Sunday Sermons
The Three Questions
In the book He Is There And He Is Not Silent Francis Schaeffer observes, “We should understand first of all that the three basic areas of philosophic thought are what they have always been. The first of them is the area of metaphysics, of ‘being’. This is the area of what is – the problem of existence… No one has said it better than Jean Paul Sartre, who has said that the basic philosophic question is that something is there rather than that nothing is there. Nothing that is worth calling a philosophy can sidestep the question of the fact that things do exist and that they exist in their present form and complexity” (p. 1). The second great question is that of man, why is man so noble and yet can be also so cruel? David touched upon this question in Psalm 8. The third question is the problem of knowing, that is, how do we know that we know? What determines right and wrong? Do absolutes exist, and can we be absolutely sure of anything? Schaeffer reminds us, “Philosophy and religion deal with the same basic questions… The basic questions of both philosophy and religion are the questions of being – that is, what exists; man and his dilemma – that is, morals; and of how man knows” (p. 3).
The Question of Existence
As we seek to answer these questions, Schaeffer observes, “There are not many possibilities in answer to the three basic areas. It will help us tremendously – whether we are studying philosophy at university and feel buffeted to death, or whether we are trying to be ministers of the gospel, speaking to people with a world view (Colossians 4:4-6) – if we realize that although there are many possible details, the possible answers – in their basic concepts – are exceedingly few” (pp. 4-5).
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First Option: There is no logical, rational answer for why things exist
“If a man held that everything is meaninglessness, nothing has answers and there is no cause-and-effect relationship (Hebrews 3:4), and if he really held this position with any consistency, it would be very hard to refute. But in fact, no one can hold consistently that everything is chaotic and irrational and that there are no basic answers. It can be held theoretically, but it cannot be held in practice that everything is absolute chaos. The first reason the irrational position cannot be held consistently in practice is the fact that the external world exists and it has form and order (Psalm 19:1). It is not a chaotic world. If it were true that all is chaotic, unrelated, and absurd, science as well as general life would come to an end. To live at all is not possible except in understanding that the universe is there… The view that everything is chaotic and there are no ultimate answers is held by many thinking people today, but in my experience they always hold it very selectively… they discuss rationally until they are losing the discussion and then they try to slip over into the answer of irrationality” (pp. 5 ,6). This may be the type of thinking Solomon experimented with when he said he tried folly and “madness” (Ecclesiastes 1:17).
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The Second Option: Everything came from absolutely nothing
And absolutely nothing means just that. Not a bit of matter, not even a pinch of energy, not even on atom. Schaeffer calls this, “nothing, nothing”. Of course, this point of view violates the most fundamental principles of science, i.e., something cannot come from nothing, and equally violates Scripture (Genesis 1:1). In fact, it is a tremendous insult to the Creator to claim that everything He planned from eternity (Ephesians 3:10-11), and all His beautiful ideas and works are just the product of “nothing”. The Creation manifests the wisdom of God (Proverbs 8:22ff), not the after effects of nothing.
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The Third Option: Everything came from an impersonal source
Remember, energy is just as impersonal as any solid substance. “Beginning with the impersonal, everything, including man, must be explained in terms of the impersonal plus time plus chance. Do not let anyone divert your mind at this point (“be not deceived”). There are no other factors in the formula, because there are no other factors that exist. If we begin with the impersonal, we cannot then have some form of teleological concept. No one has ever demonstrated how time plus chance, beginning with an impersonal, can produce the needed complexity of the universe, let alone the personality of man. No one has given us to clue to this” (p. 9). It is just as incredible to argue that a logical system such as mathematics, or a beautiful system as architecture or poetry, as well as Scripture is nothing more than the product of impersonal matter, plus time, plus chance. You see, everything is related. Man cannot be simply a product of chance without art, literature, physics, medicine and music being just as meaningless.
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Fourth Option: Everything came from a personal source
“With this we have exhausted the possible basic answers in regard to existence. It may sound simplistic, but it is true… Somebody once brilliantly said that when you get done with any basic question there are not many people in the room. By this he meant that the farther you go in depth in any basic question, finally the choices to be made are rather simple and clear. There are not many basic answers to any of the great questions of life” (p. 11). Of course, once we acknowledge that only a “personal source” can explain not only the existence of the universe, but also why man is a “person” and not a machine, we have just discovered God. As Paul noted in Acts 17:29, “Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature (God, the source of all things) is like gold or silver (that is, an idol)”. Obviously, if an idol is a poor explanation for man’s maker, so is impersonal energy and matter.
The Answer the Christian Has: 1 Peter 3:15; Philippians 1:16
Schaeffer notes something else that Jean Paul Sartre said, “No finite point (like man) has any meaning unless it has an infinite reference point” (p. 2). This is exactly what the Bible teaches. Man (limited and finite) only has meaning and value because His Creator is infinite (James 3:9). “The dilemma of modern man is simple: he does not know why man has any meaning. He is lost… It is the Christian who has the answer at this point – a titanic answer! ...There is only one philosophy, one religion, that fills this need in all the world’s thought, whether the East, the West, the ancient, the modern, the new, the old. Only one fills the philosophical need of existence, of being, and it is the Judaeo-Christian God – not just an abstract concept, but rather that this God is really there. He really exists. There is no other answer, and… Christians ought to be ashamed (Romans 1:16) of having been defensive too long. It is not time to be defensive. There is no other answer” (p. 13). Schaeffer reminds us, the answer that the Christian has in the Bible is not merely the “best answer” – it is the “only answer”. “That is why we may hold our Christianity with intellectual integrity” (p. 15). The Bible does not avoid any of the big questions, and tackles all the “ultimate questions”. Paul knew this, he was not “mad”; rather he was speaking words of sober truth (Acts 26:24-25). We should remember, that the Bible does not claim to be the “best” truth, but “the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).
This is True Everywhere
Jesus told us to go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation (Mark 16:15), and one reason behind this mandate is, “The truth of Christianity is that it is true to what is there. You can go to the end of the world and you never need be afraid, like the ancients, that you will fall off the end and the dragons will eat you up. You can carry out your intellectual discussion to the end of the game, because Christianity is… true to what is there!” (p. 17). What he is saying is that Christianity is not just true “in the Bible” or “in the building in which the church meets”, it is true and fits and explains everywhere in the universe. It is true in the classroom, in family life, it is true in the operating room, it is true in business, in the government, in the science lab, on the farm, in the big city, and out in the middle of nowhere.
The Vanity of a Silent God
Some admit that God does exist, but they seek to keep Him silent. They will say something like, “I believe there is something out there”. Or, “I believe in God, but not the God revealed in the Bible”. Yet Schaeffer notes, “He is there, and He is not silent. There is no use having a silent God. We would not know anything about Him. He has spoken (Hebrews 1:1), and told us what He is and that He existed before all else, and so we have the answer to the existence of what is” (p. 18). Again, we must not be defensive, in contrast to all the things about which people speculate, or the “silent gods” that they believe in, we do have a titantic answer! Our God has not remained silent! The God whom we serve has spoken, and not merely spoken, He has spoken often (sixty-six books), and in His wisdom He has also had His communication recorded for all men, everywhere!
So what has He told us? Meaningless details and trivia about other things? No! He has told us about Himself, what He delights in (Micah 6:8), who we are, what He expects of us, how to live and treat each other, what to think, and what thoughts and feelings are right or normal and what is abnormal or wrong. God also explains why we can be so noble and yet so cruel, as well as the existence of sin (Romans 3:23).
