I came across an interesting quote in my reading this week. I've recently been studying on the "uniqueness of the Bible."
"The gospel has the marks of truth so great, so striking, so perfectly inimitable, that the inventor of it would be more astonishing than the hero."
What was so intriguing to me about this quote wasn't the high praise of uniqueness and "supernaturallty" that it gives scripture, but who it was that made this comment on the Scripture.
The words above are from Jean-Jacques Rousseau whose enlightenment philosophy helped "pave the way for humanistic liberalism."
While there were just as many, if not more, belligerent antagonists of the Bible throughout history as there are today (the Roman Emperor Diocletian sought to destroy ever copy of the bible in his time by burning every copy he could get his hands on) Rousseau's words make me wonder how someone could turn strictly to reason (enlightenment philosophy) yet see the bible as Rousseau did and make the decisions (philosophy and life) that he did.
It's not that reason is bad. Reason is great…Theology is, as Anselm put it: "Faith seeking understanding…" Yet, with a high view of scripture, where should our reasonings take us?
One of my favorite scripture verses is Isaiah 1.18
"Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool."
How can we recapture our "enlightend" culture today and help them to see the bible as Rousseau saw it, yet not leading them, obviously, down the path Rousseau followed?
