Foreword
Foreword
Some years ago I witnessed a criminal trial at the Old Bailey in London. The atmosphere was tense, filled with all of the attendant emotions – agony, anger and drama. It became very clear what the attorneys were seeking to do. They wanted to bring either certainty or doubt into the allegations, depending upon the client they represented. Everyone is familiar with such a courtroom spectacle: opposing barristers seek to discredit witnesses who injure their own case. The arguments move back and forth in an attempt by each side to gain the upper hand, and if the slightest doubt can be cast upon the opponent, then somehow it is inferred that the whole weight of contrary testimony is false.
Such a manoeuvre is not difficult and the end result is quite easy to accomplish. Indeed, this tactic has been the exact approach taken in the battle of ideas that have occupied centre stage for centuries. The road taken from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment all the way to modernity and now postmodernity was, in hindsight, rather predictable. The hallmark of our education today is scepticism, going back to René Descartes’ belief that the only thing we can be certain of is doubt. Only now, there is no God believed to respond to our uncertainties. We are alone with our doubts.
In addition, certainty had always been that glittering dome, imagined or otherwise, on the huge edifice of philosophy. Descartes’ starting point was cogito ergo sum: ‘I think, therefore, I am.’ David Hume chiselled the statement down further and said we must eliminate the ‘I’ to reach an even more fundamental assertion: ‘I think, therefore thinking exists.’ Hans Driesch, Danish biologist, went one better and said, ‘I am something (I can’t be sure of what at this very moment when I raise this question).’
All this is reminiscent of the student at New York University who intimidatingly asked his professor, ‘Sir, how do I know that I exist?’ A lingering pause preceded the professor’s answer. He lowered his glasses, peered over the rim and riveted his eyes on the student. His simple response finally came, ‘And whom shall I say is asking?’ Fortunately or otherwise, some things in life are just undeniable.
Further, as both Christian and postmodern philosophers have shown, it is impossible, when dealing with all of reality, to force mathematical certainty into every test for truthfulness. Life is just not livable that way, and in fact, science would collapse if it consistently believed that at every step. Einstein himself challenged this illusory certainty in mathematics, saying, ‘As far as the propositions of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.’ It would be better to describe our pursuit in life as that which seeks a high degree of certainty, or meaningful certainty.
As such, Alister McGrath rightly suggests that doubt is not something we can simply ascribe to determined scepticism or unbelief, but rather in part to our frailty as finite human beings. We are limited creatures – limited in power, knowledge, and yes, perspective. We do not see as we ought, and what we do see, we often doubt. Or, as the Scriptures attested nearly two millennia ago, ‘We see through a glass darkly.’
In a Christmas Eve letter to friend Arthur Greeves, Oxford don C. S. Lewis admitted his own poignant struggle with doubt. Wrote Lewis,
‘I think the trouble with me is lack of faith. I have no rational ground for going back on the arguments that convinced me of God’s existence: but the irrational deadweight of my old sceptical habits, and the spirit of this age, and the cares of the day, steal away all my lively feeling of the truth, and often when I pray I wonder if I am not posting letters to a non-existent address. Mind you I don’t think so – the whole of my reasonable mind is convinced: but I often feel so.’
Likewise, Alister McGrath reveals and unravels the complexity of doubt with empathy and insight. Drawing upon such authors as Lewis and Pascal, he writes that our doubting culture is also ‘a longing culture, which knows it is searching for something that it has not yet found’. And he continues, ‘There is so much that Christianity has to say here!’
In my own experience, after three decades of criss-crossing the globe and lecturing at numerous campuses around the world, I have witnessed this same spiritual yearning. Even in an age of uncertainty it is evident that these longings just will not completely die. In fact, in recent times virtually every engagement I have taken finds the auditorium filled to capacity. This is somewhat analogous to Russia and China each in their way trying to exterminate God and finding out that he outlives his pallbearers. So it is in many of our universities, too.
I am delighted to see this work from Alister who with cogency and confidence contends for the truth of the Christian message. His manner is winsome, his mind studied, and his nature kind-hearted. Doubt is an invitation to growth and relationship, he tells us, and I trust as you read this book you will find his invitation to be genuine and convincing.
Dr Ravi Zacharias
Chairman and Founder, RZIM