Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Finding The Way
Last week I ran across a piece from the London Telegraph in which the author laments that even Stephen Hawking, after all "the most briliant man in the world," can't seem to figure things out.
Which leads me to this suberb Douglas Groothuis post.
And yet, Hawking and his disciples also lack humility. They seek answers of themselves, born of a pride that refuses to admit there is something more or greater. Their pride prevents them from seeing beyond themselves, and thus their futile search for answers continues.
From my perspective the greatest obstacle to spreading the gospel is that pride, that refusal to look beyond oneself. Some would argue that pre-evangelism, apologetics, is the answer to this dilemma. In part, perhaps, but pride is a matter of the heart, not of reason. Such deeply inculcated pride dictates the path that our reason follows, and no amount of contrary reason will change that course, until the dictates themselves can be at least silenced.
Are we thus confronted with our own futility? Is there nothing we can do save wait upon the Holy Spirit to change their hearts? Well, yes and no. Truly, only the Holy Spirit can silence the dictates of anothers heart, but there is something we can do.
Which takes me back to our shame. What we can do is learn the genuine humility we lack in the our intial responses to Hawking's inquiries. What we can do is not point the way, but blaze the trail. What we can do is not direct, but invite.
Related Tags: humility, futility, faith, seeking, trailblazing, Christ, Holy Spirit
About a month ago, Professor Hawking posted a rather gloomy message to the internet newsgroup Yahoo Answers. "In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally," he wondered, "how can the human race sustain another 100 years?"Any Christian soul immediately responds to such with "Of course we don't know - we need God to know." I know that was my initial reaction. But then it occurred to me that such was a fruitless response, tantamount to calling Hawking and his readers "fools" for not recognizing what was in thier face. No the question really is, how do we get such people to look beyond humanity for the answers they seek?
[...]
This seems to me interesting not because it indicates that we don't really have a clue - which, of course, it does - but because many of the respondents seem to expect Prof Hawking to have the answer. This fellah, their line of argument seems to run, can do really hard sums. If he doesn't know how to save the world, we're all sunk.
Which leads me to this suberb Douglas Groothuis post.
As Andrew Murray said in his classic book Humility: The Beauty of Holiness, "Humility is the only soil in which the graces root; the lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of every defect and failure. Humility is not so much a grace or virtue along with others; it is the root of all, because it alone takes the right attitude before God, and allows Him as God to do all." Christian spirituality is founded upon humility of spirit and cannot live without it.In the situation I described from the Telegraph article, humility is missing in two ways. Firstly, humility is missing on the part of the faithful. Our insistence on the obviousness of the answer and the futility of the secular/scientific search is born of a pride and lack of humility. We consider the grace granted us as "ours" - we fail to understand that we are truly no different or no better than those not yet holding such grace. And when we do, we serve as impediment to their veiwing that grace. Shame!
And yet, Hawking and his disciples also lack humility. They seek answers of themselves, born of a pride that refuses to admit there is something more or greater. Their pride prevents them from seeing beyond themselves, and thus their futile search for answers continues.
From my perspective the greatest obstacle to spreading the gospel is that pride, that refusal to look beyond oneself. Some would argue that pre-evangelism, apologetics, is the answer to this dilemma. In part, perhaps, but pride is a matter of the heart, not of reason. Such deeply inculcated pride dictates the path that our reason follows, and no amount of contrary reason will change that course, until the dictates themselves can be at least silenced.
Are we thus confronted with our own futility? Is there nothing we can do save wait upon the Holy Spirit to change their hearts? Well, yes and no. Truly, only the Holy Spirit can silence the dictates of anothers heart, but there is something we can do.
Which takes me back to our shame. What we can do is learn the genuine humility we lack in the our intial responses to Hawking's inquiries. What we can do is not point the way, but blaze the trail. What we can do is not direct, but invite.
Related Tags: humility, futility, faith, seeking, trailblazing, Christ, Holy Spirit
