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For all you Protestants out there, how do you know that the Bible is of divine inspiration? I am not talking about literal inerrancy here, although if you do believe that, you can also say why you believe that.
I just read a debate among ELCA Lutheran ministers on this subject. One insisted that only parts of the Bible were divinely-inspired — the meaningful parts, the parts that contain the core of God’s message — and the rest is just human. But then, we have humans deciding what the core of God’s message is — what is divinely inspired and what is not — which seems odd and logically-flawed to me.
Thanks!
The apostles claimed it's inspired, and God-breathed. 2 Tim 3:16
A prophet speaks God's will, not his own. 2 Peter 1:21
Thing is, I'm not arrogant enough to pick and choose which parts are and are not God's Word.
This answer is patently false. The Bible is certainly not "self referencing". Nowhere in the Bible does it even say there is such a thing as a "Bible", let alone a Bible consisting of a New and an Old Testament. The Bible is also not self identifying, and -- since the Bible per se is never mentioned in the Bible -- there is nothing whatsoever in the Bible that states which books belong in the Bible, and which do not. Note that the idea of a "Bible" as something that unites disparate books into a single volume would have been incomprehensible before the invention of the codex form of manuscript -- and codices did not exist before the time of Christ.
An honest person must admit that the concept that there is a "Bible" containing a specific number of identified books is something that cannot be found in the Bible itself. Instead, the idea that there are a certain and identifiable number of divinely-inspired books that together form the "Bible" is necessary extra-biblical. Catholics and Orthodox do not have a problem with that statement because they have always believed in Apostolic Tradition. However, Protestants reject the idea of Tradition -- which means that they have to find some other way of identifying the canon of scripture. The problem, of course, is that the Bible never tells you how to do that, which means that the whole idea of "sola scriptura", or believing in nothing unless it can be found in the Bible, is a house built on sand, and that collapses when it is realized that the Bible never teaches anything of the kind, especially since the Bible never tells you what the Bible does or does not include.
An honest person might deny there was such a thing as air because they can't see it. You have a multitude of senses. Do any of them exist at a level where your consciousness can play tricks on you? That's not much different than not being able to see what I am talking about. There are illusions like the Neeker cube, which are a choice, then there are illusions, such as that of the same color appearing as a different color along adjoining sides of a cube due to our appreciation of the context. Which one am I dealing with?
The apostles claimed it's inspired, and God-breathed. 2 Tim 3:16
Paul (and not "the apostles") says this to Timothy about the sacred writings that Timothy has known from childhood. The sacred writings that Timothy has known from childhood are the Old Testament books found in the Greek Septuagint translation. These books include Wisdom, Sirach, Judith, and Maccabees 1 and 2. Do you agree with Paul, and consider these books inspired and God-breathed? Also note that at the time that Paul wrote to Timothy, much of the New Testament had not yet been written, and in any case, Timothy certainly had not known Paul's letters from the time of Timothy's childhood, because Paul had not written them then. Paul is therefore not calling his own letters, or any other New Testament book, a "sacred writing." Why do you then do so?
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A prophet speaks God's will, not his own. 2 Peter 1:21
In the verse before this, Peter also says that a prophecy in scripture is not a matter for one's own interpretation. Tell me, then, how do you identify whether a book is scripture or not, so you can know whether or not to apply this standard? Second, if an individual does not have the authority to interpret a prophecy in scripture, who does?
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Thing is, I'm not arrogant enough to pick and choose which parts are and are not God's Word.
I think you mean that you are not thoughtful or careful enough to have even considered how to know what should be considered inspired scripture, and what should not. Based on your silly answer, it appears that one should not pick or choose among any books at all, and thus Gone With the Wind or The Hunt for Red October are just as likely to be inspired as the Isaiah, or Psalms, or the Gospel of Luke. If this is not what you meant to say, then how is the canon of scripture determined? The Bible is silent on the subject, and you clearly have no personal authority to do this -- so who does?
This answer is patently false. The Bible is certainly not "self referencing". Nowhere in the Bible does it even say there is such a thing as a "Bible", let alone a Bible consisting of a New and an Old Testament. The Bible is also not self identifying, and -- since the Bible per se is never mentioned in the Bible -- there is nothing whatsoever in the Bible that states which books belong in the Bible, and which do not. Note that the idea of a "Bible" as something that unites disparate books into a single volume would have been incomprehensible before the invention of the codex form of manuscript -- and codices did not exist before the time of Christ.
An honest person must admit that the concept that there is a "Bible" containing a specific number of identified books is something that cannot be found in the Bible itself. Instead, the idea that there are a certain and identifiable number of divinely-inspired books that together form the "Bible" is necessary extra-biblical. Catholics and Orthodox do not have a problem with that statement because they have always believed in Apostolic Tradition. However, Protestants reject the idea of Tradition -- which means that they have to find some other way of identifying the canon of scripture. The problem, of course, is that the Bible never tells you how to do that, which means that the whole idea of "sola scriptura", or believing in nothing unless it can be found in the Bible, is a house built on sand, and that collapses when it is realized that the Bible never teaches anything of the kind, especially since the Bible never tells you what the Bible does or does not include.
Paul (and not "the apostles") says this to Timothy about the sacred writings that Timothy has known from childhood.
Peter also said Paul's writings were Scripture.
In another letter, Paul makes sure to state what HIS opinion was on a matter, and that it wasn't from God, suggesting that he knew the rest of it to be God-inspired.
Again, though. I'm not arrogant enough to pick and choose what is and is not God's Word.
Beyond whether you identify if a book is scriptural, how do you determine what God is up to today? I think both processes use some of the same measurements.
An honest person might deny there was such a thing as air because they can't see it.
This is a foolish answer. The only "honest person" who would say that is a honest simpleton, because anyone else knows that air is a physical substance that can be felt, and weighed, and measured. Furthermore, the existence of air has nothing whatsoever do do with the statement that was made: namely, that the concept that there is a "Bible" containing a specific number of identified books is something that cannot be found in the Bible itself, and that instead, the idea that there are a certain and identifiable number of divinely-inspired books that together form the "Bible" is necessary extra-biblical.
Frankly, I consider your blather about "illusions", and your refusal to address the point at hand, to be an indication of a lack of honesty on your part, because the lack of any mention of a two-part "Bible" in the Bible itself is no "illusion", but is instead a cold, hard, and readily discernable fact.
But let's indulge your fondness for subterfuge and smoke and mirrors for a moment, and let's pretend that if we only use all our senses, we will see the Bible identifying itself. So tell us then -- Where in the Bible is the Bible (and I mean the whole Bible, containing both a New Testament and an Old Testament) mentioned at all? And where in the Bible are we given explicit information regarding which books are included in the Bible? Finally, if this information is not in the Bible, where is it -- and how is relying on that standard of faith outside the Bible not fatal to a belief in "sola scriptura"?
Peter didn't say which ones he meant. Do you know?
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In another letter, Paul makes sure to state what HIS opinion was on a matter, and that it wasn't from God, suggesting that he knew the rest of it to be God-inspired.
Although Paul made no such distinction in the letter to Timothy -- so how do you know that Paul meant that this statement was from God? Beyond that, how do you know which of the other books of the New Testament are inspired? You also haven't explained whether or not the inspired scriptures include all the scriptures Timothy knew from the Septuagint -- which in turn raises the question of how you know whether the book you call your "Bible" is complete or not.
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Again, though. I'm not arrogant enough to pick and choose what is and is not God's Word.
So you really can't tell me whether the novels of Tom Clancy are just entertaining trash, or whether I should instead regard them as God's Word? That is sad...
In that case, you should seek your answer there, in that literature. You will be able to cite quotations much more easily. You will find passages that will better explain the arguments because they are the very edge of this sort of question being hashed out. If, when you were persuaded to believe, you had seen that stuff, you might not have had some of the doubts you had. Some. It depends upon what your own story is. Don't, for God's sake, go too deeply into that, or you know what other people will do with it. We all need to talk about what we go through. We exorcise our demons that way, so to speak. You have had to deal with the loss of God. That is a big one.
What is the mindset of being a believer, anyway? Is that a static thing, in your mind, or something that reacts dynamically to the things it sees around it? There is a difference, I think. One needs to adhere. The other can figure things out. It doesn't really operate that much differently than the mode of thought of most atheists, using reason. Well, reason tempered with experience. One without the other is like only having one hand.
That sort of confusion is the metaphor of the garden. Our having nakedness thrown out before us as a metaphor is to bring it round to showing us that the lesson is about our ignorance. We are not born wise. You see all of these structures in life where we partially imitate this, grinding ourselves to nothing, sometimes. I guess we struggle with things like how might does not make right. Then we turn around and live the way we do.
The kingdom, is supposed to be about more than that. I think you can see how too many "adherents" spoils that stew, so to speak. "There is poison in the pot," as the prophets cried out to Elisha. But that too has been written about. It is the story of how God worked, in the Book of Acts, to ensure that His idea of equality would be written upon His Church, not that of the circumcision. It is, ridiculously, why Christianity has the appeal that it actually does. God actually cares for people. He just has to deal with us all on an equal basis. No favorites.
Trying to get something special outside of the lines is like when your teacher called you out in class for chewing gum. They would always say to you that you can't unless you brought enough for the whole class, but we know as adults that wasn't really the reason. Imagine having to teach over the din of chewing noises. My teacher, though it was that one mean old biddy substitute I tried that one out on, didn't need me to produce that big pack of Juicy Fruit.
Believe me, I did read “all that stuff.” I read lots of Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer, Tillich, Merton, etc. My talk isn’t about theology though, it’s about experience, what I actually believed and why I believed it. It was thirty years ago, so it’s not easy. Just asking others to jog my memory a little. I think I believed the Bible was divinely inspired because that is simply what I was told. I am not sure any of the sophisticated arguments I read made me doubt less/believe more.
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