Wisdom Wednesday: The Mind of Wisdom – Part 8
Losing our Mind
Submitted by Debbie’s Dad
“ Thus says the Lord, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 9:23–24 NASB 95)
For a few days, I lost my mind. At least I lost control of it. In a stay in the hospital in 2001 for my foot reconstruction surgery following an accident, I was placed on morphine for about 72 hours. Following surgery, I was on a “self-administered” narcotics trip out of reality; I had a button in my hand and every eight minutes I could administer another dose of the drug. I was ready every eight minutes, too – and I even appealed to the pain management team and secured a boost in the levels to make the pain bearable. The drug changed my perception of reality by mitigating the excruciating pain of my foot, and by bringing along some strange perceptions (hallucinations) of its own.
I observed many realities. With my eyes open, I stared at the ceiling of the hospital room with the ever-present fire sprinkler head that looked like exactly Einstein – he never spoke about relativity but just stared down at me. The tiny holes in the ceiling tiles formed words that spelled incoherent messages to me. When I closed my eyes, there was always a new reality awaiting me: the giant transparent fish that flowed with orange crush soda pop, the tunnels and pools beneath the pyramids, strange people, kaleidoscopic colors, and, yes, the thousands of intricately woven “twig people” that marched across my path. On top of the pain and nausea, these hallucinations simply kept my wearied mind busy at a time when it needed rest. But at the time, they all “seemed” to be quite real experiences.
My brief experience didn’t deter my belief that I can distinguish between what is real and what is unreal. In philosophical terms, I am a realist; I hold to the view that there is an objective reality beyond my mind that I can know – it includes the real, finite physical world about me and an Infinite, ultimately real and Supreme Being that caused it. Let me tell you why I assert that I can know these realities.
My senses and reasoning reveal the phenomena of the physical world, and that world, in its complexity, and order reveals further the evidence of a Supreme Reality. My senses and reasoning are limited to knowing the existence of a Supreme Reality, but not everything about it. Therefore, I can be called a limited rationalist (like Thomas Aquinas) because reasoning and observation reveal only the existence of a metaphysical reality; more is required to understand the nature of that Reality (a personal God).
Therefore, I accept two sources of knowledge about what is ultimately real, each revealed to mankind by God. The first is natural revelation. Sense phenomenon in the world and reasoning enables me to affirm the existence of and understand the physical reality, and provides sufficient evidence (causation, complexity, order) that a Supreme Reality exists beyond the physical matter. The natural reality provides evidence to the power and divine nature of a metaphysical reality – a Supreme Cause and Creator.
The second source of knowledge is special revelation. While the world contains a plethora of self-asserting sacred revelations from a Supreme Being, the Judeo-Christian Scriptures are the most ancient, authoritative and self -consistent description of God’s progressive revelation (of Himself) to mankind. Furthermore, these Scriptures pass the tests of correspondence to reality (reality matches what I expect from what I read in Scripture) and coherence (Scriptures and observations are non-contradictory). This revelation and my reasoning to understand it provides more knowledge about the Person of God, His method and purpose for creation, and man’s relation to God.
Of course, all of this hinges on the trustworthiness of the Revealer! If God is a deceiver (like my morphine) then we are all unable to know anything reliable about reality. If God is a deceiver, perhaps my world, my neighborhood, my family, and my faith are no more “real” than the twig people that marched through my mind. Christians of the Medieval age believed that the Creator was trustworthy; therefore, they believed the search for knowledge in theology, metaphysics and science were worthwhile, even complementary endeavors. Science, they concluded, could gain truth about the physical world because the evidence was reliable, philosophy could gain more insight into metaphysics because the Scriptures and science were complementary, and theology could provide understanding of the Almighty Creator and Redeemer. To these believers, the quest to understand reality was paramount. They, too, were theistic realists.
But things have changed. I am a realist in an increasingly skeptical world that declares knowledge about God (metaphysical knowledge) is unknowable. (If it is not physical phenomena, they contend, it cannot come through the senses; therefore it is “nonsense” and is not knowledge.) Skepticism has largely deposed realism in science, philosophy and even in some corners of modern theology. Science since Darwin seeks to understand an origin without a Creator, not because the evidence is unreliable, but because the investigators are. Philosophy since Kant has all but given up on metaphysics as unknowable, not because the phenomena provide no evidence, but because philosophers ignore the heart’s cognitive bias against God’s awe. And modern theology that questions the authority of Scripture follows weakly behind both science and philosophy, lacking any ultimate meaning, embracing a pitiful existentialism. If God is unknowable or unreliable – so is reality itself.
But I’m a realist. Like David, I am committed to the truthful and trustworthy God who has revealed Himself intricately in nature and precisely in Scripture. I can know the truth of reality! With David, I proclaim, “Into your hands I commit my spirit; redeem me, O LORD, the God of truth” (Psalm 31:5 NIV).
