FdD Notebook No. 16 – 6/18/25
Rights and Inspiration - Seeking God - Old aerial views
Bonjour dear readers,
Last Sunday, the discussion topic for the Flambeaux (the “Torches”, our group of middle school students) was the resurrection of Jesus. We discussed various attempts to explain away the miracle, and then we gathered the facts we could find in historical documents (Mark, John, 1 Corinthians) to evaluate these theories. What we discovered is that the combination of the facts of Jesus' death, His burial, the appearances of Jesus after His death, and the empty tomb strongly resists any explanation other than the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
You won't be surprised to hear that middle schoolers sometimes lack focus, but their participation was energetic, and they clearly understood the basic idea. It was fun to see how enthusiastic they were about discussing the truth of Christianity through this intersection of faith and history.
A brief argument for the Bible as God’s Word
If we wanted to seriously address the question of the divine inspiration of the Scriptures, it would require much more than a blog post. However, it often happens that when we want to offer a justification for this belief, we don't have time for a long speech, which is why I wanted to come up with a concise argument to defend this foundation of the Christian faith. The approach I came up with leverages the fact that the vast majority of moderns firmly believe in human rights, and points out that the source of this belief is the divine revelation of the Bible:
The only viable foundation for human rights is the doctrine that man is created in the image of God.
The source of this doctrine is Genesis 1:27.
The only way to know that man is created in the image of God is if God says so.
Human rights exist if and only if Genesis 1:27 is the Word of God.
Human rights do exist.
Therefore, Genesis 1:27 is the Word of God.
1) The only viable foundation for human rights is the doctrine that man is created in the image of God
The assertion that all humans possess certain rights simply by virtue of being human is a remarquable claim. What is the reason for this reality, and how does it come to apply to humans and not animals or plants or bacteria? It can’t be one of our capacities such as intelligence or language, because that would deprive certain humans of rights. Nor can it be a material aspect of our being, since our bodies do not significantly differ from those of animals.
The doctrine that man is made in the image of God resolves all these difficulties. This imago Dei is a spiritual reality that applies to every human being without distinction, while being unique to humans. And since this reality weaves a link between human nature and that of God, it confers a dignity upon human beings that serves as a basis for the rights in question.
2) The source of this doctrine is Genesis 1:27
This concept of the imago Dei finds its unique origin in the Jewish Scriptures:
God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Genesis 1:27
Cf. Genesis 5:1, 9:6, James 3:9
3) The only way to know that man is created in the image of God is if God says so
We do not have access to God's very nature to find out if something resembles Him. Only God knows what His nature is, and only God is capable of saying whether man bears His image or not. If Genesis 1:27 is merely Jewish speculation, it would be without authority whatsoever and unable to serve as the foundation for human rights. However, if it is God Himself who declares this doctrine, it is a certain truth.
4) Human rights exist if and only if Genesis 1:27 is the Word of God
If God is the author of Genesis 1:27, then man bears the image of God, and human rights exist. Otherwise, there is no reason to believe that man is made in the image of God, and human rights are a theory without foundation or authority.
5) Human rights do exist
Thanks to the historical influence of Christianity, the reality of these rights is generally recognized. It is a presupposition that largely governs our way of conceiving the world. For example, we consider slavery to be evil because humans have a fundamental right to freedom. But if this right does not exist, then all our ideas about justice are built on nothing.
6) Genesis 1:27 is the Word of God
Our conception of justice based on human rights ultimately depends on the fact that Genesis 1:27 is the Word of God. Therefore, at least one verse in the Bible is the Word of God, which establishes the principle that God speaks in the Bible. If we wanted to continue by determining the precise boundaries of the canon of Scripture, that would be another (longer) discussion, but the fundamental idea is proven if God speaks in the Bible at least once.
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Who seeks God ?
Excerpt from Martin Luther’s Commentary on Romans
There is none that seeketh after God (3.11) That is true both of those that do not at all care for God and of those who seek after Him, or rather who imagine themselves to seek after God. They do not seek after God as He desires to be sought and found, namely, not by human wisdom and searching, but by faith and in humility. The Apostle first says that there is none that understandeth, and that there is none that seeketh after God, for the understanding goes before the willing and doing. The true seeking after God, which moves man to dedication and obedience, follows upon the right understanding (of God). The understanding which is without the seeking after God, is dead, just as faith without works is dead and neither quickens nor justifies. The understanding, of which the Apostle here speaks, is nothing else than the faith itself or the spiritual apprehension of things which cannot be seen, but must be believed. It is the understanding of that which man cannot know of himself, as we read in John 14:6: "No man cometh unto the Father, but by me." Of Peter (who had this understanding), Christ said in Matthew 16:17: "Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." The inward desire or seeking after God is true love for God, which moves believers to long for and love that which this (spiritual) understanding makes known to them. In this life we never reach such perfection that we fully possess God, but we must continuously seek after Him; indeed, we must seek Him evermore, as the Psalmist says in Psalm 105:4: "Seek the Lord ... seek his face evermore." Those who do not make progress in seeking after God, are bound to retrogress; indeed, those who do not seek, will lose that which they already have obtained. We must never stand still in seeking after God.1
Reading
This month I plunged into the stack of books that I ambitiously piled up for the summer. So far, I’ve finished Why We’re Not Emergent by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck, and Commentary on Romans by Martin Luther. Now I’m in Le dernier jour d’un condamné by Victor Hugo while also doing a good bit of reading on “divine hiddenness” for one of my Masters’ papers.
History
I was fascinated by this restored and colorized video taken from a dirigible in 1919:
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Forever, O Lord, your word
is firmly fixed in the heavens.
Psalm 119:89
Luther, Martin. Commentary on Romans. Translated by John Theodore Mueller. Grand Rapids MI: Kregel Publications, 1992, p. 70-71.