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Why Believe Jesus’ Miracles?
The Christian church
early came to recognize Jesus as the only full incarnation of God, the full embodiment of God in human form. Because Christians
believe that the Spirit of God lives in those who believe in Jesus and accept him as their savior, Christians believe there
are many partial incarnations of God. Just as Jesus was the only natural son of God, so all Christians have become children
of God by adoption through the atoning work of Jesus.
What does it mean for a spiritual being such as God to be human?
This is a question that human intellect cannot adequately address for the simple reason that, even if we are intimate with
the Spirit of God, we cannot deduce in detail from our knowledge of God what form God would take if he were to become a man.
Jesus is God incarnate. To learn what incarnation means, then, it is necessary to know Jesus.
Other religions—the
polytheism of ancient Greeks, for example—held that gods had bodily forms. According to the mythology, gods could and in
fact did mate with mortals to produce offspring with superhuman powers. In this respect Jesus’ birth as the result of some
sort of mating of God with Mary was superficially similar, say, to the birth of Achilles, the supposed offspring of a goddess
and a human king. Achilles had special abilities, but he was not the incarnation of the goddess. In any case, people have
expected any child of any deity to have and use special powers. Jesus through his miracles thus meets human expectations.
The exact nature of those powers, however, is not predictable from any set of human criteria. The Greek gods were
believed to be no more successful than ordinary mortals in avoiding tangled or broken relationships and folly in general,
and their offspring were equally prone to foibles.
Jesus in stark contrast used his special abilities primarily to
help people, people who were clearly unable to return his favors. We infer from the gospels that his life, instead of being
replete with larger-than-life adventures, was superficially drab up until his public ministry. Apart from the miracles, his
public ministry was rather less impressive by human standards than that of many a modern televangelist.
He was sinless,
Christians believe; but being God, he defined sin and so was able to be sinless by definition. But he lived according to
the laws of “love God” and “love your neighbor,” although some of those who felt his anger might not have agreed. In any
case, we know that to be sinless for him meant giving himself completely to humans for their benefit. He thereby revealed
God to be above all a God of love, one who was interested in and capable of promoting the welfare of everyone who responded
positively to his love. By his miracles he also revealed God to be one who in important ways is in control of the world.
The question is why Christians should believe Jesus is the only incarnation of God. The answer that overrides all
others is that, to support his claims, he did miraculous works of a kind that no one else had done. No one today, of course,
has witnessed those miraculous works; so in order to believe he did them, we have to trust what others have told us. We have
already explored some of the reasons for believing what others have said about Jesus in the Bible. There are also compelling
circumstantial arguments. I contend that, if Jesus had done no miraculous signs, it is unlikely that we would know of him
today. The reality instead is that he has been and still is the most influential human in history.
The miracles
are key for Christians, because if Jesus did not do them, any belief in bodily resurrection from the dead is wishful thinking
at best. Despite the importance of miracles, many theologians and other educated Christians in modern times have been persistently
arguing that talk of miracles in the Bible is no more than unfounded myth originating in the thought processes of pre-scientific
people.
It is true that belief in the possibility of miracles, including a belief that people could rise from the
dead, was prevalent in Jesus’ part of the world in his lifetime. For example, Herod Antipas, tetrarch (ruler) of Galilee,
is quoted by Matthew (chapter 14) as saying, on hearing of Jesus’ miracles, that Jesus was John the Baptist risen from the
dead. And others believed that Jesus was one of the prophets who had lived hundreds of years earlier (Matthew 16:14).
Could
pre-scientific thought processes have so colored his disciples’ perceptions that they could have been totally mistaken about
Jesus’ special abilities, and that he actually worked no real miracles at all? If so, the gospel writers still perhaps could
have presented their narratives as honestly and truthfully as it was possible for men of that cultural environment to do,
but they still would have been completely mistaken, by rigorous, analytical standards, because their abilities to perceive
and mentally process information were tainted by preconceptions.
Given perhaps a greater predisposition to believe
in miracles than the average citizen of modern industrialized nations, Jesus’ followers nevertheless were not so gullible
as to have reported so many and such remarkable miracles as they did if there was nothing of substance there to begin with.
After all, as we have seen, these were men filled and inspired by the Spirit of truth, the same Spirit that fills us today.
It is easy to believe that a charismatic leader could have had powerful effects a few times: His presence could have inspired
some people with psychosomatic illnesses to abandon their self-absorption and begin new lives, for example.
Such
healing would be easier to understand if Jesus had had a flair for drama. But Jesus’ healing for the most part was practically
devoid of emotional fervor. Unlike some modern faith healers, he made no effort to whip either the audiences or the afflicted
into states of high expectation, and he made few dramatic gestures. There was nothing except Jesus’ presence that might make
people believe they were healed if they really were not; and in several instances the persons healed were physically absent.
More often than not, Jesus simply spoke calm and prosaic words of healing and, we are told, miracles happened. A
man blind all his life suddenly sees (John 9). A man unable to walk for 38 years suddenly gets up, picks up the mat he’d
been lying on and walks away (John 5). A man dead and in the tomb four days who “already stinks” revives and walks out (John
11). If nothing extraordinary really took place in all the many cases where miracles were reported, would Jesus’ disciples
not have begun to see through the sham?
His chosen twelve disciples were very ordinary people, no doubt wanting to
believe their leader but at the same time often questioning him, misunderstanding him and doubting him. They were prejudiced
in favor of him but were not so blinded by him or incapable of seeing through what he was doing that they would have been
unable to detect deception. After all, they accompanied him closely over a period of years. Familiarity would have bred,
if not contempt, at least a touch of skepticism and willingness to challenge him. His disciples did indeed challenge Jesus,
although never, as far as we know, successfully. For example, they questioned his judgment in returning to Judea (John 11:8),
and Peter challenged him earlier (Matthew 16:22).
After Jesus was crucified by the Romans and laid in the tomb, his
disciples, according to the gospels, showed every sign of believing that his once-promising career had come abruptly and permanently
to an ignominious end. They were not so dazzled by his miraculous works that they believed his power could reach beyond the
grave.
Jesus’ death by crucifixion left his disciples profoundly disappointed and fearful for their own lives. At
first they thought they might suffer their teacher’s fate, and they lay low—a perfectly understandable response. Later, several
of them according to the Bible and church traditions were indeed put to death for their beliefs. But before they died they
underwent radical transformations. Within two months of Jesus’ death they not only lost their fear of Jewish authorities,
they vigorously proclaimed Jesus in open defiance of those authorities.
This transformation of Jesus’ disciples is
one of the great miracles of the Bible, and it is verifiable by us today because, had it not occurred, the message of Jesus
could not have had its earth-shaking influence in those early centuries. The rapid spread of Christianity and its rapid emergence
in the Roman Empire as the dominant religion could not have happened if its supporters had not been willing to risk their
lives vigorously promoting Jesus and his teachings.
So how can we account for this transformation of cowering, undistinguished
fishermen and laborers into bold leaders of the soon-to-be dominant religion? How could these bumbling disciples of an itinerant
teacher successfully defy not only the local religious authorities and their cultural traditions but all authorities of that
age and all cultures? The answer has to do with Jesus’ greatest miracle: He came back to life and showed himself to his
disciples. That act brought them out of their mourning and gave them back their confidence in him. But it did not turn them
into fervent missionaries for him. They still as it were stood around like penned cattle wondering what was coming next.
After Jesus had left them for the last time, his close disciples one day abruptly became fervent missionaries for
him. That was when the Spirit of God filled them. At that time they suddenly became aware of the true meaning and significance
of Jesus’ life and teaching, and they felt compelled to share it with everyone.
So the miracle of the transformation
of Jesus’ disciples took place in two steps: First, they saw and talked with Jesus several times after he returned to life.
Second, the Spirit of God made clear to them from within themselves who Jesus really was.
If either of these events
had not taken place, could Jesus’ disciples have become the bold missionaries they ultimately proved to be? In my opinion,
no. What could have motivated these fishermen who had no uncommon urge or inclination to strive for personal recognition?
They would have gone back to their boats and spent the rest of their lives fishing for fish instead of converts. So the transformation
of Jesus’ disciples is one miracle whose effects we all have personally witnessed. And it is among the greatest of biblical
miracles.
On the basis of this alone one might ask why everyone doesn’t now believe in Jesus. Such a question of
course would be naïve, because it would not acknowledge the human ability to come up with several different explanations for
any complex social phenomenon. Furthermore, it would incorrectly assume that evidence of a miracle alone has the power to
convert people, when in fact it would immediately stimulate many to look for other explanations.
Furthermore, people
still have a right to be skeptical, do they not? After all, religions other than Christianity took root and spread rapidly
because of missionary efforts on the part of a teacher’s followers. Islam, for example, rapidly captured and still holds
a large and growing part of the world. It has made Muhammad one of the world’s most influential men. Islam’s initial rapid
capture of converts, however, owes a great deal right from the start to Islamic military conquest. More recently the teachings
of Joseph Smith as spread by Mormon missionaries have brought many to the fold of the Latter Day Saints. Here again, though,
the Mormons often gain access to converts by stressing the legitimacy of their tie to Christianity, a legitimacy that more
traditional Christians refuse to concede.
Even so there is a crucial difference between Jesus and those teachers
of religion. Others point to something beyond themselves. Both Muhammad and Joseph Smith pointed to words, to verbal revelations
that they claimed came to them by supernatural means. The words pointed to God, to a being far beyond themselves. Jesus
in contrast pointed to himself.
People honor achievers who minimize their own persons and deeds and proclaim values
beyond themselves. Philosophers are honored for making wisdom accessible, and scientists are honored for creating knowledge.
Pastors, prophets and priests are honored for making God accessible. Those who proclaim themselves, their own persons, to
be the highest of values tend to be ridiculed, dishonored and rejected. Few can stomach them; few honor them for making themselves
accessible.
That is not to say that such people cannot attract significant followings for a time. In recent years
we have witnessed varying degrees of success for Jim Jones, of Jonestown notoriety, and Father Divine. The Rev. Sun Myung
Moon falls into the same category. People under such charismatic leaders worship them, while outsiders look upon them with
ridicule or disgust. But insofar as he steadfastly proclaimed himself to be the highest value, Jesus not only falls in this
category but is perhaps the most extreme member of the category. Although such people can attract believers for a time, their
influence almost always diminishes or disappears when they die.
Jesus is an extreme exception. The influence he
exerted before he died was nothing compared to that after he died. Before he died he was a seed. After he died he sprouted,
grew and became the largest of all trees. What accounts for the difference? Miracles, coupled with a message of God’s love.
Jesus worked true miracles. He did things that no one else had done, and in that way he proved that he was what he claimed
to be, the highest of all values.
Suppose that Jesus was not really God incarnate and had worked no miracles, but
despite that we still had records of his life and teachings. Many Christians today, as we’ve noted, believe that this is
what we have and all we have. What kind of person would Jesus then seem to be? Could we still hold him in high regard as
a peerless teacher of morality? Many do, but to do so requires that we take large portions of the gospels as fanciful fiction.
Yet if Jesus was such a great moral teacher, how could his followers, the gospel writers, have filled their stories with such
blatant lies or exaggerations about him? Like Jesus, his disciples, who received the Spirit of truth, give the impression
in the Bible that they wrote and spoke as truthfully as they were able to do.
Jesus was indeed a peerless teacher
of morality, but for him there was no such thing as morality in the abstract, morality apart from himself. He credits those
who aid their fellow humans with doing good not because they help others but because through others they help Jesus himself
(Matthew 25:40).
The gospel of John is especially emphatic in its portrayal of Jesus’ person, not just his teaching,
as the ultimate value. John starts out claiming that Jesus created all things (chapter 1). Later in the gospel Jesus claims
that the sacred Jewish writings, the Old Testament of the Bible, speak about him. Then he calls himself the bread of life
that came down from heaven (John 6:35). Those who eat of his body, he says, will live forever. In chapter 8 he calls himself
“the light of the world,” in chapter 10 “the good shepherd,” in chapter 11 “the resurrection and the life,” and in chapter
14 “the way, the truth and the life”. In several extended dialogues with Jews Jesus talks about himself in ways that give
the impression that he believes he is God himself (John 5:18; 10:33).
How can people regard someone with so elevated
an opinion of himself merely as an admirable teacher of morality? People today could not stomach such flagrant self-promotion
any more than the Jews of Jesus’ time—unless, of course, the one making such claims could present clear reasons, namely, miraculous
demonstrations of power, for believing his words.
In contrast to this self-promotion Jesus in a few instances presented
himself simply as one who was witnessing of God and promoting God’s cause. Jesus in the gospel of John says more than once
that his teaching is not his own but what he has heard from his father, God (for example, John 5). He maintains that people
should believe him not just because of what he himself says but because of what the Father says. At the same time he tells
his audience that they have no access to the Father except through him. Nevertheless, while Jesus often claims that his authority
derives from the Father, he also says plainly that his authority from God is so complete that he really is God’s equal. Who
could admire such a man if he were not telling the truth?
There is a way, of course; and that is to believe that
what his followers wrote about him was mostly pure fabrication.
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Enervating Doubt and Mindless Belief
No in-depth
discussion of the person of Jesus these days can avoid addressing issues raised by critical scholars of the Bible, those who
analyze original biblical texts and teachings within a framework of historical and cultural background information and skepticism.
Such analysis is often called “higher criticism”. Let me say at the outset that I respect and appreciate the efforts of some
of those scholars, because they provide perspectives on Jesus and the Bible that add insight but that I and most other believers
would not have been able to appreciate without their help. It has been useful for them to explore what happens when one applies
something akin to scientific skepticism to matters of religion and faith. In contrast to those who elevate scriptures to
the level of infallible truth, they acknowledge that the Bible’s authors were fallible people and explore the consequences.
One of their important contributions has been to make less tenable the fundamentalist belief that the writings of
the Bible are infallible in every sense, that they contain no errors of fact or internal discrepancies. Such a belief can
have the undesirable consequence of promoting reverence for a thing, a book, while diluting reverence for and diverting attention
from God himself.
If the Bible does not lead a person to knowledge of God or enhance existing knowledge of God, then
for that person the book, inerrant or not, has failed. To have an intellectual grasp of all the facts of salvation without
personal knowledge of God is to miss the point. On the other hand, if one knows God confidently, it is not terribly important
that every detail in the book be scientifically respectable.
Other outcomes of critical Bible scholarship are unfortunate:
It has chopped at the roots of faith for many and killed faith for some. Such damage results partly from deceptions perpetrated
by some of the scholars themselves. Because they package their teachings as the results of profound and unassailable investigations,
investigations that have the same authority as science, the weak feel compelled to accept them.
Are the findings
of the biblical scholars scientific? For the most part, no! The sole objects of their studies are various biblical manuscripts
along with detailed knowledge of literature, practices and customs of biblical times, especially of the first Christian centuries.
Scholars are on firm ground as long as they compare manuscripts and point out inconsistencies and discrepancies. Most of
their other criticism is the product of plausibility argument on top of plausibility argument.
A plausibility argument
to a scientist is untested deduction that is consistent with experience and therefore expected to hold true.
It is
useful to mention here that two of the greatest achievements of 20th century physics, the theories of relativity and quantum
mechanics, incorporate principles, postulates or assumptions that were completely implausible when proposed and remain every
bit as implausible today in that physicists remain unable to reconcile them with experiences of everyday life.
Two
examples:
Relativity—If you are traveling in the same direction as a pulse of light, the difference you would measure
between your own speed and that of the light pulse is always the same no matter how fast you go. This would mean, for example,
that if you pointed your spaceship in the direction the light was traveling, no matter how long you fired your engine or how
powerful the engine was, in the end you would deduce you were standing still compared to the light pulse.
Quantum mechanics—Every
object can behave both as a wave and as a particle. This implies that an object can act both as though it is spread out in
space and as though it is confined to a particular spot.
Implausible as they may be, these principles of physics have
proved consistent time and again with experimental results. We conclude that plausibility, or common sense, is often useful
but has limited value as a criterion for truth, especially when we deal with things remote from everyday experience.
A
scientific hypothesis is similar to a plausibility argument, but a hypothesis carries the further implication that someone
is seriously looking for a way to test it. Hypotheses carry little weight ordinarily unless they are tested by experiment
and proven consistent with observation. Biblical scholars can make plausibility arguments and set up objective criteria for
investigating the Bible, but they have no way to test their arguments or establish the validity of their criteria for the
particular applications they have in mind. At every step they must appeal to plausibility. So their exercises are not even
superficially scientific. What is plausible varies from one person to the next.
What is plausible to me is that
the authors of the New Testament were making an honest effort to present truth and fact along with a testimony to their faith.
Their words themselves promote the values of honesty and ingenuous truthfulness. Would those who put such high value on
straightforward, open communication themselves be full of guile? To suspect so would be the height of cynicism. No one who
truly comprehends what they wrote could come away so cynical.
The Five Gospels is a book on biblical criticism that
presents findings of the Jesus Seminar, a group of more than seventy biblical scholars from respected academic communities.
The authors state as one of their “Rules of Written Evidence” that “Jesus rarely makes pronouncements or speaks about himself
in the first person.” On the basis of this rule they then proceed to dismiss Jesus’ first-person remarks in the gospels as
fabrications of the gospel writers. Related rules are “The evangelists frequently attribute their own statements to Jesus,”
and “Words borrowed from...common lore...are often put on the lips of Jesus.” While such rules may be plausible to many people
much of the time, it is impossible to determine that they apply in any particular case.
In physics, plausibility
arguments have value in some regimes but not in others farther removed from experience. So in studies of human behavior,
plausibility arguments may be practically worthless under exceptional conditions. Christians have always believed that Jesus
was quite exceptional and that, through the Spirit, he had an exceptional impact on his followers. Hence the Rules of Written
Evidence may be completely inappropriate for discovering truth about Jesus and the gospels.
It is easy to come up
with quite different sets of plausibility arguments for interpreting Jesus and reconciling the gospel accounts. Christians
in fact have been doing so for a long time. It is particularly easy if one does not insist that all gospel narratives be
compatible in fine detail but only in general tone and message. The gospel authors, after all, almost certainly wrote years,
probably decades, after Jesus’ death, and their sources for and recollections of details would lose precision over time.
That the different accounts largely agree but differ in some details can be taken as a witness to their authenticity; there
was clearly no conspiracy to ensure that all the details were in agreement.
Scholars make much of the differences
between the gospel of John and the others, as though John must therefore offer an even less accurate portrayal of Jesus than
the other gospels. Not necessarily. John may simply have noticed that the other gospels portrayed Jesus largely as a public
figure observed from a distance. John knew Jesus intimately and wanted to complement that public view with an intimate one.
The other gospels emphasize narrative and action; John’s emphasizes a mystical comprehension of Jesus as the incarnation
of God. One picture is incomplete without the other.
That Jesus in John’s version speaks in the first person about
his role as savior (for example, “I am the way and the truth and the life”) would be implausible only if Jesus were not from
above and were pretty much like everyone else. If he really was from above and recognized his role as savior and was obsessed
with his mission, as the gospels uniformly portray him, his first-person comments about his role are understandable as attempts
to make perfectly clear who he was to his intimate companions. Jesus tried to hide his true identity from outsiders. Hence
any statements about his role as savior are much more likely in an intimate setting than in a public one. Because John’s
gospel is an intimate portrayal, we expect, and we find, a preponderance of such statements in John’s gospel.
The
Five Gospels also states that “Jesus’ ordeal in the desert,” including his words to the devil, was “legendary,” meaning, in
this context, fictional. But what if Jesus actually did fast forty days and actually was tempted by the devil in the desert?
Jesus as savior needed to convince people of his authority in a short time. If the fasting and the temptation actually happened,
they would have been key formative experiences, and it would have been surprising for him not to have described them to his
disciples. Telling them would have reinforced the point, which he made repeatedly to his disciples, that he was a messenger
from God with a unique role.
I have insight into this because I face similar obstacles. God has done extraordinary
things for me, and although most such things are not shareable, I do have a message. To state my message without even hinting
at the power of God behind it would be dishonest and very likely also ineffective. The approach I use, then, is to describe
in some detail, in chapters to come, the parts of my experience that I can share and in that way attempt to underline the
power of God behind my message. Jesus in this respect was doing a similar thing: Much of what he knew from God he could
not convey in words to his disciples, but the things he could describe, such as his fasting and temptation, he did; and his
descriptions lent power to his message.
A further criticism of scholars like those of the Jesus Seminar is that they
do not state all their crucial assumptions. One partially stated assumption of The Five Gospels is that Jesus simply could
not have been much like the person the gospels say he is. Jesus as a human must have been radically different from the “Christ
of faith,” the person Christians deified in their creeds. A major assumption not mentioned at all is that miracles do not
happen. Any talk of miracles is, to the scholars, prima-facie evidence of fabrication. To approach with this assumption
a book replete with stories of miracles is to arrive at a foregone conclusion that large parts of the book are not factual.
The authors in the end prove only what they assume at the outset. Their whole exercise simply shows in detail the
conclusions one would reach if one were to apply their rules, principles and assumptions consistently. The authors must be
aware of this; but some lay people believe that the scholars’ conclusions are somehow scientifically proved.
Scientifically
proved they are not. They are only as believable as the plausibility arguments and assumptions that go into them, most of
which are variations on the theme that Jesus and his Spirit-filled followers were relatively unexceptional people. For the
scholars, the true genius of Christianity resided not in Jesus but in anonymous interpreters who came later. Ultimately,
the conclusions of such scholars contribute not scientific results but mere speculation. The have studied the Bible, spiritually
speaking, with their eyes closed.
A major part of Jesus’ work, the part where he demonstrated the power of God in
miraculous works, directly opposes the kinds of assumptions that guide the work of Jesus Seminar scholars. The question for
us is whether or not we can believe Jesus actually performed the miracles. If we believe, we thereby reject much of what
the Jesus Seminar scholars concluded and prepare ourselves once more for the coming of God.
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What about this
issue of divine inspiration and inerrancy of sacred writings? Fundamentalist Christians sometimes make much noise over this,
defending inerrancy with much heat and little reason, but it is not to their advantage. In doing so they give the impression
that they are more closely tied to the book than to God the person.
Of course, if you can believe you have a book
that is in every respect infallible, life becomes a lot easier. For example, Christians who hold to inerrancy of the Bible
can simply dismiss everything I’ve written so far as irrelevant. If the book cannot err, there is no further need for reasons
to believe in Jesus and his message. The Bible tells us so. Yet, while mindless faith in a book may be acceptable for children
and the weak, it is not acceptable for the mature. Among other things, it erects barriers to Christianity for those who have
no reason to believe any particular book is infallible, especially one that disagrees with important findings of science.
I believe that the writings of the Bible are inspired, but inspiration comes in various forms. Leaders of established
Christian churches accept the Bible as authoritative, but there is no general agreement on the nature of its inspiration.
Many, probably most, do not believe that God commanded every word. God may well have dictated some of the Bible’s words
to prophets like a boss to a secretary, but overall, I think, not much of the Bible falls into that category.
Furthermore,
what comes by inspiration of that sort is likely to become increasingly irrelevant with time and distance from the original
recipient. Words that come by dictation would rarely elicit the response God most desires, which is that people as his vessels
open themselves to him. What is effective is human witnessing not of words God has dictated to ears or brains but of the
knowledge of himself he has put in hearts. Much more of the Bible, including perhaps most or all of the New Testament, falls
into a category of inspiration that is less explicit than words to brains.
What I write here is inspired by God in
that what I say I have tested against his presence over long periods of time, often decades. As I write, God sits here with
me. He does not put specific words into my mind, but he approves of what I say by remaining with me. He stimulates me to
write and does not object to what I say.
This does not mean that everything I say is guaranteed strictly accurate
in a scientific or historical sense. I check historical and personal facts and continually check whether I am being honest
with myself, but I am not above including misstatements. I am confident that God over the decades has purged major conceptual
errors, but there are almost certainly still mistakes of one kind or another.
Inspiration of the New Testament was
of a similar sort. Its authors in one way or another were close to Jesus; they wrote in the presence of God and in the personal
knowledge of him. Their knowledge of God enhances and reinforces our own knowledge of God when we read their words, and that
reinforcement is the strongest possible evidence for the validity of what they wrote.
If we had opportunity to ask
the apostle Paul about the nature of his own inspiration, I am confident that he, as the most self-analytical of the apostles,
would agree with this view of inspiration. From time to time in his letters he stated that some of his comments were his
own opinions, and he was not always clear which were and which were not.
In this process of inspiration God does
not check spelling, grammar or incidental facts for their accuracy. That is not his interest. Anyone inspired of God will
try hard to be factual and honest, but some people have higher standards for those virtues than others. Even if their standards
are not high, what they write can still have spiritual value, just as an uneducated person’s oral testimony to Jesus can have
value. If there are glaring errors, however, probably only the ignorant will be able to acknowledge the value.
Why
should fundamentalists feel the need to hold so tenaciously to inerrancy? Why must every word of the Bible for them be historical,
and why must scientific discoveries always be consistent with it? On the face of it, those are strange demands to make of
a book whose purpose is to bring people to God. Are they saying that if God’s messengers ever made mistakes in what they
wrote, God has failed and is not worth seeking?
But I have some insight into the fundamentalists’ demands on the Bible
partly because I used to make them myself. When God first touched me, the Bible for me was the world’s only acceptable witness
to him, so I surrendered myself to it unquestioningly. I was willing to reject all other sources of knowledge and information
in order to hang on to what I knew was of surpassing value. Nevertheless my surrender was out of personal desperation, weakness
and inadequacy. God by his appearing had demolished former frames of reference, so the Bible was all I had left in the world.
Is the fundamentalist’s need for biblical authority the same as my own used to be? Not exactly, but similar. Often,
heated defense of principles or ideas originates in insecurity, especially when the principles or ideas are believed to mean
the difference between eternal glory and eternal damnation. The need for inerrancy stems from a need for certainty that arises
in turn from a need for security. But no one at the present stage of existence is entitled to perfect security. Our only
legitimate security is in the love of God, but that must come from God himself, not from a book, not even from a book that
can lead us to him. Written words of God that we can refer to at will are of great value, but they are helpers, not ends
in themselves.
Fundamentalists like other Christians have built up doctrinal structures on a foundation of Bible
statements. Their very salvation, they seem to think, depends on getting these structures right and accepting them. Hence
any challenge to words of the Bible shakes their foundation and puts their salvation in jeopardy. If they knew God the person
well enough, they would not feel so threatened, and they would relax their demands on the Bible and see it for what it is.
The Jews of Jesus’ day had great respect for their scriptures, most of which are incorporated in Christian Bibles,
but Jesus criticized them for focusing narrowly on those written words: “You search the scriptures because you think you
have eternal life through them…. You do not want to come to me so that you might have life.” Their zeal for lesser goods
blinded them to the greater good.
Ultimately, those who demand either infallible doctrines or an infallible book
are putting their hopes for security in the wrong place. The same can be said of those who demand infallibility in pronouncements
of popes or other church leaders. No one in this life is entitled to absolute doctrinal perfection or absolute doctrinal
purity. To think you have it can make you believe that it is more important to know the right answers than to know the right
person.
Nevertheless, to accept every Christian’s testimony as something authoritative because inspired by God also
has serious drawbacks. The world becomes flooded with chaff. Those who think little and whose perceptions and feelings are
shallow often talk or write much. The Christian church in its early centuries was flooded with diverse views of its members.
So formal creeds, scriptural canons and standardized teachings have a place. But they must never be so rigid that they quench
vitality or hinder the ongoing, personal search for and revelation of God himself.
Ultimately we accept the Bible
as sacred because we believe its authors were exceptionally close to God, and their closeness reaches out to us as we read.
We also believe its authors, at least most of them, had respect for historical accuracy, and all were being honest in their
writing. For the purpose of stimulating God’s vessels to open themselves to him, the most important inspired writing is what
emerges from the hearts of those who have opened themselves to him, and a large part of the Bible certainly is that kind of
inspired writing.
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