Looking Through the World to See What's Really There

This book is small, but the question it addresses is very large: “Is there anything more than the things we can touch, see, hear, smell and taste (or at least could do, if our senses allowed for such fine distinctions)?”.  Without some considered response to this question, it is not possible for a human being to fashion for himself a reasonable course of action in life.  A negative answer would make religious understandings of the world nonsensical, while a positive answer would make us ready to consider them seriously, with open minds.  This reasoning about life and the world is what separates us from the beasts of the field, but first we must do the reasoning if we want to earn that separation.

This discussion is an attempt to provide something for an interested person to read to gain some idea of one way in which belief in reality beyond the material sphere can be considered reasonable.  It does not attempt to advance beyond that first, basic conclusion.  Full scale attempts to argue for the truth of particular religious traditions should be sought elsewhere.  But, what should an interested enquirer who has not already decided that he is convinced of the validity of religious reflection do?  He will need to satisfy himself of the sense of spending any time at all considering religious questions.  This essay is one argument designed to defend the idea that people can, even should, consider religious questions.

From a situation in which western culture assumed that the world was created by a Divine Being and inhabited by innumerable spirits and demons, our society has moved so far that it is often considered unintelligent, even impolite, to admit that one is not a materialist.  Our modern western society, like all societies, has its own ruling ideas about the world in which its inhabitants live and, like most other societies, it is not very good at allowing time and energy for reasoned consideration of them. It may come as some surprise to modern people to learn that, in the early period of its development, Christianity was thought of as an atheistic religion and people who professed it were accused of being “atheists” because they refused to worship all the many pagan gods and goddesses.  In our age, things often seem just the opposite.  Those who believe that there is anything beyond the bare material world are thought to be believing too much, rather than too little.

There are many books, both very new and very old, that have been written with a view to providing an explanation of Christianity.  I hope that this book will not find its place among those, its purpose is quite different.  Because I teach Theology and New Testament, I am often asked to suggest books for people who are interested in religious questions to read.  This is a more difficult task than those who ask it realize.  Most modern books which make any sort of intellectual demand on the reader are designed for use in an organized educational setting.  They presume the presence of a teacher to help the reader stumble through them to the end.  We all complain that our schools seem to become less and less successful, but textbooks have still taken over the publishing world.  Books from earlier ages were often written for the average intelligent reader of their time, but today only specialists have the knowledge of the common assumptions of those people necessary to understand them.  Pascal’s Pensees is hardly the book to throw at an inquirer who is not already far along the road to a graduate degree.  Modern people need something clear, direct and non-technical if they are going to take on philosophical and religious topics on their own. This is the task we have before us now: to consider the world around us and our experience of it without prejudice and to try to work out whether it appears to be wholly material or not. If only material things exist, religious questions are unnecessary. If there is more than just material reality around us, religious questions might be a useful avenue for us to take in trying to make sense of our lives and ourselves.