FreeTruth

Returning to my series presenting "Reasons to Believe the Bible", I find that what it says about us provides compellingly precise insight that suggests a Mind which knows the subject intimately and infallibly; that is to say, the Mind of God.

The Bible is compelling because of how nuanced to perfection its presentation of human nature is. Contrary to those who teach on the one hand that humans are no more than highly evolved primates, and on the other that they are “basically good, tabula rasa innocents”, the Bible describes humanity’s unique dignity (as image-bearers of God, Genesis 1:26, 27) and inherited depravity (Genesis 6:5; Jeremiah 17:9; Psalm 51:3-5) with nuanced balance and unapologetic honesty.

Philisophical materialists, evolutionists, and others of similar mind, would say to us that Man is animal, and no more; a random collection of chemical actions and reactions accidentally borne along by an endless, meaningless stream of randomness. As such he is essentially nothing other than matter, devoid of any true value, or unique dignity.

The Bible says otherwise by telling us from the outset that we are "made in the image of God", and as such are possessive of great dignity, yes, even glory and honor (Psalm 8:4-8). In his intellectual, moral, spiritual, relational, aesthetic, and dominion gifts, Man stands alone in glory and honor over the natural world. What the natural order tells us, the Bible first declared!

But alongside this heralded dignity of man the Bible presents a mourned depravity of Man. Man, though gloriously gifted, is also ingloriously depraved. He's a fiend, a cruel tyrant, a selfish taker, a gutless compromiser, a lazy fool. Someone has quipped that the Bible doctrine of man's depravity is the most easily proven doctrine in the entire Bible. All one has to do to prove it is to read the news, study history, watch a child's natural instincts to be selfish and mean, or simply look into a morality mirror.

Someone else has said that the naive notions of man's enlightenment, and grand nobility, once popular in the late 1800's, ran shipwreck in the 1,900's against the jagged rocks of the atrocities of Nazi Germany, Stalin's Russia, the segregated south, and endless news of wars and fightings and divorces and child abuse and the rest.

This, my friends, is what the Bible has been saying all along. Man is a grand reflection of God who somehow has become a moral monster as well. All other world views err by denying one side or the other of the paradox called Man.

The Bible gets it right. Why? Because it comes from the One Who sees things deeply and as they really are. He knows us because He simply knows. And some of what He knows, He has chosen to tell us about, in a Book.

That's another reason why I believe.

Labels: Apologetics, Human Nature, Humility, Nature, The Word of God

I believe that there can be no real doubt about the existence of God. As has been said often, the fact that anything exists today means that something or someone has always existed.

It is absolute nonsense to suggest that something can be created out of nothing. So the fact that something (the universe) exists now means either that that thing has always existed or that something or someone else which has always existed brought that thing into existence. In short: either the universe is eternal or an Eternal Someone made it. There are no other rational options.

And since we know that the universe has not always existed (even secular scientists with their big bang theory acknowledge this), the only rational conclusion is that Something or Someone brought this universe into being. The universe has a Designer/Creator. Throughout history that Designer/Creator has been called "God" (at least in English).

But that leads of course to the question: which God is the right God? Another way of putting it is: how do we know which view of God--that found in the Bible, or that found in another "holy book" or in the imagination of any person--is the right view?

Here is how I arrive at Reason #3 for why I believe the Bible is the Word of God: the God revealed in nature (Romans 1:19, 20; Psalm 19:1, 2) and the God revealed in Scripture are a perfect match.

Since God made the world, the world will reflect His character and being. When an artist creates, what he creates reveals something about him, for the created thing flows out of the being, mind, and heart of the creator.

God's nature reveals God. We can call nature God's Self-Revelation: Volume One. But there's more. Christians believe that actually there are two volumes of God's self-revelation. Volume One is Nature; Volume Two is Scripture.

But for this Christian claim to be verified, Volumes One and Two must be entirely consistent, since God is a God who cannot contradict Himself. What He says in one revelation must agree with what He says in another or else He's a liar. So run the test. What do you find when you compare what is learned about God in nature and what is learned about God in Scripture? A perfect match.

Study Volume One and you'll discover that nature reveals a God who is a powerful, wise, brilliant, good, kind, generous, beauty-loving, eternal, dependable, majestic, transcendant, and yet a constantly-involved-in-His-creation Being. You'll also discover in nature's earthquakes and tsunamis and diseases that nature's God is no benign, passive, entirely-pleased-with-this-world, indulgent, or completely safe Wimp.

Nature reveals that God is all the wonderful things mentioned above, and that He is mad at something. Not all is right between God and his creation. Storms and calamities reveal that something has stirred the wrath of God.

Now study Volume Two and you'll discover that Scripture reveals a God that matches nature's God perfectly. He is all the wonderful things that nature reveals; He is all the terrifying things nature reveals. Nature and Scripture harmonize. Both reveal that God is astonishingly good, and that God is One with Whose wrath we dare not trifle.

This--along with many other factors gives me cause to believe the Bible is the Word of God that it claims to be. It matches what I see in God's creation. It conforms to the way things are in the real world. It echoes the song that nature sings. What I read in God's Word fits what I see in God's world.

Thus I believe. Here I stand.
How about you?

Labels: Apologetics, Creation, Nature, The Word of God