Vernon wrote,
For
example, is it now reasonable to believe that scientists are completely free
to pursue what they believe to be _meaningful_ lines of inquiry when these
must inevitably result in the undermining of the revealed truth of the J-C
Scriptures? How could they possibly know whether or not their observations
were being stage-managed by the Devil?>>
Since God commanded humans to "subdue he earth" (Gen 1:28) which entails
understanding it and since we are commanded to love God with All of our
_mind_ (Matt 22:37), and since Scripture assumes that humans can interpret
the world around them correctly (Matt 16:3, et al) even to the extent that
alleged divine prophecy can be tested by humanly interpreted empirical
evidence (Deut 18:22), and since the history of science shows increasing
understanding of the world around us proven by advances in technology, it is
unbiblical and irrational to suppose that God is allowing the Devil to so
control the minds of scientists that their scientific findings will
inevitably undermine the revealed truth of Scripture.
The Scriptures say clearly that all humans outside of Christ are blinded to
the gospel, but no Scripture says they are blinded to scientific truth.
Further, I believe the shoe is on the other foot. When those who believe the
history in the Bible is a revelation from God they do not find any Scripture
saying this, and all of the historians who wrote Scripture say or imply that
their sources of knowledge were human documents or testimonies. No biblical
historical book claims or implies that its historical facts were revealed by
God. So where does this faith in the inerrancy of the biblical history (and
science) come from?
It comes from the argument that since God inspired all of the Bible and
since God cannot lie or err that none of the Bible lies or errs and hence
the history is inerrant. The first problem with this argument is that
inspiration is not the same thing as revelation. Stephen was inspired, but
everything he said in his review of history was known already. It was not
revealed to him. It was not revelation even though it was inspired (Matt
10:19, 20;Acts 7).
The second thing that is wrong with this argument is that HUMAN REASON in
pursuit of an absolutist philosophy has arbitrarily chosen to define "err"
strictly in terms of factual knowledge, when logically and biblically it can
just as well be a matter of wisdom, and God might consider it an error of
wisdom to speak to ancient people in terms of how things really are rather
than in terms of how those people at that time understood the world around
them So the foundation of the belief in a historically-scientifically
inerrant Bible is neither logically valid nor biblical. And that raises a
question: if the belief in an absolutely inerrant Bible is based on a
logically invalid and unbiblical argument, why is it believed so intently?
Sure, it is an emotionally satisfying belief, but is that enough to account
for the strong rejection of scientific truths verified by objective and
dovetailing evidence? Could it be that this extreme belief is due in part
to Satanic influence?
Paul S.
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Received on Sat Sep 30 18:28:27 2006
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