How do I explain the fact that those who do not read the scriptures nevertheless seem to understand the inner workings of combustion engines and yet I, with my bible, still don’t know what is going on under a bonnet? Clearly the bible is not sufficient for every question we might have. It does not profess to make that claim. It does not claim to be sufficient for every situation nor to be the highest authority in every matter that might ever be the cause of a question.

You may have come across people talking about the sufficiency of scripture. The bible is said to be sufficient. But what, exactly, is it sufficient for?

For some, the answer is immediately obvious: everything. The bible is sufficient for all matters pertain to life, the universe and everything. Except, we don’t have to do much question-asking to discover it isn’t sufficient for a whole host of things.

The bible isn’t sufficient to tell me who the first king of England was nor can it tell me what a black hole is. Equally, it won’t give me philosophical answers to whether A or B theory of time is correct nor whether the number 0 actually exists in reality. I have to go to external sources to answer those kind of questions.

It is also evidently true that the bible isn’t sufficient to tell me all manner of things about my daily life. The bible doesn’t tell me what school I should send my children to (if any), what car to buy (if any), which newspaper to read (if any), and on and on and on. There are all manner of things about life for which, again, the bible is not sufficient. We need to go to external sources in order to attempt answers to these kind of questions.

Someone might protest at this point. Surely the bible does give us some principles that might guide us on these questions. That is certainly true. But guidance by itself is not sufficient, is it? Guidance presupposes that other sources may be consulted, other factors may be brought to bear and the scripture may not be our ultimate source when it comes to some of those questions. There are questions, even when there might be guidance involved that scripture may offer, that still makes it a subordinate source of authority.

Think of it this way. If I want to understand the inner workings of a car engine, there are certainly principles in scripture – like the idea that God is a God of order for example – that might make me inclined to assume certain natural laws will be at play and things tend to work in particular ways.

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