How do we know that the Bible is the written word of God?

Another SwordandSpirit.com posting.

How can we tell whether God or mere men were responsible for the Bible or for any other book of "holy writ?”

There are many ways to examine this good and honest question. But let’s look at it from a way not used too often: let’s examine the perspective. Men will write from their own limited point of view. It is reasonable to expect that God, on the other hand, would communicate to us from a perspective that goes beyond our limited frame of reference.

Man's finite universe is limited to the four dimensions of length, width, height, and time. No wonder, then, that a man-invented religion will confine God and God's interaction with man to these four dimensions. But, since God the Creator must live beyond these four He created, a message truly from Him will reveal His perspective from extra dimensions.

In this respect, among many others, the Bible is unique. It alone contains descriptions of an entirely self-consistent, yet extra-dimensional reality; such as the beginning of space and time, God's operations before time began, and God as one, two, and three persons simultaneously. The Bible alone teaches such doctrines as the simultaneity of free choice and predetermination. For these and many other reasons, it is sensible to conclude that the Bible alone is the written word of God to man.

Can God's Existence Be Absolutely Proven?

I took this from SwordandSpirit.com, a great Chrisitanity study site. Use this information whenever you find yourself in one of those "conversations" or maybe just for your own personal review.

What I want is absolute proof for the existence of God. Why can't any Christian give that to me?

Absolute proof requires complete knowledge of something. Philosophers would say, for example, that since we cannot know everything about the chairs we sit on, there remains a basis for doubt - however slight - about their actuality. So, sorry! We humans, confined as we are to the 4 dimensions of time and space, cannot possess absolute proof of anything. There's always that inherent limitation.

However! There is ample practical proof of the existence of chairs. That is, there is so much evidence to support the belief that they are there, that, by faith in those evidences, we sit. So what we are more realistically seeking in life's great mysteries is practical proof, not the forever-elusive absolute proof.

As to the existence of God. evidence from 1) discoveries about the origin and design of the universe, 2) the origin of life itself, and 3) the fulfillment of biblical prophecy, all show us that for these to have happened by accident or "coincidence" are much less than 1050. (1050 is one followed by fifty zeroes, odds a lot worse than your local lottery and a long-shot by anyone's standards!) I bring those odds up because they are considered "miraculous" even among scientists.

Though not absolute proof, this is more than enough practical proof that the universe, life, and the words of the Bible have not come together on their own but by the intervention of God.