Yes, the Bible reveals to humanity that the earth hangs on nothing (Job 26:7) and is a sphere (Isaiah
40:22). Scripture declared these facts thousands of years before telescopes and modern science discovered them. God’s word instructs His people how to wash their hands which would help ward off infections and disease (Leviticus 15:13). God’s word declared to humanity the proper function of the water cycle (Job 38:12-14), the existence of ocean currents (Psalms 8:8), the solar cycle, and the expansion of the universe (Isaiah 40:22) centuries before modern science discovered these truths. These facts are consistent with the authority of the Bible.
Facts and other evidence do not endow the Bible with authority; it is endowed with it because it is God’s word; furthermore science, testing, and examination presuppose biblical revelation. Testing utilizes a number of disciplines, such as the application of the laws of reason and induction. A pure materialistic worldview cannot justify the existence or the use of the laws of reason; these changeless norms are immaterial universals for they come from the nature of the changeless God. We have sure knowledge that the God of scripture lives. We do not think He probably exists; our faith is not just reasonable or plausible. It is impossible for the true and living God not to exist, because without Him, in principle, we can know nothing at all. He is the obligatory truth condition for all knowledge since he provides the pre-environment required for the laws of reason unavoidably utilized in all knowledge pursuits.
God Is the Foundation of All Reality
It is open to the theist . . . to suppose that it is a divine intention that human cognitive abilities are disposed to modalize reliably in accordance with modal fact. In this way, there can be a tie between modal fact and human modal judgments that plausibly accords with the proper function of human cognition while preserving the integrity of the purely natural causal processes generating such judgments. Our typical naturalist will be scandalized at this Leibnizian solution, but can he do any better? (Timothy O’Connor, p. 129).
Consider the following syllogism:
1. The God of scripture is the foundation of all reality or reality is unintelligible.
2. Reality is intelligible.
3. Therefore, God is the foundation of reality.
The consequence of asserting that God does not exist is that the world becomes unintelligible and unknowable; a non-theistic worldview lacks the explanatory power required for intelligibility because it fails to account for immutable universals required to explain anything. But the proposition that the world is unintelligible is impossible because it is self-defeating. If the world is unintelligible and unknowable, then that statement itself would be unintelligible and unknowable, hence self-voiding and false. Moreover, since God is immutable with universal reach, He is the ground and foundation of knowledge forasmuch as he provides the epistemic environment necessary for universal immutables (laws of logic, moral absolutes, etc.) required for knowledge.
A Combative Anti-theist
Harry Blaimires points out that “No one can pretend [the Old and the New Testament are not] there. Everyone who is concerned with the meaning of life and the destiny of the human race will have to take [them] into account.” God’s word declares that life must revolve around Him. We must have no other gods before Him. All men have a destiny that will find its consummation at the judgment seat of Christ. Their life will end one day and they will give an account for it. This truth must constantly remain in front of our eyes. We should live and move before the face of God; that is our duty and our joy.
Eminent atheist Michael Martin pontificates that “belief in the incarnation is clearly unjustified. Not only is the evidence for the incarnation lacking, but it is incoherent and conceptually problematic.” On the surface, his statement philosophically can raise problems for the Christian theist; yet his atheistic worldview that he reposes upon is more than problematic. Martin cannot even account for the reality of evidence or the discovery of apparent problems. He must stand on the Christian worldview to discuss evidence and problems. Christianity has a justified basis for the evaluation of evidence and the intelligent identification of problems; non-theism falls short. An atheism that is conjoined to materialism—the belief that all reality is composed only of physical material—lacks the ontic resource to account for knowledge. Consequently the avowal of materialism is not itself made of anything material. The atheist’s view cannot support or justify itself. Materialistic atheism is an immaterial system that teaches that the immaterial does not exist. Thus it pops its own philosophical balloon. By claiming to be a pure materialist, one is actually assenting to anti-materialism.
God Completes All That He Begins
Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: “I am the First and I am the Last; beside Me, there is no God. And who can proclaim as I do? Then let him declare it and set it in order for Me. … Let them show these to them. Do not fear, nor be afraid; have I not told you from that time, and declared it? You are My witnesses. Is there a God besides Me? I have declared the former things from the beginning; They went forth from My mouth, and I caused them to hear it. Suddenly I did them, and they came to pass. … Even from the beginning I have declared it to you; before it came to pass I proclaimed it to you. … You have heard; see all this. And will you not declare it? … Come near to Me, hear this: I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, I was there. And now the Lord GOD and His Spirit have sent Me. Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the LORD your God” (Isaiah 44:6-8; 48:3-20).
Another area of proof is the Messianic prophecies fulfilled by Jesus Christ. The Tanakh (Old Testament) foretold the coming of the Messiah in exact detail. The text, written centuries before the coming of Jesus, prophesied over three hundred facts about Him. No other founder of any religion can provide a similar record of his life written centuries before his birth. Religious founders like Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy, David Koresh, Muhammad, and Buddha cannot supply a widely transmitted, preexisting record that accurately prophesied the details of their lives. The three hundred clear prophecies of the coming Messiah were ordained by God. The Lord revealed historical facts about the coming of Jesus prior to His birth. All these prophecies came to pass in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Christ’s virgin birth was foretold about seven hundred years before He was born: “So, the Lord Himself shall give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will conceive and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel” (Isaiah 7:14). His place of birth was foretold: “And you, Bethlehem…out of you He shall come forth to Me, to become Ruler in Israel, He whose goings forth have been…from eternity” (Micah 5:2). The exact date of His entry in Jerusalem was foretold in the book of Daniel. God revealed the coming of Palm Sunday: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9).
He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked—but with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When you make His soul an offering for sin…My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities. … And He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors (Isaiah 53:3-12).
In addition, Christ’s death on the cross was foretold before that form of execution was even invented--Psalms 22:1-16 announced the crucifixion hundreds of years before it happened: “I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised by the people. All who see me laugh me to scorn; they shoot out the lip; they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the LORD; let Him deliver him; let Him rescue him, since He delights in him! … I am poured out like water, and all my bones are spread apart; my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels and you have brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have circled around me; the band of spoilers have hemmed me in, they pierced my hands and my feet.” This evidence is overwhelming. Moreover, the truth is even more definite and compelling than great blocks of evidence one might compile to prove the facts of Christianity. The argument for Jesus Christ is sure: Without God, one cannot provide the necessary a priori truth conditions for reason, facts, evidence, and the analysis thereof.
An unknown author tells the story of a secular psychologist, Jewish by race, who, on hearing the prophecy of Christ’s passion and death (Isaiah 52:13-53:12), answered: “What’s so impressive about that? Anyone standing at the foot of the cross could have written that.” He was amazed to learn that the passage had been written centuries before Jesus’ crucifixion. That was the beginning of the end of his secularism. Today that doctor is a Christian.
To learn more about proof for Christianity and the foundation (God) required to analyze any evidence see my eBook The Sure Existence of God: Assured Proof for Christianity HERE
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