Nearly every religion has its holy books.
Why believe that this particular book – so large and varied, compiled over so many centuries – is really the Word of God? And how is one to rise, intellectually, to such a certainty?
The WHY - as I've heard in my community - is very simple: as Peter says to Christ, “You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).
The words of eternal life! The Bible is the roadmap to a new, eternal, and joyful reality: to a new creation where death is definitively destroyed (cf. 1Cor 15:26) and human beings, glorified in body and soul, share in the very nature of God (cf. 2Pet 1:4).
But HOW is a non-believer to come to believe that this “map” is more than a fairy-tale?
There are many ways to answer that question, some of which are presented in the links below. One example that Friar Volantino gives which I find particularly striking, is this one:
How do you know that an instruction manual is true?
By following the instructions...and discovering that, when you do so, the object in
question actually functions.
It’s true for a toaster, a computer, a car.
And it’s true for us.
If the Bible is truly the “instruction manual” that makes sense of this broken, beautiful,
suffering, loveable mess that is our own humanity…then by following what it says, our
own lives will come into order. We will find meaning; we will find joy; we will find peace.
If you aren’t sure, we can tell a non-believer, try it and see!
You have nothing to lose…and everything – literally everything – to gain.
“These are the books which tell us of eternal life, which were written not only that we might believe but also that we might have everlasting life.” (St. Bonaventure, Office of Read., Mon. week V O.T.)
Further Resources: