In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;
(Titus 1:2) KJV
A doubtful Christian asked us to establish the logical connection between the statements God can’t lie and the Bible is true. This is the premise of Matty’s Paradigm so we do need to have a solid grasp of it.
Principle I Deduction 1
- IF God can’t lie,
- THEN the Bible is true.
The first of these two statements is explicitly stated in scripture, the second may be derived from scripture. As we contemplated the logical progression from one to the other we found that the deductive reasoning behind each of them is the same. They’re both deduced from the same axioms in the same way, therefore this is a principle of Principia Mattymatica.
God can’t lie and the Bible is true.
Principia Mattymatica – Principle I
The idea that we’re intrigued by is this: Fundamentalist Christians are prepared to accept the authority of scripture but most other people, including moderate and liberal Christians, don’t. Even though these statements are Biblical, what if they could be deduced from a set of axioms which are empirical?
Deductive reasoning, also deductive logic, logical deduction or, informally, “top-down” logic, is the process of reasoning from one or more statements (premises) to reach a logically certain conclusion. It differs from inductive reasoning or abductive reasoning.
– Deductive Reasoning, definition (Wikipedia)
If we have Axioms which are 1) established and 3) self-evidently true, from which we can deduce the principle God cannot lie and the Bible is true, then we can take Romans 1:20 as a predictive testable hypothesis for the existence of God. It’s Hypothesis 16.