Blogotional

John Mark Reynolds recently looked at how Christians argue through the lens of Plato's Republic.

Winning an argument is easy, winning a soul is hard. Too often Internet dialog seems content to “hit and run,” but transforming and really persuading a person is harder. That requires being open to the possibility of being wrong and to staying around for discussion. Plato’s Republic teaches this lesson.

[...]

Christians are apt to be content with “winning arguments.” Too often we prize debates between theists and atheists not for the truth that might emerge from them, but because we want to see the home team score a knock out punch. We persuade ourselves, but none of the onlookers. These people may be sympathetic with our position, but they want to be truly persuaded and not just bludgeoned into agreement. Socrates is willing to go forward, because the souls of the eager young men are at stake. In the same way, in coffee shops and in classrooms, I hope Christian educators (some of whom get paid for the work!) are willing to engage in open ended long term discussion with any one willing to follow the argument (the divine Logos!) where it leads.

I am pleased to see my friend JMR take Christian educators to task, but I think he reveals a lesson for all Christians, everywhere.

When we reduce the Christian faith to some set of doctrines or beliefs to be defended purely intellectually we miss the point entirely. Jesus Christ was not crucified so I can believe and defend He was resurrected - He was crucified, and resurrected to cover my sins. This is no mere intellectual exercise, this is visceral stuff. Consider this passage from The Voyage of The Dawn Treader:

"Well, anyway, I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly toward me. And one queer thing was that there was no moon last night, but there was moonlight where the lion was. So it came nearer and nearer. I was terribly afraid of it. You may think that, being a dragon, I could have knocked any lion out easily enough. But it wasn't that kind of fear. I wasn't afraid of it eating me, I was just afraid of if-if you can understand. Well, it came close up to me and looked straight into my eyes. And I shut my eyes tight. But that wasn't any good because it told me to follow it."

"You mean it spoke?"

"I don't know. Now that you mention it, I don't think it did. But it told me all the same. And I knew I'd have to do what it told me, so I got up and followed it. And it led me a long way into the mountains. And there was always this moonlight over and round the lion wherever we went. So at last we came to the top of a mountain I'd never seen before and on the top of this mountain there was a garden-trees and fruit and everything. In the middle of it there was a well.

"I knew it was a well because you could see the water bubbling up from the bottom of it: but it was a lot bigger than most wells-like a very big, round bath with marble steps going down into it. The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. But the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I don't know if he said any words out loud or not.

"I was just going to say that I couldn't undress because I hadn't any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that's what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.

"But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that's all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I'll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore again and this under-skin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.

"Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

"Then the lion said-but I don't know if it spoke, "You will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

"The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know-if you've ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it was such fun to see it coming away.

"I know exactly what you mean," said Edmund.

"Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off-just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt-and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me, I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on-and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again. You'd think me simply phony if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they've no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian's, but I was so glad to see them.

"After a bit the lion took me out and dressed...

"Dressed you. With his paws?"

"Well, I don't exactly remember that bit. But he did somehow or other: in new clothes-the same I've got on now, as a matter of fact. And then suddenly I was back here. Which is what makes me think it must have been a dream."

"No. It wasn't a dream," said Edmund.

"Why not?"

"Well, there are the clothes, for one thing. And you have been-well, un-dragoned, for another."

"What do you think it was, then?" asked Eustace.

"I think you've seen Aslan," said Edmund.

From the very beginning Eustace believed that Aslan could undragon him, and Eustace did his best to be undragoned. Given time, I am sure Eustace could have invented all sorts of great defenses for the intellectual proposition that Aslan was the key to being undragoned and that He was in the process of undragoning him.

But it was not until Eustace let Aslan RIP HIM OPEN - levels much, much deeper than mere intellectual ascent - that the undragoning actually occurred.

When I am confronted with unbelief, the essential question is not how to change the unbelief, but how to change the unbeliever. Note that Eustace was undragoned, but clueless that he had in fact met Aslan.

Could God use you for an instrument in such a situation? Are you sufficiently transformed to let God use you for transformation when the one being transformed does not even know the name of the transformer?

That is what we are called to. Our faith is not essentially intellectual, it is all- consuming.

Be consumed.

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