Scripturalism

Any philosophy has to answer the most basic question of all, which is, how do you know? And you, as an individual, when considering whether or not you have answers to any of the big questions of life, or, frankly, any of the small questions too, is, you have to be able to answer the question, how do I know?

Well, the Bible provides for us, as a systematic philosophy revealed from the mind of God, the answer to the question, how men know. Now, Colossians, chapter 2, verse 3, says, In God the Father and Jesus Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Think about that claim for just a second. In God the Father and in Jesus Christ are hidden, right? Not just made plain, not sitting out there, they're hidden there. In God the Father and Jesus Christ, what's hidden there?

All of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Not some of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, all of them. Now, when we think about the things that are hidden in God, let me ask you a question. If God, who is all-powerful, wants to hide a thing, and chooses to not show it to anybody, can anybody make Him show it?

They can't. Nobody can do that. So, if God wants to give knowledge, or wants to give wisdom, He's going to reveal it. He's going to show it. So, these things that are hidden, and are now made revealed, are called mysteries.

In the Bible, we talk about mysteries, and they don't mean things that are unknowable. They mean things that are once hidden, that are now revealed. Now, historically, the answers to the question of how men know have been organized into four efforts to answer the question.

Irrationalism, Rationalism, and Empiricism

The first one is called irrationalism, which teaches that ultimately truth is not knowable. Well, if that's the case, then how do you know that? The next answer is an answer called rationalism, that asserts that logic alone is the gateway to all knowledge.

Now, if we take logic, logic in itself, when we define it, is going to control what we mean there. So, the definition of logic is the key. Now, if logic is merely the laws of logic, as well as the rules of necessary inference, where we can, from immediate inference and from syllogisms, derive conclusions from prior premises, then the question is, how do we get any things to talk about?

The problem of the empty forms, what do we do to get subjects to reason about, and how do we get predicates to plug in to reason about? That problem makes it so that logic can't go anywhere without subjects to talk about, and predicates to predicate about the subject.

Thirdly, we have empiricism, which is very popular in our time, right? Irrationalism, the idea that truth is not knowable or not universal, is something that's very popular in our time. But also, people think they're real hard-nosed when they say that, actually, I need science to figure out all the things that are able to be known.

And so, all of my knowledge is going to come through experience alone. That's empiricism. Empiricism asserts that experience is the alone gateway of knowledge. And so, if we derive all of our knowledge from experience, there are a number of problems that come up as we consider experience.

First of all, experience is inherently relative. Your experience is not my experience. And so, we can find in our own time, that idea that experience is relative is one of the reasons why post-modernism and irrationalism have become so popular, because of the emphasis on experience.

It's relative and not universal. The next thing is that your experience, your sense experience, is fallible. I mean, have you ever heard anybody call your name and then realized you're alone? Or have you ever looked and seen something and realized, oh, that's not water, it's a mirage.

Or actually, oh no, wait, I'm in the water now, it wasn't a mirage. Those things are all examples of the fallibility of your experience. And people have a hard time believing that, even though they believe that.

And so, what you find is that people want to act as though they can get all of their knowledge out of their experience while still acknowledging that experience is relative and experience is fallible.

But beyond that, we also have experiences of particular events. And those particular events, we try to draw out universal rules to apply across time and space, even though we don't have the full set of experiences.

That's called the problem of induction. And look up the problem of the hypothetical deductive method and asserting the consequent. It's going to make you have a knee slapper. So, if we move from there, what we find is that the leftover category is called presuppositionalism or rational presuppositionalism, where you take a starting point that's different from the previous three.

Scripturalism as the Christian Starting Point

Notice, all three have a starting point, right? I can't know truth, or truth only comes through reason, or truth only comes through experience. Well, every other philosophy, besides adopting one of those three presuppositions, has a different presupposition.

And so, if you just list out the set of beliefs that a person starts with, that's the axiomatic set that they have to begin with. Now, God has given to us the scriptures. And the scriptures, as a set of propositions revealed from the mind of God, is the presupposition of the Christian religion.

That's called scripturalism, or Christian presuppositionalism. Sometimes it's also called Christian rationalism, where you take the words that God has given and you say, this is the system of truth and we're going to defend it against all claims of incoherence and we're going to tear down everything else.

Christianity stands because it's coherent and it provides meaningful answers. Every other philosophy is incoherent or does not provide meaningful answers. And so, when we compare Christianity to other philosophies, the answers given to us in scripture are distinct and wise.

And so we should consider the words of God as the starting point of the Christian religion. Now, I want to close out by giving you what God says about this very subject. He says, through the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 6,.

The Hidden Wisdom Revealed by the Spirit

However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, that would be the philosophers, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew.

For had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, Eye has not seen nor ear heard, that's a denial of empiricism, nor have entered into the heart of man, that's a denial of rationalism, just coming up with the ideas out of your own mind, the things which God has prepared for those who love him.

But God has revealed them to us through his Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of the man, except the Spirit of the man which is in him.

We can't read God's mind, you can't read another human being's mind. So how are you going to read God's mind? Well, only if he reveals it to you. Even so, no one knows the things of God, except the Spirit of God.

Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things, the words from the Holy Spirit, with spiritual things, the words from the Holy Spirit.

But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. They are discerned by the work of the Holy Spirit in you.

But he who is spiritual, judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? The answer is nobody, but we have the mind of Christ.

How do we have access to the mind of Christ? The Word of Christ comes to us, and the Holy Spirit causes us to understand it and to believe it. Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for us.