1. What’s Wrong with “Because the Bible Says So.”
I’ve been thinking about this one a lot lately…
There’s a difference between stating, A) “A fact is true because a certain person said it,” vs. saying B) “I can *know* a fact is true because a certain person said it.”
Do you catch the difference? The first would be a statement about how something in the world works. The second would be a statement about the way your own mind is able to work, based on some external facts.
To concretize: I can know that God parted the Red Sea because God says he did (and I know he always tells the truth). Is this an example of statement A or B?
It’s the latter because it’s a statement about the way my mind is able to work, based on some external facts.
This is tricky to articulate, but let me tell you one thing that I *am* stating and another thing I am *not* stating.
I *am* stating that when I grasped certain facts (the fact of God saying something and the fact of his character), this caused me to understand another fact (the fact of what he had done).
I am *not* stating the facts are directly, causally related to one other. I am not stating that “God told me so” is the cause of “God parted the Red Sea.”
Rather, “God told me so” is the cause of me *knowing* that he parted the Red Sea.
Why does any of the above matter?
Because we need to learn that this distinction about historical facts also apples to moral facts.
When we say a deed is right or wrong because the Bible says so, is this an example of statement type A or B?
A) “A fact is true because a certain person said it.”
B) “I can *know* a fact is true because a certain person said it.”
It’s the latter. God’s moral prescriptions are actually descriptions of what human flourishing requires, plus the command to take that flourishing action.
God is not merely stating what will please him. He is stating what will help us live (which is what pleases him).
When we as parents and teachers tell children that something is right or wrong and they ask why, we often point to the Bible and say “Because the Bible says so.” Do you see now that this is imprecise and even misleading? It makes it sound like statement type A (“A fact is true because a certain person said it”). But actually, the fact is true *and* a certain person has said it, *and* I can *know* the fact is true because a certain person said it.
If we tell children (or teens or adults), “It’s wrong because God said so,” we leave them to interpret this as best they can. Many will conclude “right and wrong” are merely synonyms for “pleasing and displeasing to God.” Right and wrong are, of course, pleasing and displeasing to God, but that is not of the essence. “Right and wrong” are something God is describing. They are facts about reality and man’s life, which we may know by reference to God’s trustworthy description.
If we give people the impression (or if we ourselves believe) that “right and wrong” are a reference only to God’s words, and not also to reality, we set up two dangerous kinds of failure:
1) They may stop looking at cause and effect relationships within the facts of reality and begin to operate on principle in a way that is disconnected from reality and does not actually account for the facts. An example of this would be someone who takes his religion very seriously but applies it legalistically and deductively without regard to observed facts. They are not very open to rethinking anything because they have calcified a given interpretation of what God has said and what it means.
or,
2) In rebellion, they may conclude that God’s commands are not related to reality. This is the kind of person who knows what “morality” is, but doesn’t follow it. In his mind, “morality” is merely the arbitrary expectations of others, which he rejects in order to follow his own course.
What does it mean for a statement to be true? It means it conforms to the facts of reality; not that it conforms to someone else’s statement, even if that statement itself be true. When we recognize this, we make a significant advance toward understanding that morality is not subjective, nor arbitrary, but objective.
Moral facts are actually *facts*. The more we can help others understand this, the better off they will be.
No more, “It’s right because the Bible says so.”
It’s time for, “The Bible says so, and the Bible is right.”