Greek Philosophy – The Seeds of Doubt - Aristotle (The History of Epistemology! - Part 5)

In this series, we explore epistemology, or “How do we know what we know?” I think such a question is as relevant as ever, especially given our culture’s fairly recent leanings toward postmodernism – the belief that traditional norms should be abandoned in favor of abstractness. Josh McDowell defines postmodernism as “a worldview characterized by the belief that truth doesn’t exist in any objective sense but is created rather than discovered.” In other words, a postmodernist would claim that truth is a variable, and that it is relative to each individual who attempts to discover it. In the postmodern world, there is the potential for more than one truth.

Is truth relative, or is it an absolute? And does it matter? Read on…
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In the last entry, we saw that the Greek philosopher Plato believed that all perfect knowledge was inborn into every man – it was simply left to a lifetime of experiences to “discover” this whole truth. Plato’s foremost student was Aristotle (384-322 BC), who represents the third in a series of influential Greek philosophers (after Socrates and Plato). Aristotle continued to refine the thinking of the time, which was in stark contrast to the pagan times that went before.

Like many who have come after him, Aristotle speculated that in order for a man to live a good life, he must strike a balance between excess and scarcity. In other words, a good life is achieved through finding a balance in all things. Presumably, this philosophy extended to nearly all aspects of life, including that of religion and the existence of God. I cannot find that Aristotle took a strong position in either direction on the role and existence of God in our lives. Instead, his arguments asked men to reason their way to the truth.

In many ways, this would seem like an appeal to science as the ultimate authority in establishing a philosophical argument. Actually, Aristotle knew very little about science. His thoughts along these lines included the thinking that the earth was the center of the universe, that women were an inferior form of life compared to men, and even that men had more teeth than women. This seems ludicrous in light of the ease with which he could have simply counted the number of teeth in a given sample of people, but remember this – science did not really meet up with math and hypothesis testing until the sixteenth century. It was typical for philosophers and “wise men” of the time to simply draw inferences based on personal feeling and highbrow banter.

One of Aristotle’s favorite ways to “prove” his point was through the use of dialectic. Dialectic was the basis of “logic” for many of the Greek philosophers. It is simply a contrived written argument between two people of differing opinion, both of which wish to convince the other of their point of view. These can take a lengthy written form of argument between the two individuals – but the end result is that both sides were written by the same philosopher. I can write my own short dialectic right here:

Person A: Anchovies are tasty!

Person B: No, they’re not!

Person A: Yes, they are, because I eat them every week!

Person B: Oh…maybe they are tasty. I’ve never tried them.

Yes, that is a very simplified and silly form of dialectic. But here is the point - dialectic is not proof and it is not absolute. Karl Popper, twentieth century philosopher of science, said this when he argued against dialectic: “The whole development of dialectic should be a warning against the dangers inherent in philosophical system-building. It should remind us that philosophy should not be made a basis for any sort of scientific system and that philosophers should be much more modest in their claims” - (just a tip - while this is good, don't listen to everything that Popper said).

Where am I headed with all of this? My point is pretty simple. Greek philosophers, including most notably Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle changed thinking radically, by bringing man’s reason and personal opinions into the equation. Prior to this, men looked to the one true God or the pagan gods for answers and absolutes. When men (and women) get together and begin to speculate about a topic, without any reference to an absolute authority, they practice what I like to call “pooling ignorance”. Anyone can take the time to make the craziest ideas seem possible, if they spend their efforts on ways to turn a phrase, create a hypothetical example, or manipulate big words. In fact, I think a lot of college courses are designed to do exactly that.

But what happens to absolute truth in a world influenced by human philosophy? The answer is that it gets ignored, just as it does every day in our postmodern world. As Pastor Voddie Baucham, Jr. says in his excellent book The Ever-Loving Truth, “The denial of absolute truth is a hallmark of modern thinking.”

But the key to understanding an epistemology series is this – just because absolute truth is being ignored all around us does not mean that it does not exist! Whether man chooses to believe that 1) God exists, 2) that He has a plan and a desire for each of us, 3) that He sent His Son to die for us, and 4) that we all have a chance to live with Him for eternity – the truth of these statements is unchanged by man’s thoughts. It is true, and we Christians should not be ashamed of the boldness of that thought. Our position of one absolute truth would have been deemed unacceptable in Aristotle’s day. It is labeled as “intolerant” in our world today. I don’t care. IT IS TRUTH.

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Back to the start of the Epistemology series…

Greek Philosophy – The Seeds of Doubt - Plato (The History of Epistemology! - Part 4)

In this series, we explore epistemology, or “How do we know what we know?” I think such a question is as relevant as ever, especially given our culture’s fairly recent leanings toward postmodernism – the belief that traditional norms should be abandoned in favor of abstractness. Josh McDowell defines postmodernism as “a worldview characterized by the belief that truth doesn’t exist in any objective sense but is created rather than discovered.” In other words, a postmodernist would claim that truth is a variable, and that it is relative to each individual who attempts to discover it. In the postmodern world, there is the potential for more than one truth.

Is truth relative, or is it an absolute? And does it matter? Read on…
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Probably the best-known saying associated with Plato is this – “If you don’t put the lid back on when you’re done, it will all dry out.”

Okay, not really. But you have to admit that you didn’t expect that in the middle of an epistemology series.

Plato (428-348 BC) was a student of Socrates, and unlike his teacher, he actually wrote things down. Consequently, there is a lot more to look at and deduce from Plato and his writings. Plato refined much of the thinking of Socrates into more concrete form. As opposed to the thinking that went before him, he speculated that each soul, before birth, possessed a perfect knowledge of everything. Plato would argue that truth was “pre-loaded” into each person, and it is their task to “recall” that truth, rather than learn it. This was a unique concept for the time, and differed greatly from the pre-Greek philosopher thinking which simply looked to God (or pagan gods) for truth. The idea that each human began with perfect knowledge, lost it, and must spend a lifetime trying to regain it is not unlike many religions of today.

There is a fine line between this thinking, and that of Romans 1:18-21, where we are told:

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

The difference between these schools of thought is that Plato’s thinking assumes a perfect understanding at the start of life, while the Bible makes no such claim. Since the fall of man through Adam, man has had an imperfect grasp and knowledge of God. We are told in 1 Corinthians 15:22 – “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.”

Plato used an allegory of a chariot driver being pulled by two horses to explain more of his thinking. The charioteer represents man’s reason – the decider who will guide the soul to truth. One horse is white, and stands for the positive part of man’s passionate nature (such as righteous indignation), and the other horse is black and represents irrational passions and appetites. The driver – man’s reason – must learn to tame and balance these two forces in order to make progress. The horse part of the analogy is not far from the apostle Paul’s reasoning in Romans 7:21-25:

“So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.”

The real difference between the two philosophies is this – who is the driver of the chariot? For Plato, this was man himself, who learned to drive and control the horses as best he could. The whole of the process rested in man alone. For the Christian, as we see in Paul’s words above, we give the reins to Jesus Christ, who is our rescuer and who guides us into all truth. There is a huge difference between these two models.

Finally, in typical philosophical fashion, Plato also contributed to the roots of today’s postmodernism movement. He constructed an argument to discuss whether or not all objects have a universal form, by saying something like this – “When we look at an apple, for example, we see an apple, and we can also analyze a form of an apple. In this distinction, there is a particular apple and a universal form of an apple. Moreover, we can place an apple next to a book, so that we can speak of both the book and apple as being next to each other.” These are words that a post-modernist would love to discuss, but not I. My fifteen-year-old daughter likes to label words such as this as “a load of waffle”. For me, it’s enough to say that apples were created by God, and they taste good. Can we see some of God’s handiwork when we eat one? While the Greek philosophers are often credited with moving man toward a deeper understanding of truth, there is some doubt as to whether this is really right… Next up, the final Greek philosopher in this series - Aristotle. Then we will need to jump ahead almost 2000 years to get to the next major epistemological development.

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Greek Philosophy – The Seeds of Doubt - Socrates (The History of Epistemology! - Part 3)

In this series, we explore epistemology, or “How do we know what we know?” I think such a question is as relevant as ever, especially given our culture’s fairly recent leanings toward postmodernism – the belief that traditional norms should be abandoned in favor of abstractness. Josh McDowell defines postmodernism as “a worldview characterized by the belief that truth doesn’t exist in any objective sense but is created rather than discovered.” In other words, a postmodernist would claim that truth is a variable, and that it is relative to each individual who attempts to discover it. In the postmodern world, there is the potential for more than one truth.

Is truth relative, or is it an absolute? And does it matter? Read on…
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So far, we have seen that absolute truth does exist and can be known, this being the truth revealed by the Creator – God. To nearly all men before 500 BC, truth was either based in God the Creator or it was based in pagan beliefs. Up to this point, men looked to a deity of some sort to find the ultimate answers.

We’ve also seen Pontius Pilate respond to Jesus intimations about what is absolute with his question, “What is truth?” Did Pilate create this question on his own, or was he influenced by the times?

The time period around 500 BC seems to be pivotal. It was around this time that man began to consider himself wise. Many began to question the idea of what knowledge truly was and where it came from. For the first time, the answers did not always lie in God or some other deity. This belief began to take root within the ancient Greek culture. Three notable philosophers – Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle – played a major role in the shift that led to the Age of Enlightenment, later leading to Modernism, and which sowed the seeds of the Postmodern era that we live in today.

Socrates (469-399 BC) was the first of the three great Greek philosophers. His influence started the Greek society toward several generations of questioning truth and how it is derived. Indeed, the “Socratic method” was named for him – in which a person begins asking question after question in order to gain an understanding of an issue. This in itself is not a bad thing, as long as one looks for the real source of right and truth on the subject. But it is a strong characteristic of Modernism, where science rules – and science has often been wrong, as history has shown. Socrates once said, "I know you won't believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others." This was a new concept at the time. It should seem very familiar to us today, as the seeds of Postmodernism lie in that very concept.

Socrates believed that evil was not a choice that a person made purposefully, but rather, each man spent his life trying to find “the Good”, with some being more successful than others. When he was condemned to choose between exile or death, Socrates chose to drink hemlock. Making his final statement to the jury who condemned him for philosophical heresy, his famous last words to them were, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” This is not a bad statement to go out with, but again, what truth would Socrates have judged a life against? His statement seems noble, but if it’s made simply for the sake of appearing noble, without an appeal to the real absolute truth, was it worthwhile?

Curiously, Socrates was known for asking many questions, but he did not necessarily answer them. His glory was in the ability to ask and ask and ask – without necessarily feeling the need to reply. Compare this to Jesus, who lived less than 500 years later and who was not afraid to answer the questioning crowds, often referring to absolute truth as his source and beginning with the words, “Truly, truly, I say unto you…” We see in the ancient Greeks the tendency to question things just for the pleasure of questioning – not necessarily with an eye toward discovering real truth. Socrates’ influence was passed on to his student, Plato, who developed a much more rigid approach to epistemology. Plato’s philosophy is the next topic in this series.
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Baseline – What Man Has Known From The Beginning (The History of Epistemology! - Part 2)

In this series, we explore epistemology, or “How do we know what we know?” I think such a question is as relevant as ever, especially given our culture’s fairly recent leanings toward postmodernism – the belief that traditional norms should be abandoned in favor of abstractness. Josh McDowell defines postmodernism as “a worldview characterized by the belief that truth doesn’t exist in any objective sense but is created rather than discovered.” In other words, a postmodernist would claim that truth is a variable, and that it is relative to each individual who attempts to discover it. In the postmodern world, there is the potential for more than one truth.

Is truth relative, or is it an absolute? And does it matter? Read on…***************************************
In any good measurement system, there must be a reference point. The definition of an “inch” cannot be allowed to vary over time, or we would have to start changing things like mountain elevation signs, tape measures, student rulers and the labels on your socket set every time a new definition came out. To be sure, we all understand that there needs to be a “truth” about exactly how long an inch should be, and this definition needs to remain unchangeable. This reference point is often called a “baseline”, and represents the starting point to which you must return to make sure that you stay on the right track.

In the Christian worldview, the reference point is the Bible and the baseline for truth can be found in John 18:37. When questioned by Pilate about whether or not he was a king, Jesus said,

“You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

To which Pilate, like many postmodernists today, gives his standard reply – “What is truth?"

For many, accepting Christ as the ultimate authority becomes a difficult concept to accept. Human pride and the desire for self-rule take over. We don’t like to be told that we are not the final arbiter of our destiny, or that we don’t know everything. From the modernist point of view, man should be able to understand truth over time through experimentation, science and personal discovery. And yet, Jesus maintains that he alone holds the truth – even if we have not yet grasped the entire concept.

The Bible expands on this idea in Romans chapter 1, where we see that the knowledge of God is “innate” – that is, God’s nature is intrinsic and inborn into each person. Verses 18 through 20 tell us,

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”

It’s interesting that the Bible tells us that this innate knowledge can be seen in “what has been made”. This actually agrees with the portion of the modernist view which says that truth can be discovered by science and experimentation. The Bible tells us that, properly interpreted, scientific discoveries will point to God, not away from Him. In fact, it is true that most molecular biologists are convinced that God designed biological processes, rather than these processes evolving on their own – because the complexity of biochemical reactions is irreducible to individual evolutionary steps. The thousands of perfectly coordinated and intertwined steps had to happen all at once - in one created effort – or not at all (see Michael Behe’s excellent book Darwin’s Black Box if you want to read more).

Let me be clear – unless you can genuinely say that Jesus Christ is the source of truth for you, you are basing your reference point on something else – something which is false. Notice that I don’t equivocate and say that your reference point is “wrong for me” or “wrong for some, but possibly right for you”. That would be a postmodernist reply, just as Pilate gave to Jesus. The very purpose of having an absolute truth is that it must apply to everyone. And it does, whether a person chooses to believe in it or not.

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What Comes After Post-Modernism? (The History of Epistemology! - Part 1)

In this series, we explore epistemology, or “How do we know what we know?” I think such a question is as relevant as ever, especially given our culture’s fairly recent leanings toward postmodernism – the belief that traditional norms should be abandoned in favor of abstractness. Josh McDowell defines postmodernism as “a worldview characterized by the belief that truth doesn’t exist in any objective sense but is created rather than discovered.” In other words, a postmodernist would claim that truth is a variable, and that it is relative to each individual who attempts to discover it. In the postmodern world, there is the potential for more than one truth.

Is truth relative, or is it an absolute? And does it matter? Read on…
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Epistemology sounds scary – like it might hurt you. It’s a word that might make you want to hit the “Back” button on your browser and go read something else. Don’t. To keep you on the hook (because I think this series is going to be fun and meaningful), let me ask – what is truth to you? Do you believe it is the same for you as for everyone, or do you think it varies between people and changes over time as society matures?

I cannot tell you how many books I’ve read, classes I’ve attended, and conversations I have had where I was encouraged to be open-minded about things that I felt strongly about. Concerning topics that I feel a strong sense of right and wrong (abortion, baptism, the existence of God), I do not want to compromise or water down what I believe to be the truth. To me, the existence of God (and who He is) is not a relative concept. I may not know everything that I need to know about God or His character, but I am past the point of wondering whether or not He exists. He does - and anyone who refuses to acknowledge this point is going to deeply regret that they didn’t make the connection. My statements about what I believe to be absolute tend to be short and to-the-point (some would say rude and close-minded), but it is precisely because I believe them to be absolute that I insist on them. You wouldn’t jump off a thousand-foot cliff just because the person next to you doesn’t believe in gravity. You wouldn’t do it even if they agreed to jump with you. You would not suspend your absolute belief in the concept of gravity when your life is at stake…

Epistemology deals with the ideas of truth and knowledge – what is truth, what can I claim to be true knowledge, and specifically, how do I know this knowledge is truth? For the vast majority of people, when I ask “Do you believe that two plus two is equal to four?” they answer “Yes” because they know this statement to be true. They do not sit down each time they are asked and count on their fingers to be sure. They just know the answer, because they have seen the evidence in the past, and they recall that it is truth. It does not have to be rediscovered every time. Epistemology deals more with the knowing of truth, rather than its calculation or derivation.

The history of epistemology, and the various beliefs encountered along the way, are what this series is about. It began with the Greek philosophers, who assumed certain basic human beliefs to be true without really questioning where these beliefs came from. In the mid-seventeenth century, the Age of Enlightenment began and philosophers started to question how we really know what we know. This period was dominated by the thinking that reason alone was enough to justify power and “rightness”. God’s presence and authority were still given a great deal of consideration during this phase.

That began to change with the period of Modernism in the late nineteenth century, when people began to trust more in the scientific process and technology to determine what truth really is. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is a good example. It was during this period that philosophers began to wholly reject the idea of a divine Creator in their belief systems. Instead, the idea of man being able to save himself through learning and applying what he learned began to take shape (not that this idea didn’t occur before this time, but it became the primary philosophical way of thinking at this point).

Finally, in the 1960’s, mankind rushed into the next phase of philosophical thinking – Postmodernism. This period has been dominated by the abstract thinking that absolute truth cannot be known. Instead, philosophers (and religious leaders, and government officials, and many, many others) believe that the concept of truth is a variable – it is different for everyone. “We make our own truth” or “We discover our brand of truth as we live life” are familiar sayings. In essence, this chapter of epistemology says that “we can’t really know that what we know is absolutely right”. That can be a pretty frustrating argument to have with someone.

One thought occurs to me – what would the next phase of thinking encompass? As mankind has sped along the philosophical trail these last few hundred years, departing from centuries-old belief systems, he continues to accelerate into more arcane arguments than the last, until eventually there will be no regard for truth or morals or any real sense of right and wrong. What do you call the thing that follows Postmodernism?

This series will explore each of these phases and the history and thinking of the people who dominated the thinking in each – from Socrates to Plato, Rene DesCartes to John Locke, Kant to Hegel, Darwin, Nietzche and Marx. Through these, I hope to compare each phase with the “original” author of philosophy – Jesus Christ.

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Thoughts on President Obama’s Education Speech

The President of the United States gave a fifteen-minute address to the school students of our country yesterday. Since I had read a lot of speculation about what he would say, and how he would say it, I decided to evaluate it myself. So, last night I opened up one computer window with the video clip, one with the text transcript, and one with Microsoft Word and I watched the whole thing, ready to make notes about the perceived fallacies in what he had to say.

After watching the whole thing, I have to admit that I didn’t come up with one single egregious statement worthy of intense criticism. So for those who think I may be an anti-Obama, all-the-time complainer, let it be known that I went into this video with an open mind and left with very little to say in the way of disparagement.

Obama’s speech really consisted of a few well-worn messages. Stay in school, do your homework, mind your teachers, and work hard. And my favorite – be sure to wash your hands often so you don’t get the flu this winter. That’s it. It wasn’t terribly presidential – in fact, it was pedantic. It wasn’t even that well written or delivered. It was…just a speech. I doubt many kids walked away from it with any more inspiration than they had going into it.

The whole thing got me to thinking about whether or not I would want my children to watch the speech (they did, at home, over the Internet). But was the uproar from many sides about his speech right or wrong? Little was said in his words, and the speech was largely devoid of politics, religion, (petitions for healthcare votes), or moralizing. It was…just a speech.

But consider this – does who my children listen to matter as much as what my children listen to? To this, I have to answer “Yes”. If Michael Vick was giving a benign and pleasant speech at the local Humane Society, would I want my kids to go? With Vick’s background of endorsing dogfights and animal abuse, I would have to say that his character would overshadow any words that he might have to say. Even if they were good words, I do not want my kids idolizing someone who lacks character.

“But you surely can’t compare our President to Michael Vick!”, I hear some people say. Well, in some ways, I suppose that is right. Our president has openly supported policies which enable and further the practice of abortion. The killing of innocent babies is far worse to me than the abuse of animals. So our president’s policies offend me even more than those of Vick. Truly, they do. And I do not want my kids watching a benign speech by the president and coming away thinking that everything is really okay with him – that he’s a decent sort of fellow, and one we would like to imitate in many ways. So, we train them to consider the character, as well, when listening.

Some people will think I’m crazy making such a comparison. But consider the numbers when comparing the Nazi holocaust alongside the abortion rates occurring in our country – right now. Six million Jews were killed during the holocaust. But in the United States alone, between 800,000 and 1,400,000 abortions are performed every year. Approximately the same number of abortion deaths will occur in one-and-a-half presidential terms as occurred during the entire holocaust. And our president, among many, many others (including the president before this one), does not have the courage to stand up to this atrocity and make it stop. Instead, he works to make access to abortion easier. He continues to allow my tax dollars to go toward the funding of this abomination – in this nation and beyond. Can I stand by while he allows this to happen? Will people look back on our nation in fifty years, and compare this time to the Jewish holocaust? And back to the topic at-hand, is this the kind of person that I want my kids to look up to and admire?

The point I make is this – at least as important as the words delivered by a speaker is the character of the speaker. Does his life honor God? Does he glorify God in his actions? The longer I look at politics and character, the more I believe that the next time I cast a vote for president, it will not be for Republican or Democrat. If I could not choose the man to be an elder in my own church, how could I vote for him to lead this great nation?

Please continue to be in prayer for our president, our leaders, our nation, and our children.

The Danger of Not Letting Them Go (Part 3 – When To Let Your Kids Go)

For some reason, this subject has been heavy on my heart lately. I have prayed daily for wisdom about whether or not to write about it – and for God to reveal His truth to me on the topic. I have many dear friends who are school teachers, public school parents, or who may simply disagree with the amount of protection that I give to my own children. The answer to the question “When should I let my kids go out into the world?” is not the same for every child or family. There is no easy formula. But for those who have children and who want to see them glorify God in their lives when they leave the nest, let me just say this – this is one thing that you don’t want to get wrong.

I plan to cover this topic in three segments:

1) The Big Test
2) The “Salt and Light” Argument
3) The Danger of Not Letting Them Go

Whether you agree or not – I encourage comments. I especially encourage other viewpoints when they are accompanied by scripture. Believe me when I say that this was written under prayerful circumstances, and with no accusing finger pointed at anyone. Really.
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The year was 1982, and I walked into my high-school literature class with my Bible and a few things to say. I was fortunate enough to be in the Advanced Placement class where we were encouraged to debate and argue over what we believed. I was often at odds with many in the class and, more importantly, with the class teacher, who was a devout atheist. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the discussions we had, because they were very lively and forced me to carefully research why I believed what I did.

On this one occasion, I was especially excited, because we had been having a discussion about morality and where the general feelings of right and wrong had originated. Since we were always reading from various pieces of literature to make a point, I thought reading from some select passages in Romans 1 would serve to demonstrate my side of the story, and make some people think about what God had to say on the matter.

I was wrong.

As the discussion progressed, I commented that I had some thoughts on the subject from the Bible. The teacher became very animated and refused to let me continue. She let it be known that I was not allowed to read from the Bible in her class, and that I was to never return with it again in my hands. Any other book was acceptable to argue the point with, but the Bible was not allowed. For the moment, I was crushed. No one came to my defense. I remember going for a week after that in silence in class. Without the Scriptures to refer to, anything I had to say would have simply been an opinion. To me, the class was simply “pooling ignorance”, adrift without a solid reference point on which to take hold. I thought I had lost. But you need to read to the end of this post to discover the real finish to this story.

I was raised in both a family and in a strict church environment which impressed upon me the importance of the Bible and the need be prepared to debate and argue for the truth. This upbringing readied me at a fairly early age to defend Christ and holy living. By high school, I was ready to accept bitterness, criticism, and even rejection from others without the possibility of losing the moral compass that guided me. My parents and a strong church family were responsible for this. But before this point, I don’t think I was ready to stand up to the abuse.

Proverbs 22:6 does not say, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is six he will not turn from it.” As I’ve pointed out previously, somewhere between the ages of two and thirty-five, there lies an age when a child is ready to independently go forth and defend the Christian faith. The age of maturity differs for each child (for some, it may indeed be six, though I think that is rare). Prior to that point, there is a danger that the world will have a mitigating effect on the child’s own moral compass. It is the duty of the Christian parent to be sure that they provide guidance, training and protection until that independent point is reached.

There is a popular phrase which goes like this, “That which does not kill you makes you stronger.” I respectfully disagree. There is an insidious design in Satan’s plan in which we are sometimes led to believe that getting close to evil, and then escaping it, is somehow more desirable than to never have been close to evil at all. The more desirable path for training is to keep our children away from evil to start with, without the need to later untangle the effects of sin (Proverbs 1:8, 6:23, and especially 23:19) . C. S. Lewis, in the preface to The Great Divorce, put it this way:

“I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot ‘develop’ into good. Time does not heal it.”

There are pictures and words in my head today which I cannot get rid of because of exposure to movies and conversations in my youth. These things are seemingly indelible on my mind – no amount of time or prayer seems to cure me of the exposure to them. It is a constant struggle to turn away from temptation, or remind myself to refrain from anger when I’m pushed too hard. I would have been better off if I had never had the experiences to begin with. And this drives my desire to shelter and protect my own children from the subtle influence of the world.

But…there comes a time when I believe we are called upon to send our children out – well-prepared – to defend the faith. The fact is this – the world is a lost and broken place, and it needs Jesus. And Matthew 5 does call upon us to be a light to the world, a city on a hill that cannot be hidden. The danger of not letting our children go forth to be that shining light is that the world may never see God’s salvation through them. Their wise and matured example is part of God’s plan, as we see in Daniel 12:3,

“Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.”

This has the effect of changing the world and us, as stated in 2 Corinthians 3:18,

“And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

Our example may even carry past our own life on this earth, as is seen with Abel in Hebrews 11:4,

“By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.”

To conclude the opening story - ten years after that disappointing moment in high school, I attended a class reunion. One of the most meaningful events of my life happened that evening when one of my old classmates approached me and told me, “I just want you to know how much I appreciate the stand you took on the Bible in our high school classes. I remember it well. And I’m happy to tell you that I have given my life to Christ since that time, and your Christian example had something to do with it.”

As I’ve stated before, this series is about effective, deliberate parenting. God has invested us, as parents, with the responsibility to take care that our children are trained, protected, and ready to serve Him in powerful ways. Guarding their lives from worldly influence will make them stronger. Yes, much good has been done by people who were rescued from evil lives – those who repented, and then chose to serve God in mighty ways (the apostle Paul was a good example). But many more people throughout history were not able to climb out of the pit of sin that entrapped them once they fell in. I encourage Christian parents everywhere to purposefully choose the best and most God-honoring path for their children. That path is not the same for every child – God’s plan is far more textured and complex than a simple list of rights and wrongs. I pledge to be diligent in prayer for God to reveal His plan to our families, and for our light to shine, ultimately, in the most powerful way for Him.