A position paper written for some missionaries abroad.
God And Scripture
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
It is fundamental to the Christian belief that the Bible is the Word of God, inspired, infallible, inerrant, authoritative, and sufficient for our faith and practice. In this article, we will lay a logical and Biblical foundation for our belief in this truth.
Truth And The Existence Of God
We know that God is real because nothing could exist apart from Him. Among the greatest of things in existence is truth. Truth could never exist apart from God, and there are several; fundamental reasons why: truth has to have a source; the source of truth must be personal; the source of truth must be knowable; the source of truth must be one; the source of truth must be absolute; the source of truth must be multi-faceted; the source of truth must be sovereign. We will now examine why these things are so.
Truth must have a source. There is nothing that we know of that exists apart from God. Logically speaking, if we were to see a lake appear in the mountains, we would look for a source that would be higher than it, knowing nothing rises above its source. It is the same with truth: it cannot be considered to come from nothing, and we must look for its source as being higher in position than it is.
Truth is absolute. While many today decry absolutes and speak out against certainty, their argument is self-defeating. When they say, “There is no absolute truth,” we can reply, “Is that absolutely true?” When they declare, “There is no certainty,” we can ask them, “Are you certain of that?” Furthermore, those who deny absolute truth do not live as if there are no absolutes. When they get their paychecks and deposit them in the bank, they expect the bank to deal with their money honestly according to the absolute truth of mathematics.
Absolute truth must have an absolute source. What or who might that be? The God of the Bible is presented as the absolute source of truth. The very first verse of the Bible is spoken to us as the truth and presents God as the Creator of all things, including truth. There are many times throughout Scripture where God is spoken of as being true and unchanging and omniscient (all-knowing). He is the God of knowledge (1 Samuel 2:3) and there is no knowledge apart from a relationship with Him. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” (Proverbs 1:7) Thus, the God of the Bible can be seen as the source of all things and knowledge and truth in particular.
Truth is also personal. Truth is not abstract and irrelevant to our lives but is personal, impacting us very deeply. Absolute truth requires an absolute person. Again, the God of the Bible can be seen as this absolute person. Numerous times throughout the Scriptures, He reveals Himself as personal, speaking to His people and showing Himself to them as the source and standard of truth. He has no beginning and no end; thus, God is the absolute person needed as the source of truth. This logically means there is no other god than He because there cannot be two beings who are the eternal source of absolute and personal truth.
Truth is also knowable and must have a source that can be known. The God of the Bible is as well. He does not sit so separately and aloofly that He cannot be known but is by His very nature knowable. He made us in His image, thus uniquely making man able to know Him. In the Bible, He reveals Himself. In the new birth, He gives us His Spirit and grace to restore us to the knowledge of Himself (John 6:45;Colossians 3:10;Hebrews 8:10-11). Truth can be known and must have a source that can be known, and the Bible presents the LORD God as that knowable source of truth.
Not only must truth have an absolute personal and knowable source, but its source must have unity or coherence. Truth is truth wherever one is. It is an irrefutable law of logic that something cannot be A and Non-A at the same time. This is called the law of non-contradiction. This means that truth must be a coherent body. There are not multiple bodies of truth: truth is a unity. Again, the God of the Bible fits that. Notice that Scripture begins with God and speaks of Him singularly: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) God reveals Himself to us in Scripture and shows Himself to be the only God who is one. “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:” (Deuteronomy 6:4) Scripture builds upon this declaring that our Creator is the one true God, and all others are pretenders (Jeremiah 10:1-16). We read similarly in the New Testament: “For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.” (1 Corinthians 8:5–6) Thus, we continue to see that the Scriptures show that the God of the Bible is the foundation and source of truth.
Truth, while being a unity, also has a plurality. There is geological truth, mathematical truth, medical truth, etc. These together form one body of truth, yet there is plurality in unity. From one discipline to the other, truth coheres in one body. The God of the Bible is again found to be the one who fulfills the need as the source and arbiter of truth because He is a plurality in unity. Notice Scripture speaks of Him as such from the beginning, as He said, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…” (Genesis 1:26) God was not alone in Creation. Never does Scripture speak of angels as creative agents, so He was not speaking to them. We do find, however, that the Spirit of God was active in the Creation (Genesis 1:1-2), and the Son of God was also active in the same (John 1:1-4;Hebrews 1:1-3). The Bible plainly speaks to us of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost (Matthew 28:18-20) as being one God. There is no greater expression of this than the declaration of God’s Word by John: “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” (1 John 5:7)God is a plurality in unity. There are not three Gods, but we worship one God in three persons. This is the Trinity or Tri-Unity. God is three persons in one being. The persons are distinct but not separate, they are one. Their very existence is one as well as their will and actions. Thus, we again see that the Bible provides for us the God who is logically the source of all truth.
Finally, truth needs one who is the sovereign judge or arbiter thereof. Once again, we find that the God of the Bible is this judge. He presents truth, rules, and consequences to man in the very beginning (Genesis 1:26-28;2:15-17;3:1-24) and shows Himself to be the judge. The LORD also revealed Himself to Israel as such, as Moses said, “He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.” (Deuteronomy 32:4) Jesus, the Son of God, likewise is spoken of as truth and judge (John 5:22;14:6), and the Spirit is truth also(1 John 5:6). There is no judge other than the one Triune God of the Bible: “There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?” (James 4:12)
There are two conclusions to draw from this:
1. The God of the Bible necessarily exists because truth exists, and He alone meets the criteria as the Creator, source, and judge of truth.
2. The Bible is true because it alone provides the knowledge of the God who is the sole Creator, source, and arbiter of truth.
For the unbeliever to reply, “That simply is incorrect or irrational,” will be for them a self-refuting statement because they will have to assume the Christian Theistic worldview that truth and logic exist for them to deny the truthfulness and rationality of our position. This, in essence, helps to prove our point. It also shows the truthfulness of the Biblical assertion that man in sin suppresses what he knows is true: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;” (Romans 1:18) Men know the truth but hold or suppress the truth in sin. Rather than this position being a mere circular argument, it argues from truth and logic to the God of the Bible and the truthfulness of the Bible, without which we have no grounds for thinking in logical and truthful terms.
The Baptist Sentinel 