How can we know anything about anything
To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald
Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?
NO!
That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.
Take science as an example.
How can we know anything about the created material world around us?
How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?
We all see the same things in the material world,
but we don't come to the same answers.
Why is that?
How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches?
Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.
Why is that?
Same scientific facts. Different answers.
Same Bible. Different answers.
Why is that?
The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get
from what we can see through science
or what we can read in the Bible?
How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?
How do we analyze what we have seen and read?
How do we interpret what we have seen and read?
We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock.
That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation.
There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.
An example might help.
Question: Why do you believe in evolution?
Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.
Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?
Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.
Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.
If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.
When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered.
So where to the foundations come from?
There are three possibilities.
- things that we make up, pulled from the air
- demonic lies
- divine revelation
Question: Why do you believe in creation?
Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith
so that I could believe Him.
See how quickly we got to the foundation.
This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.
In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air,
are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan.
So these are one and the same.
Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ.
So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices?
Because God has revealed this truth to us.
The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God
and the lies of Satan?
The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.
Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"
The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem.
It is a moral problem.
Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you:
For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened."
*
Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?
Matthew 7:7-11 *
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe
those things that they don't want to submit to.
They have to want to obey God.
How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver
Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)
"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"
Lies appear to have no price upon them.
They seem cheap and they abound everywhere.
But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.
"[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness.
And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him.
God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).
"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words;
that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)
That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus.
When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject.
Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.
"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)
Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university.
On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before
who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them,
but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.
In another case of just listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning,
the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.
They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air.
When asked why he believed his basic assumption,
the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out,
"I guess I'm making the whole thing up."
It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions.
However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn't want God to rule over him.
I'm glad that you don't have a history of violence. And I think that we agree that violence is a terrible thing. As a person who believes in Christ, I can give a reason for believing the violence is a bad thing. However, If evolution actually were the way that the human race moves forward, then violence would be a good thing because the fittest will survive and the weak would die. Can you give a reason for you, as an Atheist, believing that violence is a bad thing... without using faulty logic?
The Bible tells it like it is. Since the fall, there has been violence. The fall was man's fault, not God's fault. When people, Atheists, Christians, or any other people do not obey God, the result is never good. The Bible is the history of the world and shows reality. At times, violence became so great that God, the only One Who has authority and wisdom to take a life of execute judgment, did execute judgment. Once, He destroyed all life except for eight humans and the animals they brought on the ark. Sometime, He used nations to execute His judgment.
The world has a history of violence ever since the fall away from God. Since God is Love, falling away from Him is a huge problem. Not only violence, but every form of sin is simply not allowing Love, that is God, to be in control. God forces Himself on no one. Although, if there really were no God, as Atheists assume, then there would be no reason why violence, or any other sin, would be wrong. If I told you, "You should not kill," you could say to me, "Who says?" And--if there were no God--you would be correct and I would be wrong.
So there is a history of violence and Jesus said that things would become gradually worse and worse until the end of the age comes. Expect more of it. And expect it from all religions, not just the Atheistic religions. Expect it from people that call themselves "Christian." There are two reasons for this. First, Christians become confused just like everyone else. Second, most Christians do not know Jesus Christ or have Him ruling over them in their lives--they are non-Christians but they don't know it. That is to say that most Christians do not have the Love that is only available through Jesus Christ flowing out from them--Love is the Spirit of God.
I would also like to say that, since the New Testament was written, human religion has often gone away from the God Who is Love. Human religion has motivated people who called themselves Christian to murder many simply because the martyrs had made a relationship between themselves and the living God through Jesus Christ. Human religion, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Atheism, etc., has motivated even more to murder others simply because of the martyrs had a relationship with God through Christ. The heart of man is wicked until it is redeemed. The heart of man does not want to be ruled by Love. It rejects God unless God does a miracle.
Here is the good part. Right now, any Atheist can pray and God will meet that Atheist. They will meet God. God is already calling out to them. In fact, God is using this very page to call out to them. The door is open. The door is Jesus Christ Who paid the price of forgiveness and of deliverance from bondage to Satan.