In Need of a Polygraph

If I’m being completely honest, I’ve never been 100% comfortable with the statement that the Bible is completely “true.”

Now, before you start activating the prayer chain over my apparent back-sliding, fear not. I’m not in the midst of a spiritual tempest, or anything; I’m just throwing a thought out there.

The reason for my concern is rooted in the word itself: “true.” Truth is a powerful concept, with even more powerful connotations. In the post-Enlightenment era, truth is super-glued to the notion of proof. Without proof, someone’s version of truth can be someone else’s hypothesis, or even still, someone else’s lunacy.

And, that’s why Christians often get skeptical looks from non-Christians. We throw around words like “true,” leading someone to inevitably request, “Prove it.” (For myself, I’m usually the one asking myself to prove it.) Unfortunately, we frequently are unable to do such, because faith can’t be churned through the Scientific Method to achieve a meaningful result.

(Sidebar: I think that spirituality and science exist on completely different planes. I don’t really see a big conflict between the two, since it’s such an apples-to-oranges kind of comparison. But, that’s another post for another day.)

And, that “true” word isn’t the only description of the Bible that often gets questionable responses. Southern Baptists use the term “inerrant,” meaning that the Bible has no errors. That one runs into trouble when the notion of Biblical contradictions comes up. Can the Bible appear to contradict itself and still be free from error? From our perspective, it feels like the answer should be no, but I think that ultimately we’re falling prey to semantics.

In the end, the point is that the Bible is a tool provided by God, and all of it exists to serve His purpose. I may not understand all of that purpose, and I think that’s as it should be. And, oddly enough, when I phrase it that way, my sense of internal conflict diminishes. I don’t have to bear some sort of burden of proof, because that’s not my responsibility.

Do you sometimes feel you have to prove Scripture, either to yourself or to others? That’s not our job.