But I have a mind and I'm supposed to use it, don't you think?

How can we know anything about anything

To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald

Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?

NO!

That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.

Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us?

How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?

We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers.

Why is that?

How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.

Why is that?

Same scientific facts. Different answers.

Same Bible. Different answers.

Why is that?

The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible?

How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?

How do we analyze what we have seen and read?

How do we interpret what we have seen and read?

We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.

An example might help.

Question: Why do you believe in evolution?

Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.

Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?

Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.

Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.

If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.

When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from?

There are three possibilities.

things that we make up, pulled from the air
demonic lies
divine revelation

Question: Why do you believe in creation?

Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him.

See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.

In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same.

Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us.

The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan?

The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.

Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"

The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened." *

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 *

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God.

How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"

Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.

"[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).

"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)

That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.

"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)

Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.

In another case of just listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.

They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, "I guess I'm making the whole thing up." It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn't want God to rule over him.

The real question is, "Who do you trust--Do you trust your own understanding or do you trust God?"

First, you will notice the "the renewal of your mind" is in the passive voice. That means that someone else, God, is doing it. You cannot renew your mind. You only have the capacity to deceive yourself. Through self-effort, you have the capacity for hypocrisy only. God is the renewer of the mind. You need the Holy Spirit for this work. Don't be deceived. Don't let anyone else deceive you. Turn to God.

The human mind was never created to function without the anointing of the Holy Ghost. The human spirit was never meant to be separated from the Holy Ghost. The human mind was created to be in submission to the human spirit, which was created to be in submission to the Holy Ghost.

The real question is, "Who do you trust--Do you trust your own understanding or do you trust God?"

Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Romans 1:19

Total Quality Management uses the word Paradigm. Our paradigm is an image of the world and is the world with which we interact rather than the real world. Communication theory speaks of filters. When we hear anything, we filter it by our presuppositions. Neurolinguistics uses the word, presuppositions. Another way to put this is that we each have a worldview. Presuppositions are ideas that we don't even think about but that reside in our minds. They make it impossible for us to see reality. Others speak of confirmation bias, which is the same thing. When we see things that are in conflict with our paradigms/presuppositions/worldview/confirmation bias/filters, we cannot receive it. We switch it around to fit whatever is already in our mind, and it actually confirms rather than conflicts. Too many conflicts can make us physically sick. We have various ways of protecting ourselves from the truth.

"What you see is not what is out there in the world, not exactly, at least. Scientists have shown that your brain is tweaking the light coming in from your eyes and making predictions about what you expect to see.... The way PhysOrg put it, What our eyes can't see, the brain fills in. And it fills it in from prior experience: The results show that our brains do not rely solely on what is shown to the eyes in order to see. Instead the brain constructs a complex prediction of what it expects to see." creationsafaris.com

" New Scientist posted an intriguing article on the many ways our eyes fool us. Our brain is filling in information and predicting the future for us, reporter Graham Lawton pointed out, producing in us a 'grand delusion' that we see what is really there. Speaking of cosmology (Hawking's specialty), Live Science reminded us that cosmologists are still looking for 96% of an assumed universe about which they are clueless. It would seem premature for Hawking to rule out heaven when the reality he believes in is mostly hidden even if he could trust his senses. There might be much more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in his philosophy (naturalism)." CreationEvolution

But I have a mind and I'm supposed to use it, don't you think?

How can we know anything about anything

The Human Mind

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