Skilled in the word of righteousness (Hebrews 5:13) Part 12
Written by: Yeow Chin Kiong
To satisfactorily prove that the Bible is God’s word (and, therefore authoritative for us), we have moved from the scientific world of space telescopes gathering evidence of Divine creation from cosmological entities like stars and planets to the also-scientific world of the electronic microscopes and super-colliders to obtain evidence of Divine creation from sub-atomic particles of the elements and living cells.
These two worlds of naturalistic investigation allow us to look at the two size-extremes of the observable universe of existence so that we can “see” the invisible God who created all that exist therein (Romans 1:18-20).
From these two investigative worlds, we necessarily infer prima facie that an all-knowing, all-powerful and all-benevolent God exists who brought into existence,- and sustains the existence of,- everything. We have thereby made a prima facie case for THEISM (i.e. belief in the existence of Deity or God).
From these two investigative worlds, we move to a third,- the law court and its accepted procedures for ascertaining the authenticity of documented communication and the trustworthiness of the messages it contains. We apply as closely as reasonable such historical and legal procedures of truth-detection to important portions of the Bible to determine whether that library of written, preserved documents are trustworthy as the record of the revelation of all-knowing, all powerful and all benevolent God whose existence is necessarily implied by the first two worlds of scientific investigation. We will move from the worlds of Science to the worlds of History and Archaeology and their study of the unrepeatable past as well as the world of Law and its truth-finding investigative perspective of what happened in the past. We will by these steps make a case for CHRISTIAN THEISM (i.e. belief in the existence of Deity or God who makes Himself known through His revelation in the Bible)
The direction of the case for believing the Bible to be true in all that it affirms is to argue as follows: (1) Historical data is reliable (i.e. trustworthy) as communication of the truth of what happened in the past; (2) The Bible contains historical data; (3) The Bible’s historical data provides a reliable record of the life, teachings, works, death, burial, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ; (4) The Bible’s record about Jesus Christ affirms that he both claimed and gave evidence that he was both human and Divine (i.e God incarnate); (5) Whatever that God affirms to be true is true; (6) The Bible shows that Jesus Christ claimed that the Old Testament is God’s inspired word and that he promised his disciples further Divine revelation after his ascension. (7) THEREFORE, both the Old Testament and the New Testament (the latter a record of what was revealed by God to Jesus’ disciples) are the inspired words of God and thus true and authoritative for man’s life and destiny.
After having presented the case for the existence of the all-knowing, all-powerful and all-benevolent God, we have to defend the first six points listed above in order to necessarily conclude, PRIMA FACIE, with the seventh point,- that the Bible is the inspired word of God and authoritative in man’s life and destiny. After making the prima facie case, we must rebut or refute objections to our prima facie case to prove Christian theism to be true and trustworthy.