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There are some statements which seem to be true but in reality are false. These types of statement to which I refer are "self-refuting" statements. One popular such statement would be, "there are no absolutes." This is a self-refuting statement. If this statement is true, then it is false because it refutes itself by also being an absolute statement. John Frame discusses seven such self-refuting statements, and I would like to look at one of them; number five to be specific:
Some philosophical theories are said to be self-refuting because they set up conditions of meaning, rationality, and/or truth that they themselves are unable to meet. Ludwig Wittgenstein in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, for example, candidly admitted at the end that the propositions of his book did not measure up to his own criteria of meaning; so he suggested that those propositions were a kind of ladder that one throws away after he uses it to reach a higher vantage point. Later, the logical positivists insisted that a piece of language cannot meaningfully state an empirical fact (either truly or falsely) unless it is empirically verifiable by methods akin to those of natural science. But many observed that this “verification principle” itself could not be empirically verified in that way. That argument led to the demise of logical positivism as an influential philosophical movement.The basic idea of this specific self-refuting statement is that within itself, the proposed meaning, rationality, logic and/or truth seems to be true but the proposition purported is itself unattainable regardless of how well the argumentation is presented. Recognizing these types of statements is extremely important, particularly in the realm of theology because even though they may be logical in presentation and seem to be rational, they will lead to a wrong worldview at best and destruction at worst. Delving deeper into these thoughts, theology has two opposing claims with each side of the issue making a defense for their claim. Atheists essentially claim, 'There is no God,' while Theists believe in the existence of God. Both viewpoints present a presupposition and from their presupposition, they present arguments to justify their claim; they make an apology (or defense) of their claim. I stumbled upon a blog which, at the onset, presented a decent counter-argument for the use of the Cosmological Argument. You can read the complete argument here. Exbeliever (the author of this article) boils down the Cosmological Argument down to a single sentence, "The universe begins to exist, therefore the universe has a cause of existence." He continues, "In the first premise, the proponent of this argument appears to be making a category mistake. The theist says that "whatever [thing--the word is implicit]" that begins to exist must have a cause. The theist, then, switches that "thing" to "the universe." The problem, here, is that it may be inappropriate to treat the universe in the same way one treats some "thing" in the universe." He then proceeds by explaining what he means by presenting examples.
"Let me try another way of explaining this. I saw this "ball" in a toy store the other day. It is made of plastic pieces on joints. If a child pulled on the joints, the ball would begin to expand. The ball keeps expanding to a rather large ball and can retract to a small, dense ball. The inside of the ball is hollow. Many physicists believe the universe is similarly "ball-shaped." What the theist is doing is taking a rule that is true inside the ball and applying it to the conditions outside the ball. This may not, however, be the case. The outside conditions may be entirely unlike the inside conditions."Now let me deconstruct Exbeliever's argument by deconstructing his presupposition. To merely address his arguments would result in the deist's defeat. The presupposition itself must be addressed and refuted. His presupposition is that the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God is invalid because there may be other unknown elements which would prove the theist's presupposition as false. However, he speaks as if he already knows for a fact that there are elements which would disprove the theist's presupposition and presents them as truth. But the fact is, he presents a presupposition which itself can not be proved, therefore presents a self-refuting statement. Until we discover at least one of the unknown elements which would refute the deist's position, we must use all of the known elements within the created universe as not only the "law at play within a set [but] is true of the set itself." To present any argument apart from what is known within the universe is intellectually dishonest and self-refuting. The fact that the Atheist does not know the unknowns and is limited to what is known within the universe, he is from the very onset intellectually dishonest, and his presupposition is self-refuting. To read further on the Christian Worldview, please check out The Christian Worldview, Interpreting Scripture, and The Gospel Hermeneutic.
The first and only rule of interpreting Scripture is CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT. The context (or micro-context) of each verse sheds light on its meaning. John Piper says it this way,
"First, we must never assume that a particular phrase means exactly the same thing every place it occurs in Scripture. Good interpretation lets a word or phrase mean whatever the immediate context demands. What really matters in Scripture is not that a phrase everywhere have the same meaning but that the reality which a phrase describes does not contradict other descriptions of reality in the Bible." (emphasis mine)The reason I stress CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT is expressed as, "it is not merely men who speak in the Old Testament prophecies but God speaking through men and God knows all things, even what will happen centuries from now. Peter writes in his second letter (1:20, 21): "First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." Or as Paul put it in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All scripture is inspired by God . . ." It is a grand and wonderful doctrine of the Christian Church that in the writings of the Bible we do not hear the mere voices of men but we also hear God. The words of our text put it most forcefully of all: Acts 3:21, "Heaven must receive Jesus until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old." How can a man proclaim what will take place centuries later? A mere man can't. But men moved by the Spirit of God can." (emphasis mine) Scripture tells how it should be read and how it should be interpreted. When we come to Scripture with presupposition in hand, we can subject Scripture to eisegesis. The context of each verse expresses the exact meaning of the verse. Therefore the context will tell us whether a verse or passage should be read literally, figuratively, etc... If what Scripture says does not match up with our paradigm, then we must change our paradigm. If Scripture is our final authority, we should be willing to change our paradigm, otherwise Scripture ceases to be Scripture and we have relegated Scripture to man's religion. We must begin understanding how the New Testament handles interpretation before we move on to understanding how the Old Testament should be interpreted. We must begin with understanding the New Testament first for three reasons: (1) The New Testament does not render the Old Testament Scriptures obsolete. Rather, it is in the New Testament that the meaning and significance of the Old Testament become clear. (2) The New Testament provides the context by which we must interpret the Old Testament. (3) The New Testament provides the tools and understanding of how the Old Testament should be interpreted. But this approach, as with any other approach, is not without its warnings: John Piper warns,
"1) Beware of reading extraordinary meaning into unusual circumstances when there is no clear word of Scripture to guide your interpretation. When God intends his work to teach, he adds his word. 2) The other lesson is that we should never settle for a merely silent witness to Christ. How we live is crucial, but if God thought his own work needed verbal explanation, how much more ours. Second, since wisdom is found in the word of God, we must apply ourselves in study and meditation to know the word and do it. "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple." (Psalm 19:7). Therefore, we must devote ourselves to know and understand the testimonies of the Lord. And here I commend not only faithful Bible study but also regular reading of great books on theology and Biblical interpretation, books that distill the wisdom of the greatest students of the word over the past 1900 years."Piper continues,
"God shows himself by word and deed in the processes and events of human history, which is thus in the most literal sense “his story.” The Bible’s interpretation of the histories, communal and personal, that it records is the model for interpreting our own history, from the same redemption-centered point of view, in terms of which alone will the history of any Christian person ever make real sense. As George Marsden states Edwards’s position: History, according to Edwards, was in essence the communication of God’s redemptive love in Christ. The history of redemption was the very purpose of creation. Nothing in human history had significance on its own. . . . Christ’s saving love was the center of all history and defined its meaning. Human events took on significance only as they related to God’s redemptive action in bringing increasing numbers of human beings into the light of that love or as they illustrated human blindness in joining Satan’s warfare against all that was good."The Word Of God is the final authority in interpretation: "`The word of God ... is the only rule to direct us.' You cannot have a subordinate standard. You have one rule, and everything else is under the control of that rule. The Bible is the only touchstone. It judges the preaching. It judges the decrees of councils. It judges the creeds of the church. It judges even our interpretation of the Bible itself." Greg Koukl of Stand To Reason states, "Never read a Bible verse.""If there was one bit of wisdom, one rule of thumb, one single skill I could impart, one useful tip I could leave that would serve you well the rest of your life, what would it be? What is the single most important practical skill I've ever learned as a Christian? Here it is: Never read a Bible verse. That's right, never read a Bible verse. Instead, always read a paragraph–at least." (emphasis mine)Simply quoting a single verse really does not provide any information to truly understand its meaning. Remember two things in a debate or Scriptural argument: (1) Do not use single verses to prove a point. The presenter of an argument should not be resting wholly on a single verse or a string of single verses. This does not prove much. The verses become an assertion rather than an argument. If the assertion is not correct, it can be refuted by using the micro-context (or passage) in chich the specific verse occurs. (2) Use the micro-context (or passage) to prove a point. We must let Scripture speak for itself. Using the micro-context (or full passage) to present what Scripture itself is saying is key. Read the micro-context at face value. What does Scripture say? But we do not stop at the micro-context. Scriptural interpretation not only consists of the micro-context but the macro-context: (1) Interpret the immediate or micro-context. Understand the people, laws, traditions, their understanding of the circumstances, etc... (2) Interpret the micro-context in conjunction with the macro-context - the revelation of Christ Himself and His work.
About 100 people filled the lecture hall for the event. My opponent was Dr. Timothy Gordiner from the Institute for Humanist Studies. The topic for the debate was “The Ten Commandments and the Establishment Clause.” Each of us was given 15 minutes to present our “case.” Tim acknowledged the fact that he was a secular humanist and an atheist during his presentation. I began by giving my testimony and quoting John 3:16. I noted that Tim and I were coming from completely opposite world views – his beginning without God, and mine starting with a belief in God’s existence. I told how America was founded by people seeking freedom for religion, and how the first amendment protects that freedom. I maintained that the government acknowledging God did not “establish a religion”, but in fact was in keeping with our heritage. The Declaration of Independence includes this acknowledgment – “We hold these truths as being self-evident that all men are created equal and have been endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights…” Each of us was given 5 minutes to refute the other, and then we were asked questions from the audience for about 1 hour. One humanist asked me to explain what I meant by quoting John 3:16, specifically if I believed only Christians would receive “everlasting life.” A Jewish professor objected to my “intolerance of other religions.” I stood my ground, saying that Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). I noted that religious freedom means you have the right to accept or reject God’s offer of salvation, but do not have the right to change the consequences of that decision.
A presupposition is the absolute basis (the foundation) for a person's WorldView. The presupposition should inherently possess, through the deductive reasoning process, a proper epistemology or the source of knowledge itself.
Your presupposition is where you begin, as is. The moment you step away from your supposed presupposition, your presupposition ceases to be a presupposition and becomes an argument (or lack thereof) for your new presupposition.
Vincent Cheung states it this way,
bquote "You START from the content of your worldview AS IS -- that's the very
meaning of presuppositionalism -- and that's how your opponent must handle you. The only way to defeat a biblical presuppositionalist is for the presuppositionalist to STOP being a presuppositionalist. Whenever you seem to be in trouble in a debate, check on this point first, since it is likely that this is the mistake you are making."
The Christian WorldView is not merely asserting the existence of God but resting upon Scripture.
To merely assert "God exists" is only an assertion. How do you know God exists? A Christian who uses "God exists" as his presupposition still has no proper basis for his epistemology. This Christian ultimately ends up using something else (ultimately Scripture) as his source of evidence for the existence of God. His previous assertion ceases to be a presupposition.
Our interaction with God is through the Scriptures. "1 Proverbs 22:17-21 indicates that to trust the Lord is to trust his words." Those who claim to love God also should demonstrate their love by loving His Words (Psalm 119:97, 103 Psalm 19:9-10). The love for God's Word is the necessary foundation for the love for God. One's love for God is only as extensive as his love for God's Words.
If Scripture is the foundation of a Christian WorldView, how do we know the Bible is superior and reliable?
Answering this question properly is to explain the Bible's Nature, Inspiration, Unity, Infallibility, Authority, Necessity, Clarity, and Sufficiency.
Scripture's Nature
Scripture, in its very nature, is verbal. Pictures, illustrations, dreams, visions, and music do not possess content which produces the expected understanding of its content. Pictures of a cross tells nothing of its meaning to the viewer without a verbal explanation. Illustrations mean nothing without a verbal representation accompanying it. Jesus appearing before Saul of Tarsus without a word would have meant nothing. Saul understood Who was confronting him due to Jesus saying, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting" (Acts 9:3-6).
Scripture's Inspiration
Paul explains in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." All of Scripture proceeds directly from God Himself. In fact, Peter claimed Paul's own writings were inspired,
"Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." (2 Peter 3:15-16)
Peter also affirms that Scripture is from God and never the will of man (2 Peter 1:20-21). Even Jesus Himself stressed the extreme importance of Scripture (Matthew 5:18). "God exercised such precise control over the Bible's production that its content, to the very letter, is what he desired to set in writing." (Cheung. This does not mean God "dictated" Scripture to the writers like an employer dictates to a secretary, but God used them as instruments expressing exactly what He wanted inscribed.
Scripture's Unity
Scripture's inspiration assumes its unity. The source of a single divine author is manifested throughout Scripture. Jesus even assumes Scripture's unity:
"Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written: 'He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'" Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
(Matthew 4:5-7)
"Satan encourages Jesus to jump from the temple by citing Psalm 91:11-12. Jesus counters with Deuteronomy 6:16, implying that Satan's use of the passage contradicts the instruction from Deuteronomy, and therefore it is a misapplication. When one understands or applies a passage of Scripture in a manner that contradicts another passage, he mishandles the text. Christ's argument here assumes the unity of Scripture, and even the devil does not challenge it.
On another occasion, as Jesus deals with the Pharisees, his challenge to them assumes the unity of Scripture and the law of noncontradiction:
'While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" "The son of David," they replied. He said to them, "How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him 'Lord'? For he says, 'The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.' If then David calls him 'Lord,' how can he be his
son?" No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.' (Matthew 22:41-46)" (Cheung).
The fact that Jesus brings up David's inspired words calling the Christ "Son" and "Lord", an apparent contradiction, speaks of Scripture's unity. Jesus knew His audience believed Scripture possesses unity. If it did not, his point would be meaningless. Scripture does not contradict itself. Vincent Cheung speaks of contradictions this way,
"It is futile to say that these doctrines (speaking of the "hypostatic union of Christ" and the Trinity - among others) are in perfect harmony in the mind of God, and only appear to be contradictions to human beings. As long as they remain contradictions, whether only in appearance or not, we cannot affirm both of them. And how can one distinguish between a real contradiction from an apparent one? If we must tolerate apparent contradictions, then we must tolerate all contradictions. Since without knowing the resolution, an apparent contradiction appears to be the same as a real one, to know that a "contradiction" is only so in appearance means that one has already resolved it, and then the term no longer applies."
Scripture's Infallibility
John 10:35 says, "the Scripture cannot be broken" and Luke 16:17 asserts, "It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law." Vincent Cheung states it like this: "The INFALLIBILITY of Scripture refers to an inability to err - the Bible cannot err. INERRANCY, on the other hand, emphasizes that the Bible does not err. The former refers to the potential, while the latter addresses the actual state of affairs. Strictly speaking, infallibility is the stronger word, and it entails inerrancy, but sometimes the two are interchangeable in usage."
Objections for Scripture's infallibility refer to the fallibility of man. But even though man is fallible, he is still capable of producing documents which do not err. Scripture is infallible and inerrant. It is correct in whatever it asserts regarding not only spiritual realm but the physical also. Scripture's statements regarding both historical and spiritual facts can not be separated. If Christ's resurrection did not happen the way Scripture says it did, then its spiritual significance can not be true. Denying the infallibility and/or inerrancy of Scripture also nullifies any epistemological position because there are no real grounds for knowing what is true and is falsehood within Scripture.
Scripture's Authority
The writers of Scripture used God and Scripture interchangeably:
"The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you…and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." (Genesis 12:1-3)
"The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you." (Galatians 3:8)
"Then the LORD said to Moses, "Get up early in the morning, confront Pharaoh and say to him, 'This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me…But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth…'" (Exodus 9:13-16)
"For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." (Romans 9:17)
God is the ultimate authority. The Scripture is what God has said, and Scripture is equal to God in its authority. Scripture, therefore, is the ultimate authority for the Christian.
Scripture's Necessity
Paul proclaims in 2 Timothy 3:15, "the holy Scriptures…are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." Paul also asserted earlier in this book that all men know God exists from birth. Although this knowledge is enough for the rejection of God culpable, it is not enough for salvation. As a bi-product of Scripture's proclaimation of salvation, it refers to and uses illustrations, circumstances, and facts regarding life in general. Without God and the Scriptures, knowledge is impossible.
Scripture's Clarity
Although Scripture is straightforward in its proclamation of Salvation, it is not always understandable by all in all matters. Scripture is not so easy to understand regardless of passage that no training in hermeneutics is necessary. And Scripture is not so difficult that only the "elite" can understand its meanings. Both positions on Scripture's clarity are dangerous.
Acts 8:30-31 says, "Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. "Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip asked. "How can I," he said, "unless someone explains it to me?" So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him."
Although someone can read and understand Scripture for salvation, the proclamation (or preaching) of the Word is necessary for further understanding. Philip explained the more complicated passage for the man for mere reading of the passage was difficult to understand.
Although the clarity of Scripture allows for every person to read and interpret Scripture, the need for teachers and preachers to proclaim and explain the Scriptures is not negated either.
Scripture's Sufficiency
Paul explicitly states, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17) Individuals may say the believe Scripture is sufficient, but their practical application of this belief negates their assertion. Instead of resting upon Scripture alone, some may look elsewhere for "divine" instruction such as astrology, divination, spiritism, and other avenues of unbiblical practices. Proverbs 3:5 & 6 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." Scripture asserts that Scripture is sufficient for everything in life for the Christian.
No other document or "holy book" can meet these characteristics that only Scripture inherently possesses. This is what the Christian asserts. This is what we believe. This is what is true.
Much of this study is taken from Vincent Cheung's Systematic Theology and other sources. I highly recommend further reading on these subjects.
There are some statements which seem to be true but in reality are false. These types of statement to which I refer are "self-refuting" statements. One popular such statement would be, "there are no absolutes." This is a self-refuting statement. If this statement is true, then it is false because it refutes itself by also being an absolute statement. John Frame discusses seven such self-refuting statements, and I would like to look at one of them; number five to be specific:
Some philosophical theories are said to be self-refuting because they set up conditions of meaning, rationality, and/or truth that they themselves are unable to meet. Ludwig Wittgenstein in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, for example, candidly admitted at the end that the propositions of his book did not measure up to his own criteria of meaning; so he suggested that those propositions were a kind of ladder that one throws away after he uses it to reach a higher vantage point. Later, the logical positivists insisted that a piece of language cannot meaningfully state an empirical fact (either truly or falsely) unless it is empirically verifiable by methods akin to those of natural science. But many observed that this “verification principle” itself could not be empirically verified in that way. That argument led to the demise of logical positivism as an influential philosophical movement.The basic idea of this specific self-refuting statement is that within itself, the proposed meaning, rationality, logic and/or truth seems to be true but the proposition purported is itself unattainable regardless of how well the argumentation is presented. Recognizing these types of statements is extremely important, particularly in the realm of theology because even though they may be logical in presentation and seem to be rational, they will lead to a wrong worldview at best and destruction at worst. Delving deeper into these thoughts, theology has two opposing claims with each side of the issue making a defense for their claim. Atheists essentially claim, 'There is no God,' while Theists believe in the existence of God. Both viewpoints present a presupposition and from their presupposition, they present arguments to justify their claim; they make an apology (or defense) of their claim. I stumbled upon a blog which, at the onset, presented a decent counter-argument for the use of the Cosmological Argument. You can read the complete argument here. Exbeliever (the author of this article) boils down the Cosmological Argument down to a single sentence, "The universe begins to exist, therefore the universe has a cause of existence." He continues, "In the first premise, the proponent of this argument appears to be making a category mistake. The theist says that "whatever [thing--the word is implicit]" that begins to exist must have a cause. The theist, then, switches that "thing" to "the universe." The problem, here, is that it may be inappropriate to treat the universe in the same way one treats some "thing" in the universe." He then proceeds by explaining what he means by presenting examples.
"Let me try another way of explaining this. I saw this "ball" in a toy store the other day. It is made of plastic pieces on joints. If a child pulled on the joints, the ball would begin to expand. The ball keeps expanding to a rather large ball and can retract to a small, dense ball. The inside of the ball is hollow. Many physicists believe the universe is similarly "ball-shaped." What the theist is doing is taking a rule that is true inside the ball and applying it to the conditions outside the ball. This may not, however, be the case. The outside conditions may be entirely unlike the inside conditions."Now let me deconstruct Exbeliever's argument by deconstructing his presupposition. To merely address his arguments would result in the deist's defeat. The presupposition itself must be addressed and refuted. His presupposition is that the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God is invalid because there may be other unknown elements which would prove the theist's presupposition as false. However, he speaks as if he already knows for a fact that there are elements which would disprove the theist's presupposition and presents them as truth. But the fact is, he presents a presupposition which itself can not be proved, therefore presents a self-refuting statement. Until we discover at least one of the unknown elements which would refute the deist's position, we must use all of the known elements within the created universe as not only the "law at play within a set [but] is true of the set itself." To present any argument apart from what is known within the universe is intellectually dishonest and self-refuting. The fact that the Atheist does not know the unknowns and is limited to what is known within the universe, he is from the very onset intellectually dishonest, and his presupposition is self-refuting. To read further on the Christian Worldview, please check out The Christian Worldview, Interpreting Scripture, and The Gospel Hermeneutic.
The first and only rule of interpreting Scripture is CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT. The context (or micro-context) of each verse sheds light on its meaning. John Piper says it this way,
"First, we must never assume that a particular phrase means exactly the same thing every place it occurs in Scripture. Good interpretation lets a word or phrase mean whatever the immediate context demands. What really matters in Scripture is not that a phrase everywhere have the same meaning but that the reality which a phrase describes does not contradict other descriptions of reality in the Bible." (emphasis mine)The reason I stress CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT is expressed as, "it is not merely men who speak in the Old Testament prophecies but God speaking through men and God knows all things, even what will happen centuries from now. Peter writes in his second letter (1:20, 21): "First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." Or as Paul put it in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All scripture is inspired by God . . ." It is a grand and wonderful doctrine of the Christian Church that in the writings of the Bible we do not hear the mere voices of men but we also hear God. The words of our text put it most forcefully of all: Acts 3:21, "Heaven must receive Jesus until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old." How can a man proclaim what will take place centuries later? A mere man can't. But men moved by the Spirit of God can." (emphasis mine) Scripture tells how it should be read and how it should be interpreted. When we come to Scripture with presupposition in hand, we can subject Scripture to eisegesis. The context of each verse expresses the exact meaning of the verse. Therefore the context will tell us whether a verse or passage should be read literally, figuratively, etc... If what Scripture says does not match up with our paradigm, then we must change our paradigm. If Scripture is our final authority, we should be willing to change our paradigm, otherwise Scripture ceases to be Scripture and we have relegated Scripture to man's religion. We must begin understanding how the New Testament handles interpretation before we move on to understanding how the Old Testament should be interpreted. We must begin with understanding the New Testament first for three reasons: (1) The New Testament does not render the Old Testament Scriptures obsolete. Rather, it is in the New Testament that the meaning and significance of the Old Testament become clear. (2) The New Testament provides the context by which we must interpret the Old Testament. (3) The New Testament provides the tools and understanding of how the Old Testament should be interpreted. But this approach, as with any other approach, is not without its warnings: John Piper warns,
"1) Beware of reading extraordinary meaning into unusual circumstances when there is no clear word of Scripture to guide your interpretation. When God intends his work to teach, he adds his word. 2) The other lesson is that we should never settle for a merely silent witness to Christ. How we live is crucial, but if God thought his own work needed verbal explanation, how much more ours. Second, since wisdom is found in the word of God, we must apply ourselves in study and meditation to know the word and do it. "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple." (Psalm 19:7). Therefore, we must devote ourselves to know and understand the testimonies of the Lord. And here I commend not only faithful Bible study but also regular reading of great books on theology and Biblical interpretation, books that distill the wisdom of the greatest students of the word over the past 1900 years."Piper continues,
"God shows himself by word and deed in the processes and events of human history, which is thus in the most literal sense “his story.” The Bible’s interpretation of the histories, communal and personal, that it records is the model for interpreting our own history, from the same redemption-centered point of view, in terms of which alone will the history of any Christian person ever make real sense. As George Marsden states Edwards’s position: History, according to Edwards, was in essence the communication of God’s redemptive love in Christ. The history of redemption was the very purpose of creation. Nothing in human history had significance on its own. . . . Christ’s saving love was the center of all history and defined its meaning. Human events took on significance only as they related to God’s redemptive action in bringing increasing numbers of human beings into the light of that love or as they illustrated human blindness in joining Satan’s warfare against all that was good."The Word Of God is the final authority in interpretation: "`The word of God ... is the only rule to direct us.' You cannot have a subordinate standard. You have one rule, and everything else is under the control of that rule. The Bible is the only touchstone. It judges the preaching. It judges the decrees of councils. It judges the creeds of the church. It judges even our interpretation of the Bible itself." Greg Koukl of Stand To Reason states, "Never read a Bible verse.""If there was one bit of wisdom, one rule of thumb, one single skill I could impart, one useful tip I could leave that would serve you well the rest of your life, what would it be? What is the single most important practical skill I've ever learned as a Christian? Here it is: Never read a Bible verse. That's right, never read a Bible verse. Instead, always read a paragraph–at least." (emphasis mine)Simply quoting a single verse really does not provide any information to truly understand its meaning. Remember two things in a debate or Scriptural argument: (1) Do not use single verses to prove a point. The presenter of an argument should not be resting wholly on a single verse or a string of single verses. This does not prove much. The verses become an assertion rather than an argument. If the assertion is not correct, it can be refuted by using the micro-context (or passage) in chich the specific verse occurs. (2) Use the micro-context (or passage) to prove a point. We must let Scripture speak for itself. Using the micro-context (or full passage) to present what Scripture itself is saying is key. Read the micro-context at face value. What does Scripture say? But we do not stop at the micro-context. Scriptural interpretation not only consists of the micro-context but the macro-context: (1) Interpret the immediate or micro-context. Understand the people, laws, traditions, their understanding of the circumstances, etc... (2) Interpret the micro-context in conjunction with the macro-context - the revelation of Christ Himself and His work.
About 100 people filled the lecture hall for the event. My opponent was Dr. Timothy Gordiner from the Institute for Humanist Studies. The topic for the debate was “The Ten Commandments and the Establishment Clause.” Each of us was given 15 minutes to present our “case.” Tim acknowledged the fact that he was a secular humanist and an atheist during his presentation. I began by giving my testimony and quoting John 3:16. I noted that Tim and I were coming from completely opposite world views – his beginning without God, and mine starting with a belief in God’s existence. I told how America was founded by people seeking freedom for religion, and how the first amendment protects that freedom. I maintained that the government acknowledging God did not “establish a religion”, but in fact was in keeping with our heritage. The Declaration of Independence includes this acknowledgment – “We hold these truths as being self-evident that all men are created equal and have been endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights…” Each of us was given 5 minutes to refute the other, and then we were asked questions from the audience for about 1 hour. One humanist asked me to explain what I meant by quoting John 3:16, specifically if I believed only Christians would receive “everlasting life.” A Jewish professor objected to my “intolerance of other religions.” I stood my ground, saying that Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). I noted that religious freedom means you have the right to accept or reject God’s offer of salvation, but do not have the right to change the consequences of that decision.
A presupposition is the absolute basis (the foundation) for a person's WorldView. The presupposition should inherently possess, through the deductive reasoning process, a proper epistemology or the source of knowledge itself.
Your presupposition is where you begin, as is. The moment you step away from your supposed presupposition, your presupposition ceases to be a presupposition and becomes an argument (or lack thereof) for your new presupposition.
Vincent Cheung states it this way,
bquote "You START from the content of your worldview AS IS -- that's the very
meaning of presuppositionalism -- and that's how your opponent must handle you. The only way to defeat a biblical presuppositionalist is for the presuppositionalist to STOP being a presuppositionalist. Whenever you seem to be in trouble in a debate, check on this point first, since it is likely that this is the mistake you are making."
The Christian WorldView is not merely asserting the existence of God but resting upon Scripture.
To merely assert "God exists" is only an assertion. How do you know God exists? A Christian who uses "God exists" as his presupposition still has no proper basis for his epistemology. This Christian ultimately ends up using something else (ultimately Scripture) as his source of evidence for the existence of God. His previous assertion ceases to be a presupposition.
Our interaction with God is through the Scriptures. "1 Proverbs 22:17-21 indicates that to trust the Lord is to trust his words." Those who claim to love God also should demonstrate their love by loving His Words (Psalm 119:97, 103 Psalm 19:9-10). The love for God's Word is the necessary foundation for the love for God. One's love for God is only as extensive as his love for God's Words.
If Scripture is the foundation of a Christian WorldView, how do we know the Bible is superior and reliable?
Answering this question properly is to explain the Bible's Nature, Inspiration, Unity, Infallibility, Authority, Necessity, Clarity, and Sufficiency.
Scripture's Nature
Scripture, in its very nature, is verbal. Pictures, illustrations, dreams, visions, and music do not possess content which produces the expected understanding of its content. Pictures of a cross tells nothing of its meaning to the viewer without a verbal explanation. Illustrations mean nothing without a verbal representation accompanying it. Jesus appearing before Saul of Tarsus without a word would have meant nothing. Saul understood Who was confronting him due to Jesus saying, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting" (Acts 9:3-6).
Scripture's Inspiration
Paul explains in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." All of Scripture proceeds directly from God Himself. In fact, Peter claimed Paul's own writings were inspired,
"Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." (2 Peter 3:15-16)
Peter also affirms that Scripture is from God and never the will of man (2 Peter 1:20-21). Even Jesus Himself stressed the extreme importance of Scripture (Matthew 5:18). "God exercised such precise control over the Bible's production that its content, to the very letter, is what he desired to set in writing." (Cheung. This does not mean God "dictated" Scripture to the writers like an employer dictates to a secretary, but God used them as instruments expressing exactly what He wanted inscribed.
Scripture's Unity
Scripture's inspiration assumes its unity. The source of a single divine author is manifested throughout Scripture. Jesus even assumes Scripture's unity:
"Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written: 'He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'" Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
(Matthew 4:5-7)
"Satan encourages Jesus to jump from the temple by citing Psalm 91:11-12. Jesus counters with Deuteronomy 6:16, implying that Satan's use of the passage contradicts the instruction from Deuteronomy, and therefore it is a misapplication. When one understands or applies a passage of Scripture in a manner that contradicts another passage, he mishandles the text. Christ's argument here assumes the unity of Scripture, and even the devil does not challenge it.
On another occasion, as Jesus deals with the Pharisees, his challenge to them assumes the unity of Scripture and the law of noncontradiction:
'While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" "The son of David," they replied. He said to them, "How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him 'Lord'? For he says, 'The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.' If then David calls him 'Lord,' how can he be his
son?" No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.' (Matthew 22:41-46)" (Cheung).
The fact that Jesus brings up David's inspired words calling the Christ "Son" and "Lord", an apparent contradiction, speaks of Scripture's unity. Jesus knew His audience believed Scripture possesses unity. If it did not, his point would be meaningless. Scripture does not contradict itself. Vincent Cheung speaks of contradictions this way,
"It is futile to say that these doctrines (speaking of the "hypostatic union of Christ" and the Trinity - among others) are in perfect harmony in the mind of God, and only appear to be contradictions to human beings. As long as they remain contradictions, whether only in appearance or not, we cannot affirm both of them. And how can one distinguish between a real contradiction from an apparent one? If we must tolerate apparent contradictions, then we must tolerate all contradictions. Since without knowing the resolution, an apparent contradiction appears to be the same as a real one, to know that a "contradiction" is only so in appearance means that one has already resolved it, and then the term no longer applies."
Scripture's Infallibility
John 10:35 says, "the Scripture cannot be broken" and Luke 16:17 asserts, "It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law." Vincent Cheung states it like this: "The INFALLIBILITY of Scripture refers to an inability to err - the Bible cannot err. INERRANCY, on the other hand, emphasizes that the Bible does not err. The former refers to the potential, while the latter addresses the actual state of affairs. Strictly speaking, infallibility is the stronger word, and it entails inerrancy, but sometimes the two are interchangeable in usage."
Objections for Scripture's infallibility refer to the fallibility of man. But even though man is fallible, he is still capable of producing documents which do not err. Scripture is infallible and inerrant. It is correct in whatever it asserts regarding not only spiritual realm but the physical also. Scripture's statements regarding both historical and spiritual facts can not be separated. If Christ's resurrection did not happen the way Scripture says it did, then its spiritual significance can not be true. Denying the infallibility and/or inerrancy of Scripture also nullifies any epistemological position because there are no real grounds for knowing what is true and is falsehood within Scripture.
Scripture's Authority
The writers of Scripture used God and Scripture interchangeably:
"The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you…and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." (Genesis 12:1-3)
"The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you." (Galatians 3:8)
"Then the LORD said to Moses, "Get up early in the morning, confront Pharaoh and say to him, 'This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me…But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth…'" (Exodus 9:13-16)
"For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." (Romans 9:17)
God is the ultimate authority. The Scripture is what God has said, and Scripture is equal to God in its authority. Scripture, therefore, is the ultimate authority for the Christian.
Scripture's Necessity
Paul proclaims in 2 Timothy 3:15, "the holy Scriptures…are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." Paul also asserted earlier in this book that all men know God exists from birth. Although this knowledge is enough for the rejection of God culpable, it is not enough for salvation. As a bi-product of Scripture's proclaimation of salvation, it refers to and uses illustrations, circumstances, and facts regarding life in general. Without God and the Scriptures, knowledge is impossible.
Scripture's Clarity
Although Scripture is straightforward in its proclamation of Salvation, it is not always understandable by all in all matters. Scripture is not so easy to understand regardless of passage that no training in hermeneutics is necessary. And Scripture is not so difficult that only the "elite" can understand its meanings. Both positions on Scripture's clarity are dangerous.
Acts 8:30-31 says, "Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. "Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip asked. "How can I," he said, "unless someone explains it to me?" So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him."
Although someone can read and understand Scripture for salvation, the proclamation (or preaching) of the Word is necessary for further understanding. Philip explained the more complicated passage for the man for mere reading of the passage was difficult to understand.
Although the clarity of Scripture allows for every person to read and interpret Scripture, the need for teachers and preachers to proclaim and explain the Scriptures is not negated either.
Scripture's Sufficiency
Paul explicitly states, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17) Individuals may say the believe Scripture is sufficient, but their practical application of this belief negates their assertion. Instead of resting upon Scripture alone, some may look elsewhere for "divine" instruction such as astrology, divination, spiritism, and other avenues of unbiblical practices. Proverbs 3:5 & 6 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." Scripture asserts that Scripture is sufficient for everything in life for the Christian.
No other document or "holy book" can meet these characteristics that only Scripture inherently possesses. This is what the Christian asserts. This is what we believe. This is what is true.
Much of this study is taken from Vincent Cheung's Systematic Theology and other sources. I highly recommend further reading on these subjects.
There are some statements which seem to be true but in reality are false. These types of statement to which I refer are "self-refuting" statements. One popular such statement would be, "there are no absolutes." This is a self-refuting statement. If this statement is true, then it is false because it refutes itself by also being an absolute statement. John Frame discusses seven such self-refuting statements, and I would like to look at one of them; number five to be specific:
Some philosophical theories are said to be self-refuting because they set up conditions of meaning, rationality, and/or truth that they themselves are unable to meet. Ludwig Wittgenstein in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, for example, candidly admitted at the end that the propositions of his book did not measure up to his own criteria of meaning; so he suggested that those propositions were a kind of ladder that one throws away after he uses it to reach a higher vantage point. Later, the logical positivists insisted that a piece of language cannot meaningfully state an empirical fact (either truly or falsely) unless it is empirically verifiable by methods akin to those of natural science. But many observed that this “verification principle” itself could not be empirically verified in that way. That argument led to the demise of logical positivism as an influential philosophical movement.The basic idea of this specific self-refuting statement is that within itself, the proposed meaning, rationality, logic and/or truth seems to be true but the proposition purported is itself unattainable regardless of how well the argumentation is presented. Recognizing these types of statements is extremely important, particularly in the realm of theology because even though they may be logical in presentation and seem to be rational, they will lead to a wrong worldview at best and destruction at worst. Delving deeper into these thoughts, theology has two opposing claims with each side of the issue making a defense for their claim. Atheists essentially claim, 'There is no God,' while Theists believe in the existence of God. Both viewpoints present a presupposition and from their presupposition, they present arguments to justify their claim; they make an apology (or defense) of their claim. I stumbled upon a blog which, at the onset, presented a decent counter-argument for the use of the Cosmological Argument. You can read the complete argument here. Exbeliever (the author of this article) boils down the Cosmological Argument down to a single sentence, "The universe begins to exist, therefore the universe has a cause of existence." He continues, "In the first premise, the proponent of this argument appears to be making a category mistake. The theist says that "whatever [thing--the word is implicit]" that begins to exist must have a cause. The theist, then, switches that "thing" to "the universe." The problem, here, is that it may be inappropriate to treat the universe in the same way one treats some "thing" in the universe." He then proceeds by explaining what he means by presenting examples.
"Let me try another way of explaining this. I saw this "ball" in a toy store the other day. It is made of plastic pieces on joints. If a child pulled on the joints, the ball would begin to expand. The ball keeps expanding to a rather large ball and can retract to a small, dense ball. The inside of the ball is hollow. Many physicists believe the universe is similarly "ball-shaped." What the theist is doing is taking a rule that is true inside the ball and applying it to the conditions outside the ball. This may not, however, be the case. The outside conditions may be entirely unlike the inside conditions."Now let me deconstruct Exbeliever's argument by deconstructing his presupposition. To merely address his arguments would result in the deist's defeat. The presupposition itself must be addressed and refuted. His presupposition is that the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God is invalid because there may be other unknown elements which would prove the theist's presupposition as false. However, he speaks as if he already knows for a fact that there are elements which would disprove the theist's presupposition and presents them as truth. But the fact is, he presents a presupposition which itself can not be proved, therefore presents a self-refuting statement. Until we discover at least one of the unknown elements which would refute the deist's position, we must use all of the known elements within the created universe as not only the "law at play within a set [but] is true of the set itself." To present any argument apart from what is known within the universe is intellectually dishonest and self-refuting. The fact that the Atheist does not know the unknowns and is limited to what is known within the universe, he is from the very onset intellectually dishonest, and his presupposition is self-refuting. To read further on the Christian Worldview, please check out The Christian Worldview, Interpreting Scripture, and The Gospel Hermeneutic.
The first and only rule of interpreting Scripture is CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT. The context (or micro-context) of each verse sheds light on its meaning. John Piper says it this way,
"First, we must never assume that a particular phrase means exactly the same thing every place it occurs in Scripture. Good interpretation lets a word or phrase mean whatever the immediate context demands. What really matters in Scripture is not that a phrase everywhere have the same meaning but that the reality which a phrase describes does not contradict other descriptions of reality in the Bible." (emphasis mine)The reason I stress CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT is expressed as, "it is not merely men who speak in the Old Testament prophecies but God speaking through men and God knows all things, even what will happen centuries from now. Peter writes in his second letter (1:20, 21): "First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." Or as Paul put it in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All scripture is inspired by God . . ." It is a grand and wonderful doctrine of the Christian Church that in the writings of the Bible we do not hear the mere voices of men but we also hear God. The words of our text put it most forcefully of all: Acts 3:21, "Heaven must receive Jesus until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old." How can a man proclaim what will take place centuries later? A mere man can't. But men moved by the Spirit of God can." (emphasis mine) Scripture tells how it should be read and how it should be interpreted. When we come to Scripture with presupposition in hand, we can subject Scripture to eisegesis. The context of each verse expresses the exact meaning of the verse. Therefore the context will tell us whether a verse or passage should be read literally, figuratively, etc... If what Scripture says does not match up with our paradigm, then we must change our paradigm. If Scripture is our final authority, we should be willing to change our paradigm, otherwise Scripture ceases to be Scripture and we have relegated Scripture to man's religion. We must begin understanding how the New Testament handles interpretation before we move on to understanding how the Old Testament should be interpreted. We must begin with understanding the New Testament first for three reasons: (1) The New Testament does not render the Old Testament Scriptures obsolete. Rather, it is in the New Testament that the meaning and significance of the Old Testament become clear. (2) The New Testament provides the context by which we must interpret the Old Testament. (3) The New Testament provides the tools and understanding of how the Old Testament should be interpreted. But this approach, as with any other approach, is not without its warnings: John Piper warns,
"1) Beware of reading extraordinary meaning into unusual circumstances when there is no clear word of Scripture to guide your interpretation. When God intends his work to teach, he adds his word. 2) The other lesson is that we should never settle for a merely silent witness to Christ. How we live is crucial, but if God thought his own work needed verbal explanation, how much more ours. Second, since wisdom is found in the word of God, we must apply ourselves in study and meditation to know the word and do it. "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple." (Psalm 19:7). Therefore, we must devote ourselves to know and understand the testimonies of the Lord. And here I commend not only faithful Bible study but also regular reading of great books on theology and Biblical interpretation, books that distill the wisdom of the greatest students of the word over the past 1900 years."Piper continues,
"God shows himself by word and deed in the processes and events of human history, which is thus in the most literal sense “his story.” The Bible’s interpretation of the histories, communal and personal, that it records is the model for interpreting our own history, from the same redemption-centered point of view, in terms of which alone will the history of any Christian person ever make real sense. As George Marsden states Edwards’s position: History, according to Edwards, was in essence the communication of God’s redemptive love in Christ. The history of redemption was the very purpose of creation. Nothing in human history had significance on its own. . . . Christ’s saving love was the center of all history and defined its meaning. Human events took on significance only as they related to God’s redemptive action in bringing increasing numbers of human beings into the light of that love or as they illustrated human blindness in joining Satan’s warfare against all that was good."The Word Of God is the final authority in interpretation: "`The word of God ... is the only rule to direct us.' You cannot have a subordinate standard. You have one rule, and everything else is under the control of that rule. The Bible is the only touchstone. It judges the preaching. It judges the decrees of councils. It judges the creeds of the church. It judges even our interpretation of the Bible itself." Greg Koukl of Stand To Reason states, "Never read a Bible verse.""If there was one bit of wisdom, one rule of thumb, one single skill I could impart, one useful tip I could leave that would serve you well the rest of your life, what would it be? What is the single most important practical skill I've ever learned as a Christian? Here it is: Never read a Bible verse. That's right, never read a Bible verse. Instead, always read a paragraph–at least." (emphasis mine)Simply quoting a single verse really does not provide any information to truly understand its meaning. Remember two things in a debate or Scriptural argument: (1) Do not use single verses to prove a point. The presenter of an argument should not be resting wholly on a single verse or a string of single verses. This does not prove much. The verses become an assertion rather than an argument. If the assertion is not correct, it can be refuted by using the micro-context (or passage) in chich the specific verse occurs. (2) Use the micro-context (or passage) to prove a point. We must let Scripture speak for itself. Using the micro-context (or full passage) to present what Scripture itself is saying is key. Read the micro-context at face value. What does Scripture say? But we do not stop at the micro-context. Scriptural interpretation not only consists of the micro-context but the macro-context: (1) Interpret the immediate or micro-context. Understand the people, laws, traditions, their understanding of the circumstances, etc... (2) Interpret the micro-context in conjunction with the macro-context - the revelation of Christ Himself and His work.
About 100 people filled the lecture hall for the event. My opponent was Dr. Timothy Gordiner from the Institute for Humanist Studies. The topic for the debate was “The Ten Commandments and the Establishment Clause.” Each of us was given 15 minutes to present our “case.” Tim acknowledged the fact that he was a secular humanist and an atheist during his presentation. I began by giving my testimony and quoting John 3:16. I noted that Tim and I were coming from completely opposite world views – his beginning without God, and mine starting with a belief in God’s existence. I told how America was founded by people seeking freedom for religion, and how the first amendment protects that freedom. I maintained that the government acknowledging God did not “establish a religion”, but in fact was in keeping with our heritage. The Declaration of Independence includes this acknowledgment – “We hold these truths as being self-evident that all men are created equal and have been endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights…” Each of us was given 5 minutes to refute the other, and then we were asked questions from the audience for about 1 hour. One humanist asked me to explain what I meant by quoting John 3:16, specifically if I believed only Christians would receive “everlasting life.” A Jewish professor objected to my “intolerance of other religions.” I stood my ground, saying that Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). I noted that religious freedom means you have the right to accept or reject God’s offer of salvation, but do not have the right to change the consequences of that decision.
A presupposition is the absolute basis (the foundation) for a person's WorldView. The presupposition should inherently possess, through the deductive reasoning process, a proper epistemology or the source of knowledge itself.
Your presupposition is where you begin, as is. The moment you step away from your supposed presupposition, your presupposition ceases to be a presupposition and becomes an argument (or lack thereof) for your new presupposition.
Vincent Cheung states it this way,
bquote "You START from the content of your worldview AS IS -- that's the very
meaning of presuppositionalism -- and that's how your opponent must handle you. The only way to defeat a biblical presuppositionalist is for the presuppositionalist to STOP being a presuppositionalist. Whenever you seem to be in trouble in a debate, check on this point first, since it is likely that this is the mistake you are making."
The Christian WorldView is not merely asserting the existence of God but resting upon Scripture.
To merely assert "God exists" is only an assertion. How do you know God exists? A Christian who uses "God exists" as his presupposition still has no proper basis for his epistemology. This Christian ultimately ends up using something else (ultimately Scripture) as his source of evidence for the existence of God. His previous assertion ceases to be a presupposition.
Our interaction with God is through the Scriptures. "1 Proverbs 22:17-21 indicates that to trust the Lord is to trust his words." Those who claim to love God also should demonstrate their love by loving His Words (Psalm 119:97, 103 Psalm 19:9-10). The love for God's Word is the necessary foundation for the love for God. One's love for God is only as extensive as his love for God's Words.
If Scripture is the foundation of a Christian WorldView, how do we know the Bible is superior and reliable?
Answering this question properly is to explain the Bible's Nature, Inspiration, Unity, Infallibility, Authority, Necessity, Clarity, and Sufficiency.
Scripture's Nature
Scripture, in its very nature, is verbal. Pictures, illustrations, dreams, visions, and music do not possess content which produces the expected understanding of its content. Pictures of a cross tells nothing of its meaning to the viewer without a verbal explanation. Illustrations mean nothing without a verbal representation accompanying it. Jesus appearing before Saul of Tarsus without a word would have meant nothing. Saul understood Who was confronting him due to Jesus saying, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting" (Acts 9:3-6).
Scripture's Inspiration
Paul explains in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." All of Scripture proceeds directly from God Himself. In fact, Peter claimed Paul's own writings were inspired,
"Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." (2 Peter 3:15-16)
Peter also affirms that Scripture is from God and never the will of man (2 Peter 1:20-21). Even Jesus Himself stressed the extreme importance of Scripture (Matthew 5:18). "God exercised such precise control over the Bible's production that its content, to the very letter, is what he desired to set in writing." (Cheung. This does not mean God "dictated" Scripture to the writers like an employer dictates to a secretary, but God used them as instruments expressing exactly what He wanted inscribed.
Scripture's Unity
Scripture's inspiration assumes its unity. The source of a single divine author is manifested throughout Scripture. Jesus even assumes Scripture's unity:
"Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written: 'He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'" Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
(Matthew 4:5-7)
"Satan encourages Jesus to jump from the temple by citing Psalm 91:11-12. Jesus counters with Deuteronomy 6:16, implying that Satan's use of the passage contradicts the instruction from Deuteronomy, and therefore it is a misapplication. When one understands or applies a passage of Scripture in a manner that contradicts another passage, he mishandles the text. Christ's argument here assumes the unity of Scripture, and even the devil does not challenge it.
On another occasion, as Jesus deals with the Pharisees, his challenge to them assumes the unity of Scripture and the law of noncontradiction:
'While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" "The son of David," they replied. He said to them, "How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him 'Lord'? For he says, 'The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.' If then David calls him 'Lord,' how can he be his
son?" No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.' (Matthew 22:41-46)" (Cheung).
The fact that Jesus brings up David's inspired words calling the Christ "Son" and "Lord", an apparent contradiction, speaks of Scripture's unity. Jesus knew His audience believed Scripture possesses unity. If it did not, his point would be meaningless. Scripture does not contradict itself. Vincent Cheung speaks of contradictions this way,
"It is futile to say that these doctrines (speaking of the "hypostatic union of Christ" and the Trinity - among others) are in perfect harmony in the mind of God, and only appear to be contradictions to human beings. As long as they remain contradictions, whether only in appearance or not, we cannot affirm both of them. And how can one distinguish between a real contradiction from an apparent one? If we must tolerate apparent contradictions, then we must tolerate all contradictions. Since without knowing the resolution, an apparent contradiction appears to be the same as a real one, to know that a "contradiction" is only so in appearance means that one has already resolved it, and then the term no longer applies."
Scripture's Infallibility
John 10:35 says, "the Scripture cannot be broken" and Luke 16:17 asserts, "It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law." Vincent Cheung states it like this: "The INFALLIBILITY of Scripture refers to an inability to err - the Bible cannot err. INERRANCY, on the other hand, emphasizes that the Bible does not err. The former refers to the potential, while the latter addresses the actual state of affairs. Strictly speaking, infallibility is the stronger word, and it entails inerrancy, but sometimes the two are interchangeable in usage."
Objections for Scripture's infallibility refer to the fallibility of man. But even though man is fallible, he is still capable of producing documents which do not err. Scripture is infallible and inerrant. It is correct in whatever it asserts regarding not only spiritual realm but the physical also. Scripture's statements regarding both historical and spiritual facts can not be separated. If Christ's resurrection did not happen the way Scripture says it did, then its spiritual significance can not be true. Denying the infallibility and/or inerrancy of Scripture also nullifies any epistemological position because there are no real grounds for knowing what is true and is falsehood within Scripture.
Scripture's Authority
The writers of Scripture used God and Scripture interchangeably:
"The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you…and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." (Genesis 12:1-3)
"The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you." (Galatians 3:8)
"Then the LORD said to Moses, "Get up early in the morning, confront Pharaoh and say to him, 'This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me…But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth…'" (Exodus 9:13-16)
"For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." (Romans 9:17)
God is the ultimate authority. The Scripture is what God has said, and Scripture is equal to God in its authority. Scripture, therefore, is the ultimate authority for the Christian.
Scripture's Necessity
Paul proclaims in 2 Timothy 3:15, "the holy Scriptures…are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." Paul also asserted earlier in this book that all men know God exists from birth. Although this knowledge is enough for the rejection of God culpable, it is not enough for salvation. As a bi-product of Scripture's proclaimation of salvation, it refers to and uses illustrations, circumstances, and facts regarding life in general. Without God and the Scriptures, knowledge is impossible.
Scripture's Clarity
Although Scripture is straightforward in its proclamation of Salvation, it is not always understandable by all in all matters. Scripture is not so easy to understand regardless of passage that no training in hermeneutics is necessary. And Scripture is not so difficult that only the "elite" can understand its meanings. Both positions on Scripture's clarity are dangerous.
Acts 8:30-31 says, "Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. "Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip asked. "How can I," he said, "unless someone explains it to me?" So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him."
Although someone can read and understand Scripture for salvation, the proclamation (or preaching) of the Word is necessary for further understanding. Philip explained the more complicated passage for the man for mere reading of the passage was difficult to understand.
Although the clarity of Scripture allows for every person to read and interpret Scripture, the need for teachers and preachers to proclaim and explain the Scriptures is not negated either.
Scripture's Sufficiency
Paul explicitly states, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17) Individuals may say the believe Scripture is sufficient, but their practical application of this belief negates their assertion. Instead of resting upon Scripture alone, some may look elsewhere for "divine" instruction such as astrology, divination, spiritism, and other avenues of unbiblical practices. Proverbs 3:5 & 6 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." Scripture asserts that Scripture is sufficient for everything in life for the Christian.
No other document or "holy book" can meet these characteristics that only Scripture inherently possesses. This is what the Christian asserts. This is what we believe. This is what is true.
Much of this study is taken from Vincent Cheung's Systematic Theology and other sources. I highly recommend further reading on these subjects.
There are some statements which seem to be true but in reality are false. These types of statement to which I refer are "self-refuting" statements. One popular such statement would be, "there are no absolutes." This is a self-refuting statement. If this statement is true, then it is false because it refutes itself by also being an absolute statement. John Frame discusses seven such self-refuting statements, and I would like to look at one of them; number five to be specific:
Some philosophical theories are said to be self-refuting because they set up conditions of meaning, rationality, and/or truth that they themselves are unable to meet. Ludwig Wittgenstein in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, for example, candidly admitted at the end that the propositions of his book did not measure up to his own criteria of meaning; so he suggested that those propositions were a kind of ladder that one throws away after he uses it to reach a higher vantage point. Later, the logical positivists insisted that a piece of language cannot meaningfully state an empirical fact (either truly or falsely) unless it is empirically verifiable by methods akin to those of natural science. But many observed that this “verification principle” itself could not be empirically verified in that way. That argument led to the demise of logical positivism as an influential philosophical movement.The basic idea of this specific self-refuting statement is that within itself, the proposed meaning, rationality, logic and/or truth seems to be true but the proposition purported is itself unattainable regardless of how well the argumentation is presented. Recognizing these types of statements is extremely important, particularly in the realm of theology because even though they may be logical in presentation and seem to be rational, they will lead to a wrong worldview at best and destruction at worst. Delving deeper into these thoughts, theology has two opposing claims with each side of the issue making a defense for their claim. Atheists essentially claim, 'There is no God,' while Theists believe in the existence of God. Both viewpoints present a presupposition and from their presupposition, they present arguments to justify their claim; they make an apology (or defense) of their claim. I stumbled upon a blog which, at the onset, presented a decent counter-argument for the use of the Cosmological Argument. You can read the complete argument here. Exbeliever (the author of this article) boils down the Cosmological Argument down to a single sentence, "The universe begins to exist, therefore the universe has a cause of existence." He continues, "In the first premise, the proponent of this argument appears to be making a category mistake. The theist says that "whatever [thing--the word is implicit]" that begins to exist must have a cause. The theist, then, switches that "thing" to "the universe." The problem, here, is that it may be inappropriate to treat the universe in the same way one treats some "thing" in the universe." He then proceeds by explaining what he means by presenting examples.
"Let me try another way of explaining this. I saw this "ball" in a toy store the other day. It is made of plastic pieces on joints. If a child pulled on the joints, the ball would begin to expand. The ball keeps expanding to a rather large ball and can retract to a small, dense ball. The inside of the ball is hollow. Many physicists believe the universe is similarly "ball-shaped." What the theist is doing is taking a rule that is true inside the ball and applying it to the conditions outside the ball. This may not, however, be the case. The outside conditions may be entirely unlike the inside conditions."Now let me deconstruct Exbeliever's argument by deconstructing his presupposition. To merely address his arguments would result in the deist's defeat. The presupposition itself must be addressed and refuted. His presupposition is that the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God is invalid because there may be other unknown elements which would prove the theist's presupposition as false. However, he speaks as if he already knows for a fact that there are elements which would disprove the theist's presupposition and presents them as truth. But the fact is, he presents a presupposition which itself can not be proved, therefore presents a self-refuting statement. Until we discover at least one of the unknown elements which would refute the deist's position, we must use all of the known elements within the created universe as not only the "law at play within a set [but] is true of the set itself." To present any argument apart from what is known within the universe is intellectually dishonest and self-refuting. The fact that the Atheist does not know the unknowns and is limited to what is known within the universe, he is from the very onset intellectually dishonest, and his presupposition is self-refuting. To read further on the Christian Worldview, please check out The Christian Worldview, Interpreting Scripture, and The Gospel Hermeneutic.
The first and only rule of interpreting Scripture is CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT. The context (or micro-context) of each verse sheds light on its meaning. John Piper says it this way,
"First, we must never assume that a particular phrase means exactly the same thing every place it occurs in Scripture. Good interpretation lets a word or phrase mean whatever the immediate context demands. What really matters in Scripture is not that a phrase everywhere have the same meaning but that the reality which a phrase describes does not contradict other descriptions of reality in the Bible." (emphasis mine)The reason I stress CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT is expressed as, "it is not merely men who speak in the Old Testament prophecies but God speaking through men and God knows all things, even what will happen centuries from now. Peter writes in his second letter (1:20, 21): "First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." Or as Paul put it in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All scripture is inspired by God . . ." It is a grand and wonderful doctrine of the Christian Church that in the writings of the Bible we do not hear the mere voices of men but we also hear God. The words of our text put it most forcefully of all: Acts 3:21, "Heaven must receive Jesus until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old." How can a man proclaim what will take place centuries later? A mere man can't. But men moved by the Spirit of God can." (emphasis mine) Scripture tells how it should be read and how it should be interpreted. When we come to Scripture with presupposition in hand, we can subject Scripture to eisegesis. The context of each verse expresses the exact meaning of the verse. Therefore the context will tell us whether a verse or passage should be read literally, figuratively, etc... If what Scripture says does not match up with our paradigm, then we must change our paradigm. If Scripture is our final authority, we should be willing to change our paradigm, otherwise Scripture ceases to be Scripture and we have relegated Scripture to man's religion. We must begin understanding how the New Testament handles interpretation before we move on to understanding how the Old Testament should be interpreted. We must begin with understanding the New Testament first for three reasons: (1) The New Testament does not render the Old Testament Scriptures obsolete. Rather, it is in the New Testament that the meaning and significance of the Old Testament become clear. (2) The New Testament provides the context by which we must interpret the Old Testament. (3) The New Testament provides the tools and understanding of how the Old Testament should be interpreted. But this approach, as with any other approach, is not without its warnings: John Piper warns,
"1) Beware of reading extraordinary meaning into unusual circumstances when there is no clear word of Scripture to guide your interpretation. When God intends his work to teach, he adds his word. 2) The other lesson is that we should never settle for a merely silent witness to Christ. How we live is crucial, but if God thought his own work needed verbal explanation, how much more ours. Second, since wisdom is found in the word of God, we must apply ourselves in study and meditation to know the word and do it. "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple." (Psalm 19:7). Therefore, we must devote ourselves to know and understand the testimonies of the Lord. And here I commend not only faithful Bible study but also regular reading of great books on theology and Biblical interpretation, books that distill the wisdom of the greatest students of the word over the past 1900 years."Piper continues,
"God shows himself by word and deed in the processes and events of human history, which is thus in the most literal sense “his story.” The Bible’s interpretation of the histories, communal and personal, that it records is the model for interpreting our own history, from the same redemption-centered point of view, in terms of which alone will the history of any Christian person ever make real sense. As George Marsden states Edwards’s position: History, according to Edwards, was in essence the communication of God’s redemptive love in Christ. The history of redemption was the very purpose of creation. Nothing in human history had significance on its own. . . . Christ’s saving love was the center of all history and defined its meaning. Human events took on significance only as they related to God’s redemptive action in bringing increasing numbers of human beings into the light of that love or as they illustrated human blindness in joining Satan’s warfare against all that was good."The Word Of God is the final authority in interpretation: "`The word of God ... is the only rule to direct us.' You cannot have a subordinate standard. You have one rule, and everything else is under the control of that rule. The Bible is the only touchstone. It judges the preaching. It judges the decrees of councils. It judges the creeds of the church. It judges even our interpretation of the Bible itself." Greg Koukl of Stand To Reason states, "Never read a Bible verse.""If there was one bit of wisdom, one rule of thumb, one single skill I could impart, one useful tip I could leave that would serve you well the rest of your life, what would it be? What is the single most important practical skill I've ever learned as a Christian? Here it is: Never read a Bible verse. That's right, never read a Bible verse. Instead, always read a paragraph–at least." (emphasis mine)Simply quoting a single verse really does not provide any information to truly understand its meaning. Remember two things in a debate or Scriptural argument: (1) Do not use single verses to prove a point. The presenter of an argument should not be resting wholly on a single verse or a string of single verses. This does not prove much. The verses become an assertion rather than an argument. If the assertion is not correct, it can be refuted by using the micro-context (or passage) in chich the specific verse occurs. (2) Use the micro-context (or passage) to prove a point. We must let Scripture speak for itself. Using the micro-context (or full passage) to present what Scripture itself is saying is key. Read the micro-context at face value. What does Scripture say? But we do not stop at the micro-context. Scriptural interpretation not only consists of the micro-context but the macro-context: (1) Interpret the immediate or micro-context. Understand the people, laws, traditions, their understanding of the circumstances, etc... (2) Interpret the micro-context in conjunction with the macro-context - the revelation of Christ Himself and His work.
About 100 people filled the lecture hall for the event. My opponent was Dr. Timothy Gordiner from the Institute for Humanist Studies. The topic for the debate was “The Ten Commandments and the Establishment Clause.” Each of us was given 15 minutes to present our “case.” Tim acknowledged the fact that he was a secular humanist and an atheist during his presentation. I began by giving my testimony and quoting John 3:16. I noted that Tim and I were coming from completely opposite world views – his beginning without God, and mine starting with a belief in God’s existence. I told how America was founded by people seeking freedom for religion, and how the first amendment protects that freedom. I maintained that the government acknowledging God did not “establish a religion”, but in fact was in keeping with our heritage. The Declaration of Independence includes this acknowledgment – “We hold these truths as being self-evident that all men are created equal and have been endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights…” Each of us was given 5 minutes to refute the other, and then we were asked questions from the audience for about 1 hour. One humanist asked me to explain what I meant by quoting John 3:16, specifically if I believed only Christians would receive “everlasting life.” A Jewish professor objected to my “intolerance of other religions.” I stood my ground, saying that Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). I noted that religious freedom means you have the right to accept or reject God’s offer of salvation, but do not have the right to change the consequences of that decision.
A presupposition is the absolute basis (the foundation) for a person's WorldView. The presupposition should inherently possess, through the deductive reasoning process, a proper epistemology or the source of knowledge itself.
Your presupposition is where you begin, as is. The moment you step away from your supposed presupposition, your presupposition ceases to be a presupposition and becomes an argument (or lack thereof) for your new presupposition.
Vincent Cheung states it this way,
bquote "You START from the content of your worldview AS IS -- that's the very
meaning of presuppositionalism -- and that's how your opponent must handle you. The only way to defeat a biblical presuppositionalist is for the presuppositionalist to STOP being a presuppositionalist. Whenever you seem to be in trouble in a debate, check on this point first, since it is likely that this is the mistake you are making."
The Christian WorldView is not merely asserting the existence of God but resting upon Scripture.
To merely assert "God exists" is only an assertion. How do you know God exists? A Christian who uses "God exists" as his presupposition still has no proper basis for his epistemology. This Christian ultimately ends up using something else (ultimately Scripture) as his source of evidence for the existence of God. His previous assertion ceases to be a presupposition.
Our interaction with God is through the Scriptures. "1 Proverbs 22:17-21 indicates that to trust the Lord is to trust his words." Those who claim to love God also should demonstrate their love by loving His Words (Psalm 119:97, 103 Psalm 19:9-10). The love for God's Word is the necessary foundation for the love for God. One's love for God is only as extensive as his love for God's Words.
If Scripture is the foundation of a Christian WorldView, how do we know the Bible is superior and reliable?
Answering this question properly is to explain the Bible's Nature, Inspiration, Unity, Infallibility, Authority, Necessity, Clarity, and Sufficiency.
Scripture's Nature
Scripture, in its very nature, is verbal. Pictures, illustrations, dreams, visions, and music do not possess content which produces the expected understanding of its content. Pictures of a cross tells nothing of its meaning to the viewer without a verbal explanation. Illustrations mean nothing without a verbal representation accompanying it. Jesus appearing before Saul of Tarsus without a word would have meant nothing. Saul understood Who was confronting him due to Jesus saying, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting" (Acts 9:3-6).
Scripture's Inspiration
Paul explains in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." All of Scripture proceeds directly from God Himself. In fact, Peter claimed Paul's own writings were inspired,
"Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." (2 Peter 3:15-16)
Peter also affirms that Scripture is from God and never the will of man (2 Peter 1:20-21). Even Jesus Himself stressed the extreme importance of Scripture (Matthew 5:18). "God exercised such precise control over the Bible's production that its content, to the very letter, is what he desired to set in writing." (Cheung. This does not mean God "dictated" Scripture to the writers like an employer dictates to a secretary, but God used them as instruments expressing exactly what He wanted inscribed.
Scripture's Unity
Scripture's inspiration assumes its unity. The source of a single divine author is manifested throughout Scripture. Jesus even assumes Scripture's unity:
"Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written: 'He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'" Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
(Matthew 4:5-7)
"Satan encourages Jesus to jump from the temple by citing Psalm 91:11-12. Jesus counters with Deuteronomy 6:16, implying that Satan's use of the passage contradicts the instruction from Deuteronomy, and therefore it is a misapplication. When one understands or applies a passage of Scripture in a manner that contradicts another passage, he mishandles the text. Christ's argument here assumes the unity of Scripture, and even the devil does not challenge it.
On another occasion, as Jesus deals with the Pharisees, his challenge to them assumes the unity of Scripture and the law of noncontradiction:
'While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" "The son of David," they replied. He said to them, "How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him 'Lord'? For he says, 'The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.' If then David calls him 'Lord,' how can he be his
son?" No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.' (Matthew 22:41-46)" (Cheung).
The fact that Jesus brings up David's inspired words calling the Christ "Son" and "Lord", an apparent contradiction, speaks of Scripture's unity. Jesus knew His audience believed Scripture possesses unity. If it did not, his point would be meaningless. Scripture does not contradict itself. Vincent Cheung speaks of contradictions this way,
"It is futile to say that these doctrines (speaking of the "hypostatic union of Christ" and the Trinity - among others) are in perfect harmony in the mind of God, and only appear to be contradictions to human beings. As long as they remain contradictions, whether only in appearance or not, we cannot affirm both of them. And how can one distinguish between a real contradiction from an apparent one? If we must tolerate apparent contradictions, then we must tolerate all contradictions. Since without knowing the resolution, an apparent contradiction appears to be the same as a real one, to know that a "contradiction" is only so in appearance means that one has already resolved it, and then the term no longer applies."
Scripture's Infallibility
John 10:35 says, "the Scripture cannot be broken" and Luke 16:17 asserts, "It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law." Vincent Cheung states it like this: "The INFALLIBILITY of Scripture refers to an inability to err - the Bible cannot err. INERRANCY, on the other hand, emphasizes that the Bible does not err. The former refers to the potential, while the latter addresses the actual state of affairs. Strictly speaking, infallibility is the stronger word, and it entails inerrancy, but sometimes the two are interchangeable in usage."
Objections for Scripture's infallibility refer to the fallibility of man. But even though man is fallible, he is still capable of producing documents which do not err. Scripture is infallible and inerrant. It is correct in whatever it asserts regarding not only spiritual realm but the physical also. Scripture's statements regarding both historical and spiritual facts can not be separated. If Christ's resurrection did not happen the way Scripture says it did, then its spiritual significance can not be true. Denying the infallibility and/or inerrancy of Scripture also nullifies any epistemological position because there are no real grounds for knowing what is true and is falsehood within Scripture.
Scripture's Authority
The writers of Scripture used God and Scripture interchangeably:
"The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you…and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." (Genesis 12:1-3)
"The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you." (Galatians 3:8)
"Then the LORD said to Moses, "Get up early in the morning, confront Pharaoh and say to him, 'This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me…But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth…'" (Exodus 9:13-16)
"For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." (Romans 9:17)
God is the ultimate authority. The Scripture is what God has said, and Scripture is equal to God in its authority. Scripture, therefore, is the ultimate authority for the Christian.
Scripture's Necessity
Paul proclaims in 2 Timothy 3:15, "the holy Scriptures…are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." Paul also asserted earlier in this book that all men know God exists from birth. Although this knowledge is enough for the rejection of God culpable, it is not enough for salvation. As a bi-product of Scripture's proclaimation of salvation, it refers to and uses illustrations, circumstances, and facts regarding life in general. Without God and the Scriptures, knowledge is impossible.
Scripture's Clarity
Although Scripture is straightforward in its proclamation of Salvation, it is not always understandable by all in all matters. Scripture is not so easy to understand regardless of passage that no training in hermeneutics is necessary. And Scripture is not so difficult that only the "elite" can understand its meanings. Both positions on Scripture's clarity are dangerous.
Acts 8:30-31 says, "Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. "Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip asked. "How can I," he said, "unless someone explains it to me?" So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him."
Although someone can read and understand Scripture for salvation, the proclamation (or preaching) of the Word is necessary for further understanding. Philip explained the more complicated passage for the man for mere reading of the passage was difficult to understand.
Although the clarity of Scripture allows for every person to read and interpret Scripture, the need for teachers and preachers to proclaim and explain the Scriptures is not negated either.
Scripture's Sufficiency
Paul explicitly states, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17) Individuals may say the believe Scripture is sufficient, but their practical application of this belief negates their assertion. Instead of resting upon Scripture alone, some may look elsewhere for "divine" instruction such as astrology, divination, spiritism, and other avenues of unbiblical practices. Proverbs 3:5 & 6 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." Scripture asserts that Scripture is sufficient for everything in life for the Christian.
No other document or "holy book" can meet these characteristics that only Scripture inherently possesses. This is what the Christian asserts. This is what we believe. This is what is true.
Much of this study is taken from Vincent Cheung's Systematic Theology and other sources. I highly recommend further reading on these subjects.
There are some statements which seem to be true but in reality are false. These types of statement to which I refer are "self-refuting" statements. One popular such statement would be, "there are no absolutes." This is a self-refuting statement. If this statement is true, then it is false because it refutes itself by also being an absolute statement. John Frame discusses seven such self-refuting statements, and I would like to look at one of them; number five to be specific:
Some philosophical theories are said to be self-refuting because they set up conditions of meaning, rationality, and/or truth that they themselves are unable to meet. Ludwig Wittgenstein in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, for example, candidly admitted at the end that the propositions of his book did not measure up to his own criteria of meaning; so he suggested that those propositions were a kind of ladder that one throws away after he uses it to reach a higher vantage point. Later, the logical positivists insisted that a piece of language cannot meaningfully state an empirical fact (either truly or falsely) unless it is empirically verifiable by methods akin to those of natural science. But many observed that this “verification principle” itself could not be empirically verified in that way. That argument led to the demise of logical positivism as an influential philosophical movement.The basic idea of this specific self-refuting statement is that within itself, the proposed meaning, rationality, logic and/or truth seems to be true but the proposition purported is itself unattainable regardless of how well the argumentation is presented. Recognizing these types of statements is extremely important, particularly in the realm of theology because even though they may be logical in presentation and seem to be rational, they will lead to a wrong worldview at best and destruction at worst. Delving deeper into these thoughts, theology has two opposing claims with each side of the issue making a defense for their claim. Atheists essentially claim, 'There is no God,' while Theists believe in the existence of God. Both viewpoints present a presupposition and from their presupposition, they present arguments to justify their claim; they make an apology (or defense) of their claim. I stumbled upon a blog which, at the onset, presented a decent counter-argument for the use of the Cosmological Argument. You can read the complete argument here. Exbeliever (the author of this article) boils down the Cosmological Argument down to a single sentence, "The universe begins to exist, therefore the universe has a cause of existence." He continues, "In the first premise, the proponent of this argument appears to be making a category mistake. The theist says that "whatever [thing--the word is implicit]" that begins to exist must have a cause. The theist, then, switches that "thing" to "the universe." The problem, here, is that it may be inappropriate to treat the universe in the same way one treats some "thing" in the universe." He then proceeds by explaining what he means by presenting examples.
"Let me try another way of explaining this. I saw this "ball" in a toy store the other day. It is made of plastic pieces on joints. If a child pulled on the joints, the ball would begin to expand. The ball keeps expanding to a rather large ball and can retract to a small, dense ball. The inside of the ball is hollow. Many physicists believe the universe is similarly "ball-shaped." What the theist is doing is taking a rule that is true inside the ball and applying it to the conditions outside the ball. This may not, however, be the case. The outside conditions may be entirely unlike the inside conditions."Now let me deconstruct Exbeliever's argument by deconstructing his presupposition. To merely address his arguments would result in the deist's defeat. The presupposition itself must be addressed and refuted. His presupposition is that the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God is invalid because there may be other unknown elements which would prove the theist's presupposition as false. However, he speaks as if he already knows for a fact that there are elements which would disprove the theist's presupposition and presents them as truth. But the fact is, he presents a presupposition which itself can not be proved, therefore presents a self-refuting statement. Until we discover at least one of the unknown elements which would refute the deist's position, we must use all of the known elements within the created universe as not only the "law at play within a set [but] is true of the set itself." To present any argument apart from what is known within the universe is intellectually dishonest and self-refuting. The fact that the Atheist does not know the unknowns and is limited to what is known within the universe, he is from the very onset intellectually dishonest, and his presupposition is self-refuting. To read further on the Christian Worldview, please check out The Christian Worldview, Interpreting Scripture, and The Gospel Hermeneutic.
The first and only rule of interpreting Scripture is CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT. The context (or micro-context) of each verse sheds light on its meaning. John Piper says it this way,
"First, we must never assume that a particular phrase means exactly the same thing every place it occurs in Scripture. Good interpretation lets a word or phrase mean whatever the immediate context demands. What really matters in Scripture is not that a phrase everywhere have the same meaning but that the reality which a phrase describes does not contradict other descriptions of reality in the Bible." (emphasis mine)The reason I stress CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT is expressed as, "it is not merely men who speak in the Old Testament prophecies but God speaking through men and God knows all things, even what will happen centuries from now. Peter writes in his second letter (1:20, 21): "First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." Or as Paul put it in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All scripture is inspired by God . . ." It is a grand and wonderful doctrine of the Christian Church that in the writings of the Bible we do not hear the mere voices of men but we also hear God. The words of our text put it most forcefully of all: Acts 3:21, "Heaven must receive Jesus until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old." How can a man proclaim what will take place centuries later? A mere man can't. But men moved by the Spirit of God can." (emphasis mine) Scripture tells how it should be read and how it should be interpreted. When we come to Scripture with presupposition in hand, we can subject Scripture to eisegesis. The context of each verse expresses the exact meaning of the verse. Therefore the context will tell us whether a verse or passage should be read literally, figuratively, etc... If what Scripture says does not match up with our paradigm, then we must change our paradigm. If Scripture is our final authority, we should be willing to change our paradigm, otherwise Scripture ceases to be Scripture and we have relegated Scripture to man's religion. We must begin understanding how the New Testament handles interpretation before we move on to understanding how the Old Testament should be interpreted. We must begin with understanding the New Testament first for three reasons: (1) The New Testament does not render the Old Testament Scriptures obsolete. Rather, it is in the New Testament that the meaning and significance of the Old Testament become clear. (2) The New Testament provides the context by which we must interpret the Old Testament. (3) The New Testament provides the tools and understanding of how the Old Testament should be interpreted. But this approach, as with any other approach, is not without its warnings: John Piper warns,
"1) Beware of reading extraordinary meaning into unusual circumstances when there is no clear word of Scripture to guide your interpretation. When God intends his work to teach, he adds his word. 2) The other lesson is that we should never settle for a merely silent witness to Christ. How we live is crucial, but if God thought his own work needed verbal explanation, how much more ours. Second, since wisdom is found in the word of God, we must apply ourselves in study and meditation to know the word and do it. "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple." (Psalm 19:7). Therefore, we must devote ourselves to know and understand the testimonies of the Lord. And here I commend not only faithful Bible study but also regular reading of great books on theology and Biblical interpretation, books that distill the wisdom of the greatest students of the word over the past 1900 years."Piper continues,
"God shows himself by word and deed in the processes and events of human history, which is thus in the most literal sense “his story.” The Bible’s interpretation of the histories, communal and personal, that it records is the model for interpreting our own history, from the same redemption-centered point of view, in terms of which alone will the history of any Christian person ever make real sense. As George Marsden states Edwards’s position: History, according to Edwards, was in essence the communication of God’s redemptive love in Christ. The history of redemption was the very purpose of creation. Nothing in human history had significance on its own. . . . Christ’s saving love was the center of all history and defined its meaning. Human events took on significance only as they related to God’s redemptive action in bringing increasing numbers of human beings into the light of that love or as they illustrated human blindness in joining Satan’s warfare against all that was good."The Word Of God is the final authority in interpretation: "`The word of God ... is the only rule to direct us.' You cannot have a subordinate standard. You have one rule, and everything else is under the control of that rule. The Bible is the only touchstone. It judges the preaching. It judges the decrees of councils. It judges the creeds of the church. It judges even our interpretation of the Bible itself." Greg Koukl of Stand To Reason states, "Never read a Bible verse.""If there was one bit of wisdom, one rule of thumb, one single skill I could impart, one useful tip I could leave that would serve you well the rest of your life, what would it be? What is the single most important practical skill I've ever learned as a Christian? Here it is: Never read a Bible verse. That's right, never read a Bible verse. Instead, always read a paragraph–at least." (emphasis mine)Simply quoting a single verse really does not provide any information to truly understand its meaning. Remember two things in a debate or Scriptural argument: (1) Do not use single verses to prove a point. The presenter of an argument should not be resting wholly on a single verse or a string of single verses. This does not prove much. The verses become an assertion rather than an argument. If the assertion is not correct, it can be refuted by using the micro-context (or passage) in chich the specific verse occurs. (2) Use the micro-context (or passage) to prove a point. We must let Scripture speak for itself. Using the micro-context (or full passage) to present what Scripture itself is saying is key. Read the micro-context at face value. What does Scripture say? But we do not stop at the micro-context. Scriptural interpretation not only consists of the micro-context but the macro-context: (1) Interpret the immediate or micro-context. Understand the people, laws, traditions, their understanding of the circumstances, etc... (2) Interpret the micro-context in conjunction with the macro-context - the revelation of Christ Himself and His work.
About 100 people filled the lecture hall for the event. My opponent was Dr. Timothy Gordiner from the Institute for Humanist Studies. The topic for the debate was “The Ten Commandments and the Establishment Clause.” Each of us was given 15 minutes to present our “case.” Tim acknowledged the fact that he was a secular humanist and an atheist during his presentation. I began by giving my testimony and quoting John 3:16. I noted that Tim and I were coming from completely opposite world views – his beginning without God, and mine starting with a belief in God’s existence. I told how America was founded by people seeking freedom for religion, and how the first amendment protects that freedom. I maintained that the government acknowledging God did not “establish a religion”, but in fact was in keeping with our heritage. The Declaration of Independence includes this acknowledgment – “We hold these truths as being self-evident that all men are created equal and have been endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights…” Each of us was given 5 minutes to refute the other, and then we were asked questions from the audience for about 1 hour. One humanist asked me to explain what I meant by quoting John 3:16, specifically if I believed only Christians would receive “everlasting life.” A Jewish professor objected to my “intolerance of other religions.” I stood my ground, saying that Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). I noted that religious freedom means you have the right to accept or reject God’s offer of salvation, but do not have the right to change the consequences of that decision.
A presupposition is the absolute basis (the foundation) for a person's WorldView. The presupposition should inherently possess, through the deductive reasoning process, a proper epistemology or the source of knowledge itself.
Your presupposition is where you begin, as is. The moment you step away from your supposed presupposition, your presupposition ceases to be a presupposition and becomes an argument (or lack thereof) for your new presupposition.
Vincent Cheung states it this way,
bquote "You START from the content of your worldview AS IS -- that's the very
meaning of presuppositionalism -- and that's how your opponent must handle you. The only way to defeat a biblical presuppositionalist is for the presuppositionalist to STOP being a presuppositionalist. Whenever you seem to be in trouble in a debate, check on this point first, since it is likely that this is the mistake you are making."
The Christian WorldView is not merely asserting the existence of God but resting upon Scripture.
To merely assert "God exists" is only an assertion. How do you know God exists? A Christian who uses "God exists" as his presupposition still has no proper basis for his epistemology. This Christian ultimately ends up using something else (ultimately Scripture) as his source of evidence for the existence of God. His previous assertion ceases to be a presupposition.
Our interaction with God is through the Scriptures. "1 Proverbs 22:17-21 indicates that to trust the Lord is to trust his words." Those who claim to love God also should demonstrate their love by loving His Words (Psalm 119:97, 103 Psalm 19:9-10). The love for God's Word is the necessary foundation for the love for God. One's love for God is only as extensive as his love for God's Words.
If Scripture is the foundation of a Christian WorldView, how do we know the Bible is superior and reliable?
Answering this question properly is to explain the Bible's Nature, Inspiration, Unity, Infallibility, Authority, Necessity, Clarity, and Sufficiency.
Scripture's Nature
Scripture, in its very nature, is verbal. Pictures, illustrations, dreams, visions, and music do not possess content which produces the expected understanding of its content. Pictures of a cross tells nothing of its meaning to the viewer without a verbal explanation. Illustrations mean nothing without a verbal representation accompanying it. Jesus appearing before Saul of Tarsus without a word would have meant nothing. Saul understood Who was confronting him due to Jesus saying, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting" (Acts 9:3-6).
Scripture's Inspiration
Paul explains in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." All of Scripture proceeds directly from God Himself. In fact, Peter claimed Paul's own writings were inspired,
"Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." (2 Peter 3:15-16)
Peter also affirms that Scripture is from God and never the will of man (2 Peter 1:20-21). Even Jesus Himself stressed the extreme importance of Scripture (Matthew 5:18). "God exercised such precise control over the Bible's production that its content, to the very letter, is what he desired to set in writing." (Cheung. This does not mean God "dictated" Scripture to the writers like an employer dictates to a secretary, but God used them as instruments expressing exactly what He wanted inscribed.
Scripture's Unity
Scripture's inspiration assumes its unity. The source of a single divine author is manifested throughout Scripture. Jesus even assumes Scripture's unity:
"Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written: 'He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'" Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
(Matthew 4:5-7)
"Satan encourages Jesus to jump from the temple by citing Psalm 91:11-12. Jesus counters with Deuteronomy 6:16, implying that Satan's use of the passage contradicts the instruction from Deuteronomy, and therefore it is a misapplication. When one understands or applies a passage of Scripture in a manner that contradicts another passage, he mishandles the text. Christ's argument here assumes the unity of Scripture, and even the devil does not challenge it.
On another occasion, as Jesus deals with the Pharisees, his challenge to them assumes the unity of Scripture and the law of noncontradiction:
'While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" "The son of David," they replied. He said to them, "How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him 'Lord'? For he says, 'The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.' If then David calls him 'Lord,' how can he be his
son?" No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.' (Matthew 22:41-46)" (Cheung).
The fact that Jesus brings up David's inspired words calling the Christ "Son" and "Lord", an apparent contradiction, speaks of Scripture's unity. Jesus knew His audience believed Scripture possesses unity. If it did not, his point would be meaningless. Scripture does not contradict itself. Vincent Cheung speaks of contradictions this way,
"It is futile to say that these doctrines (speaking of the "hypostatic union of Christ" and the Trinity - among others) are in perfect harmony in the mind of God, and only appear to be contradictions to human beings. As long as they remain contradictions, whether only in appearance or not, we cannot affirm both of them. And how can one distinguish between a real contradiction from an apparent one? If we must tolerate apparent contradictions, then we must tolerate all contradictions. Since without knowing the resolution, an apparent contradiction appears to be the same as a real one, to know that a "contradiction" is only so in appearance means that one has already resolved it, and then the term no longer applies."
Scripture's Infallibility
John 10:35 says, "the Scripture cannot be broken" and Luke 16:17 asserts, "It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law." Vincent Cheung states it like this: "The INFALLIBILITY of Scripture refers to an inability to err - the Bible cannot err. INERRANCY, on the other hand, emphasizes that the Bible does not err. The former refers to the potential, while the latter addresses the actual state of affairs. Strictly speaking, infallibility is the stronger word, and it entails inerrancy, but sometimes the two are interchangeable in usage."
Objections for Scripture's infallibility refer to the fallibility of man. But even though man is fallible, he is still capable of producing documents which do not err. Scripture is infallible and inerrant. It is correct in whatever it asserts regarding not only spiritual realm but the physical also. Scripture's statements regarding both historical and spiritual facts can not be separated. If Christ's resurrection did not happen the way Scripture says it did, then its spiritual significance can not be true. Denying the infallibility and/or inerrancy of Scripture also nullifies any epistemological position because there are no real grounds for knowing what is true and is falsehood within Scripture.
Scripture's Authority
The writers of Scripture used God and Scripture interchangeably:
"The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you…and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." (Genesis 12:1-3)
"The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you." (Galatians 3:8)
"Then the LORD said to Moses, "Get up early in the morning, confront Pharaoh and say to him, 'This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me…But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth…'" (Exodus 9:13-16)
"For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." (Romans 9:17)
God is the ultimate authority. The Scripture is what God has said, and Scripture is equal to God in its authority. Scripture, therefore, is the ultimate authority for the Christian.
Scripture's Necessity
Paul proclaims in 2 Timothy 3:15, "the holy Scriptures…are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." Paul also asserted earlier in this book that all men know God exists from birth. Although this knowledge is enough for the rejection of God culpable, it is not enough for salvation. As a bi-product of Scripture's proclaimation of salvation, it refers to and uses illustrations, circumstances, and facts regarding life in general. Without God and the Scriptures, knowledge is impossible.
Scripture's Clarity
Although Scripture is straightforward in its proclamation of Salvation, it is not always understandable by all in all matters. Scripture is not so easy to understand regardless of passage that no training in hermeneutics is necessary. And Scripture is not so difficult that only the "elite" can understand its meanings. Both positions on Scripture's clarity are dangerous.
Acts 8:30-31 says, "Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. "Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip asked. "How can I," he said, "unless someone explains it to me?" So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him."
Although someone can read and understand Scripture for salvation, the proclamation (or preaching) of the Word is necessary for further understanding. Philip explained the more complicated passage for the man for mere reading of the passage was difficult to understand.
Although the clarity of Scripture allows for every person to read and interpret Scripture, the need for teachers and preachers to proclaim and explain the Scriptures is not negated either.
Scripture's Sufficiency
Paul explicitly states, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17) Individuals may say the believe Scripture is sufficient, but their practical application of this belief negates their assertion. Instead of resting upon Scripture alone, some may look elsewhere for "divine" instruction such as astrology, divination, spiritism, and other avenues of unbiblical practices. Proverbs 3:5 & 6 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." Scripture asserts that Scripture is sufficient for everything in life for the Christian.
No other document or "holy book" can meet these characteristics that only Scripture inherently possesses. This is what the Christian asserts. This is what we believe. This is what is true.
Much of this study is taken from Vincent Cheung's Systematic Theology and other sources. I highly recommend further reading on these subjects.
There are some statements which seem to be true but in reality are false. These types of statement to which I refer are "self-refuting" statements. One popular such statement would be, "there are no absolutes." This is a self-refuting statement. If this statement is true, then it is false because it refutes itself by also being an absolute statement. John Frame discusses seven such self-refuting statements, and I would like to look at one of them; number five to be specific:
Some philosophical theories are said to be self-refuting because they set up conditions of meaning, rationality, and/or truth that they themselves are unable to meet. Ludwig Wittgenstein in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, for example, candidly admitted at the end that the propositions of his book did not measure up to his own criteria of meaning; so he suggested that those propositions were a kind of ladder that one throws away after he uses it to reach a higher vantage point. Later, the logical positivists insisted that a piece of language cannot meaningfully state an empirical fact (either truly or falsely) unless it is empirically verifiable by methods akin to those of natural science. But many observed that this “verification principle” itself could not be empirically verified in that way. That argument led to the demise of logical positivism as an influential philosophical movement.The basic idea of this specific self-refuting statement is that within itself, the proposed meaning, rationality, logic and/or truth seems to be true but the proposition purported is itself unattainable regardless of how well the argumentation is presented. Recognizing these types of statements is extremely important, particularly in the realm of theology because even though they may be logical in presentation and seem to be rational, they will lead to a wrong worldview at best and destruction at worst. Delving deeper into these thoughts, theology has two opposing claims with each side of the issue making a defense for their claim. Atheists essentially claim, 'There is no God,' while Theists believe in the existence of God. Both viewpoints present a presupposition and from their presupposition, they present arguments to justify their claim; they make an apology (or defense) of their claim. I stumbled upon a blog which, at the onset, presented a decent counter-argument for the use of the Cosmological Argument. You can read the complete argument here. Exbeliever (the author of this article) boils down the Cosmological Argument down to a single sentence, "The universe begins to exist, therefore the universe has a cause of existence." He continues, "In the first premise, the proponent of this argument appears to be making a category mistake. The theist says that "whatever [thing--the word is implicit]" that begins to exist must have a cause. The theist, then, switches that "thing" to "the universe." The problem, here, is that it may be inappropriate to treat the universe in the same way one treats some "thing" in the universe." He then proceeds by explaining what he means by presenting examples.
"Let me try another way of explaining this. I saw this "ball" in a toy store the other day. It is made of plastic pieces on joints. If a child pulled on the joints, the ball would begin to expand. The ball keeps expanding to a rather large ball and can retract to a small, dense ball. The inside of the ball is hollow. Many physicists believe the universe is similarly "ball-shaped." What the theist is doing is taking a rule that is true inside the ball and applying it to the conditions outside the ball. This may not, however, be the case. The outside conditions may be entirely unlike the inside conditions."Now let me deconstruct Exbeliever's argument by deconstructing his presupposition. To merely address his arguments would result in the deist's defeat. The presupposition itself must be addressed and refuted. His presupposition is that the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God is invalid because there may be other unknown elements which would prove the theist's presupposition as false. However, he speaks as if he already knows for a fact that there are elements which would disprove the theist's presupposition and presents them as truth. But the fact is, he presents a presupposition which itself can not be proved, therefore presents a self-refuting statement. Until we discover at least one of the unknown elements which would refute the deist's position, we must use all of the known elements within the created universe as not only the "law at play within a set [but] is true of the set itself." To present any argument apart from what is known within the universe is intellectually dishonest and self-refuting. The fact that the Atheist does not know the unknowns and is limited to what is known within the universe, he is from the very onset intellectually dishonest, and his presupposition is self-refuting. To read further on the Christian Worldview, please check out The Christian Worldview, Interpreting Scripture, and The Gospel Hermeneutic.
The first and only rule of interpreting Scripture is CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT. The context (or micro-context) of each verse sheds light on its meaning. John Piper says it this way,
"First, we must never assume that a particular phrase means exactly the same thing every place it occurs in Scripture. Good interpretation lets a word or phrase mean whatever the immediate context demands. What really matters in Scripture is not that a phrase everywhere have the same meaning but that the reality which a phrase describes does not contradict other descriptions of reality in the Bible." (emphasis mine)The reason I stress CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT is expressed as, "it is not merely men who speak in the Old Testament prophecies but God speaking through men and God knows all things, even what will happen centuries from now. Peter writes in his second letter (1:20, 21): "First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." Or as Paul put it in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All scripture is inspired by God . . ." It is a grand and wonderful doctrine of the Christian Church that in the writings of the Bible we do not hear the mere voices of men but we also hear God. The words of our text put it most forcefully of all: Acts 3:21, "Heaven must receive Jesus until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old." How can a man proclaim what will take place centuries later? A mere man can't. But men moved by the Spirit of God can." (emphasis mine) Scripture tells how it should be read and how it should be interpreted. When we come to Scripture with presupposition in hand, we can subject Scripture to eisegesis. The context of each verse expresses the exact meaning of the verse. Therefore the context will tell us whether a verse or passage should be read literally, figuratively, etc... If what Scripture says does not match up with our paradigm, then we must change our paradigm. If Scripture is our final authority, we should be willing to change our paradigm, otherwise Scripture ceases to be Scripture and we have relegated Scripture to man's religion. We must begin understanding how the New Testament handles interpretation before we move on to understanding how the Old Testament should be interpreted. We must begin with understanding the New Testament first for three reasons: (1) The New Testament does not render the Old Testament Scriptures obsolete. Rather, it is in the New Testament that the meaning and significance of the Old Testament become clear. (2) The New Testament provides the context by which we must interpret the Old Testament. (3) The New Testament provides the tools and understanding of how the Old Testament should be interpreted. But this approach, as with any other approach, is not without its warnings: John Piper warns,
"1) Beware of reading extraordinary meaning into unusual circumstances when there is no clear word of Scripture to guide your interpretation. When God intends his work to teach, he adds his word. 2) The other lesson is that we should never settle for a merely silent witness to Christ. How we live is crucial, but if God thought his own work needed verbal explanation, how much more ours. Second, since wisdom is found in the word of God, we must apply ourselves in study and meditation to know the word and do it. "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple." (Psalm 19:7). Therefore, we must devote ourselves to know and understand the testimonies of the Lord. And here I commend not only faithful Bible study but also regular reading of great books on theology and Biblical interpretation, books that distill the wisdom of the greatest students of the word over the past 1900 years."Piper continues,
"God shows himself by word and deed in the processes and events of human history, which is thus in the most literal sense “his story.” The Bible’s interpretation of the histories, communal and personal, that it records is the model for interpreting our own history, from the same redemption-centered point of view, in terms of which alone will the history of any Christian person ever make real sense. As George Marsden states Edwards’s position: History, according to Edwards, was in essence the communication of God’s redemptive love in Christ. The history of redemption was the very purpose of creation. Nothing in human history had significance on its own. . . . Christ’s saving love was the center of all history and defined its meaning. Human events took on significance only as they related to God’s redemptive action in bringing increasing numbers of human beings into the light of that love or as they illustrated human blindness in joining Satan’s warfare against all that was good."The Word Of God is the final authority in interpretation: "`The word of God ... is the only rule to direct us.' You cannot have a subordinate standard. You have one rule, and everything else is under the control of that rule. The Bible is the only touchstone. It judges the preaching. It judges the decrees of councils. It judges the creeds of the church. It judges even our interpretation of the Bible itself." Greg Koukl of Stand To Reason states, "Never read a Bible verse.""If there was one bit of wisdom, one rule of thumb, one single skill I could impart, one useful tip I could leave that would serve you well the rest of your life, what would it be? What is the single most important practical skill I've ever learned as a Christian? Here it is: Never read a Bible verse. That's right, never read a Bible verse. Instead, always read a paragraph–at least." (emphasis mine)Simply quoting a single verse really does not provide any information to truly understand its meaning. Remember two things in a debate or Scriptural argument: (1) Do not use single verses to prove a point. The presenter of an argument should not be resting wholly on a single verse or a string of single verses. This does not prove much. The verses become an assertion rather than an argument. If the assertion is not correct, it can be refuted by using the micro-context (or passage) in chich the specific verse occurs. (2) Use the micro-context (or passage) to prove a point. We must let Scripture speak for itself. Using the micro-context (or full passage) to present what Scripture itself is saying is key. Read the micro-context at face value. What does Scripture say? But we do not stop at the micro-context. Scriptural interpretation not only consists of the micro-context but the macro-context: (1) Interpret the immediate or micro-context. Understand the people, laws, traditions, their understanding of the circumstances, etc... (2) Interpret the micro-context in conjunction with the macro-context - the revelation of Christ Himself and His work.
About 100 people filled the lecture hall for the event. My opponent was Dr. Timothy Gordiner from the Institute for Humanist Studies. The topic for the debate was “The Ten Commandments and the Establishment Clause.” Each of us was given 15 minutes to present our “case.” Tim acknowledged the fact that he was a secular humanist and an atheist during his presentation. I began by giving my testimony and quoting John 3:16. I noted that Tim and I were coming from completely opposite world views – his beginning without God, and mine starting with a belief in God’s existence. I told how America was founded by people seeking freedom for religion, and how the first amendment protects that freedom. I maintained that the government acknowledging God did not “establish a religion”, but in fact was in keeping with our heritage. The Declaration of Independence includes this acknowledgment – “We hold these truths as being self-evident that all men are created equal and have been endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights…” Each of us was given 5 minutes to refute the other, and then we were asked questions from the audience for about 1 hour. One humanist asked me to explain what I meant by quoting John 3:16, specifically if I believed only Christians would receive “everlasting life.” A Jewish professor objected to my “intolerance of other religions.” I stood my ground, saying that Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). I noted that religious freedom means you have the right to accept or reject God’s offer of salvation, but do not have the right to change the consequences of that decision.
A presupposition is the absolute basis (the foundation) for a person's WorldView. The presupposition should inherently possess, through the deductive reasoning process, a proper epistemology or the source of knowledge itself.
Your presupposition is where you begin, as is. The moment you step away from your supposed presupposition, your presupposition ceases to be a presupposition and becomes an argument (or lack thereof) for your new presupposition.
Vincent Cheung states it this way,
bquote "You START from the content of your worldview AS IS -- that's the very
meaning of presuppositionalism -- and that's how your opponent must handle you. The only way to defeat a biblical presuppositionalist is for the presuppositionalist to STOP being a presuppositionalist. Whenever you seem to be in trouble in a debate, check on this point first, since it is likely that this is the mistake you are making."
The Christian WorldView is not merely asserting the existence of God but resting upon Scripture.
To merely assert "God exists" is only an assertion. How do you know God exists? A Christian who uses "God exists" as his presupposition still has no proper basis for his epistemology. This Christian ultimately ends up using something else (ultimately Scripture) as his source of evidence for the existence of God. His previous assertion ceases to be a presupposition.
Our interaction with God is through the Scriptures. "1 Proverbs 22:17-21 indicates that to trust the Lord is to trust his words." Those who claim to love God also should demonstrate their love by loving His Words (Psalm 119:97, 103 Psalm 19:9-10). The love for God's Word is the necessary foundation for the love for God. One's love for God is only as extensive as his love for God's Words.
If Scripture is the foundation of a Christian WorldView, how do we know the Bible is superior and reliable?
Answering this question properly is to explain the Bible's Nature, Inspiration, Unity, Infallibility, Authority, Necessity, Clarity, and Sufficiency.
Scripture's Nature
Scripture, in its very nature, is verbal. Pictures, illustrations, dreams, visions, and music do not possess content which produces the expected understanding of its content. Pictures of a cross tells nothing of its meaning to the viewer without a verbal explanation. Illustrations mean nothing without a verbal representation accompanying it. Jesus appearing before Saul of Tarsus without a word would have meant nothing. Saul understood Who was confronting him due to Jesus saying, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting" (Acts 9:3-6).
Scripture's Inspiration
Paul explains in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." All of Scripture proceeds directly from God Himself. In fact, Peter claimed Paul's own writings were inspired,
"Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." (2 Peter 3:15-16)
Peter also affirms that Scripture is from God and never the will of man (2 Peter 1:20-21). Even Jesus Himself stressed the extreme importance of Scripture (Matthew 5:18). "God exercised such precise control over the Bible's production that its content, to the very letter, is what he desired to set in writing." (Cheung. This does not mean God "dictated" Scripture to the writers like an employer dictates to a secretary, but God used them as instruments expressing exactly what He wanted inscribed.
Scripture's Unity
Scripture's inspiration assumes its unity. The source of a single divine author is manifested throughout Scripture. Jesus even assumes Scripture's unity:
"Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written: 'He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'" Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
(Matthew 4:5-7)
"Satan encourages Jesus to jump from the temple by citing Psalm 91:11-12. Jesus counters with Deuteronomy 6:16, implying that Satan's use of the passage contradicts the instruction from Deuteronomy, and therefore it is a misapplication. When one understands or applies a passage of Scripture in a manner that contradicts another passage, he mishandles the text. Christ's argument here assumes the unity of Scripture, and even the devil does not challenge it.
On another occasion, as Jesus deals with the Pharisees, his challenge to them assumes the unity of Scripture and the law of noncontradiction:
'While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" "The son of David," they replied. He said to them, "How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him 'Lord'? For he says, 'The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.' If then David calls him 'Lord,' how can he be his
son?" No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.' (Matthew 22:41-46)" (Cheung).
The fact that Jesus brings up David's inspired words calling the Christ "Son" and "Lord", an apparent contradiction, speaks of Scripture's unity. Jesus knew His audience believed Scripture possesses unity. If it did not, his point would be meaningless. Scripture does not contradict itself. Vincent Cheung speaks of contradictions this way,
"It is futile to say that these doctrines (speaking of the "hypostatic union of Christ" and the Trinity - among others) are in perfect harmony in the mind of God, and only appear to be contradictions to human beings. As long as they remain contradictions, whether only in appearance or not, we cannot affirm both of them. And how can one distinguish between a real contradiction from an apparent one? If we must tolerate apparent contradictions, then we must tolerate all contradictions. Since without knowing the resolution, an apparent contradiction appears to be the same as a real one, to know that a "contradiction" is only so in appearance means that one has already resolved it, and then the term no longer applies."
Scripture's Infallibility
John 10:35 says, "the Scripture cannot be broken" and Luke 16:17 asserts, "It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law." Vincent Cheung states it like this: "The INFALLIBILITY of Scripture refers to an inability to err - the Bible cannot err. INERRANCY, on the other hand, emphasizes that the Bible does not err. The former refers to the potential, while the latter addresses the actual state of affairs. Strictly speaking, infallibility is the stronger word, and it entails inerrancy, but sometimes the two are interchangeable in usage."
Objections for Scripture's infallibility refer to the fallibility of man. But even though man is fallible, he is still capable of producing documents which do not err. Scripture is infallible and inerrant. It is correct in whatever it asserts regarding not only spiritual realm but the physical also. Scripture's statements regarding both historical and spiritual facts can not be separated. If Christ's resurrection did not happen the way Scripture says it did, then its spiritual significance can not be true. Denying the infallibility and/or inerrancy of Scripture also nullifies any epistemological position because there are no real grounds for knowing what is true and is falsehood within Scripture.
Scripture's Authority
The writers of Scripture used God and Scripture interchangeably:
"The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you…and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." (Genesis 12:1-3)
"The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you." (Galatians 3:8)
"Then the LORD said to Moses, "Get up early in the morning, confront Pharaoh and say to him, 'This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me…But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth…'" (Exodus 9:13-16)
"For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." (Romans 9:17)
God is the ultimate authority. The Scripture is what God has said, and Scripture is equal to God in its authority. Scripture, therefore, is the ultimate authority for the Christian.
Scripture's Necessity
Paul proclaims in 2 Timothy 3:15, "the holy Scriptures…are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." Paul also asserted earlier in this book that all men know God exists from birth. Although this knowledge is enough for the rejection of God culpable, it is not enough for salvation. As a bi-product of Scripture's proclaimation of salvation, it refers to and uses illustrations, circumstances, and facts regarding life in general. Without God and the Scriptures, knowledge is impossible.
Scripture's Clarity
Although Scripture is straightforward in its proclamation of Salvation, it is not always understandable by all in all matters. Scripture is not so easy to understand regardless of passage that no training in hermeneutics is necessary. And Scripture is not so difficult that only the "elite" can understand its meanings. Both positions on Scripture's clarity are dangerous.
Acts 8:30-31 says, "Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. "Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip asked. "How can I," he said, "unless someone explains it to me?" So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him."
Although someone can read and understand Scripture for salvation, the proclamation (or preaching) of the Word is necessary for further understanding. Philip explained the more complicated passage for the man for mere reading of the passage was difficult to understand.
Although the clarity of Scripture allows for every person to read and interpret Scripture, the need for teachers and preachers to proclaim and explain the Scriptures is not negated either.
Scripture's Sufficiency
Paul explicitly states, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17) Individuals may say the believe Scripture is sufficient, but their practical application of this belief negates their assertion. Instead of resting upon Scripture alone, some may look elsewhere for "divine" instruction such as astrology, divination, spiritism, and other avenues of unbiblical practices. Proverbs 3:5 & 6 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." Scripture asserts that Scripture is sufficient for everything in life for the Christian.
No other document or "holy book" can meet these characteristics that only Scripture inherently possesses. This is what the Christian asserts. This is what we believe. This is what is true.
Much of this study is taken from Vincent Cheung's Systematic Theology and other sources. I highly recommend further reading on these subjects.
There are some statements which seem to be true but in reality are false. These types of statement to which I refer are "self-refuting" statements. One popular such statement would be, "there are no absolutes." This is a self-refuting statement. If this statement is true, then it is false because it refutes itself by also being an absolute statement. John Frame discusses seven such self-refuting statements, and I would like to look at one of them; number five to be specific:
Some philosophical theories are said to be self-refuting because they set up conditions of meaning, rationality, and/or truth that they themselves are unable to meet. Ludwig Wittgenstein in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, for example, candidly admitted at the end that the propositions of his book did not measure up to his own criteria of meaning; so he suggested that those propositions were a kind of ladder that one throws away after he uses it to reach a higher vantage point. Later, the logical positivists insisted that a piece of language cannot meaningfully state an empirical fact (either truly or falsely) unless it is empirically verifiable by methods akin to those of natural science. But many observed that this “verification principle” itself could not be empirically verified in that way. That argument led to the demise of logical positivism as an influential philosophical movement.The basic idea of this specific self-refuting statement is that within itself, the proposed meaning, rationality, logic and/or truth seems to be true but the proposition purported is itself unattainable regardless of how well the argumentation is presented. Recognizing these types of statements is extremely important, particularly in the realm of theology because even though they may be logical in presentation and seem to be rational, they will lead to a wrong worldview at best and destruction at worst. Delving deeper into these thoughts, theology has two opposing claims with each side of the issue making a defense for their claim. Atheists essentially claim, 'There is no God,' while Theists believe in the existence of God. Both viewpoints present a presupposition and from their presupposition, they present arguments to justify their claim; they make an apology (or defense) of their claim. I stumbled upon a blog which, at the onset, presented a decent counter-argument for the use of the Cosmological Argument. You can read the complete argument here. Exbeliever (the author of this article) boils down the Cosmological Argument down to a single sentence, "The universe begins to exist, therefore the universe has a cause of existence." He continues, "In the first premise, the proponent of this argument appears to be making a category mistake. The theist says that "whatever [thing--the word is implicit]" that begins to exist must have a cause. The theist, then, switches that "thing" to "the universe." The problem, here, is that it may be inappropriate to treat the universe in the same way one treats some "thing" in the universe." He then proceeds by explaining what he means by presenting examples.
"Let me try another way of explaining this. I saw this "ball" in a toy store the other day. It is made of plastic pieces on joints. If a child pulled on the joints, the ball would begin to expand. The ball keeps expanding to a rather large ball and can retract to a small, dense ball. The inside of the ball is hollow. Many physicists believe the universe is similarly "ball-shaped." What the theist is doing is taking a rule that is true inside the ball and applying it to the conditions outside the ball. This may not, however, be the case. The outside conditions may be entirely unlike the inside conditions."Now let me deconstruct Exbeliever's argument by deconstructing his presupposition. To merely address his arguments would result in the deist's defeat. The presupposition itself must be addressed and refuted. His presupposition is that the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God is invalid because there may be other unknown elements which would prove the theist's presupposition as false. However, he speaks as if he already knows for a fact that there are elements which would disprove the theist's presupposition and presents them as truth. But the fact is, he presents a presupposition which itself can not be proved, therefore presents a self-refuting statement. Until we discover at least one of the unknown elements which would refute the deist's position, we must use all of the known elements within the created universe as not only the "law at play within a set [but] is true of the set itself." To present any argument apart from what is known within the universe is intellectually dishonest and self-refuting. The fact that the Atheist does not know the unknowns and is limited to what is known within the universe, he is from the very onset intellectually dishonest, and his presupposition is self-refuting. To read further on the Christian Worldview, please check out The Christian Worldview, Interpreting Scripture, and The Gospel Hermeneutic.
The first and only rule of interpreting Scripture is CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT. The context (or micro-context) of each verse sheds light on its meaning. John Piper says it this way,
"First, we must never assume that a particular phrase means exactly the same thing every place it occurs in Scripture. Good interpretation lets a word or phrase mean whatever the immediate context demands. What really matters in Scripture is not that a phrase everywhere have the same meaning but that the reality which a phrase describes does not contradict other descriptions of reality in the Bible." (emphasis mine)The reason I stress CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT is expressed as, "it is not merely men who speak in the Old Testament prophecies but God speaking through men and God knows all things, even what will happen centuries from now. Peter writes in his second letter (1:20, 21): "First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." Or as Paul put it in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All scripture is inspired by God . . ." It is a grand and wonderful doctrine of the Christian Church that in the writings of the Bible we do not hear the mere voices of men but we also hear God. The words of our text put it most forcefully of all: Acts 3:21, "Heaven must receive Jesus until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old." How can a man proclaim what will take place centuries later? A mere man can't. But men moved by the Spirit of God can." (emphasis mine) Scripture tells how it should be read and how it should be interpreted. When we come to Scripture with presupposition in hand, we can subject Scripture to eisegesis. The context of each verse expresses the exact meaning of the verse. Therefore the context will tell us whether a verse or passage should be read literally, figuratively, etc... If what Scripture says does not match up with our paradigm, then we must change our paradigm. If Scripture is our final authority, we should be willing to change our paradigm, otherwise Scripture ceases to be Scripture and we have relegated Scripture to man's religion. We must begin understanding how the New Testament handles interpretation before we move on to understanding how the Old Testament should be interpreted. We must begin with understanding the New Testament first for three reasons: (1) The New Testament does not render the Old Testament Scriptures obsolete. Rather, it is in the New Testament that the meaning and significance of the Old Testament become clear. (2) The New Testament provides the context by which we must interpret the Old Testament. (3) The New Testament provides the tools and understanding of how the Old Testament should be interpreted. But this approach, as with any other approach, is not without its warnings: John Piper warns,
"1) Beware of reading extraordinary meaning into unusual circumstances when there is no clear word of Scripture to guide your interpretation. When God intends his work to teach, he adds his word. 2) The other lesson is that we should never settle for a merely silent witness to Christ. How we live is crucial, but if God thought his own work needed verbal explanation, how much more ours. Second, since wisdom is found in the word of God, we must apply ourselves in study and meditation to know the word and do it. "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple." (Psalm 19:7). Therefore, we must devote ourselves to know and understand the testimonies of the Lord. And here I commend not only faithful Bible study but also regular reading of great books on theology and Biblical interpretation, books that distill the wisdom of the greatest students of the word over the past 1900 years."Piper continues,
"God shows himself by word and deed in the processes and events of human history, which is thus in the most literal sense “his story.” The Bible’s interpretation of the histories, communal and personal, that it records is the model for interpreting our own history, from the same redemption-centered point of view, in terms of which alone will the history of any Christian person ever make real sense. As George Marsden states Edwards’s position: History, according to Edwards, was in essence the communication of God’s redemptive love in Christ. The history of redemption was the very purpose of creation. Nothing in human history had significance on its own. . . . Christ’s saving love was the center of all history and defined its meaning. Human events took on significance only as they related to God’s redemptive action in bringing increasing numbers of human beings into the light of that love or as they illustrated human blindness in joining Satan’s warfare against all that was good."The Word Of God is the final authority in interpretation: "`The word of God ... is the only rule to direct us.' You cannot have a subordinate standard. You have one rule, and everything else is under the control of that rule. The Bible is the only touchstone. It judges the preaching. It judges the decrees of councils. It judges the creeds of the church. It judges even our interpretation of the Bible itself." Greg Koukl of Stand To Reason states, "Never read a Bible verse.""If there was one bit of wisdom, one rule of thumb, one single skill I could impart, one useful tip I could leave that would serve you well the rest of your life, what would it be? What is the single most important practical skill I've ever learned as a Christian? Here it is: Never read a Bible verse. That's right, never read a Bible verse. Instead, always read a paragraph–at least." (emphasis mine)Simply quoting a single verse really does not provide any information to truly understand its meaning. Remember two things in a debate or Scriptural argument: (1) Do not use single verses to prove a point. The presenter of an argument should not be resting wholly on a single verse or a string of single verses. This does not prove much. The verses become an assertion rather than an argument. If the assertion is not correct, it can be refuted by using the micro-context (or passage) in chich the specific verse occurs. (2) Use the micro-context (or passage) to prove a point. We must let Scripture speak for itself. Using the micro-context (or full passage) to present what Scripture itself is saying is key. Read the micro-context at face value. What does Scripture say? But we do not stop at the micro-context. Scriptural interpretation not only consists of the micro-context but the macro-context: (1) Interpret the immediate or micro-context. Understand the people, laws, traditions, their understanding of the circumstances, etc... (2) Interpret the micro-context in conjunction with the macro-context - the revelation of Christ Himself and His work.
About 100 people filled the lecture hall for the event. My opponent was Dr. Timothy Gordiner from the Institute for Humanist Studies. The topic for the debate was “The Ten Commandments and the Establishment Clause.” Each of us was given 15 minutes to present our “case.” Tim acknowledged the fact that he was a secular humanist and an atheist during his presentation. I began by giving my testimony and quoting John 3:16. I noted that Tim and I were coming from completely opposite world views – his beginning without God, and mine starting with a belief in God’s existence. I told how America was founded by people seeking freedom for religion, and how the first amendment protects that freedom. I maintained that the government acknowledging God did not “establish a religion”, but in fact was in keeping with our heritage. The Declaration of Independence includes this acknowledgment – “We hold these truths as being self-evident that all men are created equal and have been endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights…” Each of us was given 5 minutes to refute the other, and then we were asked questions from the audience for about 1 hour. One humanist asked me to explain what I meant by quoting John 3:16, specifically if I believed only Christians would receive “everlasting life.” A Jewish professor objected to my “intolerance of other religions.” I stood my ground, saying that Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). I noted that religious freedom means you have the right to accept or reject God’s offer of salvation, but do not have the right to change the consequences of that decision.
A presupposition is the absolute basis (the foundation) for a person's WorldView. The presupposition should inherently possess, through the deductive reasoning process, a proper epistemology or the source of knowledge itself.
Your presupposition is where you begin, as is. The moment you step away from your supposed presupposition, your presupposition ceases to be a presupposition and becomes an argument (or lack thereof) for your new presupposition.
Vincent Cheung states it this way,
bquote "You START from the content of your worldview AS IS -- that's the very
meaning of presuppositionalism -- and that's how your opponent must handle you. The only way to defeat a biblical presuppositionalist is for the presuppositionalist to STOP being a presuppositionalist. Whenever you seem to be in trouble in a debate, check on this point first, since it is likely that this is the mistake you are making."
The Christian WorldView is not merely asserting the existence of God but resting upon Scripture.
To merely assert "God exists" is only an assertion. How do you know God exists? A Christian who uses "God exists" as his presupposition still has no proper basis for his epistemology. This Christian ultimately ends up using something else (ultimately Scripture) as his source of evidence for the existence of God. His previous assertion ceases to be a presupposition.
Our interaction with God is through the Scriptures. "1 Proverbs 22:17-21 indicates that to trust the Lord is to trust his words." Those who claim to love God also should demonstrate their love by loving His Words (Psalm 119:97, 103 Psalm 19:9-10). The love for God's Word is the necessary foundation for the love for God. One's love for God is only as extensive as his love for God's Words.
If Scripture is the foundation of a Christian WorldView, how do we know the Bible is superior and reliable?
Answering this question properly is to explain the Bible's Nature, Inspiration, Unity, Infallibility, Authority, Necessity, Clarity, and Sufficiency.
Scripture's Nature
Scripture, in its very nature, is verbal. Pictures, illustrations, dreams, visions, and music do not possess content which produces the expected understanding of its content. Pictures of a cross tells nothing of its meaning to the viewer without a verbal explanation. Illustrations mean nothing without a verbal representation accompanying it. Jesus appearing before Saul of Tarsus without a word would have meant nothing. Saul understood Who was confronting him due to Jesus saying, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting" (Acts 9:3-6).
Scripture's Inspiration
Paul explains in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." All of Scripture proceeds directly from God Himself. In fact, Peter claimed Paul's own writings were inspired,
"Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." (2 Peter 3:15-16)
Peter also affirms that Scripture is from God and never the will of man (2 Peter 1:20-21). Even Jesus Himself stressed the extreme importance of Scripture (Matthew 5:18). "God exercised such precise control over the Bible's production that its content, to the very letter, is what he desired to set in writing." (Cheung. This does not mean God "dictated" Scripture to the writers like an employer dictates to a secretary, but God used them as instruments expressing exactly what He wanted inscribed.
Scripture's Unity
Scripture's inspiration assumes its unity. The source of a single divine author is manifested throughout Scripture. Jesus even assumes Scripture's unity:
"Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written: 'He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'" Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
(Matthew 4:5-7)
"Satan encourages Jesus to jump from the temple by citing Psalm 91:11-12. Jesus counters with Deuteronomy 6:16, implying that Satan's use of the passage contradicts the instruction from Deuteronomy, and therefore it is a misapplication. When one understands or applies a passage of Scripture in a manner that contradicts another passage, he mishandles the text. Christ's argument here assumes the unity of Scripture, and even the devil does not challenge it.
On another occasion, as Jesus deals with the Pharisees, his challenge to them assumes the unity of Scripture and the law of noncontradiction:
'While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" "The son of David," they replied. He said to them, "How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him 'Lord'? For he says, 'The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.' If then David calls him 'Lord,' how can he be his
son?" No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.' (Matthew 22:41-46)" (Cheung).
The fact that Jesus brings up David's inspired words calling the Christ "Son" and "Lord", an apparent contradiction, speaks of Scripture's unity. Jesus knew His audience believed Scripture possesses unity. If it did not, his point would be meaningless. Scripture does not contradict itself. Vincent Cheung speaks of contradictions this way,
"It is futile to say that these doctrines (speaking of the "hypostatic union of Christ" and the Trinity - among others) are in perfect harmony in the mind of God, and only appear to be contradictions to human beings. As long as they remain contradictions, whether only in appearance or not, we cannot affirm both of them. And how can one distinguish between a real contradiction from an apparent one? If we must tolerate apparent contradictions, then we must tolerate all contradictions. Since without knowing the resolution, an apparent contradiction appears to be the same as a real one, to know that a "contradiction" is only so in appearance means that one has already resolved it, and then the term no longer applies."
Scripture's Infallibility
John 10:35 says, "the Scripture cannot be broken" and Luke 16:17 asserts, "It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law." Vincent Cheung states it like this: "The INFALLIBILITY of Scripture refers to an inability to err - the Bible cannot err. INERRANCY, on the other hand, emphasizes that the Bible does not err. The former refers to the potential, while the latter addresses the actual state of affairs. Strictly speaking, infallibility is the stronger word, and it entails inerrancy, but sometimes the two are interchangeable in usage."
Objections for Scripture's infallibility refer to the fallibility of man. But even though man is fallible, he is still capable of producing documents which do not err. Scripture is infallible and inerrant. It is correct in whatever it asserts regarding not only spiritual realm but the physical also. Scripture's statements regarding both historical and spiritual facts can not be separated. If Christ's resurrection did not happen the way Scripture says it did, then its spiritual significance can not be true. Denying the infallibility and/or inerrancy of Scripture also nullifies any epistemological position because there are no real grounds for knowing what is true and is falsehood within Scripture.
Scripture's Authority
The writers of Scripture used God and Scripture interchangeably:
"The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you…and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." (Genesis 12:1-3)
"The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you." (Galatians 3:8)
"Then the LORD said to Moses, "Get up early in the morning, confront Pharaoh and say to him, 'This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me…But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth…'" (Exodus 9:13-16)
"For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." (Romans 9:17)
God is the ultimate authority. The Scripture is what God has said, and Scripture is equal to God in its authority. Scripture, therefore, is the ultimate authority for the Christian.
Scripture's Necessity
Paul proclaims in 2 Timothy 3:15, "the holy Scriptures…are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." Paul also asserted earlier in this book that all men know God exists from birth. Although this knowledge is enough for the rejection of God culpable, it is not enough for salvation. As a bi-product of Scripture's proclaimation of salvation, it refers to and uses illustrations, circumstances, and facts regarding life in general. Without God and the Scriptures, knowledge is impossible.
Scripture's Clarity
Although Scripture is straightforward in its proclamation of Salvation, it is not always understandable by all in all matters. Scripture is not so easy to understand regardless of passage that no training in hermeneutics is necessary. And Scripture is not so difficult that only the "elite" can understand its meanings. Both positions on Scripture's clarity are dangerous.
Acts 8:30-31 says, "Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. "Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip asked. "How can I," he said, "unless someone explains it to me?" So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him."
Although someone can read and understand Scripture for salvation, the proclamation (or preaching) of the Word is necessary for further understanding. Philip explained the more complicated passage for the man for mere reading of the passage was difficult to understand.
Although the clarity of Scripture allows for every person to read and interpret Scripture, the need for teachers and preachers to proclaim and explain the Scriptures is not negated either.
Scripture's Sufficiency
Paul explicitly states, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17) Individuals may say the believe Scripture is sufficient, but their practical application of this belief negates their assertion. Instead of resting upon Scripture alone, some may look elsewhere for "divine" instruction such as astrology, divination, spiritism, and other avenues of unbiblical practices. Proverbs 3:5 & 6 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." Scripture asserts that Scripture is sufficient for everything in life for the Christian.
No other document or "holy book" can meet these characteristics that only Scripture inherently possesses. This is what the Christian asserts. This is what we believe. This is what is true.
Much of this study is taken from Vincent Cheung's Systematic Theology and other sources. I highly recommend further reading on these subjects.
