As regards Christianity, in a statement a Believer may make about his faith, may well be responded to by someone saying, “Oh yeah, who says?” And when the Christian replies, “Well, God says, right here in the Bible.” The next retort will likely be, “Well, big deal. Why should I believe that, just because you’re Bible says so? It was just written by a bunch of men. So, who made the Bible to be the authority?”
Ok you’re on. What do you say then? While you’re praying for an answer, they continue. “And another thing, why is your Bible any more authoritative than other religious books? Other religions have their holy books too. Why does your Bible have to be the only real authority? Don’t those who follow their own particular holy book, whatever it is, stand just as acceptable to God as those following the teachings of another holy book? Religious writings have been compiled and handed down over thousands of years in many languages and cultures. Why should any of them, including the Christian Bible, be thought superior to others? All religious writings are merely the teachings and opinions of those who wrote them. Some of their saying sound wise, and some of them sound ridiculous and not so wise. Christians sound so arrogant in promoting their Bible as the only thing people should follow. Where do they get off with that?” And on and on it goes.
Actually, those questions do, in themselves, raise several important points. All major religions, including Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, as well as Christianity, plus several lesser religions, each have their particular holy books as their authority. And each is in serious contradiction to the others. There are contradictions are so glaring and so numerous that one can only conclude somebody has to be wrong. While it’s possible, logically, that all of them could be wrong, it is not possible that all of them could be right. Simple logic by which the whole world functions disallowed that. This in itself should put us on the track of realizing that just because the follower of a certain belief thinks it is right, doesn’t make it right. Truth is not determined by someone thinking it’s true. Subjectivism relates to opinions, preferences, and tastes, but it does not establish truth. Only objectivity can do that. A thing is what it is, not what I want it to be. Someone said, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but no one is entitled to their own facts.” This will become apparent as we move through the balance of our consideration of biblical authority.
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