Post-modernity enshrouds us in a depressing cloud of despair: despair of finding any ultimate meaning, despair of knowing any absolute truth, despair of ever truly understanding who we are and what is the meaning and value of our human existence.

All this is profoundly disturbing, but in the midst of our confusion, hopelessness and despair, there is at least one glimmer of light, one saving grace that can enlighten our darkness.

The unexpected blessing is this: we may learn, first, that the quest for valid answers to our existential questions has totally and abysmally failed because our proud expectation was incorrect that we could find them by our own reasoning powers.  This is a humbling but salutary lesson – that man’s reason is unable to ground truth on anything ultimately valid. The efforts made down the centuries by thinkers starting out merely from their own unaided intellectual powers have now been shown to offer only relative answers, human opinions, futile and partial, not really absolute truths. The wise among us can see that Descartes set us off on the wrong track with his “I think, therefore I am”. This started us off thinking only out from ourselves – and it has led to the present end of hope for getting final truth. 

This solemn discovery can prove to be a blessing for the seeking soul.

How? Well, in the light of this discovery, we may learn, secondly, that we need light from a Source that is wiser than mere mortal man. If the human brain is the most complex thing in the universe, wouldn’t the Maker of such a brain be endowed with mind-boggling wisdom? He knows very well the limits of our human thinking to come up with absolute truth, so he has provided a better way by which we may get the answers we crave.

So as we despair of our own intellectual efforts, consider the potential blessing: trust in our reason has led us to realise the limits of our reason, so the next logical step that will renew our hope for authentic answers is to trust the infinitely wise Creator who shares his knowledge with us. He knew all along that we needed his input; right from the creation of the first couple he told them in words some vital things they needed to know.

We should be thankful to God for teaching us this humbling lesson: recognising that we are unable to find many key truths unaided, we are led to acknowledge our need of God’s revelation of truth. And the first element of his truth is that he exists: it is another human folly to imagine we can do without listening to him or by dismissing him completely. It is “the fool” who “says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 14.1). The “beginning of wisdom”, according to God’s word, is to “fear the Lord” (Psalm 111.10) – which means taking on board the fact that he is there, that he is wise, and good and loving, well capable of teaching us the way of true human fulfilment as we yield to him his rightful place as the Lord of our lives.

Turn then from vain human thinking and study the words of God! That is the ultimate blessing from which we humans can benefit, once we abandon our proud attitude of expecting to find the answers by ourselves without his revelation.

Intellectual pride will actually blind you to God’s truth: be humble, be teachable as you turn to study the Bible!

Clive Every-Clayton