ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY
By Timothy Glover
A popular view regarding religious and moral standards is that there are no fixed standards of proper conduct applicable to all people everywhere. According to this view, ethical truths depend on the various groups and individuals holding them, so that what is believed to be right by one person or group may be considered wrong by another. This concept is probably because we live in a period of such rapid change. The findings of science have to be continually revised as new factors are discovered. The answer to a problem depends upon the factors involved in the problem, and if one of the factors were omitted, you will likely get the wrong answer. For instance, it has been discovered now, or we think it has, that light does not travel in a straight line nor at a constant speed but is influenced by the gravitational field through which it is passing. Think what that will do to all the conclusions that have been drawn about the distance of the stars or even their direction. Much of our knowledge in that area is relative. Yet, we have a lot of dogmatic statements made pertaining to the same.
However, if one accepts the absolute sovereignty of God, the view that everything is relative cannot also be accepted. Two basic sources of knowledge exist – observation and revelation. The Bible reveals that the nature of man, God, and God’s authority is unchangeable, and certain. On the other hand, those who reject the inspiration of the Bible depend wholly on observation and deny any absolutes. Under observation, I include not only what we have observed ourselves, but what others have observed and told us about it, and logical conclusions drawn from that which has been observed. Even if we were to concur that God does not exist nor his inspired Word, we must still admit that there are some things, learned by observation alone, that are fixed and certain. If a man says he doesn’t know anything, then, of course, he can’t know that he doesn’t know anything, and the statement is self-contradictory. The best he could say would be something like, “I think I don’t know” or “I think I think that I don’t, and I can’t be sure of that.” Therefore, it is ridiculous for one to say that he cannot know anything.
In spite of all that you have heard, two plus two still equals four. Those numbers may be called by different names and different symbols may be used to represent them, but that many marks // plus that many marks // still equal that many //// by whatever name called and whatever symbol used to represent them. In plane geometry, the square on the hypotenuse of a right triangle still equals the sum of the squares on the other two sides.
Beginning with such a simple fact as the existence of this keyboard I am presently using, we can employ logical principles, acknowledged even by the relativists and infidels, that through observation we can be sure about the existence of things. By employing the same principles of observation, we can know that God exists. The nineteenth Psalm reads,
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.” (Psalm 19:1-6)
So, the stars declare as they shine, that the hand which made them is divine. They not only proclaim in a universal language the fact that God is, but also the fact of His glory and of His power. People any place in the world can read the language of the skies to know that God is and that he is powerful. Compare Psalm 19 with Romans 1:20. It reads:
For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse.
On the surface, this seems to be a very strange statement. The invisible things are clearly seen. How can you clearly see something that is invisible? The meaning is clear. The invisible things of God since the creation of the world are clearly seen by the things that have been made. We see an automobile; we know that somebody made it. You look at the watch on your wrist; you know there must be a watchmaker. Then you look at the big, wonderful universe and all the creation about us, including our own bodies which are so wonderfully and fearfully made, and they proclaim as clearly as language can possibly speak that the all-powerful, all-wise God does exist. To deny this, one would have to claim to be God himself and would therefore contradict himself in the very act. To claim that God does not exist, one would have to claim to know everything; else, the one thing he does not know might be the fact that God exists. He would have to claim to have been everywhere; otherwise, the one place he has not been might be where God is. Further, he would have to claim to have been everywhere at the same time; else, while he was going from one place to another, God might have done the same and escaped him. So, to say there is no God, one would have to claim to be omniscient and omnipresent. He would have to claim for himself the attributes of God.
