WHY WE SHOULD ACCEPT THE BIBLE'S INSPIRATION (Part 4)

By Bob Myhan

The reader should keep in mind that it is not being claimed in this series of articles that one can prove the Bible’s inspiration conclusively to everyone’s satis­faction. It is only being affirmed that there are reasons for accepting the Bible’s claim to be inspired. Anything that can be proven conclusively is not believed but is known to be true. It cannot be known that the Bible is in­spired. Nor can it be known that it is not. Each individual must weigh the evi­dence put forth and make up his own mind as to whether it is sufficient. It is admitted that not all of these reasons are of equal strength. But each reason strengthens all the others.

Atheists, of course, will not accept that the Bible is in­spired by God no matter what reasons are put forth simply because they do not accept the ex­istence of God [by God we simply mean Creator]. If, however, one accepts as fact that there is a Creator, one must accept the possibility that the Creator might have re­vealed Himself to man in an objective way. He must also ac­cept that the Creator had some purpose in mind for cre­ating man. And he must at least ask him­self the question whether it is likely that the Creator would keep man in the dark with regard to this pur­pose.

The third reason we should accept the Bible’s claim to being inspired of God is the its flawed portraits. Noah got drunk, Abra­ham lied twice about his relationship to Sarah, Moses failed on one occasion to sanctify God in the eyes of the people, King David committed adultery, deceit and mur­der, and Peter denied knowing Jesus and hypocritically withdrew his association from Gentile Christians. Of course, there are ex­ceptions to this general rule. No specific sin is attributed to Caleb, Joshua’s right-hand-man, or to Uriah the Hittite, the hus­band of Bathsheba. As a matter of fact, Uriah is shown to have had more honor than King David, where Bathsheba was concerned (2 Sam. 11). And, though much attention is given to the life of Joseph, fa­vored son of Jacob, no specific sin is attrib­uted to him. To the contrary, he is shown to have exhibited a tremendous amount of reserve in resisting the temptation to com­mit adultery with his master’s wife (Gen. 39). He was also very forgiving of his brothers, who had sold him into slavery (Gen. 50). This is not to say that these men never sinned, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).

REASON # 4: THE NEED FOR A MORAL STANDARD

It can hardly be denied that man has a moral nature. Even atheists admit as much. But, if there is no objective revelation from the Creator, there is no objective standard for right and wrong, morality and immoral­ity. In short, if there is no objective stan­dard from the Creator regarding how mem­bers of the human race are to act and re­act toward one another, there can be no objective basis for making moral judgments regarding the actions of another. What is moral for an individual is what he thinks he ought to do. Or, to put it another way, eve­ry person is left to do what is right in his own eyes. Apart from an objective revelation from the Creator of mankind, there is no expla­nation for why humans are civilized and dogs, cats and horses aren’t. One could no more judge another person mor­ally than he would judge a dog, cat or a horse to be immoral. If no God exists—or if God exists but has not spoken—there is no absolute right or wrong. One need not feel—in such a case—that there is any­thing he ought or ought not to do. An athe­ist, agnostic or de­ist can­not say you ought to honor fa­ther and mother or that you ought not to mur­der, commit adultery, steal, bear false wit­ness against your neighbor or covet your neighbor's wife, etc., any more than he can say that you ought to worship God and Him only. In other words, an atheist, agnostic or deist cannot consistently say that you are wrong, no matter what you may choose to do. He cannot say you are wrong even if you mur­der your own father and rape your own mother.

John Wayne Gacy, Jr., and Jeffrey Dahmer, may have bro­ken the law but did nothing morally wrong, if there is no God or if there is a God but He has not spoken. Nor may Vladi­mir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hit­ler be judged as having been immoral—though each murdered millions of innocent people. If God does not exist—or if He ex­ists but has not spoken—there is nothing ob­jectively wrong with child abuse, child mo­lestation or cannibalism; bestiality, pe­dophilia and necrophilia are not sexual ab­errations but mere sex­ual preferences.

If there is no objective moral standard revealed by the Creator Himself, telling us that we were created in His image, it is no more wrong to shoot a human being than it is to shoot a dog. The recent slaying of 32 people by Seung-Hui Cho, at Virginia Tech, was no more of a tragedy than throwing a sack full of kittens off a bridge into the river below, if God has not, at least, implied such. But God has provided an objec­tive moral standard for the behavior of all man­kind. According to the epistle of Paul to the Romans, there was such a standard even before the Ten Commandments were given.

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immoral­ity, wickedness, covetousness, malicious­ness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, un­merciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who prac­tice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them. (Rom. 1:28-32)

The Bible teaches that man is the only part of the physical creation that is morally responsible for his actions. This responsi­bility is tri-directional: upward, outward and inward. His primary moral responsibility is upward. To be sure, if there were no God, man would not be morally respon­sible, at all, for moral responsibility rests on the fact that man was created in the im­age of God.

When Amnon, a son of David, was about to force his half-sister, Tamar, to lie with him, she told him, “no such thing should be done in Israel” (2 Sam. 13:12). The rea­son was that God had for­bidden such.

Man’s second moral responsibility is out­ward (Matt. 22:39; Phil. 2:3). I am to love my neighbor as myself, and es­teem others better than myself.

After reminding Amnon of his upward re­sponsibility, Tamar asked, “And I, where could I take my shame?” (2 Sam. 13:13) He had a moral responsibility not only up­ward to God, but toward his sister, as well.

Man’s third moral responsibility is inward to himself. Because of the penalty for sin (Rom. 6:23), man owes it to himself to re­frain from sinning. That is, he is to “live so­berly,” or to “exercise … that self-restraint that governs all passions and desires, ena­bling [him] to be conformed to the mind of Christ” (Vine).

If Amnon persisted in forcing Tamar to lie with him, he would not only be sinning against God and Tamar, but against him­self, as well. Thus, she said, “And as for you, you would be like one of the fools in Israel” (2 Sam. 13:13).

The truth is, if there is no God, or if there is no revelation from God, man has no reason to comply with either—much less both—of the “two commandments [on which] hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt. 22:35-40). &