This blog may seem redundant, since I have published similar pieces before.  But from time to time I believe our readers need to see articulated the foundations for our positions.  I believe I represent the basic philosophical and theological position of my Berean colleagues, though they would most certainly be more concise.

In the past few weeks and months, the Bereans blog has had many discussions, sometimes critiques, sometimes even diatribes about the various positions we have taken on issues.  While this particular blog will not and cannot address all those specific issues, I believe it is possible to address the foundations underlying our positions—in other words, our presuppositions.  I am thinking about the blogs posted about Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech, Charles Murray’s visit to Cedarville University, the problem of Islamic terrorism, free community college, the national debt, government regulation, racism, and many others.  Why do we take the positions we do?  Critics may disagree but they will hopefully know why we think as we do.

We are Christians.  That being the case, we take Scripture itself—the Old and New Testaments—to be the primary foundational source for knowledge.  This is not to say we reject information coming from other sources, not at all.  Many well-done empirically-based studies contribute to knowledge and many well-thought arguments that are logical and consist of valid premises contribute to knowledge.  Moreover, we do not reject what comes from so-called natural revelation or natural law out of hand.  The key is to understand that each and every one of those sources themselves must for us be tested by comparison to the Holy Scriptures.  But trouble may begin here.  It is not that we are looking to invalidate the proposed knowledge from other sources when we compare it to Scripture.  Nor are looking for some “proof text” in Scripture that will tell us directly about that proposed knowledge.  I cannot find a verse in Scripture that tells me directly that 2+2=4 or that the earth is spherical (more or less) or a whole host of other pieces of data.  Rather we are looking to see whether that data is first at least consistent with more general principles of Scripture or not contradictory to Scriptural principles.  This becomes so crucial when we address issues such as videotaping a homosexual wedding or the abortion problem.  In fact it is in the non-natural (social or “non-scientific” realm) that we find our commitment to the Scripture principles so important.

Let’s say some Christian photographer asks me whether they should videotape a homosexual wedding that they were asked to film.  My first question to myself is: Is that act itself a sin?  On that question Scripture is likely in many cases to give us a relatively easy answer.  So I answer, “no” that is not a sin per se.  But if that act violates my Christian conscience, and if I am not being simply stubborn, then I am bound to follow my conscience and refuse to video, even if I may be prosecuted, unless or until, my conscience is convinced otherwise.  Based on that principle, I would argue further that no government ought to compel a person to perform that act.  If it does compel, the person with the conscience issue must disobey and await the consequences (or use any legal means he may have to oppose the coercion) because that is sin for them.  To generalize the issue, then, no person should be compelled to preform that act.  Now homosexual practice is on the other hand clearly a sin.  That issue is easier to address from the Scriptural perspective.

Someone may now raise the issue of differing interpretations of the same Scripture, a fair question.  I answer that first by saying that the vast majority of Scripture is really clear.  That leaves a relatively few texts, but extremely important issues relating to them.  But I answer second, that some interpreters are using the Scriptural text disingenuously.  They know their interpretation is not valid by any reasonable approach, but they hold it in any event.  Then there are genuine disagreements about meaning, which for some biblical texts is not completely clear.  Reasonable people can disagree.  I would not argue that there are many of these texts and they almost never involve ethical issues such as abortion, homosexual practice, etc.  But they do involve texts having to do with many policy decisions as well as issues of particular institutional arrangements (type of government, type of economic system).  The conclusions we as Bereans reach concerning the issues we address are therefore based on our best judgment regarding interpretation within the available range of reasonable interpretations.

Nevertheless, our policy prescriptions and especially our ethical prescriptions are ultimately grounded in Scripture itself as the “final judge” in all matters, directly or indirectly, by inference.  To put it another way, Scripture establishes the parameters for appropriate propositions about truth.  When we go outside Scriptural parameters, what we may have believed to be true cannot be considered actually true, though perhaps in some cases what we believe to be true is actually true, but for the wrong reasons.  Where this all differs from an inappropriate “literalism” is that we do admit general revelation, but we test it by Scripture itself.  Moreover we are not indifferent to the past, to what good men have concluded, insofar as we can find consensus (even here consensus is not always reliable).

How then do we use natural revelation?  Do we use it at all?  The answer to the latter question is a definite yes.  Christians do make use of special revelation.  In fact its use is indispensable.  We gather data from the natural world or from physical observation or experimentation.  We gather it with hypotheses in mind, since it would be futile to simply observe or gather every “fact” “out there.”  There would be no coherence or unity to any “pieces” of information.  Moreover, Scripture does not give us much of that kind of information.  Humans then engage in the work of investigation of phenomena.  In fact, God placed us here in part to do that very thing, as stewards of creation, called to make that creation better.

However, if we attempt to sever our use of empirical reason from the Scriptures, we commit a dangerous error.  We make our reason autonomous, effectively cutting it off from God in trying, whether consciously or unconsciously, to be “like God.”  Only God Himself has no need of any being outside Himself.  Humans, on the other hand, require God “speaking” through His Word, to achieve truth and thus knowledge, properly understood.  How does this actually play out?

The universe and everything in it are fair game for the objects of knowledge.  But once humans have arrived at what they believe is knowledge, they then humbly submit it to the judge established by God—the Scriptures.  The Scriptures then act as a boundary, a limiting factor, checking, verifying or nullifying the proposed knowledge we have offered as true.  The boundary conditions may be broad and general, but they nevertheless operate as crucial boundaries beyond which our conclusions should not go or they will violate the truth of God.  In other words, Scripture in this sense, operates as a trump.

Now Scripture may also act in a more direct way, especially when it addresses matters of theology and ethics.  But that does not mean its use as a trump is less important.  Knowledge of nature, writ large, is always tied in some way to knowledge of Scripture.  To draw out the implications, knowledge of any discipline is dependent on Scripture for its foundation, even if the specific content is not explicitly found in Scripture.  This also means that a Christian worldview of any subject is dependent on Scripture for its fundamental assumptions.