We Must Have Faith In Order To Reason

From the beginning people have tried to authorize the Word of God.  We see this with Eve in the garden as well as the Enlightenment thinkers of the 18th century.  Today, it is the air we breathe.  We believe ultimately in the human reason's ability to critically examine God's Word with such accuracy, completeness and judgment, that we can make an objective decision concerning its validity.  If it is, we will believe it.  If it is not, we will not.

Sure, we may have the right and the ability to do this with other forms of literature as well as other historical documents.  One thing we cannot do, however, is lump the Scriptures into the same pile with all other literary works.  It's not the same.  By its very nature, it is authoritative.  Again, we may not authorize that which is ultimately authoritative.  We must humbly recognize and embrace its intrinsic authority as we read and interpret what it is saying to us.

Here is a great comment from Willem VanGemeren on the place of faith in the interpretation of Scripture:

The study of the Bible is unlike the study of any literary or religious text.  It presupposes a personal faith and calls for a commitment of one's whole being.  Out of concern for the authoritative claim of the BIble in in light of Judeo-Christian traditions through the centuries, the student of the Bible can and must appropriate the Bible with a faith commitment.  

This assumption has two implications.  First, one does not arbitrarily dismiss the testimony of the Fathers, Reformers, Puritans, or any other conscientious readers of the biblical text.  We are part of a historical continuum.  Knowledge has not begun with us, nor will it cease with us...Second, Christian students of the Old Testament must pass by the cross of Jesus Christ on their return to the Old Testament, and as such they can never lose their identity as a Christian...the fundamental error of critical scholarship is found in its common assumption that the goal of exegesis is objectivity.

VanGemeren goes on to note that the study of the Scriptures as a whole must begin with the presupposition that the Testaments witness to the one purpose of God with His people.  The Scriptures are a witness about Someone who has done something.

After all, if Christ had not done "something," no one would be able to think at all.  We are wholly and subjectively dependent upon Christ for everything we do or think.  It is the height of arrogance to think that we can think rightly about Him apart from Him (Jn 15) - to authorize Him without His authority.