Consider this: at AbsoluteTruth.net, God is seen as the ultimate basis of truth, as revealed in the Bible. A legitimate question, then is, "how can we prove that the Bible is the authority for information about God?" We could go through plenty of circumstantial, scientific, logical, and statistical evidences to support the conclusion, but ultimately it must be accepted by faith, because "all arguments for an absolute authority must ultimately appeal to that authority for proof: otherwise the authority would not be an absolute or highest authority." (from quote below)
Think of it this way: if we are saying that the Bible is the ultimate authority, that means there is no higher authority to which we could appeal for evidence. Thus, the Bible must become its own proof. Imagine a young boy staring at a hot stove top burner. His dad tells him not to touch the burner, because it is too hot. At this point, the boy believes the burner is hot, but he just can't help himself. He reaches out and grabs the burner with his soft fingers. At that moment, he no longer believes the burner is hot...he knows it. He didn't need outside proof to validate the claim...he only needed to experience it for himself. The same is true with the Bible. If a person is willing to reach out and "grab" it with an open mind, they will begin to see why the Bible is all that it claims to be.
Theologian Wayne Grudem explains:
"Someone may object that to say Scripture proves itself to be God's Words is to use a circular argument...It should be admitted that this is a kind of circular argument. However, that does not make its use invalid (in this case), for all arguments for an absolute authority must ultimately appeal to that authority for proof: otherwise the authority would not be an absolute or highest authority. This problem is not unique to the Christian who is arguing for the authority of the Bible. Everyone either implicitly or explicitly uses some kind of circular argument when defending his or her ultimate authority for belief….How then does a Christian, or anyone else, choose among the various claims for absolute authorities? Ultimately the truthfulness of the Bible will commend itself as being far more persuasive than other religious books, or than any other intellectual constructions of the human mind. It will be more persuasive because in the actual experience of life, all of these other candidates for ultimate authority are seen to be inconsistent or to have shortcomings that disqualify them, while the Bible is seen to be fully in accord with all that we know about the world around us, about ourselves, and about God." (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, pg. 79)
Regardless of whether or not you accept the Bible as the ultimate authority, you still must grapple with this question. Whatever it is upon which you are basing your ultimate assumptions about life must be accepted by faith that it is, in fact, the ultimate authority.
How Can I Know the Truth?
This being the case, how can we "know" anything? How do we know we are placing our faith in the right authority?
We can approach this question as a judge in a court of law. We will want to look at two things to determine what idea is superior:
1) Scientific/Circumstantial Evidence.
2) Eyewitness Testimony.
Based on what we find, we can then "judge" which ultimate truth-claim is worthy of our faith.
What's different, though, is that the state of the smart TV market looks strikingly like the smartphone market did before Apple's entrance.
Posted by: Chanel 2010 Collection | December 04, 2011 at 09:51 PM