The divine credentials of the Bible

Preface

I venture to offer to a somewhat wider audience a series of studies which were prepared with the view simply of helping college students to comprehend and accept the grounds on which the Bible is believed to be a Divine Book.

No claim of originality, either in matter or treatment, is made as justifying this publication. Although I have endeavored to work the material over in a conscientious way, yet I realize that everything has been said on this subject long ago; most of it being as old as the replies to Celsus, the first critic of Christianity. And my treatment of the material is just the ordinary way of the preacher who tries to find the truth and to bring it home to the conscience. Yes, I may as well confess it at the beginning, this is the work of a preacher. If any extenuation of this fault may be admitted, I plead that the sermonic form has been made as little intrusive as possible, and that since the addresses were delivered they have all been worked over with the view of giving them the coherence of a single subject. But they will still read like sermons, perhaps, and this I did not desire to avoid. For as I

iii iv PKEFACE

was trying in the first place to appeal to the conscience on behalf of the truth, so I would have this book continue to do so.

Perhaps there was a time when the pulpit dwelt too much on Evidences, but the present generation knows nothing of such a time. Treatises of this sort exist almost without number, but they seldom come in the way of our young people. It is the exception to find a young man or woman who has read a book, or even has heard a sermon devoted to the presentation of reasons for believing the Bible to be a Divine Book. The substance of this book was first thrown into the form of addresses to young students whose limitations and prepossessions were kept constantly in mind. They were kindly received and I have been repeatedly asked by those who heard them to publish them. Perhaps it may not be uninteresting to state how I was finally convinced that the publication might be serviceable.

The audience for which these addresses were prepared consisted of about two hundred young men and women from seventeen to twenty-five years of age. They had all come from Christian homes, many of them were professing Christians, and none of them were infidels. Wishing to know how far I might venture in assuming them acquainted with the subject, I addressed to each one a letter asking an answer to the following questions: 1. Have you ever read a book on the Evidences of Christianity? 2. Have you ever heard a series of sermons or

PEEFACE v

lectures on this subject? 3. Do you remember to have heard at any time a sermon intended to prove that the Bible is a Divine Book? 4. Have you ever read a book or heard a lecture against the Bible?

I received one hundred and seventy-seven replies. Eighty-seven answered all the questions in the negative. Question 1 had one hundred and thirty-three negative and forty-four affirmative replies; question 2, one hundred and fifty-five negative and twenty-two affirmative replies; question 3, one hundred and twenty negative and fifty affirmative; and question 4, one hundred and thirty-four negative and forty-three affirmative. Besides the overwhelming negative vote on all these questions it is noticeable that while only fifty had any recollection of having heard any address intended to prove the Bible divine, forty-three remembered one intended to prove the contrary. This seemed to me conclusive of the necessity of keeping the antidote in circulation at least as general as the poison. And so since I had the pleasure of appreciative attention from those first addressed, I was led to hope that other young people and perhaps other people not so young might find some profit in going over this ground with me.

My preface does not call for it, but I will venture to add that the pulpit will gain increased respect and power as it goes on to declare boldly what it believes about the Bible. In these days of specialists it would seem to be assumed that preachers vi PEEFACE

have no business with a belief about the Bible except what may be authenticated to them by the specialist. The preacher who yields that much might as well yield, in my opinion, the little that is left of his commission. For I cannot imagine a man who could preach with authority without first settling the question of authority.

Perhaps I ought to say a word to the critic in anticipation of his verdict, should his eye chance to fall on these pages, that the treatment here presented shows no acquaintance with modern Biblical scholarship. I am, afraid this is true. But even if the more mortifying charge were made that the author himself has no acquaintance with that great field of knowledge, might I not plead my audience in extenuation, or, might I not offer my title as a sufficient reason for not attempting high things? Divine Credentials may be illustrated by modern Biblical scholarship, but surely they are not dependent on it; otherwise they would never have been revealed unto babes. A discussion of critical difficulties could not have settled the main question one way or the other, as I viewed it. The question whether God has given men a revelation precedes both in time and in importance the question what that revelation is.

T. H. Lewis.

Western Maryland College.

Contents

PAGi

Introduction — The Case Stated 3

I. — Is the Christian Student's Attitude Toward the Bible Scientific? 13

II Is It Seasonable To Expect A Divine Book?

"Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence." -Psalm 1, 3.

II

IS IT REASONABLE TO EXPECT A DIVINE BOOK?

The question we have started out to investigate is whether there is sufficient proof to establish the fact that God has spoken to men and through men, and that we have the record of this speech in the Bible. We propose to postpone that question long enough to inquire what reasons there are for supposing such a fact might occur, or could be proved if it did occur. In other words, what ground is there for the confidence of one who stands looking forward to the possibilities of a revelation and declares, "Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence"?

It may seem a waste of time to stop to consider what might be if we have direct proof of what is. And to the believer such considerations have small value. But many men are indisposed to consider the direct evidences offered to prove that a revelation from God has been given, because they have settled the matter beforehand that such a thing is impossible. We wish to show that such a conclusion, so far from being the product of reason as is proudly claimed, is in fact arbitrary, the product of prejudice and without any support in reason. We think it can be shown that all the facts having any connection with the subject furnish reasonable ground for expecting such a revelation as the Bible claims to be.

The considerations that support such an expectation we call the presumptive evidences of revelation ; and a few words in explanation of this phrase will be in place here before bringing forward these presumptive evidences.

Suppose, for example, to show the affirmative value of presumptive evidence, in attempting to prove a declaration by a witness you show that the witness was near enough to have heard the declaration if one had been made; that he was intelligent enough to have comprehended it; and that he had no personal interest in the declaration to have induced him to invent it. You have not proved the declaration by these steps, to be sure, but you have prepared the way for the jury to give favorable consideration to what the witness may testify to. This is what we claim the presumptive evidences in support of revelation force every reasonable man to do.

Presumptive evidence has also a negative value, and it is generally used with greater force to destroy a theory set up by bringing forward some fact that contradicts the theory and makes belief in it impossible. Thus, in a famous will case, two papers are produced, both claiming to be the last will of the testator. Both are in due form and equally well attested by witnesses. One of these wills, however, is discovered to have been written on paper bearing the water mark of a firm that did not begin business until after the date of the will. This fact is of slight affirmative value in establishing the genuineness of the other paper, but it completely demolishes the claim of this paper to be the true will, because to believe that would be to believe that a man could sign a will after he was dead.

The strength of presumptive evidence consists in the reasonableness of the demand that one who of» fers to prove anything must show that he has a believable case after it is proved. It is therefore allowable to show in advance of direct proof that certain well known facts support his theory and are consistent with a belief in his case; or his opponent may throw him out of court before direct testimony can be offered by showing that the theory advanced is unbelievable no matter how much testimony may support it.

The man who believes that the Bible is a divine revelation undertakes to meet both these phases of presumptive evidence. First, by showing that no fact has been or can be submitted making this an unbelievable case. And, secondly, by bringing forward certain facts which are not only consistent with his case, but are so well established and so intimately connected with his case that it is impossible to admit them or to give a reasonable and satisfactory explanation of them without admitting that what he claims is reasonable and may be proved. This is the extent of what is undertaken in this chapter, and this is what we mean by saying that it is reasonable to expect a divine book. Standing upon these antecedent facts and considering their legitimate connections we have boldness to declare, "Our God shall come;, and shall not keep silence."

1. It will not do much, but we want to begin at the very threshold of faith, and it may serve to clear up a false and superficial notion entertained in some quarters to-day, to ask whether any man has shown, or whether it is imagined any man can show, that the idea of a divine revelation contradicts reason and so is unbelievable? I ask not whether the fact of a divine revelation has been proved, or can be proved ; but supposing it could be proved, could it be believed?

When you say a thing contradicts reason you may mean reason founded on experience; as, for instance, to say that the sun will not rise to-morrow contradicts reason, but yet it is not impossible to believe this, and in fact you expect that some day this very thing will happen. To refuse to believe that which contradicts our experience, if held as a principle, would shut us out from all intellectual progress. Man goes forward to new things by turning his back on the old. A revelation from God is not unbelievable, therefore, simply because it comes into our experience as a new thing, or even if it comes as a thing totally different from all we have experienced.

But we may mean by reason the faculty of apprehending and judging things in consciousness; and then to say that a thing contradicts reason means that it cannot be believed. No amount of proof can convince us that a part is as great as a whole, or that the object we hold in our hand does not exist. In such a case we reject the conclusion, not because it is new in our experience, but because we see it is impossible to put it into our experience. Now I undertake to rest the whole case here. If any man can show that it is contrary to reason in the sense just described to believe that God has made a written revelation of his will; that to believe it a man must deny the evidence of his senses or of his consciousness, then, of course, all further discussion is useless and absurd. There are those who affirm this. But they support their claim, not by appealing to the common and universal consciousness of mankind, but by asserting that as a revelation must be supernatural and as the supernatural is confessedly beyond nature, a man must contradict nature to believe in the supernatural.

Now you observe that this is not saying that a supernatural revelation does in fact contradict the common and universal consciousness of mankind, but that in the opinion of the skeptic it ought to. A contradiction of nature needs no antagonist. If all the scholars in the world should declare that a part is as great as a whole and not one skeptic assailed or denied it you would be as far from believing it as you are now. But the great, the overwhelming majority of those to whom it has been presented have always and readily believed in a supernatural revelation. Why have they believed if it contradicted reason? If it contradicts universal reason why does not universal reason find it out? It would seem indeed that they contradict reason who insist that a supernatural revelation is unbelievable. At least they contradict the almost universal experience.

But what ground is there for saying even that a supernatural revelation ought to contradict reason? There is no ground in consciousness or we would not believe such a revelation. The skeptic has to tell us why it contradicts reason. And the sum of his explanation is that whatever is unexplainable is unbelievable. But on this ground we must give up consciousness itself ; for there is no rational explanation of consciousness. No man can explain what it is, whence it comes, how it persists, nor whither it goes. We ought therefore to refuse to believe it exists. And this is what the thoroughgoing rationalist is prepared to do. Ziehen concludes his psychology with these words: "The investigation of the so-called voluntary processes has given us no grounds whatever for the assumption of another psychical 'something' in addition to the series of sensations and ideas. The metaphysician can perhaps arrive at the theoretical fiction of a being which is the subject of the sensations, ideas and actions, and may name this subject ego or soul. Physiological Psychology, however, cannot exceed the bounds of its empirical data."

Now we do not know how God can communicate his will to man, any more than we know how one man's words can be translated into ideas in another man's consciousness. But this is a different thing from saying that neither is believable. No man has shown that both of these are not facts, and I expect your admission that no man can show it. But reflect how significant such an admission is. This divine revelation contradicts man at almost every point; contradicts his experience, his wishes, his methods, his ideals; is such a persistent witness against him that he would be willing to give his whole estate to successfully set it aside. Yet here it is still in court because no man can impeach its believableness. This is not much to say for it, you may think. But it is enough for this. I appeal to you if it does not render contemptible the air of superiority some men assume in talking about the Bible ; as when they say it is really too much to expect of an educated man that he should give serious consideration to such claims as the Bible makes. If the fact of a divine revelation is preposterous let us have the facts that render it so. What element of consciousness does it contradict? What is it opposed to, indeed, but the fancies and wishes of the man who says in his heart, "There is no God"?

2. Now let us advance to the consideration of some of the positive or affirmative presumptions which incline us to give favorable attention to the claim of the Bible to be God's book. This will not be assuming anything. It is to be remembered that a presumption is a very different thing from an assumption. An assumption simply says, "Let us believe so and so-." But a presumption says, "Here are certain facts we know to be true. Since these are true it looks reasonable to believe so and so, because of its connection with the facts we know to be true."

There are three classes of facts we propose to consider. They are facts accepted by all without reference to what the Bible teaches, and may be learned from sources independent of the Bible. Our contention is that a knowledge of these facts forces us to go on to admit that if we added to them as another fact the divine authority of the Bible, the whole group of facts would still be consistent. More than this, that these facts are rationally explained by adding to them this other fact, and that without this addition they leave us with serious problems unexplained. Therefore the presumption is that this other fact ought to be added and the Bible called God's book.

(a). There are, first, the facts we know about God. Suppose we shut the Bible and read simply the book of nature. I do not doubt you will admit that we are compelled to think this orderly and useful arrangement of matter and forces about us is the work of an intelligent Being we ought to call God ; that we are compelled to think God also made us and not we ourselves; that we are compelled to feel ourselves dependent on his power, and in a most real sense under his government; so that we cannot go away from him in any direction without meeting the constraint of law and the pain of penalty ; that we are compelled to believe, nevertheless, that the benevolent purposes of this Being are, on the whole, clearly apparent, so that it seems nowise uncertain to us that the arrangement of our duty with law and penalty is adjusted to a scheme working out our best interests ; and finally that this intelligent, benevolent Being makes it a part of his scheme of government to make known to us what that scheme is and how we may best fulfill our part in it.

On these facts we raise this presumption ; that if God could he would give us the information designed for us in the clearest and most explicit form of revelation, a written book.

Now to deny that God is such a Being that he could make a written revelation is practically to deny that there is a God. We have by common consent put into that name the idea of a limitless Being, and to limit his power is to make his nature contradict his name. The statement is therefore modified so as to say that the impossibility of a written revelation lies in the limited capacity of man, on account of which God himself is also limited so far as this revelation goes. God might speak, but if he should man could not hear.

This argument from man's limitations supposes a radical difference between man's thoughts and God's which we have no right to suppose. The only difference we know anything about is a difference of degree. Why should we doubt our ability to think God's thoughts as well as man's? When we cannot look out upon inanimate nature without a movement of soul in intelligent impulses; when the meanest flower can whisper psalms of beauty to us ; when the silent stars have yet a voice that goes out to the ends of the world and makes solitude vocal with praises of God; when these, which are but parts of his ways, the mere hidings of his power, thrill us with the consciousness of his presence and the glory of his counsels ; why should we hesitate to believe that we can also hear that same voice when it speaks to us from heaven in the written word? Has he, who can convey so much to us by these mere wrappings of thought, no method by which he can pierce through them and bring his Spirit in immediate contact with ours? Surely we are taking very modest ground when we think that what we know of God entitles us to presume that there is much more to know, and that he will teach us of his ways. The statement is found in the Bible, but it

DIVINE CKEDENTIALS 39

is also found among the fundamental convictions of every mind. We have not proved it, but it clings to us as though it were an instinct rather than a reasonable presumption to say, "Our God shall come and shall not keep silence."

(5). We have next to consider the facts we know of ourselves that we may see how these raise a presumption of the same sort. I have just referred to one of these facts in showing that man has the power to think God's thoughts ; that what God is pleased to write in nature or in books, man may in some degree understand. But more than this is to be said. There are some thoughts which we universally recognize as God's thoughts and which man is obliged by the law of his nature to think. It is not a matter of choice, for instance, whether men will think of the difference between right and wrong; whether they will consider the obligation attached to certain perceptions; whether they will think upon the method by which wrongdoing may be made right ; whether they will think upon death and what comes after. These thoughts men are forced to think and they are all God's thoughts. In other words, they are thoughts which come into our minds because we cannot help connecting ourselves with a Governor of the universe. Sometimes we think of revelation as introducing us into a totally new world of thought. But the fact is the great subjects in the Bible are as old as creation. You cannot go anywhere in the world to-day without finding men thinking on the very subjects of which revelation treats. There is not one new theme in all this Bible; they are themes of which all men have always thought and must always think. What is new in revelation is the information it offers on these old themes. It gives man the newest and most blessed tidings about the possibility of escape from sin, but man has always been thinking about escape from sin. It points out the way, illuminated with the splendors of Christ's resurrection, to the life beyond, bringing life and immortality to light; but man has always been thinking about eternal life. The Bible in fact is a revelation of news, not of topics.

What do such facts suggest? Revelation may or may not be susceptible of proof, but if one should be given, and if it should prove to be a revelation of precisely such thoughts as are already in men's minds, only carrying on their broken and disordered thoughts to a consistent and glorious conclusion, what could be more natural or reasonable or better adapted to man's condition? Is it not a fair presumption based on the facts of our own nature to say of the Bible that it is such a revelation as might have been expected? Everywhere in this world to-day men are thinking on these themes. Everywhere except among the most highly cultivated nations of the earth men are looking for information on these themes. And these no longer look because they have found; because God has spoken to them in his word and their questioning minds are at rest ; because their God has come and has not kept silence.

(c) But we may advance still another step and consider the fact that the utmost stretch of man's unaided knowledge has always been short of a satisfactory solution of problems that are his constant distress until they are solved. This furnishes such a presumption in favor of a revelation which does complete all this knowledge that we may say that such a revelation is necessary. Of course we must not say that God will do a thing because it seems to us necessary. This would be to make us judges of God. But that is not what we say. We know these facts about our knowledge; and we have in our hands a book claiming to be from God which completes all that is imperfect in our knowledge. Looking at the book and then at the facts we say God gave this book because it was necessary to give it. In this way the facts become the necessary presumption in favor of the claims of the book.

Men object to revelation by a book that it is unnecessary, that whatever God has to say to men he has said in creation or is saying in Providence, and that such an extraordinary method as a revelation by writing is superfluous and unbecoming. Paley's acute reply to this objection is, "I deem it unnecessary to prove that mankind stood in need of a revelation, because I have met with no serious person who thinks that even under the Christian revelation we have too much, light, or any assurance which is superfluous." It is no objection to a written revelation to say that God speaks to us in Nature and in Providence. We gladly and reverently listen to God's voice wherever we hear it. We who believe in a Holy Bible believe also in a Holy Providence. To us Nature is holy, for it declares the glory of God. History is holy, for we believe this is the garment God is weaving for himself in the great loom of time. We rejoice that the whole earth is full of his glory. "Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night sheweth knowledge." But it is not of these, but only of "The Law of the Lord," that any one has dared to say it is perfect. There must always be presumption of further revelation from a perfect Being until that comes which is perfect even as he is perfect ; until that comes which clasps all men in all the ranges of their thought in the embrace of complete content.

If men can be perfectly instructed in religious truths or even in moral truths without the Bible, why is it that they have everywhere dropped their learning when the Bible has been offered them? Why is it that the wisdom of the ages seems to the least in the kingdom of heaven but the fancies of a wandering mind? Why is it that Plato could not tell whether there were more gods than one; and that Cicero could not certainly say there was a future life? These men and their associates have taught us much and we are still learning from them. But what would be thought of the man who would seriously propose to make them our teachers in religion or morality? Moreover, how long is it to take men to read this Bible of Nature? The years have passed into centuries and the centuries into millenniums while these volumes of natural religion have been unrolling their wisdom before all men. There has been no discrimination in favor of a special people. "There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard." But still the millions do not read or reading do not understand. The heavens that bent in unsyllabled wisdom over David sent forth their line to the end of the world, and still they carried no message of God's highest glory and they left men as they found them, without hope.

Can this be the final revelation of the infinite and perfect God? Must we believe that he has nothing more to say, or that he has exhausted his resources of expression ? Nay, even if no written word were known, the very imperfection of this revelation in Nature would argue some better thing for us. And when we are told of a further revelation claiming to be from God; when that better thing is actually shedding its perfect light upon us and whispering its perfect music to us, what shall we say but that this is the glorious answer to our hope, the triumphant verification of our presumption, "Our God has come and has not kept silence," even as we said?

Ill

THE CREDENTIAL OF ANTIQUITY

"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son." — Hebrews i, 1.

Ill

THE CREDENTIAL OF ANTIQUITY

We have set forth what we conceive to be the true attitude of one about to enter upon an investigation of the claims of the Bible. We have also shown that the claim that the Bible is a divine book is not unbelievable on account of any contradiction of reason; and we have brought forward certain facts pertaining to God, to man, and to human knowledge upon which a reasonable presumption may be based that such a book as the Bible claims to be might be expected to be given to men. We now come to the consideration of the evidence that gives positive support to this claim.