The question was in regard to why I personally believe it to be true, which I have explained. It is obviously not true to everyone else commenting. Which is fine with me. I am not really trying to “present evidence that the bible is true”, I keep saying it is personal, maybe I am the only one that believes, that’s fine too. I am answering your questions honestly without fear that my faith will be torn apart, because it can’t be. I have zero hope of convincing anyone…you asked, I answered. It is impossible for anyone else to convince me that the bible is not truth. Citing other people means nothing, there are plenty of citations on both sides of the truth. I consult the Holy Spirit for truth, which means nothing to any of you because you don’t believe.
I don’t think that. That assumes that faith requires proof, which hinders most scientists because that’s how they are trained. Faith does not require proof, quite the opposite.
Hebrews 11:1 - Now faith is the [a]substance of things hoped for, the [b]evidence of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:6 - But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
What’s the difference? Can you give an example of something that is true but not factual, or vice versa?
Ah, but how do you know it happened to you exactly as it is written in the bible? How do you know the truth of scripture has been revealed to you? I notice that there are lots of people who think the same thing about revealed scripture but have different understandings of what it says. Are they wrong and you right, because of your personal experience?
So that is a major difference between us. I consider the attitude you describe above to be dogmatically closed minded, and a near certain way of ensuring that one remains impervious to the truth. Truth, rather, is best apprehended by evaluating and revising one’s beliefs in accordance with evidence and well-reasoned arguments as they arise.
I don’t recall anything in my scientific training that had anything to say about faith.
In science, nothing is ever formally considered to be proven, so your use of “proof” in that context suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of science and scientific training.
Exactly how does this present a hindrance to scientists?
Oh, it slows them down enormously! Epistemic circularity is really efficient. You don’t need all that messy data. Just believe and ask to be shown the Truth about, say, the Krebs cycle, and there’s no need to then check anything.
@John_Harshman, you’ve brought up the topic of believing vs. knowing several times (based on my faulty memory). Feel free to correct me if I mislabled the topic. Are you being socratic with the hope of teaching via your line of questions, or are you just interested in how Christians come to believe or know what they believe or think they know?
Either way, if asked those questions I think I’d answer differently than some responses I’ve seen. If you’re interested in my answers, then what exactly is your question?
I can do no better than to quote myself above:
Yes…facts are generated by man and pass away, truth is generated by God and endures throughout time. Facts are usually contestable by data or singular in nature, truth is consistent across variable data and multiple instances.
It is a fact that I woke up this morning…it is truth that I am not in control of whether or not I wake up.
Good question. And thanks for the chance to chime in.
The short answer is that you’re right, faith is a way of believing. The question of whether that relates to knowing is nuanced. My belief, trust, seeking of God, tasting and seeing, has resulted in my knowing God. This knowing is similar to knowing a person and I’m not sure how you’d relate that to the knowing that’s in your question. In Spanish it’s “conocer” instead of “saber.“
Here’s the answer fleshed out a bit.
The message of the Bible is Jesus’s story, and the invitation of the Bible is to live into that story. A promise of the Bible is that if you live into that story (trust God), then you’ll experience God. Hebrews 11:6 says that “one who draws near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”
Other language used for this invitation includes trust, believe, seek, enter in, taste and see.
Testimonies found in the Bible are statements like “I was blind but now I see”.
So, you’re right that believing (related to knowing God) is much different than knowing scientific certainties based on empirical evidence.
But there is a form of accumulating evidence and engaging in experimentation that is recommended by the Bible and that has been the foundation of my life for about 34 years. I have tasted and seen. And I carry the stories with me (except that I can’t remember them all). Stories are the currency of the Kingdom of God. I can teach the scriptures to those who are interested. And I can tell Jesus’ story. But I can also offer up my life, my story as an exhibit.
I have tasted and seen. I have pushed all my chips in and hit the jackpot. God has proven himself to me. I can say that I “know” God because I have experienced him.
In conclusion, the Bible offers a way of knowing that may not be satisfying some. The Bible encourages folks to taste and see. One can make their life the experiment.
The lives of others can be evidence (unfortunately, not always positive evidence). Lastly, and this might be a separate discussion, but there is also an exhibit that I’d offer as evidence that can come before tasting and seeing. The Bible itself is evidence.
@John_Harshman, if you’d prefer the TLDR version, the Bible prescribes making yourself the experiment so that you can accumulate evidence and know Him.
An experiment requires very specifically and rigorously defined outcomes that would either confirm or falsify the hypothesis being tested.
What would these outcomes be in the experiment you suggest?
Okay, so here’s a question on the topic of this sort of thing: what’s the best way for a layman like myself to find the scholarly consensus for issues like this? Is that even possible without being deeply familiar with the literature, or am I just dreaming?
That’s a cute metaphor, but a terrible one. Who is the control in your personal experiment?
I actually find Wikipedia helpful in how it summarizes arguments on multiple sides of issues like this one—and even at its weakest, it usually has helpful bibliographic entries and web-links.
It is popular to put down Wikipedia but in my experience (and a number of studies have confirmed this) it does a quite decent job in many fields of study. I often recommend it as a “first stop” in getting familiar with basics, major arguments, history of a topic, etc. Yes, occasional an article will drift into subjective territory but that is usually evident. It is hard to beat on price (free), speed (virtually instantaneous), and helpfulness in getting started on a topic.
I’m often impressed at how one can enter a topic like “authorship of 2 Peter” and quickly find an article on Wikipedia which is very helpful. If you Google such keywords, you will also find helpful commentary and even theological encyclopedia entries in many cases.
I used to think that epistemologies could be sorted into “good” and “bad,” but increasingly I have to admit that “Dada” is also a category of note.
I’m going to write my own little parable…
A young mother walks into the kitchen to find a boy with a sheepish look on his face, surrounded by cookie crumbs, and chocolate smudged on his cheek. The woman asks the boy, “Did you eat the cookie? Now tell the truth.”
The boy responds, “I will tell the truth, but you won’t like it. The truth is that from the beginning of time, man was created with a sinful nature. Though I tried to control my desire for self satisfaction, I am inherently evil and without repentance and a firm commitment to walk in faith according to the word of God, I am incapable of behaving righteously of my own power. I may think I am doing good, but I also have the capacity to deceive myself, so I need guidance to know what is true.”
“OK,” the young woman responds, “Tell me the fact.”
“I ate the cookie.” said the boy.
Science (and scoffers) take this story and immediately start fact checking. Was the woman really the boys mother, when was it written, who wrote it, how did they know that the crumbs or the chocolate were from the cookie. It couldn’t be an eyewitness account because it is written in the third person. It was written 80 years after the death of the boy, so the facts cannot be accurate. Scholars have cited the great philosopher Balaballoo as saying the woman was actually the boys Aunt, who was his cousin’s mother and the story is reported to be of Austrian descent, so it was probably Sachertorte and not a cookie…it is all rubbish because of these things.
So the truth of the story is lost in man’s own self-importance and desire to be “right”.
I find the articles on linguistics to be well-done. Would you agree?