Only God Can Predict the Future

The priest at the church that I attend is giving a series on apologetics. His goal is to show us that the Christian faith is reasonable.

His first sermon in the series argued that the Bible is true because it successfully predicts the future, specifically what people will do. According to the priest, a successful prediction of (say) the weather would not confirm a prophet's divine authority, since even Satan knows enough about nature to forecast the weather. But what humans will do in the future is unknown to everyone except God, since human free will makes their future actions indeterminate. Because the Bible contains predictions about human activity that came to pass, such as the rise of Cyrus and the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, then it must be the word of God. Or so the priest argued.

I don't thoroughly dismiss what the priest is saying. I think it deserves more thought. One thing I like about this church is that it makes me think, even when I disagree with what I hear. In this post, I'd like to highlight my disagreements with the priest's message. Some weaknesses of his argument are probably going through my readers' minds even as I write.

First, although the priest knows a lot about philosophy, he should read up more on biblical scholarship. I say this because apologetics are only effective if they can address the arguments of skeptics. A liberal biblical scholar can easily tell the priest that the Bible does not predict human activity, since (for example) Jesus' predictions about the fall of Jerusalem could have been put into his mouth after the event had occurred. Moreover, he can also point out that the Bible contains prophecies that clearly did not come to pass, such as the prediction that Babylon would conquer Egypt (in Ezekiel and Jeremiah). I'm not saying that the priest should adopt a liberal attitude toward the Bible. I just think that he should be aware of liberal biblical scholarship so that he can at least respond to it.

Incidentally, some of the conservative arguments that I have read would not be especially helpful to the priest's position. One conservative argument about Matthew 24 is that it had to have been written before 70 C.E., since it predicts things that did not come to pass. For example, Jesus says in v 2, "There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." But, in actual fact, one stone did remain upon another after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, for the western wall survived. So, ironically, a conservative argument that Jesus actually made the prediction is that the prediction did not fully come true.

Second, the priest sets up these rules that make me want to cry out, "Who says?" Who says that the prediction of weather doesn't establish the Bible's authority or message? The Bible doesn't necessarily agree with that proposition, since one factor that confirmed Elijah's authority was his ability to predict and control the weather. The same will be true of the two witnesses in the Book of Revelation. Moreover, who is to say that only God can predict human activity? I may come across as a kook here, but shouldn't we actually research psychic phenomena or the Mothman before we make such a claim? Plus, people often make successful prognostications based on their knowledge of how humans behave in certain situations, so a successful prediction about human activity does not necessarily establish a message as divine.

While I'm on this, let me add an aside. One thing that gets on my nerves about conservative Christian apologetics is that they set up these rules that make me want to ask, "Who says?" I guess we're just supposed to accept things on the authority of the conservative Christian who opens his mouth. For example, whenever you bring up the problem of evil, you will always have a conservative Christian who will argue, "Well, evil exists because of human free will, and God never violates human free will." Says who? Proverbs 21:1 says, "The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will." Apparently, the Bible doesn't consider free will to be completely inviolate.

So apologetics have weaknesses. And, incidentally, that's what makes Christianity and the Bible interesting. They cannot be confined to the wooden absolutes of the apologist.