Harry Boer is a heretic to the extent that he asserts that the Bible has errors and in that he contradicts the Bible, the Belgic Confession (Article V) and the 1959 Christian Reformed Synod. Several consistories should protest, and through proper ecclesiastical procedure should forbid him from publicly or privately denying the inerrancy of the Bible.

I admire Dr. Boer’s openness. He says boldly and clearly what he thinks. But in so doing he is wrong in violating his ordination vows. In those vows he “sincerely and in good conscience before the Lord” “promised diligently to teach and faithfully to defend the aforesaid doctrine [the creeds of our church] without either directly or indirectly contradicting the same by . . . public preaching or writing.” Moreover he promised that [if hereafter any difficulties or different sentiments respecting the aforesaid doctrines should arise in our minds, we promise that we will neither publicly nor privately propose, teach, or defend the same, either by preaching or writing, until we have first revealed such sentiments to the Consistory, Classis, or Synod . . .” (Form of Subscription, found in the back of the Psalter Hymnal).

To substantiate the charge of heresy that I have made I point to Boer’s book Above the Battle? This was published by Eerdmans in 1977. Could anything show more clearly than this does what Boer believes and how he denies the historical Christian teaching of the inerrancy of the Bible? Let me ennumerate some of his comments:

1. “Scholarly integrity has therefore made it necessary to face rather frontally the fact that many data in Scripture are not in harmony with each other. We cited a number of rather notable examples of this in Chapter 5” (p. 80).

2. “In these chapters, notably 5 and 6, I adduce mainly in parallel columns, some ten passages or groups of passages in which the Bible seems clearly to contradict itself with respect to specific data of circumstances, time, place, person, number and phraseology . . . . II my conclusion about that comparative data do [sic] not hold, my whole house falls to the ground . . . .We clearly do not have an inerrant Bible” (The Banner, Feb. 10, 1978).

3. The Bible “is not inerrant in the accepted sense of the word” (p. 82).

4. “Should we not rather understand the infallibility of Scripture in such a way that it does not include the assumption that all data in Scripture are necessarily harmonizable?” (p. 84).

5. The Bible has “literary, historical, geographical, numerical, or other disparities” and “in that sense the Bible cannot be said to be infallible or inerrant” (p. 86).

6. Let us “not fear to speak the offense of the literal fallibility of the Bible” (p. 88).

7. There is a contradiction between the statements of Matthew, Mark and John that Jesus met His disciples in Galilee and Acts 1:4 where He told them to remain in Jerusalem. “This contradiction is hardly reconcilable with the traditional doctrine of inspiration and infallibility” (p. 97).

These seven quotes clearly reveal that Boer contradicts:

a. the Bible;

b. the Belgic Confession (“believing without any doubt all things contained in them,” Article V);

c. the declaration of the 1959 Synod of the Christian Reformed Church: “It is inconsonant with the creeds to declare or suggest that there is an area of Scripture in which it is allowable to posit the possibility of historical inaccuracies.”

Nowhere in all Scripture do we find one instance of Scripture putting down Scripture as Boer does. On the contrary, even in little, insignificant geographical details the New Testament appeals to the Old Testament for their veracity. Matthew 2:14, 15 (Egypt) and 4:13, 14 (Zebulun and Naphtali) are typical.

The supposed “contradictions” that Boer cites in his book are very old. They have been raised—and answered—time and again, even as far back as St. Augustine (354–430 A.D.). The pagan Faustus, the Manichean, raised the same kind of objections as Boer now raises 1500 years later. Contrast Boer’s response with that of St. Augustine, one of the greatest Christian theological giants of all times. Augustine reacted to the arguments that Faustus raised by saying that it is “inconceivable,” as A.D.R. Polman puts it, “that the Holy Spirit, the real author of Holy Scripture should have contradicted himself” (The Word of God According to St. Augustine, 1961,  p. 56). Rather, when confronted with these problem passages, Augustine took this attitude: “Either the manuscript is faulty, or the translation is wrong, or you have not understood.”

Bravo! That has always been the position of historical Christianity.

The Christian Reformed Church is confronted with two choices: 1. Maintain its historic, traditional confession of the inerrancy of the Bible; or 2. depart from it by allowing the theory that there are errors in the Bible.

To follow the historical position, consistories will have to challenge in the proper ecclesiastical way Boer’s blatant denials of the inerrancy of the Bible. If, on the other hand, it is thought that it is time to change and to depart from the Bible and our creeds, then nothing has to be done. When others see that nothing has happened to Boer, even though he contradicts the 1959 Synod, then they too will come forward and say aloud what they now believe in private.

In any case, every consistory—whether it likes it or not—is making a decision. Either the consistory protests and thereby maintains our historic teaching on inerrancy, or the consistory does nothing, thereby in fact tolerating Boer’s denial of the inerrancy of Scripture.

*I hesitated to use this title, for it sounds so harsh. But my intent is not to be cutting but to wake us up. The Christian should always speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:15). The title of this article is true and it is written in love for Harry Boer. Truth and love never clash.

Edwin Palmer is the executive secretary of the New International Version Bible translation.