(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)
So we’ve already seen that truth must support sound logic. Without truth, logic isn’t sound but rather is irrational. And while unsound reasoning can’t lead to certainty, sound reasoning does lead to certainty.
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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)
Through the Bible, God tells us about the ways He speaks. Every utterance of God is refined. But we don’t add to His words, lest He reprove us and we be found to be liars. (Proverbs 30:5-6) The Father sends the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost teaches us just as He teaches everyone who’s following Christ. (John 14:26) The Holy Spirit testifies of Jesus. (John 15:26) He’ll show us things to come and guide us into all truth if we continue to listen to Him. (John 16:13) When we’re weak, He helps us. He even intercedes for us when we don’t know how to pray. (Romans 8:26)
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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)
God didn’t delegate the responsibility to discern divine revelation without giving us the power to discern. The fallen human mind can’t tell the difference between divine revelation and a clever fake. Discernment isn’t innate in us, but the Holy Spirit must live and move in us for His power to work. The Holy Spirit in us is the power to discern if we’re in submission to Him. Therefore, revelation is direct and doesn’t use our human interpretation of God’s revelation. If we’re rebellious, if we try to be independent of the Holy Spirit, we won’t have discernment. If we continue to interpret after God reveals, our interpretation twists what God revealed. So the double-minded person, the person who tries to follow both the human mind and the mind of Christ, receives nothing from the Lord. Double-minded thinkers twist and distort whatever they receive. And that’s why those who lean on their own minds cannot receive God’s revelation.
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart; and lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” ~ Proverbs 3:5-6 Authorized King James Version
We receive this trusting as a gift since we can’t trust God through human effort. Faith is free. It comes from God as He leads us. God gives faith and Christ is the Author of this faith. So when we stand in His presence in deep respect for Him and submission to Him, He speaks to us. And when we hear and acknowledge Him, faith comes by hearing Him. If we resist Him, He won’t force Himself or His wisdom on us.
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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)
So only the Holy Spirit can reveal the meaning of Scripture. And it’s not just Scripture, but when the Holy Spirit interprets any observation, experience, or revelation, the Spirit pulls our fleshly veils away so we can see reality as it is. The Holy Spirit never adds anything from unreality. On the other hand, when we interpret observation, experience, or revelation, we go beyond observation, experience, and revelation. We add some thoughts of unreality. We may even add unreality by failing to see something from the observation, experience, or revelation. Or we may deny some part of it. The fallen human mind may claim this process of adding unreality is reasonable. Technically, it’s a form of reasoning, but it’s not sane reasoning or sound reasoning. It’s insane since we can’t manufacture truth. We can only manufacture lies. We must get truth from somewhere. All truth is hidden in Christ. The Holy Spirit must reveal it to us. When the human mind tries to manufacture information, it just makes up stuff and calls the made-up stuff “true.”
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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)
We’ve already understood that no one can read the Bible or hear the Bible read without hearing God’s voice. And often, when leading us, the Holy Spirit will bring a Scripture to our remembrance. (John 14:26) And yet we may or may not recognize God’s voice. We may or may not acknowledge God as He reveals truth, doctrine, and the history of the world through Scripture. We may fail to acknowledge Him whether we’re reading Scripture, we’re hearing Scripture read, or the Holy Spirit is bringing Scripture to our remembrance. And when the Holy Spirit brings a Scripture to our remembrance, it’s revelation. It isn’t the same as us remembering something. The Holy Spirit brings it to our remembrance, so we aren’t the ones remembering, but the Holy Spirit gives us understanding. Not only so, but even when we read Scripture or hear someone reading Scripture, the Holy Spirit gives us the meaning. He pulls our fleshly veils away so we can understand the revelation He gives.
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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)
Let’s consider how drastic a move by God to send His own Son to die on our behalf. If there was another way, God would have found it and used it. Jesus prayed as He was in anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane. He asked the Father if there was any other way. There was none.
The way before us is narrow. We find many opportunities to leave the way.
We’re born again. That part was easy. Growing up is another matter. Most of the New Testament is about growing up. Only a few verses of the New Testament deal with being born again. We had to be born again. That was absolutely vital. Now, we must grow up into the Head. That is absolutely vital.
We would all love it if our journey was just a single step with no chance to make any mistakes or to sin. However, we have no other way. God must allow Satan to test and try us. We must be faithful. And every stronghold in each of our minds must fall one by one. God won’t force it. We must submit to each new milestone on our journey with Him.
So our vision becomes clearer with each new submission. The Holy Spirit purifies us each time we listen to and obey the King of kings. He speaks the Word. Christ is the Word. Faith comes. Christ authors the faith. Faith gives us access to His grace. Grace does His works through us. That’s the gift of righteousness. Christ works through us. God won’t force His gift on us. We must stop fighting Him. We yield the members of our bodies to his righteousness. When we yield, the Sower sows the Seed. The Seed is the Word. Christ is the Word. The Seed is Christ. God is constantly sowing Christ into our hearts as He leads us in the simple, everyday things of life. Does the Seed fall on the good ground or the path, the rocky ground, or among thorns? When it falls on good ground, the Holy Spirit is forming Christ in our hearts, and the flesh is dying away.
“But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” Proverbs 4:18 King James Bible
As a result, certainty follows obedience, and it begins as God speaks to us and we acknowledge Him. Personal yielding is the first level of submission to God, but it’s possible to resist what God tells us, so it’s possible to resist this certainty.
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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)
If faith is divine certainty that comes when God speaks, how can we have better discernment as we mature in Christ? Isn’t faith the absolutely certain proof of what we haven’t yet seen with our physical eyes? And doesn’t faith come to us the moment we first acknowledge God’s voice and hear Him? Wouldn’t that faith be total and complete right from the start?
While faith is absolute right from the start, the human mind is deceitful and desperately wicked. Satan is a deceiver. Deceivers can pretend to be the voice of God. We don’t wrestle with flesh and blood but with principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in the high places.
We walk from one level of faith to a higher level of faith as we mature. We become better acquainted with Christ as we walk with Him in submission and obedience to His leading, teaching, and correcting. The Holy Spirit forms Christ more fully in us and the sinful nature diminishes. That’s what maturity is. With less sinful nature and more of Christ’s nature, maturity helps us discern. It helps us know what comes from our own minds and what comes from God.
“And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” 1 Peter 4:18 King James Bible
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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)
We’ve established that faith is divine certainty. And yet God tells us to walk from faith to faith. That implies a faith that progresses to higher and deeper levels in Christ. That means we go from one level of faith to a higher level. From this level, we proceed higher by grace. And grace is through faith. As we yield, the Holy Spirit changes us. And we advance to an even higher level of faith. We proceed because the Holy Spirit uses this method to transfigure us as the Holy Spirit purifies Christ in our innermost minds. Purification is holiness. To put it another way, Christ becomes more fully formed in us as the polluted, natural, carnal mind gradually dies away. And as Christ is formed and the carnal mind dies, our thinking becomes clearer, and the scope of certainty we know by faith is wider and more encompassing.
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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)
At some point in our lives, we wanted to know Jesus, and now that we know Him, we want to know Him more fully. So we don’t pretend to be satisfied before it makes sense to be satisfied, but we’ll be satisfied when we awake with His image and likeness.
“As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.” ~ Psalm 17:15 King James Version
“. . . to be conformed to the image of His Son . . .” ~ Romans 8:29 Berean Study Bible
“. . . looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory . . .” ~ 2 Corinthians 3:18 Holman Christian Standard Bible
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(quote from RealReality.org/Real_Faith_and_Reason_Vol_2_-_Scientia.pdf)
Godly Thinking
The alternative to ungodly thinking is, of course, godly thinking. Only by godly thinking can we know anything, but we can’t have godly thinking without acknowledging God’s active role in our thought processes through revelation.
For instance, only by revelation do we know Scripture is God’s word. Only by revelation can we know God speaks through the Bible, observation, and every other method mentioned in the Bible. Also, it’s by revelation we know Scripture is without error. We can’t understand these realities by axioms or presuppositions. Both axioms and presuppositions consist of made-up stuff. Made-up stuff can’t prove anything. Without proof, we can’t have precise and accurate knowledge of anything with certainty. Through Scripture, God keeps telling us to listen to Him, and He speaks the same into our innermost beings. But listening to God and acknowledging God is contrary to the fallen human nature. “For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what’s right, but I can’t carry it out.” (Romans 7:18) Still, we choose to listen to Him and yield ourselves to Him even though our fleshly natures resist Him.
(end quote)
