Christ is God's fundamental revelation, & Scripture is the witness on the basis
of which that revelation is proclaimed to us & is to be proclaimed by us. The principle
that Scripture is "the source and norm of Christian doctrine" means that anything which
purports to be Christian teaching must be tested by Scripture. As time goes on, the
Holy Spirit leads us into deeper understanding of Christ and leads to the church to ways
of proclaiming the gospel in new situations - including those brought about by science.
But new teachings which have no biblical basis should be regarded only as theological
opinions, not the teaching of the church.
The basic problem to which Howard's post calls our attention is not the _truth_
of Scripture but the character or genre of biblical accounts. As long as Christians
keep thinking that the Bible can be true only if it is accurate historical narrative,
the church will be bogged down in fruitless concordism. (& to forestall a common
objection, I'm not saying that biblical accounts are _in_accurate history. Some of them
are not to be read as history in the modern sense at all.)
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com