False Prophets and Scientific Method

Simon Bridge
May 7, 2011

Abstract
The Bible warns us about false prophets. But how are we to tell the
false from the true? It turns out that God has the answer: we use scientific
empirisism.

Introduction
According to the Bible there was a time when God spoke to His faithful
directly. That way nobody had to worry about what God wanted or even
if He existed at all . . . you can go to the town meeting and ask Him. Then
one day:
Num 12:6 And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a
prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto
him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.
This must have caused a stir, look at the language: “If there be”
. . . This is God talking: doesn’t He know ? Without that ”if” the state-
ment seems better, except: how is this an improvement? God is, right
there, speaking direct. Now he says that he will also speak to one of them
through dreams? What’s the point? Unless He intends not to speak di-
rectly any more. Presumably people wanted to know why, but, whatever,
nobody is going to argue.
It’s just that there’s an immediate problem: how will this work, ex-
actly? God stops coming to meetings but people still want to know what
to do. So they ask around: “Anybody having dreams from God? We’ll
do whatever you say . . . ”
Sure, that’ll work! A dozen people raise their hands. Even I can see
that one coming . . . Clearly, at most, only one can be right. You can just
see the fighting start up:
TRUE P: I am the prophet!
FALSE P: No, I am the prophet!
TRUE: No! me! Kill the false prophet!
FALSE: No! Me! Kill the others!
PEOPLE: Enough of this: kill them both!
BOTH: Now hang on a minute . . .

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This must have been a serious problem, and God had to clarify the situ-
ation in another personal appearance.
Jer 23:21 I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I
have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.
“Well yeah,” says basically everybody, “so how are we supposed to tell
the bad ones?”
Jer 23:22 But if they had stood in my counsel, and had
caused my people to hear my words, then they should have
turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their
doings.
If they were the real deal, they would have been successful ?
Jer 26:4 And thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the
LORD; If ye will not hearken to me, to walk in my law, which
I have set before you, To hearken to the words of my servants
the prophets, whom I sent unto you, both rising up early, and
sending them, but ye have not hearkened; Then will I make
this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to all the
nations of the earth.
Oh I get you: if I go on about how Holy I am, I’d better act Holy.
Jer 35:15 I have sent also unto you all my servants the
prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, Return ye
now every man from his evil way, and amend your doings, and
go not after other gods to serve them, and ye shall dwell in
the land which I have given to you and to your fathers: but ye
have not inclined your ear, nor hearkened unto me.
Interestingly, it is not being a false prophet that condemns me, it is my
failure to act according to The Law. Possibly lying about being a prophet
is against that Law – but that is not actually stated directly. According to
what is here it is OK to be a false prophet as long as I preach obedience.
That pretty much lets ordinary preachers off the hook.
Seriously, this smacks of poor management. Couldn’t He have just
handed out a badge or something similarly unambiguous. How about in
the original announcement just pointing the fellow out to everyone while
he was still there and save all this trouble? Then Numbers would be a bit
different:
Num 12:6 And he said, Hear now my words: There be a
prophet among you, I point to him now: it is he, the LORD
indicated one who was amongst us, and I will speak unto him
later in dreams. Num 12:7 And He who was pointedeth out did
humbly accept this burden that He his LORD did place upon
him Himself and no other could claim the mantle of prophecy
unto himselfe falsly for all there witnessed and would speak
unto the false sayer and say ”don’t give me that, you don’t
look anything like him.”
But that did not happen, and no amount of expanation worked either,
because God had to spell it out to Isiah too:

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 Isa 8:20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not
according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.
These guys just don’t learn do they? Its as if God goes away and after a
bit everybody starts acting up again. Modern Cult-leaders seem to have
managed to figure most of this out already – they make sure they have
based their teachings in whatever they can convince people is actually in
accordance with Gods words. There’s the rub: so far all God has provided
is a blueprint for misleading the faithful by pretending to be a prophet.
All this can be faked!
God noticed this, but seems to have waited some time before bringing
it to anyone’s attention. Probably lots of people had noticed, and com-
plained already. We know this because God finally relents and provides a
litmus test:
Deu 18:20 But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a
word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak,
or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet
shall die. And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know
the word which the LORD hath not spoken? When a prophet
speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not,
nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not
spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou
shalt not be afraid of him.
This answer is quite startling – read it again: I submit that this passage
insists we apply mondern scientific philosophy. If the prophecy comes
true, then the speaker may be a true prophet, but if it does not come
true, then the speaker is definately a false prophet. All the Popperian
consequences (falsifiability et al) follow.
Scientists know we can apply this principle more widely than suggested
here. It is also at the heart of the fundamental conflict between Church
and Science. By applying this principle widely, Science risks finding out
that some Chuches accepted prophet was not true. That would be pretty
bad for the Church, even though all the Bible warns is that you are not
as well prepared for when bad stuff happens (Jer 14:14-16).
Science generally concerns itself with statements about the World. So
if any prophet in the Bible makes a statement about the World, claiming
that this is the Word of God, we can falsify it. If it turns out to be false,
then all that prophets teachings must be held suspect. At the very least,
he was just another preacher. As long as the statements are not falsifiable,
then we should remain suspicious.
This is probably why early science was commonly at odds with the
Church and why many Churches are so keen to re-interpret the Bible
symbolically to allow for the empirically determined age of the Earth and
the amount of time evolution takes. Seven literal days is not enough.
If a prophet says that the Earth is the center of the Universe, where we
know it is not, then he meant it is a spiritual sence. It is not intended to
be taken literally. That way, pretty much anyone can dodge the empirical
test of Deuteronomy and we are back where we started. If he says, as in
Jeremiah 14:14-16, that famine etc will not touch Jerusalem, and it does,

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why: he meant spiritual famine – and only if people didn’t sin too much
shame on you.
This is the Obiwan hedge . . . “Darth Vader did kill your father Luke,
just not literally”.
More generally this can be taken in a softer form: what we say we
know are expressions of our beliefs about God. We can be wrong. For
example – it used to be believed that there could be no extictions as God
who counts every sparrow would not allow one of his creations to die out.
We now know that this belief about God was wrong: God may see every
fall, but God does not stop the fall. Whole species can get wiped out by
predation or just a dumb accident.
What else do we know about God which will later turn out to be
wrong? The only verifiable test God offers, is through empirisism.
But if we are to treat the test honestly, given this is what God com-
mands we do, then what are we to make of Genisis 2:17?
Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof
thou shalt surely die.
This is God making a prophesy. This has to be a True prophesy – by
definition. But we know from the same book that Adam and Eve did eat
of the tree of knowledge. And they did die (because they got chucked out
of Eden before they could eat of the tree of life too – which is another
matter). But how long did it take them to die?
The prophesy says that they will surely die in the same day. This did
not happen. According to Genisis, Adam and Eve lived to a ripe ald age.
If God is exempt from his own test in Deuteronomy, then God is a
hypocrite. If God made a mistake, then God is not all powerful etc. If
God changed his mind (perhaps God took pity on the two humans and
changed their fate) then it was still not a true prophesy. I don’t see how
God can get out of this unless . . . the verse itself is wrong!
If the verse is wrong, then what else in the Bible is wrong?
We are left with the Obiwan hedge: when God said “die” He meant
a spiritual death. Having obtained knowledge of good and evil they were
no longer innocent. That happened the same day they ate, fulfilling the
prophecy, and God is off the hook.
The surrounding passages value knowledge over ignorance, yet casts
the removal of ignorance as A Bad Thing. Probably it is the disobedience
which is the sin and not the knowledge itself. And so it runs on in a big
tangled knot.
Clearly there is something wrong with theism based on the Bible. You
can see the attraction that Gordian knot-cutting atheism has.
But even if you don’t, you should be able to see in the Deuteronomy
test that God requires that we use Scientific Method to test our ideas
about Him and His Creation. We shouldn’t take anything for granted.