Wise Men Still Seek Him
Wise Men Still Seek Him
Matthew 2:1-12
Atheism is as old as history. As long as people have believed in gods, or in God, there have been those who denied the existence of the supernatural. I have read the works of several atheists, with great interest, and they often have valuable things to say. I don’t reject a book out of hand just because the author is an atheist. One, whose essays I read with great interest, is Dr. Anthony Daniels, who uses the pen name Theodore Dalrymple. In a recent book he comments on the fact that the arguments for atheism date back to Lucretius, a Roman poet-philosopher from the first century BC. Then he comments, “The new intellectual atheists, however, write as if they were brave pioneers, fighting an orthodoxy an taking their lives in their hands ...”1 Dalrymple comments that nowadays it takes “more courage ... to openly avow a religious faith than to deny the existence of God.” He goes on, “But the fact that the times have changed rather seems not to have obtruded even yet upon the minds of our modern atheists, who believe themselves to be living in intolerant theocracies.”2
I would make the point that the new atheists – or even the old atheists, for that matter – are far more interested in defending their position than in seeking the truth. They refuse to consider the arguments for the existence of God, fearful that their carefully constructed edifice of atheism will collapse under the weight of the arguments. I would also suggest that most avowed atheists are not even aware that there are evidences for God, and are in the position once held by comedian Jeff Allen.
Allen claimed to be an atheist until he was confronted by a Christian friend. Allen confidently asserted his atheism. His friend asked him if he’d considered all the evidence, and when Allen said he had not, his friend said, “You’re not an atheist; you’re a moron.” The point Allen then made in his presentation was this: until you examine the evidence with an open mind, and until you consider the arguments, you don’t hold an honest, intellectual position, but an emotional one. Those who have chased the evidence, or been confronted by the evidence, men like Gilbert Chesterton, Alistair McGrath, C. S. Lewis, and Lee Strobel, find themselves convinced to the point that they have not only accepted the existence of God, they have turned to Christianity, and become passionate defenders of the faith. Lewis wrote Mere Christianity. McGrath wrote Mere Apologetics. Strobel wrote The Case for Christ. Three books every Christian ought to read. In his autobiography, G. K. Chesterton wrote about H. G. Wells, “I think he thought that the object of opening the mind is simply opening the mind. Whereas I am incurably convinced that the object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.”3 Of his own journey to faith, Chesterton wrote, “It was not that I began by believing in supernormal things. It was that the unbelievers began by disbelieving even in normal things. It was the secularists who drove me to theological ethics, by themselves destroying any sane or rational possibility of secular ethics. ... And as I rather like being treated as a responsible being, and not as a lunatic let out for the day, I began to look around for some spiritual asylum that was not merely a lunatic asylum.”4
It seems that most modern atheism is emotional rather than intellectual, a defensive mechanism against a God they wish to reject and ignore. You see, the truth is that atheism could not exist without God. There would be nothing for them to object to. It appears to me that atheism is actually illogical and irrational. If a thing does not exist, say purple elephants, who in their right might would go about insisting that such a thing as purple elephants does not exist? And if a thing does exist, say trees, who in their right mind would go about claiming that trees do not exist? If a thing does not exist, it is foolish to insist that it does not exist, and if a thing does exist, it is foolish to insist that it does not exist. The Psalmist spoke truly when he said, The fool says in his heart, “There is no God” (Ps 14:1; 53:1).
If it is foolish to deny the existence of God, then it is wise to seek Him. Wise men seek God. Wise men follow the evidence wherever it may lead them – even if it leads them to a cradle in Bethlehem, even if it leads them to a rugged cross and an empty grave. Wise men still seek Him.
Because of my father, I have a strong background in science. He taught me to be curious about the world. When he taught university and I was in junior high school, I would go with him on college field trips. We went bird watching, to see migrating geese and booming sage grouse. We collected lizards and snakes, frogs and beetles, butterflies and moths. I went on geological field trips and fossil hunting trips. The college had an observatory and we would go up and learn about the stars and planets. And I learned one very important principle – the essence of science is curiosity, endless, unsatiable curiosity about the world and the way things work. We want to know, to discover. Science is not a closed book, but an open-ended journey. Even today, when I am in the middle of a medical crisis or illness, I want to know what’s going on, how things work. My experience is also experimental. I am curious. I am learning. I make a nuisance of myself to my doctors and nurses. Show me this. Tell me that. Explain to me what this means. Science is the work of the wise, the work of those who seek truth.
Science, by the way, is made possible because the world is orderly and predictable. We know that through observation. Newton noticed that everything falls. He developed the law of gravity because everything falls to the earth. Einstein noticed that things run down. Clocks stop working, metal rusts, buildings decal. Unless there is some force acting to keep things moving, everything runs down. It is predictable, and so he developed the laws of thermodynamics. The stars and planets are orderly in their orbits, and so we can predict solar eclipses and meteor showers and the phases of the moon. We can predict where a planet will be a year, two years, ten years from now, because their movements are orderly.
Some scientists approach the discipline from the view that the world is chaotic and random. Evolution is based on random, chaotic events. Physicists are trying to develop what they call “chaos theory,” because in the secularist, or atheist, view, there can be no design, no order, and they are baffled by order, by detail, by complexity. They will say they are not, but they have no explanation for it. It just happened, somehow. But chaos and random chance do not allow for predictions to be made, only guesses. We cannot know with any degree of certainty when or how something happens if there is no order, if everything happens by random chance. In fact, the only way to deal with a chaotic world is simplistically, by denying the incredible complexity of life, by ignoring, in fact, the very presence of such non-rational things as love, consciousness, self-awareness, rational thought.
But order out of chaos has never been observed. An explosion in a junkyard has never produced so much as a toaster, let alone a jet airliner. You cannot assemble a watch by shaking a box of miscellaneous parts. Even the presence of the parts, by the way, is evidence of design. Gears do not randomly appear out of iron ore. Even the bits and pieces of machines, even the bits and pieces of living cells, must have been designed. They face an even deeper problem than that though: if the world as we know it is the result of random, chaotic chance, and if life is the result of random, chaotic chance and random mutations, they have to admit that even the human brain is the result of such chaotic events. So, how is the brain a reliable “thinking” tool? How can we trust that what we think is real at all? But deeper still is the question of where rational thought, where the mind, comes from. And if that is the result of chaotic, random processes, how is it that we “think” we “know” anything at all? You see, the very presence of rational thought, self-awareness, and the ability to know, is all evidence of design. We must have been created, and we must have been created to be thinking creatures.
It is actually irrational to approach science from the perspective of random, chaotic, chance mutations creating anything. One simply cannot shake a box of dirt, no matter how long we try (and that’s the usual dodge: “well, give it enough time ...”), and expect even the simplest watch gear to materialize. The only way for order to arise from chaos is for an outside force to operate upon it. The only way for the simplest watch gear to appear is for the dirt to be acted upon by an intelligent creative force. Let me add that the dirt itself, the element themselves, are evidence of an outside, intelligent and creative force. Nothing comes from nothing. The elements exist, therefore something must have brought them into existence. Nothing comes from nothing, therefore the presence of anything is evidence of a creator.
The story is told of a scientist who challenged God. “We don’t need God. We have the technology to create anything. We can make meat in a laboratory. We can create a heart valve. We can create things without God.” God smiled and said, “I’ve got to see this.” So the scientist scooped up a handful of dirt, but God stopped him, “Oh, no, you don’t! You get your own dirt.”
The essence of science is curiosity. Science is the search for knowledge and understanding. If there is design in nature, and such design simply cannot be denied; and if there is complexity of such design, and the complexity cannot be denied, then there must be a designer, and outside intelligent force acting on the elements to create. Science, then, would dictate that we search out knowledge of the Designer. Science is the work of the wise. Wise men search for wisdom. Wise men search for the Creator, even if it leads them to a stable, a cross, an empty grave . Wise men still seek Him.
The wise will follow the evidence even when it is challenging. The truth is far too important to give up before you find it. The account of the Magi is instructive. These men gathered provisions for the journey and purchased gifts fit for a king. Their journey very likely took several months from where they began to their arrival in Jerusalem. All Matthew tells us is that Magi from the east came to Jerusalem. We don’t know their starting point or how long the journey took them. We don’t know what all went into their preparations once they had observed the tell-tale star. We just know that they came to Jerusalem seeking the king.
Not Herod, to his dismay, but one born to be king of Israel (which Herod was not), one born of the royal line of David (which Herod was not), one rightfully heir to the throne (which Herod was not). Herod was disturbed. I read recently speculation that Herod was preoccupied with the business of being the king, that Rome wanted more tax revenue and Herod didn’t have it. Whether any of that is true or not, we do know that Herod was deeply anxious about his position. It is doubtful he would leave Jerusalem, especially with rumors of treachery in the halls. With the king out of town, his son might assume the throne in his place. But talk of a legitimate heir to the throne was enough to trouble him. We read his intent between the lines. He wanted to eliminate the threat, and he very likely would have killed the Magi to silence the very rumors of such a threat.
So, having found out from his advisors the prophecy regarding the Messiah, he sent the Magi on their way. And having come this far, and now with more specific directions, they found their way to the cradle of the Christ. And when they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. They did not stop because the journey was long. They did not stop because the journey was dangerous. They did not stop because they ended up at the wrong place at first. They did not stop because of Herod’s veiled threat. They kept on until they reached their destination. They did not stop until they knelt at the bedside of the Baby. And so must we, in our search for Christ, for life in Christ, for the truth of Christ, overcome all obstacles and all objections, until we arrive at the foot of the Cross. Because wise men still seek him.
1 Theodore Dalrymple, Litter: How Other People’s Rubbish Shapes our Lives (London: Gibson Square Books, 2011), p 101
2 Dalrymple, p 102
3 G. K. Chesterton, Collected Works XVI: The Autobiography (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988), p 212
4 Chesterton, p. 173