Of Sherlocks and Skeptics

 

Monday, March 1, 2021
Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness.  Let the whole world know what he has done.  Sing to him; yes, sing his praises.  Tell everyone about his wonderful deeds.  Exult in his holy name; rejoice, you who worship the Lord.  Search for the Lord and for his strength; continually seek him.  Remember the wonders he has performed, his miracles, and the rulings he has given, you children of his servant Abraham, you descendants of Jacob, his chosen ones.  
He is the Lord our God.  His justice is seen throughout the land.  He always stands by his covenant—the commitment he made to a thousand generations.  This is the covenant he made with Abraham and the oath he swore to Isaac.  He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree, and to the people of Israel as a never-ending covenant:  “I will give you the land of Canaan as your special possession.”  Psalm 105:1-11

The special relationship between God and humans is as upside-down as it gets for the human mind.  This Psalm is a prime example.  Notice that the division of these verses (verses 1-6, then 7-11) begin with how we respond to Sovereign God.  We are reminded to give thanks, praise, witness, exult (or “glory” in His name), rejoice, seek continually, and remember his works and Word.  We are told to do all this before verse 7 which introduces the Lord and His covenant.  Common sense (to the human mind) says tell me why first, and then what I should do about it…then I’ll make up my mind as to whether I agree and will cooperate.  After all, this whole universe is all about me, and whether I agree.  But the Psalmist is saying, trust and obey first and God will reveal Himself later ^{(verses 7-11)}.

We humans are as cautious as deductive reasoning, but God wants us to be inductive thinkers.  Let me try to explain.  Deductive reasoning is what Sherlock Holmes does; he looks at all the evidence of what has happened and then concludes who did what was done.  He solves the crime, based on the evidence. 

Inductive reasoning starts at the back end, the answer, and moves from there into the understanding of who, what, where, why, and when.  The deductive thinker wants proof before making up his mind.  The inductive thinker is satisfied with faith in the outcome, and joins the cast of those forming the response to it all[1].

This is the not-so-subtle difference between skeptic and believer.  Sherlock the skeptic wants proof that there really is a God before committing to even the possibility that he could be accountable to anyone but himself.  For the skeptic, his own logic, wisdom, and reasoning sit on the throne of his devotion. 

The faith-believer, however, begins with the premise of what his being suggests, that something or someone made him…he didn’t make himself.  That’s not evidence, or the kind of proof Sherlock skeptic requires; it is what our soul reveals to our consciousness…there is something greater than just me.  Starting with that as life’s answer, the faith-believer then joins God in working out that truth, cooperating with the Creator.

The whole issue of adequate and appropriate response to Sovereign God is, as the old Gospel hymn has it, to trust and obey.

For You Today

The next time you’re tempted to ask God for a sign, or something you can see to build your faith, remember Sherlock’s folly with following the evidence trail.  Trust God with what He brings across your path, and obey God by what He’s already said in His Word.  Then you’ll see the evidence unfold day by day, and you’ll never need a greater sign.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com    Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

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[1] Where inductive thinking uses experience and proven observations to guess the outcome, deductive reasoning uses theories and beliefs to rationalize and prove a specific conclusion. The goal of inductive reasoning is to predict a likely outcome, while the goal of deductive reasoning to prove a fact.  (see here)