HIGHER CRITIC LIBERAL THEOLOGY IS FILLED WITH UNSOUND ANTI-SUPERNATURAL RATIONALISTIC PRESUPPOSITIONS WHICH CAN CAPTURE ONLY LESS THAN 5% OF REALITY. Anti-supernaturalism is reductionism, attempting to remove the supernatural from the biblical material, and retaining only that which will support the views of the critics. Higher critics claim that since God is not a man, God may not speak. Hence there is no word of God. They also foolishly claim that God cannot manifest Himself in visible form. Hence all accounts of such events are myths. To them inspiration is unthinkable. They reject prophecy as narrations written after the events. Miracles are impossible. Hence all the reports of miracles in the Bible are mere fictions.

LIBERALS COMMIT THE CATEGORY MISTAKE OF APPLYING NATURAL LAWS TO EXPLAIN SUPERNATURAL PHENOMENA. Bible Criticism is due to the misapplication of scientific research to aspects of reality, like faith and revelation, to which they do not belong. Laws of nature cannot explain supernatural phenomena. Both are intrinsically different in nature and can only be understood as two completely different systems. Bible reveals a continuous encounter between God and man. The primary concern of the Bible is not to inform us of "facts," "history," or "anthropology." It has been asserted that the beginning and the end of things are both absolutely hidden from science. Science has to do with phenomena.

IRRATIONALITY OF RATIONALISM LEADS TO THE ANTI-SUPERNATURAL FOLLY OF DENYING ALL AUTHORITIES EXCEPT HUMAN REASON. They believe that all beliefs must pass the tests of reason and experience. With the advent of Enlightenment the ‘scientific method’ based on human reason became the new foundation of truth. REASON USURPED THE ROLE OF GOD. Reason was used to control reality. That which could not be controlled by reason was left aside as unreal. But this verdict of the critics is based upon the irrational idea that reason is capable of judging all things, but is itself judged by nothing. The entire history of human race is the history of millions of intelligent men fighting and killing one another. Hence this quality of reason is legitimately disqualified to pronounce judgment upon the divinely given Bible.  A purely rational revelation is no revelation. A purely rational religion is no religion at all.

RATIONALISTS CONSTRAINED TRUTH TO THEIR CAPACITY TO APPREHEND. IN THEIR ATTEMPT TO FIT THE SUPERNATURAL REALITIES INTO MAN-MADE CATEGORIES OF ANALYSIS, REASON BECAME UNREASONABLE. The idolatry of reason resulted in a kind of foolish academic arrogance. They rejected the Biblical premises and attempted to reconstruct the Christian concepts.

THE ‘SCIENTIFIC METHOD’ WHICH IS BASICALLY ANTI-SUPER-NATURALISTIC, ACKNOWLEDGES AS VALID ONLY THE FACTS WHICH CAN BE VERIFIED BY EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE. WITH THE HELP OF THIS PSEUDO-SCIENTIFIC AND IRRATIONAL REDUCTIONISM, MAN SUCCEEDED IN ELIMINATING THE AUTHORITY OF THE BIBLE AND THE REALITY OF GOD. Man explained away everything that seemingly ill-fitted within the limits of his reason. Thus God, devil, angels, hell, heaven, sin, judgment, etc., became unreal. Supernatural experiences are explained away as ‘psychological’ and ‘parapsychological’. True theology was replaced by a kind value-free ethics and ideology. MAN BECAME THE MEASURE OF ALL THINGS. Most of those who theologized in these lines lost the sense of a personal God. Hence they have also lost the sense of absolute right and wrong. They no more have categories to determine what is right and what is wrong.

THE SO-CALLED “SCIENTIFIC METHOD” IS NOT ONLY HIGHLY REDUCTIONISTIC BUT ALSO A SUBTLE ELIMINATOR OF THE SPIRITUAL REALITIES. WHEN THE SO-CALLED “SCIENTIFIC METHOD” IS USED FOR DISCOVERING THE TRUTH, ANYTHING WHICH COULD NOT BE GRASPED, CONTROLLED AND MEASURED BY HUMAN REASON IS LEFT ASIDE AS UNREAL AND IRRELEVANT. BY THE APPLICATION OF THE “SCIENTIFIC METHOD” MAN CAN EASILY FILTER OUT ALL THE SUPERNATURAL REALITIES AND THE TRUTH OF GOD AS UNREAL SINCE THEY ARE NOT EMPIRICALLY VERIFIABLE. Hence this false method deceives the user to imagine that the truth of God is unreal as it is not always empirically verifiable. It denies access to the truth of God as a whole. The evil forces attempted to limit the reality and scope of the truth merely to man’s capacity to apprehend, in order to hide the truth of God from the mind of man. Because the evil forces are fully aware of the fact if they can make man to believe that “scientific method” is the only reliable method for acquiring true knowledge, then man will deny the truth of God as mythological and irrational. Hence by its very nature the ‘scientific method’ is anti-supernaturalistic and anti-God.

THE OVER-DEPENDENCE OF THEOLOGIANS ON WORLDLY METHODS, PHILOSOPHIES, PRINCIPLES OF RATIONALITY AND THE ‘SCIENTIFIC METHOD’ IN THEOLOGY HAS PRODUCED THE MODERN LIBERAL THEOLOGY WHICH IS ANTI-BIBLICAL. MODERN THEOLOGICAL LIBERALISM IS RATIONALISM AND ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM IN THE GARB OF THEOLOGY. Modern theology with the help of the materialistic “scientific method” systematically GOT RID OF all the methodological devices necessary for dealing with the SUPERNATURAL REALITIES. With the help of this pseudo-scientific and irrational reductionism, the false teachers and false theologians have attempted to undermine the authority of Bible, reject the premises of the absolute, objective and universally valid truth claims of the Bible, reconstruct the fundamentals of Christian faith, EXCLUDE GOD FROM THE SPHERE OF REALITY and banish Him into the realm of myths.  The person of Jesus Christ is explained away as anonymous Christ and cosmic Christ. Through the application of “scientific method”, they EXPLAINED AWAY EVERYTHING THAT SEEMINGLY ILL-FITTED WITHIN THE LIMITS OF THEIR REASON. Thus God, devil, angels, hell, heaven, sin, miracles, judgment, etc., were considered as unreal and unmentionables.

EVEN WHEN THE DEVIL RAGES IN THE SOCIETY LIKE A ROARING LION, THE MODERN THEOLOGY MAKES HIS EXISTENCE INTELLECTUALLY INDEFENSIBLE. Supernatural realities are explained away as ‘psychological’, ‘parapsychological’, symbolic, mythological, unreal, superstitious, primitive, etc. To them earth is heaven and nature is God. This leads to an attitude of progressivism which looks for perfection on earth itself. Liberals back up their theology with the ideology of evolutionary theories. Hence it appears expedient to them even to replace God with science. The liberal theologians try to understand everything from the perspective of the materialistic “scientific method”. THEY ARROGANTLY THINK THAT THAT WHICH DOES NOT FIT INTO THEIR WORLDVIEW AS UNTRUE. WHAT IS SEEN IS REAL AND WHAT IS NOT SEEN IS UNREAL. Thus modern theological liberalism suffers from a crisis of authority because it has decided not to draw any firm line between what comes from God and what comes from human reason. They consider the human experience as a legitimate starting point of their theology. They assume that theology must begin with man and move to God. They often extol personal experience to the point of being anti-intellectual and possess no test whatsoever for the consequent errors.

RATIONALISTIC AND HUMANISTIC FALLACIES AND PERVERSIONS OF LIBERAL THEOLOGY. The application of modern world’s materialistic and rationalistic ‘scientific method’, and also unbiblical religious ideas, into Christian theology led to the emergence of modern theological liberalism. Modern theological liberalism is the expression of human pride that minimizes God and MAGNIFIES MAN. THEOLOGICAL LIBERALISM IS MODERN MAN’S SYSTEMATIC REVOLT AGAINST JESUS CHRIST AND THE BIBLE. The denial of the exclusivity of truth in Jesus Christ, and the infallibility and inerrancy of the Bible are the essential elements of “biblical scholarship” of the modern theology. In the liberal theological circles the WORD OF GOD IS SCORNED AS MYTHICAL, intolerant and fundamentalistic. An antichristian intellectual effort to invent truth independent of God and the Bible are identifiable in them. The emphasis of the so called radical hermeneutics is only on INTERPRETATION, NOT ON TRUTH. The emphasis on God as immanent in the world, interpretation of the kingdom of God as this-worldly, uncritical acceptance of the theory of evolution, overemphasis on corporate morality for doing away with personal ethics, reductionistically placing  Jesus in the other person, overlapping the concerns of the church and the state, loss of distinction between physical and spiritual, indifference to and even denial of conversion and new birth, assumption that revelation is merely experiential, assumption that faith is just a commitment without any specific content etc., are the major fallacies of modern theological liberalism. But God in His sovereign control uses even the confusion generated by liberalism to expose the hypocrites and their true lies. They emphasize on the transformation of the society rather than the conversion of the individual. Without doing what they are commanded to do by the leader, they do what is not commanded. This is disobedience and rebellion resulting from the false rationalization. They begin in spirit and end in flesh. Instead grass root level preaching of the gospel, they focus on leadership level inter-religious dialogue.

LIBERAL THEOLOGY IS PURELY ANTI-SUPERNATURAL RATIONALISM. Also known as modernism, this is the major shift in theological thinking that occurred in the late nineteenth century. The major distinctive is the desire to adapt religious ideas to modern culture and modes of thinking. Liberals insist that the world has changed since the time Christianity was founded so that biblical terminology and creeds are incomprehensible to people today. Liberal theology is anti-revelation philosophy of the world. The spirit of the secular world and secular philosophy produced the modern liberal theology, which in turn is cleverly making the church to dance to the tune of secular world.

Modern liberal theology is rooted in rationalism. MODERN THEOLOGY IS AN ATTEMPT OF THE SPIRIT OF RATIONALISM TO DOMINATE THE BIBLICAL FAITH. The modern theologians who are the agents of the secular rationalists tend to idolize and absolutize human reason and scientific method, and elevate them above the clear witness of the Word of God.  They do not permit the human reason to be guided by the Biblical revelation. Their methodology is rationalism which is nothing more than a polished IRRATIONAL ARROGANCE OF THE FALLEN MAN. A rationalistic theology preoccupied with intellectual concerns will PERVERT THE CHRISTIAN FAITH BY CONFORMING IT TO THE SECULARISTIC, HUMANISTIC AND MATERIALISTIC WORLD-VIEW and academic norms of the day. Since modern liberal theology is skeptical about the invisible dimensions of the Biblical world view, it gradually degenerates itself into AGNOSTICISM AND ATHEISM. The influence of rationalism in theology caused the emergence of THEOLOGICAL LIBERALISM which led to the rejection of Biblical truth. This situation provided a suitable ideological platform for the growth of “ECUMENICAL” THINKING (false unity movement which denies the distinction between the believers and unbelievers) in the Church circles. Unsuspecting and credulous intellectuals get easily sucked into theological liberalism.

THE LIBERAL THEOLOGIANS BECAME CAPTIVES OF THE DECEPTIVE PHILOSOPHIES OF THE WORLD. In the final analysis, modern liberal theology cannot be distinguished from the worldly philosophies and any other religion in the world in its quest for God. This religious Liberalism involved a commitment to a central set of theological and religious propositions which radically redefined the traditional Christian terms to give them new unbiblical meaning. LIBERALISM WAS RATIONALISM. But a Rationalism that was not the direct result of unbelief. Rather, it sprang from men who would hold to their Christian convictions in the face of a rising onslaught of unbelief which they perceive they were powerless to withstand. It was a movement arising from within the church and characterized by an effort to retain the essence of Christianity by surrendering those features that were no longer considered defensible in the modern world. They just succumbed to the world. 

VALUE-FREE HUMANISTIC RATIONALIST APPROACH. The modern academic methodology which promotes VALUE-FREE MENTALITY through the secularization process incapacitates the people to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong. Due to the impact of RATIONALISM in their thinking patterns they give PREEMINENCE TO METHODS AND CONTEXTS AT THE COST OF THE SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLES.  They have a peculiar attraction towards things that are visible and external. They are prone to externalize or PHYSICALISE PRINCIPLES EVEN AT THE EXPENSE OF THE TRUTH. They believe in the theory of attaining knowledge through PLACING MAN AT THE CENTER as the subject who studies the objects which he wants to know. But the fact is that because of the limitations of human nature, MAN CANNOT ACQUIRE ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE ABOUT ANYTHING. When this is the fact, if the modern theologian presupposes that man’s own accumulated scientific knowledge is the sole criterion for judging the truthfulness of the Bible, he DENIES HIMSELF THE OPPORTUNITY TO UNDERSTAND THE TRUTH OF MOST OF THE BIBLICAL AFFIRMATIONS.  SOCIAL GOSPEL IS THE BEST LIBERALS CAN OFFER. Liberal theologians concerned themselves with building the kingdom of God and promoting the applied liberalism known as the social gospel. This emphasized the need to modify the corrupt society that in turn was corrupting man.

ANTI-SUPERANTURALISM ULTIMATELY LEADS TO EMBRACING SUPERANTURAL EXPERIENCES FROM DEVIL – CASE OF BISHOP JAMES PIKE. THIS BIAS AGAINST GOD AND BIBLE PROVES MAN’S BASIC TENDENCY TO EVIL. There is a logical inconsistency and double standards in man's rejection of the supernatural of God and his embrace of devil’s mysticism. But the spirituality of mysticism and the route of the devil are easy and broad. ANTI-BIBLICAL ANTI-SUPERNATRALISM, IS A DEMONIC PRESUPPOSITION WHICH LEADS TO MYSTICISM DRUGS AND SUICIDE. People turn to drugs and mysticism as a means of seeking truth just as in Eastern mysticism. They are seeking an experience that gives some meaning to life without God and without any firm hope. This is also why the suicide rate and crimes have skyrocketed. They seek a way out of an existence that is hurting because there are no answers and no hope.

THE CONCEPT OF THE SUPERNATURAL HAD BEEN REJECTED BY THE HUMANISTS BECAUSE IT'S NOT RATIONAL WITHIN THE CONSCIOUSNESS PERCEIVABLE BY THE FIVE SENSES. But now, these days ironically certain phenomena, such as clairvoyance, divination, necromancy, spiritism, etc., which can't be explained by accepted scientific methods, are now given a place in academia as paranormal, which simply means beyond the normal. By the beginning of the 19th century western intellectuals began openly to embrace Eastern mysticism and the occult as a source of truth because they had abandoned rationalistic thinking. THOSE WHO REJECT GOD’S SUPERNATURAL REVELATION IS CURSED TO ACCEPT THE FOLLY OF DEVIL’S SUPERNATURAL. THE SUPERNATURAL MANIFESTATIONS OF DEVIL OFTEN COME IN THE FORMS OF MYSTICISM, PARANORMAL, DRUGS ETC.

THE CASE OF BISHOP JAMES PIKE. One of the most tragic examples in the current revival of higher critic liberal theology is that of Bishop James Pike. His rebellion against the Christian truth came with the denial of the basic Christian affirmations concerning sin, hell, judgment, redemption, and resurrection. Thus he denied the supernatural from God. That emptiness led him to the supernatural from the devil. In the process he tries to provide "empirical" evidence for human survival after death by way of psychic phenomena and psi-research. What is sad is the extent to which he, like the 18th and 19th century critics of the Bible, consistently confuses empirical investigation with unrecognized metaphysical and religious commitments. In 1966, Pike's son Jim took his own life. Shortly after his son's death, Pike reported experiencing poltergeist phenomena, which were something like books vanishing and reappearing, safety pins open and indicating the approximate hour of his son's death, half the clothes in a closet disarranged and heaped up etc. Pike led a public pursuit of various spiritualist and clairvoyant methods of contacting his deceased son to reconcile. In September 1967, Pike participated in a televised séance with his dead son through the medium Arthur Ford, who was ordained as a Disciples of Christ minister. "Test the spirits" cautions the Christian revelation, but for Bishop Pike and the radical theology of the Sixties, testing of theological judgments has become impossible. Because of the relativism and subjectivism are controlling the attitude of the people. When the clear standards of the theological truth and the fundamentals Christian faith are lost, people will not be able to condemn heresy. 

HIGHER CRITICS AND LIBERALS DENY MIRACLES, REVELATION AND PROPHECY. ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM IS THE FOOLISH, ARROGANT AND PROOFLESS PRESUPPOSITION AND BELIEF IN THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF MIRACLES. THEY DENY THE VALIDITY OF MIRACLE, AND THE VALIDITY OF ANY MIRACULOUS NARRATIVE. THEY ALWAYS DENY MIRACLES. If the hypothesis of evolution is applied to the Scriptures consistently, it will lead us to deny all the miracles which they record. In fact there is nothing new in these views. Because these were the views of those old Sadducees who said "there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit" (Acts 23:8), and whom Christ reproved with the words, "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God" (Matthew 22:29).

SOME LIBERALS DENIED THE MIRACLES OF THE GOSPEL WITH NATURALISTIC INTERPRETATION. What Christians consider to be miraculous they considered legendary or mythical exaggeration of events that are entirely explicable from natural causes. They attached no religious importance to the resurrection of Jesus. For them it is unimportant whether the death and resurrection were real or apparent. Schleiermacher himself believed that Jesus' resurrection was only a resuscitation and that he continued to live physically with the disciples for a time after this event.

SOME OTHER LIBERALS FOOLISHLY DENIED THE HISTORICITY OF GOSPEL MIRACLES. They provided the mythological interpretation of the gospels. According to this view, the miraculous events recorded in the gospels never occurred, but are the products of religious imagination and legend, and hence, they require no historical consideration and explanation.

ONLY ATHEISTS CAN DENY THE HISTORICAL POSSIBILITY OF MIRACLES. Because even an agnostic must grant that, if it is possible that a transcendent, personal God exists, then it is equally possible that He has acted in the universe. ATHEISM AND ANTISUPERNATURALISM STAND DISPROVED BY EXPERIMENTAL PHYSICS. The complex and harmoniously functioning system of the universe constitutes the surest evidence that God exists. Physics proves that the world is no longer a God; Rather it is a machine with every possible feature, created by the almighty God, manifesting His attributes in the created order.

NATURAL LAW CANNOT EXCLUDE MIRACLES. In the context of the natural laws, some tried to deny miracles by characterizing them as violations of the laws of nature. They consider miracles as a contradiction in terms. But that is why it is miracle, God suspending these laws when he wishes. But our formulation of a natural law can never be so certain as to be beyond any reformulation in the light of new observed facts. Thus an event cannot be ruled out simply because it does not accord with the regular pattern of events. The advance of modern physics over the Newtonian world-machine is not that natural law does not exist, but that our formulation of it is not absolutely final. The laws of nature are thus not 'laws' in the rigid, prescriptive sense, but they are merely inductive generalizations. This would appear to bring some comfort to the modern believer in miracles. Because he can argue that the formulation of natural law is never final. So all must consider the reality of the event, even if it does not conform to all the known natural laws.

LIBERALS REJECT THE POSSIBILITY OF A PERSONAL GOD’S VERBAL INSPIRATION AND REVELATION. Without sincerely considering other possibilities, the Bible critics rejected the idea of a "personal" God, the possibility of verbal revelation etc. They took it for granted that the biblical texts were texts like any other and therefore to be explored by the normal criteria of literary research.

HIGHER CRITICS ARE ANTI-PROPHETICAL. They were men who denied the reality of prophecy and the validity of any prophetical statement. What Christians have been accustomed to consider prophetical, they called clever conjectures, coincidences, fiction, or imposture. THEY DATED BOOKS TO DESTROY THEIR PROPHECY VALUE. For example, take the case of the Messianic element. In spite of the universal belief of Jews and Christians in a personal Messiah, a belief derived solely from the Old Testament, and supported for Christians by the New, the liberals will not allow undoubted prediction of Him. Their tendency is always to minimize the prophetic element in the Old Testament. They cannot take seriously Zechariah's prophesy that Israel will cry out in prayer for Jesus Christ, that he will come, and that the Mount of Olives will split into two. They also do not believe all the prophecies concerning the salvation for Israel in the end times. Historical-critical theologians also do not await the second coming of Jesus. They think, "Oh, everything will continue as it has before and so we should not await the coming of Jesus.' It is just as it says in 2 Peter, that in the end times, there will be mockers who say, "Where is this 'coming' he promised?'

THE CRITICS HAVE ULTIMATELY SERVED ONLY TO DESTROY THE CREDIBILITY OF THE BIBLE. The critics tell us the biblical documents are not firsthand, eyewitness accounts of the events they describe, but the product of later editing and redaction, such that they are no more and no less than reflections of the of their editors. HENCE THEY SAY THE NARRATIONS ARE NOT TRUSTWORTHY. If the higher criticism shall be adopted as the doctrine of the church, believers will be left in a distressing state of doubt and uncertainty concerning the narratives of the four Gospels, and unbelievers will scoff and mock. A theory which leads to such wanderings of thought regarding the supernatural in the Scriptures must be fallacious. God is not a God of confusion.

IN FACT GOD IS REVEALED IN THE UNIVERSE AND IN THE BIBLE. It is undeniable that the universe, including ourselves, exists. How we all exist? There are only three possibilities. Either, the universe has existed always, it produced itself, or it was created by a Divine, Supreme Being. THE UNIVERSE IS NOT ETERNAL. The eternity of the universe is most clearly disproved by its evolution. From a scientific point of view that hypothesis of evolution is now discredited and virtually abandoned. Scientists affirm that universe has had a beginning, and it will have an end. GOD IS THE AUTHOR OF ALL THINGS. Hence the only alternative is: either the world produced itself, or it was created. But the thinking that all things came into existence spontaneously, is the most unreasonable assumption a person can make. How could anything act before it existed? If this world did not produce itself, then it must have been created by God. It is silly for us to set any kind of limits to the Supreme Being. Why should we make God a slave of his own laws and say God works no miracles?

THERE IS REVELATION IN NATURE AND IN THE BIBLE. God has revealed Himself in the creation. There is a more definite and personal kind of revelation which God gave to mankind. Thus, he revealed Himself to Adam, and Enoch and Noah. Later because men turned stubbornly away from God, God gave them up to the thoughts of their own heart, and chose Abraham, so that in his seed all the nations of the world might be blessed. Thus out of Abraham came the people of Israel, to whom were committed the oracles of God. Thus Moses narrates the beginning of things, also records the law. The holy men of God speak and write as they are moved by the Holy Spirit. In all the writing of the Word, God exercised a providential control, so that what was reported by His chosen men should be the real facts.

PROOF OF THE BIBLE'S INSPIRATION

Unlike any other sacred book in the world, Bible condemns man and all his works. Bible does not praise either his wisdom, his reason, his art, or any progress that he has made; but it represents him as being in the sight of God, a miserable sinner, incapable of doing anything good, and deserving only death and endless perdition. Secondly, the Bible exalts itself far above all merely human books by its announcement of the great incomprehensible mystery that, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son; that whosover believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). Where is there a god among all the heathen nations who  promised those people that, by taking upon himself the sin of the world and suffering its punishment, he would thus become a savior and redeemer to them?

Thirdly, the Bible sets the seal of its divine origin upon itself by means of the prophecies. Very appropriately does God says, "I am God, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times, things not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure; calling a ravenous bird from the east, and the man of My counsel from afar country. Yea, I have spoken, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed, I will also do it" (Isaiah 46:10-11). Where is there a god, or gods, a founder of religion, who could, with such certainty, have predicted the future of even his own people? Nevertheless the prophecies of Moses and his threatened judgments upon the Israelites have been literally fulfilled. Literally also have been fulfilled, the prophecies respecting the destruction of those great ancient cities, Babylon, Nineveh and Memphis. Moreover, in a literal way has been fulfilled what the prophets David and Isaiah foresaw concerning the last sufferings of Christ-His death on the cross, His drinking of vinegar, and the casting of lots for His garments. And there are other prophecies which will still be most literally fulfilled, such as the promises made to Israel, the final judgment, and the end of the world. The Bible has demonstrated its peculiar power by its influence with the martyrs, of their willingness to die meekly for faith, not killing for faith. If you critics and despisers of God's Word, can write such a book and then die for it, we will believe you.