You said — “That does not make them universally true.”
It’s God, Himself that makes it universally true. He is the Creator God of the universe and also the one who the founding fathers recognized as the one that would help them establish this nation and that it couldn’t be done without his help. They were clear on this.
And likewise, today, this country cannot be maintained without His help, in the same way it could not be founded without His help...
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And you asked — “What about the Gnostic gospels?”
That’s not Scripture..., i.e., not God’s Word...
Ok. So God revealed, without any possible doubt, these premises. How do you know? You believe them to be true, which is fair. But so far you are asserting them to be true because you believe them to be true - circular reasoning? BTW, reasoning is on of God's greatest gifts and one way it reveals itself is through free will. I believe God wants us to use his gifts, including the gift of reason. For example, God created the universe in six days. Taken literally that's 3,648 minutes. Perhaps the "day" in Genesis is allegorical. God created man - perhaps that creation is the point in evolution when, through God's grace, we evolved from simians to humans. For many centuries revealed wisdom had it that the sun revolved around the earth. To question that was a heretical and capital offense. Why are the Gnostic gospels not scripture? Did God tell you they are not his word?
In both instances these are the judgments of fallible men. We all rely on the judgments of fallible men.