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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.
I think that is an excellent question. My first answer is because the bible is self-referencing in its orientation. It's not looking for you to have to understand so much about the context of a particular story that took place in it. It asks you to let the whole thing inform you about some stuff. You can miss idioms that way, though. Idioms can make all of the difference, or so we may be led to believe.
Case in point, are all of the prophetic foreshadowings pertaining to Jesus that are literally infused into the Old Testament. Not only do you have all of the usual verses that are repeatedly cited by Christians as being fulfilled by Christ, but you have narratives which accomplish the same thing as well.
The easiest narrative to miss, but very important, is the story of Elijah. Well, actually, the story of both Elijah and Elisha as the double portion working in the story as told from the perspective of the Holy Spirit. I mean to say that the narrative actually prophesies event for event every major thing that would transpire in the mission of the Holy Spirit to enter the world through the person of Jesus. So, it also speaks to what happens in Acts. The narrative has a one for one fulfillment across the board, through the life of Christ and, then, into the early work of the Church as it was developing under the guidance of the Spirit. It tells the story of what the Holy Spirit would do, and, to a certain extent, how He would do it.
Seeing a fulfillment like this happen also teaches us something about values. It teaches us not to get attached to labels that were never meant to symbolize anything, as opposed to those that were. We see that in how God can pivot around certain things to fulfill a story, but still use the real theme to continue the lesson. But these things, if caught up upon, can be contentious, and give rise to grief. Hopefully, it helps us learn better how to prioritize what is important than to be so strict about blindly "doing?"
This is important because, overall, the concept leads us to the Father. It does that because we are to understand that, somehow, while the universe is churning about, operating according to its laws, that God is underpinning it. We don't need, however, to be the greatest scientists who ever lived to understand God. There are these themes of love and kindness, patience and gentleness that run through the lessons that fold, as opposed to those that don't, even if we do lose idioms. They are just like how Jesus said to us that the Father causes rain to fall upon the just and the unjust. He is like that, but He would like us all to come and join Him. He promises us that sort of kingdom will work.
You know, at this point we do have some examples of other sorts of promised kingdoms that haven't, like Communism as it transpired in the European East. You need better reasons that those that compelled those people. I think the self-referencing thing lends that credibility.
Last edited by Am I a Prophet; 10-09-2021 at 06:56 AM..
Reason: the writing process
How do you know that the Bible is divinely-inspired?
We are not called to KNOW. We are called to have FAITH.
Hebrews 11:6a - And without faith it is impossible to please Him
But how did you come to the conclusion that you needed to have faith that the Bible was divinely inspired? Was it the Bible itself? Was it some person, say a minister? Or did God reveal this to you directly in prayer?
But how did you come to the conclusion that you needed to have faith that the Bible was divinely inspired? Was it the Bible itself? Was it some person, say a minister? Or did God reveal this to you directly in prayer?
When one is a believer in Christ today (through faith in the gospel) - the presence of God is within that person through the Holy Spirit.
Then it becomes a matter of whether or not you are going to have faith in God or not. God communicates to His children through the Holy Spirit, and through the Bible (which the Holy Spirit is responsible for - 2 Pet. 1:21), and through other believers who have the Holy Spirit.
It's similar to a child who knows nothing, but trusts in its parents for love, care, etc. Children experience the love from their parents and through continued interaction, they trust them.
Believers interact with God and experience His love, and should grow to trust Him more than ourselves.
Proverbs 3:5-6
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight.
But how did you come to the conclusion that you needed to have faith that the Bible was divinely inspired? Was it the Bible itself? Was it some person, say a minister? Or did God reveal this to you directly in prayer?
You are really just asking what Soren Kierkegard addressed, when he wrote about the necessity for taking a "leap of faith." There is extensive literature on that. Don't be mean to people.
Please understand, I need to assume you are coming from a non-Christian, therefore much more competitive, worldview. That is, simply the position I am forced to reason from. Otherwise, I apologize for being so rude.
Last edited by Am I a Prophet; 10-09-2021 at 09:15 AM..
Reason: the writing process
You are really just asking what Soren Kierkegard addressed, when he wrote about the necessity for taking a "leap of faith." There is extensive literature on that. Don't be mean to people.
I am not being mean. I am soon giving a talk on my deconversion experience and trying to somehow get myself back into the mindset of being a believer. Doing research, in other words.
I am not being mean. I am soon giving a talk on my deconversion experience and trying to somehow get myself back into the mindset of being a believer. Doing research, in other words.
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.
Last edited by Am I a Prophet; 10-09-2021 at 10:23 AM..
Reason: the writing process
My first answer is because the bible is self-referencing in its orientation. It's not looking for you to have to understand so much about the context of a particular story that took place in it. It asks you to let the whole thing inform you about some stuff.
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.
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!
We are told that the real Gospel is one that affirms that Jesus Christ is God Incarnate, that God came in the flesh. That should be our filter for what is the work of humans and what is from God or Jesus. This requires that we develop a consistent understanding of the persona of Jesus Christ and His True Nature, aka the "mind of Christ." Through the "mind of Christ" we can know the "mind of God." The clearest example of God's True Nature is demonstrated unambiguously as God's Holy Spirit of agape love and forgiveness by Jesus on the Cross.
As God Incarnate under treatment from us at our savage and brutal worst, He forgave us, even His torturers and murderers, because we did not know what we did. Does that strike you as a wrathful God who would curse His newly created children and their descendants for a single act of disobedience??? Jesus, as God, exhibited ZERO wrath and vengeance on the Cross and specifically forgave us at our worst! How can we continue to allow our ancestors' mistaken beliefs about a wrathful God influence our understanding of God. THAT is how we filter what is from God and Jesus and what is from humans. If it is not compatible with the following states of mind, it is NOT from God or Jesus:
The Holy Spirit IS the True Nature of God revealed, described, and demonstrated unambiguously by Jesus. He IS agape love, kindness, mercy, compassion, gentleness, unconditional acceptance, empathy, sympathy, tolerance, long-suffering, decency, friendliness, peacefulness, joyfulness, understanding, care, concern, solicitude, solicitousness, sensitivity, tender-heartedness, soft-heartedness, warm-heartedness, warmth, love, brotherly love, tenderness, gentleness, mercifulness, leniency, lenience, consideration, kindness, humanity, humaneness, kind-heartedness, charity, benevolence, and He is non-judgmental.
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