Is it possible to straight talk to sinful human nature?
Skeptics argue that since the apostles were “illiterate peasants and shepherds” their moral teaching was inferior to that of, say, the Greek philosophers. Of course that characterization is false, and would be slanderous if peasants and shepherds were not generally wiser than Higher Critics. James was one of many early followers who were educated to the standards of the rabbinical scholarly class, while Luke was certainly abreast of the latest developments in Greek science. However the palm for scholarship, whatever value that might have, undoubtedly goes to Paul, who was adept in both Hebraism and Hellenism.
Indeed, to Paul’s contemporaries, the opposite side of the criticism was made. Thus a Roman proconsul (no doubt vexed by Paul’s compelling but offensive reasoning) exclaimed in exasperation, “Too much learning has made you mad!” This was a far more effective criticism than calling out the Apostle to the Gentiles as an “illiterate tentmaker.” Think of Paul as a world-class scholar living in a world without grant applications…hence the day-job. None the less, while it might be considered flattering to some people, the accusation of “to much learning” driving someone mad is preposterous. I don’t mean that it is preposterous from the point of view of those who think more learning is always a good thing. I doubt that endless learning is always beneficial.
Rather, from a specifically Christian point of view the statement, “too much learning has driven you mad” is utterly false. It is false because people, all people, are mad prior to attaining any education whatsoever. Surely this is what one must believe if the doctrine of total depravity has any meaningful application. Whatever one might think of Calvinism, and this writer is several points short of full “five-point” affirmation, total depravity is one point which all Christians need to take seriously. Our thinking part, wherever that may be located, has been as much afflicted by sin as any other portion of our being. Paul never talked about our “good brain” struggling against our “bad genitals” for him it was all “our flesh.” Contrary to Plato, the Prophet Mani and many other speculators, the good/evil cutting off point isn’t at the neck, its above the head or wherever our relation with God has been broken.
Yes, the shocking truth is that from God’s point of view all human beings are mad according to their sin-nature. From our point of view, there is a kind of normative rationality which prevails in society, sufficient sanity to maintain morality and civil order, which individuals participate in to various degrees. However this “rationality” is essentially a makeshift arrangement, capable of breaking down whenever societies as a whole consent to manifest the irrational in collective hysteria. It is no substitute for God’s objective truth.
A preference for parables
Hence, from God’s point of view, the problem is how to communicate saving truth to those who are mad, considering that this is a pandemic and essential madness, not the isolated and accidental madness of those individuals who are considered insane by society. It is important to realize that this is not a madness which has been “caught” by individuals due unfortunate turn of events. We have been born that way. In particular one cannot have been driven mad by any amount of learning.
However, and this is an important caveat, certain kinds of learning are likely to exacerbate the essential madness of mankind. The most notorious, though not the only, learning which exacerbates madness is any kind of dabbling in the occult. I strongly suspect that the unfortunate character who became the host of “Legion” had once staked out a career for himself as a sorcerer or a fortune-teller. Inevitably his “familiars” got the better of him. So yes, demoniacs and other afflicted persons are notably insane in a sense which goes beyond the ordinary madness of mankind. One has to be careful what one let’s into one’s mind!
Yet nobody is saved by either prudence or philosophy! If the major problem were keeping Satan out of our minds, then yes, it would make sense to complain of “too much learning (or other experience) driving someone mad” but it has long since gotten beyond that point, since Satan has been there all along in our individual minds, and since the Fall in terms of our species. Rather, the problem is how to get God into our minds, minds which have been shut up against God by the ubiquitous insanity of sin.
Perhaps an insight is beginning to dawn upon you. Perhaps you are now in a position to grasp what has eluded many philosophers: If sin is madness, then nobody can be reasoned out of sin! Logic and the Socratic dialectic are fine tools, but they are only tools which work when the premises upon which they operate are true. In the world of computer programing there is an expression “garbage in, garbage out” since even the most superb algorithm will crank out false results when incorrect data has been fed into the program. Likewise, the human mind has superb powers of inference, both inductive and deductive. However, to the extent that humans are self-programmed and not God-programmed, the premises of their reasoning will be based on sin, or more precisely, sin-as-thinking, i.e., madness.
Fortunately God has ways of getting around the obstacles which mankind has put in the way of communicating truth. Christian apologists are the most unlikely of God’s angels, and their well intended attempts at dialectic are typically effective with those who have already surrendered to the Truth. Salvation, as opposed to illumination, can be brought about through the teaching opportunities pregnant in all of life’s struggles. For this reason Paul was more apt to use exhortation than discursive reasoning, although he was fully capable of the latter. Finally, the Lord Jesus himself, though the Logos incarnate, preferred the obscurity of parables to straight on logical ( a.k.a.,”logos-ish”) demonstration.
This reaching out of the sane to the insane, the holy to the unholy, through the artful working of the Holy Spirit, has been misconstrued by secular critics as Christian “misology.” On this misunderstanding rests all the scornful imagery of “illiterate peasants and shepherds.” What the secularists fail to realize is that these soft admonitions of the Holy Spirit are a condescension to human weakness, to minds which would inevitably reject truth if it were presented to them in propositional forms. Yet somehow, not through reasoning but through revelation, minds are transformed. On the basis of this tacit operation some theologians, notably existential ones, have gloried in the supposed irrationality of the gospel. However this is misleading. It would be better to say that human minds are led to conclusions which can be rationally demonstrated, but which would never gain the assent of sinful minds without the subtle intervention of the Holy Spirit.
Of course He can do it any way he choses, but it would seem that the Holy Spirit prefers to play divine music on the soft strings of parable than the harsh cords of dialectic.