Tag: Science

Don’t go down a dead end

It is amazing how often intelligent peoples’ thinking is self-contradictory. I have several pages of such contradictions – like this one that shows the impossibility of determinism: “If all our thoughts are determined, that must include the thoughts of neuro-scientists who hold to determinism. So determinism would mean we can never trust the conclusions of scientists as being true, including those of neuro-scientists”. Another one I like was put out in a TV advertisement for the Bank of Scotland, where a wise man said: “Some people say there are no right or wrong answers”. Then he added: “But what if they’re right? … Or wrong?”

So as we search for right answers, let us beware the dead end of self-contradicting theses.

It is normal to believe in free will – that our choices are real and that we have freedom to make our own decisions. Indeed, we consider it a “human right”, and we want the freedom of others to be acknowledged and respected. It is against this much-loved reality that determinism comes crashing.

The counterpart to freedom is responsibility: we may be held responsible for the use of our freedom. We will have to answer for any evil use of our freedom. There is unavoidable moral responsibility attached to human freedom. This instinct is written in our consciences and refers both to society’s and to God’s right to punish those who use their freedom to harm others. So freedom is not an absolute liberty to do all one may wish; it is best understood as the ability to do as one ought, despite the threat of those who would impede that liberty.

But there is a false form of freedom that is indeed illusory – and it is getting unfortunately quite invasive in society, though it will prove to be a dead end street: you don’t want to go down there, you’ll get nowhere. It is known as “expressive individualism”. 

This freedom, writes rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, “is embodied in words like authenticity, autonomy, self-expression, and self-realisation, to which we claim to have unfettered rights”. This extraordinary claim to quasi absolute freedom is a dead end street. It is at the basis of a lot of human pain in the lives of those who suppose they can define their own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life – of “who they are”, when this is in denial of what is “given”. It substitutes for the given-ness of our existence the mad dream that we can “invent ourselves”, alter the reality of who we truly are. Don’t go down that road.

If you want a different form of yourself, a better “you”, there is a preferable way, the right route to take. You can be “made over”, deeply and radically transformed into what you really ought to be. This is what Christian conversion is all about. When a person rejects his or her own reprobate inner self – those aspects of our personality that come under the description of “evil” – and when they turn to the Lord Jesus Christ, calling on him to be their Saviour and Master, a radical renovation takes place. Jesus called it being “born again”. When you invite Jesus to save you from all evil, to clean you up on the inside, it’s like being recreated – “old things are passed away and all things become new.” And all this is from God, “whose service is perfect freedom”. By such healthy transformation the Lord demonstrates that he is in the business of turning sinners into saints!

Clive Every-Clayton

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Relationship with God?

Where can we find the perfect partner who will love us constantly with perfect love? Only in the God of love who made us. His creative design for humans is that we find fulfilment – whatever may be our principal activities – only when we are in harmony with him. 

The great tragedy of world history was when sin made its entry into the human race – as is depicted in Genesis chapters 2 and 3. The first couple rejected God’s order – thinking they could better judge what is right and wrong. (That same mentality reigns in many today who set aside God’s infinitely wise guidelines – his commandments – and try out some new man-made ethics). 

With the arrival of sin twisting the hearts and perverting the actions of the first couple, their marital harmony was damaged, and this continued down the generations to our day. Hence any life-partner that a man or a woman might find, turns out to be vitiated by an indwelling tendency to selfishness rather than love, to rebellion rather than union, to pride and anger rather than sweetness of temper. Such unloving traits render marital bliss a great challenge to accomplish – though mercifully, by learning to overcome one’s selfishness and to forgive one’s partner’s failures, it is possible for reasonably happy families to exist!

Human hearts nevertheless often suffer from the lack of that steadfast love which ministers to our inner hunger of soul. People still long for a deep and enduring harmonious relationship and can spend their lives unsuccessfully trying to find the perfect partner. Of course the children from such broken relationships begin their lives with a kind of handicap in the area of love and trust. To prevent such harm is one of the reasons why God is against adultery. God is also against adultery because unfaithful lovers do not reflect as they should the loving harmony of God’s own Trinitarian relationship. We were made in his image so as to show forth his divine kind of love, and our inability to do so grieves God, brings distress to ourselves, and trouble to our nearest and dearest. 

In the midst of our depressing failure, however, there is a gleam of hope, for true fulfilment of our passion for love can come when we know in our experience that God loves us very, very much.

Ultimately, the only truly satisfying relationship of love is for us to be in a harmonious relationship with God (as Adam and Eve were in Paradise before sin interrupted their blessedness). We can turn to God and find in him the forgiveness of our failures and an assurance of his eternal love as we enter into spiritual union with Christ. This is the essence of what Christians call salvation from sin: to be loved despite our wretchedness and to be assured of God’s full forgiveness. That is the relationship we were made for. It alone provides true human fulfilment. 

So how can a person get that? What we have to do is, first of all, realise how much our sin is serious before God; we really have no idea – that’s why we need the Bible to enlighten us. Then we need to realise how great the love of Jesus, God’s Son, was, in coming into our sinful world to seek and save us from all the pains that sin has brought on us. Then we need to open our hearts to Him, inviting him to wash us clean, be our dearest friend and helper, and confirm his love to us. He promises to do just that!

Clive Every-Clayton

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Questions of morality

In his book Morality, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks quotes sociologist Emile Durkheim who argued that if any society was in a state of anomie – that is, lacking a shared moral code – there would be a rise of suicides. Without a unifying body of ideas, beliefs, and attitudes that shape our world, society would fragment and individuals would not be able to cope. Noting the increase in mental stresses and suicides, the Chief Rabbi affirms that “this aptly describes the state we inhabit today: a world of relativism… subjectivity, autonomy, individual rights, and self-esteem”.

Anomie literally means absence of law, but this translates into autonomy where each person is a law unto themselves. People in our muddled relativistic age believe they have the need and the freedom to choose or make up their own moral code.

Previously in the West, Christendom provided the basis for law which defines good morality, and this performed a vital service for society even though there were (and always will be) law-breakers. Why then has it been contested, overturned, and widely disobeyed?

The root of all turning away from righteous law is the human penchant for disobedience: evil, wickedness, and rebellion dwell deep within the human heart. Unless there is some imperious reason to impose on oneself the necessary moral self-discipline to keep such laws, the tendency is to “enjoy” sin and try to get away with it. But when the reality of an all-seeing righteous divine Judge is generally accepted, society leads a more wholesome life. Turning away from God and his law is simply the outcome of the sin-controlled human heart. If conscience’s light is not upheld by a good religious teaching and by the upright ethics of society, a downgrade is bound to occur.

From the 1960’s these two bulwarks have given way as various movements comprising the sexual revolution overtook the West. But by throwing off God, the absolute holy foundation of all Good, atheistic humanists also wiped away the source of absolute morality such as would be imposed on all humans everywhere.

Without an appeal to Transcendence, every idea about morality becomes relative: I think this is sin, but you think it’s good – who’s to decide? So we each have the burden of deciding our own moral code, since no-one can provide absolutes any more. So the tendency downwards continues uninterrupted, until, like today, people begin to realise that atheism cannot give us the moral guidelines we need, and we return to consider afresh the commandments of God.

When questions of morality are raised, Scripture gives two kinds of answers: first, clear commands, like the Ten Commandments and others which condemn sins categorically. But second, it emphasises the cultivation of virtues like loving care, self-denial, humble service, purity of mind, truthfulness, and faithfulness. Similarly it condemns vices such as hatred, pride, unbridled lust, greed, envy, selfish anger, and covetousness (the tenth commandment). The Bible does not address only deeds, it deals with feelings, thoughts, and motives too.

Christian biblical morality thus balances duty, freedom and responsibility before God. To know the good, we need both the guidance of good law and the discernment of a good conscience. There is no law more perfect than that of Jesus, expressed, for example, in his Sermon on the Mount and his commandments to love God and one’s brother, one’s neighbour, and even one’s enemy.

Do you want to know if some line of action is sinful or permitted? Check the law of God in Scripture. It is there that we may find the absolute light we all need.

Clive Every-Clayton

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Why not other religions?

Maybe some think that my referencing Christianity and the Bible as the source of true and valid answers shows disrespect for other religions. Why not turn to them instead?

Apparently there are about 4,000 religions in the world – a statistic that reveals humankind’s innate religious disposition. In every country people discern there must be some Higher Power, some transcendent Reality, some Deity. Allied to this intuition is the reflex that God must be the fount of all goodness and justice, and that we, by contrast are not totally good and pure. People therefore fear divine judgment – sometimes perceived as the intervention of evil spirits – and they feel the need for God’s protection and his mercy.

The brightest and noblest minds, therefore, giving thought to these uncertainties, propose varying theologies, moral systems, and religious practices with a view to connecting with the Divine, or appeasing the powerful Spirit, or obtaining peace of mind by God’s forgiveness. Christianity deals with these same troubles of the human spirit, but with a radical difference that sets it apart from all other religions of the world. The essence of Christianity’s uniqueness is that while other religions issue from humanity’s deep religious thinkers, the religion of the Bible comes by the initiative and intervention from out of this world – from God himself who became incarnate in Jesus.

I have written an (unpublished) book: “Only Christianity: why Christianity is truly unique and uniquely true”. Interestingly, the 12 or so reasons why the Christian faith is unique correspond to reasons why it is true. Let me give you some of them.

Firstly, Christianity is anchored in history: it is not a mere religious philosophy proposed by man. God’s interventions in history are recorded throughout the Old Testament – Creation, the call of Abraham, the Exodus of Israel out of Egypt, their entry into Canaan, and ultimately of course the absolutely unique incarnation of God in Jesus, his historic life, death, and resurrection, recorded by the apostles. That God thus became incarnate should be known throughout the world!

Secondly, the unique fact of fulfilled prophecy. Blaise Pascal, impressed by this fact, enumerated in his Pensées (§489ff/693ff) numerous Old Testament predictions that were subsequently fulfilled. “I see a number of religions in conflict,” he wrote, “and therefore all false, except one. … But I see Christianity and find its prophecies, which are not something that anyone can do” (§198/693). As a statistician, Pascal found this convincing.

Thirdly, it provides a conscience-appeasing atonement. The sacrifice of Christ, bearing our sins and our punishment, is an historical accomplishment by which alone the requirements of Justice are satisfied. Only the atoning death of the God-man, Jesus Christ, could permit the Righteous God and Judge of all to grant forgiveness in a way that does not undermine the whole justice of the universe. 

Fourthly, the promises of Jesus Christ offer a full and perfect remission of all sins – not as earned by one’s religious practice or deserved according to one’s efforts at holiness, as all other religions propose  – but by a life-transforming experience of God’s grace that makes believers God’s children. 

This conversion experience is also unique to Christianity: it makes saints out of sinners as they receive the risen Christ into their hearts in repentance and by faith. 

Finally, Christianity offers a love relationship with a loving God and saviour which is beyond imagining. Believers may be overwhelmed when they grasp the love and faithfulness of their Saviour and the lengths to which he went to save us from hell.

Could any other religion rival all that?

Clive Every-Clayton

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When you read the Bible

Before St Augustine became a Christian, he was struggling with immorality even as he discussed the big issues of the faith with friends. One day he heard a child’s voice in the street cry out repeatedly, “Take up and read”. Taking this as the voice of God, he picked up a copy of St Paul’s letter to the Romans, opened at 13.13-14, and read: “Let us behave … not in … sexual immorality and debauchery … Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature”. That powerful passage spoke to his heart and he capitulated to the Lordship of Christ, abandoning his immorality. Such is the power of God’s Word. He became a bishop and one of the greatest of all theologians.

When you read the Bible, read it with a pen in hand, ready to underline any passage that strikes you. Some verses are exceedingly rich and deserve to be memorised. The words of the Bible have an uplifting power. They convey truth from God that is totally trustworthy.

But the Bible is no mere compendium of fine words: it tells the story of humankind from God’s perspective. It is divided into two parts: the Old Testament is the Jewish Bible, written before Christ, and it starts with the creation of mankind and the tragic original disobedience that brought sin into the world. It recounts the covenants the Lord made, notably with Abraham, and the promises of a coming Messiah, “God with us”. The New Testament brings the Good News of the fulfilment of that promise in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The four Gospels which recount his life, teachings, miracles, death, and resurrection, are followed by the “Acts of the Apostles” which relates the earliest proclamation of the risen Christ by the eye-witnesses, and the consequent conversion of believers which brought about the beginning of the Christian church.

If you are approaching the Bible for the first time, it is good to read the early chapters of Genesis which lay the foundation for the rest of the Bible’s story. The first chapters of Exodus are also foundational. In Exodus chapters 19 and 20 the Ten Commandments are given.

But if you’re new to the Bible, read first at least one of the Gospels. After the Acts of the Apostles, there are numerous letters written to the early believers explaining the faith and guiding their Christian lives. These are well worth studying; they are very rich. While they often address specific issues raised in the early church, their principles are valid for all time, and so very relevant for Christians today.

Parts of the Old Testament may seem somewhat arduous; if you find them tough going, feel free to skip on to something you find more meaningful. There’s a lot to discover!

But keep your eye open, and your pen handy, to note down those jewels of truth that will make you stop and think, that challenge your outlook, or that speak to your heart. The key thing is to think about what you’re reading – What does this really mean? How should I react to this teaching? Is there a command to obey or a promise I can trust? What does this imply – about God, about my life? The Bible’s teaching needs to be applied to your own situation, and that demands honesty and humility. But in that way, the Bible will have its beneficial effect on you – you will be blessed with the positive result.

Clive Every-Clayton

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The book of answers

You may have seen some books of puzzles, quizzes, and brain teasers; normally they have the explanations and answers at the end section of the book. Where is that final explanation of the whole puzzle of human existence? 

The Bible is an amazing book. Penned by about 40 authors over more than a millennium, who would have thought it could contain a unified message about the most abstruse issues imaginable? But that is what the Bible is and does. And it’s not just a boring book of religious theories; it is the most wonderful love story ever written, recounting the infinite love of God for the most undeserving of species – lost humankind. It’s story has a beginning in paradise, a drama of human rebellion, a development of divine love searching for unfaithful people, the revelation of the most superb person who ever lived, Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, his life and teaching, his unmerited condemnation to death and his astonishing resurrection, complete with explanations as to how his coming can bring us the forgiveness of our sins, a new life here and now, and an eternity in God’s glorious heaven.

This worldwide best-seller is God’s Book of Answers. All other attempts to write such a book pale in comparison with the Bible’s elevated tone and divine authority. No other book offers such beautiful truth, such elevated moral teaching balancing holiness with peace and self-denial with joy, and furnishing us with such satisfying answers to all of our deep existential questions.

“I the Lord speak the truth” God himself declares to his prophet (Isaiah 45.19). “I made the earth and created man on it… There is no other god beside me” (Isaiah 45.12, 21). Here we are at the very source of true information about all the big issues that concern us!

When the Gospel of John starts with the affirmation, “In the beginning was the Word (logos), and the Word was with God and the Word was God… All things were made by him” (John 1.1, 3) this echoes the first lines of the Bible where God is revealed as the almighty Creator. But further on, John, an apostle of Jesus, continued: “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth”. The eternal Word, the creator of all things, came to earth in Jesus, who said “I have come down from heaven” (John 6.38); “I speak what I have seen with my Father… the truth that I heard from God (John 8.38, 40).

Christmas celebrates God the Creator coming down among us – indeed, he was walking on this earth exactly 2,000 years ago, in Palestine, communicating eternal truths that are the answers to our profound questions. Is there a God? Yes, “I came from God and I am here”; it is “the Father who sent me” (John 8.42, 16). You know him? Yes, “I do know him and I keep his word” (John 8.55). Are you telling us the truth? Yes, “He who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him” (John 8.26).

Apart from telling us truth, why else have you come? “I came that people might have life and have it abundantly” (John 10.10). “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life” (John 5.24).

Rightly did another apostle, Peter, exclaim: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed” (John 6.69).

Clive Every-Clayton

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Another paradigm shift

A paradigm is a model, a way of looking at things; it’s been likened to a grid or a pair of spectacles through which you see and understand the world. A paradigm shift means taking on a new perspective, undergoing a fundamental and important change in the way things are thought about. Such shifts occur quietly in the lives of ordinary people, as well as in branches of academia, in politics, in science, and in philosophy, for example.

The 20th century witnessed a paradigm shift away from an approach where it had been hoped that Reason would provide the answers we crave to our existential angst. Finally realising that Reason is, by the very nature of its functioning, unable to provide Absolute Truth, society has undergone a paradigm shift – away from trust in Reason. But instead of turning to God’s trusted Revelation, thinkers preferred atheism, which can provide no absolute answers. The result has been an increase in our general angst and hopelessness.

This conclusion, first grasped by intellectuals and philosophers, has slowly filtered down from the heights of academia, through education, the media, and general culture, to the common man and woman. As this new attitude affects young people today, they sink in an atmosphere of meaninglessness.

However, another paradigm shift is under way, promising a better story, a brighter future. As sociologists categorise the many evil fruits that the previous paradigm has brought on, a number of public intellectuals seeing the futility of the old, realise that a new approach altogether different is necessary. A better paradigm is needed in order to provide the reassuring answers our hearts crave to the many perplexing issues surrounding our human identity, meaning, and purpose.

These intellectual leaders turn in hope to seek a new paradigm, a “better story” that will enable us to properly understand ourselves, and to see how our human life ought to be – fulfilled rather than anguished. And they turn again, unashamedly, to the Word of God: as they quote the text that “God made man and woman in his image” (Genesis 1.27), they envisage again the necessity for belief in our Creator. They see the Bible’s foundational truths as able to furnish a more sure and hopeful comprehension of our human reality. They discern the uplifting power of the Word of God to teach us our true meaning and to establish moral values that have been tested through the centuries – not just the passing fads of our generation. They face up to the real possibility of adopting a fresh paradigm which puts God in his rightful place as the one who, in love and wisdom, reveals vital truth. This is to be welcomed as widely as possible.

When the Oxford University Christian Union held a mission to the students some twenty years ago, they chose as their theme “A paradigm shift”. The speakers proposed the need for rethinking the basis of all truth. The expression, in fact, describes what the Bible means by repentance: rethinking our lives in the light of God’s Truth and changing our ways in the light of his commandments. We are all called to think again, to turn around, to correct our views – of God, of mankind, of morals, of our need of a Saviour.

When that repentance is accompanied by sincere faith in Jesus, the Saviour we need, sent by God into the world, then that is described as “conversion”. And that is a personal paradigm shift of eternal importance, for “unless you are converted”, Jesus said, “you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18.3).

Clive Every-Clayton

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The west is changing

Human beings will never adapt to “post-truth”. Our inbred discernment recognises that Truth must exist. Truth is indispensable in human relationships as well as any serious reflection. No-one can live without the concept and the reality of Truth.

So now the West, at one time so insistent on the search for Truth, is at a crossroads. Having sought by human reason alone to find Truth and build a wise world-view, it has had to admit its failure. It has descended into post-modern hopelessness, unable to find meaning, value, or any balanced wisdom about human identity.

The West is confronted with increasing desperation because of this terrible inability of godless Reason to find valid and authentic answers to our fundamental questions about life and everything. But change is in the air: finally, public intellectuals in the West are coming to a surprising conclusion. They are looking again at Christianity and coming to realise that it alone lays the proper basis for any understanding of our human reality, dignity, and value. Only Christianity with its revealed Truth can meet both our intellectual and our heart needs for real meaning. If one leaves God’s revealed wisdom aside, the result can only ultimately be confusion.  Only the Maker’s revelation has the total wisdom to guide our paths into the way of real human fulfilment. Thinkers are now coming to envisage this source of Truth with positive hope.

This renewal in biblical truth is documented by Justin Brierley in his informative book, “The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God”. He says that “the stories we have been telling ourselves in the last several decades have been growing increasingly thin and superficial.” But turning to Christianity, some “have found themselves drawn to a story that made sense of their deepest longings and desires”. This is the “better story” that the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, led by Jordan Peterson, is opening up to.

One who has discovered that story is Charlotte Gauthier. On reading some theological books from a previous era, she testified, “I found an intellectual Christianity that I could respect. In my arrogant atheist days, I assumed I’d come up with questions that had never satisfactorily been answered before. I was wrong”.

While the West is beginning to reawaken to Christianity’s Truth, the Majority world has been very wise in resisting the sea-change in lax morality that, having invaded the West, would overflow to pervert the rest of the world with its godless permissiveness. The Majority world should continue to reject the bankrupt influence that has only bred hopelessness in the West.

It is not perhaps surprising that missionaries now come from the vibrant communities in the Majority world to bring renewal to the West. They are welcome, for they can contribute to the revival of western church life. Their biblical faithfulness, their passion and enthusiasm, will help overcome the decadent influence that has been infiltrating some churches in recent years. They will help our western churches to return, humbled and contrite, to the former paths of righteousness, once well-trod by those gone before us. They can bring us back to the Biblical faith – which, ironically was brought to them by missionaries from the West when the church was vibrant in its vision for taking the Gospel to the whole world. 

Clive Every-Clayton

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The west is not the best

We live in a global village: news is broadcast to our phones as it occurs, wherever in the world it may be happening. The influence of Western thinking still touches the corners of the globe. But people in the majority world need to be informed by those of us in the West who see the bankruptcy of Western scientific philosophy, that the West, dominated by secularistic thinking that ignores the God of creation, is not the best. 

There is hope of an upturn in Western thinking, however, as the hopelessness of atheistic philosophy becomes more and more apparent, bringing in its train all kinds of moral, social, and mental ills. A better story is being sought, though the passing falsehoods of relativistic atheism still hang in the air we breathe and sadly infect lands further away. People in those lands should realise: the West is not the best. To those who look from afar thinking that the West is Christian, I would say that the general life-style of the masses in the west is godless, not Christian. True, there are many Christians in the West, and in past ages they have gone throughout the world proclaiming the Gospel; but as their influence in society waned in the West, vain and futile godless philosophies have risen to supplant the Christian consensus. 

This state of affairs is due to change, however; the West needs a revival of Christianity, and believers need to regain the confidence to proclaim afresh the life-enhancing truth of the Gospel. This Gospel message speaks of world history in four stages:

First, Creation. God made all that is, and he declared his creation “good”. There was no fault in his working: he made man and woman to reflect his own nature as they were made in his likeness. He made them in relationship with himself where they found deep joy and fulfilment.

Second, the first couple turned away from God’s will, expressed in his commandment. Thinking (as many still do today) that they knew better than God what was right and wrong, they chose to disobey, and in doing so their nature – human nature – became twisted, corrupted, sinful. Banished from enjoying close and friendly relationship with their Creator, they founded their social order independently of God, even antagonistic to his will. All the people of the world suffered from that original perversion; all are born sinners, out of fellowship with God – indeed, under his holy displeasure.

Third, God set in motion his major opus – the salvation of lost men and women. Beginning with revealing to Abraham promises that through his posterity all the world would one day be blessed, God spoke to men of old through the prophets until finally his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, was born, an incarnate human revelation of God. Jesus grew up to teach God’s truth and ultimately to give his life for the redemption of humankind. Thanks to his atoning sacrifice, as the Gospel is proclaimed throughout the world, millions find, through faith in him, the forgiveness he promised and new life, eternal life, in renewed friendship with God.

The fourth stage is still to come, foretold by the prophets whose predictions of the first coming of Christ proved true. Jesus himself revealed that at the end of the age he would come in glory to judge the world in righteousness, ushering his believing flock into eternal life, and punishing the unrighteous with the just penalty that is their due.
Throughout the world, this Gospel message gains believers who escape that ultimate judgment. Will you be among them?

Clive Every-Clayton

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Reason and revelation

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

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