When we acknowledge sola scriptura, we affirm several important truths about the mind, about God, human beings, and the world we live in.

First, Scripture is an act of communication, and this implies intelligence. Intelligence requires a brain or mind. We learn from the Bible that God is a thinker. He understands everything. He interprets and evaluates all things within his realm. God is the standard and criterion for all thought and behavior, which means sola scriptura.

God is the supremely intelligent king. He is also the architect, econo­mist, and philosopher of creation. He is the ontological expert in each of these fields—and any other we might name. He is our transcendent genius, virtuoso, and mastermind. He is the ultimate specialist of every kind of knowledge. He understands in depth and breadth each realm of experience in every language and at each level of development.

Second, God created a world that is understandable and subject to analysis. It is manageable and capable of development. The transcendent scientist, mathematician, and artisan designed and constructed it. In fact, the world was made for thinkers, for a great mind created it. It is the product of a knowing God and a God who is knowable.

Third, the Bible shows that human beings are created in his image. He is a thinker and so are we. We can understand his revelation to us. Indeed, God made sentient be­ings with intellectual curiosity, imagination, and an aspiration for wisdom. Adam and Eve’s stewardship, for instance, was inconceivable without using the cognitive abilities God gave to and patterned for them. In the same way, we must develop and use our intellectual abilities to serve God and bless others.

The Bible teaches that Adam and Eve were commissioned in Genesis 1:26 to imitate the creator as apprentice rulers, builders, benefactors, and thinkers. For this reason, perhaps the greatest gift God gave us as the image of God is our mind, our self-consciousness.

Our doctrine of scripture, therefore, presumes that we possess the intellectual capacity to hear and understand revelation. This assumes that the divine communicator exists and is not silent. This doctrine also presumes that we should listen and obey.

Indeed, we must learn from God to be good stewards, for he is the divine teacher. The whole world and we ourselves are the classroom. We must listen to his voice in creation and especially through scripture―which implies sola scriptura.