For 1000+ years, it was a valid part of the received tradition that the pope was infallible in matters of faith and morals. Should we accept that too?
Your statement reminds me of my time in the US Army, where we had a saying: 200 years of tradition unmarred by progress.
But increasingly in an age of shared information, making false claims about the Bible will damage the work of spreading the gospel. The wise man builds his house upon a firm foundation.
As far as I can tell, yes. Note also that he’s using reasoning to justify his rejection of reasoning as an authority. What really strikes me, though, is that a religion whose ultimate authority is the Bible might be an interesting religion but it isn’t Christianity. In the latter religion, the ultimate authority is God, primarily as revealed in Jesus.
When we say Biblical inspiration what do we mean? The OT & NT? Or just the NT? The trouble is the NT, by inspiration, validates the inspiration of the OT. So all the horrors of the OT are inspired and cannot be abrogated by anything in the NT. Unless they’re fables, God isn’t really like the monster of the OT. Is that it? Which is the kind of thing liberal evangelicals-reformed believe. Is that the get out of jail free card here? There are horrors in the NT too of course. Are they fables? God’s really nice? Doesn’t assassinate people with heart attacks and weaponized worms?
I think you’re right. Here, he seems to say you can judge what is right by a general feeling, too. How does one argue with someone of another faith about how one’s feeling is better than another’s?
We don’t. But we do have objective evidence to point to. For Phil Yancey, it was a realization that occurred in his mind – it was personal and powerful, but that does not denote subjectivity necessarily, since it was not about feelings or inclinations (sometimes it’s the opposite of a person’s inclinations and therefore resisted!). Then there is external objective evidence that some have, with the multiple dots already connected.
I suspect this question makes a bit more sense if we take it out of its context speaking about the Bible, and just analyze the basic question… for instance:
When God made the statement to Moses from the burning Bush, “I Am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” i easily grasp that such a statement, if actually made from the God of the Universe is indeed “self-attesting”… in the sense that, what higher authority could we use to “test” God’s own words. We know that the voice that was speaking to him was indeed the God of Abraham et al… because why? Because the eternal God just said so. what else do we need?
That said, there is another important angle… it seems reasonable for Moses to perhaps considered the logical alternatives: had he eaten some undercooked lamb the night before, and was hallucinating? had he fallen asleep and had a waking dream? was some fool Egyptian ventriloquist playing a trick on him? ones, presumably having excluded these alternatives, apparently recognized the voice as indeed being God’s own.
So I suspect there is indeed a place (i think this is what Grudem is getting at) where we use our reason, evidence, and the like in order to “authenticate” that the message really is from God (by excluding other alternatives and other such reasoned methods)…but, once we have recognized the message’s source as God himself, then we recognize that everything it communicates is indeed true… including any “self-atteststion”.
I compare it to what was seen in the submarine movie “Crimson Tide”… as the movie portrays it, when a radio message is received that claims to be from the President/Pentagon or whatever, they don’t just blindly and immediately do whatever it said to do (launch the nuclear weapons at such and such target) , as there is the possibility that the message could be a forgery. the movie portrayed a method by which the message was “authenticated” and thus confirmed that it really came from The president/pentagon… but once said message was so authenticated, then the submarine officers were duty-bound to do whatever it said, whether or not they understood it, agreed with it, or the like.
this didn’t mean that they were claiming that they had greater authority than the president, rather, they reasonably authenticated the message and confirmed it as actually coming from the president… once they did that, however, they realized that they had to submit and obey whatever the message said, as it was recognized as being from the president.
I would humbly posit that there are indeed reasonable steps by which we similarly “authenticate” Scripture to be God’s words, but once we do, then we as believers are duty bound to believe and obey whatever God has indeed communicated… - including any so-called “self-attestation”
thoughts?
Agreed though we could also assume Moses was crazy as we usually do anytime someone claims God speaks to them literally and especially when they claim he told them something we disagree with. But yes, I agree our experiences with God are self-attesting in a very simple sense.
I don’t disagree with this at all. I am not sure it is consistent with Grudem’s statement though. But you are correct and we know “self attestation” doesn’t occur in a vacuum.
I don’t know what to make of this yet. I’m going to dig through some other systematic theology texts and see if they say something similar.
Vinnie
Rogerianly!
Nice example, but the message they received and could not authenticate was to stand down. And they were in the middle of the default, standing order, launch sequence.
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