Afterwords -- return to reason
"Logic!" said the Professor, half to himself. "Why don't they teach logic at these schools? There are only three possibilities. Either your sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth. You know she doesn't tell lies and it is obvious that she is not mad. For the moment then and unless any further evidence turns up, we must assume that she is telling the truth." (The professor, from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, 1950)
"Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD..." (Isaiah 1:18a)
April 29, 2023
Dear friends,
Don't you long for some sanity in our nation today? How often, when I hear or read of a statement made recently by someone, I think, "Really? You believe that?"
I'm in a reading group that is discussing Christian Reflections, a posthumous compilation of essays by C. S. Lewis (1967). We have been amazed with the relevance of Lewis's addresses for today. They could have been written last week! (Here's a reasonably priced edition for Kindle.)
SUBJECTIVISM. One idea that Lewis conveyed was that modern humanity was seeking to deny objectivity, along with any reality of higher moral law. In seeking to deify our human freedom and autonomy, we were actually in danger of losing ourselves. He writes about the "poison of subjectivism", where all values are deemed to be merely psychological states of mind: "To say that a thing is good is merely to express our feeling about it; and our feeling about it is the feeling we have been socially conditioned to have." But he maintains, "Unless we return to the crude and nursery-like belief in objective values, we perish." (PDF copy here).
Further, in "The Funeral of a Great Myth" he shows how a biological theory regarding evolutionary changes in species has been embraced in our collective imagination as an overarching theory of human development, social progress, and inevitable triumph. This Great Myth, as he calls it, is an unwarranted fantasy, out of touch with reality. (PDF here.)
BEYOND SUBJECTIVISM. A rational mind is a gift from God. It is from our Creator that we are able to recognize reality, and to reason soundly about it. God created us as thinking beings with moral awareness. This is part of what it means to be created in the image of God. When we flee from rationality and morality, setting ourselves up as gods, we end up not with deity, nor even humanity, but with madness and chaos.
Irrationality, because it loses touch with reality, is a kind of insanity. When God calls us back from the brink, when he relates to us, when he communicates, he appeals to our minds, to our thinking, at times even using judicial language: "Come let us reason ['debate, dispute, consider options'] together..." (Isa 1:18). And, "Put me in remembrance; let us argue together; set forth your case..." (Isa 43:26). Again and again, Israel is told to remember, to think, to consider, to take truth to heart.
In the New Testament, we are told to "set our minds on the things of God" (Matt 16:23). And, "he who has ears to hear, let him hear..." (Mark 4:9). To "repent" means to "change our mind." The Gerasene demoniac, set free from bondage, sat at Jesus feet "clothed and in his right mind" (Lu 8:35). As disciples of Christ, we are to think realistically (Lu 14:28). Spiritual transformation comes from the "renewing of our minds" (Rom 12:2). We are to "think about these things..." (Phil 4:8). James writes, "the wisdom from above... is reasonable..." (Jas 3:17) Salvation restores to us a rational mind. Salvation recalibrates our sense of value.
A RETURN TO REASON. Jesus told a parable of a lost son, "the prodigal," who left his home in order to make it out on his own, living for his own pleasure. "But when he came to himself, he said, 'How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger!'" (Luke 15:17) Some versions translate it, "he came to his senses." Literally, it is, "he came to himself." The son -- who sought to flee his father, wanting to be autonomous -- tries to live free and happy, but ends up in bondage and destitute. The prodigal son came to realize who he truly was (a child of his father) and where he was (a long way from home). Sanity is being restored to a sound mind. He purposed to reconcile with his father and to seek the security of his father's house. Isn't this like our conversion? We face our irrational rebellion against God, and we too desire to come home. We no longer seek to define ourselves, for we are defined as those created by God, who belong in humble relationship with the Father through his Son Jesus.
THE WAY BACK. If people are ever to be delivered from this postmodern fog of lies -- of the prevailing myth of human autonomy and progress, of the psychological self, set adrift in its passions, and of right and wrong viewed only as preferences and opinions -- then they must begin to think again, to reason soundly, to challenge assumptions, to consider what God has revealed, and to use divinely-given thought to understand who they are, where they have gone wrong, and how to come to a true knowledge of God. They need to come to their senses.
We should ask ourselves, and others (kindly) with whom we interact (family, friends, coworkers, etc.), questions like these...
-- How did you come to believe what you believe?
-- How do you know it is true? (True, meaning something objectively real outside of yourself.)
-- How do you know what is right and wrong? What is your measure?
-- Have you thought about the alternatives and consequences?
MISCELLANEOUS.
-- "God's presence with us--as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--is the deepest reality we know, in life and in death." Excerpt from a new devotional.
-- We love this song: "Sure On This Shining Night," by Morten Lauridsen, performed here by Vox Humana. The words come from a poem by James Agee:
Sure on this shining night / Of starmade shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me / This side the ground.
The late year lies down the north. All is healed, all is health.
High summer holds the earth. / Hearts all whole.
Sure on this shining night / I weep for wonder
Wandering far alone / Of shadows on the stars.
Note: "The poem is written from the perspective of an older man walking outside on a summer night, reflecting back on his life. This reflection at the end of the man's life encompasses the idea that even through the darkest times in life there is still kindness in the world." (The Lafayette Choir) The beauty of this song lifts our hearts to think of God's eternal kindness toward us in the Lord Jesus!
-- The fastest growing church today is in Iran.
-- This week we are enjoying the brightly colored Goldfinches at our thistle feeder.
FINAL QUOTE. "If you are rational, then you must turn back to God. God has made you rational and moral. If you follow true rationality and true morality so that you are truly human, you will turn back to God." (Francis Schaeffer, The Finished Work of Christ)
That's it for this week!
Sandy
Image credit: drawing above by Pauline Baynes, from the 1950 Harper Collins edition of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.