Ken Stephenson
Associate Professor, Music
My family moved away from the first house I lived in when I was five. Two things important to this story happened to me in that house in St. Louis, so I know I was no more than five when they happened. First, I became a Christian. A little girl--a cousin of a friend's, I believe, although I don't remember her name or the friend's name--told me that everyone had done things that were bad (obvious to me), that we deserved to go to hell for it (sounded perfectly reasonable), and that if I asked Jesus into my heart I would not get what I deserved but would instead live with him forever in heaven after I died (clearly desirable). It is important to know that the proposition made sense to me and that I didn't just believe everything I heard, because I was capable even at that age of questioning authority and arguing, which I did on occasion even with this same girl. She once told me that God made everything. I pointed out that He didn't make my bike, and that therefore her statement could not be true. She replied that she didn't mean by "make" what I imagined (construct in a factory, for instance) but that God hade made everything the bike was made of. I quickly saw that any contention on my part that He didn't make the tires was beside the point and that she was talking about the materials themselves, the stuff of nature; so she won. In any case, I could and did argue on occasion with what did not seem reasonable to me. But the story about hell, heaven, and Jesus seemed completely reasonable. So I asked Him into my heart on the spot without delay. I then looked to my chest and waved at Him. Obviously I slightly misunderstood the last part of her message. But I believe to this day that the first two parts are literally true and that God honored the faith of a little child that day and began his work in me despite my misunderstanding about the last part.
Many people can say that when they became a Christian their doubts and troubles ended. I had no doubts and troubles as a small child; mine began only after I became a Christian. But I have to admit that I have never doubted the existence of God or the truth of Christianity since the day I heard about it, and I've never been troubled by the problem of how a good God can allow pain and suffering. I have often wondered what help I could be to someone investigating Christianity if I have never had to struggle with doubts about its truth. All I can do is tell about my other doubts and struggles and give you my word that it is a true story. Maybe it will help somehow.
The other relevant event that happened while I lived at that house was my first epistomological crisis. I realized that I saw everything from a unique perspective and was forever barred from seeing through anyone else's eyes. I felt completely trapped and was consequently terrified. I remember sitting in the mimosa and begging my dad to tell me when it would change and how I might manage to see through his eyes, and I remember how patient he was telling me that it was impossible. A couple of years later, I had my second epistomological crisis (much less severe than the first). We were in Texas by this time, and I remember rolling around in the bed in my upstairs bedroom of our studio apartment wondering how I knew that 2+2 was 4. (People are always "putting 2 and 2 together" and promising that something is "as sure as 2 plus 2 is 4." Why is 2+2 the model mathematical problem? I don't know, but it was mine, too, that day.) I realized that while I could remember people telling me that, I wasn't positive I could trust my memories. How did I know a ghost wasn't tricking me by magic to remember the wrong thing? It seemed to be correct at the moment, but how could I know I wasn't dreaming? Imagine my shock when I grew up and found out that people called philosophers had dealt with these very problems and had become famous for it!
My third crisis came when I was a teenager (so much less severe I really shouldn't call it a crisis). While all the evidence of my experience in the world had confirmed my early beliefs in the objective existence of morality and justice, I realized that I could not prove that my experience itself was objectively true. The problem was really the same as the one I addressed in Texas, but here the issue was not math but the total history of my experience, and in this final crisis I came consciously to the same conclusion that I had only by necessity given in to when I was eight. In fact, my earlier experience was the answer. By necessity I had to believe; I had no choice. I came to my conclusion while driving on I-270 around St. Louis. I realized that I couldn't prove that the bridge I was approaching would hold up, but I acted as if I believed. Several years later I discovered that the empiricist John Locke said that while you could not prove hot coals existed objectively and weren't simply a product of your imagination, you had no choice but to act as if they did when one was put into your hand. David Hume, the Scottish philosopher came to much the same conclusion at the end of Book I of his Treatise of Human Nature, after having carefully shown that we can not be absolutely certain that the world we perceive objectively exists:
Can I be sure, that in leaving all establish'd opinions I
am following truth . . . ? After the most accurate and
exact of my reasonings, I can give no reason why I shou'd
assent to it.
. . . . . . . . . .
Where am I, or what? From what causes do I derive
my existence, and to what condition shall I return?
Whose favor shall I court, and whose anger must I dread?
. . . I am confounded with all these questions, and begin
to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable,
inviron'd with the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived
of the use of every member and faculty.
Most fortunately it happens, that since reason is
incapable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself
suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophi-
cal melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent
of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of
my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine,
I play a game of back-gammon, I converse, and am merry
with my friends; and when after three of four hours' amuse-
ment, I would return to these speculations, they appear so
cold, and strain'd, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in
my heart to enter into them any farther.
Hume called this section "The Conclusion of the Book." If he meant by "conclusion" not only "physical end" but "ultimate truth," then the teachers and anthologizers who ignore this part misrepresent Hume. While reason may leave us short of indisputable proof, we must recognize the existence of the world, the value of the good things in the world, and the meaningfulness of relationships with other people.
My story concerning troubles has little to do with the causes of death or illness or poverty. I have never had any difficulty, even as a child, wondering why bad things happen to us. I have never had a problem of any kind that prompted me to ask God, "Why?" To me the proper response has always been "Why not?" I've always known that whatever happens to us is no more than we deserve. My troubles have always had to do with the faulty character that makes us deserve the worldly troubles.
Like many situations, the message of Christianity is a mixture of good news and bad news, a mixture beautifully and succinctly expressed by my childhood friend. Most even slightly religious people I have come across have known that hurting others, being self-centered, and ignoring God and his commands were wrong and made us justly deserving of punishment, and most have known as well that we can't correct the situation ourselves and become perfect. In other words, they know the bad news. But the ones who have not grasped the good news have without exception been unable to deal with the logical conclusion of a justice without mercy. They have thought casually that, while they can't be perfect, if they are good enough they will pass God's judgment at the end of their lives. And they have always been fairly confident that they know where the line between "good enough to go to heaven" and "just bad enough to go to hell" is. The truth is that a perfectly just God could never judge according to some arbitrary line; the only just line is the one between perfection and the slightest flaw. If we wish to earn his favor by being good, we must be perfect; none of us is capable even of becoming perfect on our own, so we are unable to earn his favor in this way. Our only hope lies in his mercy--mercy on his terms. The good news is that trusting the rest our lives to his mercy through Jesus not only frees us from our otherwise just penalty, but allows Him to work in our lives to change our character so we can begin to act more worthily of Him.
I was blessed for some unknown reason with the knowledge that eternal life with God depends not on our position with regard to that nebulous line but on our position with regard to his provided means of mercy: Jesus' payment of our penalty. But I have always believed that we should still be sorry for what we do that's wrong. I have known many Christians who take on a sort of arrogance when they learn about God's forgiveness and say that to be sorry for their wrongs or to ask God's forgiveness would be to disavow the grace He's already provided. To me, that's like saying I should never apologize to my mom if I make a mess at her house since I'm sure she's not going to leave me out of the will for a spilled glass of juice. But small wrongs can do lasting damage. With a thoughtless word, I can in one careless second change the way she thinks about herself and me for the rest of her life. So I have always felt the enormity of my wrongs, and I have always sensed the great depth of my just desert of punishment in this life and the next, especially since having become an adult. One result is that I quite often apologize to people for things that they consider not worth apologizing for. "These little things don't matter," they say. Even Christians have said this to me, and they should know the Bible's teaching that the least wrong is deserving of eternal punishment. As New Testament writer James says, "Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it."
While I have had no struggles over the cause of worldly troubles, I have according to my melancholy nature been inclined to brood over them, however. I reached my low in that regard about four years ago. Problems raising kids, disappointment in how my first permanent job turned out, lack of success in my career, illness, etc. I was quite depressed. And being depressed hurt my family, which of course I felt guilty about; then it became apparent that my agony over my guilty feeling hurt my family made me feel even more guilty; so my case deepened. I went to counseling (the Christian Clinic for Counseling here in Norman--I highly recommend them!) and ended up quite a bit more able to get through the day without crying. But I still had a nagging problem, one I was afraid to address full, conscious thought to because I was afraid I would revert to the depressed state that was so painful to my family. I had dealt with depression, sorrow, sadness, whatever you want to call it, as an undifferentiated whole, as if all sorrow were bad and I had to get it out of my life in order to be healthy and good to my family. But I still knew somewhere that I should acknowledge with some degree of sorrow my wrongs. I was caught in a bind, but it felt better for the moment to feel good rather than to face what needed facing.
The correction of my thinking took three more lessons, all of which I learned in my reading over the last few years. The first came in Peter Kreeft's gloss on Thomas Aquinas: happiness is not a feeling, and the idea that it is a feeling is a lie of modern, godless thinking. Happiness is a state of being what you are intended to be. I was stunned. The second step came in reading a passage from G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy. Chesterton says that we must be happy and sad at the same time, that we must hate our world (and ourselves) enough to know how much change is needed but love the world enough to actually change it. I don't have to make a choice between feeling good but doing wrong or feeling bad and doing another kind of wrong. We must do both in order to do right. The third step came with Pascal's clear explanation of the fundamental reasons for both our sadness and our happiness, reasons I knew but had not put together before:
There are in faith two equally constant truths. One is that
man in the state of his creation, or in the state of grace,
is exalted above the whole of nature, made like unto God and
sharing in his divinity. The other is that in the state of
corruption and sin he has fallen from that first state and
has become like the beasts.
. . . . . . . . . .
Man's greatness comes from knowing he is wretched: a tree
does not know it is wretched.
Thus it is wretched to know that one is wretched, but
there is a greatness in knowing one is wretched.
. . . . . . . . . .
Knowing God without knowing our own wretchedness makes for
pride. Knowing our own wretchedness without knowing God
makes for despair. Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance
because he shows us both God and our own wretchedness.
Passages like the last one were very important in showing me that there was a reason for my sorrow, and that at least one other person believed that it was right, that it was God's will that we should know sorrow.
Before learning these lessons I was really quite tormented. All my counselors, Christian and otherwise, professional and otherwise, would have had Solomon committed for saying--under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit--that with much wisdom comes much sorrow (Ecclesiastes. 1:18). I would think to myself, "I'm the only one who gets this." This fits one of the very definitions of insanity, I think: to believe that you are the only one who knows the truth. I was afraid to say anything about it. Everywhere I went, every minute of every day, I was faced with the choice of how to live: according to the way of sorrow revealed to me alone, I supposed, of all poor souls in this world, or according to the way of my counselors--the way that had indeed eased the burdens of my family. I was completely fogbound and completely at a loss what to do constantly.
Then I read Chesterton and the Sun started to come out. "Any one might say, 'Neither swagger nor grovel'; and it would have been a limit. But to say, 'Here you can swagger and there you can grovel'--that was an emancipation." Amen.
If Pascal talked in terms of "good news" and "bad news," he might say that we have to hear both but that God, like everyone else, usually gives us our choice as to which we want to hear first. The way I look at it, I got the good news first and then had to learn the bad news. Christians talk about being "saved." The word has such religious connotations now, it is perhaps better to use the synonym "rescued." I was rescued by Jesus Christ in my backyard one day as a child; I had to grow up before I found out just how bad the shipwreck was.
If you have any questions or comments you can E-Mail me at kstephenson@ou.edu