What confuses me, though, is that most theological terms require this kind of careful elaboration. Suppose, for example, that I said that I believe in the “gospel.” In many contexts, this would be taken as a relatively straightforward claim using a term that every Christian understands reasonably well. But anyone who follows contemporary discussions about the gospel knows that the meaning of the term “gospel” is far from obviously clear. People have written entire books about the gospel, and they differ considerably in what they think the terms means.

Every now and then, someone asks if I believe that the Bible is “inerrant.” And with some regularity, the conversation unfolds something like this:

Person: Do you believe in inerrancy?

Me: Yes, but let me explain what I mean by that. A lot depends on what you mean by “error,” what it means for ancient texts like those contained in the Bible to be in error, whether or not those texts use the same standards of error, whether we’re talking about originals or copies, and so on. (Depending on time and situation, these qualifications can take a fair bit of time.)

Person: If you have to spend so much time explaining what you mean, the concept must not be any good. That’s a slow death by a thousand qualifications.

In other words, because I have to spend so much time explaining what I mean when I use the term “inerrancy,” I should stop using it. The qualifications kill the concept.

But does this objection really work? Does it make sense to say that my extensive qualifications render the term “dead”? I’m not convinced.

The Qualifications Fallacy

According to one website, this “death by a thousand qualifications” is a logical fallacy. It’s what happens “when a term is used to define something but then there are so many qualifications to the definition as to render the original term meaningless.”

On this view, then, “inerrancy” is a useless term because I can’t use it without spending at least fifteen minutes explaining what I think it means.

Intuitively, that makes sense. What’s the point of using a term if no one understands how I am using it?

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