Belief - What's the Standard for My Beliefs

Belief, it’s defines the way we perceive reality without actually affecting reality. Yet, we all seek to mold the world into the image of our beliefs regardless of the validity of said beliefs. I believe that it is important for an individual to understand their beliefs be they religious in nature or otherwise. Interestingly, I have always felt this way and seem unable to do any task without first hearing the why of the issue (much the annoyance of teachers, parents, and 3rd grade soccer coaches alike). So, I decided to go ahead and write down these beliefs of mine and see if I still believe them in the years to come.

To that end, I figured the best place to start with beliefs is the foundation of my beliefs. In so far as religious beliefs are concerned, my basis is founded on the scriptures (aka, the Bible), and SOLELY on the Bible. It is, in fact, a part of my beliefs that any extra-scriptural source which trys to dictate my spiritual beliefs and which contradicts the Bible is in error.

But why this belief? Well, some of it is faith. Faith is defined as “something that is believed especially with strong conviction” (Merriam-Webster). It is, to me, the top layer of belief, it is the result of something but not the source. If someone were to tell me they had faith in something I would ask why. Faith is not an end all reason (I’ll quantify this more fully some other time, so if this statement offends, confuses, or concerns you, I promise to explain it next time). So when I say some of it is faith, understand that there is a deeper foundation under that faith. Faith will allow me to leap from mountains, but it cannot coerce me to climb it in the first place.

So while faith motivates me to believe the Bible, the underlying foundation under that is logic. (Which I present to you as follows)

1. The Bible was written by many different authors over the course of more than a thousand of years. Yet the authors do not conflict with one another

2. The Old Testament and New Testament flawlessly presents the truth of God redeeming His Creation without any contradiction (though many people fail to study the Old Testament and are left believe that God was petty and cruel in the O.T. and suddenly changed His tune in the N.T.)

3. Apart from Genesis, the accounts recorded in the Bible were eye-witness accounts. In a hundred years when historians want to know about 9-11 or the Clinton Scandal they are going to use eye witness accounts as their sources. So why would I trust some guy from today to tell me that the Bible is incorrect when it says x about y subject? That makes as much sense as denying the holocaust or saying all those people who suffered in the camps didn’t really have to endure the things they lived through. I trust the eye-witness.

4. Archeological evidence and extra-biblical accounts confirm the locations of the cities within the Bible as well as the events that the Bible records.

5. I believe that the “God inspired” in 1 Timothy 3:16 (All scripture is inspired by God” is not the same as me seeing a picture and feeling inspired to write a short story about it. I believe that God used men as a musical composer chooses an instrument to play a specific part. It is the composer who writes down each and every note to be played and chooses an instrument to convey the mood he’s desires. God gave the words to each writer and allowed them to flavor the words with their particular style. But EACH and EVERY word is 100% accurate and fully as God intended as it to be shown.

6. If any part of the Bible were to be incorrect or outdated, EVERYTHING within the Bible must be rejected equally as none of it can be trusted to be accurate any longer.

Under these 6 beliefs I can do nothing but reject the notion that a person alive today could write ANYTHING truly from God that contradicts with what He’s already revealed. To do so would deny His unchanging nature (Hebrews 13:8) and present Him as a liar.

To that end, either the things written within the Bible are the 100% accurate, God-inspired words that exist as our ultimate standard for Christians, or NOTHING within the Bible can be trusted as there can be no measure for discerning which parts are true and which parts are in need of updating.

And that’s what I believe.

Belief - What's the Standard for My Beliefs