Cornerstone #2 - God's Special Revelation: The Bible

Let me start this by making a bold assertion:

The Christian faith cannot be properly grounded without a belief that the Bible contains fundamental truths as revealed by God himself.

My personal belief goes further still:

The Bible is the ultimate and final authority for an understanding of God's will, his purpose and his character. The Bible is entirely sufficient for this purpose; no other written text is needed.

Further ...

There is an element of faith in the basic assertion that the Bible is the Word of God, that it is correct and true, and that its present format is what God intended it to be. Though there is ample evidence to suggest that the Bible is archeologically accurate and that the manuscript copies have been remarkably preserved, none of that serves as proof that the Bible is "the true Word of God." One must ultimately believe it to be the case.

I fully expect these assertions to be met with some consternation. The objections regarding the Bible usually fall into four areas:

• Objections to the structure of the canon
• Objections to the idea of divine inspiration
  
• Objections about the veracity of the original translations
• Objections about what things are literal and what things are merely allegorical
  

What I won't do in this posting is lay out a defense of the Bible along those four areas. I'm not an expert in those things, and I suspect I'd make a hash of it. Instead, I'll refer back to something you had in your last post. You finished that post with:

Everything appears to have the potential to be relative, including my last comment. Relative "to what" is the interesting question.

How very true, good friend. Some time ago, in some distant post, I argued that ultimately there must be an ultimate capital-T Truth somewhere; a final authority to which things are ultimately fixed or rooted. This goes to your "Relative 'to what' is the interesting question" comment. I think you and I are in agreement that ultimately that Truth is God himself.

I asked a question in an earlier post:

If God himself is Absolute Truth, is what God says also Absolutely Truth?

If the answer to that is "yes," then with regard to the Bible we now have two basic questions:

1. Did God choose to reveal Himself in the form of the written Word?
2. If so, does God have the power to create and preserve a written revelation from Him?
   

The first question is critically fundamental. If one's answer to this is "no," then any further discussion regarding the veracity of the Bible itself is pointless. If God did not choose to reveal Himself in the written Word, then by definition the Bible is not from Him. We may then launch into a discussion of the value of the Bible absent any intrinsically divine qualities. The Bible then becomes just another book, perhaps worthy of discussion and analysis, but on no higher level than any other highly regarded book from the pen of man.

But if the answer to the first question is "yes," that God did choose to reveal Himself in the form of the written Word, then we have to presume that what God chose to do, God achieved initially.

Note: I offer that last italicized "initially" to hold off dismissal of that statement based on the objection of corruption of text over time. The fundamental point here is that there would be terrific theological consequences if we were to say that God could not accomplish something he set out to do. "Hmmm ... I think I'll create a written revelation today. Darn, something's blocking me. Oh well, I guess I can't do that." :-)

If we establish that He accomplished initially what He set out to do, then the question becomes what I stated before:

If God desired that His written revelation be preserved over time, does He have the power to insure that He accomplish that desire?

Here again, the answer to that must be a "yes," otherwise we're in a quandry: God has the sovereign power to create but not to preserve? So the question really boils down to this:

Did God desire to preserve his initial written revelation?

We can only surmise the answer to that question, and hence that's where the element of faith comes into the picture. It cannot be proven that He did desire to preserve; it cannot be proven that He did not. Clearly there is ample reason to believe mankind has within his fallen nature the ability and perhaps desire to corrupt what God has created. Theologically, that corruption occurs because God permits it, not because God can't do anything about it. But there is ample reason to believe God did desire to preserve His written revelation; Jesus himself made reference to Scripture as Truth. If Jesus was God (which I believe is the case), then why would God point to Scripture as Truth when it was in fact corrupt, something He would certainly know was the case?

Therefore, I choose to believe that God desired to preserve His written revelation, and that He accomplished that desire. It is an element to faith, I freely admit.

Now, why do I feel it is a fundamental cornerstone? Because without this written revelation we have nothing on which to base a belief structure and faith in Jesus Christ. Christ's death on the cross was an atoning sacrifice for all mankind's sins? Says who? Let's say you believe that and I don't ... what's to arbitrate the difference? Or let's say Bill believes Jesus spoke to him yesterday and said "X." John also believes Jesus spoke to him yesterday, but Jesus said "Y," and "X" and "Y" are mutually exclusive. Is one right, one wrong? Or are both right? Or perhaps both wrong?

Any belief structure must have a stake in the ground somewhere. The entire Christian faith is based upon what's written in the Bible. Without that as a cornerstone, the whole thing crumbles.

So I cycle back to my original assertion: "The Christian faith cannot be properly grounded without a belief that the Bible contains fundamental truths as revealed by God himself."

Note: Now notice that I'm not saying that, for instance, you must believe that Jonah really spent three days in the belly of a fish; or that the Genesis account of creation was a literal 7-solar-day event. I'm saying that one must have a foundational faith that the Bible carries God's Truth. To believe that the Bible is not a carrier of God's Truth means one's Christian faith is simply untethered.