Toast's Theological & Philosophical Meditations & Musings

Something that’s bothered me a lot lately: as Theists in general we often make arguments for God based on what some term as “natural revelation”, or “rational proof”. You know the sort of thing: “The heavens declare his glory: it’s obvious that the universe must have a creator, because everything is created!”, “The universe is so complex there must be an intelligent power behind it!”, “Everyone has a sense of the divine, and you never find an atheistic tribe of primitives: religion is so natural to us that it must be true”. The problem is, these don’t hold a lot of water: we need a Fideistic viewpoint to make them valid. Kant did a great job of dismantling such views.

I think I’ve found a good description of what the problem is. As such, I present the following excerpt from Louis Berkhof’s Systematic Theology, for your perusal;

In evaluating these rational arguments it should be pointed out first of all that believers do not need them. Their conviction respecting the existence of God does not depend upon them, but on a believing acceptance of God’s self-revelation in scripture. If many in our day are willing to stake their faith in the existence of God on such rational arguments, it is to a great extent due to the fact that they refuse to accept the testimony of the Word of God. Moreover, in using these arguments in an attempt to convince unbelievers, it will be well to bear in mind that none of them can be said to carry absolute conviction… They have some value for believers themselves, but should be called testemonia rather than arguments…While they do not prove the existence of God beyond the possibility of doubt, so as to compel assent, they can be so construed as to establish a strong probability and therefore silence many unbelievers.

In essence, the issue is that such “proofs” are merely arguments to back up the idea of God’s existence, but in themselves do not constitute the proofs that so many Christians unfortunately seem to try to present them as.

Being a fan of Descartes, I use the ontological argument for the existence of God more often than I possibly should (see my blog entry on Descartes’ proofs for the existence God for more on that). I found a fascinating variant on the ontological argument from Plantinga recently, which I feel I should share seeing as we’re ont he subject of rational “proofs”. Enjoy.

1) It is proposed that a being has maximal excellence in a given possible world W if and only if it is omnipotent, omniscient and wholly good in W; and
2) It is proposed that a being has maximal greatness if it has maximal excellence in every possible world.
3) Maximal greatness is possibly exemplified. That is, it is possible that there be a being that has maximal greatness. (Premise)
4) Therefore, possibly it is necessarily true that an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists.
5) Therefore, it is necessarily true that an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists. (By S5)
6) Therefore, an omniscient, omnipotent and perfectly good being exists.

Ok, so let me get this right. You say that the bible is the word of God, right?

Yep, that’s the idea.

Right. So how do you know that?

Well it says in 2 Timothy 3:162 Timothy 3:16
English: Good News Bible (UK) - GNB-UK
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful; or Every scripture inspired by God is also useful. for teaching the truth, rebuking error, correcting faults, and giving instruction for right living,

WP-Bible plugin that all scripture is God-breathed.

So you say that the bible is the word of God because it says so, and it’s the word of God? That’s circular reasoning.

Actually, no. It’s just axiomatic.

It’s what now?

Axiomatic. It’s based on principles that we accept to be true without needing proof.

So you know it’s the word of God because you take it for granted that God wrote it?

Don’t be silly. I just take it for granted that God exists. If we take that for an assumption, we can then ascertain that the bible must be the word of God.

Go on…

Ok, so if we assume that there is a god, whether it be the God of the bible or some other deity, then we can take it that he or she will want to be able to contact their creation, right?

Well, no. Maybe God wants nothing to do with creation, or just exists within all of us

True, but we can assume that a personal god would want to communicate.

Is this another axiom?

To an extent. We’re not taking it for granted that God is a personal god, but we are saying that if He is, He’s going to want to be personal.

Ok, I’m with you thus far.

Ok, so then the bible claims to be the word of God, the way through which He communicates with His creation. So, if there really is a personal God, and if He really does communicate with us through His word, and if His word really is the bible, then we can assume that all its claims are true, including that it is the direct word of God.

Well yes, but you have no proof of that

I have evidence. Look, if you go and find ten people from the same sort of background, roughly the same finances, same politics, same language, and ask them their opinion on a controversial issue, do you think they’ll all say the same thing?

They’re likely to have differing opinions.

Right. Now, the bible contains sixty-six books, written by forty different authors from all walks of life, from fisherman to monarchs. It was written over about one and a half thousand years, in three different languages and on three different continents. They write on one of the most controversial subjects imaginable, yet they all agree completely with one another as if they came from the same source. Further, we know that it’s managed to remain unchanged since then, not lost in translation – we have more ancient manuscripts than any other work of literature in the world. We have over two thousand copies of the new testament dating back to as early as thirty-five years after the death of the authors…

Fascinating, but hang on. Death of the authors? So it was written by men, not by God!

Oh, absolutely it was written by men. But the words came from God. When you write a letter, you use a pen right? Well when God writes something down he uses men as the tool to do it.

Big claim.

Very much so. But then when we look at the harmony of the bible, the prophecies which where made in the Old Testament times and fulfilled in Christ, in the detail things are written, things that would go against the culture of its day, it’s a hard case to make. I mean, if even one of those prophecies was wrong then obviously it would be a load of rubbish, right?

Ok, but what about all your stuff that doesn’t apply for today?

Such as?

Well, there’s support for slavery, sexism, condemnation of homosexuals, you can’t really expect me to believe that a loving God would say that.

Well the slavery issue is Old Testament law to be honest, and thanks to Jesus that no longer applies to us. The New Testament does give advise about how slaves should be treated by their masters and the like, sure, but this was in a time when folk kept slaves. Nowhere does it actually say that in general taking slaves is a good thing. Actually the NT teaching does put slaves as being treated very well, if nothing else. As for sexism, there’s a huge debate about that, believe me. Suffice to say that the argument that God has something against women isn’t very biblical when looked at in context.

And homosexuals?

They’re sinners.

Oh yeah, condemn folk for their sexuality. That’s loving

Look, I don’t necessarily like the idea, but the New Testament is very clear the homosexual activity is perversion, and it’s not to be practiced.

That only applies to then, surely. Like slaves

Then why does it present it as a universal fact?

But that’s appalling! Surely love is the thing the bible emphasises. I like that part of it, I must say.

If the bible says it’s bad, then the bible says it’s bad. That’s where inerrancy comes in.

Again with the big words!

Yeah, well. Basically, inerrancy means the bible has no mistakes. Everything has to be taken as correct, regardless of whether it makes us comfortable or not.

So you can’t just ignore the bits that paint God in ways you don’t like?

Bingo. In fact, if the bible is not inerrant then we suddenly have a problem.

We do?

We do. It changes the very nature of God.

It does?

It does. If God’s word contains mistakes then God makes mistakes. If God makes mistakes then God isn’t perfect.

And that’s a big problem?

Well yeah, if God isn’t perfect then there must be a higher standard that is perfection. Which means that by setting God in its place we’ve made an idol. We’re in the wrong. And worse, it makes all our beliefs totally worthless.

In what way?

In every way! If God is not perfect then Christ was not the perfect sacrifice! We can’t be offered salvation for our sins and we’re doomed to hell regardless! It’s all been a waste of time!

Ok, so what if there is no god?

That’s a different axiom. We’ll discuss that another time.

Ok, sure. So if I get this right, you say the bible is the word of God because you assume that God will have a perfect way of communicating with us, and the bible seems to be so?

Yeah, that’s pretty much it. The bible claims to be the word of God, and unlike many other books claiming to be so I can’t find fault in that argument. By the very nature of its being the word of God, and by what that implies based on the nature of God, I take it to be inerrant and it’s from there that I can safely use it as a basis of belief.

Great. Well, thanks for clearing that up.

Any time.