The Historic Faith Presents: How to Arrive at Truth Through Critical Thinking - David Bercot

Hi, I'm David Burso, and today we're going to be starting a series of lessons entitled "How to Arrive at Truth Through Critical Thinking." When it comes to knowledge about God, we have only one ultimate source, and that's the Bible.

So this series of lessons will be primarily focusing on how to arrive at God's truth by applying critical thinking to the study of Scripture. Sermons, commentaries, and other Bible aids are valuable only to the extent that they shine authentic light on the text of Scripture.

So we will also be talking about how to accurately assess what is said about Scripture in sermons and books. Now, I need to state at the outset that I believe that the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit, that it is inerrent, and that it is the Word of God.

I also believe that it is the only book that can make that claim. So in this course, I'm not going to try to prove those fundamental propositions. I would need to do a separate course on apologetics to discuss those claims, but I'm mentioning them so that you'll know the framework from which I'm working.

We need to approach the study of Scripture prayerfully, asking for God's guidance and for the illumination of the Holy Spirit when we read and study Scripture. The Holy Spirit is never going to guide us to a different understanding of Scripture than He gave to the first-century Christians.

Yet when it comes to obtaining the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it's not automatic. There are several principles of which we need to be aware that many Christians overlook. And the first principle is that we must be an earnest, honest seeker of truth. After all, Jesus declared, "The hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.

God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." That's from John 4:23 and 24. So we must worship God not only in spirit but also in truth. And if we're not a truth-oriented person, we can't expect much assistance from the Holy Spirit.

That's because we will end up brushing aside any help He will try to give us. The only thing He can guide us towards is truth. But if we have closed our minds to what is true, we'll end up quenching the spirit.

Not only that, if we aren't open to truth, then we're not the type of person God is looking for. He is looking for lovers of truth.

The huge problem is that we may think we're a lover of truth, but unless we're willing to honestly apply the standards of truth, then we may be unintentionally hindering the work of the Spirit in our lives when it comes to correctly understanding the Scriptures.

And that's the reason for this course on how to arrive at truth through critical thinking. Now, in this context, when we speak of critical thinking, we're not talking about fault-finding. We're talking about thinking honestly and analytically. We're talking about avoiding biases and fallacies and just plain lazy, gullible thinking.

The second principle is that we must recognize that the fundamentals of the faith were once for all handed down in the beginning, and they aren't negotiable. Jude writes, "Beloved, while I was very diligent to write you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints."

That's Jude 1:3. So the faith was once for all handed down. It didn't develop over time, and it doesn't keep changing to "keep up with the times." We Christians in the 21st century need to make sure that what we believe and practice today is the same thing that they believed and practiced back in the beginning.

Now, the third principle for truth seekers is that the Christians who lived at the end of the first century correctly grasped the faith. And I'm not just saying this as an opinion. We have the direct testimony of the Apostle John.

In his first letter written around AD 95, the Apostle John declared, "I have written to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the Word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the wicked one." That's 1 John 2:14. So Christians at the end of the first century correctly understood the Christian faith. And John commends them because they know God. They are spiritually strong, and the Word of God abides in them. And we should rejoice in this fact because it makes our job a whole lot easier today.

We simply have to discover what Christians believed at the end of the first century. We don't have to figure out everything from scratch as though we are the first ones to come across the New Testament. And happily, this will tie us back into the Holy Spirit because the Spirit is not going to lead us to a different understanding of Scripture than He gave to those Christians who lived at the end of the first century.

In other words, critical thinking and examination doesn't lead us away from the Holy Spirit. It leads us back to the Holy Spirit.

So let's talk about steps to interpreting the Scriptures critically and honestly. The first step is to start with a blank slate. A century or so ago, school students often had a small chalkboard or slate on which they would write school assignments and take notes in class. Now, imagine trying to write on such a chalk slate if it was already full of writing. You couldn't do it. Back in the old days, you'd have to get an eraser and erase all of the writing off of it before you could write something new.

Well, it's the same with studying Scripture. If we're already certain in our minds that we know what a particular passage or verse means or that we know everything fundamentally that the Scriptures teach, then it's next to impossible to learn anything that would contradict that. And it's very difficult for the Spirit to teach us anything new or to correct any errors because our minds are made up.

Now, the huge problem is that when it comes to Scripture, very few of us have a blank slate. And this isn't because of anything bad. No, if we had Christian parents, they should have instructed us in the faith, at least what they believed the faith to be.

And churches should instruct their members and potential members in the faith. The person who brought us to Christ should have instructed us in the basics of Christianity. So the fact that we don't have a blank slate isn't because of something bad.

But that doesn't change the fact that our prior indoctrination is probably the biggest single obstacle to finding God's complete truth. It's not that our prior indoctrination was all false. I doubt that that's ever the case. In fact, sometimes people's prior indoctrination, let's say, is 90% true.

But from what I've found, most of them will resist to the bitter end. If what they have been taught is 90% true, they will resist to the bitter end any effort to persuade them that maybe they're wrong on that remaining 10%. No, they're not wrong in anything.

So how do we deal with the fact that we aren't each starting with a blank slate? Well, the first thing is to acknowledge that we aren't starting with a blank slate. In other words, we need to recognize that we have a problem. We shouldn't pretend that we are honestly and openly examining Scripture when we have all these preconceptions about what the Scriptures already mean.

Now, second, we should analyze what our biases are. I mean, for most of us, we already have firm beliefs on what the Bible teaches about God, about Christ, about salvation, baptism, life after death, and various other topics. I mean, that's fine and normal. But we must acknowledge that we're not starting off or that we are starting off with those biases.

All right, the third step is probably the hardest part. Okay, once we've acknowledged we don't have a blank slate and once we acknowledge what our biases are, we need to recognize that what we believe on these various subject matters concerning Scripture may be wrong, at least in some areas.

And that's the hard part. Of course, at the same time, what we've been taught to believe may well be right in most areas, and certainly it's going to be right in many areas. But we can't know that unless we're willing to critically examine our beliefs. And we can't critically examine our beliefs if we think there's no possibility that we could be wrong on any of the fundamentals of the faith or any of the important matters. I'll give you an example, just a life experience.

I think as most of you know, I've mentioned it in many of my messages. I grew up as a Jehovah's Witness. Now, Jehovah's Witnesses believe that their governing body, the ones at the top of their organization who put out all of their teaching and make all of the governmental decisions, they don't believe that they are infallible, but they believe that the individual members cannot have spiritual light that the ones at the top don't have. And so the only spiritual light that we can have is what is revealed through the pages of The Watchtower and their other publications.

And again, it's possible that some of those things are wrong, but you're not going to know if they're wrong until God reveals it to the governing body, and then they change it in one of their Watchtower articles or in one of the books that comes out. So when you're a Jehovah's Witness, everything that's given to you, you have to accept as being true. You're not allowed to question it, even a little part of it. And you do assume that everything you believe, for the most part, is exactly what is true, that you have a complete understanding of the Bible. And so, yeah, how can you make an examination of what the Scriptures actually teach? You couldn't as a Jehovah's Witness.

I remember one day when I was out knocking on doors, and I had another brother my same age with me. I was maybe 21 at that time. And we were talking with somebody at the door. He was the one doing the talking. And he told the lady—I forget what led up to it—but he told the lady, "A couple of years ago, I did an examination of all of the different churches, what they teach, and I compared it with the Bible. And I came to the conclusion that what Jehovah's Witnesses teach matches the Bible better than what any other churches teach."

And I forget where the conversation went from there. But when we left the door, I turned to him and asked him, "I thought you grew up a Jehovah's Witness?" He said, "Oh, I did." And I said, "So when did you make that examination?" And as I said, he said it was just a few years ago.

I said, "Well, how could you examine? You already believe—I mean, were you doubting that Jehovah's Witnesses were true?" He said, "No, no, I was just comparing what all the churches teach." Well, that's not an honest examination. I mean, your mind was already made up that you had the truth and that everyone else was in darkness. So if you have that kind of mindset, don't think that the Holy Spirit can teach you anything.

And if you're in a church that doesn't allow you to question things, then it's going to be very difficult to make an honest search for truth, particularly if you believe there's no possibility that your church or denomination could be wrong.

Now, if all of this is making you a little bit nervous and if you're thinking, "David, are you suggesting that the Christian faith might be totally different than what I've always believed?" Well, if you're thinking that, let me give you some reassuring news. No, I'm not suggesting that at all. In fact, I want to read to you the Apostles' Creed. It's the oldest statement of faith we have. And in various forms, it would date back close to the time of the Apostle John. And I mentioned that John said that both the older men and the younger men—and this is at the time of his death around the year 95—that they were strong in the faith, that the Word of God abided in them.

So when we look at the Apostles' Creed, I think we can feel pretty confident, yeah, this reflects what the Scriptures teach and what Christians believed at the end of the first century.

And I want to read it to you. Some of you will know it already by memory. But for those of you who don't or just need a refresher, I'm going to read it. It's very short. It says, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended to Hades.

On the third day, rose again from the dead, ascended to heaven, sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there, He will come to judge the living and the dead." It continues, "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Universal or Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting."

And that's it.

Now, unless you belong to a really far-out church somewhere that I've never heard of, I'm sure you believe all those things that I've just stated. There may be a few things in there that maybe you don't understand at the present moment, but I don't think there was anything in there like, "No, I don't believe that."

And I would say that maybe there are four or five other doctrines that aren't included in the Apostles' Creed that the early Christians would have also viewed as fundamentals of the faith. But that's it. So in other words, most people already hold to what the Christians back there at the time of the Apostle John, what they thought were the essentials of the faith.

So most of the doctrines that Christians argue about today were considered by the early Christians as non-essentials. I mean, our problem isn't that we don't believe enough. It's that we're dogmatic about too many things. I mean, compare the Apostles' Creed with most statements of faith that you see in churches today. I mean, we have these long, detailed doctrinal statements. Sometimes they have 30 different points to them or something like that.

Whereas the Christians back close to the time of the Apostles, they had this really short statement of faith.

On the other hand, what's missing in the lives of most professing Christians today are the lifestyle teachings of the New Testament. Because most Christians today have been taught that they can safely ignore many of the New Testament commandments. And that's one reason it's so very important that we read the Scriptures in an honest, objective manner.

Otherwise, we may be overlooking important commandments that will greatly affect our relationship with God. And of course, there may be some key doctrines there outside of the Apostles' Creed that we may be overlooking as well.

So let's talk about how to read the Scriptures honestly and objectively.

The first rule, and these are rules for reading the Scriptures objectively, honestly, is to take the first rule is to take Scripture at face value. In other words, read it for what it says. Don't try to read something into it.

And when I say take it at face value, it doesn't mean we ignore the fact that the Bible contains different types of material. I mean, some of the literature in the Bible is instruction, some of it's history, some of it's prophecy, some of it is parables, and other parts are apocalyptic writings.

And so not all of those can be taken literally, but certainly the instruction can be and most of the history. And the commandments, in other words, when we are reading commandments, well, they mean exactly what they say, and that's how we should take them. We shouldn't try to get around God's commandments by various artful means.

Unfortunately, that's what many professing Christians today do. They minimize or skirt around the teachings of Jesus and the apostles by different very artful means. I mean, one of them is they claim they were using hyperbole or exaggeration when they gave this commandment or that commandment.

People say, "Oh, they didn't intend their commandments to be taken literally." At other times, modern Christians will say that, "Oh, well, those commandments only applied back there in that culture. They don't apply today in our culture." And those are just a few examples of the clever way people try to get around New Testament teachings. But as I said, rule number one is to take Scripture at face value. Don't try to skirt around what it says.

Rule number two is don't cherry-pick passages of Scripture. And what we mean by cherry-picking Scriptures is to selectively quote only those passages that fit our position or our viewpoint while ignoring those Scriptures that contradict our beliefs. It's sometimes called proof texting. And when we do it, we are being intellectually dishonest.

When we're honestly researching what the Scriptures teach on any given subject, we need to look at what all the Scriptures have to say on that particular subject. We're not going to find truth by picking and choosing only those verses we like. We can bolster our position, but we're not going to find truth.

Now, when we do look at all the verses that pertain to a given subject, we'll often find that many of them say one thing, but then other verses seem to say the opposite. And what do we do in a situation like that?

Well, we definitely don't want to ignore the Scriptures that we don't like or that don't fit maybe the bulk of the Scriptures. Now, I'm assuming that most of you, like myself, believe that the Scriptures are inerrant or infallible.

Therefore, the Bible does not contradict itself. There might be verbal contradictions between various verses, but there's always an intellectually honest way to harmonize those verses. Now, right now, I'm not talking so much about historical difficulties. I mean, I'll give you an example. Matthew says that Judas went out and hanged himself after betraying Jesus. But Acts says that Judas fell headlong and burst open in the middle.

Now, seeming contradictions like that do need to be explained, but that's not what I'm talking about today. I'm talking about conflicts that concern doctrine. And I'll give you probably the most classic example. James writes, "Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar?"

Do you see that faith was working together with his works? And by works, faith was made perfect. And the Scripture was fulfilled, which says, "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness, and he was called a friend of God." You see then that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. That's James 2:21-24.

Yet in Romans, Paul writes, "For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now, to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. But to him who does not work, but believes on him, who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness." That's Romans 4:2-5.

So on the surface, those verses say the exact opposite. And yet they both quote the passage in Genesis to support what they are saying.

And those two passages are not alone on talking about the subject of works and salvation. There are many Scriptures that clearly teach that works or obedience are essential for salvation. Yet there are plenty of passages that clearly say we are saved by grace through faith apart from works.

Now, from what I've seen, most churches take either one or the other of those two groups of Scriptures, and then they ignore the other group. In other words, they'll take the group that talks about works, and they try to ignore the ones that talk about salvation through grace. Or other ones want to take all the verses that talk about grace or faith, and they want to shove under the rug all the verses that talk about the need for obedience.

But that's not an honest approach to Scripture. And we'll never find God's truth by doing that kind of thing. Now, happily, when we examine the context of the various verses we're looking at, we often find that this clears up the discrepancies.

Let's take, for example, what we've been talking about, the two different teachings on salvation. Now, if we honestly examine the context of all of those verses, then usually that will clear up the problem. If you look up the context of all of the passages where Paul says that we are not saved by works, you'll usually find one of two things.

One, you'll find often that he's talking about works of the Mosaic Law. A good example is the entire letter to the Galatians. There are Paul says several times, "We are not saved by works." If you go and look it up, it is crystal clear. He is talking about works of the Mosaic Law. He himself says that time after time throughout Galatians.

And when he's not talking about works of the Mosaic Law, then what you'll find, I think, in every other situation is that he is talking about the fact that no works of any kind need to precede our initial salvation. He's talking about at the time that we get saved, at our initial salvation, we are saved solely by grace through faith.

We didn't have to perform any good works first or any acts of obedience first in order to get saved. In contrast, when we look at the context of when Jesus talks about works and James and other writers, including Paul himself, when they talk about being justified by our works, and Paul talks about that as well, the context of those passages shows that they're not talking about our initial salvation, but about our ongoing salvation right now or about our future salvation. They're not talking about our past salvation.

So examining the context will often clear up verses that seem to be contradictory. In fact, I would say 90% of the time it will do that. Now, when the context doesn't clear it up, we usually can let the majority of the verses interpret the few verses that seem to be saying something contradictory. In other words, if we just can't figure it out from the context, then, yeah, if we've got 12 verses that say this and two verses that say something contradictory, well, then I think we can let the 12 verses help to explain the two that seem to be out of step. The classic example of this principle is Jesus' statement where he said, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, in his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."

That's Luke 14:26. Now, if we took that teaching at face value, and normally we do take teachings at face value, but not 100% of the time, I mean, there are exceptions, and we take that at face value, it would seem that Jesus is telling us to hate everybody, that he's preaching a gospel of hate.

But we have, in contrast to that single passage where he says that, we have dozens and dozens of Scriptures that teach just the opposite. For example, we have the passage in Matthew 5:43-44 where Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you." So if Jesus wants us to love even our enemies, certainly he wants us to love our parents and our wife or husband and our children. I mean, that goes without saying.

At another time, Jesus was asked, "What is the greatest commandment?" And this was his reply. He said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." So if we're to love our neighbor, are we to hate our children or our parents?

I mean, that doesn't make sense. On another occasion, Jesus told his disciples, this is from John 13, he said, "A new commandment I give you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another."

So it's all about love. Jesus commanded his disciples to love and not hate, and that love would be their distinguishing mark. And once we leave the teachings of Jesus, we find the apostles taught a gospel of love as well. I'm going to just quote a number of passages from Paul. The first one is at Romans 12:10. He said, "Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love in honor giving preference to one another."

And again, in Romans 13:8, Paul writes, "Oh no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law." In other words, the whole law hangs on just love. Again, 1 Corinthians 13:1-2. We all know this one, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." And again, Ephesians 5:25, "Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her."

So Jesus said to hate your wife, and Paul says, "No love your wives." And I could go on and on with so many quotes from both the Old and the New Testaments showing that God wants us to love one another and that he's never changed in that regard. He also commands us to honor our parents, not to hate them. So although we normally take passages of instruction in the Scriptures at face value, if we do that with Luke 14:26, where Jesus commands us to hate our father, mother, siblings, and wife, it would directly contradict all of these other passages of Scripture. It would contradict Jesus himself.

So in that case, we give honor to the many verses. You've got probably 50 to 100 verses that say we are to love one another and that one single verse. No, you don't take one verse and make all of the others subject to it. You realize that, okay, this verse, Jesus here is talking figuratively.

Or at least he's using something other than literal speech. He's meaning evidently that our love for him must surpass all other earthly loves, even the love of our spouse, our children, and our own life. Okay, so we've looked at four principles up to now on correctly interpreting the Bible.

And just to refresh your memory, I'll go over them. The first one was to read the Scriptures at face value. Unless you're reading highly figurative passages or apocalyptic writings or ones like we just saw there in Luke, that's obviously hyperbole.

All right, the second rule was don't proof text or cherry pick Scriptures, just getting the ones that you like and ignoring the others. The third one is don't take Scriptures out of their context. Look to see what the context is.

And then finally, when there is a conflict among Scriptures and the context doesn't sort it out, which usually it will, then normally the majority of verses will interpret the few verses, as we saw there with the teaching of hate your father and mother.

Okay, but now comes the reality check. I feel certain that you agree with everything I've said so far about interpreting Scripture. In fact, you've probably not heard anything new. I think everyone who calls themselves Christians would agree with the principles I've laid out because they're not unique to me. You can pick up just about any book or article about Bible interpretation, and you'll find that they repeat those same four points plus some others.

So then all Christians agree on matters of theology and practice, right?

No, they don't, as we well know. I mean, Jehovah's Witnesses would advocate every one of those four principles that I've enumerated. Yet they've come up with teachings that are often at odds with just about every other church there is.

Both Roman Catholics and Protestants support these same principles. Yet they believe very different things in many areas. Calvinists espouse all these principles, and yet so do Arminians. Christians who believe in unconditional eternal security promote those principles, but so do Christians who teach that our security in Christ is conditional.

So is the problem that these principles are invalid? No, not at all. The problem isn't the principles. They are all valid. The problem goes back to what we said at the beginning. We can't begin to hope that we will come to an accurate understanding of Scripture unless we start with a blank slate.

Yet we've all been pre-indoctrinated as to what we believe or what we should believe. And as a result, we don't have a blank slate. We bring all of our biases with us when we read Scripture. And I think if all Christians were gut honest, I think most Christians would have to acknowledge, "My rule for interpreting Scripture is that whatever my church says the Scripture means is right."

Now, I realize that few Christians will acknowledge that except for, say, Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. But that's really the truth of the matter, that what my church says is what Scripture means. And so an Arminian, somebody who believes in free will, will read the Scriptures and say, "The vast majority of Scriptures teach free will." And if you examine the context of those verses that seem to teach predestination, you'll see that that is not what they're really saying.

But a Calvinist will read those very same Scriptures and say, "The Scriptures are clear that God predestines everything." And those verses that seem to teach free will are being taken out of context. So is there no answer to this massive confusion?

Yes, there is a way out of this impasse. And we'll be talking about it in the next lesson on how to arrive at truth through critical thinking. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed. This is the first of our new course on how to find truth through critical thinking. The remainder of this course will not be posted on YouTube any longer. If you want to join us and watch these come out monthly, they will be on the Engage the Faith tab on the Historic Faith Online Courses website. Thank you.