Chapter 1 - The Metaphysical Necessity
In this book we will deal with the philosophic necessity of God's being there and not being silent, in the area of metaphysics, morals and epistemology.
We should understand first of all that the three basic areas of philosophic thought are what they have always been. The first of them is in the area of metaphysics off philosophic being. We are talking first of all in the area o thought about the area of being, that is, the area of what is, and the problem of existence. This includes the existence of man, but we must realise that the existence of man is no greater problem as such than is the fact that anything exists at all. No one has said it better than Jean-Paul Sartre, who has said that the basic philosophic question is that something is there rather than that nothing is there. Nothing that is worth calling a philosophy can side step the question of the fact that things do exist and that they exist in their present form and complexity. This may be defined, then, as the problem of metaphysics, the existence of being.
The second area of philosophical thought is of man and the dilemma of man. Man is personal and yet he is finite, and so he is not a sufficient integration point for himself. We might remember again another profound statement from Jean-Paul Sartre, that no finite point has any meaning unless it has an infinite reference point. The Christian would agree that he is right in this statement.
Man is finite, so he is not a sufficient integration point for himself, yet man is different from non man. Man is personal in contrast to that which is impersonal, or to use a phrase from my books, man has his 'mannishness'.
Now, behaviourism, and all form of determinism, would say that man is not personal - really, that he is not intrinsically different from the impersonal. But the difficulty with this is that it denies the observance man has made of himself for forty thousand years, if we accept the modem dating system; and, secondly, there is no determinist or behaviourist who really lives consistently on the basis of his determinism or his behaviouristic psychology, saying, that is, that man is only a machine. This is true of a man like Francis Crick, who reduces man merely to the chemical and physical properties of the D.N.A. template. The interesting thing, however, is that a man like Crick clearly shows that he cannot live with his own determinism. In one of his books, Of Molecules and Men, he soon begins to speak of nature as 'her', and in a smaller book, more profound, The Origin of the Genetic Code, he begins to spell nature with a capital N. (1) So if one is going to accept modern determinism and behaviourism, which say there is no intrinsic difference between man and non man, one has to deny man's own observation of himself through all the years, back to the cave paintings and beyond; and, secondly, no chemical determinist or psychological determinist is ever able to live as though he is the same as non man.
The second question in the dilemma of man is man's nobility. Maybe you do not like the word nobility, but I do not care which word you choose, there is something great about man. 1 would want to add here in parentheses, that evangelicals have made a horrible mistake by often equating the fact that man is lost and under judgement of God with man as zero. But that is not what the Bible says There is something great about man, and we have lost perhaps our greatest opportunity of evangelism in our generation by not insisting that it is the Bible that explain why man is great.
However, man is not only noble, or whatever word you want to put in that place, but man is also cruel. So we have a dilemma The first dilemma is that man is finite and yet he is personal; the second dilemma of man is the contrast of his nobility and his cruelty. Or one can express it in a modern way; the alienation of man from himself and from all other men in the area of morals. So now we have two areas of philosophic thought - metaphysics, dealing with being, with existence; and then the second, the area of morals. A third area of this study is that of epistemology - the problem of knowing.
Now let me make two general observations. First, that philosophy and religion deal with the same basic questions. Christians and especially evangelical Christians, have tended to forget this. Philosophy and religion do not deal with different questions, though they give different answers and in different terms. The basic questions of both philosophy religion (and I mean religion here in the wide sense of religion, but including Christianity) are the question of being, that is what exists; man and his dilemma, that is, morals; and how man knows. These are exactly the points the philosophy deals with, but they are also the points that religion deals with, including evangelical or orthodox Christianity.
A second general observation concerns the two meanings of the word 'philosophy' which must be kept absolutely separate or we get confused. The first meaning is a discipline, an academic subject. That is what we usually think of as philosophy: a highly technical study which few people pursue. In this sense, few people are philosophers. But there is a second meaning that we might not miss if we are really going to understand the dilemma of preaching the gospel into the twentieth century world. For philosophy also means a man's world view. In this sense, all men are philosophers, for all men have a world view. This is just as true of the man digging a ditch as it is for the philosopher in the university.
Christians have tended to despise the concept of philosophy. It has been one of the things that has been a dilemma with evangelical, orthodox Christianity. We have been proud in despising philosophy, and we have been exceedingly proud in despising the intellectual. Our theological seminaries hardly ever relate their theology to philosophy, and specifically the current philosophy. Thus, men go out from the theological seminaries not knowing how to relate it. It is not that they do not know the answers, but my observation is that most men graduating from our theological seminaries do not know the questions.
In fact, philosophy is universal in scope. No man can live without a world view. In this sense, there is no man who is not a philosopher. There are not many possibilities in answer to these three basic questions. But there is a great deal of possible detail surrounding the basic answers. It will help us tremendously - whether we are studying philosophy at university and feel buffeted to death, or whether we are trying to be ministers of the gospel speaking to people with a world view -if we realise that in reality the answers to Being (existence), morals and knowing are in the basic concept exceedingly few.
There are two classes of answers given to these questions. The first class is that there is no logical, rational answer. This is rather a phenomenon of our own generation. The question has come under 'the line of despair'. I am not saying that nobody in the past had these views, but they were not the dominant view. Today it is much more dominant than it has ever been. This is not just true among philosophers in their discussions, but it is equally true of discussions on the street corner, at the cafe, at the university dining room or even at the filling station. The solution commonly proposed is that there is no logical, rational answer. All is finally chaotic, irrational and absurd. This view is expressed with great finesse in the existential world of thinking, and in the theatre of the absurd. But it is down in the warp and woof of the thinking of our day that there are no answers, that everything is irrational and absurd. This is the philosophy, or 'world view', of many people today.
If a man held this view consistently, it would be very hard to refute. If a man held that everything is meaningless nothing has answers and there is no cause and effect relationship, and if he really held this with any consistency, it would be very, very hard to argue against.
But in fact no one can hold this consistently: that everything is chaotic and irrational, and there are no basic answers It can be held theoretically, but it cannot be held in practice, because you would have to have absolute chaos and the problem is twofold, so one cannot in practice hold the concept of absolute, chaos.
The first reason the irrational position cannot be held consistently in practice is the fact that the external world is there and it has form and order. It is not a chaotic world. If it is true that all is chaotic, unrelated and absurd science would come to an end. Not only would science come to an end, but general life would come to an end. To live at all is not possible except in the understanding that the universe that is there - the external universe - has a certain form, a certain order, and man conforms to that order and so you can live within it. man
Perhaps you remember one of Godard's movies, Pierrot le Fou, in which you have people instead of going out through the doors, going out through the windows. But the interesting thing is that they do not go out through the solid wall. Goddard is really saying that although he has no answer, yet at the same time he cannot go out through that solid wall. This is merely his expression of the difficulty of holding that there is a totally chaotic universe while the external world has form and order.
Or else people try to bring in a little bit of order; but as soon as you bring in a little bit of order the first class of answer - that everything is meaningless, everything is irrational - is no longer self consistent, and falls to the ground.
This view - that everything is chaotic and there are no ultimate answers - is held by many thinking people today, but in my experience they always hold it very selectively. Almost without exception (I have never found an exception, actually), they discuss rationally until they are losing the discussion and then they try to slip over into the answer of irrationality. But as soon the one with whom you are discussing does that, you must point out that as soon as he is selective in his argument of irrationality, he makes his whole argument suspect. This is the first class of answer - irrationalism - and really it has no answer. Theoretically it can be held, but no one lives with it in regard either to the external world or the categories of their thought, world and discussion. As a matter of fact, if this position was argued properly all discussion would come to an end. Communication would end. You would. only have a series of meaningless sounds - bla, bla, bla. The theatre of the absurd has said this, but it fails because if you read and listen carefully to the theatre of the absurd it is always trying to communicate its view that one cannot communicate. There is always a communication about the statement that there is no communication. It is always selective, with pockets of order brought in somewhere along the line. Thus, this class of answer, namely, that all things are irrational, is not an answer.
The second class of answer is that there is an answer which can be rationally and logically considered, which can be communicated to oneself, in one's thought world, and communicated with others externally. In this chapter we will deal with metaphysics in the area of answers that can be discussed; later we will deal with man in his dilemma, the area of morals, in answers that can be discussed. So we are now to consider such answers in the area of Being, of existence.
Now curiously enough there are only three possible basic answers to this question which would be open to rational consideration. 1 have already said that there are not many basic answers. You can have all kinds of variance within the basic answers, but interestingly enough when you get back to the base you find there are only variances within the answers, and the basic answers are very, very few indeed.
We are considering existence, the fact that something is there. Remember Jean-Paul Sartre's statement: the basic, philosophical question is that something is there rather than that nothing is there. Now the first basic answer is that everything that exists has come out of absolutely nothing.
In other words, you begin nothing. Existence, everything that is there in the whole universe has come out of nothing. Now to hold this view it must be absolutely nothing. It must be what I call nothing nothing. It cannot be nothing something or something nothing. If anybody is going to hold this answer, it must truly be nothing nothing, which means there must be no energy, no mass, no motion and no personality. You have to have this if you are going to have nothing nothing.
My description of nothing nothing runs like this. Suppose we had a completely black blackboard which had never been used. On this blackboard we drew a circle and inside that circle there was everything that was, and there was nothing within the circle. Then we remove the circle. This is nothing nothing. You must not let anybody say they are giving an answer beginning with nothing and really begin with something: energy, mass, motion, personality. That would be something, and something is not nothing.
The truth is I have never heard this sustained, for it is unthinkable that all that now is has come out of utter nothing. But that is the first possible answer. I have never heard it seriously argued, but theoretically it is a possible answer.
The second possible answer in the area of existence is that all that now is had an impersonal beginning. This impersonality may be mass, energy or motion, but they are all impersonal, and all equally impersonal. So it makes no basic philosophic difference which of them you begin with. Many modern men have implied that because they are beginning with energy particles rather than old fashioned mass they have a better answer. They do not. It is still impersonal. Energy is just as impersonal as mass or motion. You will find many people who will try to squirm out of the problem by moving over into the area of energy instead of mass. Salvador Dali did this as he moved from his surrealistic period into his new mysticism. Many other men have done this, too, but energy is just as impersonal as is mass or motion. As soon as you accept the impersonal beginning of all things, you are faced with some form of reductionism. Reductionism argues that everything there is now from the stars to man himself is finally to be understood by reducing it to the original, impersonal factor or factors. The great problem with beginning with the impersonal is to find any meaning for the particulars. A particular is any individual factor, any individual thing - the individual parts of the whole. A drop of water is a particular, and a man is a particular as well.
If we begin with the impersonal, then how do any of the particulars that now exist have nay meaning, any significance, including man? Nobody has given us an answer to that. In all the history of philosophical thought, no one whether from the East or the West, has given us an answer.
Beginning with the impersonal, everything, including man, must be explained in terms of the impersonal plus time plus chance. Do not let anybody ever divert your mind at this point. If you begin with an impersonal, then everything must he explained by the impersonal plus time plus chance. There are no other factors in the formula, because there are no other factors that exist. If you begin with an impersonal, you cannot then have some form of teleological concept. No one has ever demonstrated how time plus chance beginning with an impersonal can produce the needed complexity of the universe, let alone the personality of man. Nobody has given us a clue to this.
Often this answer - of beginning with the impersonal - is called pantheism. The new mystical thought, in the underground newspapers, is almost always some form of pantheism. One might add that all the modem liberal theology is pantheistic as well. As I say, often this is called pantheism, this beginning with the impersonal, but really this is a semantic trick, because by using the root 'theisrn' a connotation of the personal is brought in, when by definition the impersonal is meant. In my discussions I never let anybody talk unthinkingly about pantheism. Somewhere along the way 1 try to make the point that it is not really pantheism (which gives an illusion of personality on the basis of the word symbol 'theism'), but paneverythingism. The ancient religions of Hinduism and Buddhism, and the modern mysticism, the new pantheistic theology, are not truly pantheism. It is merely a semantic solution that is being offered, because 'theism' is such a connotation word. In The God Who Is There' (2) I have emphasized the fact that the modern solutions are 'usually semantic mysticism's, and this is one of them.
But whatever form paneverythingism takes, including modern scientific paneverythingism which reduces everything to energy particles, it always has the same problem. In all of them, the end is the impersonal.
Paneverythingism gives an answer to the need for unity, You always have two problems - you have unity and you have diversity. Beginning with the impersonal, there is no meaning or significance to diversity. We can think of the old Hindu pantheism, which begins everything with om. In reality, everything ought to have ended with om on a single note, with no variance, because there is no reason for significance in variance. And even if Paneverythingism gave an answer for form it gives no meaning for freedom. Cycles are usually introduced., as though waves were being tossed up out of the sea, But this gives no final solution to any of these problems, Morals under every form of pantheism have no meaning as morals for everything in paneverythingism is finally equal. Modern theology must move towards situational ethics because there is no such thing as morals in this cycle. The word morals is used, but it is really only the word morals. This is the dilemma of the second answer, which is the one that most people hold today. Every naturalistic science holds it, beginning everything with energy particles. Many university students hold some form of paneverythingism. Liberal theological books today are almost uniformly pantheist. But beginning with an impersonal, as the pantheist must do, there are no true answers in regard to existence with with its complexity, or the personality (the mannishness) of man.(3)
The third possible answer is to begin with a personal beginning. With this we have exhausted the possible basic. answers in regard to existence. It may sound simplistic, but it is true. When you come to a personal beginning, you have exhausted the possible basic answers. That is not to say there are no details that one can discuss, no variances, sub-headings or sub schools, but you have discussed the big schools which are possible. Somebody has once said, and said brilliantly, that when you get done with any basic question there are not many people in the room. By this he meant that the further you go in depth in any basic question finally the choices to be made are rather simple, they are rather clear. There are not many basic answers to the great questions of life.
So now we are beginning to think of what it means when we begin with that which is personal: that which is personal begins everything else. Everything else there is began with that which is personal, the very opposite of beginning with the impersonal. In this case man being personal does have a meaning, for the origin of all is personal and therefore the personal now has meaning. This is not abstract. Many of the people who come L'Abri would not become Christians if we did not discuss in this area. Hundreds of them would have turned away, saying 'you don't know the questions'. These things are not abstract, but have to do with communicating the Christian gospel in the midst of the twentieth century.
1 get tired of people who ask me why 1 don't just preach the 'simple gospel'. But you have to preach the simple gospel so that it is simple to the person to whom you are talking, or it is no longer simple. The dilemma of modern man is simple: he simply does not know why man has any man meaning. He is lost. an remains a zero is the damnation our generation. If a man cannot find any meaning for himself, that is his problem. But if we begin with a personal beginning and this is the origin of all else, then in this case the personal does have meaning, because man and his aspirations are not meaningless. Man's aspirations of the reality of personality are in line with what was originally there and what intrinsically has always been.
It is the Christian who has the answer at this point, a titanic answer! So why have we gone on saying the great truths in all the ways that nobody understands? Why do we keep talking to. ourselves, if men are lost and we say we love them? Man's damnation today is that he can find no meaning for man, but if we begin with the personal beginning we have an absolutely opposite thing. We have the reality of the fact that the personality does have meaning because it is not alienated from what has always been there and what is and what always will be. This is our answer, and with this we have a solution not only to the problem of existence of bare Being and its complexity, but also for man's being different with a personality which distinguishes man from non man. Here then are two answers: an answer for the existence of what is there -- bare Being and its complexity in the universe; and an answer to the fact that that which distinguishes man from non man, that is, personality or what I call his mannishness, also has a meaning.
I have used an illustration of two valleys. Often in the Swiss Alps there is a valley filled with water and another valley next to it without water. Sometimes, curiously enough, the mountains spring leaks, and suddenly the second valley begins to fill up with water. As the second valley begins to fill up with water, but is lower than or the same height as the level of the lake in the next valley, everyone concludes that there is a real possibility that the second lake came from the first. If the water in the second valley goes ten metres higher than the first valley, nobody gives that answer. If we begin with a personal beginning to all things then we can understand that man's aspirations for the personality has a possible answer, but if his personality rises above an original impersonal there are no answers.
If we begin less than personality, we must finally reduce personality to the impersonal. The modern scientific world does this in it's reductionism, in which the word 'personality' is only the impersonal plus complexity In the naturalistic scientific world, whether it is social, psychological or natural science, a man is reduced to only the impersonal plus complexity. There is no real intrinsic difference.
But once we consider a personal beginning, we have another choice to make. This is the next step. Are we going to choose the answer of God or gods? The difficulty with gods instead of God is that limited gods are not big enough. To have an adequate answer of a personal beginning. To have and adequate answer of a personal beginning, we need new things. We need a personal infinite God (or an infinite personal God) and we need a personal unity and diversity in Gods.
Only a personal infinite God is big enough. Plato understood that you have to have absolutes, or nothing has meaning. But the difficulty facing Plato was the fact that his gods were not big enough to meet the need. So although he knew the need, the need fell to the ground because his gods were not big enough to be the point of reference or place of residence for his absolutes, for his ideals. In Greek literature, the Fates sometimes seem to be behind and controlling the gods, and sometimes the gods seem to be controlling the Fates. Why the confusion? Because everything fails in their thinking at this point. Because their gods as limited gods are not big enough. That is why we need a personal infinite God. That is first.
Secondly we need a personal unity and diversity in God. We do not need just an abstract concept of unity and diversity, but a personal unity and diversity, because as we have seen we need a personal God. We need a personal God, we need a unity and diversity in God., but the unity and diversity in God must be a personal unity and diversity because we have to end up with a personal God or we have no answer.
What we are talking about is the philosophic necessity in the area of Being and existence of the fact that God is there. That is what it is all about: He is there.
There is no other sufficient philosophical answer than the one I have outlined. You can search through university philosophy, underground philosophy or filling station philosophy - it does not matter which - there is no other sufficient philosophical answer to existence, to Being, than the one I have outlined. There is only one philosophy, one religion, that fills this need in all the world's thought - the East, the West, the ancient, the modem, the new, the old. There is only one philosophy, one religion, that fills the philosophical need of existence, of Being, and it is the Judaeo-Christian God - not just an abstract concept, but rather that this God is really there. He really exists. There is no other answer, and orthodox Christians ought to be ashamed of having been so defensive for so long. It is not a time to be defensive. There is no other answer.
Let us notice that no word is as meaningless as the word 'God'. The word 'God' means nothing of itself. Like, any other word, it is only a linguistic symbol - GOD - until content is put into this word. This is especially so for the word God, because no other word has been used to convey such absolutely opposite meanings. The mere use of the word god proves nothing. You have to put content into it. The word god as such is no answer to the philosophic problem of existence, none whatsoever; but the Judaeo-Christian content to the word God as given in the Old and New Testaments does meet the need of what exists - the existence of the universe in its complexity and of man as man. And what is that content? It relates to an infinite personal God, who is personal unity in diversity on the high order of trinity.
Every once in a while in my discussions someone asks how I can believe in the Trinity. My answer is always the same. I would still be an agnostic if there were no Trinity, because there would be no answers. Without the high order of unity personal unity and diversity as given in the Trinity, there are no answers.
Now let us return to the personal infinite again. On the side of God's infinity, there is a complete chasm between God on one side and man, the animal, the flower and machine on the other. On the side of God's infinity, He stands alone, He is absolute other. He is in His infinity contrary to all else. He is differentiated from all else because only He is infinite. He is the Creator; all else was created. He is infinite; all else is finite. All else is brought forth by creation and so all else is dependent and only He is independent. This is absolute on the side of His infinity. Therefore on the side of God's infinity man is as separated from God as is the atom or any other machine portion of the universe.
But on the side of God being personal the chasm is between man and the animal, the plant and the machine. Why? Because man is made in the image of God. This is not just 'doctrines', it is not dogma that needs just to be repeated linearly, as McLuhan would say. This is really down in the warp and woof of the whole problem. Man is made in the image of God, and therefore on the side of the fact that God is a personal God the chasm stands not between God and man, but between man and all else. But on the side of God's infinity, man is as separated from God as the atom or any other finite of the universe. So we have the answer to man being finite and yet personal.
It is not that this is the best answer to existence, it is the only answer. That is why we may hold our Christianity with intellectual two, something that would unite electromagnetism and gravity, integrity. The only answer for what exists is that He, the infinite personal God, really is there.
Now we must develop the second part a bit further - personal unity and diversity on the high order of Trinity. Einstein taught that the whole material world may be reduced to electromagnetism and gravity. At the end of his life he was seeking a unity above these but he never found it. But what if he had found it? It would only be unity in diversity in relationship to the material world, and as such it would only be child's play. Nothing would really have been settled because the needed unity and diversity in regard to personality would not have been touched. If he had been able to bring electromagnetism and gravity together, he would not have explained the need of personal unity and diversity.
In contrast, let us think of the Nicene Creed -three Persons, one God. Rejoice that they chose the word 'person'. Whether you realise it or not, that catapulted the Nicene Creed right into our century and its discussions: three persons in existence, loving each other, before all else was.
If this were not so, we would have had a God who needed to create in order to love and communicate. In such a case, then God would have needed the universe as much as the universe needed God. But God did not need to create; God does not need the universe as the universe needs Him. Why? Because we have have a full and a true Trinity. The Persons of the Trinity communicated with each other, and loved each other before the creation of the world.
This is not only an answer to the acute philosophic need of unity in diversity, but a personal unity and diversity. The unity and diversity cannot exist before God, or be behind God, because whatever is furthest back is God. But with the doctrine of the Trinity unity and diversity is God Himself, .because there are three Persons, yet one God. That is what the Trinity is, and nothing less than this.
We must appreciate that our Christian forefathers understood this very well in A.D. 325, when they stressed the three Persons in the Trinity, as the Bible had clearly set this forth. Let us notice, it is not that they invented the Trinity in order to give an answer to the philosophical questions which the Greeks of that time understood very dynamically. It is quite the contrary. The unity and diversity problem was there, and they realized that in the Trinity as it had been taught in the Bible they had an answer that no one else had. They did not invent the Trinity to meet the need; the Trinity was already there and it met the need. They realized that in the Trinity we have what all these people are arguing about and defining but for which they have no answer.
Let us notice again that this is not the best answer; it is the only answer. Nobody else, no philosophy, has ever given us an answer for unity and diversity. So when people ask whether we are embarrassed intellectually by the Trinity, 1 always switch it over into their own terminology, and their own terminology is unity and diversity. Every philosophy has this problem and no philosophy has an answer. Christianity does have an answer in the existence of the Trinity. The only answer to what exists is that He, the triune God, is there.
So we have said two things. The only answer to the metaphysical problem of existence is that the infinite personal God is there; and the only answer to the metaphysical problem of existence is that He, the Trinity, is there - the triune God.
Now surely by this time we will have become convinced that philosophy and religion are indeed dealing with the same questions. Notice in the basic concept of existence, of Being, that it is the Christian answer or nothing. It will change your life if you understand this, no matter how evangelical and orthodox you are.
Let me add something in parentheses, as it were. What I find is that many people who are evangelical and orthodox want truth to be true to the dogmas, or to be true to what the Bible says. Nobody stands more for the full inspiration of Scripture than I, but this is not the end of truth as Christianity is presented, and as the Bible presents itself. The truth of Christianity is that it is true to what is there. You can go to the end of the world and you never need be afraid, like the ancients, that you will fall off the end and the dragons will eat you up. You can carry out your intellectual discussion to the end of the game because Christianity is not only true to the dogmas, it is not only true to what God has said in the Bible, but it is also true to what is there, and you will never fall off the end of the world. It is not just an approximate model, it really is true to what is there. When the evangelical catches that, when evangelicalism catches that, we may have our revolution. We will begin to have something beautiful and alive; something that will have force in our poor lost world. This is what truth is from the Christian viewpoint and as God sets it forth in the Scripture. But if we are going to have this answer, notice that we must have the full biblical answer and not reduce Christianity to either the paneverythingism of the East, or the paneverythingism of modern, liberal theology, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic. We must not allow a theological pantheism to begin to creep in, and we must not reduce Christianity to the modern existential upper storey theology. We must not. If we are going to have these great titanic answers, Christianity must be the full biblical answer. We need the full biblical position to have the answer to the basic philosophical problem of the existence of what is. We need the full biblical content concerning God: that He is the infinite personal God, and the triune God.
Now let me express this in a couple of other ways. First, without the infinite personal God, the God of personal unity and diversity, there is no answer to the existence of what exists. That is one way to say it. We can say it in another way, however, and that is, the infinite personal God, the God who is Trinity, has spoken. He is there, and He is not silent. There is no use having a silent God. We would not know anything about Him. He has spoken and told us that this is what He is and that He existed before all else, and so we have the answer to the existence of what is. 1 have come at it two ways.
He is not silent. The reason we have the answer is because the infinite personal God, the full trinitarian God, has not been silent. He has told us who He is. Couch your concept of inspiration and revelation in these terms, and you will see how it cuts down into the warp and woof of modem thinking. He is not silent. That is the reason we the answer is because the infinite personal God, the full trinitarian God, has not been silent. He has told us who He is, couch you concept of inspiration and revelation in these terms, and you will see how it cuts down into the warp and woof of modern thinking. He is not silent. That is the reason we know. It is because He has spoken.
What as He told us? Just about other things?
No, He has told us true truth about Himself, and because He has told
us true truth about Himself - that He is the infinite personal God, and
that He is the triune God - we have the answer to existence. Or let us
say it yet another way. At the point of
metaphysics, of being, of existence, general and special revelation
speak with one voice. This is another way to say it. All three ways are
the same, saying the same thing from slightly different viewpoints. At
the point of metaphysics, of being, of existence, general and special revelation
speak with one voice.
In conclusion, man, beginning with himself, can define the philosophical problem of existence, but he cannot from himself generate the answer to the problem. The answer to the problem of existence is that the infinite personal, triune God is there, and the infinite personal, triune God is not silent.
========================
Notes:
(1) B. F. Skinner, author of Beyond Freedom and Dignity, shows the same tension.
(2) Hodder and Stoughton, London, and Inter-Varsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois (in U.S.A.)
(3) Some might say there is another possibility - some form of dualism. That is, two opposites existing simultaneously as co-eternal. For example, mind (or ideals or ideas) and matter; or in morals good and evil. However, if in morals one holds this, then there is no reason finally to call one good and one evil - the words and choice are purely subjective if there is not something above them, and if there is something above them it is no longer a true dualism. In metaphysics, the dilemma is that no one finally rests with dualism. Back of Yin and Yang there is placed a shadowy Dao (Tao), back of Zoroastrianism there is placed an intangible thing of figure.
The simple fact is that in any form of dualism we are left with some form of imbalance or tension and there is a motion back to a monism. Either men try to find a unity over the two; or in the case of the concept of a parallelism, for example ideals or ideas and material, there is a need to find a relationship, correlation or contact between the two, or we are left with a concept of the two keeping step with no unity to cause them to do so. Thus in an attempted parallelism, there has been a constant tendency for one side to be subordinated to the other or for one side to become an illusion. Further, if the elements of the dualism are impersonal, we are left with the same problem in both being and morals as in the case of a more simple form of a final impersonal. Thus, for me dualism is not the same kind of basic answer as the three I deal with in this book.
Perhaps it would be well to point out that in both existence and morals Christianity gives a unique and sufficient answer in regard to a present dualism yet original monism. In existence, God is spirit - this is as true of the Father as of the Holy Spirit, and equally true of the Son prior to the incarnation. Thus, we begin with a monism, but with a creation by the infinite God of the material universe out of nothing a dualism now exists. It should be noted that while God thus created something which did not exist before, it is not a beginning out of nothing because He was there (as the infinite personal God) to will.