My Sheep Hear My Voice: An Argument for the Bible as Necessary Basic Belief, Part 6

How does man's rejection of the Bible as the Word of God inscripturated parallel his failure to recognize Jesus as the Word of God incarnated? For one, it is not to the detriment of either the Bible or Jesus.

Just as the Bible possesses divine-human authorship, Jesus likewise possesses all necessary divine and human attributes in order to truly be considered fully God and fully man. Thus, as the Bible carries with it certain qualities inherent to it being God's Word, Jesus' words and works carry with them their own intrinsic qualities that bear witness to him as the Messiah and Son of God.

In this concluding post, we will briefly seek to restate why the sheep are able to hear the voice of their Shepherd in the Scripture.

What's more, we will show that in order for either the Bible or Jesus to be savingly believed upon, a person must be given both moral and epistemic deliverance by way of regeneration.

Perhaps there is no more appropriate passage than John 10 to summarize the position that has been argued for in this series of posts. In the setting of this passage, Jesus is in the midst of another confrontation with the Pharisees who are demanding to be told plainly whether or not he is the Christ (John 10:24).

Jesus does not respond by performing miracles or by providing further evidences. He understands that by his divine nature his words come with self-attesting authority.[1] Instead, Jesus tells the Pharisees why they do not believe his words and others do: “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock” (John 10:25-26).

The reason the Pharisees do not accept Jesus or his words is not because of any deficiency in him or his works, but because they have not been enabled to respond as Jesus’ followers have been. “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me,” Jesus explains (10:27). Like all unbelievers, the Pharisees have not been given the moral and epistemic deliverance necessary for them to believe.

As mentioned in part one, looking back upon my response as a young Christian to the question, “How do we know the Bible is God’s Word?,” I believe that my answer described at the outset holds just as true today. As those with renewed hearts and restored minds, Christians can recognize the voice of their Creator speaking to them as they read the pages of Scripture.

Moreover, apart from God’s Word, no one can truly make sense of anything. God’s revelation of himself is the ultimate basic belief, making any and all ensuing knowledge possible. I am as much now as I was several years ago a sheep simply hearing the voice of his Shepherd.

This article is the sixth and final 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, two, three, four, and five can be found by clicking the corresponding links.
__________
Footnotes:

[1]Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1998), 201. Bahnsen writes, “When Christ speaks, the very words themselves carry the justifying evidence that they are God’s, which is obvious to men and is acknowledged by God’s people.”

My Sheep Hear My Voice: An Argument for the Bible as Necessary Basic Belief, Part 5

If the Bible is so clearly the revealed Word of God and necessary to make sense of reality, as argued for in the preceding post, why do the majority of people reject it as the authority over their lives? Here, John Calvin again proves helpful:

Since for unbelieving men religion seems to stand by opinion alone, they, in order not to believe anything foolishly or lightly, both wish and demand rational proof that Moses and the prophets spoke divinely. But I reply: the testimony of the Spirit is more excellent than all reason. For as God alone is a fit witness of himself in his Word, so also the Word will not find acceptance in men’s hearts before it is sealed by the inward testimony of the Spirit.[1]

Our sinful condition, Calvin says, prevents us from willfully recognizing the Bible as God’s Word. In a world free of sin, the Bible would present itself as convincing to everyone.[2] Its self-authenticating nature would be clear to all of its readers. Yet our sinful condition has left us neither willing nor able to receive the Bible as such. We need not only moral deliverance to submit to the authority of Scripture, but we also need epistemic deliverance in order to perceive it as God’s Word.

Scripture tells us that because of our sinful condition our minds are malfunctioning both morally and cognitively. Apart from saving knowledge of Christ human beings are “darkened in their understanding” (Eph 4:18) and “[do] not accept the things of the Spirit of God” (1 Cor 2:14). The unbelieving mind “does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot” (Rom 8:7). Further, Paul writes, “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel” (2 Cor 4:4). Man’s refusal to accept God’s Word is not on account of any deficiency in the Bible itself. Instead, the fault lies in man’s refusal to acknowledge God that leaves him with a “debased mind” (Rom 1:28). Man suppresses the truth in his unrighteousness although God’s revelation of himself is always clear, both in nature and in his Word (Rom 1:18-20).[3]

It is at conversion that man’s cognitive functions are restored.[4] Repentance takes place not only in one’s actions but in one’s thinking as well.[5] No longer does the sinner’s deepest desire lie in seeking personal autonomy but in surrendering his intellectual efforts to the lordship of Christ (2 Cor 10:5). When the Holy Spirit accompanies the preaching of the gospel bringing about conversion, sinful man is able to recognize God’s Word. This transition is spoken of by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 2:13, stating that “when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God.”

It is important to note that restoration implies something being replaced that was once present, namely the human ability to hear and respond to God’s Word. In Scripture we read from the beginning that mankind has possessed this innate ability to recognize the voice of their Creator (Gen 1:28-30; 2:16-17). It was through the Fall that this ability became corrupted, which led to the further decline into sin.

However, the ability to discern God’s Word remained functional throughout redemptive history. As Greg L. Bahnsen puts it, “Men have been made to recognize [God’s] voice. . . . God has so created men that, as it were, they are ‘conditioned’ to see and understand His signature throughout the created world.”[6]

By God’s intention, human beings such as Noah and Abram were able to identify the voice of their Creator as that of the one true and living God, even in the midst of a sin-cursed world (Gen 6:13, 22; 12:1, 4). Accordingly, human reason has always been meant to be subject to God’s revelation.

It is on this basis that rather than abolishing reason, faith in God’s Word gives reason an adequate starting point. In other words, it is faith in the all-knowing God who gives meaning to every fact in the universe that allows reason to begin. It is God’s rationality that acts as the rational basis for faith; faith in turn acts as the rational basis for human reasoning.[7] Human reasoning subject to God’s Word is human reasoning as God intended.

The following words from Bahnsen might best illuminate this reality: “It should be obvious that if man, before his disabling fall into sin, needed God’s supernatural revelation to interpret his world properly, how much more do we who live under the effects of sin!”[8]

Our next post will conclude our series, "My Sheep Hear My Voice: An Argument for the Bible as Necessary Basic Belief." In part six, we shall see how man's rejection God's Word inscripturated parallels man's rejection of God's Word incarnated. In the words of Jesus, "You do not believe because you are not part of my flock" (John 10:26).

This article is the fifth 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, two, three, and four can be found by clicking the corresponding links.
__________
Footnotes:

[1]John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 1.7.4, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, Library of Christian Classics, vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 2006), 79.

[2]Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 79.

[3]Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Reading and Analysis (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1998), 211.

[4]Cornelius Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 2nd ed. (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2003), 80. He writes, “The Holy Spirit’s regenerating power enables man to place all things in true perspective.”

[5]John Frame, “Presuppositional Apologetics,” in Five Views on Apologetics, ed. Steven B. Cowan (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 214.

[6]Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic, 200.

[7]Frame, “Presuppositional Apologetics,” 210.

[8]Greg L. Bahnsen, “Revelation, Speculation and Science,” Presbyterian Guardian 40 (1970-71) [on-line], accessed 25 March 2009; available from http://www.cmfnow.com, pa001.htm; Internet.

My Sheep Hear My Voice: An Argument for the Bible as Necessary Basic Belief, Part 4

In our last post, we provided an overview of the Bible's own claim to be the very Word of God. In relation to that, we looked at the logical inconsistency of subjecting an ultimate authority to outside proofs. Thus, as the great Reformer John Calvin taught, Scripture is not to be submitted to proofs or arguments if we are to take seriously its claim to divine authority.

Even so, the Scripture itself goes further to persuade us of its divine origin. Calvin writes the following:

As to their question—How can we be assured that this has sprung from God unless we have recourse to the decree of the church?—it is as if someone asked: Whence will we learn to distinguish light from darkness, white from black, sweet from bitter? Indeed, Scripture exhibits fully as clear evidence of its own truth as white and black things do of their color, or sweet and bitter things do their taste.[1]

In other words, the divinely inspired nature of Scripture should be as self-evident to us as "white from black." For Calvin, anyone who reads the Bible should be able to recognize it as God’s Word. Although we cannot prove the Bible to anyone, the Bible proves itself.[2]

Furthermore, although Scripture stands in no need of supplemental proofs, God has provided other internal evidences to confirm our faith. Calvin himself included such additional evidences in his Institutes of the Christian Religion.[3] The Westminster Confession picks up on this same line of reasoning, appealing to similar evidences in paragraph five of chapter one:

We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the holy Scripture. And the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God: yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.[4]

In other words, to say that Scripture does not stand in need of further validation is not to say that none exists.[5] However, such validation will not prove convincing to someone not already accepting the authority of Scripture.[6]

Because Scripture is a sufficient witness to itself, the Christian is justified in his conviction of its divine authority. For him, this belief is to be considered properly basic in terms of one’s noetic structure. Basic beliefs are beliefs that one holds without the support of other beliefs; it is from basic beliefs that the rest of our beliefs are derived.[7] In turn, the Christian is intellectually justified in holding to the Bible as basic belief not only in terms of rationality, but also because the Bible serves as the only sufficient basic belief to account for knowledge in all other areas.

In Cornelius Van Til’s words, “The best, the only, the absolutely certain proof of the truth of Christianity is that unless its truth be presupposed there is no proof of anything. Christianity is proved as being the very foundation of the idea of proof itself.”[8] Thus, belief in the Bible as the authoritative verbal revelation of God is the ultimate basic belief.

With that said, any thoughtful person must then raise the following questions: If the Bible is such a necessary basic belief, why do most persons simply not acknowledge it as such? And if one cannot make sense of reality apart from the worldview provided by the Bible, how have millions of people lived their entire lives with little to no knowledge of God's Word?

In our next post, we will consider the Bible's teaching as to why fallen, rebellious mankind does not recognize or submit to the authority of divine revelation.

This article is the fourth 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, two, and three can be found by clicking the corresponding links.
__________
Footnotes:

[1]John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 1.7.2, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, Library of Christian Classics, vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 2006), 76.

[2]Michael E. Wittmer, Don’t Stop Believing: Why Living Like Jesus Is Not Enough (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 144-45.

[3]Calvin, Institutes, 1.8.1-13, 81-92. In this section, Calvin appeals to internal and external evidences as Scripture’s wisdom, content, antiquity, miracles, prophecy, and preservation through the centuries.

[4]G.I. Williamson, The Westminster Confession of Faith for Study Classes (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2004), 7, emphasis mine.

[5]Kenneth D. Boa and Robert M. Bowman Jr., Faith Has Its Reasons, 2nd ed. (Waynesboro, GA: Paternoster, 2005), 502.

[6]Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Reading and Analysis (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1998), 199. These evidences Cornelius Van Til recognized as “confirmatory” but inconclusive. The unbeliever will always be able to object on grounds of his own rationality.

[7]Kelly James Clark, Return to Reason: A Critique of Enlightenment Evidentialism and a Defense of Reason and Belief in God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 126.

[8]Greg L. Bahnsen, Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith, ed. Robert R. Booth (Nacogdoches, TX: Covenant Media Press, 1996), 61.

My Sheep Hear My Voice: An Argument for the Bible as Necessary Basic Belief, Part 3

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.
__________
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.

My Sheep Hear My Voice: An Argument for the Bible as Necessary Basic Belief, Part 2

If someone asked you why you believe the Bible to be the Word of God, how would you answer? In our last post, we began formulating a response to that question by looking at the traditional and most typical method employed by evangelical Christians, that of classical apologetics. In this post, we will look at a different position, one I find to be more biblically cogent and epistemically satisfying.

The second of the two views is what many refer to as the presuppositional approach. According to Cornelius Van Til (the renowned apologist pictured to the right), “To argue by presupposition is to indicate what are the epistemological and metaphysical principles that underlie and control one’s method.”[1] In other words, this method seeks to discover a person’s ultimate authority, their starting point that makes knowledge possible.

For the presuppositionalist, the Bible is our starting point for knowledge since its area of authority includes that of epistemology (Prov 1:7; Col 2:3, 8). As we will examine later, the Bible makes the claim for its divine authority. This is what is known as self-authentication or self-attestation. John Calvin explained this concept to mean that Scripture “carries with itself its own credibility in order to be received without contradiction, and is not to be submitted to proofs or arguments.”[2]

When a person wishes to validate a testimony or claim, he or she will appeal to a higher authority. However, there is no higher authority than God, as it is written, “For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself” (Heb 6:13).[3] Therefore, the Bible must serve as its own witness.[4] To subject the Bible to external criteria would seem to imply that the criteria were somehow more authoritative or more reliable. Only God is fit to tell us what qualities we should expect in his Word, so a message given by God must serve as its own authority.[5]

The Christian in holding this position should not feel intellectually incompetent, trapped in a circle and forced to arbitrarily exercise faith. Eventually, all worldviews must refer to a self-attesting starting point, if for no other reason than to avoid an infinite regression in seeking validation. Subsequently, in making the case for the authority of the Bible, the Christian should argue the “impossibility of the contrary.” Greg L. Bahnsen explains:

Here the Christian apologist, defending his ultimate presuppositions, must be prepared to argue the impossibility of the contrary—that is, to argue that the philosophic perspective of the unbeliever destroys meaning, intelligence, and the very possibility of knowledge, while the Christian faith provides the only framework and conditions for intelligible experience and rational certainty. The apologist must contend that the true starting point of thought cannot be other than God and His revealed word, for no reasoning is possible apart from that ultimate authority.[6]

In other words, the biblical worldview is the only perspective that from a natural outworking can account for the intelligibility of the universe (i.e., the laws of logic, the uniformity of nature, and morality), something all non-Christian worldviews presuppose but take for granted.

The Christian’s mode of argumentation then takes a two-fold procedure. Proverbs 26:4-5 reads, “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.” First, the Christian should not answer the fool by attempting to prove the Bible on the unbeliever’s criteria. Otherwise, in accepting the unbeliever’s false presuppositions, the believer will become a fool in his efforts. The case for the Bible should instead be made on its own terms, the same as with testing any worldview. Second, the Christian should answer the fool by providing an internal critique of the unbeliever’s worldview (i.e., “according to his folly”). At this point, the Christian shows that the unbeliever’s assumptions about reality cannot even allow for the possibility of knowledge if followed through consistently.[7]

In later posts, we will look more thoroughly at what it means for the Bible to be considered necessary basic belief. In other words, only God's revelation given in Scripture can suffice as the ultimate presupposition for making sense out of the world. Before we get there, however, we must first establish that the Bible actually claims to be God's Word. Our next post will provide a survey of the Bible's own testimony about its divine authority and inspiration.

This article is the second in a series of posts modified from a research paper submitted by Joshua M. Hayes to The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Spring 2009. Part one can be found here.
__________
Footnotes:

[1]Cornelius Van Til, Christian Apologetics, 2nd ed. (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2003), 128.

[2]Michael E. Wittmer, Don’t Stop Believing: Why Living Like Jesus Is Not Enough (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 145. In his footnotes, Wittmer indicates Calvin’s definition for self-authentication is provided only in French translations and not English editions of Institutes of the Christian Religion.

[3]Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001), unless otherwise noted.

[4]Brian H. Edwards, Nothing but the Truth: The Inspiration, Authority and History of the Bible Explained (Darlington: Evangelical Press, 2006), 120.

[5]Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Reading and Analysis (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1998), 199.

[6]Greg L. Bahnsen, Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith, ed. Robert R. Booth (Nacogdoches, TX: Covenant Media Press, 1996), 72-73.

[7]Ibid., 61-62.

My Sheep Hear My Voice: An Argument for the Bible as Necessary Basic Belief, Part 1

How do we know the Bible is God’s Word? I recall posing this question to a brother-in-Christ during my initial months as a believer. At the time, he and I were regularly involved with one-to-one street evangelism, and in this present skeptic age, the question would often come up. In trying to establish an adequate response, I quipped, “How do we know? You can tell by reading it.”

I would like to think that since then my theology and apologetics have become somewhat more sophisticated. However, in my several years of studying, conversing, and thinking about the best answer to the question, I have discovered that I was more on-target than I had first realized despite being young in Christ. The Bible does indeed provide sufficient witness in itself to be recognized as God’s Word. In more lucid terms, we know the Bible is the Word of God because we recognize it as God’s revelation to us on its own terms and on its own claims.

Before looking directly at the Bible’s own claim to divine authority, we will discuss the two major positions concerning how to make the case for the Bible. In other words, how do we argue that it is indeed the inspired, authoritative Word of God? Theologians and apologists representing orthodox, evangelical Christianity are somewhat divided over the issue of methodology. For the purposes of this discussion, we will assess the classical and presuppositional approaches.

In this post, I will provide an analysis of the classical approach in making the case for Scripture, an approach that although adopted by many respected evangelical scholars, I perceive to be erring both in terms of its methodology and in its epistemic prioritization.

Philosopher and apologist William Lane Craig serves as an appropriate example for the first of the two views we will discuss, that of classical apologetics. In answering the question, “How do I know that Christianity is true?,” Craig states it is helpful to distinguish between knowing and showing. “We know Christianity is true primarily by the self-authenticating witness of God’s Spirit,” he writes. “We show Christianity is true by presenting good arguments for its central tenets.”[1] According to Craig, certain truths of Christianity are known by those who come under the influence and conviction of the Holy Spirit. The believer can be said to know the “great truths of the Gospel” apart from supplementary evidence.[2]

Knowing gives way to showing when the Christian comes into contact with an adherent of another religion or worldview who claims to have a self-authenticating experience. Craig acknowledges that such a claim does not undermine the truthfulness of Christianity, but it does force the Christian apologist to appeal to outside proof in order to remain noncircular in his argumentation.[3] Craig shares in common with other apologists a methodology that seeks to establish neutral criteria by which to evaluate worldviews and validate the truthfulness of the Christian faith.[4]

Accordingly, classical apologetics has traditionally sought to first prove God’s existence with the various theistic proofs and then appeal to isolated evidences in order to demonstrate the veracity of Christian theism. As R.C. Sproul notes, the apologist first seeks to prove the existence of God and follows suit by arguing for the authority of the Bible.[5] However, the case for the Bible’s divine authority is not established until the case has been made for the possibility of miracles, the historical reliability of Scripture, and the deity of Christ, which consequently confirms his testimony concerning the Bible.[6] With the classical approach, one can know with certainty that Christianity is true, but one can only show it with probability.

But if one can make a probable case for Christianity, does not the unbeliever remain somewhat intellectually justified in his refusal to submit to the Bible as the Word of God? After all, the Bible could still possibly turn out not to be God's authoritative revelation to mankind once more evidence becomes available. In our next post, we will seek to demonstrate why the presuppositional approach is necessary to make an adequate case for the certainty of the Bible as God's inspired and inerrant Word, both in terms of knowability and argumentation.

This article is the first in a series of posts modified from a research paper submitted by Joshua M. Hayes to The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Spring 2009.
__________
Footnotes:

[1]William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, 3rd ed. (Wheaton: Crossway, 2008), 43-60.

[2]Ibid., 43-44. Craig lists such beliefs as “God exists,” “I am condemned by God,” “I am reconciled to God,” and “Christ lives in me” as implied by the work of the Holy Spirit upon a person, bringing not just subjective assurance but objective knowledge.

[3]Ibid., 51-52, 57. Craig later makes clear our common ground with unbelievers is “the laws of logic and the facts of experience.” For Craig, this is where apologetics begins, whereas the earlier discussion pertaining to Christian epistemology serves only as an “in-house discussion.” This implies that rather than to show the unbeliever to have the incorrect epistemology, we should seek to prove the Christian faith on grounds that will appease the unbeliever’s view of rationality.

[4]See for example Ronald H. Nash, Faith & Reason: Searching for a Rational Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988), 51-59.

[5]R.C. Sproul, Defending Your Faith: An Introduction to Apologetics (Wheaton: Crossway, 2003), 19.

[6]For an overview of such block-house methodology, see Norman Geisler, Christian Apologetics (Peabody: Prince Press, 2003), 263-377. Geisler gives the outline of the main premises involved in classical argumentation, 264-65.

CALVINISM ON THE MARCH AMONG EVANGELICALS

A 2007 study shows that Calvinism is on the rise in the Southern Baptist Convention and is especially prominent among recent seminary graduates. Ed Stetzer, director of LifeWay Research, says that nearly 30% of recent graduates now serving as pastors are Calvinists (“Calvinism on the Rise,” Christian Post, Nov. 29, 2007). Roughly 10% of SBC pastors at large define themselves as Calvinists, but that includes only those who hold to all five points of TULIP theology and not those who hold to sovereign or unconditional election but not necessarily to all other points of Calvinism. LifeWay Research limits their surveys to a very narrow definition of Calvinism, and I suspect it might not want to know the true influence of Calvinism in the convention.

A report in Christianity Today for September 2006 was entitled “Young, Restless, Reformed: Calvinism Is Making a Comeback--And Shaking up the Church.” It documents the rapid spread of Calvinism in Evangelical circles, and I am seeing the same thing among Fundamentalists.

The report cites John Piper, R.C. Sproul, R. Albert Mohler, Louie Giglio, Joshua Harris, J.I. Packer, and the Puritans as among the chief influences responsible for the upsurge in Calvinism. Piper’s book “Desiring God” has sold more than 275,000 copies.

The trend toward the acceptance of Calvinism is evident at leading evangelical seminaries such as Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Under the direction of Al Mohler, Southern Seminary has become “a Reformed hotbed” and is turning out “a steady flow of young Reformed pastors.”

Updated March 26, 2009 (first published October 18, 2006) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org