Scripturalism, Skepticism and Knowledge of Personal Salvation

Scripturalism does not allow one to know he is saved. It only allows one to know propositions contained in, or deducible from, Scripture. Scripturalists, also, contend that they cannot know that the Bible in their hands is not chocked full of errors due to a factory defect or, say, a cunningly devised scheme. This, of course, presents no problem for knowing propositions contained in Scripture because Scripture transcends a publisher’s printing of a "Bible." Scripture is, also, more reliable than a newspaper’s reporting of the outcome of a sporting event. Scripture is infallible; the daily rag is not. Now indeed, Scripture, as the Confession teaches, is not to be received on the authority of man or the Church (or Zondervan for that matter) but upon God, the author of Scripture. Given the self-attesting authority of God’s word, man can be fully persuaded and assured of its truth by the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word, in our hearts. (WCF 1.5)

If there were false statements in a publication that is called “The Bible,” we can expect that God would not persuade men they were true, let alone that they were Scripture. Moreover, as Gordon Clark intimated (and Ronald Nash concurred), Scripture is not ink on a page, let alone sounds in the air, but God’s living revelation to man. As such, Bible translations may theoretically contain propositions that are false, even heretical, which would both imply and corroborate that the propositions contained therein must be considered on their own merit and received not because they are bound in a book that bears a particular title but only if they have the fingerprint of God upon them. In this sense, strictly speaking, we cannot know that verses such as 1 John 5:13 are true simply because they are recorded in a “Bible” translation: “These, things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.” That verse, like all verses, is a proposition that awaits divine confirmation of its truth yet it does not gain its authority upon that confirmation.

Regarding the proposition “R.A. knows he has savingly believed in Jesus,” that too is a proposition that exists in the mind of God, just like 1 John 5:13 does. (I couldn’t otherwise know that the proposition existed if it did not first exist in God’s mind.) It’s noteworthy that neither proposition in and of itself, whether written or not, is any more persuasive than the other. One proposition may come with more authority (depending on whether I am saved) and is certainly more universally able to be known; yet notwithstanding the persuasive power that must accompany the knowledge of either proposition rests solely on the Holy Spirit sovereignly working in conjunction with the truth of the proposition. Now of course God knows whether the personal proposition is true, just like he knows whether 1 John 5:13 is true. The only question is whether God ever bears witness to one’s personal salvation based upon promises contained in Scripture. I guess one’s answer to that question would at least in part depend upon what he thought of Romans 8:16: “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” At any rate, if God were to persuade a person that an affirming proposition as it pertains to personal salvation is in fact true, then the subject would have an illumination of the truth of a personal application of a revelatory promise of God - that whosoever believes… shall be saved. This assurance of salvation, as the Confession teaches, is not a “bare conjectural and probable persuasion grounded upon a fallible hope; but an infallible assurance of faith, founded upon the divine truth of the promises of salvation, the inward evidence of those graces unto which these promises are made, the testimony of the Spirit of adoption witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God; which Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance, whereby we are sealed to the day of redemption.” WCF 18.2  Accordingly, the justification for the true belief of personal salvation is no mere inductive inference but as the Confession states it is according to “the testimony of the Spirit.” {That the Spirit justifies to the spirit in men that they are saved does not logically imply that the Spirit testifies that necessarily water caused salt to dissolve in water yesterday (assuming no accidental necessity); nor does it deny it; and certainly it does not imply that salt will necessarily dissolve in water tomorrow, or always. Again, nor does it deny it. So, from a Confessional standpoint we must draw a sharp distinction between inductive inference and the Spirit’s testimony that one is saved. No more, no less. I digress.}

There is, I think, a common lapse in thinking that occurs in discussions such as these. For instance, Scripturalists wrongly think that (a) as long as there is the possibility of substituting an imposter person for the real one, there is no chance of knowing that the person in front of us is who we think. I’ve even heard it said that (b) since we can be (have been?) wrong about another person’s salvation one therefore cannot know whether he himself is saved. Regarding (a), the Scripturalist needs to demonstrate that the justification for believing that we see x when x is actually and truly before us cannot be equally robust as the justification for believing Scripture aright upon the testimony of God himself. Or was seeing the resurrected Christ, or the miracles he performed, any less revelational or useful in bringing about epistemic certainty than the scriptural propositional-interpretation of what those sightings implied? Doesn't God testify not only to his Word but to all his works, whether creation, providence or miracles that he has performed? (All of this, by the way, has nothing to do with induction and asserting the consequent, as too often some Scripturalists complain.)

Scripturalists must show,

p: it is false that one can be as justified in believing he knows any non-Scriptural true proposition than believing he can know the most difficult proposition from Scripture, that p*

This line of reasoning, of course, is not to assume a position by definition (that one can know he sees x) and then argue for it fallaciously from silence. Not at all, but rather it presupposes a burden of proof.

Was it impossible in the realm of ordinary providence that those who believed they saw Jesus after the resurrection actually knew it was Jesus? Were the "eyewitnesses" to the risen Christ not capable of knowing it was Christ? Surely they were culpable for what they witnessed. Should Thomas have kept on not believing that he knew he touched Jesus after he had touched Jesus? Or, did he not know at all that he touched Jesus and, therefore, should have remained skeptical? Or maybe he knew only way after the fact, when it became a proposition of Scripture that he had touched Jesus. In the like manner, do the heavens declare the glory of God only after learning they do from special revelation? If so, then it would not be the heavens that declare God's glory. Wouldn't it have been ill advisable for the saints under both economies to affirm miracles they couldn't have known happened? Isn't that what Rome requires of its subjects, to believe that which cannot be known?

Regarding (b), there is no basis to believe that one ever knows the state of another’s soul. Consequently, being wrong on that front, even if one thought he knew he was right, is not analogous to the matter at hand. Moreover, the "certainty" one can have of his own salvation when not saved is a matter of self-deception that can easily be fleshed out from above {under “Regarding (a)”}. Stated positively, one’s justification when knowledge obtains can entail a more robust justification for holding any false belief, especially for a Sripturalist-internalist-infallibilist! So, I must disagree with Clark when he writes “So long as substitution is possible, certainty is impossible.” I'm afraid what Clark has done is not limit man in his finitude but God in his power to communicate. What’s worse, when this sort of limitation is applied by Scripturalists to man's knowledge of his own salvation (I don't say Clark does this) it is in the face of Scripture, which teaches one can know he has eternal life.

Finally, it’s interesting that Clark, for whom I have respect, been amused by and even profited from, when engaging George Mavrodes on revelation and epistemology referenced Romans 8:16 as a proof-text to defend the Reformed and biblical position that we know the word of God by the persuasive power of the Holy Spirit. The thing I find strange is that Romans 8:16 discloses the means by which we can know we are sons of God in Christ, one of the very things Scripturalists deny we can know.