How do we know the bible is God's word?

[5Solas5Points]

I want to know how you would answer someone like a Muslim who also claims to have a word from God. How would you prove or how do you know the bible is God's word and other texts aren't? I want to know how classical, presuppositional, evidential, etc would answer. I'm interested primarily in the self-authenticating canon argument but I want to hear different perspectives.

 

[jw]

Westminster Larger Catechism

Q. 4. How doth it appear that the Scriptures are the Word of God?
A. The Scriptures manifest themselves to be the Word of God, by their majesty and purity; by the consent of all the parts, and the scope of the whole, which is to give all glory to God; by their light and power to convince and convert sinners, to comfort and build up believers unto salvation: but the Spirit of God bearing witness by and with the Scriptures in the heart of man, is alone able fully to persuade it that they are the very Word of God.

Hos. 8:12; 1 Cor. 2:6-7, 13; Ps. 119:18, 129; Ps. 12:6; Ps. 119:140; Acts 10:43; Acts 26:22; Rom. 3:19, 27; Acts 18:28; Heb. 4:12; Jas. 1:18; Ps. 19:7-9; Rom. 15:4; Acts 20:32; John 16:13-14; 1 John 2:20, 27; John 20:31.

 

[jw]

Westminster Confession of Faith 1.5

V. We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the holy Scripture;a and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God; yet, notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth, and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.b

a. 1 Tim 3:15. • b. Isa 59:21; John 16:13-14; 1 Cor 2:10-12; 1 John 2:20, 27.

 

[VictorBravo]

yet, notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth, and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.b

This is the ultimate answer. I’ve given a personal anecdote that demonstrates it: my wife and I were happy pagans into our middle years. Lauren’s best friend kept challenging her to actually read the Bible. Lauren got as far as Gen 1:4. She put it down and said, “Cindy’s right. The Bible is the Word of God.”

God separates light from darkness.

 

[Ryan&Amber2013]

The character of God, the trustworthiness of the Bible, and the work of the Holy Spirit. My faith isn't blind. I have every reason to put my faith in the God of the Bible. But only someone who has their spiritual eyes opened can embrace this God. Others can make their own choice, but those choices have serious consequences.

 

[jw]

This is the ultimate answer. I’ve given a personal anecdote that demonstrates it: my wife and I were happy pagans into our middle years. Lauren’s best friend kept challenging her to actually read the Bible. Lauren got as far as Gen 1:4. She put it down and said, “Cindy’s right. The Bible is the Word of God.”

God separates light from darkness.

It’s yet another knock against man’s pride, like the “foolishness” of preaching. I’m not against the modern take on “apologetics,” but if men don’t believe the Bible is the Word of God, then neither will they believe of a man rises from the dead. Same principle. Obviously there is a lot more to say to connect the ideas I expressed, but the way the Catechism & Confession expresses it, I think, is well-put, and asserts, primarily, that the Word of God is self-authenticating, and we receive it as such; otherwise, we must confess there is something above/beyond it that brings it under judgment. This grates against our empiricism, doubtless.

 

[Knight]

I want to know how you would answer someone like a Muslim who also claims to have a word from God. How would you prove or how do you know the bible is God's word and other texts aren't? I want to know how classical, presuppositional, evidential, etc would answer. I'm interested primarily in the self-authenticating canon argument but I want to hear different perspectives.

A useful distinction:

- How do we know the Bible is God's word? (epistemology)
- How do we defend [our knowledge that] the Bible is God's word? (apologetics)

Understanding the difference between these questions - and, therefore, how the answers to each of these questions will differ - will help you properly filter which replies you get in this thread actually address underlying motivation(s) of your question.

 

[RamistThomist]

A useful distinction:

- How do we know the Bible is God's word? (epistemology)
- How do we defend [our knowledge that] the Bible is God's word? (apologetics)

Understanding the difference between these questions - and, therefore, how the answers to each of these questions will differ - will help you properly filter which replies you get in this thread actually address underlying motivation(s) of your question.

Exactly. I know the Bible is God's word because of God's self-attestation in Christ. That doesn't work, however, in explaining it to unbelievers (for the Muslim can say the Qu'ran is, and our Mormon friends can talk about the burning in the bosom.).

 

[dsanch1120]

Dr. Kruger at RTS has a great lecture series that deals with this https://subsplash.com/reformtheosem/learn-about-rts/li/+vhzj6jc
Would definitely recommend checking it out

 

[chuckd]

I want to know how you would answer someone like a Muslim who also claims to have a word from God.

My answer to a Muslim would be: have any of God's people prior to Muhammad claimed that the Scriptures have been corrupted? I see their view of the history of Scripture no different than Joseph Smith and Mormons, only 1200 years apart. Both considered Christian heretical movements in their respective day.

 

[RamistThomist]

I want to know how you would answer someone like a Muslim who also claims to have a word from God. How would you prove or how do you know the bible is God's word and other texts aren't? I want to know how classical, presuppositional, evidential, etc would answer. I'm interested primarily in the self-authenticating canon argument but I want to hear different perspectives.

Probably with textual history, internal critiques, etc. That does require some leg work on Islamic theology, though.

 

[Knight]

Exactly. I know the Bible is God's word because of God's self-attestation in Christ. That doesn't work, however, in explaining it to unbelievers (for the Muslim can say the Qu'ran is, and our Mormon friends can talk about the burning in the bosom.).

Another useful distinction:

- How do I know? (normative epistemology)
- What is knowledge? (meta-epistemology)

In these sorts of conversations, it is unfortunately the case that the second question is often skipped. "Knowledge" can mean different things to different people, so it is easy to talk past one another. In fact, "knowledge" can mean different things to the same person depending on differing contexts in which that person uses the word.

For example, I would say that we can "know" that we are discussing a question about the Bible. But what I would mean by that would be something like, "we can have a warranted, true belief we are discussing a question about the Bible" (i.e. Reformed epistemology; externalist justification). This is quite different from the sort of self-justified "knowledge" I think we can have that the Bible is the word of God (foundationalism; internist and infallibilist justification). The latter meaning of "knowledge" suggests a context in which full assurance of that which is "known" is possible, whereas the former does not.

 

[Deleted member 13126]

I want to know how you would answer someone like a Muslim who also claims to have a word from God. How would you prove or how do you know the bible is God's word and other texts aren't? I want to know how classical, presuppositional, evidential, etc would answer. I'm interested primarily in the self-authenticating canon argument but I want to hear different perspectives.

Well, the other texts that claim to be divinely inspired which borrow from or point to the Bible contradict the Bible, so there’s a dead giveaway for starters. This article does a better job of expounding on this fact:

A Simple Reason Why The Qur’an Cannot Be The Word of God - Cross Examined

The Islamic religion claims that the Qur’an, revealed allegedly by the angel Gabriel to the prophet Muhammad beginning in 610 A.D., is the inspired and inerrant word of God. Such an assertion, however, is highly problematic, and many, many arguments could be given to convincingly refute it. In...

crossexamined.org

Also, although you didn’t ask for it, I’d recommend Pastor Ibrahim Ag Mohamed’s book, God’s Love for Muslims.

God's Love for Muslims: Ibrahim Ag Mohamed: 9781899046638: Amazon.com: Books

God's Love for Muslims [Ibrahim Ag Mohamed] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. God's Love for Muslims

www.amazon.com

 

[Jeri Tanner]

It’s yet another knock against man’s pride, like the “foolishness” of preaching. I’m not against the modern take on “apologetics,” but if men don’t believe the Bible is the Word of God, then neither will they believe of a man rises from the dead. Same principle. Obviously there is a lot more to say to connect the ideas I expressed, but the way the Catechism & Confession expresses it, I think, is well-put, and asserts, primarily, that the Word of God is self-authenticating, and we receive it as such; otherwise, we must confess there is something above/beyond it that brings it under judgment. This grates against our empiricism, doubtless.

I love it, and agree that the Confession and Catechism's expression on it is the best encapsulation of the truth of it we can give to an unbeliever, with prayer that the Lord will use it to prick their pride and cause them to search.

 

[Ryan&Amber2013]

So for sure, presup and evidence are useful. But the older I get, the more I see that the problem is one of idolatry and morality. When one understands their sin and need for a savior, and desire to cry out to God in mercy for forgiveness, they will embrace the Scriptures. This is a supernatural thing, and not academic. The main proof is in the character of God and condition of man, and how they can be reconciled. Other proofs are helpful, but the Bible will not really be loved as God's Word if someone is hardened in sin. I know, it is not a scientific answer, and does not satisfy the intellectual minds, but I am content with that. It is their loss.

 

[Deleted member 13126]

I suppose one of the primary ways you can get a sense of the veracity of God’s Word would historically be prophecy. Science Speaks by Dr. Peter W. Stoner is a book that examines messianic prophecies and attempts to assess the likelihood of multiple demonstrable fulfillments occurring. I’m not sure if it is a book I would really commend to others or not, but I will say that it is one I read in my late teenage years that, humanly speaking, pushed me down the path (at least from my perspective) toward the Lord Jesus as I searched for a religion that was self-consistent.

The key detail to remind ourselves of is that you’re always going to have something circular or self-referential if you dig deep enough and that’s with anything. It could be said it the Bible or even laws of logic and math. Dig deep enough into the foundation of any system and you’ll find a tautology there amidst the bedrock. So while evidence can play a role, a leap of faith (or intellectual commitment, if you like) will ultimately be asked of every adherent of any framework.

What’s particularly damning about Islam is that it, like many other false religions, attempts to build upon the Bible while also denying key details and doctrines in the Bible. This is what makes it so untenable as a system. It seeks to saw off the branch it’s built the birdhouse on.

 

[jwithnell]

We're not going to "prove" anything to someone who has no eyes to see nor ears to hear, but there is validity in offering honest answers to honest questions, to borrow a line from Francis Schaeffer. When God is opening someone's heart, they're gonna have questions and it's amazing that God can use us to answer them.

How we answer depends on the person and situation. I take as a priori that the person is created in God's image and that they are religious. Helping them see the difficulty of living without objective truth can be helpful. I've had people concede the distinction between a single prophetic "text" (Book of Mormon, etc.) and the way the Bible's revelation remained consistent across generations, cultures, locations, and personalities. In one case, a Roman catholic was surprised to see I knew something of his extra-Biblical texts and could discuss the differences between what he'd been told to think about the Biblical text and what the Bible actually says about itself.

 

[ccravens]

A useful distinction:

- How do we know the Bible is God's word? (epistemology)
- How do we defend [our knowledge that] the Bible is God's word? (apologetics)

-How do we know the Bible is God's word? - the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit
-How do we show the Bible is God's Word? - because the Bible says it is God's Word

 

[Knight]

(A)How do we know the Bible is God's word? - the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit
(B)How do we show the Bible is God's Word? - because the Bible says it is God's Word

Regarding (A) - a question of epistemology - you and others might be thinking of WCF I.5-6: "our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit... we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word."

However, I gather this is talking about the inward work of the Holy Spirit being the cause of our persuasion, assurance, and saving understanding. That is, "the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit" is indeed necessary and sufficient to cause persuasion and assurance. But causation is a metaphysical category.

Now, causation can have epistemic relevance... if one is an "externalist" (i.e. if one thinks that our epistemic justification for our beliefs is in part due to factors "external" to one's cognitive access). Think of it this way - when the Holy Spirit works, are we always conscious or aware of such working? I think not. Many people are converted who only later learned that their conversion was caused by the inward work of the Holy Spirit.

Externalists would say that we don't need to be aware of the working of the Holy Spirit in order to know that which the Holy Spirit has caused (e.g. to know that our faith in the gospel is true). They would argue that as long as our beliefs are, in fact, caused by the Holy Spirit, we can "know" those beliefs. This is Plantingan-esque epistemology.

While I think this kind of epistemic theory has potential value in other contexts, I don't think applying a Plantingan-esque epistemology to this context does sufficient justice. Even if there is some merit to this line of thought, I think the sort of "knowledge" we can have that the Bible is God's word is stronger than what the externalist argues.

 

[Knight]

Here's the issue: if any element or factor of epistemic justification is "external" to us, that means there are elements of our epistemic justification to which we have no reflective or cognitive access, elements the existence of which we are not and cannot be aware. If our ability to "know" hinges on the presence of factors of which we cannot be aware (for otherwise, those factors would be "internal," not "external"), then any knowledge claims we make will always be hypothetical: according to the externalist, "we 'know' only if the necessary, external, justificatory factors are actually present."

If those factors are not actually present - e.g. if the Holy Spirit is not causing my beliefs - then given an externalist theory of knowledge, we're in trouble. If you ask an externalist how they know what they know, any further knowledge claim they provide is itself suspect to the same problematic hypothetical that follows from an externalist epistemology. A vicious regress.


I think it's a question of assurance. For example, Paul calls for believers to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ. But can we be fully assured if any part of the epistemic justification for our beliefs is something which we cannot reflect on, be aware of, or be conscious of (due to its being "external")? I would argue no. In some contexts, we don't require full assurance. I don't see any reason or need to be fully assured that I'm typing a reply to you. But our "knowledge" of God's word is not just any context.

In saying all this, I want to make two things clear:

1) I am not disparaging the work of the Spirit! Given our sinfulness, we would not have faith unless He graciously caused us to. The work of the Spirit is a metaphysical precondition for a correct epistemology.

2) I am not suggesting that the alternative, correct epistemology I have in mind is as complex as the above might inadvertently suggest. It should not be impossible for regular Christians to attain full assurance, and I am not arguing anyone must be an expert in epistemology for that.

But I do hope the above shows that "how we know the Bible is God's word" does entail some nuance in explanation.

Regarding (B), when you talk about how we "show" the Bible is God's Word, are you talking about "proving" the Bible is God's word? Or are you talking about how we apologetically defend the Bible as God's word? Or something else?

If to "show" the Bible is God's word alludes to apologetics or defenses of our knowledge that the Bible is God's word - apologetics is subservient to epistemology - then the Christian can do a lot more than just note that the Bible is self-attesting.

On the other hand, if to "show" the Bible is God's word is an allusion to an attempt to "prove" the Bible is God's word, I don't think it's possible (let alone advisable) to attempt that. If the Bible is our rule of faith, ought it be subjected to epistemic criteria which is more basic than itself in order to prove it? This is how higher critics got their foot in the door of the PCUSA. I doubt this is what you mean.

Or even if we are talking about a circular "proof," I don't think traditional epistemic coherentism (justification as circular) makes sense. As soon as a Christian who says they accept the the Bible solely because it claims to be God's word objects to a Muslim's attempt to do the same with respect to the Quran, the Christian has admitted circularity as such is insufficient. This example also shows the apologetic limitations of the "self-attestation" of the Bible (although self-attestation does have its uses - see below).

I recall reading a chapter in Calvinism and the Problem of Evil called, Calvinism, Self-Attestation, and Apathy toward Arguments From Evil, by Anthony Bryson. Some notes I took down from that chapter:

Bryson detects apathy from presuppositionalists towards the problem of evil and thinks such is due to their reliance on the principle of "self-attestation": “We clearly know that God exists because of what the Bible says. Since God is its author, it is infallible. And we know its author is God because of its own self-testimony. In short, the Bible is self-attesting.” Later, he repeats this: “How can we know that the Bible is inspired? The most common answer from self-attestation theorists is that Jesus and the rest of the Scriptures teach that it is… we know that it was written by God because God, in the Bible, has written that it was written by him.”

In places, authors of the Bible claim their own or other biblical writings have been divinely revealed. That fact alone does not distinguish the Bible from other religious texts which also claim to be the result of divine revelation. Any response that such a fact does not matter solely because God actually only wrote the Bible suggests an apologetic impasse and shows circular "proofs" are insufficient to discriminate between mutually exclusive knowledge claims.

Does every proposition the Bible communicates begin with a self-attestation (e.g. "I am the Lord...")? Obviously not. How, then, are we able to know those propositions? Not by an appeal to self-attestation.

On that note, on pg. 282, Bryson equates self-attestation with self-authenticity. I would deny the equivalency of these concepts by the following analogy: when a mom calls a child to dinner, she doesn’t need to identify who she is for the child to know who is calling. If she did identify herself, such self-attestation wouldn’t be needed, but it also wouldn’t be unreasonable. It might serve as a reminder to the child to take her words seriously. Aside from questions of knowledge, such reminders might have a psychological or pragmatic purpose (e.g. behavior reinforcement, mindfulness), a fact Bryson fails to note.

 

[RamistThomist]

While I think this kind of epistemic theory has potential value in other contexts, I don't think applying a Plantingan-esque epistemology to this context does sufficient justice. Even if there is some merit to this line of thought, I think the sort of "knowledge" we can have that the Bible is God's word is stronger than what the externalist argues

That is kind of the same conclusion I came to regarding Plantinga.

 

[jwright82]

As a Vantillian I would agree with everything posted. I once had an opportunity to speak with a couple of Mormon girls that were walking through my neighborhood at night, I don't live in a bad neighborhood but with all the criminals I used to hang out with (many years ago, I'm 41 so lots of years to consider) I was worried about them walking around at night. I agreed to go meet with them at their church if they went home, there are some people who live/come in and out of my neighborhood who are suspicious.
When I met with them and their "elder" they kept trying to convince me that the new testament was corrupted and their bible was a new revelation that corrected that problem. I gave them evidences to show persuasively that it was is in fact closer, within 1 percent I believe, to the original. I'd like to say I converted them but no, they asked me not to come back.
When it comes to historical matters it is always an evidence game, which we have in plenty. Van Til, as I read somewhere, when asked why he didn't speak a lot about evidences said "other people in other departments (his fellow faculty members at WTS) did a fantastic job at that" or something like that.
Now my personal aproech is very much like the late and we must all admit great R.C. Sproul in that I show basic reliability of the text on any number of questions. Krueger is fantastic in the new testament and Kline is fantastic in the dating of the books of Moses.
But issues of interpretation of evidences, or as Van Til would put it a philosophy of evidences, come about and you must deal with the prior assumptions that are being brought to the table. After all what poker player doesn't size up his opponents prior history in the game before playing them.
Now this is a template of how to do it not a step by step "how to" guide. Every situation is different and it takes wisdom and the word guided by the Holy Spirit to help us as workers in the kingdom.