rationality – Authentic Hope for Answers

In the search for authentic answers to our existential questions, we can obtain understanding from two sources. The first – that we use every day – is the human faculty of reason. In his book “Miracles”, Oxford don C.S. Lewis wrote: “All knowledge depends on the validity of reasoning… Unless human reasoning is valid, no science can be true”. This seems obvious, when you think about it. You cannot argue against the value of reason; that would be using reason to deny reason.

So we use our reasoning powers to try to understand what our life is all about. But then C.S. Lewis raises the question of where our human reason came from, and he asserts that the presence of human rationality in the world is a miracle. He was inspired by Professor Haldane who wrote, “If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of the atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true… and hence I have no reason for supposing that my brain be composed of atoms”.

Atheism crashes profoundly against this rational argument, for C.S. Lewis concludes, “we must believe that the consciousness of man is not a product of Nature” – not the result of a long chain of chance, aimless, material processes since the dawn of time. “Nature”, he repeats, “is quite powerless to produce rational thought”.

Yet we are rational beings. Andrew Marr ended his TV programme on evolution by saying, “Man is the truth-seeking primate”. We use our reason every day to test what we think is true. That is the way we are. And the only logical source of those reasoning powers is not impersonal matter, but the Supreme Intelligence of the personal and infinite Creator who made us “in his image”.

So our reasoning faculty itself points us to a reasonable, wise Creator. And God has come to our rescue as we vainly search for something solid on which to ground our search for true answers. He has revealed truth that we need to know. Truth about ourselves, and truth about God.

So as we seek answers to the big questions of life, our reasoning is valid, since it is given to us by our Creator and reflects the supreme Reason with which he acts. Yet our reason has its limits; it needs the enlightenment that can only come from God’s revelation. God’s truth has been revealed in the Bible. “The whole Christian theistic position,” wrote Cornelius van Til, is “the only system of thought that does not destroy human experience to something meaningless”. Atheistic philosophy leads to that meaninglessness; this is the woe of our supposedly post-Christian generation.

It is reassuring to note, in our supposedly post-truth age, that thinkers are now returning to realise that God alone can furnish the basis for true understanding. Atheism is on the way out; a return to the God of revelation is on the up. And the key truth now more and more put in evidence as the only basis for a hope-filled vision of our human reality, is there on page 1 of the Bible: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth… God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1.1, 27).

As God made us and gifted us with reason and speech, so he is ultimate Reason, and he reveals his truth though speech: “In the beginning was the Word (the logos, Reason)”… The Word was God… The Word became flesh” in Jesus (John 1.1-14).

Clive Every-Clayton

It’s maybe good to lay again the foundation of our authentic hope for answers: when I say that only God can furnish us with satisfying, true answers to our existential situation, I mean that there is literally no way of finding true answers any other way. Human thinking is inherently flawed and inadequate to the task.

Cornelius Van Til was a professor of both theology and philosophy, with deep insight into apologetics. His thought is as profound as it is radical, and I summarise in simple terms his demonstration of the absolute need of the God revealed in Christian Scripture for being able to know anything at all.

We all constantly live and act as if reason is valid. This is the universally experienced way we think. We are rightly considered rational creatures. We check things out by our reason, and require rational answers.
The question is: on what can we ground this experienced fact that reason is valid? No-one wants ridiculous illogical answers: why is that?
Reason is the opposite of chance. We make our life-decisions reasonably, not on the basis of chance.
It is unreasonable to think that reason came from chance occurrences, i.e. from something less reasonable than itself.
Since reason is an aspect of our personal nature as human beings, the only possible ground for the validity and reality of reason is in a Person of supreme or ultimate Reason. “Unless God is back of everything, you cannot find meaning in anything” (Van Til).
An infinitely wise Creator God is thus the indispensable necessary ground for any reasonable thinking at all. To refuse this is to opt for the illogical.
All who reason therefore tacitly (and unknowingly) assume God as the ultimate ground to validate their reasoning.
Even the atheist cannot argue against God without needing to hold (consciously or, more often unconsciously) to the existence of an all-reasonable God as the only ground for believing that their reasoning process is valid.

Cornelius Van Til writes therefore that the atheistic materialist has to face an irresolvable problem here, for “on his assumptions, his own rationality is a product of chance.” If our brains resulted from chance movement of atoms and molecules, there is neither real intelligence, nor personality: both are illusory.

We are rational beings and our reason requires true answers to our basic vital questions. There can be no satisfaction to this need except through the infinite wisdom of God’s mind; he alone can answer our dilemma. Without a rational Creator on whom we can ground the validity of our rationality, we are for ever lost in confusion, for the very value of our mental processes would be undermined.

And the great news is that this Rational God is no mere philosophical supposition: the God who is there has revealed himself and communicated truth through his Son, Jesus, sent into the world to teach us.

John’s Gospel starts by affirming: “In the beginning was the Word”. The Greek word translated “word” is logos, from which we get our word logic. John goes on to tell us that “the Word” was the Creator: “all things were made by him; without him nothing was made that has been made.” Then the Gospel says, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”: the Creator God became incarnate, and “we have seen his glory” – the glory of the Son of God sent from the Father. “He has made God known” (John 1.1-18).

Authentic hope for answers can only come through Jesus who brought God’s wise answers to our existential questions. Jesus’ life and teaching is the evidence that God has spoken to the world.

Clive Every-Clayton

Tag: rationality

Reason and revelation

Cornelius’ deep insight