“Proving” the Authority of the Bible?

“We believe neither by our own nor by anyone else’s judgment that Scripture is from God; but above human judgment we affirm with utter certainty (just as if we were gazing upon the majesty of God himself) that it has flowed to us from the very mouth of God by the ministry of men. We seek no proofs, no marks of genuineness upon which our judgment may lean.” – John Calvin

Introduction

Contrary to popular belief of most Christian apologetics circles, the Bible cannot be “proved” like any other group of truth claims or any other written work. Why? Because there is only one Word of God. As such, the Word of God has attributes no other written work has, and among them (i.e. inerrancy, inspiration, infallibility, self-sufficiency, etc.) is the attribute of self-authorization. Is the presuppositionalist circular? Absolutely, just as circular as anyone else who has a worldview…which is everyone. The difference is that presuppositional Christians are proud and not squeamish of their unshakable commitment to the authority of Scripture.

Prove It!

Every Christian, to be a consistent Christian, must assert that the Bible is self-authorizing, self-verifying, and self-attesting. The Creator doesn’t need the “OK” from the creature or from the evidence within creation to be the Word of God. It is objectively true; it needs no other witness but itself. To quote at length from James R. White:

If God is God, and God speaks, there is no higher authority to which God can appeal so as to guarantee the truthfulness of what He’s saying. When you and I walk into the court of law…when you put your hand on that Bible and you are swearing to tell the truth, you are calling a higher authority than yourself as witness that what you’re saying is true. So, you’re recognizing that I am not the ultimate authority, I will call a higher authority. Or in the same situation of the court of law where we’re talking about truth, one side brings in an expert, well the other side wants to trump that by bringing in a better expert, or a better known expert, or maybe the teacher of the other expert to contradict what he said. There’s always this idea of appealing to a higher source to establish the truthfulness of what you’re saying…Here’s the question then. How does God do that? Well, by nature, if God is the Creator than there is no higher standard than what He says. He can’t say, “I swear by the creation,” because the creation isn’t as great as God, it’s lesser than God. He made it. He swears by anything but Himself (Hebrews 6:13-16) because He, by nature, is the ultimate authority. So, when we talk about establishing the truthfulness of God’s Word, that’s something we have to keep in mind because if it really is what it is, then what are we asking? What is the standard of truthfulness? What are we asking God to do? Are we asking Him to swear by something greater than Himself? We can’t do that. What kind of external appeal could God’s Word make to prove it’s true? If it can make that appeal, than is it truly God’s word? If God’s speaking is the ultimate authority; it is the final authority in all things, then if it can appeal to an external source it is no longer the final authority of all things. That external source becomes the final authority of all things…

The Bible was the Word of God when it was first written before any historical background or the first manuscripts had been copied. So, it can’t be history itself that demonstrates the Bible is the Word of God. Now, the fact that the Bible is the Word of God is consistent with the historical validity, transmission, prophecies, it’s own internal consistency with itself, it’s presentation of redemption, resurrection etc. All of that stuff is all true, but, if we ground the authority of the Word upon those secondary sources than the authority of the Word can have no more authority than those secondary sources have. That’s where I struggle with evidentialists because in essence, what they’re trying to do is they’re trying to step onto an allegedly neutral ground and bring someone to seeing the true God.[1]

As White points out, since there is no higher authority to swear by to ensure the truthfulness of His Words, God must swear by Himself:

For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, “I WILL SURELY BLESS YOU AND I WILL SURELY MULTIPLY YOU.” And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise.  For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute. In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath,  so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. (Hebrews 6:13-18, emphasis mine)

The classical, cumulative case, and/or evidentialist picture of today’s apologists, however, is much different. Supposedly, God is on trial and the Christian and non-Christian each get a chance to present their case. The side that presents the best case with the most coherent, complete, and convincing evidence for God’s existence and the truth of Scripture, wins. As one classical apologist said:

The question…is when you weigh the evidence for atheism against the evidence for Christianity, which way on balance does the evidence point? (Bill Craig, 1993)

And as another evidentialist put it:

Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the jurors to reach a verdict. (Lee Strobel, A Case for Christ)

There is a plethora of problems with this situation. The obvious problem is that the judge is the one who is on trial. There is no standard by which to weigh evidence since the lawgiver is also the one who is in question. Both sides can present evidence and proofs all day long but none of it can have meaning – both sides are throwing into question the very source of those rules of conviction, proof, and evidence in the first place! Something is wrong with a court case where the judge’s chair is empty. It is also a bit ironic when God is put on trial and has to swear on a Bible – which He wrote!

The presuppositionalist, however, maintains that God is never “on trial,” nor is His Word. It is an impossibility. To try to do so would be to attempt the neutrality of Adam and Eve in the garden, and that was sin in its most basic form. Without the law-giver and the law, there is not a single shred of evidence that could even be applied to anything. The unbeliever has to borrow logic and the meaningfulness of evidence from God in order to argue against God. The Christian has to do the same thing (only he’s not “borrowing,”) when trying to prove God’s existence and the validity of His Word.

The difference between the presuppositionalist and the traditional apologist is that the presuppositionalist is willing to admit this ultimate commitment to Christ, while the traditional apologist is not (until proven valid). The traditional apologist sees nothing wrong with creating a theoretical court case where God and the Bible are being convicted by neutral agents. God may be innocent until proven guilty, but He is still treated as though He is capable of being guilty. The presuppositionalist, however, asks how this approach can be honoring to God at all:

How would the eternal I Am be pleased with being presented as being a god and as probably existing, as necessary for the explanation of some things but not of all things, as one who will be glad to recognize the ultimacy of his own creatures? (Van Til, The Defense of the Faith)

Who’s Really Question-Begging?

Trying to be neutral in an evidentialist fashion is common among today’s Christian apologists. They chide presuppositional thinkers by saying that the they “would be question-begging to appeal to the Bible to answer the question”[2] of how the Bible is proved. Sproul even says classical apologetics has a “horror of circularity” (Classical Apologetics, 338).

Of course, this is question- begging itself, for what more trustworthy testimony, what higher standard of evidence, and what greater authority does one plan on appealing to if not God’s Word? If there is such a higher authority, then the Bible is not the ultimate standard for truth claims (so why call it the Word of God?). As Herman Bavinck said, “There is no higher appeal from Scripture. It is the supreme court of appeal. No power or pronouncement stands above it. It is Scripture, finally, which decides matters in the conscience of everyone personally. And for that reason it is the supreme arbiter of controversies.”[3]

Evidentialism and classical apologetics require that the Word of God be in submission to the evidence and arguments of man. The Bible should not be thought of as the Word of God until man proves it either by evidence or miracles. In the words of the Reformed evidentialist R.C. Sproul, “From an uninspired Bible we are arguing for miracles, and from miracles we are arguing from an inspired Bible.”[4]

Van Til cleverly pointed out that it was precisely this creature-first-Creator-second attitude that led Adam and Eve to fall.

If God is such one as knows the “good” for us, controls whatsoever comes to pass, and has the right of unquestioned obedience, then man obeys his word because it is his word. Adam, in disobedience became a “free” man…He [natural man] may pretend to be “open-minded” and really to consider whether God exists. But in being so “neutral” he commits the same sin as Adam and Eve…Why seek truth where only a lie is to be found? [5]

And as the opening to The Portable Presuppositionalist recounts,

If human beings were ever in a position to question or even test the Word of God by human standards, then Adam and Eve’s snack with the serpent would have been justified. But the fact is, people have never been in a place to question God, even when they don’t understand Him, even when they don’t feel His power, and even when His Word flies in the face of everything being promulgated in the world today.[6]

…then Christianity is no better than Islam!

Can’t a Muslim make the same appeal to the Qur’an’s authority?

Sproul asked Bahnsen this question in the apologetic method debate in 1977: “I’d like to know the difference between how a presuppositionalist defends Scripture as the Word of God and how a Muslim defends the Qu’ran.” (53:52, mp3 2) (The Portable Presuppositionalist, 304-305) But, time ran out before Bahnsen could give a response.

Fortunately, Herman Bavinck also anticipated this objection and answered it concisely:

Let me grant, in the first place, that the believer cannot cite a deeper ground for revelation than its divine authority, which he or she recognizes by faith. But this is not to say that believers have nothing to say to the opponents to that revelation. True: they have no airtight proofs; they cannot move the opponent toward faith; but they have at least as much to say in defending as the opponent has in attacking scriptural authority. Unbelief, too, is rooted, not in proofs and arguments, but in the heart. In this respect believers and unbelievers are in exactly the same position.[7]

In other words, even though the Christian can’t cite deeper grounds than personal faith for believing in the Bible’s authority, the alternative position has no better justification for not believing in the Bible’s authority. Both sides are religiously committed. As such, evaluating the evidence from a position of religious neutrality is impossible. Everyone has a worldview (a network of presuppositions) at all times, even when they’re trying to sort out a stalemate between two competing authorities. So, no position of neutrality to objectively verify one ultimate authority over another is possible since that person’s presuppositions are already functioning as an ultimate authority. Facts and evidence are meaningless apart from a framework of interpretation (which is a worldview). So if the primacy and validity of God’s Word is thrown into question, what criteria remains to discern the validity of any fact? The classical apologist is presenting an argument as if a person swimming in the ocean can push an iceberg without himself being moved.

Second, an internal critique of the Qur’an is possible from a presuppositionalist position. Nothing about assuming the Bible’s authority from the outset prevents the Christian from legitimately critiquing the textual and historical reliability of the Qur’an or any other such challenge to Scripture. Unlike the traditional apologetist, the presuppositional Christian is in no way obligated to give up his/her commitments to the authority of the Scriptures and the Lordship of Christ over all things in order to disqualify the Qur’an as a candidate for the ultimate standard of truth claims. Therefore, the presuppositional apologist is actually in a much better position to critique Islam. Why? Because the presuppositionalist doesn’t let the gospel – the most powerful weapon of all – sit on the shelf during the onslaught, he uses it from start to finish. As Frame said, “With many kinds of apologetics it is exceedingly difficult to make a transition before the apologetic argument and the gospel. In Van Til’s argument, the argument is already the gospel,” (Revelation and Reason, 129).

Third and finally, traditional apologetics fails to see the ontological significance of the Trinity. Facts and laws, the whole phenomenon of distinction itself, is impossible were it not for the existence of the Trinity. [8] Only the Trinitarian God can provide a basis for the laws, facts, and laws of logic through which we determine the very essence of “validity.” No other religion (especially Islam) has anything close to a Trinitarian God, where singularity and plurality are equally ultimate.

Conclusion

Don’t let the skeptic catch you off guard when you appeal to the Scripture for your ultimate authority. You’re fine. No one can escape circularity. Every person has their ultimate authority, but the unbeliever is hiding it as much as possible. The apologist’s job, then, is to carefully dig it up and hold it to the light of the sun. Good apologetics exposes the darkness, the irrational and dirty commitment to unbelief and pride, and fractures the entire thought life of a human being who may soon be on their way to the cross.

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[1] James R. White. “A Biblical Perspective on the Canon.” The Dividing Line. www.aomin.org

[2] Bernard Walker. Is Philosophy Autonomous or Merely the Handmaiden of Theology: Breaking Ties With Tradition While Maintaining a Philosophical and Biblical Worldview (unpublished manuscript).

[3] As Bavinck said,” Herman Bavinck. Reformed Dogmatics: Prolegomena (Baker, 2008), 481.

[4] R.C. Sproul, John Gerstner, Arthur Lindsley. Classical Apologetics (Zondervan, 1984), 144.

[5] Van Til in E.R. Geehan, ed. Jerusalem and Athens: Critical Discussions on the Theology and Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til (Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1971), 6, 17.

[6] Jamin Hubner. The Portable Presuppositionalist (BookSurge, 2009), 12.

[7] Herman Bavinck. Reformed Dogmatics: Prolegomena (Baker, 2008), 590.

[8] See Jamin Hubner. “The Ontological Significance of the Trinity.” RealApologetics.org Blog. December 2^nd, 2009. http://www.realapologetics.org/blog/2009/12/02/real-christian-philosophy-the-ontological-significance-of-the-trinity/