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“The Bible says it, therefore I believe it”

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The Bible says it, therefore I believe it

Sal wonders why someone might say “the Bible said it, therefore I believe it”, unless they are “supremely gullible”.

This is an epistemological question. I approve of the formula, so I’ll try and answer why.

Firstly, let’s clear away some possible misunderstandings. The formula presupposes that the Bible really does say whatever the “it” is. Someone might choose to apply the formula to something the Bible doesn’t say. The Bible teaches the world ended last Tuesday, therefore I believe it – except that, it doesn’t. Those reading the Bible can be caught up in misunderstanding, misinterpreting, twisting, mistranslating, and the like. Such cases are not in view in this discussion.

Secondly, the formula presupposes that there really are things that the Bible does say, and which we should know it says. Some things are not a matter of personal interpretation, or so doubtful that we cannot say anything, whatever the canons of literary deconstruction say. The mother of Jesus was, according to the Bible, called Mary. Regardless of how much pomo-relativo juice you drink, you cannot validly read it to say that she was called Jezebel Mehetabel Bob Smith. Should the reader prefer to interpret the text that way, the reader is a loon.

Thirdly, we’re not here discussing how someone personally moves to this position. Someone might not be sure why they might find the Bible reliable, or how to end up in such a position if you start from a position of skepticism. A Christian answer to that would bring in many further issues. The scope here though is how someone who does hold that position – whatever their journey was – could reasonably justify it, having arrived there.

OK, got that. We’re thinking of something that we are supposing the Bible really did say. Why might someone – as I do – then proceed to say “therefore, I believe it?” and not need to add the corollary “coz I is supremely gullible, you know?”

Sal himself quoted Jesus two sentences later. The quote was out of context; Jesus was talking about miracles his hearers had personally witnessed, not about scientific experiments. But anyway, Sal seems to think that Jesus is someone we might take seriously. I’m not sure how far he’d go with that. But if you think that Jesus is the Son of God, and that his claims about himself, that he had come from the Father and his words were totally reliable because he had descended from heaven, then that’s one place to begin. Jesus took the words of Scripture as totally reliable. Jesus himself took the position “the Bible said it, therefore I believe it.” “The Scripture cannot be broken”, John 10:35. “You are wrong, because you do not know the Scriptures” (Matthew 22:29).

He who says “A” and “B” must then say “C”. Once someone takes the presupposition that the words of Jesus are supremely reliable, it follows that the Scriptures then have to be taken as supremely reliable. To be consistent, if you believe that Jesus’ attitude to Scripture is reliably recorded in the gospel records, and if you believe that Jesus had a correct attitude to Scripture, then this becomes your position. The alternative is to be incoherent. If God is orderly and coherent, then his image-bearers should seek to be so too. QED.

Sal posits that we might take the Bible’s statements as tentative, then test them out. How do you test them out?

Remember that the Bible itself claims to be the revelation of the mind of God. It is claiming to be a *final* authority. Where do you go after you have taken your case to the Supreme Court? Either the court really was supreme, or it wasn’t. If there is another bench that sits afterwards, then it wasn’t the Supreme Court after all.

If the Bible’s statements can be taken to a higher authority to test – such as Sal’s laboratory, or mine – then ipso facto, the Bible is already assumed to /not/ be what it claims to be. My or Sal’s reasoning processes are being set up as a more reliable authority, and can be used to test it.

Either the Bible can sit in judgment on my reasoning processes and verify their veracity, or my reasoning processes can sit in judgment on the Bible and verify its veracity. But not both.

My position as a Christian is not that I can prove every statement in the Bible, or even most of them, to be true. Such a claim would actually be inconsistent with the view that the Bible is the final authority. By definition, your foundational presuppositions or (those things directly deducible from them) are not subject to further verification – or they would not in fact be foundational presuppositions. Rather, my position is that only taking the Bible as foundational can consistently make sense of everything else. C S Lewis asked why we believe that our night-time dreams are not the true world, rather than the one we spend the day in. How do we know that day-time is not the dream? How do we decide for sure which is the real world? He answered, because the real world makes sense of our dreams; whereas our dreams make sense of nothing. One gives a coherent account of the other. That’s as far as you go in such questions, and normally it satisfies us. Christians believe in the triune God and in the Bible, not because we have a scientific proof of them; but because they make sense of the world, science and everything else whereas the alternative choices fall far short. Science makes sense within a Biblical world-view. There are coherent reasons for doing science and expecting sound results. But when I make myself the centre of my existence and epistemology, I end up being able to make sense of nothing. How do I know that the world is not just an illusion? Why expect the future to be in accordance with the past? There are reasons why science flourished within the soil of a Christian culture, when it had failed to do so amongst other those of world-views.

This is not special pleading. Sal appears to believe that his own reasonings and perhaps empirical tests can prove or disprove statements in the Bible. This means that Sal believes in the reliability of his own reasonings and tests, above that of the Bible. But why does he believe in them? What makes him think they are reliable? Has he verified them some other way? If so, then how was that “other way” itself verified?

If you keep pressing that process back, then eventually you have to come back to some foundation beyond which you cannot go. Unless you presuppose *something*, you cannot deduce *anything*. There must be a “this is where we start, and which we assume is true”. The child’s questions “why, why, why?” must eventually end with an answer “because it is so”. The issue is not “why take the Bible as your foundation – doesn’t this decide the issue in advance?” It’s not a matter of taking a foundation or not. Our epistemology has to have *some* foundation. The only question is, “which one?”. A man with zero prior assumptions can only end up with zero conclusions. If you have some conclusions, you must have had some foundational assumptions. So why not the Bible? Why believe in your own ultimate, final reliability above that of the Bible?

So, the only question to be decided is where we stop, not whether to stop. As a Christian, I believe that the Bible is that ultimately reliable stopping place. I myself am a fallen creature, and my reasoning processes are corrupt and not ultimately and finally reliable. They are biased, by my own ignorance and selfishness. I cannot make them the ultimate foundation of my thinking and living.

I hope this at least answers the question, why someone might use the formula “the Bible says it, therefore I believe it”. I approve of that formula, not because I think of myself as supremely gullible, but because my aim is to bring my thoughts into submission to God’s – rather than the other way around.

Nobody is claiming that agreeing with this assessment is an essential of Intelligent Design theory. But it surely helps conversation if we each understand why we are each saying the things we do. If we’re convinced that scientism is a bogus epistemology, then what does a true one look like? “The Bible says it, therefore I believe it” gives me a basis for doing science personally; made in the image of God, in a logical and orderly creation, I can put some level of basic trust in my thought processes and observations – whilst maintaining a healthy skepticism, knowing my own fallibility. Where does Sal get such a belief from? Does he just hope that this is the way it is? (Don’t tell me he’s done some tests/had some past experience – that’s viciously circular). I get what Sal assumes, for free, as a consequence of my foundational assumptions. “The Bible says it, therefore I believe it” is a sound epistemology, not a mark of being gullible.

Comments
Thanks, U. B.Timaeus
August 10, 2012
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#64 Give it a rest, cowboy. Really.Upright BiPed
August 10, 2012
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Timaeus could make himself more useful by publishing his support of ID in peer-reviewed academic journals. But he doesn't have the professional courage or insight to do this. Timaeus claims to speak on behalf of 'ID people' - this is documented more than 70 times in just one thread. Now he's telling us he doesn't do this! Is this a joke?Gregory
August 10, 2012
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Mike when I ask the question...it's obvious. Is Jesus God..or is he not. The meaning of the term God here is evident. Is Jesus the almighty God or is he a separate entity from God. The bible agrees with the latter. And Axel, Jesus performed such works to demonstrate he was the MESSIAH. Not that he was God. Thus why he is called the son of God throughout the bible. The messenger and representative of the almighty God. Quite evident from John 17:3 exactly what the bible teaches. I also didn't come here to discuss Jesus as God ideas. I am merely saying that the bible is SO ambiguous in it's text that you have to have evidence to first back up what scripture says before you can say, "the bible says it, therefore I believe it"ForJah
August 10, 2012
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If Gregory wants to make himself more useful, he could -- instead of following me virtually everywhere, and posting comments against me on threads on which he has previously shown no interest, simply for the joy of publically contradicting me -- post replies on threads where he has been addressed with a comment of substance -- e.g., on the Bellah thread -- and has not yet answered. As for the off-topic point raised, I would never claim to speak for "IDM-ID" -- no one on the planet uses the locution "IDM-ID" except for Gregory.Timaeus
August 10, 2012
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"It would be better if Mr. Anderson said “As a Protestant” instead of trying to speak for all Christians." - Timaeus And it would be better if Mr. Timaeus said "As an IDM-ID proponent" instead of trying to speak for all 'ID people'." But that concession is not likely soon to come. Timaeus frankly and unabashedly assumes (even presumes!) he is speaking for 'all ID people.' Just as perhaps David Anderson assumes that ‘Protestant’ is equal to ‘Christians’ from his perspective, of which I am less certain.Gregory
August 10, 2012
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For whatever reason -- perhaps due to illness, or perhaps due to ceasing to monitor comments on his own column (less than 24 hours after it was posted!) and therefore not noticing my comment -- David Anderson has not replied to my criticism in 16 above. I simply state for the record that my challenge to some of his points has gone unanswered.Timaeus
August 10, 2012
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Jesus was asked that question, and it was clear from his answer that he disdained to spell it out for his questioners, since his works should have made it abundantly clear that he was God. His response was similar in tone, to his stricture that it was a faithless generation that asked for a sign. Sorry, I can't quote chapter and verse, as it's difficult to identify a likely key-word for a concordance search.Axel
August 6, 2012
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ForJah: Does the bible say Jesus is God… or does it say he is not?
This ignores the excluded middle. The Bible uses the term "God" with a range of meaning, and the term could be used for Jesus in some senses but not necessarily all. For example: is my hand a human or not? In one sense it is, in another it isn't. However, both senses are related.mike1962
August 4, 2012
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Some interesting names in the bibliography...Axel
August 4, 2012
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".... an external reality", EDTA? Since quantum physics seems to have passed you by, you should read this little digest by a Moslem: http://www.harunyahya.com/en/works/5357/Quantum-physics:-The-Discovery-that-scientifically-demolished-materialismAxel
August 4, 2012
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Meh. We Christians actually have Extraordinary Evidence available, of which too many of us remain ignorant.
The trouble with sense-knowledge based arguments [a.k.a. philosophical arguments], however, as the sole category of witnesses to the truth is that they don't go far enough to be fully satisfying to the believer in the long run. As indicated by the fact that God Himself has provided an ongoing witness that is far greater. Salvation is a subjective spiritual transaction between the Holy Spirit and the individual who receives Christ.[6] But to hear a lot of Christians talk, you would almost think that it is the sole transaction that ever occurs. Which can only mean that they remain uninstructed from God's Word about the objective spiritual transactions between the Holy Spirit and the believer. Transactions which are evidence that, from the moment of salvation forward, represents a day-by-day and moment-by-moment witness of God the Father's presence and power in us through Christ Jesus.
jstanley01
August 2, 2012
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What is your epistemology EDTA? I guarantee you I can burn it down to its basic assumptions in five minutes flat.
I have no doubt you could uncover my basic assumptions quickly. I'm not a professional philosopher, but I start with a few things I cannot argue against: an external reality, the fact that logic applies to reality, an ability to (imperfectly) know and reason. Toss any of those out, and you might as well not think at all. In terms of apologetics, I'm an evidentialist, but I can't argue against all of presuppositionalism.EDTA
August 2, 2012
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I've often referred to the way in which the the term, 'the rich man' is used in scripture in apposition to 'the wicked man', and the 'poor man' with the true Israel, the virtuous man. However, I should surely add that we cannot avoid generalisations if we are to make any sense of the world, and in heaven, the rich people who enter there will be 'other Christs', 'only begottens of the Father', just the same as everybody else, so I'm not suggesting that God wants us to revile all rich people here on earth, never mind in heaven. Christ was making a generalised analysis of human behaviour in terms of the relative faith of rich and poor - as James was to indicate in his Epistle, i.e. that the poor (generally-speaking) are rich in faith. 'Where your treasure is, there your heart is.'Axel
August 2, 2012
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'To believe in Christ without belief in Moses and the prophets (or having even heard of them) is certainly possible as suggested in Scripture itself (where Gentiles came to faith because of the witness of Christ’s apostles).' But Christ wasn't preaching to the gentiles, scordova; he was speaking to people who were members of a strict theocratic society who would have been familiar with Moses and the Prophets. Do you think that we are not to extrapolate the point of his parable, because of that? You seem to have a pedantic mind (an asset in science, generally, I expect), which makes you miss the wood for the trees. Don't get hung up on details, when the tale is meant to be metaphorical.Axel
August 2, 2012
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'Axel, I’ll take false dichotomies for $100. I mean, if I’m forced to choose between faith and reality that is. Hehe. :D' You're beyond help, Chancey! But the odds bookies lay would on certainties would be very long odds on - something to the tune of the multiverse! And I'm not into betting even a Brazillion Monopoly pounds to win a real sixpence.Axel
August 2, 2012
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Nice of you to say so, Sergio. I'm sure I'm speak for the others, too.Axel
August 2, 2012
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"The Law as and prophets are based on Christ, not the other way around." .... in what he was saying, scordova! Based himself in what he was saying, on the Law and the Prophets, was adverting to them as prophetically witnessing to him. This was personified on Mt Tabor at Christ's transfiguration, by the appearance of Moses and Elijah, to converse with him about his impending death. "The relevance of this discussion to ID is that, it would seem for some, that the Bible itself may not be sufficient witness itself for some to believe in Christ. The words in the Gospel are a necessary, but perhaps not sufficient reason to believe in Christ. Christ himself acknowledged this in John 10:38." Are people really arguing that? I don't think so. I think bornagain is saying that if faith were simply a matter of evidence, there is enough material in the Bible to compel belief. But we know that not only is the analytical intelligence, on its own, inapt for the study of matters spiritual, but we ultimately believe what we want to believe in the abstruse context of our world-view; only philosophical voluntarism makes sense of Christ's preaching, and indeed morality. For example, the idea of meeting Mengele in heaven on the basis of his having a high academic, worldly intelligence, is of course, hideously repugnant, indeed, nonsensical. With our Judaeo-Christian premises, all knowledge is coherent, even though only God will understand all. Everything is capable of being understood on one level or another - even if it's understood by us only as a mystery that is completely opaque to the analytical intelligence, fathomable only by God. An extremely rational belief in what the members of the secular magic-cult seek to pillory as the God of the gaps. Although the hapless mutts use the paradoxes of quantum and astro-physics every day to further their career, pretending that they are only counter-intuitive, not counter-rational! The references to the same name, Lazarus, are not ironical. Is it not simply a matter of Christ's prescience of what was to come? Precisely the thing I have been trying to convey to you; he was adverting to both past and present. He was, of course, the great, the ultimate Prophet, who was to come. Why would he not?Axel
August 2, 2012
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‘Violates no logical principles’, Chance? What are you talking about? They are paradoxes, or as we, believers, quaintly put it: ‘mysteries’. Not ‘counter-intuitive’, but ‘counter-rational’. Max Planck and Niels Bohr ‘had a handle on’ it. Why haven’t you, after almost a century?
Axel, I'll take false dichotomies for $100. I mean, if I'm forced to choose between faith and reality that is. Hehe. :DChance Ratcliff
August 2, 2012
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Starbuck and his kin are abominations. Now, kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.
No not my donkey!Starbuck
August 2, 2012
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Christ was basing himself on (though only he would have anticipated his Resurrection, at that point) the coherence and continuity of the witness to him,
The Law as and prophets are based on Christ, not the other way around. The five brothers appear to be exactly like the Pharisees that: 1. saw Jesus miracles 2. saw Lazarus raised from the dead (ironic isn't it that the 5 brothers were brothers of someone by the same name "Lazarus") 3. had evidence of Christ's resurrection The 5-brothers certainly were not the picture of the people that actually believed in John 11 after seeing Lazarus raised from the dead, nor the Gentiles who believed that may not have known of Jewish prophets and Moses, much less listened to them! The 5-brothers were picture of the special case of those that didn't listen to moses, the prophets, nor Christ even after seing Lazarus raised from the dead. By they way, since the 5-brothers were a parable, doesn't it strike you as ironic, that the name of the person wanting to be raised from the dead was also named LAZARUS! It wasn't meant to describe everyone, since, not everyone who believed may have necessarily listened to Moses and the prophets (i.e. the Gentiles in Paul's day). So, it is a wrong application of 5-brothers to argue in favor of this sort of circular reasoning:
I believe the bible, becuase the Bible says so
To believe in Christ without belief in Moses and the prophets (or having even heard of them) is certainly possible as suggested in Scripture itself (where Gentiles came to faith because of the witness of Christ's apostles). The relevance of this discussion to ID is that, it would seem for some, that the Bible itself may not be sufficient witness itself for some to believe in Christ. The words in the Gospel are a necessary, but perhaps not sufficient reason to believe in Christ. Christ himself acknowledged this in John 10:38.scordova
August 2, 2012
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"That’s certainly a proposition about what is true, but again it’s testimony that must be accepted or rejected. It can be neither established or refuted by scientific methodology. It violates no logical principles – and neither does “light is both a particle and a wave.” 'Violates no logical principles', Chance? What are you talking about? They are paradoxes, or as we, believers, quaintly put it: 'mysteries'. Not 'counter-intuitive', but 'counter-rational'. Max Planck and Niels Bohr 'had a handle on' it. Why haven't you, after almost a century?Axel
August 2, 2012
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"In fact, it is Christ resurrection from the dead that is used as a basis of belief in the Christian faith, not strictly from listening to Moses and the prophets! So the passage you cite can be argued as a special case. You can insist you’re right, but not every believer accepts your interpretation." That is not worthy of you, scordova. The word, 'strictly' that you use is a key-word, the-key word, in your post, but clearly Christ was basing himself on (though only he would have anticipated his Resurrection, at that point) the coherence and continuity of the witness to him, both of scripture and, here, ironically, of the ultimate, most seminal thaumaturgy. Your arguments re Moses and Sodom are casuistic, and I feel, eristic, since the five brothers were clearly intended by Christ to represent the generic rich. In fact, the point is a fairly constant refrain throughout scripture, (most pointedly, of course, in relation to Christ's burial): references to the rich man, in apposition to the wicked man; to the poor man, in apposition to the true Israel, the virtuous man. The impression I have is that the egregiously high, analytical, worldly intelligence of the Jewish people is indicative of a sort of reiteration of the expulsion of Adam from the Garden of Eden; always bearing in mind Paul's words about the Jewish people and their heroic role in God's providential economy - by a strange twist, they have been made rich for our sake! Sure, they have their rogues, but they, generally, nevertheless, seem to manage to combine their worldliness with a puzzlingly concomitant spirituality! They were the Christ-bearers, his conception, in a sense, beginning with Abraham and his divine commission. Without the Jews, there would have been no Christ or Christianity (barring another plan on God's part), without Judaism, no Christian scripture. Of course, everyone is free to interpret everything however they choose, but that is scarcely an insightful remark, is it? You're treading dangerously close to 'multiversifying'.Axel
August 2, 2012
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all speakers, thanks to you also. sergiosergiomendes
August 2, 2012
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Axel, your comment full of matters of consideration. I keep surprised at count of theological speakers here. my notes multiply speedily! thank you. sergiosergiomendes
August 2, 2012
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'2. they believed only after seeing someone raised from the dead' And bear in mind that that conviction did not convert the religious authorities, but only made them more determined to kill Jesus and possibly Lazarus, since that miracle was having such a widespread, persuasive effect. So, without either a fear of God, or a love of God, a person will rather do whatever he can to discredit the evidence or proof. I don't see scripture as a science text, although it may well be one, if I had the capacity to discern it. But the point is that the Bible is God speaking to the individual reader, directly. And I don't believe that that is his purpose when he uses scripture to speak to us. He's just not interested. It's all 'old hat' to Him. It's child's play for Him to think matter. Indeed, there is every reason to believe tha,t in heaven, someone who was born a cretin will have AT LEAST the degree of access to an understanding of this physical universe and/or any others, as Einstein had or would have in heaven. Matter is no big deal, I'm afraid, but that would stand, even if it were; perhaps, even, particularly if it were.Axel
August 1, 2012
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ForJah, I agree that one cannot reason without logic. My point is that logic does not refute those statements (and science cannot) not that logic isn't involved. Science relies on logical principles, just as any sort of reasoning does - but it hasn't the ability to establish or refute logic, it must take it for granted. Science also does not have the ability to establish or refute the existence of God. We posit God to explain why science explains anything at all, but I reject that science can tell us that God does not exist, or that he does. Of course some of this turns on how one defines science. Are you including formal logic within the purview of science? It's one thing to say that science relies on logic, it's another to say that logic is scientific. So I'm not entirely sure where you're coming from here. When Christians make the Bible as the primary authority on their world view, they are of course using reasoning to make that judgment. However reason is not the world view itself. Whether one accepts or rejects one Biblical tenet or another, one is reasoning. Whether one accepts or rejects reason, they are using reasoning to try and arrive at their conclusion. So in essence we have to presuppose logic and reason, whether or not we agree on what is true. You do not have the advantage because you put reason above the Bible - we both must presuppose it and use it, just as we must presuppose that we both exist, and we must presuppose objective truth, whether we confess to it or not. ;-)Chance Ratcliff
August 1, 2012
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Chance...you are using reason and logic to come to your answer. Even though they disagree with mine. Therefore, you are using something outside of the bible to determine what is true. I saw something in these comments about final authority. The final authority is really your own thought processes. Also, I don't know how you could think someone being with someone and being that same person makes any logical sense, as well as saying Jesus is God, The Father is God, and the holy spirit is God but they aren't three God's but one God. That is illogical. Many trinitarians will even admit this, that is why the trinity is labeled as "a mystery". That quote from John 10:30 should be understood in the context of the scripture that proceed it such as John 17:21, "I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me."(KJV) Therefore when Jesus said the Father and I are one...he wasn't talking about their nature but their unity in will. It's easily understood by saying the USA Olympic team are one together. One powerful representation of our country. Here again we find reason playing a part in our understanding of what scripture says. "The bible says it, therefore I believe it" this is a no brainer statement...but only if the bible says "IT". But "IT" is arrived at through logic, reason, and sometimes the scientific method and therefore has final authority.ForJah
August 1, 2012
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"Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes." (Proverbs 26:4-5) The above are contradictory statements. However there are different implications that can be inferred: 1) The author is ignorant. 2) The author is illogical. 3) The author changed his mind. 4) The two statements can be harmonized if it's presumed that 1, 2, and 3 are false. Forgive the analogy, but choosing #4 might just require a supposition of inerrancy. That's not to say that the inerrancy belief has no supporting arguments, just that one must presuppose it for #4 to make the most sense.Chance Ratcliff
August 1, 2012
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ForJah, I understand your point but do not really agree. How would one go about developing the scientific methodology to establish that a personal being created the heavens and the earth as a singular event at some point in unobservable history? And what would science have to say about the properties of such a being? I will agree that ID methodology allows us to suppose that such a being is more likely than not (a best explanation) by probabilistic and abductive reasoning; but philosophy, not science, is how we begin to understand the necessary properties/capabilities of such a being. ID ceases appropriately at the design inference (a material effect) but does not trespass on implication. With regard to the Trinity, there is no logical contradiction that I can see. Scripture suggests that God is an omnipotent, omniscient, eternal being who exists in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If this can be refuted scientifically or logically, nobody has demonstrated how. Jesus said, "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30) That's certainly a proposition about what is true, but again it's testimony that must be accepted or rejected. It can be neither established or refuted by scientific methodology. It violates no logical principles - and neither does "light is both a particle and a wave."Chance Ratcliff
August 1, 2012
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1
01
2012
02:51 PM
2
02
51
PM
PDT
1 2 3

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