The Search for the True Holy Book of all “Holy” Books

My loving parents bought for me the best education the secular world had to offer. Following in the footsteps of my Bostonian ancestors, I left public school in the 2nd grade for Fenn School and then Dexter School (both pre-prep schools), followed by Milton Academy (a prep school) and then the Ivy League (in my case, it was Dartmouth).

Without any spiritual balance (at most we were Unitarians, if ever we went to church), I had become an intellectual humanist. I wasn't ornery enough to be an atheist, though; I considered myself an amiable agnostic. I would have scoffed at anybody, though, who didn't believe in great ages and evolution, but frankly I had never knowingly met any real Christians!

Then a friend loaned me Dr. Duane Gish's book Evolution? The Fossils Say NO! It was very disturbing. I then read Scientific Creationism (by the late Dr. Henry Morris, another ICR author), which blew me the rest of the way out of the saddle. I realized that I had never been exposed to any of the scientific problems with evolution (much less the scientific support for creation!).

I went back over all my earth science college notes and what I'd been taught about geology, biology, astrophysics, etc., simply to discover that there was much truth which I had not been taught … and much of what I had been taught was not true at all! Consequently, I became a creationist (before I ever became a Christian), possessing an angry sense of betrayal (have never given a dollar to any of the fundraising campaigns of my alma maters). But, I was still spiritually dead and didn't know what to call this creator.

My problem was that I didn't know how to deal with the spiritual claims of anything or anybody. I did realize that Truth is divided into the spiritual/supernatural domain of reality and the physical/natural domain of reality. I set out to identify spiritual absolutes by a process of elimination.

When somebody makes a claim, the first question to ponder is: which reality does this claim pertain to? There are three ways to assess the validity of a physical/natural claim: scientifically, historically and arithmetically. There are also three ways to assess the validity of a spiritual/supernatural claim: intuitively/emotionally, reasonably/intellectually, or by simply relying upon a “holy book” composed by the god who was here from the beginning.

It is easy to show that our emotions and intellect are unreliable. The question was: which of all the dozens of holy books is the right one? Every religion and cult claims theirs is the true one!

Here is how the process of elimination worked for me.

The question was: which of all the dozens of holy books is the right one?

It was based on the assumption that God's Word will never contradict His World (and vice versa). As I read through one “holy” book after another, if I were to find just one error in the physical/natural claims (which I had been well trained to identify), I would know-without ever having to examine the spiritual/supernatural claims-that the holy book in question could not be the right one. It would not matter whether everything else it claimed happened to be true. With one error, it could not be 100% Truth! It could not be “absolute” Truth! Just one error disqualified any holy book as truly being holy.

My research indicated that there was only ONE holy book (the Bible!), which never makes a claim in the spiritual/supernatural realm that is contradicted by facts from the physical/natural realm. There is nothing in the physical/natural realm which makes biblical miracles impossible. (In contrast, one “holy” book claims that the earth is held up by five white elephants on the back of a tortoise; that would appear to be a miracle, yet it is not true for there are no physical elephants or tortoise in sight doing such a thing.)

Realizing that the Bible was never proven wrong, I was given the courage to give my life to the Christian God, and indeed came to prove for myself that Jesus was just whom He said He was!

Later, I became a Christian schoolteacher and lecturer on evolution and creation. The wonderful opportunity now to teach young people has proven more adventuresome than I could have ever dreamed.

In my case, the Christian life began as God used creationists, not ministers, to open my eyes to the truth of His Word and to the gospel. I hope you'll join me in supporting creation groups like AiG and ICR, which for thousands of lost souls, God is using to open hearts and to start the process of changing lives for eternity!