Well, if you're visiting with us, let me tell you what we're what we're doing, because it may seem a little odd. For a number of years, and actually not a number, a few years at least, I had the wonderful privilege of teaching some theology classes up what used to be called Grace Bible College is now called the Meadows Bible Institute or something like that. And And for various reasons that we won't go into right now, they don't let me go up there and teach anymore. And so I had all this material accumulated and it always seemed to be profitable to the people that took the class. And so we decided that what we would do is we would take up Wednesday nights for a while and cover these classes in systematic theology. And we started with the doctrine of scripture, otherwise known as bibliology. Now, what we're going to do is we will finish tonight's lecture on sola scriptura, and then next week we are going to cover canonicity. We believe that there are 66 books that belong in the canon of scripture. A lot of times, we just assume that the canon is the canon. Next week, we're going to start to unfold how we arrive at an understanding of the canon of Scripture, why do we know which books are in and which books are out, and so forth. It's actually not only a very, very important area of study for us, but it is also very, very fascinating. Then from there, we're going to look at at what we call text transmission and translation. We're going to look at how we got our Hebrew and Greek texts. We're going to look at how those texts have been transmitted through the centuries. And then we're going to look at principles of Bible translation. And I'm going to have just a whole lot of fun doing that part because I have a certain goal in mind. And I'm not going to tell you what it is now after we do that, then do you remember what comes next, John? What's that? Not yet. I can't remember what comes next, though, but I'm sure what's that? That's right. And we're going to conclude the class with looking at how our understanding of scripture and in particular, the doctrine of scripture impacts our understanding of worship, preaching, education, we might throw in a whole bunch of stuff in there because my conviction is that a thorough evangelical biblical bibliology, doctrine of scripture, will absolutely transform the way that we view the church, the way we view our worship, the way we view what preaching should be, and the way that we educate our children, the whole nine yards. And so we'll conclude with basically some practical application of a biblical bibliology. Then from there, we are going to go to hermeneutics. And what we're going to do is that whenever I had the chance to teach the class, I only got one evening. The classes were three hours long. I only got one evening to cover biblical interpretation or hermeneutics. And I always wanted to do a whole class on it, and so We get to do whatever I want. And so we're going to do a whole class on biblical hermeneutics, how to interpret the Bible. And again, each one of these issues are so critical for us. How you come to the scriptures and interpret them is probably next to what you think about God, probably the second most important thing about you. And that might be it might be the third most important thing, but it's up there. All right. And so we're going to look at that and we're going to actually have a text for that class called Getting the Message. And that's actually there are some copies of that in the book room. Now, tonight, we're going to finish up Sola Scriptura, Scripture and Tradition. And last week, we noted that a lot of times we give lip service or at least some sort of theoretical credence to the statement Scripture alone. is our authority for faith and practice. But we really need to understand what we mean and what we don't mean by that statement. We need to understand scripture alone, which, of course, was one of the slogans of the Reformation. We need to understand it because in many ways it's under attack in a lot of different avenues today. And we're not going to review those. We looked at some of that last week. But the other reason that we need to understand what Scripture alone is all about is because it's actually an easily abused doctrine. It's an easily abused teaching that can end up being counterproductive to what we really want to grow out of our understanding of Scripture alone. And so with that, we started to look at Scripture and tradition. And this is really one of the major differences. This is perhaps the crux of the controversy between traditional Roman Catholicism and contemporary Roman Catholicism, for that matter, and Protestantism is the issue of scripture and tradition. The Church of Rome has claimed and has claimed for a long time special divine and infallible authority for revelation, which includes tradition, the teaching of the magisterium. Now, we're going to see tonight that they really don't push the infallibility of tradition too hard because you just can't. All right. But traditionally, and even to this day, the Church of Rome has held to an idea that that you have scripture and tradition and the teaching office of the church And that threefold source of revelation is also a threefold source of authority. And so then we asked ourselves the question last week. So what about tradition? And of course, the pendulum, as it often happens, understand that this is in some ways the pattern of church history. You go from one extreme and in reaction, you go all the way to the other extreme. Now, that's not to say that in the middle is always the right place. All right. But it is to say that we are reactionary by nature and we should be aware of that and we should be aware of it in such a way that we just kind of guard ourselves knowing that we have the tendency to overreact. OK. And I could give examples of how we often overreact, but we'll skip that part now. As a result, many evangelicals have abandoned the concept of tradition altogether, and oftentimes they do it not just out of a sort of a 60s mentality of sort of an anti-tradition, anti-authority posture, but they do it out of the conviction that it's the Bible alone. And if it's the Bible alone, then who needs tradition? As a result, under that rubric of thought, creeds and confessions are thrown out. The authority of the church ends up being dismissed and you end up having really not an authoritative church. You end up having basically an amorphous fellowship that is simply just loosely tied together by people's taste in music or people's taste in various things that might include doctrine, but oftentimes don't. Now, biblically speaking, there's, of course, good tradition. And we know those texts. We looked at them, referred to them last week. And biblically speaking, there's bad tradition. And so biblically, we can't just toss the idea of tradition out altogether. because the Apostle Paul talks about traditions that he handed down to the first century church, which they received. Now, the Protestant view, the historical Protestant view, has been, first of all, that apostolic tradition and the content of Scripture are identical. So we have apostolic tradition not in oral tradition, not in the teaching of the church, not in the traditions of the church fathers, but we have apostolic tradition inscripturated for us in the New Testament. All right. And that is absolutely vital for us to understand because it precludes us then from saying all tradition must be bad. All tradition is not bad. And so as a result, Historically, Protestants have not poo pod tradition. They acknowledge the importance of it, but they see it in its proper connection, identifying that there is an authoritative tradition. That's apostolic tradition. That's one and the same with the holy inspired word of God. And there may be other traditions. They are not authoritative. They are not binding in the same sense that Scripture is, but we need to look at them in light of Scripture. Just because you attach the name tradition to something doesn't make it bad. What makes it bad is if it conflicts or contradicts God's word. All right. Then we looked at the Bible alone, question mark, where we expanded on this a little bit more. Many evangelicals have abandoned the Protestant view of the Bible alone in favor of individualistic version of the Bible alone. And so we have anti-tradition, pro-individualism, looking at the Bible as if we're the only ones that have ever seen it, looking at the Bible as if we just opened it for the first time, looking at the Bible as if there's not 2,000 years of church history, looking at the Bible as if there's not any theological tradition. And of course, that ends up being not only actually an impossibility, It's also very naive and ultimately, it's very dangerous. I mean, everybody should understand that it is absolutely impossible to come to the Bible in a purely objective manner. It is impossible for you to come to the Bible as if you've never seen it before and you have no preconceptions, pre-commitments or presuppositions. Everybody has them. And we all come to the Bible with them. And so as a result, we need to realize that this evangelical idealism of coming to the Bible as if we are blank slates is just simply not true. We not only bring theological baggage to the Bible, we bring our own sinfulness to the Bible. We bring our own finiteness to the Bible. We bring our own limitations to the Bible. And so the best thing for us to do is to recognize those things, not to act as if they don't exist. And so when we say the Bible alone, we mean, in a sense, speaking analogously, the same thing as when we say faith alone. Remember, faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is not alone. We do believe that the Bible alone is the authoritative word of God. But we also believe that there are, and these were the important words, you remember from last week, there are derivative and subordinate authorities to the word of God. And we looked at some of those examples. All right. And then we started to look at the Bible alone in the Reformation. The reformers themselves never conveyed that the Bible was the only authority for faith and practice in the tradition zero sense. I ran across another phrase today. that I thought was interesting. It conveys the same thing as tradition zero, and it is nuda scriptura, bare scripture. When we say the Bible alone, we're talking about the Bible alone as special divine revelation. The Bible alone has the authority of God. The Bible alone is our sole authority for faith and practice. But that doesn't mean that we don't recognize any other authority, as if scripture and bare scripture is the only thing. Now, let's see, where am I? We looked at some examples of how this works in the church in terms of teaching and leading authority derived from and subordinate to the word of God. We looked at how church councils have often been, in a sense, a manifestation of this subordinate derivative and subordinate authority. We looked at how even on a local level, for instance, an eldership operates with a derivative and subordinate authority from the word of God. And that goes whether we're teaching and preaching, whether we're counseling, whether we are making decisions that relate to the government or direction of the church. Now, of course, one of the things that we recognize is that as elders, for instance, we are under the authority of the word. We are not parallel with the authority of the word. All right. Now, that doesn't mean that we have to have chapter and verse for every single thing we do, because there's a lot of things that we do that we would hope are reliant on wisdom. Right. You're not going to find chapter and verse for approving a budget. You're not going to find chapter and verse for taking certain courses of action. But the principle is, is that we act under the authority of the word of God. And when would we, in a sense, abuse the authority? When would an eldership be guilty of abusing its God-ordained authority? This should be easy by now. Whenever it is against Scripture. So if an eldership came and said, you know what, we really believe that God is leading us to impose on the membership of the church that everybody needs to give 25% of their income. What would you say? Doug would start writing a check, I know. You'd say, Hank, wait a minute. The Bible gives us principles for giving. You're going beyond biblical precept and principle. And insofar as you do that, then you're violating your own authority because you are going beyond the bounds of the authority of scripture. But there is certainly that derivative and subordinate authority. Now, that brings us up to where we left off, sort of, and that is the real issues of sola scriptura. And we're going to look at two issues, the church and authority. and then one of my favorite subjects of all time, epistemology. Now, remember last week we said, and I read it to you, the Roman Catholic position is, if you believe in sola scriptura, what's it going to lead to? Anarchy. You believe that the Bible alone is your authority, and you cut the church out as an equal authority, you're going to have anarchy. And you know what they do? Then they turn around and they say, and to prove it, Do you know that there are twenty two thousand? Protestant denominations. Really, twenty two thousand Protestant denominations, I don't even know how many kinds of Baptists there are, there are new Presbyterians every other week. Amazingly, independent Presbyterians, how I don't understand that at all, but anyway, I mean, and in a sense, Rome's charge against us, this leads to anarchy, this leads to multiplication of denominations and everything else, insofar as the charge goes, that is, in a sense, true. But do you understand there aren't 22,000 versions of the Trinity? There aren't 22,000 versions of the person and work of Jesus Christ. There aren't 22,000 versions of the death and resurrection of Jesus. There aren't 22,000 versions of how to be right with God. There aren't 22,000 versions of the essentials of the Christian faith. And so what we would say is, you know, yeah, we Protestants have multiplied like rabbits, it's true. But I would rather live with 22,000 denominations that have split over secondary and tertiary issues than live under the spiritual tyranny of a human head of the church. So, what holds us together? Ashley goes to Sierra Lutheran High School. It's a Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. I look at the faculty, especially Greg Henry. He's not Lutheran, but he goes to Grace. But most of the faculty, they're Lutheran. And you know what? I look at them and they're my brothers and sisters because we have a common faith and a common Lord. Now, we differ over things. like baptism, the nature of the Lord's Supper. There are things that we differ over, but we, they, as conservative Lutherans, believe in the inspiration and inerrancy of the Scriptures. They believe in the Trinity. They believe in salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. They're my brothers and sisters. Now, we have convictions at secondary levels and tertiary levels, right? I mean, let's face it. Baptism is not an essential, but baptism is not unimportant. Right? Understand that distinction. Just because something is not an essential doesn't mean it's not important. And so, unfortunately, people have not been able to agree on baptism. People have not been able to agree on church government. People have not been able to agree on the nature of the Lord's Supper. And so there are the multiplication. But guess what? One common Lord. One common faith. Now, again, why do churches form? Because we happen to think that our distinctives are important. Right? I mean, some of you come to Grace Community Church because you think the distinctives are important. And you understand that there are Lutherans, and there are Presbyterians, and there are Methodists, and there are non-denominational people, and they all belong to the kingdom of God. And they're all followers of the Lord Jesus, and they're all going to be in heaven. I mean, you know, we're not going to be the only ones there. You know, we might act like it sometimes, and that's unfortunate. We may think that, you know, when we get, you know what, there's only going to be Reformed Baptists in heaven. That's not true. And I'm glad it's not true. And I'm glad that there just aren't people like us right now in this world. Boy, we won't go there, but could you imagine what the world would be like if it was just filled with people like us? So the bottom line is that we don't have 22 version, 22,000 versions of the gospel. We don't have 22,000 versions of. We have differences and we have distinctives and those things are important. But when it comes to Rome's charge, this has created anarchy in a real sense. What it has created is an incredible freedom for the gospel to express itself in different cultures, in different places, at different times. We should be thankful for that. Now, really, the whole issue comes down to these two huge points, the church and authority, and then epistemology. And the first, church and authority. Here's the fundamental problem. When we talk about the Scripture alone as our only authority for faith and practice, the Church of Rome has claimed, and does claim, that the Church has sole authority, and it is over the Word. Understand that the Roman Church's perspective is that it stands in just, here's the Word, and here's the Church. And here's the Church, but it's in a position of authority over the Word. It has the right to infallibly interpret the Word. It has its traditions and its teaching office, its magisterium, which is on equal authority with the Word, and thus the Church ends up being in authority over the Word. And they are then, and by the way, you are not hard-pressed to find statements by Roman Catholics to say that very thing, whether it's in Catholic Encyclopedia, Catholic Catechism, you name it, it's easy enough to find statements like that. We read some of them last week. But here's the fundamental question that comes down. If you're going to say the church is ultimately over the word, then you ask yourself, well, by what standard then is she measured? If the church is in a position of authority over the word, and there's a reason why they believe that, then by what standard is she measured? You see, if everything's under the word, it's easy to know by what standard, right? Keith Matheson makes this observation. He says it's because the scripture alone is God's inspired infallible word. that Scripture carries unique authority, the binding final authority of God Himself. Rome claims that the authority of the Church is logically and temporally prior to that of Scripture, and therefore it denies the self-attesting nature of Scriptural authority. Scripture, according to Rome, owes its very existence to the decisions of the Church, and therefore the Church's authority is in a very real sense prior to that of Scripture. Now, we're going to look at that when we get to canonicity, because the question is, Was it the church that decided what the canon was, or was it the church that recognized what the canon was? Did the church give birth to the word, or did the word give birth to the church? That's what we're talking about. Classical Protestantism has historically denied this claim, arguing instead that scripture's nature is the inspired word of God gives it inherent divine authority. Rome has made the mistake of confusing the recognition of authority with the conferral of authority. All right. Now, We would claim wholeheartedly that the Bible is the only infallible authority and it is over the church. And so where does the where does authority come from? Rome insists that the fathers, the tradition, the magisterium, the teaching offices are the sources of authoritative revelation. Remember, I said earlier, it cannot press the claims of infallibility, though it may say it in theory, but you cannot press the claims of infallibility when it comes to tradition and the teaching authority. You know why? Luther said it in the Diet at Worms. Popes and councils have often erred. And how do you know? They changed their mind. They have to correct. There's conflict, there's contradiction. One church father says this thing, another church father says that thing, and they're in conflict with each other. One council made this declaration, another council made that declaration, and so there's this conflict that is continual throughout the church. And in fact, if you remember, one of Luther's brilliant moves ended up being showing how oftentimes councils and church fathers were in conflict with each other. And what was he showing? You can't rely on human sources to be authoritative and infallible, because it's not going to work. Human beings are human beings. And they err. And when they err in spiritual matters of truth, those errors are big errors. And how do we know they're errors? Because they conflict with the Word of God, which means the Word of God is by necessity the final supreme authority. Now, stop and think logically for a minute. If you have an infallible scripture, infallible tradition. What by necessity has to be the final authority? That which is infallible, which is the Bible alone. So we would insist that the Word of God alone can make the claim of absolute and final authority. The Bible as the inspired, infallible Word of God is therefore inherently authoritative in a way that nothing else can be. So then the question is, well, what is the relationship? What is the exact relationship of the church to the scriptures, because that ends up being a very important question, because Rome says we gave birth to the scriptures, the church gave birth to the scriptures, and the Reformers said, no, it's the word that gives birth to the church. Favorite Roman text, First Timothy, chapter three. First Timothy, Chapter three. In verse 15, the apostle says, But in case I am delayed. I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God. which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth. Now, as we look at that passage, we need to understand what Paul is not saying. Paul is not saying that the church is the source of the truth. What does he say? It's a pillar and a support of the truth. That doesn't mean that the church gave the truth its origin. What it means is it has a special relationship to the truth to do what? What does a pillar in support do? It holds it up, it holds it up. Listen to old Patrick Fairbairn, an old dead Scottish guy. He says, for the truth is not of the church's making, but of God's revealing. She has it not as of her own, but from above. and has it not to alter or modify at her will, but to keep as a sacred treasure for the glory of God and the good of men. And if she should somehow corrupt or lose hold of this truth, she so far ceases to be the house of God. For she now does the part of the devil's lie, which ought to have been done exclusively for the sure word of God." Now, there's a wonderful section In Calvin's commentary on 1 Timothy, he says, the church is the pillar of the truth because by its ministry, the truth is preserved and spread. The idea of holding it up. God himself or God does not himself come down from heaven to us, nor does he daily send angelic messengers to publish his truth. But he uses the labors of pastors whom he has ordained for this purpose or to put it in a more homely way. is not the church the mother of all believers because she brings them to new birth by the word of God educates and nourishes them all their life strengthens them and finally leads them to the complete perfection that is heaven the church is called the pillar of the truth for the same reason for the office of administering doctrine which God had put in her hands is the only means for preserving truth that it may not pass from the memory of men in consequence this commendation applies to the ministry of the word For if it is removed, God's truth will fall." In other words, the truth has been given to the Church, and it is the Church's job to do what? To hold it up, to spread it, to declare it, to defend it in the world. And so the Church is the repository of truth. She's called to uphold, defend it, propagate it, to disseminate it throughout the whole world. Now, Rome claims it alone can infallibly interpret Scripture via the triad. We've already identified that tradition, the magisterium and the teaching office of the church. We claim that scripture must interpret scripture. The church, therefore, fallibly interprets the infallible word. The church can never claim to infallibly interpret the infallible It's absolutely critical for us to understand that as we come to the Bible, we come to the Bible with as much sincerity, honesty, and objectivity as possible, but we realize, as we said earlier, that we will never be infallible interpreters of Scripture. It is impossible. Now, that does not lead us to some kind of skepticism that says, we don't know, and we'll never know. That's not true. And in fact, we're going to look at that in a few minutes. Now, if you want to think about it in terms of a court of law, the church is like a court of law, but she is not to be confused with the source of the law. The courts are, in a sense, repositories and guardians of the law. They are appliers of the law, but they're not the source of the law. And so that is what the church does. So the ministry of the church is the ministry of the truth. It's the ministry of the word. And the church has been given that derivative authority to preach, to proclaim the word, to proclaim the gospel with the authority of God's word itself. Now, the second major issue is the term, is epistemology. And you might say, epistem- what? Now, epistemology is just a big, fat, fancy word for how we know what we know. It comes from the Greek term episteme, which means knowledge or understanding. And so epistemology is just the theory of knowledge, how you know what you know. Have you ever thought about how you know what you know? Think about it for a second. Think about how you know what you know. Now, my big temptation right here is to go on a tangent on epistemology because it's a lot of fun. But just stop and think about it. What are some ways that you know what you know? Experience. Experience. You're taught. Somebody else tells you. So, can you know that the stove is hot without ever experiencing that the stove is hot? Yes, but you know it in a way that is dependent on somebody else's word. Okay? Now, you don't know that they know that it's hot, but you're going to trust them. Okay? And that's kind of an important epistemological observation. Now, what are some other ways that we know what we know? Experience. What's that? Okay, Ed took this class and he's cheating, so just... Okay, so just think about how you know what you know. Okay, that's experience. You have sense perception, right? Observation, sure. I mean, and you would call that in the history of science or epistemology, you would call that empiricism. You know by observing. Now, can you know everything by observing? No, because you can't observe everything, right? So, there are a lot of ways of knowing what we know, but we're missing one big one. Okay, innate knowledge. Okay, innate knowledge. Yes. Yes, another way. OK, don't don't don't bring God into it yet, please. What reading, reading, who would ever learn anything by reading? Deduction. OK, by the way, you have induction and deduction as ways of knowing. Okay? Induction, you observe a particular and make a conclusion about it, all right? But we're missing, by the way, what underlies almost all of these ways of knowing with the exception of revelation and, John and I will have to talk about innate knowledge, but what underlies knowing what you know on all these different ways of knowing? Reason, human reason, right. Now, right here ends up being a very important element in terms of epistemology. You have an epistemology that is called rationalism. Rationalism simply says that human reason is what? The standard by which you know things are true. All right? Now, most people, and in fact rationalists, would often appeal to... Rationalists appeal to all different kinds of things. They would appeal to innate knowledge, okay? But so would we from a different perspective. But just follow me for a second. So, in rationalism, what's the supreme authority? Human reason. All right? You think that this may just be the musings of somebody that was bored on a Wednesday afternoon. It's not true. Epistemology, how we know what we know, ends up being one of the fundamental components of a worldview, of the way you view life. Whether you've ever heard of epistemology or not, the way that you think about knowledge and knowing what you know forms a fundamental plank to the way you view all of life. And so the question is whether or not we will have an epistemology, that is, a theory of knowledge that is based on, ultimately, human reason, or will it be based on the Word of God? So, Ed said, there is another epistemology that is revelation. I know what I know because God has revealed it. Now, follow me on this closely. To say that we have a revelational epistemology, that is, we know what we know because God has revealed it, is not to deny other ways of knowing. All right. The Bible doesn't say don't touch hot things. I mean, you might say that somewhere in the Pentateuch, but I don't think that's an exact translation. But to have a revelational epistemology is to say that all other ways of knowing are subordinate. to God's revelation. So, to say that you know what you know because God has revealed it does not throw out human reason, but it doesn't see human reason as autonomous. It sees human reason in subjection to the authority of God's Word. And so, the big question is, will we take a theory of knowledge and recognize Christ is Lord of knowledge, is He not? Is Jesus Lord of the universe? Yes. Is Jesus Lord of all knowledge? Colossians 2, 3 says so, right? Therefore, Jesus is Lord of how you know what you know. Chew on that for a while. Jesus is Lord of how you know what you know. This has radical implications for education, for theology, for all kinds of things. And so what we would say. is that the Bible is our standing place, our starting point for all knowledge. And as a result, you might now be asking yourself, what does this have to do with Sola Scriptura? It has everything to do with sola scriptura, because ultimately the difference between Protestant view of Scripture and the Roman view of authority in Scripture comes down to two differing epistemologies. Rome's concept of revelation and authority actually do nothing more than degenerate into a human endeavor, or humanistic endeavor, Too much credit ultimately is given to man. Stop and think about it. You've got the Bible. You've got tradition. You've got the teaching office. And there, you don't have those things subordinate to the Word. You have those things on the level with the Word or even over the Word. And so, as a result, their epistemology, how they think they know what they know, is rationalistic and humanistic. Stop and think about the threefold source of revelation. The Bible and tradition, the Bible and the teaching office, those are the threefold sources of revelation. Well, two of the three are human. Stop and think about the threefold authority. You have the church, you have the magisterium, you have tradition, you have scripture. Again, two out of the three authorities are human, and so what ends up happening is you end up being, at the end of the day, simply a self-proclaimed authority. By the way, that's what makes a cult. That's what makes a cult. The minute somebody says, This is the Bible, and I believe it, but what I believe is that I'm the only one that can interpret this Bible, and you need to believe my interpretation. There you not only have the height of rationalism, which we'll get back to in a second, but you also have a self-proclaimed authority which is cultic. Anytime there's a person that gets put between you and the book, it's a self-proclaimed authority which is a pseudo-authority. If I was ever to say, you can't understand the Bible unless you come to Grace Community Church, at that moment we would be a cult. Now, this epistemology of rationalism that Rome has so long engaged in, putting human reason in the driver's seat, by the way, would end up giving birth to medieval scholasticism and medieval philosophy. So, for instance, Thomas Aquinas, don't care what you think about Thomas Aquinas, don't even care if you ever heard of Thomas Aquinas, but he is the most significant theological, philosophical figure in Roman tradition, and his starting point was Neutral, natural knowledge. Not scripture. Scripture was not the starting point for Aquinas. Rather, it was neutral, natural knowledge. And do you know where Aquinas found, according to his standard, the most pristine form of human or natural, neutral knowledge? Was Aristotle. Okay, so what you end up having is this whole tradition of rationalism is human reasons in the driver's seat. Human reason determines what the Word of God is. Human reason determines what the Word of God says. Human reason determines what is authority. Human reason determines what is revelation. Human reason is in the driver's seat, period. Now, all forms of rationalism are ultimately irrational. Think about it for a second. If rationalism says that human reason is the ultimate authority and arbiter of all truth, then what is rationalism denying? God And to deny God and to deny God as your starting point and to deny God as your standing place is ultimately irrational, is it not? To say that I've got it. I've got it. I mean, who in the world would ever want to say I've got enough up here to figure it all out? Right. So all forms of rationalism, doesn't matter what kind, ultimately are irrational because it ends up denying God and His Word as the authoritative starting point. Now, the Reformation's concept of revelation and authority end up being squarely rooted in the Word of God alone because, listen carefully, the Bible alone is the only source of divine special revelation. We know what we know because God has revealed it to us in his self-authenticating Word. Turn over to Proverbs chapter 30, which may be one of the grandest epistemological texts in the whole Bible. You didn't even know there was an epistemological text in the Bible, and I'm going to show you the classic. Proverbs chapter 30. Actually, I should correct myself and just let you know that Genesis one one is an epistemological statement, right? Think about it. How do you know what you know in the beginning? Does God does God say, let me prove it to you. Does God have to prove anything to anybody? Now, notice the words of Augur, the son of Jaka, the Oracle, the man. declares to Ithiel and Ucal, surely I am more stupid than any man, and I do not have the understanding of a man. Now, that is an absolutely profound statement. All right. Neither have I learned wisdom, nor do I have the knowledge of the Holy One. In verses two and three, what is Augur admitting to? He's admitting he's stupid, but understand what that means. He's finite, he's limited. When it comes to real understanding, when it comes to real knowledge, he doesn't know anything on his own. That's the place to start. Verse four. Who is ascended into heaven and descended? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has wrapped the waters in his garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name or his son's name? Surely, you know. You might ask yourself, what is the point in verse four? If you track what he says in verses two and three, then in verse four becomes somewhat obvious. I may not have knowledge. I may not have capacity, I may not have access in a sense, but there is knowledge. I'm not I'm not trapped in a skeptical world. Why? Because there is a heaven and there is a God and he has a son. Now, look at this. Every word of God. Is tested. He is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words or he will reprove you and you will be proved a liar. Now, verse four says there is knowledge, but it rests with God who is above us. And verse five tells us that God has revealed. He has given us his words. And then verse six says, and don't go mixing your stupidity with it. Isn't that a fair paraphrase? Don't add to his words. If we're so stupid, if we're limited, if we're finite, if our capacity for knowledge is no bigger, actually it's smaller than a gnat's navel, Then don't go trying to add to God's revelation because he's the one who's in heaven. He's the one who's descended. He's the one who holds the wind in his fist. He's the one who has a son. He is the eternal God. He's the one who has spoken. And so how do you know what you know? You don't rely on your own stupidity unless, of course, you are committed to stupidity. You know what you know by relying on the God who has revealed himself with words. Now. A scripture alone, epistemology looks like this. First, the Bible alone is the only source of infallible, divine, special revelation. Nowhere else. Nowhere else. Don't look for it anywhere else. It will be found nowhere else. The Bible and the Bible alone is the only source of infallible divine revelation. Now, what are we doing when we say that? Is that an epistemological statement? The answer is yes. Why? We are not relying on human wisdom. We are looking at one source of revelation, not two, not three, one. How do we know this? Now, here's where sometimes we stumble a little bit, because a lot of times we start off with the Word of God is the only source of divine infallible revelation, and then we say, how do we know this? And then we resort to a form of rationalism. Are you tracking with me? So I'm going to now prove my premise, my standing place by rationalism, which means I'm going to take an authority that is outside of the word to prove the ultimate authority of the word. Now, that ends up being a huge mistake. So how do we know that the Bible is the authoritative, infallible word of God, because of the Bible, and so we talked about the self-authenticating nature of Scripture. Remember, Calvin says you don't need anybody to tell you this is the word of God any more than you need somebody to tell you the black is black, white is white, and the sun's out. Now, again, what happens? We're not relying on human reason to recognize the authority of the word. What we're relying on is, again, the word alone. So it's the self-authenticating, self-attesting nature of Scripture that says that the Bible is the infallible Word of God. Now, well, how do we know what the Bible says? You see how all these questions fit into the historical debate? How do you know it's the Bible? The Church says so. How do you know what the Bible says? Well, the Church says what the Bible says. We say, no, the Bible alone is the only authority. And we know that because the Bible says it. And so how do we know what the Bible says? The perspicuity of scripture. That is the main message of the Bible. Is self-contained. And clear. That's what perspicuity means. Isn't it funny that we take a word perspicuity to mean clear? Think about how this scripture alone affects the way we know what we know when we say, how do we know what the Bible says? We don't look to, again, an outside authority, i.e. the church, we look to The word. And so we say that the Bible's message, the Bible's main message, that doesn't mean that everything in the Bible is equally understandable. It doesn't mean that you can go to Second Chronicles and and have absolutely zero knowledge of the historical setting and have it all figured out. That's not what we're saying. What we're saying is the main message of the Bible. Is self-contained, you don't have to look outside of the Bible for it, and it is clear. And by the way, to say that you believe in the clarity of scripture is simply another way of saying that you have a biblical epistemology. You know what you know because the Bible is clear in what it says. By the way, this was the conviction of the reformers. This was the conviction of Luther. This was the conviction of William Tyndale. His goal was to have every milkmaid and And every boy behind a plow had the scripture in his own language. Why? What was the conviction? Because the Bible's message is plain, and if people could get it in their language, they could understand it. You don't need a priest in between, you don't need a cult leader in between, and that's not to diminish the importance of pastors and teachers, but what it is to say is the basic message about God, man, and salvation is clear to anyone who can pick up a Bible and read. And I've told you before the story, 13 years old, dead in trespasses and sins. I pick up a Catholic edition of the Living Bible. Neither one are recommended by me today, but I read it and the message was clear. And God wrought salvation. And so, Scripture, as sole authoritative revelation, interprets Scripture. Understand how important that is for epistemology. Remember what Rome says, the church must interpret Scripture. Understand what we've been doing, the Bible alone, the Bible alone, the Bible alone. It is Scripture which interprets Scripture. You understand why that's important? That's just not a statement to sell chain reference Bibles. That's a statement about what we believe is contained in this book. And so, if the church is not going to be the infallible interpreter of Scripture, there is actually one infallible interpreter of Scripture, and it is Scripture. And so, the whole thing is self-contained. The whole thing And you don't need an ecclesiastical body. You don't need an ecclesiastical tradition. You don't need all of these things. Can things outside of the Bible help us? And the answer is yes. Take something very basic. Can archaeology help you understand certain parts of the Bible? Yes. Does the basic message of the Bible depend on archaeological discovery? No. Is it helpful to know Greek and Hebrew? Yes. If you're going to devote your life to teaching the Word of God in the context of a local church, you should know the original languages. But guess what? Do you need to know Greek and Hebrew in order to understand the basic message of the Bible? No. Scripture interprets Scripture. It is the self-authenticating Scripture, and it is the Scripture that has its basic message written in letters writ large. Now, the Bible alone is our infallible authoritative rule for faith and practice. We believe wholeheartedly in sola scriptura, but we believe it in a way that gives proper place to the Church Proper place to her history. Proper place to her creeds and to her confessions. And where is that proper place? All underneath the Word. All in subjection to the Word. And so, you test everything according to the Word of God. And you're good Bereans. The best way to prove that you really do believe Sola Scriptura is to be a good Berean and to search the scriptures. We've got five minutes before the natives are released. Anybody have any questions? The best virtue of reason is to know its limitations. There's truth to that, but we would want to say, and remember, we need to come back to You know, you have Luther, who was just a wild man in the way that he said things. He called reason the devil's whore. Luther never said anything in just ordinary language. It had to be large, hyperbolic language. By that, Luther did not mean the human ability to think. What he meant was reason apart from Scripture. He was reacting to the very thing that we're talking about. And so even people that understand the limitations of reason, though, need to understand that those limitations should push them to subordination to the Word of God. Yeah, and they are bringing it up and they are continuing to defend it in the book that I showed you last week, not by Scripture alone. There are articles in there that defend the traditional triad of scripture, tradition, and the magisterium. And the way that they appeal to it ends up being tradition and magisterium. Now, that brings up an interesting point because in some ways it's arguing in a circle. But guess what? I've just told you we should do. I've just told you we should argue in a circle. Right? If Scripture is self-authenticating, if it's plain, if Scripture interprets Scripture, if Scripture is your sole authority, that's your starting point. How do you know the Bible is the Word of God? Because the Bible says it's the Word of God. I just told you to argue in a circle. Now, here's the fundamental reality to all human arguing. Everybody argues in a circle. It's true. Even the person who wants to say that they're a pure inductivist, okay, that is, I am purely committed to just looking at the facts and drawing out my conclusions by induction, that is arguing in a circle. Why? Because you have a starting point that you're committed to without any justification, namely induction for that point. So everybody argues in a circle. The question is not whether you're going to argue in a circle, because you will, and it doesn't matter whether you're a rationalist or whether you're an irrationalist, whether you follow Descartes or whether you follow, you know, David Hume or some other nut. I mean, it doesn't matter who, what philosophy, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, doesn't make any difference. Ultimately, everybody argues in a circle. And so the question is, is the starting point in arguing in a circle valid? And the only way you can test the validity of a starting point is the appeal to authority. And so, when we were asking, how do you know what you know? Somebody said, because somebody teaches you. I hope everybody, or at least some of you, caught the significance of that. There are times where we believe things. on the basis of the authority of another. Mom says, don't touch the stove. It's hot. You don't say to yourself, hmm, I wonder if mother is a human inductivist. Hmm. I wonder if she's actually conducted empirical observations on this. I don't think I'm going to believe her because her empiricism may be flawed. Because she's operating from the basis of the uniformity of nature. And how do I necessarily know that when she touched it, it was hot? How do I even know she touched it? You don't do that. You just say, she said it was hot. I believe it. There's innate recognition of authority. Right? Does anybody argue against the irrationality of that? Well, irrationalists argue against the irrationality about that, but that ends up being, in a sense, one of the most obvious things to us. Now, you go from mother to God. Right? Okay, that was a tangent. I don't even remember how we got there. Yes. This is an excellent question and it's one that we should look at more in detail. I'm going to give a no answer and then a kind of answer, all right? First, this comes down to the issue of what John Frame calls competing circularities, all right? Because in a sense, the Mormon or the Muslim, for that matter, could argue the same way that we do, and that's what you're actually getting at. It's easy enough for us to debunk irrational, illogical constructions and so forth, but what about a competing claim for revelation and thus competing circularities? That ends up being really a whole lesson in and of itself that I'm not prepared to give, but I will say this. If your starting point is the Word of God or, let's just say, the Book of Mormon, then what you claim, it claims about itself, should ultimately be verifiable. Right? And so that's what I would say in terms of the Quran, in terms of the Book of Mormon, is that if—go ahead and take that as your starting point. Start there. And then, If it's going to make claims about self, i.e., it's self-authenticating, self-attesting, then those should be verifiable. And I would argue that in the case of the Book of Mormon, it lacks historical integrity and so forth. Yeah, that's a great question, too, and I would appeal to, for instance, something like laws of logic, right? And so if God is, we assume that from what the Bible says, God is a rational being, okay? And I don't mean that in the rationalistic sense, but he is a logical being, so forth, orderly being, right? So what we would expect is not that we would have infinite comprehensive knowledge of his word, but what we would expect is that his word would follow transcendent laws of logic, which would include laws of non-contradiction and things like that. And that's the short answer, and that's about all I can give you right now. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your word, and we do pray that we would love it and follow it with all of our hearts, and we pray that we would trust in it and trust in you And Father, we do ask that as a church body, you would always keep us focused on your word. Lord, may the most important thing for any matter be what says the scriptures. And so, Lord, we pray that that would be a conviction of ours that we would live for, and we pray that you would help us to do it with great charity and love. In Jesus' name, amen.