“Truth is fallen in the public squares” (Isaiah 59:41)
All truth is one. If a Christian uses the expression, “biblical truth,” that can only mean that the context in which his/her truth is found pertains to some area of biblical studies. The reason is that the Bible does NOT claim to be a special means of establishing truth that differs from how the secular world establishes it. In fact this article will argue that the Bible establishes its truths by the same principle that scientists establish scientific truths. Now Christians might protest this point by noting that the Old Test-ament prophets often began their oracles by announcing, “Thus says the LORD!” And what a declaration that was, that the truth which followed it came from no less than Yahweh (Jehovah)! Yet their protest does not refute my point for the reason that identifying the speaker as opposed to establishing that His word is true, are two different things. That is why I italicized “establish” in this paragraph every time.
Now hear ye the following: The Bible in fact, I repeat, establishes itself to be true in the same way that scientists must establish their claims with facts and a historian does so with documentable evidence.[1] If this theme is irritating to you, it nevertheless must be highlighted because many voices today are determined to confuse the matter of truth by insisting that you accept their assertions “just because they say so.” To give some examples, these people continue insisting both that citizens accept the election results just because some courts might decree so, and that no relevant events (gratuitous rioting, etc.) were withheld from the voters notice despite the fact that Fox News has video records to the contrary. They also continue insisting that we accept a fetus to be just a part of the mother’s body, and that genetics and anatomy are likewise irrelevant to their demand that, for example, biological males who deem themselves to be female be treated as such in every public context including showers. So, while the Left prides itself in championing science, they actually accept it only if it serves their goals.[2] It is a dreadful prospect then that we may become legally bound to accept propositions that are false.
What is truth? The universally-accepted definition in our culture is called the “correspondence view.” It means that a proposition is true only if it can be reconciled with the facts that it asserts. Keep this always in mind, please! This is the view of truth that the Bible across the board embraces. Indeed, in Romans 1:18f, the Apostle Paul identifies it as sinful to suppress or deny facts concerning specifically the testimony of nature. I count close to 900 occasions in the Bible where obedience to truth in such contexts is a serious matter. Scripture never commands us to believe what our minds know is false.
Am I saying that we should only
believe the Bible is truth if we can prove it?
Absolutely not! Much of the Bible
I hold to be absolutely so, despite not being able to prove it. My point rather is that if it is to be established
as true, it must be in the way the Bible employs. For example, the Old Testament prophets established
their truth by foretelling an event in the nearby future which actually came to
pass (Deut. 18:22, Is. 46:8-11, Jer. 28:9).
Jesus likewise honored factual knowledge on two occasions: “If I have
told you earthly things and you do not believe; how can you believe if I
tell you heavenly things?” (John 3:12), and “Believe me that I am in the
Father and the Father in me; or else believe me for the sake of the works
themselves” (Jn. 14:11). Both times He
emphasizes truth since it is the only indicator that God’s Word is in fact true
to both Himself and the world He addresses.
Indeed if truth is rejected, then healthy societies cannot endure
because they lack foundation of a kind that promotes mutual trust and
understanding. For this reason, obeying
truth is never optional, but a matter of societal life and death.[3]
[1] See my paper, “The Pervasive Employment of Apologetics
in the Bible,” which is available at the office.
[2] See my blog, “Leftism’s Claims to be Champions of
Science is a Gigantic Fraud,” November 10, 2020, at
offensivechristianity.blogspot.com
[3] See my blog, “Willful Ignorance is Both
Anti-Scientific and Anti-Biblical,” (December 14, 2020), Ibid.
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