Christians have been accused, (unfortunately [often])
rightly, as being anti-intellectual. That is to say it is common to hear people
mock Christian beliefs as nonsensical. David Hume takes it so far as to say
that the only ‘miracle’ in the world is that people can believe Christian
doctrine. Of course, our own brothers and sisters don’t help matters when they
say, “Doctrine divides; just love people” and “Science is wrong because the
Bible is true” or “It doesn’t have to make
sense; that’s why it’s called faith.” Such well-intentioned statements are
exceedingly common but drastically flawed. Doctrine simply means ‘teaching,’
and everybody believes doctrine of a kind—we had better hope ours is sourced
from Scripture, taught by the Church! Science and the Bible are not
incompatible. And actually, it has to make some
kind of sense, otherwise we would apparently be serving a God of whim and
fancy, emotion and random. Yet we don’t. We love the God who created physics,
biology, etymology, mathematics, music and everything that is ordered… including the seemingly
disordered: from the food chain to topography.
It is unfortunate that there such a de-emphasize on
educating church leaders, of reading the authors of previous centuries, and of
knowing the original languages; it is unfortunate that there is such commonness
of deciding not to study theology, of rejecting the sciences a priori, and of finding comfort in
illogical silliness and calling it faith instead of folly. These bring with
them dangers: falling sway to heresy and false teaching, becoming a
chronological snob, being unable to evaluate arguments in the language which
they were made, failing to recognize the beauty and supremacy of Christ—pantocrator
and Cosmic King, foolishness and sin. And
yet there is another set of dangers that come from depending on logic.
When you depend on logic, you are declaring
that your ability to reason is supreme—if God does not conform to your
definition of logic, then you run the heavy risk of denying him as he is. We
see this frequently all over the map: “I could never believe in a God who…”
Oftentimes it’s an ethical issue like genocide in the Old Testament, tsunamis
today, hell for eternity. But other times, you just redefine God: “I know what
the Bible says, but God wouldn’t do that.” And sometimes you even redefine the
language of Scripture confusing everyone who hears you—making them think you
are a Christian when you have actually denied its essence: “Jesus is the Son of
God which means that Jesus is divine [read
not-the-same-as-the-Father-but-still-better-than-us].”
Hear some examples of logic taken awry:
- If God commands us to do something, it must be possible to
do, otherwise God would be unjust. Since God commands us to be perfect, it must
be possible to be perfect without Christ. (the logic of Pelagius
[“Pelagianism”], deemed heretical and anathematized by the Church)
- That which is ‘begotten’ was at one time naught. Since the
Father begets the Son, there was a time when he was naught—a time without the
Son. Therefore the Son of God at one time did not exist, but came into
existence, that is to say “he was begotten of the Father.” (the logic of Arius
[“Arianism”], deemed heretical and anathematized by the Church)
- God is spirit, not matter. Therefore, it is more holy to be spirit than to be matter. God, who is perfectly holy, cannot become less holy, and thus he cannot become matter. Therefore, although it seemed that Christ was human (that is to say ‘matter’), he only appeared thus, but never actually become united to matter. It was not he that died on the cross, but another who was mistaken for him—Christ was never upon the cross, but only ascended to the Father. (the logic of the Gnostics [“Gnosticism”], deemed heretical and anathematized by the Church)
These are only three of the many ways logic has misled
well-intentioned humans into false belief resulting in their condemnation. Not
because they were mistaken on a simple issue, but because they were mistaken of
the essential person: God revealed through Jesus Christ. They trusted in
something other than God and what he had revealed to them. They made their
reason the determiner of truth, and came to worship something other than
Yahweh, our Triune God. I don’t wish to write with a ‘matter-of-fact’ tone, if
that’s what comes across. I want to write with sobriety recognizing that we all
straddle the threshold of truth and error—worship and idolatry. We are
constantly in danger, and we are all too frequently idolaters. And we are in
constant need… constant dependence upon Yahweh who acts in grace toward us.
Logic and rationality are a gift of God unto mankind to help us understand him and the world he created. But we are still finite, and not
just finite but fallen and created—there may indeed be times that things seem illogical or random, but they only
seem so in the scope of dynamic, time-bound, existence as a finite human
considers things of eternity, infinity, and divinity. Without his grace we
would be destitute and destined for damnation, but with it we sit as sons and
daughters upon his throne, heirs of the eschatological rational world. To that
we look forward, when we will eternally be able to plumb the depths of him and
his creation: always satisfied, never satiated; constantly deepening in love,
holiness, righteousness, and joy. When we will study the physics of this world
and others, the chemistry of things our minds haven’t begun to comprehend, they
languages of nations throughout history—present there. And we will do so
without idolatry. Recognizing the limits of our mind, and depending on its
Creator to expand them further.
Does God’s choice of grace toward you make sense? Apparently
not. But his mind is not yours, nor his thoughts. And there are reasons for which
you have been recreated of which you have not the slightest clue—which may not
come to fruition until two thousand years hence.