and also in our evaluation of the justification behind that revelation such that the kinds of reason God should have for commanding us to do or believe p about some issue x are the very same reasons we are capable of understanding, developing, and offering as justification ourselves. So, what I am suggesting is that the lack of in the Bible about issue x can be resolved by ‘clarity’ appeal to the authority of reason as in my example in my discussion of premise 1. In other words, even if a revelation was contained in the Bible about issue x, it would have to ‘clear’ cohere with reason in order to be authoritative. Clarity is not enough by itself, and in fact, even if there is a lack of clarity, the authority of reason can bring clarity to an issue. This further implies that the kinds of reasons offered by humans are in principle the same reasons that God would offer which means that a clear revelation based on reasons would not guarantee any kind of unanimous range of beliefs across the board on every issue amongst Christians! That’s right, there are OBSTACLES to divine revelation and Christians would still disagree with each other because our God given reason that is in use today and which we employ to reach our varied conclusions, is the very same reason that our God would use to justify His revelation to us. True, we might well imagine a booming voice telling us that we should believe p about issue x but without good reason, and without agreeing with those reasons we would not assent internally despite a fearful external confession of assent with our mouths in the face of such a terrifying prospect. Convincing people is no easy task, even when God was incarnate not everybody agreed with him. Premise 4: Though our revelation is not without diversity, and though our Christian communities are not without disagreement, a clear revelation would not be authoritative unless it cohered with reason, and God has given us the ability to reason and therefore, the ability to derive the authority from our revelation with the use of our God given reason which functions as
and also in our evaluation of the justification behind that revelation such that the kinds of reason God should have for commanding us to do or believe p about some issue x are the very same reasons we are capable of understanding, developing, and offering as justification ourselves. So, what I am suggesting is that the lack of ‘clarity’ in the Bible about issue x can be resolved by appeal to the authority of reason as in my example in my discussion of premise 1. In other words, even if a ‘clear’ revelation was contained in the Bible about issue x, it would have to cohere with reason in order to be authoritative. Clarity is not enough by itself, and in fact, even if there is a lack of clarity, the authority of reason can bring clarity to an issue. This further implies that the kinds of reasons offered by humans are in principle the same reasons that God would offer which means that a clear revelation based on reasons would not guarantee any kind of unanimous range of beliefs across the board on every issue amongst Christians! That’s right, there are OBSTACLES to divine revelation and Christians would still disagree with each other because our God given reason that is in use today and which we employ to reach our varied conclusions, is the very same reason that our God would use to justify His revelation to us. True, we might well imagine a booming voice telling us that we should believe p about issue x but without good reason, and without agreeing with those reasons we would not assent internally despite a fearful external confession of assent with our mouths in the face of such a terrifying prospect. Convincing people is no easy task, even when God was incarnate not everybody agreed with him. Premise 4: Though our revelation is not without diversity, and though our Christian communities are not without disagreement, a clear revelation would not be authoritative unless it cohered with reason, and God has given us the ability to reason and therefore, the ability to derive the authority from our revelation with the use of our God given reason which functions as