“[The Church] does not, in the conventional phrase, believe what the Bible says, for the simple reason that the Bible does not say anything. You cannot put a book in the witness-box and ask it what it really means.” – G. K. Chesterton
Hmmmm, interesting. Contrary to Chesterton, is that not precisely what happens with someone’s “last will and testament”? The written word of the testator is the final authority in a court of law (see Hebrews 9:15-22 for a direct analogy, where the word diatheke (Greek)/berith (Hebrew) is to be understood both ways, as either covenant or testament, depending on the Christological perspective, i.e. whether Jesus the Christ is to be understood as the One actively keeping the law we have not kept - keeping the covenant - or as the One passively taking responsibility for our failure to keep it - being the Testator whose death activates the giving of all that properly is His to give to us).
If the written word of God is not exactly analogous to a “last will and testament,” then what is it? Did God the Holy Spirit not foresee the problems that would ensue if man were to be permitted to interpret the plain sense of the text God Himself willed, the plain sense of His covenant/testament? If God cannot be depended on and assumed to have written such a document clearly from the first, then in what sense do we really trust God, the Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent, All-knowing (for the Holy Scriptures assert all those attributes of Him)?
I’ve read a bit of Chesterton. What a bloviator. He has this formula to sound profound but when you think about what he says it is just trite -
It is not that what the bible says is true, it is that what we say is true is the bible.
Ok, Thanks G.K.