“How do you know that it’s true?”
The question was itself a response to a question. After our
Sunday school class read Mark’s account of Jesus’
transfiguration (Mark 9:2-8), I asked if there was anything
that jumped out at class members from Jesus’ mountain-top
transformation and conversation with Elijah and Moses.
The first response, “How do you know that it’s
true,” sparked significant discussion. I was grateful for
the question, and the frank comments that followed, because
many contemporary Christians seem reluctant to ask such
pointed questions about the truth of Scripture and our ability
to know that truth.
Transfiguration and truth
The reluctance differs according to the congregation’s
theological outlook. In many mainline congregations, Scripture
is approached from the perspective of modern liberal theology,
which is rooted in the Enlightenment emphases on autonomy and
rationalism and believes religious truth can be determined by
unaided human reason.
“Enlightened” explanations of the transfiguration
include: that the disciples were partly blinded by the snow on
the mountain and reported what they thought they saw; that the
account is pure fiction, invented by “Mark” to serve
his personal theological agenda; and that it actually
describes a (fictional or hallucinatory) post-resurrection
appearance of Jesus, which Mark mistakenly placed before the
crucifixion. To ask “Did the transfiguration happen as
Mark described it?” in a modern liberal congregation is
thus to risk being branded naïve, uneducated, or worst of
all, “fundamentalist.”
The prospect of asking about the truth of the transfiguration
in evangelical congregations evokes other concerns. First,
since evangelicals accept the truth of divine revelation, some
may assume that voicing such a question would evidence a
troubling lack of faith. In fact, nothing could be farther
from the truth. Disbelief, not doubt, is the opposite of
faith. Neither Gideon nor Thomas was rebuked for lack of
faith.
Revelation and reason
Moreover, evangelicalism is not entirely uninfluenced by the
Enlightenment doctrines of individualism and rationalism. In
properly insisting that human reason is compatible with God’s
self-revelation, evangelicals may at times sound as if they
believe that reason can prove the truth of revelation.
It cannot.
The truth of God’s self-revelation, in Scripture and
supremely in the person and work of Jesus Christ, does not
depend on its conformity to philosophers’ rules of logic
or to the Jesus Seminar’s critical criteria. God makes
truth known to his human creatures for their benefit (John
8:31-32). That which God reveals is true because God himself
is truth (John 14:6).
Certainly, reason plays a role in Christian faith and life.
Reason can show that God’s self-revelation is not
irrational or incoherent. For example, with the advent of
quantum physics and the collapse of the Enlightenment
worldview, science and philosophy no longer claim that
Biblical accounts of Jesus’ transfiguration and
resurrection violate Newtonian “laws of nature,”
only that they are low-probability events.
But human reason does not, as modern liberal theology
demands, determine the truthfulness of God’s revelation.
The often unexamined assumption that it can and should do so
is a legacy of Enlightenment rationalism, not an article of
Christian faith.
How do we know?
If reason does not judge revelation, how can Christians know
that the Bible is true, that Jesus was transformed and spoke
with Moses and Elijah?
First, Scripture testifies to its own truthfulness. The
fulfillment of prophecy, Jesus’ use of Old Testament, and
Paul’s teaching that “All Scripture is God-breathed”
(II Tim. 3:16) are internal witnesses to the truthfulness of
Scripture. Those who reject this self-attestation do so not
because the Bible’s testimony is unreasonable. Rather,
their uncritical acceptance of an alleged authority, or their
prior commitment to a human principle or practice that
contradicts God’s revelation, leads them to conclude that
Scripture must be untrue.
Second, Christians know that what the Bible says is true
because the Holy Spirit teaches us, reminds us of, and guides
us into truth. (John 14:16-17; 15:26; 16:13; I John 4:6). As
John Calvin recognized, “the testimony of the Spirit is
more excellent than all reason. For as God alone is a fit
witness of himself in his Word, so also the Word will not find
acceptance in men’s hearts before it is sealed by the
inward testimony of the Spirit” (
Institutes,
I.vii.4).
Our faith does not forbid asking hard questions, which have
been asked since the time of the apostles. Writing to faithful
believers who were struggling with doubts raised by false
teachers among them, the apostle John declared, “I write
these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God
so that you may
know that you have eternal life”
(I John 5:13).
The nature of God, the witness of Scripture, and the
testimony of the Holy Spirit together assure us that truth
exists, that it can be known, and that what the Bible teaches
is true.