“Bronchitis,” my doctor says. I’m on antibiotics as of an hour ago, and suddenly I feel very weary. Which is pretty much how I’ve felt for the last three weeks, so it’s really not a change.
I’d like to direct your attention to the Grim’s Hall blog, one of my favorites. They don’t seem to have any mechanism for cutting individual posts out of the herd there, so in order to get to the post I want you to look at, you’ll have to scroll down past Grim’s mention of Joel Leggett’s review of my book. With characteristic modesty, I shall say nothing at all about that.
But down below is a (to me) fascinating post on “The Force of History.” It springboards off a discussion of the very problematic question of Swiss restrictions on minarets, and on to the whole question of how we argue from history, and how people use proofs in their actual, real-life thinking.
Grim says:
These [reasons] are likely to be emotional, not logical: as with our discussions on Aristotle, it is normally the non-rational part of the soul that determines ends. The rational part determines means. All he will learn from your argument is that he needs a different means to his ends.
This strikes me as an important point to understand. Most people don’t reason forward from logic. They reason backward from conclusions that please their feelings, finding proofs to support them.
This is even true of Christian arguments. I’ll go further. It’s probably true of mine as well. I have a vision–an image that ravished my soul when I was a boy–and I’ve chosen chains of reasoning that suit that vision. To betray the vision would be like betraying a woman I love.
I don’t mean to denigrate reason. Reason stands. It is valid. We should work, and work hard, to refine and maintain our logic.
But human beings are not computers. We operate by head and heart, and if we wish to win souls, we must not forget that. C.S. Lewis experienced what could well be described as an intellectual conversion. He was “talked around” by Tolkien and Dyson. But the “bait” in God’s “trap” was Lewis’ fascination with myth. When he saw that myth could be fact as well, Lewis discovered the heart of his own passion, in Jesus Christ.
Stories. Stories are so important. We serve a Lord who was a famous storyteller, and whose life is a famous story.
