01.03. The Believer’s Testimony as the Basis for Bible Inerrancy

3º The Believer’s Testimony as the Basis for Bible Inerrancy

It may not have been obvious that the fallacies of the preceding views lay ultimately in their unconscious elevation of the creature above the Creator who is blessed forever. It seemed to have been quite the opposite. By accepting the authority of the Bible on the basis of its own divine affirmation or its divine corroboration in the soul, advocates of these positions intended to bow before the majesty of heaven; but, in fact, did not. Since there is no evidence that an avowed Word of God is a genuine Word of God simply because it avows itself to be such, accepting it for no reason is sheer arbitrariness (however reverent the intention). Instead of abiding by the laws of evidence which God has given us we become laws to ourselves. In other words, the first two unsound bases for sound doctrine, though they appear to be quite objective, are actually only appeals to mere personal feelings. But to this position, in the purity of its expression, we now come. The view runs something like this. The Bible is inspired because it inspires me. It “finds” me. It rings a bell in my soul. I know that this is God’s book because I feel within that this book is God’s book. It affects me as no other literature does. It exhibits a power and an energy which speak to me. This view is not intended, by those who favor it, to be an appeal to subjectivity. It is, of course, an appeal to the subject’s experience. However, it is claimed that the subject experiences something not himself. He senses the presence of a spirit not his own. The argument is not subjective, then, in the sense that the subject himself “existentially” produces the experience. It is not a creation of the human soul but something that happens to the soul which is thought to prove that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. This experience then is offered as the basis for believing that the Bible is the Word of God. In itself, and in it alone, is the argument for Inerrancy. No matter how sincere the Christianity of those who reason thus, no matter how truly the Bible, of which they speak, may indeed be the Word of God, still their argument amounts to this: “My heart is moved when I read the Bible more and/or differently than when I read any other literature. Therefore, this Bible, which is the occasion or cause of this wonderful feeling, must be God’s Word.” These good men do not phrase their argument that way or they, too, would immediately recognize its futility as an argument. They imply this but do not usually express it. Some of them will not even recognize it when someone else expresses it. They may even sincerely resent such a spelling out as saying something which they never intended. And, of course, they may not have meant it. People often imply what they do not intend. “Happy inconsistencies” abound everywhere. Whatever their inner intentions may be we leave to God the only Searcher of Hearts. We concern ourselves only with their reasoning. Experience is set forth as a case for Inspiration and the only way that it could appear to be such is by supposing that such an inference is valid. But is it valid to suppose that because I have a certain experience when I read the Bible that the Bible is thereby shown to be the Word of God? Surely not. First, the experience could be a mere coincidence. One may have happened to have felt well, for some reason, when he began to read the Bible. By association he may have attributed this to what he was reading. Thus the Bible reading may have been a mere concomitant, rather than cause, of his experience. Christians do, in fact, testify that often when they read the Bible nothing “happens.”

Even if something always happened when one read the Bible, that would not prove that the Bible was the cause of what happened. We all have heard of the rooster who thought that his crowing caused the sun to rise each morning, until he found it rising one morning when he had a sore throat. But suppose that that rooster had never had a sore throat; he would have gone to his death still thinking that his crowing was the cause of the sun’s rising. We must have more than succession for a causal argument. There must be necessary succession. But this can never be shown by mere experience. Second, even if the Bible were the cause of these experiences that would not prove that the Bible was the Word of God. It would prove that it had a unique power, but not divine power. A unique power is not necessarily a divine power. The devil has power that is unique and, so far as men apart from special revelation know, it could account for such a phenomenon as that we are considering. Of course, that is not the case here. Of course, the advocates of this view are correct in saying that this power comes from God. They are right; but, they have no basis for being right. Their conclusion may be correct (as we think); but, their premises are incorrect (as we have shown). No one is likely ever to admit that the Bible is the Word of God apart from this experience here described. Nothing so powerfully affects men’s convictions about Inspiration as this experience. Nevertheless, precious and valuable as it is, the believer’s testimony is not the basis of an argument for Inerrancy. On the contrary, Inerrancy must be the basis of validating Christian experience.