5 How Do We Know It Is True?
Those interested in my thoughts concerning “apologetics” will find these in appendix A of this book.
All men on their own level face a problem. Confronted with the existence and form of the external universe and the “mannishness” of man, how does it fit together, and what sense does it make?
Imagine a book which has been mutilated, leaving just one inch of printed matter on each page. Although it would obviously be impossible to piece together and understand the book’s story, yet few people would imagine that what was left had come together by chance. However, if the torn-off parts of each page were found in the attic and were added in the right places, then the story could be read and would make sense. The whole man would be relieved that the mystery of the book had been solved, and the whole man would be involved in the reading of the completed story; but man’s reason would have been the first to tell him that the portions which were discovered were the proper solution to the problem of the ripped book.
Notice two things about this illustration. First, the portions of each page left in the book could never tell what the story was about. Their importance would be as a test to determine whether the pieces found in the attic were the right ones for that book. Second, the man who discovered the matching portions used his reason to show that they fitted the mutilated book. But then, on the level of his whole personality, he enjoyed reading and understanding the complete story of the original pieces and the added portions. This would particularly be the case if the total book opened the way to a restored communication with someone important to the reader.
So it is with Christianity: the ripped pages remaining in the book correspond to the abnormal universe and the abnormal man we now have. The parts of the pages which are discovered correspond to the Scriptures which are God’s propositional communication to mankind, which not only touch “religious” truth but also the cosmos and history, which are open to verification. Neither the abnormal external world nor the abnormal “mannishness” of man can give the answer to the whole meaning of the created order; yet they are both important in knowing that the Scriptures, God’s communication to man, are what they claim to be. The question is whether the communication given by God completes and explains the portions we had before and especially whether it explains what was obvious before, though without an explanation—that is, that the universe exists and the universe and the “mannishness” of man are not just a chance configuration of the printer’s scrambled type. To put it another way, does the Bible’s answer or does John Cage’s chance music speak of what exists?
Rationalistically and autonomously man could not give a proper answer on the basis of the portion of the book that remained. Without the pages which were discovered, man would never have had the answer. Neither do we have a leap of faith, because the pieces match up in a coherent whole over the whole unified field of knowledge. With the propositional communication from the personal God before us not only the things of the cosmos and history match up but everything on the upper and lower stories matches too: grace and nature; a moral absolute and morals; the universal point of reference and the particulars; and the emotional and aesthetic realities of man as well.
Of course, the individual man will not see that they match up if he rejects the communication just because he has not thought it up himself. This would be much the same as the man in our illustration rejecting the pieces of the book found in the attic because he wanted to make up his own story.
THE NATURE OF PROOF
In dealing with the question of proof which has been raised by the illustration of the book, I want to suggest that scientific proof, philosophical proof and religious proof follow the same rules. We may have any problem before us which we wish to solve; it may concern a chemical reaction or the meaning of man. After the question has been defined, in each case proof consists of two steps:
A. The theory must be noncontradictory and must give an answer to the phenomenon in question.
B. We must be able to live consistently with our theory. For example, the answer given to the chemical reaction must conform to what we observe in the test tube. With regard to man and his “mannishness,” the answer given must conform to what we observe in a wide consideration of man and how he behaves.
Specifically in relation to the question of man, does the Christian answer conform to and explain what we observe concerning man as he is (including my knowledge of myself as a man)? The Christian answer is that man is not dead; rather, that he was man and personal intrinsically from the time he was made by a personal source; and though at the beginning he was normal, he is now abnormal. The reader may well recall here the illustration of the water rising in the second valley and the material in the previous chapters which dealt with the personal source and with man’s present abnormality.
Then there is the negative consideration. After a careful definition has weeded out the trivial, the other possible answers that do not involve a mystical leap of faith are of the following nature:
1. That the impersonal plus time plus chance have produced a personal man. But this theory is against all experience and thus usually the advocates of this theory end with a leap of faith, often hidden by the use of connotation words.
2. That man is not personal, but dead; that he is in reality a machine, and therefore personality is an illusion. This theory could fit the first criterion of being noncontradictory, but it will not fit the second, for man simply cannot live as though he were a machine. This may be observed as far back in the history of man as we have evidence—for example, from the art and artifacts of the caves or from man’s burial rites. We have already given many examples of the way in which a man, such as a scientist in love, has been driven to a Jekyll and Hyde existence on the basis of this conclusion. He is one thing in his laboratory, but something completely different at home with his wife and children. Included is the whole struggle of modern man, the despair shown by the acceptance of the irrational leap in a desperate attempt to have answers at the expense of reason, and the scream of the modern artists when they do not find a meaning for man. Although man may say that he is no more than a machine, his whole life denies it.
3. That in the future man will find another reasonable answer. There are, however, two overwhelming problems to this answer. First, this could be said about any answer to anything and would bring all thought and science to an end. It must be seen to be an evasion and an especially weak reply if the person using it applies it only to this one question. Second, no one can live with this answer, for it simply is not possible to hold one’s breath and wait until some solution is found in the future. Continually the individual makes moral judgments which affect himself and others, and he must be using some working hypothesis from which to start. Thus, if a person offers this seriously as an alternative theory, he should be prepared to go into deep freeze and stop making judgments which touch on the problem of man. Bertrand Russell, for example, should have stopped making sociological decisions which involved others. This position is only possible if one stops the clock.
4. That the scientific theory of relativity may in the future prove to be a sufficient answer for human life. But the scientific theory of relativity cannot be applied to human life in this way. The scientific theory is constantly being tested, both as a theory and by measurement. Therefore it does not mean that “anything goes,” as it does when relativity is applied to human values. Moreover, in science the speed of light in a vacuum is considered an absolute standard. Therefore, scientific relativity does not imply that all scientific laws are in a constant state of flux. To use scientific relativity to buttress the concept of relativity in regard to human life and human values is completely invalid.
One might think of a few other attempts to find possible answers, but the possibilities are very few indeed.
In contrast to such answers, if the scope of the phenomena under consideration is large enough (that is, if it includes the existence of the universe and its form, and the “mannishness” of man as he now is), Christianity, which begins with the existence of the infinite-personal God, man’s creation in his image, and a space-time Fall, does offer a non-self-contradictory answer which explains the phenomena and which can be lived with, both in life and in scholarly pursuits.
I suggest that a serious question has to be faced as to whether the reason why modern men reject the Christian answer, or why they often do not even consider it, is because they have already accepted, with an implicit faith, the presupposition of the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system.
This does not mean that the Christian answer should be accepted for pragmatic reasons, but it does mean that the solution given in the Bible answers the problem of the universe and man, and nothing else does.
It should be added in conclusion that the Christian, after he becomes a Christian, has years of experimental evidence to add to all the above reasons. But we may stop at the same place as Paul does in Romans, chapter 1, by saying that the existence of the external universe and its form and the “mannishness” of man demonstrate the truth of the historic Christian position. He does not in Romans 1 go on to appeal to the Christian’s experience. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold down the truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them [the “mannishness” of man], for God manifested it unto them. For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made [the external world and its form], even his everlasting power and divinity, that they may be without excuse.”
TRUE RATIONALITY BUT NOT ONLY RATIONALITY
Although rationality is important, it should never become exclusively so. Rationality is not the end of the matter. It is parallel to the problem of form and freedom in art. The artist, to be an artist, needs to be free. On the other hand, if there is no form to his painting, the artist loses all communication with the viewers. The form makes it possible for the artist to have freedom plus communication. In the same way, rationality is needed to open the door to a vital relationship to God.
The study of verbalized and nonverbalized communication enters here. What form is to the artist, words are to general communication. The use of words, clearly defined and dealt with rationally, gives form and certainty in communication. The same is true with carefully defined scientific symbols.
It is possible to add things to rational verbalization and thus to enrich it. For example, poetry undoubtedly adds something to prose form. In the Psalms something is communicated to us which would not be so in a bare prose account. The same thing is true when the artist paints a portrait. However, if there is an absolute divorce between the defined and rationally comprehended verbalization on one hand and (for example) bare poetic form on the other, no certain communication comes across to the reader. The most the reader can do is to use the bare poetic form as a quarry out of which to create something by his own emotions.
As long as a genuine continuity remains between the defined verbalization and what is added, then all kinds of enrichment can be brought in. But if there is discontinuity, then no one can say for certain what the added things mean. This is true in art, in experience and even in the use of figures of speech. Figures of speech enhance communication, so long as they fit into a framework of defined speech which can be rationally considered. But if someone writes a book or a play composed only of figures of speech without any relation to a defined rational context, not only is communication lost but the purpose of the figure of speech itself (to be enriching) is lost.
Therefore it is not that rationality is exclusively important, but rather that rationality defines and provides a form for the whole. In the Scriptures there is a good example of this when John lays down as the only true test of the spirits and prophets something which has content and is rationally based: “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not Jesus is not of God: and this is the spirit of the antichrist.”
The Christian is not rationalistic; he does not try to begin from himself autonomously and work out a system from there on. But he is rational: he thinks and acts on the basis that A is A and A is not non-A. However, he does not end with only rationality, for in his response to what God has said his whole personality is involved. Yet, if the control of defined verbalization is lost, then he loses his way. There is no longer any means of testing the spirits, the prophets or experience. All of this then becomes merely the Greek “shade” in the upper story of the new theology to which we referred earlier.
It is therefore most important to get the balance between, on the one hand, the truly rational and, on the other, the involvement of the whole man at every level of his being as something which flows on from the first. Much can be added to the rational, but if we give up the rational everything is lost.
It will help us to clarify this if we go back to the earlier illustration of the ripped book. It is man’s reason which is involved in knowing that the communication is the truth of what is; but then, it is the whole man who rejoices in the finding of the missing answer and in the reading of the now combined pieces. These combined pieces give knowledge of the infinite-personal God who is there and show how communication with Him may be restored. Reason began the process, and from then on the whole man was involved.
A number of years ago I was at a discussion group in Detroit. An older black pastor was there. We discussed many intellectual and cultural problems and the answers given by Christianity. One would have called the discussion “intellectual” rather than devotional. As he was leaving, the black pastor shook my hand and thanked me. If he had said, “Thank you for helping me to defend my people better,” or “Thank you for helping me to be a better evangelist,” I would have been very glad that what I had said had been helpful, and then possibly I would not have given it another thought. But what he actually said was, “Thank you for opening these doors to me; now I can worship God better.” I will never forget him because he was a man who really understood. If this is not our own response first of all, and then the response of those whom we try to help, we have made a mistake somewhere.