Ask Dr. E: How to argue the knowability of something that, by definition, can’t be known

OPINION:

DEAR DR. E: Isn’t the claim that we can know God basically like saying we can know what’s inside a closed cube? Isn’t it impossible to argue for the knowability of something that, by definition, can’t be known? – SEARCHING FRIEND FROM NEW YOK 

DEAR SEARCHING:  Before I offer my response to your question, I’d like to suggest a couple of authors with far greater wisdom than mine. I highly recommend that you immerse yourself in C.S. Lewis as much as possible. Read “Mere Christianity” (several times). Read “The Great Divorce,” “Weight of Glory,” and “The Abolition of Man.” In all these classic works, you’ll find an honest man who is several steps ahead of us intellectually and spiritually. I’d also recommend anything by Os Guinness, Ken Boa, or Francis Schaeffer. Nancy Pearcy’s “Total Truth” is likewise very good, and Chuck Colson’s “The Faith” as well as “How Now Shall We Live” are seminal publications, in my opinion.

There is one additional book I’ve found particularly helpful. It is an anthology of testimonials compiled by Kelly Monroe Kullberg titled “A Faith and Culture Devotional.” One chapter in this book by a philosopher named John Mark Reynolds is titled “Plato: Lover of Truth, Beauty, and the Good.”

This essay’s essential argument is that the human heart’s desire for RIGHTNESS is evidence of the existence of something objectively RIGHT. Dr. Reynolds directs us to a critical exchange between Plato and Socrates in the book Symposium to make his point: “Now tell me about love,” Socrates says. “Is Love the love of nothing or of something?” “Of something, surely!” answers Plato.

This dialogue highlights what two of the greatest philosophers in recorded history intuitively understood: Human beings have an innate passion, i.e., “love,” for a bigger something - for the true, the beautiful, and the good, and as Reynolds explains, “Deep longing must have an end.” In other words, hunger implies that there is food, thirst assumes that there is water, and love cannot exist without an ultimate object of its affection. Or, as Pascal said - The vacuum at the center of every human soul bears the very image of the only THING that can fill this void.

Using the concept of the closed cube to prove that we cannot know if there is a God is very thought-provoking, and yes, it does remind us that we do “see through the glass darkly.” Still, the very desire to know what is in “the box” in the first place proves not that the box is empty but, to the contrary, that something must be in the box as the object of our desire.

And that “something” must be the ultimate ANSWER. Otherwise, why care? If everything is relative, and if there is no such thing as a transcendent truth, then why spend any time trying to prove that your argument is true? Why contend that you’re right if there is no standard of rightness to prove I am wrong?

The logical end of every question is an answer. Which argument measures up? Which position comes closer to the mark? Whose answer is more right (i.e., closer to truth) than the other? And, in asking all these questions, there must be a measuring rod outside of those things being measured, or we can do no measuring (C.S. Lewis).

Every protest presupposes a jury. Every appeal assumes the existence of a Judge. There can be no contest without some rules of engagement, and there must be a referee to make the final call; otherwise, why would any of us want to play the game or even be spectators? Who wants to watch the Denver Nuggets and Miami Heat play if there isn’t some “standard” and “judge” or “referee” to make sense out of the exercise?

Our feeble attempts to deny the existence of God actually prove the opposite. We all have to assume there is a Logos for there to be logic. There must be a Law for there to be lies. You have the to think you’re right to argue that I am wrong. All of our debates are simply a worthless expense of breath unless these standards of rightness and wrongness come from somewhere OUTSIDE of the temporal human mind.

The epistemological and ontological nihilism of the closed cube argument frankly implodes upon itself. It is self-refuting. Stop and think about it. You would have no desire to prove me wrong if you didn’t believe you could prove you’re right, and that fact may be the best PROOF that God is God and you are not.