By Haley Cleveland

I was recently watching an online video where an atheist was debating different Christians over various claims, such as God’s existence. Each time the Christian respondent referenced a Bible passage, the atheist would counter with some form of this statement: “That verse/book of the Bible is full of errors.” This was enough to silence the Christians and effectively end the debate. They found it difficult to convince the atheist that the Bible was reliable, and some weren’t even equipped to offer a response. They weren’t prepared to defend the Bible’s credibility and inerrancy. 

The doctrine of inerrancy means that the inspired Scriptures are free from errors. Because our very faith is built on what the Bible says, it is important to find the Bible free from error and truthful in its words and message. It is a crucial doctrinal belief, both in study and in practice. Inerrancy matters because truth matters. 

Inerrancy Defined 

Inerrancy, when used to refer to the Scriptures, means that the inspired Scriptures are free from errors. Feinberg defined it this way: “Inerrancy means that when all the facts are known, the Scriptures in their original autographs and properly interpreted will be shown to be wholly true in everything that they affirm, whether that has to do with doctrine or morality or with the social, physical, or life sciences.”¹

This definition of inerrancy specifically refers to the original autographs. Why make this distinction? Does this mean that our modern day translations contain errors or are not trustworthy? While there can be a chance for a scribal or copyist error, the odds of this happening are significantly low. 

In addition, variants or differences among our many manuscripts of the Bible can be easily explained. Bible scholar Dr. Dan Wallace, in an interview with apologist Alisa Childers, explained that there are over one million variants, but 99.9% of these textual variants are not meaningful or viable. The remaining .01% do not affect any major doctrine.² The original autographs of Scripture were inspired and inerrant.

Although we do not have access to these ancient manuscripts, we can have confidence that our modern day translations are trustworthy and accurate copies.

Inerrancy Does Not Stand Alone

The doctrine of inerrancy combines the accuracy of the words of Scripture with the authority of its message.³ In our discussion of inerrancy, it is important to define some other doctrinal terms—infallibility, inspiration, and authority—that relate to the Bible and support inerrancy. Inerrancy does not stand alone.⁴ 

The Doctrine of Infallibility

The doctrine of infallibility, which means that the Bible is incapable of error, is used in close conjunction with inerrancy. It carries the idea that the Bible is entirely trustworthy for the purposes for which it is given. While this is an important belief, it can be distorted by progressives. When progressives use the term “infallible” to refer to the Bible, they interpret that the Bible’s main purpose is information on salvation, and thus is only without error where it discusses salvation. This view is also called partial inspiration—the view that the Bible is inerrant in key matters such as salvation, but when it talks about topics like creation, history, geography, and so on, it may contain errors.⁵ 

Because the doctrine of infallibility can be distorted, we must use both terms “infallible” and “inerrant” to express our belief in the lack of errors for the complete Scriptures.

Doctrine of Inspiration

Another doctrine closely used with inerrancy is inspiration. Inspiration is the doctrine of “God’s superintendence of the human authors so that, using their own individual personalities, they composed and recorded without error His revelation to man in the words of the original autographs.”⁶ Put simply, God divinely inspired human authors to write the Bible (2 Pet. 1:21). 

Inspiration literally means “God breathed,” as seen in 2 Timothy 3:16–17: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” 

In addition, the words “verbal” and “plenary” are often used to describe the doctrine of inspiration. Verbal inspiration means that each individual word of the Bible is inspired, and plenary inspiration means that the full Bible is completely inspired. This doctrine of inspiration reminds us that God’s Word comes from God himself, and since God is truthful, the entire Scriptures must also be inerrant (John 14:6, John 1:14, Titus 1:2).

Doctrine of Authority

Finally, the doctrine of authority is also connected to inerrancy. The authority of Scripture simply means that since the Scriptures are from God himself, they are the ultimate guide for life. The true, inerrant Scriptures must be the ultimate authority in everything. This doctrine is a natural application of the doctrines of inerrancy, infallibility, and inspiration. 

Inerrancy Is a Historical Church Doctrine

Now that we have discussed what inerrancy is, as well as its surrounding doctrines, it is time to turn our attention to the fact that inerrancy has been a crucial doctrine throughout church history. Al Mohler wrote, “Inerrancy has been what the church has believed, based upon the Bible’s own testimony to itself.”⁷ 

Passages such as 2 Timothy 3:16, John 17:17, 2 Peter 1:20-21, 1 Thessalonians 2:13, and Psalm 119:160 testify that Scripture is inspired by God and is truthful and reliable. 

In addition, the Bible also attests to God’s character as being truthful (John 17:17, Ps. 12:6, Prov. 30:5, Titus 1:2, Heb. 6:18, John 14:6). Since the Bible is directly inspired by God (2 Tim. 3:16), it is clear that it is inerrant and deserving of the submission of our lives to the truth.

Critics and Defenders of Inerrancy as a Historical Church Doctrine

Despite the Scripture’s clear witness to its own inerrancy, critics will often make the claim that inerrancy is a recently adopted doctrine. This heresy has been especially promoted within the last fifty years. John Woodridge wrote, “. . . an influential historiography has emerged arguing that biblical inerrancy is a doctrinal innovation—the provenance of which is American fundamentalism, itself portrayed as a doctrinally innovative movement and thus suspect.” 

He adds, “This new historiography proposed that biblical inerrancy is supposedly neither an evangelical doctrine nor a central teaching of the Western Christian churches. Rather, it is a prototypic fundamentalist belief originating in the late nineteenth century.”⁸ This claim is that inerrancy was a new doctrine developed by fundamentalists, not a historical, biblical doctrine held by evangelicals as a whole. 

This claim can be proven false, however. Theologians as early as Augustine (AD 354–430) clearly held to a belief of inerrancy. In response to a suggestion that Paul had written a lie in Galatians 2:14, Augustine wrote to Saint Jerome: 

“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.”⁹

Woodridge said, “Augustine clearly affirmed as a nonnegotiable church doctrine that there are no errors in sacred Scripture. Such was a working premise for him, an essential guardrail if you will.”¹⁰ His chapter titled “Evangelical Self-Identity and the Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy” in Understanding the Times: New Testament Studies in the 21st Century continued to trace the doctrine of inerrancy throughout church history, mentioning notable adherents such as Martin Luther.¹¹

Inerrancy in the Age of Reason

Years later, during the Enlightenment (1680–1820), the quest for reason began to overtake belief in the authority and inerrancy of the Bible. This, according to D.A. Carson, resulted in a crisis. He writes, “Children of the Enlightenment, like moths to a light we are drawn to the incandescence of the autonomy of reason. But having destroyed all the pretensions of external authority, we have discovered . . . that reason is corruptible, that one human mind does not often agree in great detail with another human mind, that reason by itself is a rather stumbling criterion of truth.”¹²

The substitution of human reasoning for God’s authority during the Enlightenment had resulted in devaluing the objectivity of truth and rebellion against the authority of God and the Bible. We still face this today.

The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy

Despite attacks on inerrancy during the last few decades, there has also been an immense effort to clarify and hold to a doctrine of inerrancy. Most notably was the “Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy,” written and signed in 1978 by almost 300 noted evangelical scholars during an evangelical summit conference sponsored by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. The addresses from this conference have been published in the book Inerrancy, edited by Norman L. Geisler.¹³

The Need for Inerrancy  

Charles Ryrie wrote, “Without a reliable Bible, how can we be certain that our understanding of Christ is correct? . . . How can we know the truth about the Holy Spirit unless we trust the accuracy of the Bible?”¹⁴ Inerrancy is not an antiquated belief, or one made up to bog down fundamentalists.

It is crucial for believers today to embrace a study of inerrancy and become equipped to defend it. Al Mohler similarly said, “If the Bible is not the very Word of God, bearing his full authority and trustworthiness, we do not know what Christianity is, nor do we know how to live as followers as Christ.”¹⁵ Inerrancy matters, because truth matters.

Yet, according to Merrick and Garrett, “inerrancy is not merely a statement of fact but also a posture toward the Bible—a way of reading the Bible, a criterion for what counts as faithful interpretation.”¹⁶ Inerrancy is necessary not just to avoid progressivism, but it is part of the doctrinal lenses through which we study Scripture and apply it to our lives.

To be faithful believers who are committed to both honoring the truth of Scripture and also humbly applying it to our lives, we must first embrace inerrancy. 

Notes

1. Paul Feinberg, “The Meaning of Inerrancy” in Inerrancy, ed. Norman L. Geisler (Zondervan, 1980), 294.
2. Alisa Childers, “Top Bible Scholar Debunks TikTok Bible Myths: Dr. Dan Wallace,” Dan Wallace, YouTube, May 17, 2026, Video, 0:34–0:44, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky3TQJaO5DQ.
3. Charles C. Ryrie, What You Should Know About Inerrancy (Moody Press, 1981),16.
4. J. Merrick and Stephen M. Garrett, eds., Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy (Zondervan, 2013), 10.
5. Ryrie, What You Should Know About Inerrancy, 37.
6. Charles C. Ryrie, “What Is Meant By ‘Inspiration,’” NASB Study Bible (Moody Publishers, 2012), 1633.
7. Al Mohler, “When the Bible Speaks, God Speaks: The Classic Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy,” in Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy, ed. J. Merrick and Stephen M. Garrett (Zondervan, 2013), 42. 
8. Woodbridge, “Evangelical Self-Identity and the Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy,” in Understanding the Times: New Testament Studies in the 21st Century: Essays in Honor of D. A. Carson on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday (Crossway, 2011), 107–108.
9. Augustine, Letters of St. Augustin (Aeterna Press, 2014), 28.3.
10. Woodbridge, “Evangelical Self-Identity and the Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy,” in Understanding the Times, 111.
11. Woodbridge, “Evangelical Self-Identity and the Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy,” in Understanding the Times, 121.
12. D. A. Carson, Collected Writings on Scripture (Crossway, 2010), 59.
13. Norman L. Geisler, ed., Inerrancy (Zondervan, 1980).
14. Ryrie, What You Should Know About Inerrancy, 10.
15. Mohler, Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy, 43.
16. Merrick and Garrett, Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy, 11.

Recommended Resources 

• Inerrancy Edited by Norman L. Geisler
• What You Should Know About Inerrancy by Charles C. Ryrie
• Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy edited by J. Merrick and Stephen M. Garrett