Here are the other parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, and Bibliography.

The issue of Concordism arises from the modern climate of the progress of scientific inquiry. This is because of our privileged status in the plan of God. We have been given machines and inventions that have changed the world and subsequently our lives. Even as you read what I wrote you can see our dependency on Science. Even now the apologetics community is filled with men like Hugh Ross that bring science into the scriptures. They go as far to make God a Multi-dimensional being and posit that Christ rose from the dead via Quantum Mechanics. Others have done the same thing in that of the Young Earth camp as well. Which leads us back to the topic at hand. What is Concordism?

Concordism is the attempt to interpret scripture in the light of modern science.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/religion-science/

This raises a few questions. It raises the questions on the issue of Inerrancy. Is the Bible inerrant? It raises Hermeneutical questions. What way are we to interpret scripture? What way does science play a role in hermeneutics? It raises scientific questions about evidence and philosophical questions. What is science? What way should we interpret facts? Should we be realist or antirealist? Lastly, it raises questions of authority. When does science provide a defeater to an exegesis?

The difficulty of important questions is that when answered most often leave you only with more questions. I’ll just ask simple questions and move from there. What is the Bible? It can be looked at meaning “library” as a collection of books. The 66-book canon that we Protestants hold to. That is true, but it isn’t a complete definition. It is also God’s message to his people, that traces throughout history, the story of God’s victory over evil through the death of the Son of God for the sins of his people to the praise of his glorious grace. It isn’t possible to separate the Bible from its all-encompassing message. It provides the starting points for a Metaphysic, Epistemology, and an Ethic. We look at creation through the idea that God has created it all. He is holding together and sustaining the entire creation. He is providentially bringing about events to reveal his glory to his people. This entails all things that exist must be looked at through the framework that God is the foundation of Being. That he guides our beliefs about reality and Divide it into the Creator-Creature distinction. That all facts belong to the Lord. That nothing is knowable apart from him and what he has done and can do. God is the one who has given his Law that contains that which is Holy, Righteous, and Good(Rom.7:12). We can now focus on what inerrancy means. Since we know what the Bible is now we can ask questions about how to classify or categorize it.

What is inerrancy? This won’t be a deep analysis of that question. Well, if it means everything that the Bible contains is true, then the Bible isn’t inerrant. This view generates contradictions and it isn’t Biblical. The Biblical writers understood that the Scriptures covered many years and had many purposes. It contains a historical record of deceits, lies, and other forms of dishonesty that are clearly false. That is why it generates contradictions. It simply is too simple to adequately account for the different purposes of text. The Bible states “There is no God”, but this isn’t true. It rather is about what a fool says.  Another definition is that the Bible is inerrant on only issues of salvation. This is the limited view of inerrancy. The issues with this view are many, but I won’t go into a full-scale critique. I think it starts with a false view of what the Bible is. It starts with an atomist view of the Bible. The one who presents such a view isn’t even speaking about the Bible anymore. The Bible is like that of the God that inspired it unified and diverse. It has also the issue of being ambiguous. Dr. Vern Poythress discusses this problem. He also points out that doubt of the parts of scripture brings doubts overall of scripture. God controls the whole world by the word of his power. God has created us with the external world. That our minds correspond to the world. This isn’t a part of soteriology. They must, therefore, provide for rationality from the justification for the necessary preconditions of intelligibility. Lastly, it is completely arbitrary to choose one subject of the scriptures. Why not choose Eschatology? As I think Augustine said, “If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.” The next view is that the Bible is inerrant in all its theology. This supplies no advantage than the previous definition. The issue that arises from such a view is that the Bible grounds theology in history. Think of Christ and the Passover. The theological truth is grounded in the events that occurred in Egypt. Think of Christ and Adam. Your depravity and sin are grounded in the events of the garden. Your justification is grounded on the life, crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. The theological truth cannot be simply disconnected with the historical reality. The better view is simply what B. B. Warfield and Poythress affirms “The traditional evangelical view says that the Bible is inerrant; that is, it is completely true in what it says and makes no claims that are not true.” This must be the case. God is the God of all truth. Sola Scriptura means we have one sole infallible authority and one source for dogma. That is the words of God. The doctrine of Inerrancy is inherently related to truth.

The issue of how to interpret scripture also arises. We are to use Grammatical-historical method to interpret the scriptures to figure out the meaning of the text. We search for the purpose of the passage in redemptive history. We also make application of the passage to our lives.

What is science? The issue of what makes something a part of science is a much more difficult question than most realize. It in my view doesn’t hold as much epistemological weight as it does in most realist worldviews. I think it is more about crafting models of reality. I think a helpful distinction should be employed. We must distinguish between science and mere sense experience. Science isn’t merely sense experience because if it were then everyone would be a scientist. We all have sense experience.  Science isn’t a single monolithic field of study. It is filled with a multitude of different areas of study. It goes from many different areas of inquiry from Quantum Physics to Biology.

When does science provide a defeater for my belief in the scripture? What is more certain my ability to obtain knowledge through my senses or the belief in the Christian God? This question is a much more difficult question. Historical sciences like archeology have to bear on the meaning of the text. Evolutionary biology has nothing to do with the text of the Bible. I know someone that holds to objective idealism because of his interpretation of Quantum Physics. Which entails we are all divine thoughts and none of this history occurred. The creation, the Exodus, all redemptive history never occurred. He holds his scientific commitment over the scriptures. Of course, he doesn’t believe that is the consequences of his beliefs. The issue still is even Historical science may shape our interpretation it doesn’t defeat our belief in Scripture. For example, it was widespread belief that the Bible was false because there was no evidence for some of its claims such as the existence of the Hittites and Pontius Pilate. That came tumbling down in the 20^th century. As it is said Romans 3:4 “May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar”.

The next installment is on the competitor theory of Accommodationism.