Greg Boyd books

 I just recently read 2 books by Greg Boyd: “Inspired Imperfection” and “Benefit of the Doubt.”

The first one is about the inerrancy of Scripture: Boyd believes in the Divine Inspiration of Scripture, but he believes it has a multitude of errors in it. This can be explained by his accommodation view, that God accommodated all the error and tall tales, and this all fits with his cruciform model view of Scripture, that all scripture points to the cross of Christ.

The second book is about the problem of having certainty. Certainty is a form of idolatry, and that faith involves a trust in God that's not absent of doubt lived out in one's life.

Below are some thoughts I had as I read his books. They are repetitious and not polished. Just thoughts I had as I read, that I spoke into my notebook app on my phone as I was reading the books. They are not a book review. Just some thoughts.

Inspired Imperfection

Boyd's divine accommodation and cruciform theory understands inspiration of scripture to include exaggeration and lies and myths about historical events and requirements of the law that were Ancient Near East [ANE] in practice but not God's requirements. All the undesirable and unexplainable things and so-called multitude of errors of the OT were accommodations as consequences of man's sinfulness, and these all foreshadowed the ultimate consequence of sinfulness of the future rejection of Christ by crucifixion. God would forgive despite this. This is the love of God in all its fullness of loving your enemy. This view allows him to explain everything he doesn't like or struggles with. His neat little theory to work with inspiration. The divine accommodation theory. (My thoughts on the Law... The law being fulfilled can speak of its prophetic content, it moral requirements, and its judicial requirements. Jesus fulfilled these. Through Jesus dying for us, we can fulfill the judicial requirement of death for sin. The Law could not mortify sin in our flesh--put it to death, but through Christ's death, the sin nature can be put to death.) Boyd's approach to Scripture is all about God accommodating man's sinfulness and consequences of that, and through that comes a view of the cross that is not penal substitution but the consequence of man's sinfulness, but God suffers that consequence and then offers forgiveness. Seeing your sinfulness and receiving God's forgiveness results in knowing God. I believe he has it backwards about God accommodating the ancient near east's influences being accommodated. The ANE were corrupted views about God and history, and the revelation the Hebrews had was accurate. They had an accurate worship and approach to God. God defined that approach--not merely accommodating an incorrect view of that approach. Also, the genocide of Canaanites was not due to the hate of the Hebrews but divine judgment on those nations. The OT said to love your neighbor and the strangers among them, but those genocides were divine judgment. "Enemy" is not always of the same kind or circumstances. We are to love our enemies, but not all enemies are the same and the conditions are not always the same. Some enemies are only philosophically enemies--they disagree with you, but they are not physical enemies as in someone who is trying to kill you. There is a time to kill. A time to fight. A time for war. A time to take out the one who wants to do harm to another. You love them if you can but there can be circumstances when you have to physically fight back and maybe kill them. God uses government to enforce law and order and sometimes to defeat other nations. It is clear in the OT that God used nations to judge other nations, just like he called Nebuchadnezzar his servant and Cyrus too. Neb was used to judge Israel and take her captive. Boyd can explain everything objectionable in the OT as God accommodating man's sinfulness from animal sacrifices to ethnic cleansing to exaggerated accounts and all this accommodating pointing to Jesus suffering at the hands of sinful man as a consequence of their sinfulness in crucifixion as like a husband whose anger results in him beating his wife and she takes it willingly with the expectation he will see what he has done and embrace her and be forgiven. Why would God intentionally mislead us or give us inaccurate accounts and laws he hates when he could have given us the true account and laws? I like true stories but when they exaggerate or make things up, you don't know what's true. As a new Christian, he thought he could take on the evolutionists and higher critics, but he lost. He took their word as truth and suffered shipwreck in his faith. He thought he could turn the world upside down, but he couldn't. Even those evolutionists who argue intelligent design cannot persuade those who don't. Don't think that the opposition isn't motivated by self interest because if they were to agree with you, they have a lot to lose. They will be "canceled" in probably more ways than one. Jn 7.13 "However, no one spoke openly of Him for fear of the Jews." Jn 9.22 "His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that He was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue." Jn 12.42-43 "Nevertheless even among the rulers many believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God." "Surveys indicate that over 90% of science professors consider intelligent design to be unscientific."

Benefit of the Doubt

Boyd is too hung up on the word and idea of certainty. Calling it an idol. Of course people can be certain about the wrong thing. Maybe we shouldn't ask others to doubt what they believe but to consider alternatives since opposing views can't both be true. Boyd thinks it hypocritical to say you have certainty but expect others to doubt their views or they are arrogant. So don't expect doubt but an investigation, but obviously opposing views cannot be both true, and so asking an investigation into your view is not hypocritical. Apologetics does add reasons for ones beliefs. Certainty is not a bad thing when it's in the truth. I'm certain the earth is relatively round. There are flat earthers. I'm not one. I can look into their claim, but I'm still certain of my belief.

Boyd seems to make certainty an idol. His uncertainty can be a kind of certainty. He's certain of his uncertainty. Maybe he finds comfort in uncertainty because it supports his Divine accommodation paradigm. He can except the views of atheists and critics and still claim divine inspiration of Scripture according to his accommodation paradigm and uncertainty principle.

Certainty is just another word for conviction or assurance or persuasion. Why can't one have certainty just like they have assurance that God cannot lie? Why can't creation be young? Or why can't the history of Israel be true? Why can't the Mosaic Law be from God? Why can't the death of Christ be penal substitution?

If what we hear or read is the word of God, and we understand what is said or read, and we understand that God cannot lie, and yet we are still uncertain, then we must be lacking in one of these things: the word of God, understanding it, or that God cannot lie. If God can lie, then nothing is certain—it changes everything.

It's ok to look into alternate views, you don't have to doubt your own view or entertain the possibility you are wrong to do that. It's good to be challenged by different views sometimes for through that you modify or abandon your own view.

One of the difficulties of considering a different view is that you may have to re-interpret all the scripture and related issues that support your view. That's a difficult process. Faith is not really so much a feeling as it is first an understanding of what you're hearing or reading and is being persuaded that it's true. The word certainty is just another word to say that you've been persuaded or convinced that something is true the strength of that certainty really is the object of your faith. The better you know the object maybe you could say you're more certain. There's a multitude of different things that a person can believe, a multitude of objects of faith. Sometimes there's two related objects of faith one which is certain, the other is more of a potential thing. For example, one can be certain that God is able to heal, but doesn't know for certain that he will heal. What God can do and what he will do are two different things, they're are two different objects. Maybe the man who said, "I believe, help my unbelief," had these two objects in mind. He didn't doubt that God could heal, but he didn't know that God would. It was part of Jesus's mission to do miracles at that time, and he did.

The Christian scriptures testify to who Jesus is, and that salvation is through faith in him, but a religion like Mormonism for example is making the claim that you must embrace what they believe in their church for salvation, and so you have a big problem because to embrace their religion, you have to say that Christianity as it was for the last 1800 years was incorrect or incomplete before Mormonism. I can still look into Mormonism, but it can't be true to the extent that they claim it's true without it contradicting what the New Testament scriptures support.