Can the infallibility of the Bible be proven?

It is perfectly right practically to say, the Bible is infallible, but, strictly, revealed truth cannot be infallible; it is simply, perfectly true. A person is fallible or infallible - God alone is so - He, while He acts in, uses a man, is, and makes the man while so exclusively using him, de facto infallible. But the man is not so. The question is not if Mark or Luke are infallible, but whether what is written be "given by inspiration of God" (theopneustos) - a revelation given of God, so that I can rely on it as given of, coming from Him.

Infallibility, as I have remarked elsewhere, is wrongly used. Truth cannot be infallible, nor anything actually revealed. It is simply absolute truth. It is more appropriately applied to Scripture, so far as there is an immense mass of truth there which I have not discovered, and I am sure all is true there with divine authority, but this is only used in a secondary way, as Paul says, "The Scripture foreseeing … preached before." But God is infallible, i.e., cannot be mistaken or deceived. Infallibility is not simply always speaking the truth, but the impossibility of mistaking, or deceiving, or shortcoming. It involves not mistaking in anything, as well as not deceiving. Now this is part of my idea of God, the true God. If He is not infallible, He is not God, He that is true, to whom all things are open.

I turn to the nature of inspiration. As to the apostles being infallible, no one dreams of such a thing. A truth communicated, as I have already said, cannot be infallible: it can only be absolute truth; and truth is truth. It is nonsense to speak of its failing or not failing. A person only can be infallible. The apostles may have been divinely kept while communicating truth, and thus not suffered to fail while thus used of God. In this secondary sense alone can they be, in any proper use of the word, infallible at that moment; but this is not the real meaning of the word. I do not doubt that God took care that all they have left to us in the scriptures should perfectly present His mind; but this did not make the apostles infallible. God alone is infallible (that is, incapable of failing).

141 Mr. N. says, omniscience or dictation is necessary to infallibility. Neither has anything to say to it. Omniscience and inspiration are a contradiction in terms: for inspiration is the communication of truth or facts; omniscience supposes, or rather means, that all is known already. Nor is dictation necessary either. Suppose, as to historical scripture, if God acted on my mind or memory so as to call up facts He chose to have related, in the way, the connection, the order in which He chose them to be in my mind, and associated with the feelings which He thought proper to be produced in my soul by it, and the utterance of my memory and the expressions of my feelings to which they naturally gave rise when thus produced, to the exclusion of all distracting or modifying thoughts of any kind, to deteriorate what the Holy Ghost produced in my mind and soul — and that I write this down as thus formed and producing itself in my mind, being full of the Holy Ghost, so that no other idea whatever intruded itself, but such as the Holy Ghost had produced, and that He approved the necessary expression of it, acting on the mind, not on the lips — should not I have and give the perfect mind of God, only through the mind of a man?

The imputation really leaves God out, as every measure of scepticism does. It dwells on human infirmity and ignorance, which no believer ought for a moment to forget. But God's inspiration of "every scripture" gives to faith the certainty that no such inaccuracies attach to the written word as it came from Him; and this is all that plenary inspiration means. It in no way excludes mistakes in transcription, translation, or interpretation. But it is an abuse of language, calculated to deceive the simple and gratify the enemy, if one allow divine plenary inspiration in word and then annul it in deed. For as God cannot lie, so He does not pledge His inspiration so as to sanction errors ever so small. He used men of God as the vehicle for carrying out His purpose in giving His word; He employed their mind and heart as well as their language and style; but He communicated His own wisdom in fulfilment of His design beyond the measure of the instrument, and in absolute exclusion of mistake.

But God's word IS true. Every single word as originally given is true. Nothing in it is or can be false; we can rely on it and its veracity completely.

We have now reached the main object of the foregoing recital of what are now historical facts, related by the angel long before they occurred, demonstrating, it may once more be affirmed, both the presence of God and the character of inspiration. It is the habit of the present day to seek among ancient ruins and antique inscriptions and tablets for confirmation of the Bible records. It seems to be forgotten that God is not dependent on man for the authentication of the revelation He has made, and that if the word of God is not its own witness (see John 3:33) no amount of human evidence will establish it as such in the soul. Besides, the facts adduced, and the translations made from ancient cylinders and monuments assume a very different aspect and importance according to the views of the various interpreters. But accepting the Bible as the veritable word of God, and maintaining therefore its absolute "inerrancy" (to borrow a new theological term) where there is no dispute as to readings or translation, we have an infallible guide, a trustworthy standard of appeal, and thus the certainty that the events predicted must have a real and actual fulfilment, and that the historical facts recorded are given with the most truthful accuracy. It is of all moment, if we would understand the divine records, that we should begin with an undoubting faith in the infallibility of Scripture.

The Bible states clearly that it is the word of God: it assumes verbal plenary inspiration and therefore infallibility. Let us thank God that He has been pleased to reveal Himself to man in such a reliable way. The Bible is the safest point in the universe: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Lk. 21:33).

As we have already seen, there is first of all the Bible's own claim to be the inspired Word of God. But can the biblical Christian prove this claim? There is plenty of historical and scientific evidence for the Bible's validity and evidence in the form of fulfilled prophecy. The Old Testament contains over 300 references to the Messiah that were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Computations using the science of probability on just 8 of these prophecies show the chance that someone could have fulfilled all 8 prophecies is 1017 power, or 1 in 100 quadrillion.

But is it that we despise external evidences? Far from it. We delight in them. We value every argument and every evidence calculated to strengthen the foundations of the heart's confidence in the divine inspiration of holy scripture; and, most assuredly, we have abundance of such material. The very history of the book itself, with all its striking facts, furnishes a broad tributary stream to swell the tide of evidence. The history of its composition; the history of its preservation; the history of its translation from tongue to tongue; the history of its circulation throughout earth's wide domain — in a word, its entire history, "surpassing fable, and yet true," forms a powerful argument in defence of its divine origin. Take, for example, that one fact of most commanding interest, namely, its having been kept for over a thousand years, in the custody of those who would have gladly consigned it, if they could, to eternal oblivion. Is not this a telling fact? Yes; and there are many such facts in the marvellous history of this peerless, priceless Volume.

There are evidences, on every hand, many and varied and of the very best; evidences both direct and indirect. The world is full of them, and they may be seen every day; museums of antiquity contain them; evidences of the Bible's veracity are writ large on Egyptian and Assyrian monuments and temples; the ruins of buried cities and the tombs of forgotten kings abound with them, even mummies bearing mute testimony to what the "scripture of truth" declares; and the spade of the excavator brings to light fresh witnesses every year. The natural sciences, astronomy, geology, physiology, anatomy, including even that most exact of all sciences, mathematics, all bear united and harmonious witness to the truth of Scripture, written with "the finger of God."