Absolutism is a two-edged sword, and yet we would prefer to have it be a more comfortable one-edged sword. Epistemic certainty is an Enlightenment idol — men who want to know absolutely have fallen to the ancient temptation offered in Eden, which is, ye shall be as God. Only God knows absolutely. But the fact that epistemic certainty is an idol does not mean that human certainty is impossible. We, created in His image, can know Him, and can therefore know the Absolute. But we cannot know absolutely.
Modernists want to be as God, and want to know absolutely. They cannot — they are mere men, and they have to suck oxygen in through their noses and put pudding into their mouths to keep their brains going. Their consciousness runs off an expendable battery. Man cannot know absolutely.
Postmodernists admit that we cannot know absolutely, but then go on to the heresy that we cannot know the Absolute. They also say that the Absolute is incapable of writing a perfect book accomodated to our condition. The postmodern serpent tells Adam and Eve that they have no sure word anywhere — not from him, not from one another, not from the earlier modernist serpent, and certainly not from the one who made them. This also is a damned lie.
Certainty does not come in metric units. We cannot have it parceled out to us by the philosophy departments of the world. But a man can know, because the Bible says that a man can know. And he can know on the basis of the Word of God given to us, and only on that basis. We submit to the Scriptures, period, because only in that way is it possible to know anything else. Credo ut intelligam. I believe in order that I might understand. And when I believe the Scriptures, I do not have the privilege of being a finicky eater. I have to believe it all, I do not get to pick and choose. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
And this results in what I have previously called an epistemology of blood. What am I willing to die for? What am I willing to die for gladly? If I am ever arrested by persecutors, I will not offer them ten pounds of epistemic certainty. Or five yards of it. Or convoluted arguments. The only thing I have to offer is myself.
But I mentioned the sword has two-edges. Everyone admires the martyr, and even those who have no basis for understanding him still have a measure of respect for someone who is willing to die for his beliefs. But I cannot be willing to die for my beliefs about Scripture without also, in certain defined circumstances, being willing to kill for them. Granted that in the past many have erred in this judgment, and have killed when they ought not to have. But the same is true of martyrs. There have been those who have gone to the lions unnecessarily.
But the fact remains that under certain circumstances, I should be willing to support the execution of someone on the basis of what the Bible says. And I do. When a man slays another man, one of the most ancient commands from God is that he needs to be executed. This is not said in a bloodthirsty way; it is God’s appointed way to withstand bloodthirstiness. Men ought not to be executed without due process, and they should never be executed for light and trivial reasons. But neither should we refrain because of a failure of nerve, a failure of epistemological trust in the God who has spoken to us. And He has said that where justice is not speedily executed upon the criminal, there the heart of man is filled to do evil. Man is not the arbiter of truth — he is the repository of lies. Man is not the measure of all things — he is the one measured. Let God be true and every man a liar.