Having evaluated the two major viewpoints concerning apologetic methodology in our first and second posts, we shall consider the biblical data in constructing a theological answer to the question, “How do we know the Bible is God’s Word?” In formulating our answer, over the next few posts we shall cover several areas: how the Bible evidences itself to be God’s Word, why belief in it can be justified as properly basic, and how sin affects our cognitive faculties in addition to how they are restored at conversion. We will begin our discussion of how the Bible evidences itself by looking at its own claim to be the Word of God.Subjective experience, mere opinion, and tradition are not enough to bestow divine authority upon the words of Scripture. The Bible must make this claim for itself. However, when turning to its pages, we find such a claim made rather frequently. In fact, in the Old Testament alone, we find such statements as “The LORD said,” “The LORD spoke,” and “The word of the LORD came” nearly 4,000 times.[1]
The prophets themselves never claimed to speak upon their own authority. Quoting the covenant LORD of Israel, Moses writes, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him” (Deut 18:18, emphasis mine). In other words, when the prophets speak, God speaks. Consequently, this covenantal framework allowed for the sum of the Old Testament canon to be seen as divinely authored and inspired (Ps 119:160; Prov 30:5-6).[2]
The New Testament not only recognizes the authority of the Old Testament but also sees itself as on equal authority. The apostles saw the Old Testament as authoritative and inspired (2 Tim 3:16-17; 2 Pet 1:20-21). Paul himself made clear his words were to be equated with those of the prophets. Writing to the Corinthian church, Paul states, “If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord” (1 Cor 14:37). What’s more, Peter attributes divine authority to Paul’s letters, equating them with “the other Scriptures” (2 Pet 3:15-16).
The authority to speak for God of course did not come from the apostles themselves. It was the Lord Jesus Christ who sanctioned their writings. In John 14:26, Jesus promises the apostles divinely aided understanding and divinely aided memory by the Holy Spirit: “. . . he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” Moreover, Christ promises them divinely aided knowledge (John 16:13).[3] In addition, Jesus himself recognized the authority of the Old Testament (Matt 5:17-20; 19:4-5) and saw his own words as having divine authority (Matt 5:21-22, 27-28; 24:35).
Still, since our conviction that the Bible's authority stems from its own internal claims, are we really able to say that we believe the Bible because it says so? Yes! Shouldn't we consider such a proposal circular and therefore invalid? Certainly not! We must realize that when appealing to an ultimate authority one will inevitably become circular at some level. What matters is if the professed ultimate authority can withstand its own claims, that there is no hidden dependency on another authority.
As we discussed in an earlier post, all worldviews at some point become self-attesting. In other words, if a worldview is true--and thus provides the right outlook upon reality--one must evaluate it on its own terms. After all, if the worldview is true, it need not appeal to external criteria derived from somewhere else in order to authenticate its claims. One must assume his or her respective outlook on reality in order to demonstrate its truthfulness.
For instance, a naturalist--one who holds that all things in the universe can ultimately be explained by natural processes--will exercise naturalistic presuppositions in making his case for the naturalist worldview, assuming any claims to the supernatural are at best suspect if not entirely impossible.
What's more, the naturalist may hold that science is his highest authority for testing truth claims and arriving at epistemic certainty. If asked to show how science is the highest authority, he would be inconsistent if he did not appeal to some form of science to verify his claim. However, this is where the naturalist's worldview falls apart since certain preconditions must exist in order to render our attempts at scientific study even possible (i.e., the external world, the law of causality, uniformity in nature, etc.). In other words, a philosophy of science must be in order to account for the possibility of conducting the scientific method. At which point, we come to see that at least philosophy proves itself to be more foundational than science in terms of one's noetic structure. Henceforth, science cannot be one's ultimate authority since it must appeal outside of itself in order to be justified intellectually.
The naturalist then has no epistemic right to assume this sort of rationality inherent to the universe since according to his worldview the current state of the universe is but a product of irrational forces, the result of chance events with no pre-vision of their outcome. As with any worldview, in its attempts to make any sort of claims or arguments, naturalism assumes the universe to be cosmos rather than chaos, something that from a logical outworking only the Christian worldview can account.
With this in mind, Christians as those submitting our lives--including our intellectual energies (2 Cor 10:5)--to the lordship of Christ must remain faithful to our King in the apologetic enterprise. We not only act inconsistently when depending on other authorities to legitimize the truth claims of the Gospel, but we do a disservice to Christ. How can we tell the unbeliever he must make Christ and his Word his ultimate authority while looking to other authorities in making our case? This seemingly implies that there are more evident truths than Christ himself, who in actuality is the truth (John 14:6). Greg L. Bahnsen puts it this way:
If the apologist treats the starting point of knowledge as something other than reverence for God, then unconditional submission to the unsurpassed greatness of God's wisdom at the end of his argumentation does not really make sense. There would always be something greater than God's wisdom - namely, the supposed wisdom of one's own chosen, intellectual starting point. The word of God would necessarily (logically, if not personally) remain subordinate to that autonomous, final standard.[4]
Additionally, Bahnsen writes:
Evangelicals sometimes utilize an autonomous apologetic method which does not assume the authority of Christ, treating it like a ladder to climb up to acceptance of Christ's claims, only then to "throw the ladder away" since Christ is now seen as having an ultimate authority which conflicts with that autonomous method.[5]
As God is self-existent, depending on nothing outside himself for his own existence, the Word of God is self-attesting, depending on nothing outside itself for its own authority. Only the biblical worldview can provide such a self-sustaining claim to ultimate authority, that of the Word of God.
In our next post, we will look at just how the Bible evidences itself to be of divine origin. Accordingly, we will then examine why many still do not recognize and respond to these evidences to no detriment of the Bible itself.
This article is the third in a series of posts modified from a research paper submitted by Joshua M. Hayes to The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Spring 2009. Parts one and two can be found by clicking the corresponding links.
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Footnotes:
[1]Brian H. Edwards, Nothing but the Truth: The Inspiration, Authority and History of the Bible Explained (Darlington: Evangelical Press, 2006), 98.
[2]Ibid., 102.
[3]Ibid., 107.
[4] Greg L. Bahnsen, "Autonomy is No Ladder to Christ's Supreme Authority," Penpoint I:1 (1990) [on-line], accessed 19 June 2009; available from http://www.cmfnow.com/articles/pa095.htm; Internet.
[5] Ibid.
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