Is The Bible True?

I recently asked the sophomores to tell me, without using any notes, how they would respond briefly to someone who claimed that the Bible is not trustworthy. Here is a response from Rebecca H.

"The Bible can be seen and treated as a historical document. With any historical document, their reliability can be tested with three tests: the Bibliographical, the Internal, and the External. The Bibliographical compares the manuscripts of a document to others. You ask about how many manuscripts there are and how long they were written after the events they record. The Internal compares the document to itself. This test looks at the author or authors and asks how they know. The External looks at archaeology, science, and other historical documents to back up the claims made in the document.

The Bible can be proven to be true with these tests. There are thousands of manuscripts of the Bible which is much, much more than other documents which at the most may have a couple hundred. The manuscripts of the New Testament which deal with Jesus' teachings can be dated anywhere from 50-100 years after the original. (Compared to other ancient manuscripts this is a very small gap of time.) Most of the authors of the gospels were eyewitnesses of the events recorded; Matthew, John and possibly Mark. Luke, even though he didn't personally eyewitness them, researched the events very carefully. Other documents that are not Biblical at all even support the Bible. One very important point though is why these men would lie about the things they wrote about? Many of them were martyred for the cause of Christ, which is a very high price to pay to support something they knew was a lie. So what would be gained by lying?"

Defining Miracles

What, exactly, is a miracle? How can it be defined? How can it be identified? To agree upon the existence and activity of miracles, we must first have agreed-upon terminology. Only then can miracles be argued for or argued against.
Different people from different views, different places, and different eras have different definitions for the word “"miracle.”" A rudimentary example is that a miracle is an “extraordinary event that "creates or confirms faith."” But this is easily shot down, because there can be extraordinary events that edify faith that have no direct intervention from God.
This definition is not complete. To actually be a miracle, an event must have several distinct characteristics. The miracle must involve God’'s handiwork. Without God in the equation, the event cannot be a miracle, but a natural occurrence. The miracle must also be a temporary exception to the natural order of the universe. Without the exception the event would be normal, and God would not have to bend the rules for that short period of time.
A miracle must also be caused by God’s power. Without His power present in the event, that event could not be considered a miracle, since He played no part, even though He may have been present. Lastly, a miracle must proclaim God’'s direct action in the present day. This is the one characteristic contained in the earlier definition where a miracle is an event that “"creates or confirms faith."”
Therefore, a miracle, in the eyes of Richard L. Purtill, is “"an event in which God temporarily makes an exception to the natural order of things, to show that He is acting."” With this complete definition of the word “"miracle,"” events can either be identified or not identified as miracles, and the existence of miracles can be argued over and determined.

True for you, but not for me.

This statement in itself is contradictory. Suppose one person says that murder is a crime that should be judged harshly, but you say that it is a natural act that can't be prevented. Who would be right? Well according to relativism you both would be correct. Now think about the same argument but consider if that person you talked to went and killed your best friend. Would you still hold the same belief? If so, how can you be angry at that person for doing what they believed was "true for them"? This is the would downfall for relativism. If this theory were true no one could be angry about anything. If a girl was raped she could take no retaliation because it was in the man's nature to do it. Relativist contradict themselves not only by their words, but also by their actions.

Miracles and Conceptual Systems

When trying to prove the existence of miracles, one must first determine the worldview of your philosophical opponent. By determining one's opponent's worldview, the fundamental structure of beliefs of a person, one is then able to produce a viable plan of attack against one's opponent.

In the matter of miracles, most worldviews agree that miracles do indeed exist, thus do not need convincing on this matter. However, there are those who oppose their existence. The most outspoken worldview with an opposition to miracles is that of the metaphysical naturalist. Naturalism is built upon five basic tenets:

1. Only nature exists, that is to say nothing outside of the universe exists; this is it.
2. Everything is made of some material or can be explained in terms of some material.
3. Nature is uniform and regular (thus, miracles are in conflict with this and cannot exist because they are irregular and not uniform to the laws of nature.)
4. Nature is self-explanatory, meaning it, in principle, can be explained in terms of its parts.
5. Everything in nature is caused by something else (i.e. cause and effect.)

Therefore, on the terms of the naturalist it is impossible to prove the existence of miracles to them, because their framework of beliefs cannot support the concept. Thus, one must attack the tenets of their worldview to reveal its inconsistencies.

One of the most prominent inconsistencies of naturalism is the belief of order produced by random chance. For instance, one is walking down the road and finds pebbles in a certain position, so that they read, "One mile to Red's Deli," one has two choices. One can believe that they were arranged by some intelligent person or they just fell in that order by random. If one believes they were arranged by someone of intelligence, then one could decide whether to trust this information or not. However, if one would believe they just happened to read, " One mile to Red's Deli," then it would be unreasonable to believe that Red's Deli was a really one mile away. This illustration holds a parallel to the contradictory thinking of the naturalist. Naturalists believe all of nature happened by random chance and furthermore believe everything that exists can be observed or explained in terms of what can be observed. Observation can only be made by the five senses. Thus, a conflict arises. If it is unreasonable to put confidence in that which is brought about by chance, how then does the naturalist put confidence in his senses if they came about purely by chance.

The Purpose of this Website

What is Christian Apologetics? Christian Apologetics is the systematic formulation and winsome presentation of a rational case for the Christian worldview and life-view. The purpose of this website is to allow a group of thirteen high school juniors and seniors to learn how to present rational arguments for the defense of the Christian faith.