Apologetics: Debunking Deconstruction – Why Didn’t God Just Blip the Bible into Existence? (Plus a Bonus Question)

One of the arguments I’ve heard against Christianity recently is the question of “Why didn’t God just write the Bible himself?” or, as I put it, blip it into existence. I think it’s an interesting point about Christianity and worth a blog post exploring it. Was it wise for God to give His word to scribes to record? And as a bonus question to go with this one, why didn’t God put it in us to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that His word is the legit thing?

The problem with this question is that it doesn’t recognize that having the Bible written by numerous scribes over thousands of years actually lends the Bible a certain amount of credibility that wouldn’t be there if God just blipped it into existence at the beginning of time. The first bit of credibility the scribes lend to the text is that they lived over thousands of years, most of them never knew each other, and they still managed to write something where the stories remain consistent with little to no variation and no major contradictions. That’s incredibly hard to do, and very few people ever manage to pull it off successfully, especially when the material in question is way older than they are. For example, just try to write something that’s consistent with Tolkien in the same voice and style he used with the same depth without plagiarizing it. For the vast majority of people, you won’t be able to do it.

The second reason why the scribes lend more credence to the Bible is because if the Bible had just randomly appeared in a complete form, you would still have people questioning its validity and they would have more ground on which to question. A complete work that just suddenly appears out of nowhere for seemingly no apparent reason is a lot more suspicious than a work that was compiled by several different authors and copied down over the course of thousands of years. Christians would have a lot less ground to base their defenses on when confronted with questions like, “How do we know it was God who wrote this?” or “How do you know it’s true?” The sudden appearance of a complete text would also have made it more susceptible to early corruption, meanwhile many texts written and painstakingly copied over the centuries were harder to corrupt.

The third reason why the Bible wasn’t just blipped into existence is because if it was, we wouldn’t have freewill. The beauty of the Bible is that God leaves some things intentionally vague so that we’re 1). prompted to go on a hunt to find the answers that lead to God or 2). reject God. The original purpose of man is to have a personal relationship to God. When Adam and Eve ate of the tree, they rejected that relationship for the purpose of exalting themselves. If God just blipped the Bible into existence, explained everything totally, and left no reason to question or doubt, while that may seem more convenient, the relationship would ultimately turn into a slave-master relationship. We would be serving God out of fear, not choosing to love him. We would be operating on what keeps us alive.

Now for the bonus follow-up question: “Why didn’t God instill in us a feeling that the Bible is 100% true that we can’t ignore?” The first reason why God didn’t do this is because our feelings (especially in our current sinful state) are often a suspect and unreliable guide to truth. This isn’t to say that our emotions are entirely bad. Our emotions can be a gift from God. They’re part of what makes us human. However, to base your view of truth entirely on emotion is not a good thing. For example, Mormons teach that you’ll know that the Book of Mormon is true because you’ll feel a “burning in the bosom,” which is a metaphorical expression for the peace you’ll supposedly feel thanks to a confirmation by the Holy Spirit (in medical terms, this usually means you need either need Pepto-Bismol or need to see a doctor as you may be having a heart attack or other cardiac event.) This, however, is not a good guide as archaeology, anthropology, and a basic understanding of history shows that the Book of Mormon is no better than a fantasy book possibly set in a fictionalized version of Mesoamerica.

The second reason why God didn’t leave it to our emotions to understand the Bible’s validity is because (once again) He wants a personal relationship with us, and that includes wrestling with His word. In fact, the name He gives Jacob in Gensis – Israel – literally means “One who struggles with God.” We are called to do the same thing intellectually as Christians. No religion should be considered true if it cannot intellectually satisfy the questions of life, questions such as, “Who is God?”, “What is man and his purpose?”, “How did we get here?”, etc. The Bible gives a satisfactory answer to all of that if we are humble and brave enough to look for it.

Until next time,

M.J.