Biblical Solipsism

Here is a link to an excellent article by J. P. Moreland, which discusses a problem I have been noticing for some time now among certain segments of the evangelical community. I call this problem Biblical Solipsism. It typically amounts to the claim that the Bible is not only the final source of authority for the Christian, but that the Bible is the only source of knowledge and authority for the Christian. Other possible sources of knowledge or authority such as personal experience, culture, or science are denied any relevance or legitimacy. To give an example, I recently encountered an instance of this view on another blog when a commenter there responded to something I said with the following statement:

Frankly, I care very little for scientific "factual" data in comparison with Scripture. Science has changed constantly, as it is a fallible human endeavor. But Scripture has never failed, never been proven wrong, and never contradicted itself.

It's not that there is nothing true in this comment, but it's more about a certain attitude or orientation that the comment reveals. There is, at best, a dismissal of the relevance of extra biblical sources of knowledge for the Christian. At worst there is hostility towards them. The notion that Christians can learn anything from science or that it might in any way help us in our interpretation of scripture is notably absent from this comment. I find such a view very troubling because it seems to remove the Bible from the world of our daily existence and place it in a vacuum. The Bible, however, was not written in a vacuum, but was written out of specific cultural and historical situations. It responds to and engages with the realities of human existence, and must be read in conjunction with the world of our experience. The Bible would not even make sense to us if we did not already have some experience of the world as it is.

Furthermore, even if it is true that the Bible has never failed, never been proven wrong, and never contrdicted itself, as the above quotation maintains, this does not mean that all of our interpretations of the Bible are or have been correct. If, however, we insist on ignoring the world of human experience and denying the legitimacy of extra biblical sources of knowledge, it seems to me we isolate ourselves from a major source of possible correction.

The Christian tradition, broadly defined, has always interacted with the reality of the wider culture and the world of human experience. To cut the Bible off from serious interaction with the world of our experience and to deny that Christians can learn anything from observing and interacting with the world around us leads to an anemic, provincial faith and may even lead to intellectual dishonesty.

Anyway, enough of my jabbering. Check out the article by Moreland.