Basic Axioms or Postulates

To have sound doctrine, you must start somewhere. You cannot pull sound doctrine out of the air. You cannot even discern sound doctrine using human logic alone if, as the Bible says, we are fallen, depraved creatures. A very, very long time ago, in high school, I took a geometry class. I remember that the class had to begin with certain starting rules, I think they were called postulates or axioms. Once you had that groundwork laid, you could go on to build a system of geometry.

Let me put it another way. If you are a truck driver, you know that you have to trip plan. Trip planning includes choosing a legal route, choosing places where you can stop for the night (you can't put a 60+ foot rig weighing 79,000 lbs in someones front yard!), choosing fuel stops, and estimating how many miles to cover each day to arrive on time. But no truck driver can trip plan unless he is told the pickup point, the delivery point, and the appointment times. That information is basic. If there is no load, there is no trip, there is nothing to plan.

The starting place must be the Scriptures - God's Holy Bible. Why?

Man is not all-knowing. To know something of God there must be revelation of God. We know that there is a general revelation of God in nature. Anyone who spends any time observing and contemplating the world around us will quickly discern that a great power is at work. The unbeliever calls this force "nature", or "Mother Earth", or "Chance", but he must call it something. The creators of Star Wars call it "The Force". Only a fool fails to recognize that there is some great force at work (I can say this because the Bible expressly says that those who say that there is no God are fools - Psalm 14:1).

The question may be asked, "Why the Bible"? That is a good question. There are an abundance of Holy Books or other claimed sources of divine revelation: the Koran, the Hindu holy texts, the Pope, the Book of Mormon. You have many choices.

To set forth why the Bible is superior is probably beyond the scope of my ability and certainly beyond the time I have available this morning. In brief, some of the reasons why the Bible is superior include:

• 1. It very accurately describes man. I could hardly belabor this point. The bible is shockingly accurate in describing us in a way that modern psychology and other teachings are not.
• 2. It is historically accurate. The bible very accurately describes the events of the middle east during the past several thousand years.
• 3. The Bible contains prophecies which we know were accurately fulfilled (this is an important reason).
• 4. The Bible is distinct from many other historical books - it shows even its heroes to be flawed men and women. The Bible never sugar coats its characters. (Of course there is one character who did not have flaws).
• 5. The Bible decribes a unique God, one who is completely "other", completely distinct from man.
• 6. The Bible is internally consistent, though having been written by dozens of men from differing occupations and educational levels over the course of centuries.
  

I could go on, and may add to this list if I think of some other distinctives. There are apologists who grapple with and debate the superiority of the bible on a regular basis.

For right now, let us start with the Holy Bible as the beginning point of this discussion of theology.