VIII. THE BIBLE AND THE INTELLECT

CHAPTER VIII THE BIBLE AND THE INTELLECT

There are some people who reject Christianity because they claim that it is anti-intellectual; that it deprecates mind and appeals to the emotions; that it neglects the intellect and appeals to credulity. Their charges are not a reflection on Christianity but an indication of their abysmal ignorance of true Christianity. It may be true that there are cults which throw away their mind and give full-throttle to the emotions, but any real student of the Bible recognizes that this is not true Christianity. It may be true that some groups appeal to credulity but Christianity does not, as we have shown in the chapter on that subject.

I. CHRISTIANITY DOES NOT FETTER THOUGHT

Christianity calls on man to think, to examine evidence, in becoming a Christian. After he becomes a Christian he is under obligation to prove all things and hold fast to that which is good (1 Thessalonians 5:21) . The range of things, on which Christians are invited and commanded to think, is vast enough to furnish a full curriculum of study for this life. As Paul wrote: "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any praise, think on these things." (Php 4:8) .

Christianity challenges men to think on the most serious and far reaching questions which can confront man, and which do confront every man. Questions such as: What is man? What is God like? What is the origin and destiny of man? What is the true way of life? Christ calls on men to think on the meaning of life, something which unbelief either ignores or makes a terrible mess of in its thinking. What greater challenge is there to the intellect than to think on the meaning of life? How insignificant all other questions are until this question is answered. As Dr. Clark pointed out, no one who has thought carefully can believe that it is right to drift thoughtlessly and aimlessly through life. And yet, some unbelievers are afraid to think seriously along this line, their thought is fettered with reference to the most important of all subjects. It may be because they are afraid that serious thought in the matter would lead them to the place where they would have to abandon cherished views or practices. It may be because they are afraid of the tidal wave of disillusionment and futility which would sweep over their lives if they really faced their own doctrine that life is utterly meaningless and purposeless.

Christianity does not fetter thought, but even if it did would it not be better for thought to be fettered with reference to geology, for example, than with reference to life's meaning and morality. Such alternatives are not before Christians for they may think deeply on all these things. The unbeliever, however, generally finds his thought fettered with reference to the most fundamental things.

And yet these persons maintain that the Christians are the ones who are afraid to think, when they as a general rule are afraid to think long and seriously on the most vital of all questions, the question of the meaning and purpose of life. We utterly repudiate the suggestion that true Christianity fetters thought, that it is anti-intellectual; and we maintain that the teaching of Christianity itself, and its effects wherever it has been allowed to have its way, prove that Christianity does not fetter thought. That is, it does not fetter thinking about the truth and all wholesome thinking although it certainly fetters thought where it ought to be fettered, i. e. with reference to impure, lustful, hateful, wicked, thoughts. It fetters thought only where it needs to be, and it needs to be fettered in the very places where unbelief would unfetter it and give it free reigns to think on sinful things with the view of enjoying and participating in them. We do not mean, of course, that all unbelievers spend all of their time thinking on such things; not at all, for often their patterns of thought are shaped by other forces than unbelief. But we do maintain that in so far as the influence of unbelief on morality is concerned it encourages the thinking of things that are unwholesome, as we shall show in the book, which we plan to write and publish later the Lord willing, on the consequences of unbelief.

II. THE EXTREME "SCHOLARLY DETACHMENT"

Is NOT INTELLECTUALLY COMMENDABLE It is a gross misconception of the position of the intellect to think that one must remain detached and non-committal. And yet some have this attitude and reject Christianity as anti-intellectual because conversion to Christianity implies that the intellect is no longer detached and characterized by a disinterested manipulation of its credentials and teaching. To be passionately devoted to something would seem to them to be a stain on the purity of aloof intellectualism. Such, of course, is not the case. It is antiintellectual for the intellect to ignore the claims and the testimonies of man's moral consciousness; of man's emotional nature; of man's consciousness; of man's spiritual needs; and all the other facts which call for faith in Christ. And once the intellect has seen that these facts do call for faith it is a crime against the intellect to fail to be whole-heartedly devoted to Christ and the spiritual and physical welfare of humanity.

Dr. Charles Wordsworth has written penetratingly of extreme "scholarly detachment."

"Very nearly akin to this intellectual indolence," he wrote, "is the top dispassionate candor on which some skeptics plume themselves, as if it were the best method of attaining religious truth. They seem to forget that revelation comes to them, if it comes at all, from above, not from below, and from a Power in whose presence fear is a duty. If it exist at all, which is the question before them, it is a gift for which they ought to be thankful, not a suppliant upon their charity. They tell us that it is their first duty to preserve their minds from prejudice in favour of revelation; that they are responsible for the legal purity and judicial impartiality of their reason, which is to them the sole arbiter of truth. And so they exclude all hope of finding revelation, lest it should delude them into credulity, and all fear of losing it, lest they should be frightened into superstition. The fact is, that in so jealously guarding the supremacy of reason, they are really wronging what they profess to honour, they unduly limit the field of which it ought to take cognizance, and the position it ought to occupy. True, as all wise apologists of all ages remind us, 'Reason is a divine reality: and God who purposed, disposed and ordered nothing without Reason, wills that all things should be treated and considered with Reason.'1'Reason is the only faculty we have wherewith to judge concerning anything, even Revelation itself.'

This is true, however, just because, and so far as, our reason is a guide of our life ever present with us, not a judge deciding in a court outside us. If it is to decide aright, it must take into account all the elements of our complex life, it must measure and balance all the forces that tend to preserve and extend our powers of will and feeling, as well as those which form our purely intellectual conclusions. Right reason cannot be guardian only of the interests of one faculty or of portion of the human soul, but is the director of the whole, and it must take cognizance likewise of the whole evidence offered by human nature. Thus the warm personal love felt by the soul of its Savior is evidence offered not by the intelligence, but by the heart. The impression of a divine voice speaking in a way which commands obedience in the pages of Holy Scripture, is evidence again offered, not so much by the intelligence as by the will and the conscience. But reason cannot, dare not, reject a consideration of either. Right reason on the contrary says, If there is a revelation it will touch the heart, it will speak to a conscience in just such a way as the Gospel does; and so far, I have the evidence I am bound to expect. Unless revelation did produce these effects, it would be irrational to accept it.

"If reason, however, restricts itself to merely intellectual evidence, the case of a man like the late John Stuart Mill accord ing to his own witness, shows the collapse. 3See his Autobiography, chap. v., "A crisis in my mental history." He quotes two lines of Coleridge (p. 140) as a true description of what he felt in his intense dejection 'Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve, And hope without an object cannot live.' Unfortunately, the religion to which he turned as an object was not the highest--a mere human affection, however tender. See p. 251, written shortly after the death of his wife:--"Her memory is to me a religion, and her approbation the standard by which, summing up as it does all worthiness, I endeavor to regulate my life."

Other faculties will have their rights somehow or other, or the man will perish. And even in the interests of pure intelligence, who can say that hope and fear, love and joy, are foes to be excluded? Did not hope enable Columbus to find America? Do not affection and inclination, as well as the expectation of success, play a real part in all scientific discovery? Do not feeling and taste give insight into character and argument? Does not experience show us daily that only he who loves can understand the language of love? Am I then to drive away all my best thoughts, all the quickening impulses of spiritual life, all my fears of losing man's highest good, and even turn against them and hate them as misleading falsities, because they do not happen to be arguments of a peculiar type, reducible to a certain form of syllogism? Am I to call this a reasonable state of mind? No, rather I should be utterly unreasonable if I did so. Surely it is much wiser to hold with the most profound of living poets.

'I say, the acknowledgment of God in Christ Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee All questions in the earth and out of it, And has so far advanced thee to be wise.

Wouldst thou improve this to re-prove the proved? In life's mere minute with power to use that proof.

Leave knowledge and revert to how it sprung?

Thou hast it; use it, and forwith, or die. For this I say is death, and the sole death, When a man's loss comes to him from his gain, Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance, And lack of love from love made manifest.'

(R. Browning, A Death in the Desert)

This intellectual coldness seems, in fact, to be as sinful as intellectual indolence. Yet some people tacitly make the assumption that the intellect is outside morality; that you have but to follow your own bias and instinct in its sphere, and to disregard the consequences. This is, indeed, a very narrow system of ethics. Let us suppose a man to receive a letter purporting to come from his father, and containing a promise of something which he much desired, which would be a great comfort to him to have, and which the father was specially able to bestow. What should we say of such a man, if he submitted this letter to a purely intellectual test, and decided that the very suitability of the promise to his wants and wishes was a reason for doubting, if not for rejecting it? We should call him unfilial and brutal as well as stupid. And yet this is what these coldly-intellectual persons say with regard to what we tell them of their heavenly Father's message. In them 'lack of love' from love made manifest.' "

There are, of course, some unbelievers who are constantly looking for some word over which they can stumble, and thus excuse and justify themselves for not getting the point which is made in the argument, who will take the little word "faculties" and say, Ah, ha! See what a dumb individual that is basing his arguments on an outworn "faculty psychology." But the point still stands in Wordsworth's argument even if one takes out the term faculty, and calls these things general powers; specific powers; aspects of the unitary core of human life, for these are the things to which Wordsworth calls attention. Of course, if they want to deny heart, determination, and conscience, they can do as they want to do, but they will not thus change what is indicated by those terms; they will only intellectually deny certain truths on which even they act in everyday life.

Dr. Lamont has had some penetrating things to say concerning the extreme so-called scholarly detached attitude when considering the truth concerning God and the cross of Christ. Lamont did not deny-, of course, that the evidence for God and Christ cannot be examined in a scholarly way. What he lamented was that men think that the scientific method is the only way to all truth, and that they thus cheat themselves out of certain vital truths. "This narrow and intolerant view of the way in which the truth must be sought is the crowning vice of modern thought. When Science attempts to investigate God or even the human spirit by its own dispassionate method, its attempt is set at naught by both God and man. To treat a human being disinterestedly is to insult him. To treat God that way is the height of presumption. Mankind is to a large extent under the pitiful delusion that its only concern with God is to investigate Him. That is to make an idol of Science, and, unless this idolatry ceases, the idol will break mankind. The breaking process is already going on. God grant that the process may be stayed by the breaking of the idol! Science is like fire, an excellent servant but a devastating master.

"The modern intellectual situation is so serious that it would need a large volume to deal adequately with it. It must suffice here to point out that the disinterested attitude of Science is in its proper place in relation to objects. A full discussion of this point would reveal the fact that Science, because of its essential method, cannot probe the secret even of an object. If we knew a single object through and through, we should know the entire universe through and through. But let that pass. Let it he granted that Science is doing a legitimate and magnificent work in investigating objects as far as it can go. More power to it. But when God is regarded as merely object for investigation He is thereby dethroned in the heart of the man who so regards Him. It soon follows that man is dethroned from his rightful place in the universe. Then some inhuman monster gets to the top; millions are lured to follow him by his gilded boasts and promises; and leaders and followers alike are increasingly demoralized and dehumanized. All of them cease to be persons in the noble sense of that term. The disestablishment of God is bound to be followed by the disestablishment of man.

"In point of fact, even when a so-called inferior speaks to me, I dare not adopt the disinterested attitude simpliciter. I have to listen to a word addressed to me by a person. An object does not address me, but a person does. The scientific attitude is out of bounds when it is applied without qualification to anyone who addresses me. It is entirely out of bounds when it is applied to the Most High.

"The disinterested attitude to God implies that man is the judge of God and His Word. Thus man puts himself above God. He becomes his own idol and the inevitable consequence is that he dehumanises himself. To make a god of oneself is to become much less than a man. The greatest of the anicent pagans knew this well. They knew it from what they had seen of life. Presumption was with them the sin of sins and was always the precursor of a mighty fall. When Science is turned into an idol, it means that man is his own idol. He speaks about 'conquering nature' when the best that he can do is to understand nature a little better and put it into service of mankind. He boasts that Science is the saviour of mankind, while he knows that it can also be the destroyer. It is such presumption, with its attendant demoralisations, that may turn Science, which ought to be a blessing, into a curse.

"The refusal to acknowledge the living God and to listen to His Word is not peculiar to modern times. It is the bent of the natural man in all ages. Pride, self-will, self-complacency and reluctance to have the current of one's life changed are perennial marks of unregenerate man. The difference made by modern mentality is that now the natural man, if he feels the need of theortical support for his way of. living, thinks that such is forthcoming in the modern way of thinking. He may not troube himself to test the strength of his intellectual buttress, but wishful thinking stands him in good stead. He finds it plausible when he hears that 'man is the measure of all things' and that 'our brains are there in order that we may think for ourselves.' All of which he interprets to mean that what cannot be seen by the light of his own little candle does not exist. He will believe nothing that he cannot prove. And so on. His ideas are partially true, but a half-truth is usually the chief enemy of the truth. This man evades the greatest issue of all, which may be expressed thus. Is there nothing which shines in its own light?"

III. CHRISTIANITY IS A BLOW TO INTELLECTUAL PRIDE

The attitude that Christianity is anti-intellectual is often simply a reaction of pride to the blow which is dealt to it by Christianity. Man feels, at times, very sufficient of himself to direct properly his own steps. To acknowledge not only that he is morally weak but also that his intellect needs God's word in order for man to make the proper choices in life, and to attain to the true goal of life, is mortifying to this idea of self-sufficiency. And so to retaliate against this "insult" pride wants to label Christianity "anti-intellectual."

Christianity, however, is not anti-intellectual but gives to the intellect the answer to the most vital questions which arise in the mind of man. It is a spur, not a hindrance, to real thought. Indeed, "it is not inquiry, but a non-inquiring acquiescence in doubt, which is the peril of this day. It costs much to disbelieve; it requires submission to our God and His grace, to believe. The temptation of this age is to try to find a middle path between faith and unbelief; to say that 'there is much to be said on both sides'; to think that all things must be uncertain in themselves, because many of the persons around us are at sea as to all things, as if one thought all things to be in a whirl, because they seemed so to our neighbors who had dizzied themselves; to be browbeaten out of belief; to shrink from avowing a steadfast adherence to that which must be old because it is eternal, and which must be unchangeable because it is truth; to pick something out of revelation, which, it thinks, will not be gainsaid, and to relegate all else to be matter of opinion; an indolent, conceited, soft, weak, painshating, trifling with the truth of God."

"The battle must be fought. It is half-won, when any one has firmly fixed in his mind the first principle, that God is All-Wise and All Good, and that man's own wisdom, although from God, is no measure for the Wisdom of God, and cannot sound its depth. The criticism of rationalism is but a flimsy transparent veil, which hides from no eyes except its own, (if indeed it does hide it altogether from its own,) the real ground of its rebellion, its repugnance to receive a revelation to which it must submit, in order that it may see."

Let us not permit intellectual arrogance to blind us to the fact that Christianity not only enlightens the intellect but also properly directs it, and thus determines fruits of thought, so that the mind of man does not become the source of diabolical plans for the destruction of humanity. What a reaping it would be for the intellect through pride to reject the only thing which can keep the intellect itelf from being destroyed.

Let us now turn to the objection that Christianity is impractical and antisocial in its nature and that thus it must be discarded for the welfare of humanity.