| The following debate is a debate on the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible that began in 1990 and ended in 1996. The participants were Jerry D. McDonald and Farrell J. Till. The debate is rather lengthy, but it is our hope that you will find some good in reading it. We, at Challenge, encourage you to go to Farrell Till's website located at the following address: (http://www.theskepticalreview.com/tsrmag/JFTMcDonaldTillInerrancyDebate.html) where he has published this debate. You will notice a lot of differences in the two. First you will notice that Farrell Till has placed "[sic]'s" behind every grammatical mistake that I made in my original articles to him. He did this at my request. I requested this because he wanted to make the changes himself and I would not all this. I tried sending him a corrected copy of my first affirmative, but he complained that he was not able to open it because it was done in Microsoft Word. He insisted that I either get hold of an HTML coding program or let him make the changes. I informed him that he was to make no changes, but that if he could not open what I had sent him by email with an attachment, that he was to just publish it as it was. He then insisted that the "[sic]'s" be included and I allowed this. Farrell is great at pointing out his opponent's grammatical mistakes. Any why not? This is exactly what his puppeteer Nicholas Capaldi has instructed him, and all atheists, to do in debates with Christians: "The point of ad hominem is to discredit the opposition in indirect ways. One way of doing this is to call attention to infelicities in your opponent use of the English langauge. That is, if there are errors in grammar, diction, or just poor choice of metaphors (or the mixing of metaphors) call attention to this. The implication is that if a person mixes his metaphors then his mind must be in a state of confusion, and if his mind is confused then we do not have to take him seriously" (The Art of Deception, An Introduction to Critical Thinking, p. 93). Mr. Till made good use of this tactic in this written debate. Another thing you will notice is that there are places in some of my articles in which he has made what he calls "editorial notes." He claims that he did this so that he could show where he had answered my questions and arguments. However, my articles did not contain those "editorial notes." Those are additions added by Mr. Till. I feel sorry for him for feeling so insecure about how he wrote his articles and answered my questions that he felt that he had to add editorial notes to my articles. However, in my version of this debate you will find neither of the above. I will simply print them as they were. Mr. Till's articles will be published as they are as he is unable to open my attachments to him and since he detests the idea of regular mail. It is our hope that you will gain much from this debate. Please read both versions to see the difference. Then make your decision as to who has the truth and who doesn't. |
| "...but try the spirits whether they are of God..." (1 Jno. 4:1) |
| The McDonald-Till Debate on the inerrancy of the Bible |
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