Open Minds, Pt. II

The honest agnostic believes that truth exists, but once he sees the great range of belief systems in existence today, perhaps he gives up hope of ever knowing truth with any degree of certainty. Giving up hope leads us to hopelessness and eventually despair. More commonly in America, it leads to any number of lifestyles that try to drown out that haunting voice that exists in the inner man of every human being – a deep longing to understand.

The Christian starts by believing that absolute truth has been revealed to us. We have it in the infallible Word of God. But having the Scriptures does not guarantee understanding. In fact, when Jesus appeared on the scene of human existence, He found His people without understanding. In fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophesy, “You will keep on hearing, but will not understand; You will keep on seeing, but will not perceive” (Matt 13:14). Imagine having the perfect teacher right there with you, but not understanding him. We find that even his closest twelve disciples seldom understood his teachings. True understanding requires a particular transaction beyond just hearing. Only after His resurrection do we find that Christ “opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” regarding the mystery of the gospel.

We need our minds opened to spiritual truths by the source of those truths. We need both Spirit and Word. In a small way, the agnostic is right to conclude that Truth in all of its depth and mystery is beyond us in our natural selves. But God hasn’t left us to ourselves. I close with a lengthy citation, because this passage expresses the point most clearly.

1 Corinthians 2:9-16(NASB95)

“Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, And which have not entered the heart of man, All that God has prepared for those who love Him.” For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.

Open Minds, Pt. I

Ways of thinking are not too unlike ways of dressing. Styles come and go. When they are popular, they are all the rage. When they are gone, they are considered fads. One generation laughs at the styles of another generation. Today’s most popular style of thinking honors above all other virtues the Open Mind. One who is open minded remains agnostic about things which cannot be known for certain. That would be okay as far as it goes, but we often find in practice that the “open” mind in reality believes that there is no such thing as absolute truth. The one thing the “open” mind becomes closed to is any assertion of certainty. One can only hope that some not too distant generation will laugh at such thinking as our generation laughs at platform shoes and go-go pants. But for now, we have to take this mindset seriously.

The modern open minded mindset is not new. One famous open-minded ancient was Pilate, who answered Jesus’ claim to truth by simply responding, “What is truth?” (John 18:38). Just as Pilate really did not want to have to consider what Jesus’ claims would mean for him personally, the world’s infatuation with the open mind today has more to say about its unwillingness to deal with the truth than it does about any real virtuous agnosticism.

Consider for example what the philosophy of the Open Mind would do for us in the world of engineering. If every bridge builder felt he could have his own equations for structural integrity, and that there were no absolute truths in mathematics, we would have very few bridges still standing. Likewise in medicine, would you prefer to go to a doctor who studied absolute truths in anatomy, or one who preferred to believe “to each his own?” Obviously there are legitimate gray areas where we do not know the absolute truth. There are disputes within the fields of engineering and medicine. But the belief that absolute truth exists and can be known is fundamental to the disputes. Without the belief in truth, the polemics would be moot.

The proponents of an Open Mind would have us believe that no absolute truth exists. Many people reject the Christian faith these days because of this infatuation with being open minded. Without a doubt, Christianity claims to assert absolute truth. Pilate’s famous agnostic response came as Jesus was saying to him, “I have come into the world to testify to the truth.” (John 18:37). The fact is, all faiths, belief systems, and philosophies make truth claims. Even the Open Minded belief system makes this one truth claim - absolute truth does not exist. As such, it is a self contradictory belief system and should be rejected on those grounds alone.

Introduction

Why on earth another blog? “The writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body” -Eccl 12:12 (All quotes, NASB). If that were true in Solomon’s time, how much more so today, when it is not only books but page after page of blogs, myspace, facebook, youtube, et al.? We are all on information overload, and the vast majority of us are responding with a tendency to anesthetize ourselves against the implications of that information by injecting enough entertainment and illusion into our lives to achieve the nirvana of indifference.

What do I mean by “the implications of that information”? The realities of life are hard. There is plenty of fruitless striving, oppression, wrong doing, atrocity, and folly to draw the same conclusion as Solomon: “All is vanity.” How are we to deal with this? For those of us who are not satisfied with indifference, we thirst for understanding.

I came across the theme verse for this site (Job 32:8) very recently. The Spirit dwelling in a man, the very breath of the Almighty (Shaddai), gives men understanding. Wisdom often comes with age (v. 7), but we find that the old may not be wise (v. 9) and the young may indeed find wisdom. It all depends on this relationship we have with the true and only source of wisdom, the Spirit of the Almighty. In Job 28, Job describes the difficulty in finding wisdom – more difficult than mining gold, silver and precious stones. Only “God understands its way, And He knows its place” (Job 28:23). But the conclusion is quite simple, “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; And to depart from evil is understanding” (v. 28). Solomon drew the same conclusion: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Prov 1:7) and “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments” (Eccl 12:3).

So understanding would seem pretty straightforward. Yet we find the proverbs filled with exhortations to get wisdom and acquire understanding. There is obviously a process of growth involved. If the principle is easy, the practice is anything but. So the purpose of this site is to share one man’s journey. In as much as I thirst for understanding, and I understand the right foundation for finding it, I’m off to a good start. From here, it remains to live the process. I offer whatever writings that come to mind through the process with this goal in mind, that others may be encouraged and edified. Join me as I seek to understand.