“Yes, the author did use the word “inerrantist”, but the thrust of his argument is the error of a distant God to Whom we relate solely through the Bible, rather than primarily through the living Church and her sacraments.”
Which is, of course, a thoroughly Orthodox position.
“Kolokotronis can correct me, but both Orthodox and Catholic believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. What we don’t believe in is the necessity of reading the account of creation as pointing to 6 x 24 hour creation, man made of literal mud, etc.”
Precisely...we don’t believe that bats are birds either and in fact there is absolutely no need that we do.
I was not going to comment on your utterly predictable response without comment until I came upon this childish and smarmy little slur on the Holy Torah, based evidently on the classification of the "`atallef along with birds in Parashat Shemini (Leviticus 11:19).
You know, for a sophisticated intellectual you are remarkably naive. The word "bird" appears nowhere in the Torah (neither does "bat" for that matter) because the Torah is not in English. The animals listed in the verse specified are called by the Torah `of (`ayin-vav-peh), not "birds" (the Hebrew for which is tzipporah). `Of is a verbal root meaning "to fly;" as a matter of fact the very next two verses refer to locusts as sheretz ha`of ("creeping things among flying things"). So I suppose you're saying that you are not required to believe that bats fly. Bully for you. I am unaware that the Torah claims that bats have feathers.
So you have stumbled badly in your claim that the Torah says that bats are birds and therefore its facticity need not be accepted. But I wonder . . . do you have this same skeptical attitude with your "new testament?" Do you believe in all those miracles, each of which were a scientific impossibility? On what grounds do you subject the Holy Torah to scientific critique if you become "as little children" before the supernaturalistic claims of the "new testament?" It is really a form of theological anti-Semitism, of course, though I know you will deny this.
Once again you (as annalex accused me of doing) confuse inerrancy with sola scriptura and make evolution and higher criticism a mark of Catholicism/Orthodoxy on the assumption that anyone who rejects both simply must be a Protestant of some kind. I know that the Orthodox are fond of repeating the mantra "chr*stianity is not an ideology that can be deduced from a text," as if I ever said that it was. They seem to confuse "adducing an ideology" from the Bible from the mere acceptance that everything that it asserted happened did in fact happen.
Finally, I can only wonder at your confidence and surety when you and your fellows say that "we" (implying all Catholics and Orthodox) believe or reject so-and-so. So you're saying that every single solitary illiterate peasant on Crete or in Guatemala is an evolutionist and higher critic? Is this really what you are saying? Because words mean things, and you never say that "some" Catholics/Orthodox or "most" Catholic/Orthodox or even "the vast majority" of Catholic/Orthodox believe or reject so-and-so. You are absolutely sure you have the authority and read every single solitary creationist or rejecter of "higher criticism" out of your churches as "closet Protestants" or at least as possessors of an "adulterated" Catholicism/Orthodoxy. Perhaps ever such "adulterated" Catholic or Orthodox should either automatically repent and accept evolution or else join some heretical creationist sect more suited to people whose intellects are not as vast as those of Catholics and Orthodox.