“Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?– JOB 11: 7, 8.
THESE striking words came from the lips of Zophar the Naamathite, one of the three friends who came to comfort the patriarch Job in his affliction. Those worthy men, no doubt, meant well; and their sympathy is deserving of all praise in a cold and unfeeling world. But they completely misunderstood the case before them, and so proved “physicians of no value.” They only irritated the poor sufferer, and added to his troubles. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that they said many wise and excellent things, and of these the passage which heads this paper is one.
The verses before us contain four weighty questions. Two of them we certainly cannot answer, but two we can. A little brief discussion of the whole subject to which the text points appears suitable to the times in which we live.
Our lot is cast in a day when a wave of unbelief is passing over the world, like a wave of fever, cholera, diphtheria, or plague. It is vain to deny it. Every intelligent observer of the times knows that it is so. I do not say for a moment that the advance of science necessarily makes men unbelievers. Nothing is further from my thoughts. I welcomed the visit of the British Association to Southport in the diocese of Liverpool, Lancashire, and I am thankful for every addition to our knowledge which its leaders annually announce. I doubt whether formal, organized, systematic, reasoning infidelity is so common as many suppose. But I do say that there is in the air of these times a disposition to question everything in revealed religion, and to suspect that science and revelation cannot be reconciled. The faith of many church-goers and professing Christians seems cold, and languid, and torpid. They are continually harping on petty modern objections to Scripture.-“Are such and such things in the Bible really quite true? Do not some clever and learned people say we should not believe them?” This is the kind of mischievous talk which is often heard in many quarters. To supply some simple antidotes to this sceptical spirit, to show the unreasonableness of it, to nerve and invigorate the Christian, to make him see the strength of his position, to help him to get rid of a doubting spirit, and to enable him to grasp his old creed more tightly than ever-these are the objects I have in view in this paper.
I. First, and foremost, a wise Christian ought always to admit that there are many things in Bible religion which of necessity we cannot fully understand. The Book of Revelation, the Book of God, contains much which, like God Himself, we cannot “find out to perfection.”
The catalogue of these hard things is not a small one, and I shall only supply a few leading instances. I will mention the Mosaic account of creation,-the fall and entrance of sin into the world,-the doctrine of the Trinity,-the incarnation of Christ,-the atonement for sin made by Christ’s death,-the personality and work of the Holy Spirit,-the inspiration of Scripture,-the reality of miracles,-the use and efficacy of prayer,-the precise nature of the future state,-the resurrection of the body after death-each and all of these subjects, I say, contains much that we cannot fully explain, because it is above the reach of our faculties. No Christian of common sense, I believe, would pretend to deny it. The humblest child could ask questions about each of them which the wisest theologian in Christendom could never answer.
But what of it? Does it follow that we care to believe nothing about a subject, and to reject it altogether, because we do not understand everything about it? Is this fair and reasonable? Is this the way that we deal with our children when we require them to begin the study of mathematics, or any other branch of education? Do we allow our boys to say, “I will learn nothing till I understand everything?” Do we not require them to take many things on trust, and to begin by simply believing? “I speak as to wise men, judge ye what I say.”
The plain truth is that to refuse to believe Christian doctrines because they are above our reason, and we cannot fully understand them, is only one among many proofs of man’s natural pride and arrogance. We are all, at our best, poor, weak, defective creatures. Our power of grasping any subject, and seeing all round it, is extremely small. Our education rarely goes on for more than twenty years, and is often very shallow and superficial. After twenty-five most of us add little to our knowledge. We plunge into some profession in which we have little time for thought or reading, and are absorbed and distracted by the business and cares of life. By the time we are seventy, our memories and intellects begin to fail, and in a few years we are carried to our graves and see corruption. And is it likely, or probable, or reasonable to suppose that such a creature as this can ever understand perfectly the Eternal and Almighty God, or the communications that God has made to man? Is it not rather certain that there will be many things about God and revelation that he cannot, from his very nature, comprehend. I will not insult my readers by asking for a reply. I assert, without hesitation, that no Christian ever need be ashamed of admitting that there are many things in revealed religion which he does not fully understand, and does not pretend to explain. Yet he believes them fully, and lives in this belief.
After all, when a Christian meets one of those few men of science who profess to believe nothing in religion which he cannot fully understand, he would do well to ask him a simple question. Has he ever investigated the facts and doctrines of the Bible, which he says are incredible, with the same careful pains which he exercises when he uses his microscope, his telescope, his spectroscope, his dissecting knife, or his chemical apparatus? I doubt it extremely. I venture to believe that if some scientific infidels would examine the Book of God with the same reverent analysis with which they daily examine the Book of Nature, they would find that the things “hard to be understood” are not so many and inscrutable as they now suppose, and that the things plain and easy are a wide field which richly repays cultivation. That we “cannot find out the Almighty to perfection” let us always admit. But let us never admit that we can find out nothing, and are justified in neglecting Him.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
