Hi Christy,
I will address your points in order:
- We agree on much of what you write here. You are absolutely correct in citing what Paul says about the saving nature of the Word of God: “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.” (Rom. 10:17). Unbelievers absolutely are to read God’s Word, repent of what it says about their condition, and believe what it says about what Jesus has done about that condition. In fact, God’s Word presents itself as the unique manner by which God redeems sinners. Peter writes that believers are “born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding Word of God” (1 Peter 1:23). James calls it (James 1:21), “the implanted Word, which is able to save your souls.” God’s Word is the manner by which He saves.
But it must be understood that it is only through the Holy Spirit that truth from God’s Word is conveyed (John 16:13). In every case where conversion occurs, it comes only by the Holy Spirit convicting of “sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8). So what I wrote is also true: while the Holy Spirit does not indwell the unbeliever, those without God who then repent and truly believe in Christ’s atoning sacrifice for sin “have” the Holy Spirit as their guide to this truth (John 8:31-32). Please note that I did not say the Holy Spirit must be indwelling for one to understand God’s Word; I simply wrote that one must have the Holy Spirit to understand truth from God’s Word.
Why is all this important to clarify? Because until this point of repentant faith brings conversion, those who seek any answers in God’s Word will be subject to the prophecy of Jesus recorded in Isaiah: “‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ (Mt. 13:14; Mark 4:12; Luke 8:10; cf. Isa. 6:9).
- Believers are called by God to be on guard against false doctrine. Every book of the New Testament save Philemon enjoins believers to exercise discernment in sorting true doctrine from false. Jesus makes this point at the climax of His longest uninterrupted sermon (Mt. 7:13-23). So the verses I referenced in 2 Cor. 10 are thus not unique. Ephesians 5:11 commands believers to expose “unfruitful works of darkness.” Believers are to understand the martial nature of the Word of God–this is why it is called (Heb. 4:12; Eph. 6:17)) the “sword of the Spirit.” It has both defensive and offensive purposes: it is to be used both to defend God’s truth (1 Pet. 3:15) and to attack assaults against it (2 Tim. 3:16; 4:1-5; Titus 1:9).
The gospel that Paul and the other Apostles preached, as you say, “tore down obstacles to knowing God…born in human pride and rebellion.” Because of this, God’s Word–the source of the gospel–was, is, and always has been subject to attack by the enemy, who seeks to corrupt any part of its message he might in subtle, pernicious ways. Thus the need to use the Word of God as God intends–as the standard by which to assess any and all claims about it. This is what the Reformers termed “analogia Scriptura”–the analogy of faith–which is the idea that Scripture is entirely consistent within itself and acts to decipher itself. So, yes, there is indeed instruction throughout Scripture that it stands as a whole, any part of which can be used against those who would undermine it in any way.
To your point about what constituted the Word of God when Paul wrote 2 Corinthians: it began as a mystery hidden within God before the foundation of the world (1 Cor. 2:7). It was unveiled to God’s chosen people Israel in sequential order from the time of Moses (Job may have been earlier) until the time of the prophets was ended (Heb. 1:1). It then reached its zenith when the Incarnated Word came to Earth and spoke new truths of God (Heb. 1:2). These were recorded by the Apostles and their helpers as inspired but the Holy Spirit, who brought the truths of Christ to their remembrance and (John 14:26; 15:26-27; 16:13) and also unveiled new mysteries (1 Cor. 15:51; Eph. 3:3,9).
Those in Corinth who received Paul’s second inspired letter to them (2 Corinthians; c. late 55 or early 56 A.D.) would have had at that point the entire OT, probably the gospel of Matthew, and likely copies of the earlier epistles (James, Galatians, Romans, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and of course 1 Corinthians). It is clear form Paul’s letters that as the Church received these, they were incorporated as new revelation of God with the same authority as OT Scripture (1 Thess. 2:13; 1 Cor. 14:37). As today, believers then were to use all this truth to defend God’s accumulating Word from attacks against it. And the point of attack where God’s Word is most vital is in defending the gospel that saves from its detractors. This was Paul’s modus operandi for the letter to the Galatians. We believers do indeed–like Paul–“fact check” the gospel message of those claiming like-minded faith to make sure what they say comports with what the Word of God declares as the gospel.
- Scientists can be true believers and still be deluded by error. That is why I do not believe nor do I state that evolutionists cannot be Christians. This is also why I am in dialogue with you and others at Biologos about these crucial matters. Ideas are fungible. No one is inextricably connected to his or her own error, as though it is integral to his or her makeup. Part of the process of sanctification involves the abandonment of error for truth. This is why those who know God’s truth are not to recoil from the confident censure of a professing believer’s error, provided it is done in love, gentleness and respect (1 Corinthians 13:1-3; 2 Timothy 2:24-26). It is not undermining who he or she is as a person. On the contrary, it is opening him or her to the opportunity to exchange error for truth. It is, I admit, very disconcerting to think that one’s scientific work might be predicated on an incorrect presupposition and therefore worthless. But it is even worse to allow such scientists to continue in that error without at least exposing to them the biblical alternative.
When evolutionists are uniformitarian in their thinking, they are making an unvalidated, and thus unfounded, presupposition that the constants they see today are applicable in determining what occurred at the outset of the universe. This is an incorrect paradigm which will lead one down the trail of falsehood, which will be ever compounding the more one doubles down on it. There is no truth that can be specifically known about this natural world that does not fit within what is generally revealed in the Word of God. That means that if one derives an idea from studying the natural world that would negate a clear truth of God, it must be discarded. But Biologos seems to be driven by the reverse of this principle. The multiple theological meanderings into heresy I see coming out of Biologos all derive from the fundamental misjudgment that when an incompatibility arises between what is thought to be known about the natural world and what is thought to be true about God’s Word, it is God’s Word that is to be dismantled and reconfigured.
What heresies? Speculations that death must have preceded sin in an evolutionary world, despite its clear refutation in Romans 5:12. Speculations that modern ideas about genetic variablity and genetic transmission suggest that the human genome did not derive from two particular individuals, making Adam and Eve figurative representatives of mankind, and not the actual, literal human antecedants of all humanity, as clearly stated in Gen. 3:20 and Acts 17:26 (not to mention the entire Genesis 1-3 account). I could go on, but it let me focus on this last matter, where the heresy borders on blasphemy. How so? In God’s economy, all sin must derive form the singular act of disobedience by a particular man in order to be properly covered by the sacrifice of one particular Man (cf. Rom. 5:18; 1 Cor. 15:22,45). If there were no literal Adam and Eve, then there was no singular, original sin act as the basis for all sin in the human experience. Thus, God’s plan for the treatment of sin–penal substitutionary atonement through the death of His Son–is inadequate. Why? In this hypothetical case, there would still be sin in this world that has not been covered by the “precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:19). That would mean that there is some sin still needing a saving act other than what Christ accomplished through His death and resurrection–the pinnacle event in history and the crux of the gospel. You can see what a stench in the nostrils of God such thinking must be.
The “big deal” to God is not that we use improper paradigms that lead to misunderstandings about what He has created. The “big deal” to God is that we believe what He wrote in His Word that we might be saved, that we would then grow in grace and knowledge of God via deeper understanding of His Word (John 17:17; 2 Pet. 3:18), and that we would use His Word to defend the enemy’s attacks against it. God has given us His version of creation in His Word which is easily understood and rationally defensible against all who would undermine it.
Coln