In college, I often had people question how I could believe something “just because it is in a book (i.e. the Bible). It amazed me how many people would throw this out, sometimes even with a quite cocky demeanor, as if they were really saying something, you know? This always baffled me. Was I doing something out of the ordinary relying on a book for information? I mean, most of us believe in the planet Neptune. But have you ever looked through a telescope yourself and seen it? A few of you probably have, but most of us have never done so. So why do we believe it is real? We were told so by a teacher…in many cases a teacher who themselves had never actually seen it! Yet, are we irrational for believing in Neptune? Of course not! This gets us into an important topic in understanding our foundation for knowledge. It is a fact that most of us, in this scientific and individualistic society, are not always comfortable with, but nevertheless it is where we get a very large percentage of what we consider to be knowledge. That topic is information learned by authority. Indeed, we believe in many historical events, people, places, concepts, and ideas NOT because we have experienced them, or because we have experimental evidence ourselves. We believe these things because we were told them by someone who would know. This is perfectly reasonable, and in fact we would find someone quite UNREASONABLE if they, for example, would not believe that George Washington was our first president unless they could travel back in time and see him for themselves, or at least unearth his body and examine it for forensic evidence to make sure it was from the time period it was supposed to be, and examine all the original copies of documentation and personal effects, as well as excavating the site of the original white house to find confirming evidence. If someone would not accept any information without this process, in their attempt to be rational, they would actually be a fool and would know quite little. The truth is, authority is a very reasonable source of information, so long as the authority is sound. If someone knew that a man was a frequent liar, and chose to believe him anyway, this would of course be irrational. It is important to know the limits and biases of the authorities you rely on, but it is still necessary to rely on them! And when authority and experience conflict, experience should not necessarily win. My experience tells me that the desk in front of me is a single, solid, stationary object. My physics professor told me, however, that it is actually trillions of tiny particles moving rapidly, and with space in between them. I believe in atoms and molecules, therefore in this case I trust authority over experience, and I suspect that you do as well.
So let’s apply this to the Bible. The Bible is the very word of God. There could not be a greater and more worthy and knowledgeable authority. It authenticates it’s own authority through marvelously fulfilled prophesies, showing that it’s source had knowledge of even future events, as well as meticulous information about the past, often in detail that mere human authors of the day could not have known, but by archeology today, we see them quite plainly. No one has been able to show the source to be liar. Because of this, even though many of the claims of the Bible are things that we have no way of verifying with personal experience or empirical evidence, it makes perfect sense to trust those things. The authority is sound, therefore it is a perfectly rational source of knowledge.
Let’s compare this again to the Book of Mormon. The Book or Mormon contains prophesies that are sketchy at best, and out right failures at worse. Its historical narrative goes against all known evidence. But should we trust it over the evidence? Like my physics professor, should my experience take a back seat to its authority? The answer is an un questionable no. Not only does it seem to be demonstrably false and thus untrustworthy as an authority, It also itself appeals to personal spiritual experience as it’s own source and test of authority. This concept was dealt with in more detail in an earlier post titled “Experiencing God?”. Basically, however, the Book of Mormon does not even set itself as a foundation for knowledge, but rather appeals to another foundation…one that can be tested and found wanting.
So, what we have in the Bible is the unique, authoritative, and trustworthy word of God. It is a firm foundation indeed! In my next and final post in this series, we will deal with the objections that claim the Bible we have today is corrupted, and does not represent what God originally inspired.
Luke
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