandate of justice: identify the good (the rational) and the evil (the irrational) in men and their works — then, first, deal with, support and/or reward the good; and, second, boycott, condemn and/or punish the evil. (One aspect of this second policy is the principle of not granting to evil one’s moral sanction.) Evaluation, though it is essential in every field of cognition, is especially urgent in regard to the man-made. When, through the default of the better men, evil (evasion) wins out in a human society, man’s life is thereby doomed, however great the scientific knowledge at the time and however beneficent the conditions of physical nature. By contrast, when, through the scrupulous justice of the better men, the good (the mind) wins out, there is virtually no form of ignorance or natural disaster that men cannot successfully combat. Justice — being an aspect of the principle that every cognition demands an evaluation — requires moral judgment of men and their works across-the-board, with no areas of life excepted or exempted. In Ayn Rand’s words (from “How Does One Lead a Rational Life in an Irrational Society?”): “one must know clearly, in full, verbally identified form, one’s own moral evaluation of every person, issue and event with which one deals, and act accordingly.” How does one reach a moral evaluation of a person? “A man’s moral character,” Miss Rand writes in “The Psychology of Psychologizing,” “must be judged on the basis of his actions, his statements and his conscious convictions…” (The word “statements” here denotes a broad, somewhat overlapping category. All morally revealing statements imply the speaker’s premises or ideas, even if they do not explicitly assert them; but some statements do assert them — just as some statements are themselves actions: e.g., a declaration of war.) Now let us consider what is involved in judging a man’s actions morally. Two crucial, related aspects must be borne in mind: existence and consciousness, or effect and cause. Existentially, an action of man (as of sunlight) is good or bad according to its effects: its effects, positive or negative, on man’s life. Thus creating a skyscraper is good, murdering the architect is bad — both by the standard of life. But human action is not merely physical motion; it is a product of a man’s ideas and value-judgments, true or false, which themselves derive from a certain kind of mental cause; ultimately, from thought or from evasion. Human action is an expression of a volitional consciousness. This is why human action (as against sunlight) is morally evaluated. The skyscraper’s creator, one infers in pattern, functioned on the basis of proper value-judgments and true ideas, including a complex specialized knowledge; so he must have expended mental effort, focus, work; so one praises him morally and admires him. But the murderer (assuming there are no extenuating circumstances) acted on ideas and value-judgments that defy reality; so he must have evaded and practiced whim-worship; so one condemns him morally and despises him. Both these aspects, I repeat, are essential to moral judgment. An action without effects on man’s life (there are none such) would be outside the realm of evaluation — there would be no standard of value by which to assess it. An action not deriving from ideas, i.e., from the cognitive/evaluative products of a volitional mental process, would be the reflex of a deterministic puppet or of an animal; it could not be subject to moral judgment.” My response: I agree with Leonard wholeheartedly that because humans are volitionally empowered moral creatures, they require a code of ethics to live by and to be judged by. Randi ans-especially the orthodox—judge everyone, and for the religious, the good deities judge their followers in this world and in the next. P; “ THE SAME FACTORS apply in regard to the other main branch of moral judgment: judging a man’s conscious convictions or ideas. In judging an idea morally, one must (as in the action case) determine, through the use of evidence, whether the idea is true or false, in correspondence with reality or in contradiction to it.” My response: Leonard and Rand herself define as idea as good or true if it corresponds to reality, and bad and false if it contradicts reality. As a moral, ontological, and epistemological moderate, it is my contention that generally an idea that contradicts reality is bad, false to be condemned and punished in the holder of the idea gently by criticism if he just thinks it but, bad if he enacts his evil idea, he should be opposed, perhaps arrested if hie violates legal statutes. Too pure a standard on believing, based on no contradictions exist in reality and are unrealistic and thereby false and evil, to condemn any dissident disagreeing with ones version of moral facts—even when one is mostly right and moral though one contends one is totally right and totally moral and consistent with the nature of reality, is to practice intolerance and tyrannical pressure upon dissidents and violations of their power, liberty and freedom of choice. This intolerance is evil and corrupts the practitioners of Randians or any other ideology. P: “Then, in exact parallel to the case of action, there are two crucial aspects to be identified: the mental process which led to the idea, and the existential results to which the idea itself leads (which means in its case: the kind of action that flows from it). In judging an idea morally, it is not relevant whether its results are enacted by the idea’s originator or by his later followers. The existential issue here is: what kind of effects — pro-life or anti-life — will this idea have by its very nature, if and when men start to act on it?” My response: Leonard is mostly correct that the rational is pro-life and good, and that the irrational is bad and anti-life. P: “ Just as every “is” implies an “ought,” so every identification of an idea’s truth or falsehood implies a moral evaluation of the idea and of its advocates. The evaluation, to repeat, comes from the answer to two related questions: what kind of volitional cause led people to this idea? and, to what kind of consequences will this idea lead in practice? Let me pause to indicate certain ramifications involved in answering the first of these questions. The general principle here is: truth implies as its cause a virtuous mental process; falsehood, beyond a certain point, implies a process of vice. The proper understanding of this principle, however, requires some discussion. It is possible for a man to embrace an idea blindly, on faith from others or simply by his own whim, without the effort of understanding or integrating it. In such a case, the idea, no matter what its content, reflects negatively on the individual. For Objectivism, an idea thus embraced is not “true” (or “false”). In relation to such a mind, the idea is without cognitive status; it is the arbitrary, and is analogous to the sounds emitted by a parrot. The true qua true, by contrast, does imply a process of understanding and integration, and therefore some degree of effort, focus, work. The degree of the effort may differ, of course, according to circumstances, such as whether one is the originator of the true idea or has learned it from others. Now we must note that falsehood does not necessarily imply vice; honest errors of knowledge are possible. But such errors are not nearly so common as some people wish to think, especially in the field of philosophy. In our century, there have been countless mass movements dedicated to inherently dishonest ideas — e.g., Nazism, Communism, non-objective art, non-Aristotelian logic, egalitarianism, nihilism, the pragmatist cult of compromise, the Shirley MacLaine types, who “channel” with ghosts and recount their previous lives; etc. In all such cases, the ideas are not merely false; in one form or another, they represent an explicit rebellion against reason and reality (and, therefore, against man and values). If the conscientious attempt to perceive reality by the use of one’s mind is the essence of honesty, no such rebellion can qualify as “honest.”” My response: I admire Leonard’s analogy that to rebel against reason and reality is to argue against man and values, to be anti-life rather than pro-life. Heed that Leonard puts down the pragmatist cult of compromise as evil and false, against man and reality and against man and values. He and Ayn Rand seem to full stop reject compromising, even honorable, principled compromise, as David Kelley would support. The orthodox Randians hatred of compromise is a false way of thinking, and a wicked moral conclusion,, so they are immoral and mistaken, whereas as Kelley’s moderate compromising is more moral and cognitively correct than the reactions of the orthodox Randians. P: “ The originators, leaders and intellectual spokesmen of all such movements are necessarily evaders on a major scale; they are not merely mistaken, but are crusading irrationalists. The mass base of such movements are not evaders of the same kind; but most of the followers are dishonest in their own passive way. They are unthinking, intellectually irresponsible ballast, unconcerned with logic or truth. They go along with corrupt trend-setters because their neighbors demand it, and/or because a given notion satisfies some out-of-context desire they happen to feel. People of this kind are not the helplessly ignorant, but the willfully self-deluded.” My response: Leonard makes a valid point that those that follow a lying leader cannot escape some blame for being willfully self-deluded. P: “ EVEN IN REGARD to inherently dishonest movements, let me now add, a marginal third category of adherent is possible: the relatively small number who struggle conscientiously, but simply cannot grasp the issues and the monumental corruption involved. These are the handful who become Communists, “channelers,” etc. through a truly honest error of knowledge. Leaving aside the retarded and the illiterate, who are effectively helpless in such matters, this third group consists almost exclusively of the very young — and precisely for this reason, these youngsters get out of such movements fast, on their own, without needing lectures from others; they get out as they reach maturity. Being conscientious and mentally active, they see first-hand what is going on in their movement and they identify what it means; so their initial enthusiasm turns to dismay and then to horror. (Andrei in We the Living may be taken as a fictional symbol here.) The very honesty of such individuals limits their stay in the movement; they cannot tolerate for long the massiveness of the evil with which they have become involved. Nor, when such youngsters drop out, do they say to the world belligerently: “Don’t dare to judge me for my past, because my error was honest.” On the contrary — and here I speak from my own personal experience of honest errors that I committed as a teenager — the best among these young people are contrite; they recognize the aid and comfort, inadvertent though it be, which they have been giving to error and evil, and they seek to make amends for it. They expect those who know of their past creeds and allegiances to regard them with suspicion; they know that it is their own responsibility to demonstrate objectively and across time that they have changed, that they will not repeat their error tomorrow in another variant, that their error was innocent. We need not pursue the issue of honest errors any further. As one of his examples of an intellectually honest man, to whom others should show “tolerance” and “benevolence,” David Kelley offers not a groping teenager, but “an academic Marxist,” i.e., an adult who devotes his life to the job of teaching unreason, self-sacrifice and slavery to generations of young minds. When I speak of truth and falsehood in what follows, therefore, I am presupposing a definite (adult) context. I am speaking of truth qua truth (not of the arbitrary) — and of falsehood on the kind of scale and issues that preclude honest, short-lived errors.” My response: Here again Leonard makes a valuable point, that tolerance and benevolence towards a sophisticated, adult Marxist professor teaching unreason, self-sacrifice and slavery to hundred of young people is a stupid and immoral response, yet, the principle of intellectual and moral justice requires of the offended Randian that tolerance and benevolence be practiced towards the offending Marxist professor in that though condemned and opposed by the Randian, no effort will be made to threaten or coerce him violently by any other forceful means, to recant his heresy or being attacked. That is fanatical, evil and prohibited. P: “ Now let me return to the issue of evaluating an idea morally, and of doing so by means of identifying its cause and its effects. The crucial point is that such evaluation is not something arbitrarily added to the judgment of true and false; on the contrary, it is logically implicit in such judgment. Implicit in saying that a certain idea is true is a positive moral estimate of the mental processes that led to it (a credit to the individual for having worked to grasp reality), and a positive estimate of the existential results to come (a true idea will have to yield pro-life results when men act on it). The same applies mutatis mutandis to false ideas. Implicit in saying that an idea contradicts the facts of reality is a negative estimate of the processes that led to it, and also of the effects the idea will have in practice, which have to be harmful. If one’s ideas are tied to reality at all and if one is guided by life as the standard, there is no way to identify an idea’s truth or falsehood without in some form also making such evaluations. There is only one basic issue in philosophy and in all judgment, cognitive and evaluative alike: does a man conform to reality or not? Whether an idea is true or false is one aspect of this question — which immediately implies the other aspects I mentioned: the relation to reality of the mental processes involved and of the actions that will result. Truth is a product of effort and leads in action to value(s); hence, one says, the true idea is not only true: it is also good. Falsehood, assuming it reaches a certain scale, is a product of evasion and leads to destruction; such an idea is not only false; it is also evil. An employee, to take a relatively modest positive example, offers a man an idea for improving the operation of his business. His idea, the boss concludes after weighing the evidence, takes into account all the relevant facts; he’s right. So far, this is pure cognition, the outcome of which is expressed in a statement like: “I agree with you.” But no decent person, whether he knows philosophy or not, would stop there; he would not say unemotionally, like a dead fish: “Your idea is correct. Good day.” On the contrary, precisely because the new idea represents a new grasp of reality, the moral kind of boss is enthusiastic, i.e., he evaluates the idea. He cannot avoid seeing two things: this employee of mine had to innovate, struggle, think to reach the idea when no one else did, and: the idea will cut my costs, increase my customers, double my profits. The boss, accordingly, is excited, he likes his employee, he praises him, he rewards him. He not only says about the idea: “true.” As an inevitable corollary, he says about it: “good.” That “good” is the evaluation or the “ought”; it represents the practice of justice and the tie to life. NOW TAKE THE CASE of Ayn Rand, who discovered true ideas on a virtually unprecedented scale. Do any of you who agree with her philosophy respond to it by saying “Yeah, it’s true” — without evaluation, emotion, passion? Not if you are moral. A moral person (assuming he understands philosophy at all) greets the discovery of this kind of truth with admiration, awe, even love; he makes a heartfelt positive moral evaluation. He says: Objectivism is not only true, it is great! Why? Because of the volitional work a mind must have performed to reach for the first time so exalted a level of truth — and because of all the glorious effects such knowledge will have on man’s life, all the possibilities of action it opens up for the future. And this latter applies whether Ayn Rand herself actualized these possibilities or left that feat (as she had to) to the generations still to come. There are degrees in this issue; there are modest attainments and enormous ones; but the differences pertain only to measurement. The principle in all such cases is the same: correspondence to reality (and its causes and effects) deserves and must be given a positive moral evaluation. The same kind of analysis applies to the negative cases. An employee comes up, say, with a stupid suggestion, which flies in the face of the facts. The boss inevitably thinks not just “false,” but “bad.” Which latter means: the man must have been out-of-focus, plus: look at the grief his idea would cause in practice. Such an idea, the boss has to feel, cannot be tolerated. No rational man can tolerate — i.e., abide, stand, or put up with — that which he sees to be false, not in his own life, mind or actions, not when he has any alternative in the matter. Since dedication to reality is the essence of the moral and of the practical, the false qua false is precisely the intolerable. (In what form a boss should express his intolerance to his employee depends on the full context.) Now consider the case of Kant, whom I take to be the negative counterpart of Ayn Rand. To anyone capable of understanding Kant’s ideas, the first thing to say about them is: “false.” But implicit in the all-embracing war on reality they represent is a second verdict: “wicked.” The cause of such ideas has to be methodical, lifelong intellectual dishonesty; the effect, when they are injected into the cultural mainstream, has to be mass death. There can be no greater evasion than the open, total rejection of reality undertaken as a lifetime crusade. And only evasion on this kind of scale, evasion as the motor of an entire philosophic system, makes possible and necessary all the atrocities of our age. (For details, see The Ominous Parallels.)” My response: I accept that Kant’s wholesale rejection of any human ability to know objective reality is irrational, anti-life, false and wicked, but we must be careful not to crush dissenters just because they willingly or inadvertently come up with false and wicked ideas upon which they suggest acting in the world. Kelley and I would claim that humans cannot become more realistic, smarter, wiser and better unless new concepts are always being introduced into the marketplace of ideas by creative, originally thinking individuators. There is a risk that some of their conceptual inventions will be harmful, but that is a risk which society must face, and must allow, in order that humans can advance, be happy, be free, serve God and live meaningful lives. Immoderates like orthodox Randians and orthodox, fundamentalist religionists around the world are to eager and willing to such down free-thinking and free speech for the same of the common good, they announce as if that justifies their wicked suppression of free-thinking individual supercitizens. P: “ Whoever understands the Critiques, yet urges “toleration” of Kant (or his ilk), or tells us to practice cognition on his ideas but not moral evaluation, has rejected self-preservation as a goal. He has rejected the principle of justice and the entire realm of moral value. He has said that man’s life or death should not be a ruling concern in anyone’s mind. In the final issue of The Objectivist, Ayn Rand described Kant as “the most evil man in mankind’s history.” She said it knowing full well that, apart from his ideas, Kant’s actions were unexceptionable, even exemplary. Like Ellsworth Toohey, he was a peaceful citizen, a witty lecturer, a popular dinner guest, a prolific writer. She said it because of what Kant wrote — and why — and what it would have to do to mankind. She held that Kant was morally much worse than any killer, including Lenin and Stalin (under whom her own family died), because it was Kant who unleashed not only Lenin and Stalin, but also Hitler and Mao and all the other disasters of our disastrous age. Without the philosophic climate Kant and his intellectual followers created, none of these disasters could have occurred; given that climate, none could have been averted.” My response: Kant may have been evil for his wicked philosophy, but he did not take up the sword and bloodily spread them, so he should be tolerated and treated benevolently in that his right to be false and evil in his propositions and theories is protected under the law of moral moderation that freedom of thought and expression is radically protected: the nonviolent offender is left unmolested, period, full stop. If he takes up the sword or joins a mass movement conducting revolution upon a just, free political dispensation, or if that mass movement is a crusade warring against other peoples, nations and tribes, then tolerance and benevolence may be withheld from them, and this is where Kelley is at. He is moderate and good, and the orthodox Randians are immorderate and evil; they will be the proponents of claiming total textual inerrancy for their sacred texts. P: “ IN SOME CONTEXTS, a man is properly held blameless for an unreasonable idea, so long as he himself does not act on it. For example: if I conclude that, though you are innocent of any wrongdoing, your death would be a wonderful thing, but I then remind myself of your rights, hold myself in check and refrain from killing you, I may be free of blame and can even be given a certain moral credit: “He kept his idea within his own mind,” one could say, “he did not allow it to lead to the destruction of the innocent; to that extent, in actual practice, he was moved by the recognition of reality.” But this kind of analysis does not exonerate the philosophic advocate of unreason. In regard to him, one cannot say: “He implicitly advocates murder, but does not himself commit it, so he is morally innocent.” The philosopher of irrationalism, though legally innocent of any crime, is not “keeping his ideas within his own mind.” He is urging them on the world and into actual practice. Such a man is moved not by the recognition of reality, but by the opposite: by the desire to annihilate it. In spiritual terms, he is guilty of a heinous crime: he is inciting men to commit murder on a mass scale. Advocacy of this kind is a form of action: it represents an entire life spent on subverting man’s mind at its base. Can anyone honestly hold that such advocacy pertains not to “action,” but merely to the world of “ideas,” and therefore that verdicts such as “good” and “evil” do not apply to it?”” My response: To deny reality is to deny life, and it is an attempt to annihilate. Of course the verdicts of good and evil apply to all ideas, be they true or false. But shutting off freshideas being allowed in the public square and going after irrational creators of bad ideas is not moral just, so orthodox Randians, or mullahs running the Iranian theocracy, or the CCP Communist atheists in Red China shutting down Christian believers, true believers all, feel justified in suppressing dissent and free thinkers, a most wicked practice. It occurred to me that true believers, even smart, idealistic thinkers like the orthodox Randians, in their extremism, are so immoral and immoral, paradoxically, because they so self-consciously assess themselves as the virtuous elite, who tolerate no evil deviance either in the realm of ideas/cognition or in the realm of action with its worldly consequences. The 20th century has shown repeatedly how vicious zealous ideologues and idealists become in enforcing their values upon an unwilling public. None are more cruel than they, and their exaggerated sense of being virtuous and their radicalized taste for the highest standards being coerced upon all all the time—this leads to totalitarian enslavement of the masses and horrible human rights abuses. Yes, irrational, wicked ideas, once they leave the creative brain of a malicious creator who does not act on his destructive idea, but, as it becomes popularized and practiced by thousands, perhaps millions of people, it cannot be denied that evil ideas lead to evil consequences in society as criminal or authoritarian behaviors. What we cannot do as just moderates is to criminalize free speech and free thought which may lead to harmful outcomes in the future. Our best bet is to campaign heavily against such views, and appeal to each citizen to become smart, wary and skeptical, so that she can be prepared to ward off foolish people’s ideas while society protects their free speech and free thought rights to make fools of themselves verbally even pronouncing hateful and dangerous statements. Peikoff is wildly mistaken, we can never criminalize false and bad ideas, for we must tolerate someone’s natural right to speak and think freely and to publicly share nonsense, for the sake of all because individuators require maxim free speech and free thought so that they can generate new creative ideas, though a few will take advantage of such a natural right and privilege. P: “ Yet such is the essence of David Kelley’s viewpoint. “Truth” and “falsity,” he says, apply primarily to “ideas”; “good” and “evil,” to “actions, and to the people who perform them.” In regard to evil, he says, we must not be tolerant; but in regard to ideas, moral judgment is a mistake. In the cognitive realm, he says, the virtue to be practiced in regard to all comers, no matter what their viewpoint, is “tolerance” and “benevolence,” i.e., cool, open-minded, friendly discussion among civilized moral equals. Stalin, in this view, has killed people, so he is evil and intolerable; but Kant or “an academic Marxist” — he is merely a thinker of a different school, with whom one happens to disagree (and from whom, Kelley adds, we might even learn something “if we are willing to listen”). In regard to Kant and his academic progeny, therefore, moral judgment is inapplicable and even “hysterical.” Kelley adds that if, after a discussion, a particular intellectual proves to be “not open to reason,” then we no longer have to be tolerant of him. But a man’s viewpoint as such, he insists, no matter what its content, does not justify such a negative verdict. What then does or ever could? If the content of a man’s ideas, even when they are openly at war with reason and reality, does not necessarily indicate a process of evasion on his part, how can we ever know that a man who disagrees with us after a discussion is being irrational? How can we know that he is not merely “honestly mistaken” still? Kelley does not address such questions, because the only answer to them is: on Kelley’s premises, one never can know that a man is being irrational and, therefore, one never does pronounce moral judgment.” My response: Kelley should not have denied that false ideas are wicked, but the orthodox Randians need to accept Kelley’s moderation principle, based in reality and that this principle should guide our ethical and epistemological standards of evaluating ideas and responding to them socially and legally, lest authoritarian and totalitarian suppression of free speaking and free thinking not grow evil, irrationality and suffering in the world. P: “ Kelley’s viewpoint is an explicit defense of a dichotomy between fact and value, or between cognition and evaluation, and thus between mind and body.”” My response: Kelley does not go far enough in rejecting the dichotomy between fact and value, between cognition and evaluation, and thus between mind and body, but he does introduce strictly non-Randian concepts of benevolence, tolerance and a near absolutist defense of freedom of thought and expression, instantiated in the rational, originally thinking individual as individuator and supercitizen. These principles of moderation introduced by Kelley were meant to and do thwart the attempt by fanatics pushing their holy cause, its sacred texts, its doctrines, to silence all opposition. I separated out this last sentence from Leonard because he rejects the dichotomy between fact and value, or between cognition and evaluation, and thus between mind and body. I do not mind that he--and Ayn Rand likely—withdraw moral sanction from moderates like Kelley, but their principled, well-reasoned fanatical statement of opposition to offering sanction to those with false and bad ideas may veer over into vicious, authoritarian persecution of dissenters, always a bad idea. P: “ If ideas cannot be judged morally in terms of their causes and effects, why and how can a man’s actions — his bodily movements — be judged morally? No answer. If justice is a crucial virtue, how can the base and ruler of man’s life — his mind and its intellectual products — be outside of justice’s domain? No answer. If value-judgments do not flow inexorably from the judgment of truth or falsehood, if the “ought” does not flow inexorably from the “is,” where do value-judgments come from and on what are they based? No answer. What then is left of the objectivity of values, and thus of the whole Objectivist ethics, politics, esthetics? Nothing.’” My response: Leonard the purist and ultraist, insists that Kelley be a pure Objectivist or he is pedaling a version of it that is pernicious, a lie and leads to the utter destruction of Objectivism. Either one accepts what Ayn Rand espoused whole cloth, or one rejects in plenary refutation. Either/or, no but/and objections or additions. Orthodox Randians push pure conformity to the doctrines of their ism, Objectivism, as interpreted by the ARI faithful, or they are to be condemned and punished. The orthodox justify their coercive, vindictive intolerance base on the claim that they are to maintain standards to protect both truth, goodness and beauty, but these ultraist idealists and intellectuals will, in a generation or too, if their rule a country upon totalitarian lines, will usher in a culture of ideas like what holds in North Korea, ideas neither free, noble, good or uplifting; this is what fanaticism always degenerates into. My responseL I am a moderate moral realist, so I believe that an ought flows from and is most of the time whether it is someone’s bad and wicked ideas or their bad and wicked ideas implemented in action. We should not tolerate acted out false and evil ideas, especially if violent and criminal, and we should judge and oppose false and bad ideas expressed by Kant or whomever, but we do not censor, imprison or drive out that offender for their dangerous free speech. Ever suppressing public free speech and free thought is perilous to the common weal and civil society, not a slippery slope which any people ore individual should slide down in the name of being moral, and Randian and the religious ideologues to often suppress dissent or consider it for the sake of the good of all the people, but that cannot be accepted as a way for a free people to live. P; “ FOR DECADES, onetime advocates of Objectivism who have turned into champions of “tolerance” (or “kindness” or “compassion”) have leveled a specific accusation against Ayn Rand and against anyone else who pronounces moral judgment. (Kelley a few years ago accused Ayn Rand and me of it to my face, and I broke off all relations with him.) The accusation is that we are “dogmatic moralizers” or “angry emotionalists.” Up to now, I could explain these attacks only psychologically, in terms of the attackers’ cowardice or psychopathology. But now I understand the basic cause; I see the attacks’ philosophic meaning. In the minds of the “tolerance”-people, there are only two possibilities in regard to moral judgment: moralizing or emotionalism, dogma or whim, i.e., intrinsicism or subjectivism.” My response: Leonard is accusing Kelley of starting off as a dogmatic moralizer, obsequious to the guru and cause he serves, and, then, feeling embarrassed and degraded, he lurches away from his former intrinsicist valuative view, and adopts an emotional, whimsical subjectivism demand tolerance of any view because anything goes. Leonard devalues and dismisses both intrinsicism and subjectivism as non-objective about valuing. P: “ Such people literally have no concept of “objectivity” in regard to values. Their accusations, therefore, are expressions of their own actual philosophy and inner state. The typical (though not invariable) pattern in this kind of case is that the accuser started out in Objectivism as a dogmatist, cursing or praising people blindly, in obedience, as he thought, to his new-found “authorities.” Then at last his pent-up resentment at this self-made serfdom erupts — and he becomes an angry subjectivist, denouncing the “excessive anger” of those who make moral judgments. The swing from intrinsicism to subjectivism, however, is not a significant change; these philosophies are merely two forms in which the notion of “non-objective value” rules a man’s brain. The intellectual corruption involved here goes deeper. The good, as I have been stressing, derives from facts; i.e., “objective value” is a logical consequence of “objective truth.” The man whose ideas are tied to reality, I have said, cannot avoid grasping at least their obvious value-implications. The man who can (or wants to) avoid it does so only through one means: his ideas are cut off from reality. In regard to theoretical issues, his very process of cognition is corrupted: it is rationalistic, floating, detached from fact.” My response: I don’t disagree with Leonard that, in his rejecting the fact-value split, that the good derives from facts, that objective value is a consequence of objective truth. Leonard declares that his ideas are tied to reality, and, as a consequence, he is aware of their obvious value implications. On the other hand, he characterizes Kelley as a moral anti-realist, that his ideas and values are cut off from reality, so there would be only intrinsicist or subjective moral values arising from such disembodied ideas and statements. My question I: how do Objectivists like Leonard become corrupt and fanatical in their willingness to deny others free speech, free though and free action? How can slightly more hybrid-Objectivists like Kelley, with his more emotional evaluative approach, end up being more truthful, smart, good and moderate than the orthodox Randians? I know not the answer but I suspect that Ayn Rand is the source of Peikoff’s uncompromising and ruthless approach to and treatment of heretics, because she was a guru pursuing the spread and popularization of her holy cause, allowing no dissidence, no veering from shared dogma. P: “ To such a person, intellectual discussion is a game; ideas are constructs in some academic or Platonic dimension, unrelated to this earth — which is why, to him, they are unrelated to life or to morality. Inside this sort of mind, there is not only no concept of “objective value”; there is no objective truth, either — not in regard to intellectual issues. What this sort knows is only the floating notions he happens to find congenial, out of context, at and for the moment. Ideas severed from evaluation, in short, are ideas severed from (objective) cognition; i.e., from reason and reality. (Those who know formal logic will recognize that the last sentence is merely the contrapositive of my main point in this article: if cognition implies evaluation, then non-evaluation implies non-cognition.)” My response: Leonard labels Kelley as a moral anti-realist, that his ethical concepts are unrelated to life or morality, for cognition is severed from objective truth, objective valuing, and the anti-realists ethical statements necessarily are amoral, immoral or false because they are divorced from reason, reality and life, the ontological and epistemological preconditions to arriving at objective or moral valuing and characterizing of one concepts arrived at based on one’s experiences and observatons. P: “ The absence or rejection of the concept of “objectivity” on this profound a level means the rejection not only of Ayn Rand’s ethics, but also of her epistemology: it is the rejection of her view of truth, of her theory of concepts, of her fundamental position on the proper relationship between a volitional consciousness and existence. In methodological terms, it is the rejection of her view of logic, which demands that one integrate every idea with perceptual data and with all one’s other ideas, including one’s code of moral values. To tear values from facts and concepts from percepts is to explode any such integration and thus to defy the essence of the philosophy which demands it. Such is the result of trying to combine Objectivism with “tolerance” (or with “compassion” or “kindness” in the Brandens’ sense).” My response: Leonard lays out an articulate criticism of moral anti-realists in this paragraph, but his fanaticism reveals itself: if one alters one iota of Rand’s system, or the orthodox reading of her system then one is a traitor to that system, a destroyer of that system , 100% false and evil, utterly to be cast out into the darkness. If one rejects one iota of Rand’s system, one one has rejected it all, and the excommunication sentenced will be applied by the Pope to the heretic. P: “ “Tolerance,” as used by Kelley, is a concept (or anti-concept) out of the modern liberals’ world-view; it is a further expression of the philosophy of subjectivism; it conveys the notion that one must be fair to one’s opponents by means of not judging them, by being “open-minded” and saying, in effect: “Who am I to know? Maybe I have something to learn from this person.” The term means, in essence, “fairness through skepticism.” So crude a package-deal does not need much analysis. (In a political context, the term could be taken to mean that no one may initiate governmental force against others. But the proper concept to identify such a political condition is “rights” or “freedom,” not “tolerance.”) IN HIS LAST PARAGRAPH, Kelley states that Ayn Rand’s philosophy, though magnificent, “is not a closed system.” Yes, it is. Philosophy, as Ayn Rand often observed, deals only with the kinds of issues available to men in any era; it does not change with the growth of human knowledge, since it is the base and precondition of that growth. Every philosophy, by the nature of the subject, is immutable. New implications, applications, integrations can always be discovered; but the essence of the system — its fundamental principles and their consequences in every branch — is laid down once and for all by the philosophy’s author. If this applies to any philosophy, think how much more obviously it applies to Objectivism. Objectivism holds that every truth is an absolute, and that a proper philosophy is an integrated whole, any change in any element of which would destroy the entire system.” My response: It sure seems to me, in this paragraph, wherein Leonard insists that Objectivism is a closed philosophical system—in complete refutation of Kelley’s conclusions that Objective is an open system—that truths its founder arrived at are absolute, and nothing may be changed. If this is not a fanatical stance of secular textual inerrancy, I cannot think of what is. P: “ In yet another expression of his subjectivism in epistemology, Kelley decries, as intolerant, any Objectivist’s (or indeed anyone’s) “obsession with official or authorized doctrine,” which “obsession” he regards as appropriate only to dogmatic viewpoints. In other words, the alternative once again is whim or dogma: either anyone is free to rewrite Objectivism as he wishes or else, through the arbitrary fiat of some authority figure, his intellectual freedom is being stifled. My answer is: Objectivism does have an “official, authorized doctrine,” but it is not dogma. It is stated and validated objectively in Ayn Rand’s works. “Objectivism” is the name of Ayn Rand’s achievement. Anyone else’s interpretation or development of her ideas, my own work emphatically included, is precisely that: an interpretation or development, which may or may not be logically consistent with what she wrote. In regard to the consistency of any such derivative work, each man must reach his own verdict, by weighing all the relevant evidence. The “official, authorized doctrine,” however, remains unchanged and untouched in Ayn Rand’s books; it is not affected by any interpreters. The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence state the “official” doctrine of the government of the United States, and no one, including the Supreme Court, can alter the meaning of this doctrine. What the Constitution and the Declaration are to the United States, Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand’s other works are to Objectivism. Objectivism, therefore, is “rigid,” “narrow,” “intolerant” and “closed-minded.” If anyone wants to reject Ayn Rand’s ideas and invent a new viewpoint, he is free to do so — but he cannot, as a matter of honesty, label his new ideas or himself “Objectivist.”” My response: Leonard has a point in demanding that Kelley and liberal Randians are not to self-refer to themselves as Objectivists, because they do allow some subjective, anti-realistic qualifications on Rand’s stringent views. It might be better for Kelley and the Randian dissidents to refer to themselves as leaning towards Objectivist views or as hybrid-Objectivists, but quit referring to themselves as Objectivists. We are to refute Leonards approach: either you accept her writings and theories on Objectivism as they are, unchanged, and utterly without qualification, or you will destroy her entire system, and you are wholly a non-Objectiist even when you claim to mantle of Objectivism for yourself as Kelley and his followers have done. P: “ Objectivism is not just “common sense”; it is a revolutionary philosophy, which is a fact we do not always keep in mind. Ayn Rand challenges every fundamental that men have accepted for millennia. The essence of her revolution lies in her concept of “objectivity,” which applies to epistemology and to ethics, i.e., to cognition and to evaluation. At this early stage of history, a great many people, though bright and initially drawn to Ayn Rand, are still unable (or unwilling) fully to grasp this central concept. They accept various ideas from Ayn Rand out of context, without digesting them by penetrating to the foundation; thus they never uproot all the contradictory ideas they have accepted, the ones which guided the formation of their own souls and minds. Such people are torn by an impossible conflict: they have one foot (or toe) in the Objectivist world and the rest of themselves planted firmly in the conventional world. People like this do not mind being controversial so long as they are fashionable or “in”; i.e., so long as they can be popular in their subculture, or politically powerful or academically respectable; to attain which status, they will “tolerate” (or show “compassion” for) whatever they have to. The real enemy of these men is not Ayn Rand; it is reality. But Ayn Rand is the messenger who brings them the hated message, which, somehow, they must escape or dilute (some of them, I think, never even get it). The message is that they must conform to reality 24 hours a day and all the way down. THIS, I FINALLY SEE, is the cause of all the schisms which have plagued the Objectivist movement through the years, from the Brandens in 1968 on through David Kelley, and which will continue to do so for many years to come. The cause is not concrete-bound details — not differences in regard to love affairs or political strategy or proselytizing techniques or anybody’s personality. The cause is fundamental and philosophical: if you grasp and accept the concept of “objectivity,” in all its implications, then you accept Objectivism, you live by it and you revere Ayn Rand for defining it. If you fail fully to grasp and accept the concept, whether your failure is deliberate or otherwise, you eventually drift away from Ayn Rand’s orbit, or rewrite her viewpoint or turn openly into her enemy. The most eloquent badge of the authentic Objectivist, who does understand Ayn Rand’s philosophy, is his attitude toward values (which follows from his acceptance of reason). An Objectivist is not primarily an academician or a political activist (though he may well devote his professional life to either or both pursuits). In his soul, he is essentially a moralist — or, in broader terms, what Ayn Rand herself called “a valuer.” A valuer, in her sense, is a man who evaluates extensively and intensively. That is: he judges every fact within his sphere of action — and he does it passionately, because his value-judgments, being objective, are integrated in his mind into a consistent whole, which to him has the feel, the power and the absolutism of a direct perception of reality. Any other approach to life comes from and pertains to another philosophy, not to Objectivism.” My response: I admire Leonard for reminding us that we have to live with truth or reality 24 hours a day, even if we deny its impact on us altogether. I also appreciate his stand that all facts are moral facts, and that all true, good normative propositions are facts in the real world. I accept this absolutist claim with near certain approval, but not with the orthodox Objectivist utter, supreme conviction of owning 100% textual and doctrinal inerrancy. P:” Now I wish to make a request to any unadmitted, anti-Objectivists reading this piece, a request that I make as Ayn Rand’s intellectual and legal heir. If you reject the concept of “objectivity” and the necessity of moral judgment, if you sunder fact and value, mind and body, concepts and percepts, if you agree with the Branden or Kelley viewpoint or anything resembling it — please drop out of our movement: drop Ayn Rand, leave Objectivism alone. We do not want you and Ayn Rand would not have wanted you — just as you, in fact, do not want us or her. As a matter of dignity and honor, tell yourself and the world the exact truth: that you agree with certain ideas of Ayn Rand, but reject Objectivism.” My response: Notice how Leonard the black-and-white thinker or immoderate dogmatists accuses moral anti-realists of sundering fact and value, mind and body, concepts, that they have not accepted or rejected Rand and her Objectivists wholly and without reservation like Peikoff and like Rand herself would conclude, being the secular, total textual inerrancy true believers that they are. P: “ It is perhaps too early for there to be a mass movement of Objectivists. But let those of us who are Objectivists at least make sure that what we are spreading is Ayn Rand’s actual ideas, not some distorted hash of them. Let us make sure that in the quest for a national following we are not subverting the integrity of the philosophy to which we are dedicated. If we who understand the issues speak out, our number, whether large or small, is irrelevant; in the long run, we will prevail. If we engage in quality-control now, refusing to sanction the rewriters of Objectivism whatever the short-term cost and schisms, the long-range result will be a new lease on life for mankind. If we don’t, we are frauds in the short-term and monsters long-range. Let us not cohabit with or become alchemists in reverse, i.e., men who turn the gold of Ayn Rand into lead. Paraphrasing Marx: in demanding intellectual consistency, we have nothing to lose but our deluders — and we have the world to win. — First published in The Intellectual Activist Volume V, Number 1”” L Here is a thoughtful response written in 2015 by D. Moskovitz against ARI leaders for dismissing him as one of their students, because he refused to comply with their either/or ultimatum to go fully ARI or TAS, either/or not both/and. Here it is: Moskovitz: “ Subject: An Open Letter to the Ayn Rand Institute From: D. Moskovitz Date: 3 Apr 2015 Dear Onkar and Yaron, I want to thank you again for the student scholarship you gave me to attend this summer's Second Renaissance/Lyceum Conference; I hope your investment in me will prove fruitful. I appreciated your cordial response when I told you that I was interning at The Objectivist Center (TOC) this summer, but I was saddened when I received your ultimatum, which stated, "Until and unless you decide to cut off association with [David Kelley's] group, we cannot admit you into other classes in the OAC."” My response: D. is ordered by ARI to choose them or TOC, one or the other must go: this is how fanatics talk to the young. Moskovitz: “ I have spent the last two months considering the issue carefully. I read and re-read the articles you, Onkar, suggested reading: Leonard Peikoff's Fact and Value, Peter Schwartz's On Moral Sanctions and Libertarianism: The Perversion of Liberty, Bennett Karp's Reintroducing the Measurements: An Old Fallacy with a New Name, and Robert Tracinski's Notes On A Question of Sanction. At first, I found them somewhat persuasive. I did not want to support subjectivism or skepticism, sunder fact and value, or promote the corruption of Objectivism, as these writers say Kelley does. However, I thought that to evaluate the issue independently, I had to examine Kelley's position first-hand, so I read his original article, A Question of Sanction. After thinking about it, I realized that Peikoff, Schwartz, Karp, and Tracinski misrepresent his position. To understand Kelley's position more clearly, I also read two replies to "Fact and Value"--Kirsti Minsaas's open letter to Harry Binswanger and Robert Bidinotto's "Facts, Values and Moral Sanctions: An Open Letter to Objectivists." Furthermore, I thought that to do Kelley's position justice, I had to read The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand: Truth and Toleration in Objectivism, Kelley's own book-length reply to "Fact and Value." Only then did I understand precisely what his positions are on judgment, sanction, toleration, the scope of honest error, and the definition of Objectivism, and why they are justified. And only then did I understand the extent to which Peikoff, Schwartz, Karp, and Tracinski misrepresent these positions. For example: Peikoff claims that Kelley offers the academic Marxist "as one of his examples of an intellectually honest man" (Fact and Value 4). But Kelley says only that academic Marxists are not necessarily guilty of the same crimes as Lenin or Stalin; he neither says nor implies anything about the academic Marxist's honesty in this essay (A Question of Sanction 2). Moreover, there are substantive issues on which Kelley and Peikoff disagree, and on which I find Kelley's arguments convincing. For example: The original cause of the split was the fact that Kelley spoke to a group of libertarians. Kelley did not "sanction" them in any meaningful sense by speaking to them, as Peikoff claims; on the contrary, he explicitly criticized them for trying to defend liberty without a sound philosophical foundation. Peikoff assumes that -- except in exceptionally rare cases -- a person who believes a false idea is irrational and should not be talked to. But Kelley argues effectively that one must know more than the mere fact that someone believes a false idea to conclude that the person arrived at the false idea through evasion, and even if a person is irrational in a particular instance, that does not mean that the person is characteristically irrational. Kelley "tolerated" or "sanctioned" the libertarians only in the sense that he did not, a priori, dismiss them all as irrational or conclude that none of them would be open to persuasion by rational argument. Indeed, Kelley has since persuaded many libertarians that they need a sound philosophical foundation to defend liberty. These are just two examples of the many problems I found in Fact and Value. I looked for a public reply to Truth and Toleration by Peikoff, Schwartz, Karp, or Tracinski, but I could find none. In fact, I could find no substantive reply to _Truth_and_Toleration_ by anyone at ARI. If you, Onkar, are going to continue telling people that Kelley carries "out activities that we know are harmful to the spread of Ayn Rand's philosophy," as you wrote in your e-mail to me, I think you should also offer a comprehensive response to Truth and Toleration. I realize that you must receive great value by associating yourselves with ARI to promote Objectivism. I certainly received value by taking your course from the OAC, Onkar, and by attending the Second Renaissance/Lyceum Conference this summer. However, TOC -- which promotes Objectivism just as ARI does -- also has great value to offer, even though TOC is rarely discussed publicly by the leaders of ARI. David Kelley is one of the most intelligent, rational, honest men I know. TOC has thousands of members -- many of whom left ARI because they shared Kelley's dissatisfaction -- and it has a summer conference of comparable size and quality to the Second Renaissance/Lyceum Conference. Most people I've met through TOC agree with the basic principles of Ayn Rand's philosophy -- including the self-described "libertarians" (who are not necessarily members of the Libertarian Party), most of whom are opposed to anarchism and nihilism and dissociate themselves from that wing of the libertarian movement. It saddens me to know that you do not want to work towards common goals with me and other rational, honest people who affiliate themselves with TOC. The Objectivist movement is much less powerful than it could be because of this.” My response: Yes, the factional wars reduce the power and influence of the entire Objectivist movement. Moskovitz: “ I thought your speech, Yaron, at the anti-"living wage" rally I led at Harvard was very effective, and I was flattered that you, Onkar, expressed your confidence in me as a promising scholar when you wrote, "I hope you continue to take courses with us and I hope you end up pursuing an academic career" after I completed your course. I would like to continue trading values and furthering common values with ARI, but I am not willing to betray my philosophical convictions nor sacrifice the values I gain from TOC in order to do so. I hope you will reconsider your position, and I hope we can work together in the future. Sincerely, D. Moskovitz” M Either/or thinking is fanatical, untruthful and not how the world works for some contradictions are true and actual. Moderate thinking is both/and, truthful and how the world works. N In this section I am copy and pasting, on 11/15/2025, the entire A.3 section from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy supplemental entry on Ayn Rand’s epistemology and metaphysics. This remarkably clear and in-depth article on Ayn Rand’s epistemology and metaphysics was written and copyrighted (2020) by two collaborating professors of philosophy, Neera K. Badhwar and Roderick T. Long. The professors in this excellent article have 4 sections included: A.1, A.2, A.3, and A.4. A.3 is my sole focus below and I am not spending much time on it, but I will concentrate on one sentence in it in particular which bears directly on my main topic in this extensive blog entry where I focused on my hypothesis that when true believers report that total textual inerrancy applies both to their holy text and their official doctrines. These worshipers of the ism they idolize, whether said holy cause is racial, religious, nationalist or political, claim the status of absolute inerrancy and epistemological, complete, certain knowledge for the entire content of their favored holy writs and texts, as the way to explain and interpret the core principles of their favored ideology. I focus on how inerrancy is a symptom of ideologues’ or true believers’ totalist assertion of complete, perfect and total understanding of everything through the lens of their held concepts, I am going to include a paragraph for analysis and response, in which these two professors use the words inerrancy and infallibility in regards to Rand epistemological claims. It interests me and seems relevant to supporting my hypothesis that Rand is a rather typical example of the founder and guru running a movement, and who claims intellectual infallibility and total textual inerrancy regarding the text she writes and publishes, that she unwittingly, unconsciously and subconsciously assumes the role of fanatical, dogmatic assertion of total rightness in all her views, and that the world of people need to obey her without reserve or objection, to act like her, to think like her and do, say and write only what she does, thinks, says and writes. Any deviation from this standard of enforced compliance and conformity will be severely and promptly punished upon the deviant each and every time they stray from the straight and narrow path of orthodoxy. Leonard Peikoff and the ARI faithful maintain that her Objectivism is a closed system, not in the sense alone that it was completed and is unalterable when she died—this seems a reasonable claim to make that any system of thought is closed and unchangeable once the thinker and originator dies. This is the defense of Objectivism which Objectivist Craig Biddle makes when he debated Stephen Hicks in 2023 about whether Objectivism is open or closed. I like Biddle but he seemed to evade making the stronger, more representative, actually believed claim, the now embarrassing (No American wants to admit he is a fanatic a culturally unpopular claim to make in America.) claim the orthodox really hold that Rand’s philosophical system if closed because it is permanently a flawless system teaching absolute truth about reality and humans, so eternally perfect and complete that no more remains to be said. Those adding to it while calling themselves like Objectivists like Kelley does are labeled by the orthodox Randians as being frauds who destroy it and cheapen it. Only a secular fanatic would make so bold and sweeping a claim, false and wicked, though they view themselves as true, good and noble. If Leonard or Onkar Ghate debated Hicks in 2023, I believe either of them would have made it clear to Hicks and the audience that the primary reason Objectivism is a closed system is because Objectivism is closed because it is the one true philosophy, as crafted, that it was perfect as originally crafted by Rand, that altering it at all and calling oneself an Objectivist while altering it, like The Atlas Society, open-or hybrid Objectivism camp members declare, is to destroy a perfect philosophy with all the answers. I think this is the orthodox stance shared by Leonard and the orthodox. This is their take and what they think if they are honest openly about their beliefs in Objectivism. I believe this absolutist orthodox claim would be the one currently held by Leonard and the orthodox, and by implication this claim is the one held by Rand herself. To alter it or add to it in any way is to be a devious, gaslighting, irrational subjectivist or intrinsicist, converting Ayn Rand gold into lead, and these modified Objectivist claims are false, evil and immoral, worthy of no sanction, unworthy of debate, and those for open Objectivism deserve to be silenced, canceled and punished. It is not what the orthodox Objectivist claim is false or evil per se: much of Randian thought and philosophy is true and good. It, its practitioners, Rand herself and her followers ,when they totalized and converted it into a holy cause, inerrant and infallible, then it transformed into something ugly, false an evil, like when any claim is transformed into a holy cause as defined by Eric Hoffer. When and where it or any ism turns false, evil, immoderate and fanatical is when they use, or would use--if they were able to conquer a society, methods so totalitarian, authoritarian, or violent, coercive that the society’s social, institutional, cultural and governmental structures are run along lines dictated by the true believers. These zealots would universally enforce group speech, group think and total conformity to and adopting the creedal statements espoused by mass movement now in control. The common people would become wholly dominated and directed by the purists, the absolutists, those black-and-white thinkers inflicting their way of life upon civil society under the guise of working for the general welfare, as benevolent, human intellectuals with their dictatorship of the elite tyrannically running things for the people until they are all reeducated and compliant. Human nature is evil mostly and we are addicted to collective, altruist power over our neighbors and this sickness and immoral addiction motivates all group living people striving for ever increased social and corporatist, institutional power and social status. This is the immoral power of powerlessness in actual, factual real practice is terribly destructive, causing enormous unnecessary suffering and universals unhappiness. Here is Section A.3: “ A.3 Existence, Identity, and Consciousness Epistemologically, the most important concepts are those Rand identifies as axiomatic concepts. (Axioms themselves are secondary, being propositional expressions of the corresponding concepts, which themselves are non-propositional.) The three axiomatic concepts to which Rand devotes the most attention are existence, identity, and consciousness. These three, she tells us, are implicit in all knowledge, and cannot be rejected without being relied upon in the course of the attempted rejection. Unlike ordinary concepts, they are not susceptible of definition (except ostensively), because there are no more basic concepts in terms of which they could be defined. Nor are the axioms that express them susceptible of proof, since they are presupposed by all proof (ITOE; Peikoff 1991). The concept of existence identifies as basic and unquestionable the fact that something exists; to ask for a cause or explanation of there being something rather than nothing is to misunderstand the place of existence in the hierarchy of concepts. (This is one of Rand’s reasons for rejecting the idea of a divine creator as the cause of the universe; though it is a matter of dispute whether this objection works if such a creator is merely supposed to be responsible for the existence of everything other than itself.) Rand’s expression of this concept in propositional form, as the axiom that “existence exists”, is intended not as the mere tautological observation that “whatever exists, exists”, but rather as a recognition that something does indeed exist. The concept of identity identifies the fact that everything that exists is some kind of thing or other—that it has a specific, non-contradictory nature. This concept—which Rand often expresses in propositional form as the Law of Identity, “A is A”—has as a corollary the principle of causality: since everything has a specific nature, a thing can act only in ways consistent with that nature. Finally, the concept of consciousness identifies the fact that consciousness exists; Rand agrees with the Cartesian view that one cannot coherently deny the existence of one’s own consciousness. Unlike Descartes, however, Rand denies the “prior certainty of consciousness”, i.e., the idea that we can be aware of the contents of our own minds without knowing whether any extramental reality corresponds to them; for Rand, there can be no content without an external reality. Rand regards consciousness as inherently relational: to be conscious is to be conscious of something beyond one’s own consciousness, and of one’s consciousness itself only secondarily. Existence has primacy over consciousness both epistemologically and metaphysically (with the latter explaining the former): epistemologically, because consciousness has to be aware of a distinct object before it can be aware of itself; metaphysically, because consciousness is a response to its objects and so cannot precede them—thus ruling out metaphysical theories like theism and idealism that, in Rand’s view, make existence dependent on consciousness. From the fact that consciousness—both perceptual and conceptual—is an active and causally complex process, it does not follow that it is creative or distortive with regard to its objects. To suppose otherwise, Rand holds—to demand that consciousness, in order to be in contact with reality, must be purely passive and not involve any sort of processing—is to object to consciousness on the absurd grounds that it has a specific identity and employs specific means, and thus, once again, to regard us as blind because we have eyes and deaf because we have ears. According to Rand, as we’ve seen, our senses cannot deceive us; and in forming conceptual judgments on the basis of sensory evidence, we can be deceived only if we allow ourselves to fall into inattention or evasion. Hence certainty is always available to us. But while Rand takes knowledge to require certainty, she distinguishes certainty from infallibility or inerrancy: a judgment can be certain, within a given context of available knowledge, even if it needs to be revised in the light of new information. Peikoff interprets Rand to hold that, so long as a contextual qualifier is understood to be implicit in one’s judgments at each stage (e.g., “So far as can be determined in the light of present knowledge …”), the revised judgments need not contradict the original ones (Peikoff 1991). But this is a problematic notion, and Rand herself never makes any statement to this effect.” My response: This is the paragraph that interests me for this blog subject of plenary textual inerrancy as a symptom of a fanatical, intolerant, coercive mindset. Rand the epistemological optimist postulates that our senses do not deceive us, so we can form conceptual judgements which are true and certain, reliable knowledge. Rand distinguishes certainty of knowledge, graspable within a given context of knowledge, from claims of inerrancy and infallibility, according to Badwhar and Long. A.3: “ Rand rejects both dogmatism (asserting knowledge or demanding assent in the absence of contextually sufficient evidence) and skepticism (denying knowledge, or demanding the withholding of assent, in the presence of contextually sufficient evidence). Mysticism—in the sense of claims to a non-rational, non-sensory mode of knowledge—is likewise rejected as a form of dogmatism. The application of logic—the “art of non-contradictory identification”—to sensory data should be the sole ultimate determinant of belief.” My response: From these two reputable Randian scholars and philosophers, it seems correct, their conclusion that Rand believed the objective knower, who did not deceive herself, could generate concepts of certain knowledge and worth, contingent upon her observations and experiences which she has had so far, and thus how she abstract judgements from these percepts reasoned over, so she gains contextually certain knowledge, but it never rises to the level of inerrancy and infallibility. If Rand is explicitly denying that the knower can reach the level of errorless, absolute certainty, which is inerrancy and infallibility, how do I get away with claiming she insisted that her disciples read her texts as without error, thus allowing her to claim for her written works the titles of textual plenary inerrancy and textual plenary infallibility? I have two answers to resolve this seeming inconsistency. First, Rand took the intellectual high road officially in refusing to ascribe to her Objectivism and its holy texts, the property of inerrancy and infallibility, but, unofficially and in how she despised and resisted compromising or tolerating dissidents in practice, she actually, at the same time in a mode of self-contradiction, an act she may not consciously have realize she had committed herself to saying--believed her Objectivism and its holy texts were inerrant and infallible, not just contextually certain. Second, she prided herself on crisp, clear definitions, and she was positive that her definitions captured and bracketed a concept exactly as it should be described and featured with language, without imperfection, vagueness or ambiguity. No human mind and likely not language itself allows any human to communicate with words which describe and define any concept with utter, tehcnical precision, clarity and perfect conciseness. She thought she was linguistically performing at an almost deity-like level of using language, so it is understandable that it is just a short step from there to fanatical conclusions about one’s texts being governend by the doctrines of textual inerrancy and infallibility. T Conclusion In this lengthy blog entry, I have tried to, from various angles, to support my hypothesis that the claim to total textual inerrancy is a symptom of an underlying moral lie, that a fanatical, totalistic take on how to think, speak and act is virtuous, when it is the definition of vice. All humans are born evil more than good, and since fanaticism is emotionalism and evil, and we are innately emotional more than rational, we must learn to be good, moderate, individualistic and rational. As, evil, insecure creatures, we overcompensate by claiming our views and values are absolutely, necessarily correct and always true. Then, we being born corrupt and groupist, seek total group control over others to feel good about ourselves; going further into moral ruination; then we conclude we should gather all the power in the world to ourselves—the power of powerlessness—under the justification that we are doing all a favor by violently, coercively compelling all to accept our cause and doctrine unreserved y and enthusiastically, all across the globe. Elites always conspire to control the masses, to wipe out dissent, individualism, free thought, free public speech. It occurs to me that another way that we express our extremism is by praising God, as perfect, errorless, all-loving, all-powerful and all-knowing. God is not these traits perfectly but is these traits mostly so, so being perfect and without error is not who God is or as the Self-made Creator, or even wants to be so characterized by us. For being perfect is a form of evil, and perfect is an undesirable state of highest standards as immoderate expectations to be strived for. For the sake of the noblest motives, zealots and idealists commit acts of monstrous mass, collective evil when they strive to bring heaven to earth, to establish perfect goodness and perfection for humans on earth, seeking to introduce utopian, whole excellence here in thought, word and deed. Humans are born insecure and without self-esteem, so they need to exaggerate and make grand claims to feel a little bettered about their batter self-conceptions. One of the two key ways to achieve this exaggerated status is to boast that one’s cultural story/stories or grand narrative/narratives are the best in the world, superior to all other people’s culture and stories. The other means of bragging about how tall we stand is to associate ourselves with our name and conception of the supreme deity we worship as possessing perfect , incomparable magnificence and substance. We make these grandiose, totalistic claims about our supreme deity in order that by reflection our own flawed and tarnished consciousnesses might show a bit of polish and worth by association with this almighty deity. These traits are not God’s but have everything to do with humans who attribute perfect characteristics to their favored, named deity. These stellar adjectives describing the supreme deity have everything to do with poor limited perishable mortals requiring some embellishing to compensate by characterizing God as perfect, errorless, all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful, everlasting, while God is actually mostly but not entirely perfect, errorless, all-loving, all-knowing all -powerful and likely everlasting. In other words God either created the principle of moderation which governs the world or lives in accordance with it which has existed eternally though God would live consistently with it even if God created the principle governing the universe. God wants not be be acknowledging or all-knowing but mostly knowing and that is how God is good or moderate as well as staying good and moderate. Evil is perfection and leads to or is revealed as what it mostly is, the other extreme complete chaos and imperfection, so God want us to worship God moderately and not turn any religion or any cause into a radicalized holy cause or ideology preaching the worship of an all-powerful God who knows and speak the official truth, so his inspired or breathed upon holy text is inerrant for God cannot lie or be wrong. Thus a fanatical attitude towards dissidents and nonbelievers is justified so convert them by the sword, that is evil incarnate for the Devil is immoderate. God the moderate wants us to be moderate in our faith or any ism we worship, so we treat others as separate individuals whose power to choose is respected and inviolate. By persuasion alone we invite them to check our our ism as we evangelize our faith or cause, but never do we coerce or demand conformity and surrender or else. It is blasphemy and insulting to God and God forbids us to sin by attributing to God the trait of complete perfection in all of His aspects; these attribution are not actual in God and nor does God desire to be praised as such. To praise God as perfect is usually done by people that mean well, but these way of approaching and talking about God is the upside of evil thinking and evil speech and God forbids it.
