The Finitude of Scripture
Aaron Simmons talks about how we should decide based on things we find worthy of our finitude. That comes from an existential philosophy a la Kierkegaard. To put that idea in context, here is an explanation from Simmons with some Thoreau thrown in:
The goal is not to have this or to do that in order to make our lives significant, but rather constantly to live toward what we think is worthy of our finitude, our time, our life itself. In this way, we avoid the temptation to be done with living before life is done with us. Or, as Henry David Thoreau writes, I should strive to live so that I would not ‘when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.’ (Simmons)
I have been thinking about the idea of finitude in how those of us who follow Jesus can better view our physical world and our current state of finitude. Apart from the obvious reduction of consumption and chasing after shiny things, we can improve our existence within our environment by understanding it, rather than causing severe damage to it. But I have even more ideas that spring from this in terms of how we place importance on things within a Christian context.
A constant discussion within many evangelical churches is the idea of an inerrant Bible or inerrant scripture. This is mainly a modernist concern born out of the enlightenment and classical liberal Christian theology. But it is not an historical or even majority idea within the Church catholic (universal church). I believe that the primary reason this comes up is that many assume that rejecting textual (or full) inerrancy means assuming a flawed scripture or God. This may stem from a mistaken understanding of the English word perfection as is appears in scripture. The idea goes like this. God is perfect, God inspired scripture, therefore scripture must be perfect. The problem is in that word perfect in which we think of words like flawless, without blemish, no errors, or factual. But, what if we understood perfection as a comment on purpose?
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Mildred Bangs Wynkoop discusses this idea within her book A Theology of Love. I will book end her explanation of Matthew 5:48 with two translations. The latter First Nations Version carries the idea of how we are to be perfect better than most English translations.
“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matt 5:48 NRSVue)
It [perfection] is a characteristic of quality, not a degree of accomplishment. God loves and cares for all [humanity], good and bad. Our love should be as impartial as God shows himself to be. In the immediate context an impartial goodwill is under discussion. Christian love is to be nonselective and all-inclusive in its spirit. The disposition to favor only those who can return favors and to ignore those who cannot contribute to our prestige is not the Christian way. It is that “your Father … in heaven,” manifests paternal love toward all [humanity]—and thus provides the pattern of right motive and conduct for the Christian child—that is the point. (Wynkoop)
“By loving and blessing all people, you will be walking in the footsteps of your Father from the spirit-world above, who is perfect in all his ways." (Matt 5:48 FNV)
“Perfection is a characteristic of quality, not a degree of accomplishment.” That makes a difference in our discussion of perfection. A good way to say this is that Christian perfection, or any perfection of scripture, is perfection of purpose. It is the purpose of scripture in which the inspiration, the Godbreathed-ness, resides. The truth of scripture exists within the purpose of revealing the God who inspires it. The text itself is not inerrant as it is not the inspiring, but the inspired. Scripture is only inerrant insofar as it points to the sources of revelation and how to have a relational holiness in salvation with God.
The writer of Hebrews talks about the difference between the imperfect revelation prior to the Christ event. “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word.” (Heb 1:1–3 NRSVue) Here, within scripture, we see a reference to the imperfect revelation prior to Jesus. It is in that idea that inerrancy fails. That is textual inerrancy that fails.
Scripture exists within our finitude. It points to a God who is not finite, but scripture is not itself infinite. This is a reason that the Church of the Nazarene, within which I am ordained, holds to soteriological inerrancy. That’s a fancy way of saying that we believe scripture is perfect in its purpose of revealing those things necessary for salvation (relationship with God as heirs). Scripture is worthy of our finitude precisely because it has its own finitude. We can understand that finite creatures wrote the words as they understood the revelation of a wholly other (holy) God. Those various ways of speaking and revealing culminate in Jesus, whose incarnate finitude ascended into heaven and reveals who God truly is without the filters of human perception in between.
When we live within our finitude and the finitude of scripture, we live in a quality that allows us to live the Kindom life of disciples following a person rather than a book of propositions. That person is revealed in finite words, but transcends those words in a immanent way. As the Gospel of John puts it,
Creator’s Word became a flesh-and-blood human being and pitched his sacred tent among us, living as one of us. We looked upon his great beauty and saw how honorable he was, the kind of honor held only by this one Son who fully represents his Father—full of his great kindness and truth. (John 1:14 FNV)
Simmons, J. Aaron. Camping with Kierkegaard: Faithfulness as a Way of Life. Wisdom/Work, 2023.
Wynkoop, Mildred Bangs. A Theology of Love: The Dynamic of Wesleyanism, Second Edition. Nazarene Publishing House, 2015.