Thread: Does all truth come from the Bible?

I had someone tell me that all truth came from the Bible.


But I think 2+2=4 and I do not find this in Scripture, yet I trust it to be true.

In fact, under that rationale, I can come to an infinity of truth apart from the Bible (2+1=3, 2+2=4, 2+3=5, 2+4=6,.....to infinity)....

They corrected themselves and stated that all moral truth and philosophical truth came from Scripture: But the "Golden Rule" is fairly common in world religions and the law of non-contradiction is assumed but not proved in Scripture it seems.


In what way is all truth from Scripture? In what ways can we find truth outside of Scripture?

Ghandi, a man that in spite of his sincretism and hinduism, I greatly admire, had several monotheistic sayings, one that I like was:

All Truth is God’s Truth

But having these words of Jesus in mind:

Sanctify them in the Truth; your Word is Truth John 17:17

I think yes, all Truth is God’s Word and all Truth is the Incarnate Word of God, the One Who also said: I am the Truth.

Is 2+2=4 God's Word?

One way of looking at this is that God reveals truth a couple ways:

1) natural revelation (His attributes revealed to all men, so they are without excuse)
2) special revelation (His plan of salvation, the person and work of Christ)

Good question, Pergy.

I am thinking that with the mention of moral and philosophical truth (source = scripture alone), one now has the basis or 'filter' for all natural revelation. That is, all facts received from the senses are subject to the objective rules of right/wrong, logic, and the like.

I wonder if that gets us closer to an answer?

I think that the short answer is clearly no for a whole host of reasons.

The bible is a revelation from God and therefore it is truth, but it is not the only revelation from God that we have, the Apostles had an authority arising from the teachings of Christ that was truth and this does not come frm the bible.

It is also a gnostic statement as it seeks to discount physical reality as having no validity.

Of course the bible is often how we test whether a proposition is truthful or not but it is incorrrect to say that it is always the source of that truth.

I've been pondering a statement by Cornelius Van Till that man must have revelation to understand reality -- but revelation was not defined in what I was reading. Given the historic position of reformed theology, I'd have to conclude that revelation includes both special and natural revelation. Given that 2+2=4 is a discoverable and repeatable fact in the natural world, it could be accepted as natural revelation. However, we would have to draw the line at giving supremacy to man's reasoning capability -- in other words, developing knowledge independently of the bright light of God's word, an error that has permeated western thinking since the time of Immanuel Kant.

Some of the Puritans speak of the Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture.



Is all truth God's truth? Can we think of some truths as more true or certain than others? And if Biblical truths are more certain than truths gained from natural revelation than we would have to say that Jesus died on the Cross for our sins is more true than 2+2=4.

Imo Truth has to do not with a logic assessment like 2+2=4 or even any cosmological reality, but with what is in fact perennial, permanent and eternal.

All that was created was created by God’s Word, and only is true or existing, because God is sustaining it through His word and only as long as He sustains it.

Think about people, cities or even stars that are no more, are those things true?

I think in a Phenomenological way yes they were or they are. We can observe it or remember it.

In an Ontological way no, because they don't exist by themselves, so Truth is only the Word that sustains them.

For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18

By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. Hebrews 11:3

upholds all things by the word of His power Hebrews 1:3

Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. Matthew 24:35

I like what I heard a pastor say one time, "All truth originates in God, and whenever the Bible speaks it speaks truth."

2+2=4 will never pass away, right?

Originally Posted by Pergamum

2+2=4 will never pass away, right?

When you ask an economist how much is 2 + 2 he will answer:

are we buying or selling?

now seriously, I think Gordon Clark was right concerning the law of noncontradiction.

I agree with Hippo and Baldwin, but you can't use the math example as a truth that doesn't originate in the Bible.

1Ki 2:11 And the time that David reigned over Israel was forty years. He reigned seven years in Hebron and thirty-three years in Jerusalem.

Proves addition.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1 NKJV) end of discussion.

In other words, brother Pergamum, one would ask where does 2+2=4 come from? And so on and so forth until we come to the origin of truth.

The Scripture is not meant to be a book of facts about every area of life. It speaks truth of God and gives us a proper world-view to understand other truths by.

Scripture tells us that God created all things with order. It's of such order that math and other fact-based truths come from. To think that math is a truth in and of itself would be a mistake, we must think of it in terms of God and His creative order.
Only God is truth in and of Himself, and even with Scripture we can't know Him in His essence, but only as He condescends and reveals Himself to us.

Math is not ultimate truth. I even think that it has been proven to be faulty. Isn't it mathematically impossible for bees to fly?

Originally Posted by Pergamum

Is all truth God's truth?

Who elses would it be brother?

Just because Atheist or unbelievers can do math doesn't mean that they do so apart from God and His Truth, lol the bottom line is brother that truth wouldn't be truth if the Author of Truth did not exist, God. Depraved man suppress this truth in unrighteousness Romans tells us and all of humanity, though born spiritually dead, still bear God's Image and have been given the ability to obtain truth and knowledge but have used this knowledge to their own destruction and have rejected the Giver of truth our Sovereign and long suffering God. So the logical fact the 2+2=4 necessitates an ultimate logical Being or otherwise logic wouldn't make any sense at all.

I hear alot of nature talk but where does this nature have its origin? GOD

Am I missing something here.............

Also truth has meaning. 2+2=4 in and of itself has no more meaning than x+y=z.

Originally Posted by Roldan

I hear alot of nature talk but where does this nature have its origin? GOD

Am I missing something here.............

The question at hand is not about all truth coming from God, but about all truth coming from Scripture.
Since Scripture doesn't exhaust the truth that is found in God the answer would have to be no.

I maintain that any knowledge gained within the sphere of science is completely dependent of God's bestowal of light on the mind. There is no such thing as autonomous reason, i.e., reason that is unaided by divine revelation. Science and theology are in perfect agreement because all truth is God's truth. Science and theology both presuppose God's divine revelation. If a theory is false in science, then it must be false in theology as well (and vice versa). Wherever truth is found, the truth of God is being discovered.

Originally Posted by TimV

I agree with Hippo and Baldwin, but you can't use the math example as a truth that doesn't originate in the Bible.

1Ki 2:11 And the time that David reigned over Israel was forty years. He reigned seven years in Hebron and thirty-three years in Jerusalem.

Proves addition.

Good, that helps my problem of affirming truth that is not found in the Bible.....solution...it IS found in the Bible.

Can the basic principles of all basic math then be found in Scripture?

Originally Posted by larryjf

Originally Posted by Roldan

I hear alot of nature talk but where does this nature have its origin? GOD

Am I missing something here.............

The question at hand is not about all truth coming from God, but about all truth coming from Scripture.
Since Scripture doesn't exhaust the truth that is found in God the answer would have to be no.

Well I was responding to the question he posed......

Is all truth God's truth?

Thank for clearing that up

If God is truth (and He is) and the Bible says God created heaven and earth, then I believe one could link any question back to this opening remark. All discussions end here. Therefore, the statement "all truth came from the Bible" is true because God created all things (heaven and earth) and it says so in the Bible. It is as logical as 2+2=4

Roldan,

Sorry...i didn't read the quote that you were responding to.
Thanks for the correction.

Can the basic principles of all basic math then be found in Scripture?

The way I understand it, from something I may or may not have understood from a debate I read between Van Til and some one else, we can't know anything at all the way God knows it. If we as Christians are joined to Christ's humanity we have access to God through Christ, but we still are never part of God, so we can't even know 2 plus 2 equals 4 in the way God can.

So I guess it's really a "no" on a theoretical level.

And let's remember that even though the Bible is God's infallible Word, the reverse isn't true, that God is summed up in the Bible. The Bible itself points out

Joh 21:25 Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

Johnny and Billy were riding down the hill in a wagon. Johnny fell out and skinned his knee. When they got home, Johnny's mother asked what happened. Johnny said, "I fell out of the wagon and skinned my knee." That statement is the truth, but I'm not sure which Bible verse proves it.

Originally Posted by larryjf

Roldan,

Sorry...i didn't read the quote that you were responding to.
Thanks for the correction.

No its coo.....

I agree completely with the fact that all truth comes from God, and that any truth of nature will never contradict the truth of God revealed in Scripture. Thus, when science or mathematics declare something that is patently contra Scripture it is incorrect.

But, Scripture is not a treatise on science. It is not a work on physics, or mathematics. Thus when the circumference of the bronze laver does not work out according to pi then we must admit that it is an estimation, not an exacting mathematical calculation. I've known Christians who held so rigidly to 'everything must agree with the Bible' that they refused to acknowledge that the I Kings 7.23 ff was an estimation. They stated that somehow we don't really know what 'three' is.

OK, I like the philosophical approach I see here, and agree with these propositions. However, I do believe that the Bible DOES teach 1+1=2.

Exo 29:3 "And thou shalt put them into one basket, and bring them in the basket, with the bullock and the two rams."


This is just one of several examples where, if there are 2, there must also be two single one's also. Two Rams supposes two "single rams" are coupled, therefore 1 ram and one ram makes two rams. From this TRUTH, all other mathematical equations stem and necessary consequences follows.

Another proof that 1 + 1=2 is, Amos 3:3 "Can two walk together, except they be agreed?" "Two walking" presupposes 1 and 1 joining along the same path, making two.

Does, all truth come from the Bible? By necessary consequence, I think it does. It might take some time to flesh out the other epistemological proofs of this (History, ethics, other sciences, etc.) , but I think all truth is found in Divine revelation.

FWIW

You see...I think all truth worth knowing comes from Scripture....not so sure math is really worth knowing! Yes I hate math...

I tend to think that "all truth is God's truth" and that ultimate truth is found in Scripture. But I'm not sure I would say "all truth is found in the Bible."

The Laws of nature are established and maintained by God. But all those laws of nature are not revealed in Scripture. And I would say that mathmatics is derived from the laws of nature.

Of possible interest:

Amazon.com: All Truth Is God's Truth: Arthur F. Holmes: Books

Originally Posted by TimV

Can the basic principles of all basic math then be found in Scripture?

The way I understand it, from something I may or may not have understood from a debate I read between Van Til and some one else, we can't know anything at all the way God knows it. If we as Christians are joined to Christ's humanity we have access to God through Christ, but we still are never part of God, so we can't even know 2 plus 2 equals 4 in the way God can.

So I guess it's really a "no" on a theoretical level.

And let's remember that even though the Bible is God's infallible Word, the reverse isn't true, that God is summed up in the Bible. The Bible itself points out

Joh 21:25 Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

God does not merely know a greater quantity of facts than we, he knows all those facts in a greater quality as well.

Is that what I hear you saying?

How would one prove this? How do we know this?

Pergamum,
Check out this essay written by Lane Keister's father on Math and the bible:

Trinity Foundation: Explaining God, man, Bible, salvation, philosophy, theology.

God does not merely know a greater quantity of facts than we, he knows all those facts in a greater quality as well.

Is that what I hear you saying?

How would one prove this? How do we know this?

Exactly. I think the only way to prove this is by tackling the question of God's "Wholly Otherness", and the way I've seen it done is by showing that we never really partake of God's essence, but only as it is communicated to us through the relationship that Christ has with God.

The best way I've understood this is that 1. Scripture is our starting point and therefore our preeminent source of information; therefore, 2. everything obtained from God's Word or from God-given faculties (reasoning, senses, etc.) is truth.

Of course, we can misuse these faculties, but nonetheless, when properly utilized, these things are truth.