I have likely spent more on this than I should, or perhaps I have not spent anywhere near enough. But, I have sought to establish these three legs upon which to set out on this exploration of doctrinal truths. The first and strongest leg consists in God being perfect, and perfectly sovereign. The second leg consists in Truth being certain, absolute, and self-consistent. The third leg consists in Scripture being the reliable record of Truth as God has declared it, Who alone is of sufficient perfection to declare it.
I lay these out as fundamentals because they are as the predicates for any theory of doctrine. Let me return but briefly to the topic of scientific pursuits. Science is, at its base, the efforts to establish laws of existence based on theory and observation. That said, as it is with the search for how existence came to exist, so it is with any scientific pursuit. At some juncture, one necessarily arrives at the unprovable starting point. There MUST be initial assumptions, matters that cannot be proven apart from reference to themselves. Proof would effectively require proving the negative, that is to say, to truly prove the premise would require the exhaustive investigation of everything, on the off chance we find one thing that doesn’t hold up. We could argue that the values of one and zero are of such a nature. We cannot truly prove those values are what they are. However, the vast body of experimental evidence provides us with more than sufficient cause to accept those values as correct. You cannot prove them true, but you can certainly consider them sufficiently demonstrated true until and unless there comes some system shock that demonstrably shows them false.
I am going to suggest that these three points: God’s Sovereignty, Truth’s Absolute, and Scripture’s Infallibility are the one and zero of doctrine, the points that must be accepted, if not entirely proven. I would maintain that these three, though effectively unprovable, are yet sufficiently demonstrated true as to deserve every bit as much acceptance as are the values of one and zero. The vast body of evidence supports the accuracy of the initial premises, and there has not arisen – I would argue cannot arise – any such piece of evidence as would be shown to undermine these points. Many have tried, but God, His Truth, and His Word stand unchanged.
