Theological glossary · FaithLogic

Inerrancy

The teaching that Scripture, in its original manuscripts, does not affirm anything contrary to fact — a corollary of God's truthfulness.

Latin in- ('not') + errare ('to wander, err').

Drawn from Scripture's self-witness: 'your word is truth' (John 17:17); 'Scripture cannot be broken' (John 10:35); 'every word of God proves true' (Prov 30:5); and Jesus' treatment of incidental detail as reliable.

Augustine already stated it with its standard caveats (textual corruption, mistranslation, misreading). Sharpened in the modern period against historical criticism; the fullest statement is the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978). Catholic teaching (Dei Verbum) affirms Scripture teaches 'without error that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation'.

Concerns what the text affirms, allowing for phenomenological language ('the sun rose'), round numbers, ancient historiographical conventions, and the difference between the autographs and the reconstructed text.

Whether it is unfalsifiable or is falsified by specific discrepancies; whether 'infallibility for faith and practice' is a sufficient alternative; how far accommodation extends.

Open in the glossary for related terms and the doctrines this concept appears in.