Friday, January 15, 2010

Why I Believe the Bible is the Word of God: Scripture Agrees with Nature, God's Other Volume of Truth

I believe that there can be no real doubt about the existence of God. As has been said often, the fact that anything exists today means that something or someone has always existed.

It is absolute nonsense to suggest that something can be created out of nothing. So the fact that something (the universe) exists now means either that that thing has always existed or that something or someone else which has always existed brought that thing into existence. In short: either the universe is eternal or an Eternal Someone made it. There are no other rational options.

And since we know that the universe has not always existed (even secular scientists with their big bang theory acknowledge this), the only rational conclusion is that Something or Someone brought this universe into being. The universe has a Designer/Creator. Throughout history that Designer/Creator has been called "God" (at least in English).

But that leads of course to the question: which God is the right God? Another way of putting it is: how do we know which view of God--that found in the Bible, or that found in another "holy book" or in the imagination of any person--is the right view?

Here is how I arrive at Reason #3 for why I believe the Bible is the Word of God: the God revealed in nature (Romans 1:19, 20; Psalm 19:1, 2) and the God revealed in Scripture are a perfect match.

Since God made the world, the world will reflect His character and being. When an artist creates, what he creates reveals something about him, for the created thing flows out of the being, mind, and heart of the creator.

God's nature reveals God. We can call nature God's Self-Revelation: Volume One. But there's more. Christians believe that actually there are two volumes of God's self-revelation. Volume One is Nature; Volume Two is Scripture.

But for this Christian claim to be verified, Volumes One and Two must be entirely consistent, since God is a God who cannot contradict Himself. What He says in one revelation must agree with what He says in another or else He's a liar. So run the test. What do you find when you compare what is learned about God in nature and what is learned about God in Scripture? A perfect match.

Study Volume One and you'll discover that nature reveals a God who is a powerful, wise, brilliant, good, kind, generous, beauty-loving, eternal, dependable, majestic, transcendant, and yet a constantly-involved-in-His-creation Being. You'll also discover in nature's earthquakes and tsunamis and diseases that nature's God is no benign, passive, entirely-pleased-with-this-world, indulgent, or completely safe Wimp.

Nature reveals that God is all the wonderful things mentioned above, and that He is mad at something. Not all is right between God and his creation. Storms and calamities reveal that something has stirred the wrath of God.

Now study Volume Two and you'll discover that Scripture reveals a God that matches nature's God perfectly. He is all the wonderful things that nature reveals; He is all the terrifying things nature reveals. Nature and Scripture harmonize. Both reveal that God is astonishingly good, and that God is One with Whose wrath we dare not trifle.

This--along with many other factors gives me cause to believe the Bible is the Word of God that it claims to be. It matches what I see in God's creation. It conforms to the way things are in the real world. It echoes the song that nature sings. What I read in God's Word fits what I see in God's world.

Thus I believe. Here I stand.
How about you?

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4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Awesome truth here, and this is wonderful to share with people who
either don't believe or are beginning to but question.
Nancy Tuz

January 15, 2010 at 12:37 PM  
Blogger Tom Coughlin said...

Studying nature even at the most elemental level reveals God. Children are great students of nature, and they always ask "why?".
"Why are the stars in the sky mommy?" Why do the leaves fall to the ground after summer?" Always asking "why". It is the most natural thing to look at nature and recognize that there must be and is a reason "why". God revealing Himself, going public with Himself. Then we have the Scripture, that wonderful "special" revelation.

Thanks Tim for these blogs. I too, like Peter am printing these out and saving them for my teens(and family here in T.R.) to read and discuss together.
"The heavens declare the glory of God..."

January 16, 2010 at 7:39 AM  
Blogger Tim Shorey said...

Great observation about children Tom. They do always ask why don't they?

And why do they ask why?
Because they know instinctively that there is a why; a behind the scenes Reason and Cause.

The very existence of all things shouts even to a child's mind the existence of Reason and Cause.

And there God stands, behind everything and in everything; waiting for us to come to our senses and see that He is.

January 16, 2010 at 8:05 AM  
Blogger Bruce said...

There is a strange and perverse phenomena that I have observed. Everywhere around us we see things that we know immediately are the result of a designer, things that have been brought into existence by a creator. We walk through a museum and we know immediately and without question that the various expressions of art did not come into existence on their own, but were brought into existence by an artist.

We can multiply this everywhere we look, ad infintum as nauseum, without exception. Except, very strangely, when we look at and observe nature, in all its various forms and utterly amazing grandeur, the greatest masterpiece of art, the one whose complexity and beauty on both a macro and micro scale make all else pale by comparison, otherwise intelligent people will conclude---------Hmmmmm, all this just happened on its own, no Creator, no Designer.

As amazing as this non-thinking is, when one thinks about it, I suppose it too bears witness to the Bible as God's true Word, that Word which informs us about the horrific effects of the Fall as it spiritually devastated the human race. The sad and tragic reality is that by nature, apart from sovereign mercy, we all by our "unrighteousness suppress the truth" that is shouting to us everywhere from without and within (Rom. 1:18---but please read the rest of the chapter).

Thanks Tim for these posts------hugely important!

January 16, 2010 at 9:36 AM  

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