You don’t need a bible in order to know God. The Bible itself says this.
“What may be known of God is manifest,” reads chapter 1 of Paul’s letter to the Romans. In other words, the evidence is already plain. “God’s invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.” Thus, not only can we infer that God exists, we can also learn about his nature from what we perceive around us. Creation testifies about its Creator.
In fact, creation itself provides enough information about God, somehow, that human beings who disregard God anyway are, in Paul’s word, “without excuse.”
So: Those of us who have bibles do not necessarily have an advantage.
Those of us who know the word “Jesus” do not necessarily have an advantage either— because presumably an illiterate tribesman in the most distant wilderness somewhere might speak an obscure syllable for the being he is seeking and coming to know, but cannot explain. God knows when his name is called.
These verses from Romans 1 (specifically vv. 19-20) represent a remarkably confident passage of scripture. Confident, that is, in the universality of our awareness that we live in the presence of God. The implication of Romans 1 is that even this remote tribesman has access to at least enough insight about the God we all share to be able to piece together a sufficient framework for how to experience this being and how to conform to him. I do not know precisely how this insight comes, and doubtless it can be different for every individual. It might involve dreams in some cases. In other cases it might involve the words of missionaries reaching the most remote tribesman third- or fourth-hand. In still other cases, the tribesman might intellectually build this insight out of the clues that are manifest in the material world.
Whatever the case, the being he comes to recognize is living, constant, and true in a way that is distinct from the trinkets of worship that are scattered around him. A missionary might find this person and teach him the story of the cross, but the tribesman is receptive to this message only because of the way it ratifies, intensifies, and “fleshes out” the picture of the one he has already come to appreciate. He speaks a syllable, perhaps, and this is his own private name for the “I AM” of the Bible and the One-through-whom-all-things-were-made who was born on earth as Jesus Christ.
* * *
“What may be known of God is manifest,” reads chapter 1 of Paul’s letter to the Romans. In other words, the evidence is already plain. “God’s invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.” Thus, not only can we infer that God exists, we can also learn about his nature from what we perceive around us. Creation testifies about its Creator.
In fact, creation itself provides enough information about God, somehow, that human beings who disregard God anyway are, in Paul’s word, “without excuse.”
So: Those of us who have bibles do not necessarily have an advantage.
Those of us who know the word “Jesus” do not necessarily have an advantage either— because presumably an illiterate tribesman in the most distant wilderness somewhere might speak an obscure syllable for the being he is seeking and coming to know, but cannot explain. God knows when his name is called.
These verses from Romans 1 (specifically vv. 19-20) represent a remarkably confident passage of scripture. Confident, that is, in the universality of our awareness that we live in the presence of God. The implication of Romans 1 is that even this remote tribesman has access to at least enough insight about the God we all share to be able to piece together a sufficient framework for how to experience this being and how to conform to him. I do not know precisely how this insight comes, and doubtless it can be different for every individual. It might involve dreams in some cases. In other cases it might involve the words of missionaries reaching the most remote tribesman third- or fourth-hand. In still other cases, the tribesman might intellectually build this insight out of the clues that are manifest in the material world.
Whatever the case, the being he comes to recognize is living, constant, and true in a way that is distinct from the trinkets of worship that are scattered around him. A missionary might find this person and teach him the story of the cross, but the tribesman is receptive to this message only because of the way it ratifies, intensifies, and “fleshes out” the picture of the one he has already come to appreciate. He speaks a syllable, perhaps, and this is his own private name for the “I AM” of the Bible and the One-through-whom-all-things-were-made who was born on earth as Jesus Christ.
* * *
Don’t get me wrong, though. The Bible is, to say the least, extraordinary. The Bible is, among other things, food.
I have seen the truth of this. The Bible characterizes itself as nourishment, and I have come to recognize the ways that I go hungry when I try to live without its instruction. Yet the Bible derives its authority from God, and the Bible is all but meaningless if God is not real. Therefore, to address the question of whether God exists, we should begin by setting the Bible aside.
Indeed, one might wonder why we in the modern, developed, wealthy, “industrialized” portion of the world have been given this particular blessing—bibles—in such abundance. The book is available in libraries, stores, churches, and almost every hotel room. Plus it is easily accessible in every English version through all of our Internet connections. We are tempted to think of ourselves as special because we have this special document in such an array, but could it be that we are just especially in need of it? Given the hyperbusy, fretting, intellectual minds that our culture produces, perhaps we need to have God’s insight—God’s food—arranged for us in these sequential verses on which we can focus our thoughts. In the Western world, perhaps that is the only avenue left by which to reach the gut where we are starving. Perhaps our culture leaves us so sealed with an ego-bound shell, and therefore so oblivious to God around us, that God has to parachute literature into our midst just to get through. I mentioned that I do not know exactly how the illiterate tribesman pieces together the way of God, but it could just as well be that the tribesman doesn’t understand how I am not able to see it.
Next: A Finger in My I
I have seen the truth of this. The Bible characterizes itself as nourishment, and I have come to recognize the ways that I go hungry when I try to live without its instruction. Yet the Bible derives its authority from God, and the Bible is all but meaningless if God is not real. Therefore, to address the question of whether God exists, we should begin by setting the Bible aside.
Indeed, one might wonder why we in the modern, developed, wealthy, “industrialized” portion of the world have been given this particular blessing—bibles—in such abundance. The book is available in libraries, stores, churches, and almost every hotel room. Plus it is easily accessible in every English version through all of our Internet connections. We are tempted to think of ourselves as special because we have this special document in such an array, but could it be that we are just especially in need of it? Given the hyperbusy, fretting, intellectual minds that our culture produces, perhaps we need to have God’s insight—God’s food—arranged for us in these sequential verses on which we can focus our thoughts. In the Western world, perhaps that is the only avenue left by which to reach the gut where we are starving. Perhaps our culture leaves us so sealed with an ego-bound shell, and therefore so oblivious to God around us, that God has to parachute literature into our midst just to get through. I mentioned that I do not know exactly how the illiterate tribesman pieces together the way of God, but it could just as well be that the tribesman doesn’t understand how I am not able to see it.
Next: A Finger in My I
