One of the most difficult problems people have when confronted with Bible-based Christianity is how to deal with dogmatic truth. The reason this is such a stumbling block is because it cuts across two dominant habits of the natural mind.
On the one hand is the mindset that appeals to “science,” not in the sense of honest observation of objective reality, but in the modern sense of a constantly shifting body of theories, and assumptions that are frequently shaped by speculative models. On the other hand is the mindset that treats personal experience, whether emotional, circumstantial, or supernatural, as a governing authority. In both cases, truth is treated as fluid.
True science, rightly understood, deals with that which is observable, testable, and demonstrable in the created order. In that limited sense, it does not threaten biblical truth, because the God of Scripture is the Creator of the world being observed. But much of what now passes for “science” extends far beyond direct observation into the realm of sweeping theory, philosophical naturalism, and consensus-driven claims that are continually revised and often steered by social and political interests. Scripture has already given a category for such pretended knowledge: “science falsely so called” (1 Tim. 6:20).
Meanwhile, on the personal level, men build their lives around accumulated experiences, inward impressions, emotional responses, and habits of interpretation. These are then treated as self-authenticating. But the Bible says otherwise: “He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool” (Prov. 28:26), and “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jer. 17:9). Thus both modern intellectual autonomy and personal experiential autonomy arrive at the same place: man becomes the judge of truth.
When the Bible then comes with the divine, dogmatic certainty of “Thus saith the LORD,” the natural mind rebels. It rebels because the flesh does not want fixed truth above itself. It wants truth that can be revised, negotiated, reinterpreted, or ignored.
Scripture locates that rebellion not in innocent intellectual struggle, as is often claimed, but rather in sinful hostility toward God. “The carnal mind is enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7). Men “hold the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18). The issue is not merely that men cannot arrive at truth; it is that they do not want God’s truth ruling over them.
The conflict is between divine revelation and every proud system of thought that seeks to rename speculation as knowledge while refusing submission to God. Philosophical propositions can be endlessly debated. Dogmatic truth cannot.
At the heart of this rebellion is self-exaltation. From the beginning, the temptation has been, “ye shall be as gods” (Gen. 3:5). Fallen man does not want merely to discover truth; he wants to define it. He does not want merely to interpret reality; he wants the authority to govern reality for himself. In this way, sinful man follows the same proud impulse seen in Satan’s rebellion—the desire to usurp what belongs to God alone. That is why dogmatic biblical truth is so offensive to the natural man: it dethrones him.
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