Bible Contradiction? Should we follow our own hearts?

 

For today’s post we will tackle the question the Skeptic Annotated Bible asked: Should we follow our own hearts?

Here are the two answers which the skeptic believes indicate a Bible contradiction:

We should follow our heart and eyes.

“Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood. And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes. Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things.” (Ecclesiastes 11:9)

We should not follow our heart and eyes.

“It shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord, so as to do them and not follow after your own heart and your own eyes, after which you played the harlot,” (Numbers 15:39)

“He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, But he who walks wisely will be delivered.” (Proverbs 28:26)

(All Scriptural quotation comes from the New American Standard Bible)

Here’s a closer look at whether or not there is a contradiction:

 

1. When dealing with skeptics’ claim of Bible contradictions it seems one can never be reminded enough of what exactly is a contradiction.  A contradiction occurs when two or more claims conflict with one another so that they cannot simultaneously be true in the same sense and at the same time.  To put it another way, a Bible contradiction exists when there are claims within the Bible that are mutually exclusive in the same sense and at the same time.
2. One should be skeptical of whether this is a Bible contradiction given the Skeptic Annotated Bible’s track record of inaccurately handling the Bible.  See the many examples of their error which we have responded to in this post: Collection of Posts Responding to Bible Contradictions.  Of course that does not take away the need to respond to this claim of a contradiction, which is what the remainder of this post will do.  But this observation should caution us to slow down and look more closely at the passages cited by the Skeptic Annotated Bible to see if they interpreted the passages properly to support their conclusion that it is a Bible contradiction.
3. The skeptic tries to pit Ecclesiastes 11:9 against both Numbers 15:39 and Proverbs 28:26. Ecclesiastes 11:9 was cited as support for the claim that the Bible teaches “We should follow our heart and eyes.”  Meanwhile Numbers 15:39 and Proverbs 28:26 were cited as support for the claim that the Bible teaches “We should not follow our heart and eyes.”
4. We must ask if Numbers 15:39 and Proverbs 28:26 does support the claim that the Bible teaches “We should not follow our heart and eyes.”
   1. Numbers 15:39 straight out says do “not follow after your own heart and your own eyes.”  The verse also associate following one’s own heart with the activity of “played the harlot.”  So the skeptic has properly interpreted Numbers 15:39.
   2. The first line of Proverbs 28:26 state: “He who trusts in his own heart is a fool.”  Here the assessment is clear that trusting one’s heart is foolish, how much more so is it to follow one’s heart.  Again the skeptic has properly interpreted Numbers 15:39.
5. Why the biblical prohibition against following’s one heart?  The Bible teaches elsewhere our hearts can stray and sin: Jeremiah 17:9, 1 Kings 11:4, 1 Corinthians 4:4-5.
6. It is questionable that the skeptic interpreted Ecclesiastes 11:9 properly when he cited the verse as support for the claim that the Bible teaches “We should follow our heart and eyes.”
   1. It is quite telling that on the Skeptic Annotated Bible the skeptic cited only a portion of the verse from the Kings James Bible: “Walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes.”  But then the second half of the verse qualifies that statement when it says “Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things” (NASB).
   2. The second half of the verse begins with a contrastive conjunction “yet” or “but.”  It tells us if we follow our hearts we must account for the reality that God judges us for our hearts and our action.  This should really slow us down if we think the Bible’s point is for us to follow our hearts.
   3. It does not seem to be the case that Ecclesiastes 11:9 is teaching readers to follow their hearts when we know how the rest of the book use the word “heart.”  We shouldn’t be following our hearts in light of the teaching with the book of Ecclesiastes that the heart is capable of sinning. The heart can be corrupted with bribe according to Ecclesiastes 7:3.  Our heart is capable of foolish anger according to Ecclesiastes 7:9. Human hearts are given fully to evil according to Ecclesiastes 8:11 and 9:3. People can have foolish heart according to Ecclesiastes 10:2.  In light of the book’s own theology of the heart it doesn’t seem likely that Ecclesiastes 11:9 is trying to teach us to follow our heart.
   4. Also when Ecclesiastes 11:9 says in part “And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes” and then followed this statement with “ Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things” it is not encouraging us to follow our heart but the opposite.  I remember as a kid my dad had a bumper sticker that says “Go ahead and hit my car, I need the money.”  That’s not an invitation to hit our car, but rather the opposite!  In the same way when the verse here says to follow your heart but remember God judges that’s a motivation not to follow one’s own heart but the opposite!
7. Thus we don’t have a contradiction here.
8. We shouldn’t miss that worldviews are at play even with the skeptic’s objection to Christianity.  The worldview of the author of the Skeptic Annotated Bible actually doesn’t even allow for such a thing as the law of non-contradiction to be meaningful and intelligible.  In other words for him to try to disprove the Bible by pointing out that there’s a Bible contradiction doesn’t even make sense within his own worldview.  Check out our post “Skeptic Annotated Bible Author’s Self-Defeating Worldview.”