The Bible & the Human Condition: Underappreciated Evidence?

“Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” John 4:29, ESV

When Jesus meets the woman at the well in John 4, he displays knowledge of her life that He would only know if He were God. This offers her assurance of who Jesus is, and it inspires her to tell others about Him.

The story of the woman at the well illustrates the Bible’s effect on the hearts of serious-minded readers. This effect serves as evidence of the Bible’s authenticity as the inspired word of God.

The 18th century author Andrew Fuller writes in The Gospel Its Own Witness:

If the Scriptures gave false descriptions of men and things; if they flattered the vices of mankind, or exhibited the moral state of the world contrary to well-known fact, you would conclude them to be a work of falsehood. On the other hand, if they speak of things as they are; if conscience echo to their charges, and fact comport with their representations, they must have been taken from life; and you must conclude them to be, what they profess to be, a work of truth. And since the objects described are many of them beyond the ken of human observation, you must conclude that they are not only a work of truth, but, what they also profess to be, the true sayings of God.

The Bible makes claims about the moral inclinations of people, the internal experience of people, and the outward behavior of people that accurately describe certain features of the world and explain those features. When we evaluate these claims and find that they are accurate, it serves as evidence in the Bible’s favor.

When thinking about this kind of evidence, there are three important questions we need to answer:

1. What claims about the human condition does the Bible make?

2. Are those claims accurate?

3. Could just anybody invent those claims?

This article will primarily concern itself with the first two questions. The third is extremely important, but we will save it for another time.

What claims about the human condition does the Bible make?

Andrew Fuller, again, offers an excellent summary:

The Scriptures are a mirror in which we see not only individual characters, our own and others, but the state of things as they move on in the great world. They show us the springhead whence all the malignant streams of idolatry, atheism, corruption, persecution, war, and every other evil originate; and by showing us the origin of these destructive maladies, clearly instruct us wherein must consist their cure.

The Bible teaches two essential truths that summarize the human condition. The first is that if mankind loved God and his neighbor, then the world would be a paradise. The second is that, in the words of Fuller, “. . . man is a rebel against his Maker; . . . his carnal mind is enmity against God, and is not subject to the law of God, neither can it be; that instead of loving God, or even man, in the order which is required, men are become lovers of their own selves,. . . they are found necessary to subserve their wishes.”

Are These Claims Accurate?

So is the Bible right? If the Bible is right, then people will regularly act without regard for the well-being of their neighbor or any higher moral order. If the Bible is wrong, then people will regularly and consistently live sacrificially and reverently.

Any level of experience with Walmart on Black Friday should be enough to settle the issue. People are inclined to depravity.

There are exceptions to the rule. We all know people who are generous, caring, sympathetic, etc. But can we really insist that people are good to one-another as a rule without deluding ourselves? The plain truth is that people do not usually love their neighbor as themselves.

Are people inclined to revere God? Except for a minority of well-disciplined people on good days, the answer is a resounding “no.” Even people who are committed to serving God or a higher moral order of some sort or another will find themselves struggling, and very often failing, to do so.

Final Thoughts and Further Reading

There is a lot more to be said here, but the main takeaway is that the Bible makes accurate claims about the human condition, and this is what we would expect to find from a book that is the inspired word of God. The Bible does not flatter us, and it does not sugar-coat the wrongness of sins that we tend to find very desirable.

These are not things we would expect to be the case if the Bible were written by humans. Is it possible that humans wrote the Bible without divine inspiration? Sure (it is also possible that there is an undetectable unicorn looking over your shoulder right this second). Is it likely? Not at all. This, of course, is not a thorough argument in itself. Readers who are looking for a more thorough argument will want to read some of the following:

Bogue, David. An Essay on the Divine Authority of the New Testament. Pp. 29-30.

Fuller, Andrew. The Gospel its Own Witness. Ch.2.

Wardlaw, Gilbert. Experimental Evidence. 142-153.

As a final note, it is worth mentioning that the sort of evidence we mentioned here is strongest when considered alongside other evidence. The Bible’s knowledge of the human condition becomes far more compelling when we also consider its historical accuracy, arguments for the resurrection, and theistic arguments. Likewise, the accuracy of the Bible’s diagnosis of humanity and the effectiveness of its proposed cure bolsters confidence in arguments for the resurrection and the Bible’s accuracy in general.