The Way to Certainty
The Way to Certainty An important distinction between science and religion is that the first can be satisfied with human certainty but the latter demands nothing less than divine certainty. The object of faith must be the wholly reliable, infallible, eternal truth so that we can count on it in life and death, for time and eternity. In most earthly matters we can tolerate lesser or greater degrees of probability. But in religion, which in its deepest ground always concerns man's eternal salvation, total certainty is an indispensable requirement. The basis of our hope for eternity cannot be a human word, a result of scientific inquiry, an ideal shaped by our imagination, or a proposition built on human reasoning, for all these are shaky and fallible. They cannot support the building of our hope, for soon it would collapse into ruin. Faithreligious faith—can by its very nature rest only on a word, a promise from God, on something that proceeds from His mouth and is revealed to man either naturally or supernaturally.
It is therefore no coincidence that all religions appeal to revelation.
They may trace their origin back to a special revelation or they may live on the basis of continual revelation, but they never claim to rest on human investigation, only on divine authority. This flows forth from the nature of religion. Revelation is the presupposition, the foundation, the flip-side, the necessary correlate of religion. A religion that no longer dares to come forward in God's name and authority loses its very essence. It has become mythology or philosophy of religion. Moreover, it has thereby lost its influence on people, who always expect more from religion than human opinion.
A theology that no longer dares to trace its dogma to a Deus dixit (so says the Lord) has undermined its foundation, lost its stability, and will soon tumble into ruin. Revelation, divine authority, is the only pillar on which religion can rest.