"It is time we admitted, from kings and presidents on down, that there is no evidence that any of our books was authored by the Creator of the universe."I will not attempt to speak to other religious Scriptures as I want to focus on the Bible since I consider myself a Christian and I do not want to stray out of my field of expertise. There are two problems with this statement. One, what kind of evidence is Harris looking for that would show that a book was from our Creator? Two, I do not claim, and I don't think other Christians should claim, that the Bible was authored by God. Let's take a look at both of these issues.
First, the evidence issue. What kind of evidence would convince Harris that any of our books was authored by the Creator of the universe? Well, in this book he does not say. We have no idea what kind of criteria we are looking for. We are simply left with the assertion that there is no evidence at all. Now I have not read his second book, Letter to a Christian Nation, but I understand that there he gives some indication of what sort of evidence we are to accept. If I am not mistaken, he states that any communication from God would include more than what we find in our Bible. He should have included more science, technology, medical, and other more practical, helpful information. Since we find no schematics, blueprints, or other helpful, utilitarian items we are safe to conclude it is not from an All-Knowing, All-Loving God. Like other atheists, Harris thinks God to be fairly cold and uninterested (and probably just down right mean) to leave us on our own to figure all this stuff out on our own.
The question is, then, do we, as Christians, need to have this kind of evidence to believe that the Bible came from God? Not at all. Harris isn't the first person to make a similar claim. I used to work with an agnostic who believed more in something like "The Force" from Star Wars than anything else. His problem with this issue was if God wrote the Bible, why doesn't it mention anything about dinosaurs? My reply to my friend will also answer Harris' critique. It's irrelevant. God didn't include a detailed account of the dinosaurs' time on earth because it is (was) irrelevant. Why do I say this? Because God didn't have a problem with the dinosaurs and he had a problem with us! The piece of information that seems to escape most atheists and skeptics is the Christians account of history. Christians have always claimed that after we became alienated from God He set out to redeem us. So when we told God that we could handle living our lives without Him, He gave us that opportunity. After some time, God sought out someone that He could work through to redeem all peoples of the earth. He sought out and found Abram, whom He later changed his name to Abraham. The communication God had with Abraham and all people from that time forward was about His plan to restore all people back to Him. Dinosaurs, science, technology, and all the rest are irrelevant to being redeemed to our Creator. I have no problem with these things, but they are not as imperative as getting back into a relationship with the Creator of the universe.
To sum up, the evidence is there. It's just that it is more subtle than most atheists and skeptics are willing to accept. The evidence is relational, not utilitarian.
As to the second issue, that of authorship, I claimed that the Bible was not authored by God. I claim that it was inspired by God. Paul claims that "All Scripture is inspired by God..." (2 Timothy 3:16). This word in the Greek, qeopneusto, is transliterated as Theopneustos (theh-op-nyoo-stos) can be rendered as 'God-breathed' (see NIV translation). Peter, in his second letter, claims that, "...prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." Quoting Scripture to an atheist or skeptic is like pouring lemon juice on a open cut. They cringe and cry "Foul!". They can't stand it. But I believe it is necessary to at least see what the people who were involved in the writing of Scripture thought about the process. They didn't make any wild claims of going into a trance and when they awoke they found they had written Scripture! The only instance of God actually writing anything Himself was the Ten Commandments. Every other instance can best be described as God bringing to mind of the writers what to say, but left it up to them in how to say it, in what order, or what details to leave in or out (here I am thinking specifically of the Gospel accounts).
Now that we see what the people involved in the process thought about God's role in the "authoring" of Scripture was, I think I can make a fairly strong case to answer Harris' claim to no evidence. I believe both answers to evidence and authorship lies in the relational aspect of Christianity. That God inspired the Bible instead of authoring it shows that He is relational. This is a different kind of evidence that is difficult for atheists and skeptics alike to accept. They want clear cut yes or no type answers. While Christianity does offer some clear cut answers for some topics, there is the ever present fact of God being relational and dealing with us as such. There has to be a more holistic approach to understanding Christianity in this light. I would like to finish this section with a quote from Robert Adams, a professor of Philosophy at UCLA, Yale, and Oxford University from an article he wrote for the anthology Reasoned Faith (1993):
"Theistic beliefs are not necessarily religious beliefs. Belief in a first cause, "which all call God", can be just a piece of metaphysics. Even belief in a divine command theory could be just a piece of metaethics. And belief in a supernatural agent of eschatological fulfillment, if the eschatology really offers nothing more than "pie in the sky", is not necessarily more religious than the daily horoscope. It's not that I am against metaphysics, metaethics, or eschatology; on the contrary, I am for all of them. But if these beliefs are not connected with any impulse to worship God, I am inclined to say that religiously, they have missed the point."
