“When you’re dealing with apologetics there are three tests for truth normally.
1.) Logical consistency
2.) Empirical adequacy
3.) Experiential relevance
… We’re looking for an Empirical point of reference. The Bible is not a self referencing book. The Bible is a book about geography, history and events that can be tested from outside the Bible itself. Unlike the Koran which is a self-referencing book. What do I mean by that? How do you know that the Koran is the Word of God? Mohammed said so. How do you know Mohammed is right? Because the Koran says so. The Bible is not a self-referencing authority. It has points of verification or the capacity to be falsified if it is not right from sources outside itself.”
Ravi Zacharias
Sermon — When East Meets West
Here we see Zacharias’ evidentialism come shining through. The presuppositionalist would say that geography, history, and events are not self referencing realities that sit in judgment on God’s Word. In order for geography, history, and events to be able to judge the Bible they first, in order to have legitimacy, have to be judged by the Bible and the Christian Worldview that Scripture yields.
Contrary to Zacharias’ assertion the Bible is a self-referencing book. How do I know that the Bible is the Word of God? God says so. How do I know that God is right? Because the Bible says so. Now to be sure, geography, history and events confirm the reliability of God’s Word but since the world is God’s world, just as the Word is God’s Word, all properly understood geography, history, and events can do is confirm what God’s Word states. If geography, history or events were to falsify God’s Word they would only, at that point, be falsifying themselves. To insist that Scripture is falsifiable is to suggest that there is a God outside of God who has the capacity to prove God wrong. If History can prove God wrong than History is a God over God.
Zacharias wants to give independent agency to History, Geography and events as if they have any meaning outside their dependency upon the God of the Bible for meaning. To say that history, geography, and events could possibly falsify the reality of God is to say that God is only possibly true. In order to be certain we have to wait for history, geography, and events to confirm or deny the possibility of God.
Ravi wants to talk about “testing the Bible,” but any test that would test the Bible that isn’t dependent upon the presuppositions of the Bible will always come back testifying that the Bible isn’t reliable.
Ravi is a smooth talker. He is very confident. He speaks at a high velocity tempo. He has that lovely accent that Americans find irresistibly charming. These things don’t allow people to actually think about what the man is saying as he is speaking.
Ravi is just wrong here. He is wrong more often than people would like to admit. What he is saying here is false on a number of different levels, starting with the matter of which piece of evidence would qualify as an objective touchstone against which one could test the objective inspired Word? Even if one did not accept divine inspiration, you’d still be left with why we should believe the Epic of Gilgamesh over the Genesis account of the Flood or why some self-serving Assyrian stele is more reliable than II Kings.
God’s Word is not potentially falsifiable. I mean it is shocking to suggest otherwise. Boiled down what Ravi is saying is that it is possible that God could be lying.
