Ah ha, I said I would blogg today, and I have. Well, rather am now, so it is not a completed action the past yet. Oh well, I was never very good at grammar anyway.
Greetings and salutation,
The point that was made yesterday is that the Reformers hold a high view of Scripture because it is the written Word of God. This makes the Bible Truth. Now Before I go on I would like to reentered a point that I made in yesterdays blogg. That the Bible is not exhaustive in Truth. Not all things that are true are contained in the Scriputres. Some might say that science is not in the Bible, and in a direct way this is quite true. The Bible does not speak of some scientific truth like how many lightyears away is the closest star from our solar system. In some areas it is not that the Bible gives us specific instruction on all things. It may give a simple black and white Truth, then in other times it gives us concepts or a framework with which to find more truth. For instance I am reading this book called
The Victory of Reason. Now this book was written by a man who is very pro-Catholic and Obviously I am not to thrilled about that. Once you pick out the Catholic propaganda it has some really good information. The book is describes how having a Christian basis in Europe lead to logical and scientific discovery. This is a perfect example of how the Bible does not necessarily gives specifics, but it does give the frame work.
The Bible puts forth the world as being created by God. The Bible clearly states that God is a God of reason and knowlegde. The Greek word given to Christ is
logos which is a word that means a doctrinal/intellectual proposition. The Bible over and over again states that God is a God of knowledge. "...The LORD is the God of Knowledge; and by Him actions are weighed."(I Sam. 2:3) The Proverbs continually say that one should seek wisdom, and that, "The Fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge"(Prov. 1:7) Another great passage from Proverbs is chapter eight, particularly verses 12-36. This passage deals with wisdom and how wisdom seeks out knowledge and understanding. That at the time of creation Wisdom was with God and God took delight in wisdom. (Some say that the "Wisdom" in this chapter refers to Christ, but that is for another time) So the Bible does not only give man truth about Himself, but it also reveals truth about the world that we live in. Now, before we forget why all this matters, I ws going to make the point that even when the Bible does not give exhaustive truth on a topic, it does give at least a frame of reference. Science proves this point quite well. Science is made up of theorizing and research. The cultures outside of Europe never engaged in science. The Greeks were nothing more than empiricist. Whenever they did theorize, it was never researched or proven. Aristotle said that the heavier an object is the faster it will fall to the ground. A quick trip to the nearest cliff would disprove this as false, but that never happened. Chinese and Islamic cultures fell to the same fate. They could have discovered science, but why didn't they? It was because their gods were not personal nor were they logical. The impersonal deities of the East focused mainly on meditation to find truth, but this will render you nothing more than a few hours of science or repetitive noise. The Islamic teachers forbade rules of nature from being formulated because they thought that they would interfere with Alla's freedom in the world. Only the personal infinite God of the Bible gave men reasons to inquire into their world. Now this has been a long blogg, so it will be finished tomorrow.
In the Fear of Christ,
Reformationman