Who Tells It Like It Is?

Published n the Braintree Observer Forum on March 15, 1970
Written by Donald W. Smith

IS GOD in control of the affairs and destinies of men and nations? It is the conviction of this writer that the answer is most emphatically “YES!” In order to answer this question affirmatively, a prior question has obviously been asked and answered. IS GOD? The answer –GOD IS! He exists!

Last week (refer: “Thinking Things Thru March) it was suggested that denial of God’s existence renders our efforts at “good” conduct somewhat absurd. Without God, the authoritative definer of good, all human conduct is equal in quality. If God is not, there are no valid rules or laws. The conclusion was reached that either our obedience to rules of conduct is silly or God exists.

Our general inner sense that conduct has meaning and is either right or wrong appeared as pretty strong evidence that God is. (This is but one of many evidences of God’s Being yet. admittedly, not proof.)

In our efforts to “think thru” and make sense out of life or “human being” we must start with a fact. This fact will be the cornerstone in a “building of
meaning” which can house all our experience. With what fact must one start? Answer –the fact of God!

It might appear to some that setting forth God’s existence as fact seems more like an assumption. Well, in the final analysis it is just that –an assumption. Yet, it must be clearly understood that without this assumption we cannot weave our Weltanschauung (view of life) because it’s God alone who gives meaning to our language and our reasoning processes. (There is a sense in which we cannot meaningfully deny God’s being because if He is not and does not give meaning to our thoughts, then the very denial of His existence doesn’t mean anything-see the point?)

We find ourselves now beginning an “adventure in thought which takes as its point of departure, “the Fact of God.” The word “fact” is used to mean a statement of the way things really are out there in the world apart from, though related to, the individual. So, what I am saying is that God actually is out there and He has somewhat to do with us.

One must readily agree that it is one thing to declare the “Fact of God” and it’s something else to talk about Him. In order to reflect on Him or discuss His
nature, we must know something about this God. In order to know anything about Him, we must make two further assumptions. First, this God can be known by us, or is knowable; and, second, there is a way to get to know Him if the first assumption is valid. If He exists and is not knowable, then His existence is not very relevant to people. One might say if we cannot know any details about Him, He exists but, so what? – where do we go
from there?

It is the belief of this writer that people can know a great deal about God. In fact, we can know enough to build a “perspective on life” that tells it like it is. We can really know what it’s all about-well, maybe not “all” but enough to make life seem really worth living. There are some aspects of experience which God does not explain.

The question must come, how can we know about this God. What is the source of our knowledge? At this point, we come to the “rub” for those who are so scientifically oriented that they tend to believe only that which can be experienced with the senses. (Many empiricists fail to see that trust in the five senses is based on certain assumptions.)

Our Knowledge of God comes from God Himself. He has spoken to mankind. This has happened historically and does not happen today except through the events of history. God has carefully preserved records of what He has said and done (though not exhaustive) in the most popular and most neglected book in America, the Bible.

If a person seeks to build his “view of life” he would do well to go to this source of knowledge about God, the Bible. It is there that God “tells it like it is” about Himself, about us, and about the relationship that exists between God and man. We can’t begin to see what life is about until we have listened to the original “Teller” who knows all the facts because His “willing them made them facts in the first place.

There is a sadness and blindness in man’s struggle to understand life while reluctant to consult the Author of Life, God. We seem to want to figure things out for ourselves yet, all too often without the pertinent data in mind. In our efforts to construct a “Weltanschaunng” many men are as the man who would design and build an operable spacecraft without consulting the prodigious records of research and design in this area. How foolish if he really wants to travel in space. Perhaps he does not, however. Perhaps he wishes to create an illusion of a desire to soar aloft, but spends his life muddling because he’s really “afraid” of sрасе.

Could this be the case with men who sedulously avoid the prodigious writings of the Biblical Prophets and Apostles because they are afraid of this “God” and what He might say to them? Perhaps He’ll say that self-worship, worshipping other gods, cursing, violating the Sabbath, dishonor of parents, murder, adultery, stealing. lying, and covetousness really are wrong. Perhaps we don’t want to hear.

This is not a matter of interest to the religious community alone. The very future of America among the nations of the world is riding on how we answer the question, “Who tells it like it is?!