Yes, it is possible.....but is it probable?

In the last 6 months or so, I have found myself having a similar conversation with different people in different places. The conversation is about the trustworthiness of the Bible or the truthfulness of Christianity. The person I am talking with will usually make some statement to the effect that we can't trust the Bible/Christianity because we just can't know for sure whether what it is saying is true or not. They usually go on to say that it could be aliens that gave us the Scriptures, or that humans have just been adding to the biblical story for ages and now we have the result. In their words, "All these options are possible." In their minds they then sit back with the hopes of watching me squirm because they have apparently presented an insurmountable argument. Surely no one can "prove" the Bible is true, can they?

One paper I graded recently went along this trail. My comment back to him on his paper is the heading for this blog, "Yes, this is possible, but is it probable?" When we realize that we live in a world where daily we make decisions based on probability, then the felt need for absolute proof for anything starts to die down. Perhaps I can word this another way, "What do you know that has absolute proof for it?" The answer is, "not much" (for those into philosophy, I am aware of Rene Descartes "I think therefore I am" which in his mind provided absolute knowledge of at least one thing: He existed). We all live in a world of probabilities. It is probable that the sun will shine tomorrow; probable that I will go to work; probable that this Sunday I will go to Church; probable that the person running for political office is not entirely a squeaky clean candidate; probable that there is not an invisible unicorn under my bed; probable that my company will pay me on pay day; probable that when I hit "post" this blog entry will actually post, etc. In other words, we make decisions (many of them important ones) based on reasons that help tip the scale in favor of one option over another. When we realize how many good reasons there are for seeing the Bible as God's inspired Word and taking it as truth, the scale in favor of it actually being what it claims to be is enormous; the alien option? not so much.

It is unfortunate that our friends, family and acquaintances have bought into this shallow, deadly shadow of thinking. It has a faint ring of true thinking, but is far from it. And unfortunately the consequences are not trivial. If this shadow thinking keeps people from the Gospel, then the consequences are eternal. As Christians we should not be stymied by this apparent "silver bullet" against Christianity. Nor should most of us spend our time looking for the Holy Grail of apologetic slam-dunkery. Instead we should help unbelievers to see that most of their life is lived in the realm of probabilities. Since their views about Jesus Christ are going to be formed the same way their views about anything else are formed, they need to start examining the reasons for the Scriptures validity. If they don't do this then they are lazy.