… it would be that general revelation matters.
Popular Christianity wants to begin and end with the bible. For them the bible or Jesus is the way God is known. This presupposition is clearly demonstrated in their typically unexamined interpretation of The Word (of God) as either the bible or Jesus or both. They will commonly say things like, the bible is our foundation for truth or the bible is supreme authority. Doug Wilson said in a recent blog post, “I only have one way to treat the Word of God. I treat it like it is the Bible.”
Some of the most explicit believers that the bible is epistemologically most basic are those who practice presuppositional apologetics. When they’re pinned against a wall, forced to explain why they believe the protestant bible or Jesus are authoritative, they reassert it – the bible is true because the bible, Jesus is God because he said so, God is real because he said so in the bible. They’ve established sort of an explicitly honest dogmatism out of recognizing a profound insight – If we don’t begin somewhere then all worldviews are either lost in an infinite regress of proofs or we get tangled in a loop of circular reasoning (words of Owen Anderson). Christians, they claim, begin with the bible by asserting that it is indeed word from God. The acceptance of this assertion for no reason, is the Holy Spirit transforming you.
The problem with making the bible one’s foundation for truth is that it voids God’s general revelation. Without the bible, general revelation would become not general (not accessible to all), not revelation (doesn’t reveal anything without the bible), and leaves man with an excuse (they couldn’t have known, Romans 1:20).
There are more problems. One is that the bible does not and cannot attest unto reason in itself. Even if the bible explicitly said that contradictions can’t be true, there would be no way of interpreting it meaningfully without already assuming that contradictions can’t be true.
Critical examination of basic beliefs should bring to light that Christians already assume reason in their interpretations of the bible. They harmonize contradictions in the text. They read, “God created the heavens and the Earth” as distinct from, “God didn’t create the heavens and the Earth.” Once reason is given the authority to interpret the bible, it is also given the authority to test the bible for truth. So simply beginning with the bible and “proof texting” from there is not a sound epistemology. By rationally interpreting scripture, they’ve already assumed reason is most basic.
Presupposition Apologists generally deal with the authority of reason by mistaking it for how a person reasons. There’s no doubt that people sometimes reason improperly. But that is not to say that reason in itself is flawed. The conclusion of a sound argument is true, even if people think they’ve made sound arguments when they haven’t.
They also sometimes make the claim that reason changes based on cultural standards. This confuses reason as principle with reasoning from the principles of a culture. Cultures have different principles that they more-or-less take for granted because they haven’t examined their basic beliefs. The use of reason tests those principles for meaning so that one can transcend the thoughtless doctrines of their culture.
The bible does not and cannot attest unto reason. But Reason is self-attesting – it cannot be questioned because it makes questioning possible. It cannot be doubted because one cannot doubt without calling it into question. Reason then is certain.
Once reason is established as the truly authoritative foundation of our beliefs and worldviews, Christians can rebuild from there by showing through reason -- God’s existence, that we have a responsibility to know God, that we have not known God and are therefore in need of redemption, and that the gospel is the revelation of that redemption.
