Schaeffer's Thought Provocation: A Pagan Dialog

This morning, as I lay in bed, I could not help but realize anew why existence itself is one of the greatest arguments for the reality of God. Isn’t there something just a little mysterious about being alive when you stop and think about it? Why is it, that in every culture in every country with peoples of all shapes, sizes, and colors, each asks in turn, “Why am I here? What is the meaning of my life? How did I get here?” and invests a great amount of time in searching for these answers? The very fact I even have life in my bones to ask why, the very fact that I am: these are really very mysterious things to ponder, when you pause and consider.

The past several weeks have marked a certain zenith in my ongoing dialogs with my pagan friend who I introduced to you by the pseudonym “Jonathan.” The culmination of my Sunday School class, the readings by Schaeffer associated with it, and my own ongoing thoughts has led to some remarkable clarity of insight that has left each of us feeling more satisfied with our mutual quest toward truth.

Jonathan has many beliefs that more conservative or traditional Christians might find peculiar or nonsensical. He grew up in a home where religion of any sort was never considered very important, though spiritual questions have haunted him many an hour. He has a bright and analytical mind and an intense interest in the sciences, particularly geology and archeology. He enjoys watching educational programs on the satellite network, and has come to place his faith and trust in the (often atheistic) prophets in the white lab coats who speak of billions and billions of years and the evolutionary processes that allegedly spawned our universe. Yet these explanations are lacking in his mind, for he seems to think, for whatever reason, that we have a spiritual side that separates us from the animals: an element he refers to as our soul. In fact, he is fascinated with this idea and spends hours speculating about the nature of this soul: what it is, how it can be defined, and what it means in terms of any afterlife.

Reincarnation and ghosts enter into these speculations: he thinks it probable that a person passes into a waif-like state (ghosts) and then becomes reincarnated, until people have a chance to “get it right.” I am not sure either of us are quite certain about what this might mean—this “getting it right”—but whatever it means, it is likely we become reincarnated because so many in the Eastern religions stake this claim. On the surface, this belief is no more illogical than the belief in resurrection, though I believe it breaks down under further investigation. (For more on this topic from a psychological perspective, see my older and somewhat speculative Christian apologetic, antithetically entitled The Validity of Reincarnation: A Query Into the Various Aspects of Past Lives.)

Just recently, he watched a program on Siamese twins that were never completely separated. In light of this, he began raising some very thought-provoking questions as to the nature of souls. In one particularly unusual example, a girl was born with two heads, which prompted him to speculate about whether each possessed a separate soul. Evidently, each of these individual heads had its own brain and was, for all intents and purposes, two separate persons sharing the same body. He talked of this for some length, raising some very compelling questions. This, of course, prompted me to ask some very probing questions of my own in reply.

“When,” I asked Jonathan, “does the soul enter into the body? And how does it enter the body?” I was, of course, once again testing his cosmology, though I always do so gently, for not only do I believe in being respectful to all persons, Jonathan happens to be one of my closest friends. My conversations with him are not only stimulating, but often expose inconsistencies in my own thoughts as well.

I have often asked him if evolution is sufficient cause for the evolution of our soul; he does not believe that it provides an adequate answer; he admits that the materialistic standpoint of science as it is presented on these educational programs fails to allow much room for such possibilities. As a logical result, he has attempted to synthesize these disparate pieces together as much as he is able. In his mind, evolution and souls are two empirical facts of the universe that must somehow be joined together into one coherent whole: after all, if both premises are indeed true, logically both must have some point of reconciliation. The result is a universe that evolved, yes, but at some point in time evidently featured the intervention of some kind of entities that placed this soul within us, causing the final stage in our evolution above the animals. This is where his pagan beliefs enter in, because he is forced to look outside of materialistic science for his answer. Otherwise, I doubt he would have turned to paganism at all.

His pagan faith claims that perhaps the gods did this, though given his predominately scientific bent and the fact that he gathers much of his information from satellite sources, he is one of the growing trend who looks to the skies for answers. He wonders if perhaps the gods are not aliens: he wonders if they are not one and the same. And, for that matter, I maintain that spiritual entities (whether we say gods from paganism or whether we say angels and demons from Christianity) and aliens do share a remarkable range of similarities. This to say that I believe it likely that the label “alien,” “angel,” “demon,” “spirit guide,” or “the gods,” all refer to this same experiential reality—when one of these entities appears to a person, rarely do they identify themselves by their “species” and even if they do, the skeptic could inquire: “Can one ever be certain they are telling the truth?”

The problem, of course, is that the universe does not come with one standard roadmap that all peoples everywhere universally agree upon, so each is forced to interpret what happens to him as best as he is able with the language at hand: scientists have their aliens, ancient China has its ancestors, Shintoism of Japan has its nature spirits, paganism has its gods, Christianity has its angels and its demons. Each, of course, conceives of these messengers in different ways, but it could be argued that in the broad picture each looks to a potential form of “proof,” each points to the probability that there are spiritual entities that do objectively exist in the universe that surrounds us. Yet which one, if any, is true? Are they all true, at least through and through? These are the nature of the questions with which Jonathan grapples.

So, to briefly recap the essence of Jonathan’s syncretism, based on the roadmap he has pieced together to remedy this spiritual side with our doubtful beginnings in the evolutionary gene pool, we have—and no one really knows why, though it does not change the fact—a universe that has evolved over billions of years. We are not alone in it however, as there are gods and/or aliens that have existed along with it as well, and these beings are likely responsible for taking the nearly completely evolved hominid forms and instilling within them a spiritual essence, which Jonathan calls a “soul.” This answer might not fit within any larger framework, but based on the available information, what better conclusion can we derive? Science, as it is portrayed on educational programming, doesn’t try to look back into the beginning before the beginning to offer any cohesive framework. One will have to admit that based on the available information where any talk of spirituality is nonexistent, Jonathan’s syncretism is not so unlikely or illogical as it might first sound to those who have always unswervingly believed Christianity to be true.

Yet I would ask this type of Christian, “Is your faith really that obvious?” And if it is, then why do we have the bible in the first place, itself claiming to reveal to us a roadmap we would not have known on our own? As Christians, we accept the bible on faith (and, I would add, many of us on reason as well), and once we come to believe its claims about the universe, we have a hard time conceiving how anyone could fail to understand this “obvious” truth. It is obvious for many of us only because (a) we have reasoned through it, or (b) we have been raised in a culture that owes many of its roots to this worldview; many have never questioned their Christianity to this degree; many fail to see any world that exists outside of Christian doors.

Think about it for a moment. What are we born knowing how to do? Eat? Sleep? Urinate? Defecate? Do we know how to tie our shoes naturally? I maintain that if, from the day we were born until now, we had grown up, say, among the Senufo people-group in Northwestern Africa, we would not find Christianity obvious at all, unless, of course, the elders heard an unforeseen message from the ancestors. If Christianity is so self-evident, then why is Scripture referred to as “Divine revelation,” or the revealed Word of God? Yet, while it may not be self-evident in and of the fact that we would not have known it on our own, this does not mean that it is not rational once understood. It is to say, however, that a Christian who looks down on other people because they do not understand the “obvious” Gospel truth is being a little presumptuous. We humans tend to think things obvious once we clearly understand them, forgetting that we too once needed to learn, even more so if we were taught as small children because we were fortunate enough to have godly parents.

As I pressed him further on the idea of the gods and/or aliens, I asked him if he believed these beings were capable of creating matter out of nothing. Are they capable of giving life? When asked if they powerful enough to do these things, he had to frankly admit he did not know, but he felt that likely they would not have these kinds of abilities—that it was improbable they would be “big enough.” Whether he speaks for all such believers, I should doubt, but this was his account.

The conversation flowed on until he suddenly interjected: “One thing about the gods ‘tampering’ with humanity, is that they know what they are doing—unlike humans.” He proceeded to entail numerous examples of how scientists had failed in their attempts to genetically alter life. After elaborating on this to lengthy extent, citing very solid evidence to hammer his point, I spoke up: “The reason why people do not know what they are doing is because—no matter the cosmology to which you adhere—they are working with matter and organisms far older than themselves. The things humanity tries to alter predate the human race, and as such, they don’t know what they are doing, because they are not creating from nothing, merely taking what they find and experimenting with it. The have no former skills in this department, so it is, at least to some degree, a matter of trial and error.”

From here, I gently brought out my real point: “If the gods are not powerful enough to bring matter into existence, this means that they too are working with matter that has existed before they got on the scene. So even they may not know what they are doing, for they did not create things. This leaves the lingering question, Jonathan. How did the gods get here?”

Speechless for the moment as he thought through these implications, I commented for him that one could keep asking such questions into infinity . . . and if you say that God exists, well, who created God? However, I pointed out, this is precisely the point. To elaborate, I abruptly asked, “Can nothing produce (or create) something?” I wasn’t sure he was fully tracking with me, so I asked again: “Is it possible that nothing—no matter, no energy, no space to call empty—is it possible for nothing to have once (not) “existed” before bringing into existence something: that from utter nothingness came anything?”

He thought for a moment, and allowed that nothing—no matter, no energy, the exact opposite of something—is in no way able to bring into existence that which is. In other words, that which is not cannot bring into existence that which is. With this as our starting point, I told him that therefore something had to have always existed. I could see that my words were beginning to sink in as he admitted that the concept of eternity—forever and ever without end or beginning—was “mind-boggling.” When he made this concession, I asked him, “While it is all but impossible to comprehend, is it not logical? Is it not the only explanation for a world in which things exist? I mean, to say that there was not a forever is to ultimately say that at some point nonexistence became existence from nothing, which is a logical fallacy. Is there any other explanation? If so, I haven’t been able to come up with one: if so, it defies the laws of Aristotelian logic we both presuppose.”

From here, I went on to say that this idea of something creating God was an absurd question in light of this idea. The very concept of God is a Being who has always existed, an idea that is also perfectly consistent with logic. I told him that this idea of the ultimate First Cause is exactly what Christianity postulates. And furthermore, Christianity does not rely on billions of years, but rather on eternity, which is, if you will, “infinite time”; yet another reason the “scientific” asnwer is too small. For all the admittedly unimaginable time frames it assumes in order for evolution to work, it still does not go back far enough. It still does not answer the question: what Schaeffer calls the question of metaphysics.

He told me again, as he had a day or two before, that he had a difficult time believing that the Christian God was as large as we claim. To this, I told him that I could understand his position based on the fact that if God is so powerful, He certainly doesn’t seem to manifest this power very effectively in many Christian representatives with whom Jonathan might have come in contact. “However,” I continued, “on a philosophical level, I think you can understand that at the least, the idea of such a powerful, monotheist presence is not at all illogical.” This, to him, was a real revelation, because just a few days prior he told me he felt the notion of a single God seemed silly to him. To him, the idea of many gods—polytheism—made much more sense. So then, returning in his mind to this idea that the gods too were working with something they did not create—realizing that the gods would also have had beginnings—it suddenly occurred to him that at the back of the gods must exist a single something that has always been. Suddenly polytheism did not seem as likely or as complete of an answer.

I went on to patiently explain to him that paganism has already considered this possibility, and that if he were to talk candidly with his pagan friends, he would find that ultimately the gods are a manifestation of Nature (capital N). This manifestation of Nature is something like “The Force” in George Lucas’s Star Wars. In actuality, it is the Eastern conception of God, which is often referred to as the Impersonal Absolute.

From here, I told Jonathan that he and I both knew that whether we had the right answers or not, we both believed that truth would not contradict truth. To illustrate my point, I pointed to a co-worker. I said, “Susan’s apron is green. Susan works on the cone line. The cone line is on the second floor. The second floor is one section of Willow Brook Foods. Willow Brook Foods is a turkey factory in Springfield. Springfield is the name of a town in Missouri. Missouri is one of the fifty states in the United States. The United States is one of many nations in the world. The world is one planet in the universe. And so on.”

“Now then,” I continued, “you would not expect Susan’s green apron to contradict the fact that the world is one planet in the universe. The fact is, truth is truth is truth, and it will line up together with itself on every level. If what we know or believe does not line up, however, this is when we seek to reconcile the two views to see if there is a higher one that joins them at back.” Now it certainly did not hurt matters any that just that morning I had read the first chapter in Schaeffer’s book He is There and He is Not Silent. In fact, Schaeffer gave me the “ammunition” I needed to wrack Jonathan’s brain just a little bit harder.

I told Jonathan, “I think you can see that the problem in your search for answers is that your questions are too small. You search for the answer to your existence in the pursuit of knowledge about souls, aliens, and the gods, but you cannot explain how these fit into your cosmology. Your questions are too small: until you can answer how anything can exist, you will not have approached the deepest questions of life. Just as the operating system of a computer (usually Windows) is a program that runs all other programs, the way that you answer these questions will affect the way you answer all other questions. This is why these questions are the ones that matter most. You have to have an overarching structure in which to fit the rest of your truth claims if you ever hope to have a unified and logical picture.”

I would further add as an aside here that this is precisely what has troubled some of the most brilliant minds for centuries. The Greeks looked for a fifth element—literally the “quintessential” element—that would unify the other four: earth, air, fire, and water. (Special thanks to Ravi Zacharias for this insight, from his series the Leadership Workshop Seminar.) Einstein and other scientists were in search of a grand unification theory (or “theory of everything”) that would explain how electromagnetic forces, gravity, and the weak and strong forces fit together.

Yet, as Schaeffer would argue, supposing he did unify these elements of energy, what then does that explain about personality? Schaeffer brought out a very compelling point: energy is no more alive or filled with personality than matter. In fact, Einstein was the one who showed us that matter and energy are equivalent: burn a piece of paper, and if Newtonian physics still holds true, matter (or energy) is neither created nor destroyed. As the papers burns, it becomes energy and theoretically, if we but knew how, the ashes themselves could be converted to pure energy. But ultimately nothing has been created nor destroyed; we still do not have life or intelligence.

By now, Jonathan was feeling a little overwhelmed by it all, and, because he respects my thoughts and opinions and because he really had nowhere else to turn, he asked me in desperation, “How can we know what is true? How can we determine that the things we cannot see or test are true?” To this, I responded that much of my reasoning is based on an “if, then” system: if proposition A is true, then proposition B would manifest itself in this way if it is followed to its logical end conclusion. Or in a modified version of the classical syllogism: If Socrates was a mortal (and we all know mortals die), then Socrates surely died.

So then, I told Jonathan, we have two sources of information: both from within and from without. And when I look both within and without, I do not have a guidebook or a blueprint to explain how I got here. I simply know what is, so I have to generate the most likely explanation for what was. I have my then if you will, but now I have to reverse engineer it to come up with my if: that if has to be big enough to answer the then that I find. I went on to tell him that fortunately, we are not alone in this process. There are many different philosophical systems and forms of religions, each claiming to have entitlement to this very blueprint of which we are in search. We can test each of these blueprints in turn, asking ourselves if it sufficiently answers the questions.

So again, going back to Schaeffer’s methodology here, we can look at the answer given us by Eastern mysticism (and the answer repackaged as the power behind paganism): the Eastern explanation for this eternal thing that joins it all together. What we have, in sum, is an Impersonal Absolute. Now to say nothing of Schaeffer’s examination about the idea of unity and diversity, let’s just look at what we find in this answer.

We can certainly conclude that the Absolute half of the answer is correct. Logically, if nothing cannot turn itself into something, then something has to have always existed eternally. So I can accept the Absolute half of the title. But what of the Impersonal? If we are not willing to admit that physical matter is capable of supplying us with souls because a soul requires a spiritual, intelligent entity, can we then any more realistically say that energy is capable of supplying intelligence or spirituality? Isn’t energy just as lifeless and unintelligent as matter? Yet I am very much personal: I feel, I hurt, I love, I think, I have a sense of autonomy, I am capable of reading Eric’s newsletters and (hopefully) decoding his words into meaningful thoughts. :) It seems like a tall order for something impersonal to create personality. This sounds almost like a godless evolutionary process all over again that is not capable of bestowing the souls Jonathan so much believes in: as Schaeffer suggests, does mindless energy have any more personality than mindless matter? So, I must therefore conclude that whatever it is that has always existed, it must be both infinite as well as personal. So what I require to answer my question is a Personal Absolute.

Now someone might like to argue with me that this is asking a lot. But the proof is in the pudding: deny your own existence, and in the act of denial, you demonstrate your personal nature. If you exist, and if you are not infinite, your existence as an entity must have been brought about by something capable of bringing it about. The only way for this to be is for an Entity to have always existed: a Personality, an Intelligence, a Living Reality. The only logical answer, no matter how mind-boggling it may be, is that the thing that has always existed is personal and absolute: that that thing that has always existed is not a thing at all: not a what but a WHO.

This is exactly what Christianity claims: there is an I AM THAT I AM, capable of speaking for Himself, self-existent, self-perpetuating, and needing no reference point beyond Himself. Armed with these facts, I told Jonathan that the explanation for what makes us different from the animals is answered by Christianity. Now I was careful to point out that just because logically what has always existed must be a Personal Absolute, this does not necessarily prove Christianity. But it does put Christianity on the list of legitimate possibilities. So then, while we can debate about the exact nature of souls and whether or not animals have any form of a soul, the bible simply says that the thing that makes mankind unique is that he alone was created in the image of God. Now whether this means we are unique in the animal kingdom in having an immortal soul or not, it certainly does suggest that we alone are unique of all the creations on planet Earth. As I told Jonathan, one does have to admit that this is a rather simple and eloquent explanation for the tension with which he lives, fitting the facts that he has observed. This says nothing at all of whether God used evolution to guide the process or whether aliens or gods or angels or demons or ghosts exist. But it does begin by laying an overarching foundation that we can admit is the only logical possibility. From this foundation, we can begin to sort and sift through some of these finer points: If aliens, then . . .? If reincarnation, then . . .? If the bible, then . . .?

Very well, I will desist from my conversation and ask you: If . . . then . . .? Where do we go from here? As to where I go from here, it is away from my computer for another week. I have started dating Jacquelynn, the Catholic girl next door, and I am expecting her to be getting off work anytime soon. (Incidentally, you met her last week and just didn’t know it: she was the “friend” I walked with along beside the river in Short, Simple Thoughts; she is a sociology major.) Besides, I have already spent a lot of time asking these questions into the nature of existence and I feel pretty confident in where I stand. I’ll give you a little hint: I believe the bible and I have some pretty compelling reasons why I do. Now then, if you will excuse me . . . . (Wink.)

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Schaeffer’s Thought Provocation: A Pagan Dialog