Class #2: Thinking God's Thoughts: Philosophy of Special Revelation Shoring up the Foundation: Biblical Authority in an Age that Questions Everything 9/30/2012 Introduction Prayer Q1: Isn't accepting the inspiration of the Bible circular reasoning? What the world hears when we say we believe in the inspiration of the Bible: I believe the Bible is true because it says its true. Or, I believe it to be the Bible because it says so. Q: Is this what we're really saying? Why or why not? Postmodernism : (a) wholesale rejection of totalizing metanarratives, or explanations of all of reality that claim to be right ; (b) deconstructionism, in which the locus of authority of a text shifts from the author / text to the reader, thus destabilizing any ability to determine a fixed meaning ; (c) relativization of all norms, especially epistemological normativity (there is no absolute truth, or there is no ability to ascertain it) Our approach for this class: Address how secular reasoning believes albeit falsely that the Bible or any other matter of truth can be addressed from a position of neutrality and autonomy. Such a position is self-refuting and impossible because all human thinking is rooted in a worldview which cannot be set aside. The Bible itself promotes a particular worldview which, in turn, formulates a particular philosophy of revelation; in other words, the Bible presents its own philosophy concerning itself. Thus, to address these two competing philosophies towards revelation requires dealing with the worldviews behind them. We will work through (a) the myths (presuppositions) that dominate how secular minds think about everything, including the Bible, (b) the nature of how normativity works, and (c) the Bible's self-authenticating, self-evidencing nature and how that impacts the way we think about it / approach it A. The Myths of the Modern Mindset Both the modern and postmodern worldview rejects the Bible as the inspired word of God not chiefly because of evidential considerations, or contradictions, or pluralism but, rather, because of a certain epistemological, a priori bias against the very idea of special revelation as a source of knowledge. These presuppositions or worldview color everything: how they listen to arguments, how they view data, how they view Christians themselves. Their glasses are, in other words, tinted a certain way. So we must get inside this worldview and blow it up in order to defend the Bible effectively; otherwise we're asking them to look at a 3-D TV with regular glasses (or vice versa). Uptown SS Biblical Authority in an Age that Questions Everything, Class #2 1
How the modern / post-modern worldview works Case study: After multiple conversations with your neighbor Mark, you finally are able to get him to engage on spiritual matters, and you come to the issue of who Jesus really was. You ask him, Do you think Jesus is divine? He says, Of course! Excited by his apparent faith, you begin asking him more questions. He affirms that the gospels are true, that salvation is found in Jesus alone, that he looks forward to heaven, and that the Bible is the very Word of God. You are very excited that the person you thought was an unbeliever turns out actually to be an orthodox Christian. But then, right before you get up to return home, you mention something about missions and evangelism. He perks up, Why would you try to proselytize someone? Maybe Jesus doesn't work for them. That's okay, there are multiple ways to the divine. Immediately you lose cabin pressure. Q: What happened? How can he affirm orthodox statements and then deny them? He has done the classic liberal / postmodern trick of taking the same words, emptying them of their content, and filling them back up with his own truth. Jesus is God = Jesus performs a divine function for me, and is inspiring Gospels are true = Gospels are myths that still contain true religious ideas that give meaning to my life, but they have no real, objective historical referent Salvation is found in Jesus alone = Jesus alone performs the salvation-like function for me because I have had a positive experience of him, but he is not the only way for everyone Bible is the Word of God = The text of the Bible becomes the Word of God through my own experience of it Q: How does this shed light on the task of defending the biblical view of the Bible itself? This shows the power of worldview. You can talk around a topic until your blue in the face, but the way the person understands reality, truth, and the very nature of thinking itself (epistemology) will completely determine how they interpret what you say, etc. Same thing can happen with a more militant, atheistic, naturalistic worldview. If someone has decided at the outset (presupposition) that the supernatural is by definition impossible (because everything reduces to physics and chemistry), then no matter how compelling your evidences are for creation, miracles, resurrection, etc., he will always reject them and come up with a naturalistic explanation. Thus, when we go about defending the authority of the Bible in the subsequent classes, we have to be deliberate in our approach: we have to deal with worldview issues primarily, or we'll never get anywhere. Q: What, then, is a worldview? Worldview defined: Network of ultimate beliefs, assumptions, values, and ideas that functions as a framework for interpreting their immediate experiences and for interacting with the world. Deals with big picture questions and beliefs. Everyone has one whether they know it or not. Intellectual pair of spectacles. Uptown SS Biblical Authority in an Age that Questions Everything, Class #2 2
The myth of neutrality One dominant assumption of the secular worldview is that someone can approach any topic civic affairs, science, business, even religion from a completely neutral perspective, with no biases. Complete objectivity based just on data and empirical observations no religious assumptions etc. Q: Where do we see this play out? This plays out with regard to the Bible and Christianity in innumerable ways: (a) subjecting the Bible to empirical, observable criteria (thus rejecting miraculous); (b) keeping religion out of the public square; (c) relegating Christianity to a purely private, existential realm; (d) attempting to debate over the Bible from purely neutral grounds using logic and evidences (instead of the Bible itself). Q: Is this actually possible? Is it even practicable? Neutrality is impossible: every kind of intellectual activity requires epistemic presuppositions. Everyone has a worldview that means they are not neutral. Logical reasoning requires, by definition, certain prior axioms to which you can apply logical rules to make deductions and draw conclusions. You cannot reason in a vacuum. More than this, thinking in itself requires certain presuppositions about life: there is a extra-sensory reality; cause and effect works; orderliness in the universe; standards / norms of reason; etc. Neutrality is ineffective and inconsistent: there is no such thing as an uninterpreted data that is completely neutral and just needs to be objectively evaluated. That never works in practice because by nature we always interpret based on our own presuppositions, worldview, knowledge base, biases, expectations, experiences, etc. Neutrality is profoundly unbiblical: For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Rom. 8:5-8) No one is epistemically neutral What would it even look like to be neutral about, say, the resurrection? The myth of autonomy A second and related myth in secular thinking is that man is intellectually / epistemologically autonomous: that is, man's own reason is the ultimate arbiter of all truth, apart from any divine or other outside authority. Self-rule. Flowering of Enlightenment / French Revolution, which rejected divine revelation and enthroned goddess reason on the throne of ultimate authority. We see it today in various ways: (a) scientism, or the belief that science and reason are the only valid sources and arbiters of truth and knowledge; (b) postmodern epistemology, which rejects any outside source of truth and simply puts the power in the experience and beliefs of the individual. Q: Is this a biblical perspective? Why not? Uptown SS Biblical Authority in an Age that Questions Everything, Class #2 3
Autonomy is unbiblical: the Bible shows that man is not the final standard of truth. Rather, as created beings, our thoughts are ultimately derivative upon God's thoughts. We must be submissive to his self-revelation as the highest and final standard. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. (Col. 2:8) Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Rom. 12:2) For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ... (2 Cor. 10:4-5) Because all humans are made in God's image, this necessity of epistemological submission to God and his self-disclosure also applies to the non-christian as well. Autonomy is impossible in practice: can someone's own mind be the ultimate authority over itself? No will go further with this in the next section. Implications for defending the authority of the Bible The question / challenge posed at the outset amounts to this: You Christians are being religiously biased when you hide behind the authority of the Bible. You are being anti-intellectual and anti-scientific in simply accepting the Bible for what it says. If you were only willing to approach it from a neutral, unbiased, scientific position of just using data and reason, you would realize it's just an ordinary book. Thus, you are simply begging the question / being circular: 'I believe the Bible because it tells me to believe it.' Q: What is your gut reaction to such a claim? In addressing this question, however, we cannot sink to the level of the secular myth. We cannot pretend there is neutrality and autonomy, for, as we saw above, there is no such thing. The fact that everyone has a worldview that is neither neutral nor completely isolated and independent of our creator God dramatically impacts how we go about defending the Bible. Simply giving evidences (e.g., dealing with canon, scribal errors, alleged contradictions, etc.) will never work, because there is still a fundamental gap in how those evidences will be interpreted rejection of divine providence, appealing only to reason and ruling out supernatural, etc. B. Nature of Ultimate Standards and Biblical Authority Thus, we have to be prepared to deal with our own position on the authority of Scripture at the worldview-level. We have to answer the question / challenged posed at the outset why do we believe the Bible to be authoritative? Just because it says so? Are we really that viciously circular? Uptown SS Biblical Authority in an Age that Questions Everything, Class #2 4
Nature of normativity Q: What do each of these statements assume? E.g., The Bible is wrong requires some standard for judging right and wrong. E.g., Science is the sole source of knowledge requires some standard to judge how evidence is used, how math works, how laws should be proven, etc.. E.g., Morality is relative requires some standard to even say whether that is even a true statement (let alone the fact the anyone who says this still contradicts it by declaring certain moral issues right or wrong) In short, when the secular worldview claims that it can determine truths that should dictate morality, ethics, policy, education, and so forth entirely on neutral and autonomous grounds, it is implicitly arguing that the standards, or norms, of such an endeavor are also apparently neutral and autonomous. Norms are necessary for thought. Human judgments about morality, right/wrong, truth/falsehood, beauty, and so forth all presuppose objective standards or values by which those judgments can be made or evaluated: these are called norms. Norm = rule or standard, a should / ought statement (versus simply is ); value judgment There are norms for truth, reasoning, function, morality, and so forth. Every exercise of the human mind invokes some sort of normativity, even if someone claims there is none (in that case, that is the norm). Thus, when someone presses the claim that we Christians are arguing circularly about the Bible are invoking several norms, even if they do not realize it: Norms of logic: what is and what is not circular reasoning? Norms of language: what constitutes a cogent statement or even a word at all? Norms of morality: why is it wrong that someone would argue that way? Norms are invariably grounded in persons. Q: What gives a norm its authority? Why should someone conform to it? Any normative statement raises the question: says who? They do not invite the question, says what? E.g., speed limits have real policemen behind them; civil laws have real governments of real people imposing them; rules of the house depend on the authority of the parents. In other words, in order to have a norm, you have to have a person with some authority who can declare how something should or shouldn't be, who has plans and purposes and desires. Impersonal things have no authority over anyone. Think this through! Someone who says they are guided by science alone is deluding themselves. Nature, atoms, physical laws, evolution, etc. cannot tell someone what they ought to do. Those things simple are. They merely describe the visible evidence of the outworking of norms, not the authoritative norm itself. To function at all, norms require an absolute. Non-absolute norms at the lowest level can be relative and subject to change based on certain factors. E.g., speed limits vary based on given roads. Non-absolute norms are always subject to a higher level of evaluation. E.g., if one nation has a law that allows for FGM, then it is valid for another nation to Uptown SS Biblical Authority in an Age that Questions Everything, Class #2 5
evaluate whether that norm is indeed moral. To make that evaluation, a higher norm than that simple law must be invoked, There has to be a stopping point! Absolute norms by definition are this stopping point, as they are not subject to evaluation at a higher level. Q: Where might someone try to root their moral, epistemological, etc. norms? If norms were not grounded in an absolute norm if they were grounded in, say, social construction, or democratic voting, or scientific observation then they would not be absolute, since those are not absolute in nature and are subject to change. Thus, all norms require a Personal Absolute. If all norms must appeal to an absolute, and since all norms have obligations, duties, etc. that are inherently personal in nature (in other words, all imperatives come from persons, not impersonal objects), absolute norms must be rooted in an Personal Absolute. Upshot: all human judgments that invoke norms presuppose a Personal Absolute! To make any claim at all presupposes the Christian God. How does this play out: accepting the inspiration of the Bible is circular reasoning We have to retranslate this and recognize they are making a profound epistemological claim, Your view of the Bible does not conform to my own norms, which are neutral and autonomous and scientific. But... Circular reasoning implies norms of logic. Logic assumes (a) that we can trust our thought process to be relatively accurate; (b) there is a way to determine true deduction from false (there is a standard for truth); (c) it is wrong to reason illogically and right to reason logically. But (a) also assumes that there is such a thing a mind that is separate from mere synapses firing, that our thoughts are about things, etc. Mentality cannot be empirically derived from mere chemistry and physics (science has a huge problem with mentality), but it is an intrinsically personal thing (rocks don't have mentality or aboutness). Moreover, (b) and (c) depend on a higher authority than the human mind to determine true / false, right/wrong (the individual mind cannot determine this just however it wants to). All these points presuppose a higher standard that is personal, who can norm our thinking and our moral judgments, etc. Even just for logic to work! So their appeal to norms in undercutting Christianity relies on Christian norms. Nature of ultimate standards Someone may grant this but still say, Aren't you still being circular when you defend the Bible by appealing simply to the Bible? (as we did in the prior class) In other words, the next question is this: what norms our view of the Bible? Who would have the authority to tell us whether the Bible (or some other book) is the word of God? Opinion poll? Group consent? Legislation? Church decision (will come to this one in canon class)? Scientific evidences? God's normative role: If the ultimate norm of all things is the Personal Absolute (God), would he not have to tell us whether the Bible is truly from him? Yes! By the Uptown SS Biblical Authority in an Age that Questions Everything, Class #2 6
nature of the case, God would have an opinion about whether the book purported to be from him is actually from him. His standards / norms would come into play regarding whether (a) it is a true statement that the Bible is his Word, (b) whether it is moral to hold to the Bible's authority over morality itself, and so on. God's communication of this norm: But how would God communicate this to us? Another book that tells us that the Bible is God's Word? Then we would simply need another proof that that book is also authoritative and true. Perhaps, then, there'd be yet another book that would tell us that that book is true about the Bible. And so on. Or perhaps scientific data could prove it. But how would we know whether we are interpreting that data correctly? Some other norm would have be guide us here. In other words, any attempt to prove whether something is authoritative / true /e etc. must, as we established, appeal to a norm. Either the norm lies within the thing itself, or it lies outside it. If it lies outside it, then that second thing is now the authority, and the same question arises: how do we prove it is authoritative? Thus, at some point we must have a message from God that would tell us whether the Bible (or any other document) is indeed his authoritative word. By Occam's Razor (law of simplicity), unless there's good reason to the contrary, you should not introduce additional factors if the first factor is valid. In other words, there's no reason why the message about the Bible being God's word should not come from the Bible itself as the first authority. Nature of ultimate standards: Q: Is this vicious circularity? No! By definition, to prove an ultimate standard the last, absolute norm that has authority over everything below it you have to appeal to that ultimate standard. Why? If there were somewhere else to appeal, that would be the ultimate standard. Meter stick example : How do you know you have a meter stick? Compare it to another meter stick. But how do you know that is a meter stick? Get a bunch of others? You'd go to the reference meter (in London). But how do know that is a meter? You can't go further than that: it is the ultimate standard. There has to be a stopping point or you end up in an infinite regress. Authenticating an ultimate standard requires using that ultimate standard. What about circularity? ( The Bible is true because it says its true ) We are able to avoid it (at least in a narrow sense) because No one can avoid circularity when it comes to ultimate standards. The standard of evaluation (norm) must be presupposed before any premises and deductions can be drawn. E.g., Scientism must assume that reason works before it can argue that reason alone is the sole source of truth. However, we have avoided being viciously circular by positing a set of presuppositions which lie outside the particular premise ( The Bible is true ): nature of neutrality, autonomy, normativity, and ultimate standards. We will add to this the credible claims of the Bible to its own origin (more to come: self-authentication in class #3 and (b) the Bible's claims relative to other candidates in class #4) Uptown SS Biblical Authority in an Age that Questions Everything, Class #2 7
Upon this basis we proceeded with our reasoning. That avoids narrowly begging the question. God's Ultimate Epistemic Requirement Liberal / critical / modern worldview: The very idea of a religious authority external to man is based on a childish psychology (Jean Reville) Biblical worldview: God requires of us total submission not only of our souls etc. but also our minds. Our thoughts must be held captive to his thoughts. An absolute personal Creator has revealed his thoughts to his creatures. The Creator s mind is definitive and normative. The creature s mind is derivative and subordinate. Thus, God s revelation must have no less authority than the God who reveals. There is nothing more enriching, encouraging, and edifying than an utmost confidence in the truths of God's word. Conclusion Instead of attempting neutrality and autonomy in defending the Bible, we should begin with the fact that everyone has an authority or a standard in life. Everyone has a worldview that they cannot escape. To think, reason, make moral judgments, etc., everyone must appeal to norms, which are ultimately rooted in a Personal Absolute that is the ultimate standard for everything (whether you like it or not) So the question is where that standard lies what is your norm? Where do you appeal to judge the truth of the Bible, or any statement of fact, or any moral judgment? My standard is the Bible itself. What is yours? Uptown SS Biblical Authority in an Age that Questions Everything, Class #2 8