Just Thinking Vol. 21 1

VOLUME 21.1 I WWW.RZIM.ORG

THE MAGAZINE OF RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES

JUST THINKING

Learning ToThink Critically PAGE 2

+ THE JOURNEY OF SHEEP PAGE 14

COMPLETE TO COMPLETE PAGE 16

IF ONLY PAGE 20

Just Thinking is a teaching resource of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and exists to engender thoughtful engagement with apologetics, Scripture, and the whole of life.

Danielle DuRant Editor Ravi Zacharias International Ministries 4725 Peachtree Corners Circle Suite 250 Norcross, Georgia 30092 770.449.6766 WWW.RZIM.ORG

TA B L E of CONTENTS VOLUME 21.1

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Learning To Think Critically

How does the Christian learn to think critically? One must begin by evaluating any worldview or assertion on the basis of truth, the coherence of what is being claimed, and then the implications of what this means personally.

Ravi Zacharias sat down with Danielle DuRant to discuss the significance of critical thinking.

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Complete To Complete

A leadership trainer uses the phrase “complete to complete” to encapsulate the ideal mentality behind successful teamwork. Cameron McAllister contends that compressed into this phrase is the assumption that a

If Only

Jill Carattini suggests that if we knew beforehand what we know after the fact, things could very well turn out differently. But to assume that because of that perspective we now see perfectly is likely a perilous oversight. The Israelite’s mistreatment at the hands of the Egyptians was overlooked in their perception of the other side of the Red Sea. But we can thank God that He knows the longings we express and the ones we do not know to express.

The Journey of Sheep

Anyone who has been to a sheep pen would tell you that sheep are not exactly the smartest in the animal kingdom, writes I’Ching Thomas.

They do, however, have a strong instinct to follow the leader. When one sheep decides to go somewhere, the rest of the flock usually follows, even if the first sheep has no idea what it is doing.

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future conclusion looms large over all our efforts leading up to a given end. As Michelangelo remarked, “I saw an angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

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Think Again

How do you reach a generation that listens with its eyes and thinks with its feelings? Ravi Zacharias says we must know how to defend our own beliefs, but likewise, not underestimate the role we play in clearing the obstacles in someone’s spiritual journey.

Above all, a genuine love for others is essential.

JUST THINKING • The Quarterly Magazine of RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES

[ R e a d i ly v i s i b l e to reason]

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Learning To Think Critically Ravi Zacharias with Danielle DuRant

How does the Christian learn to think critically?

One must begin by evaluating any worldview or assertion on the basis of truth, the coherence of what is being claimed, and then the implications of what this means personally. Ravi Zacharias sat down with Danielle DuRant to discuss the significance of critical thinking. To hear the full interview, go to www.rzim.org.

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Danielle DuRant: It’s great to be with you, Ravi, to talk about critical thinking and engaging an audience. Would you begin by defining critical thinking for us?

Ravi Zacharias: L ET ME PUT IT in the simplest words I can. The word “critical” often comes through as negative; that is, you’re criticizing somebody. Strangely enough, if you use the word “critique,” it comes through more positively because you are critiquing a book or critiquing an essay. I think critical thinking has two components to it. The main component is when you’re analyzing any propositional statement or system of thought, you are engaged with critical thinking whether you like it or not. So the only question is, are you doing it well? Are you doing it in a way that is befitting the subject or are you doing it unjustly? The second aspect of it is the ethical implications of whatever it is you have processed.

So I like to think of critical thinking as an analytical process of evaluating the truth component of the statement or thought you are processing. That has to be done. If you are looking at a worldview, any assertion, or any challenge to your own worldview, you have to evaluate it on the basis of truth, the coherence of what is being claimed, and then the implications of what this means for your personal life. So first there is an analytical component to it—the truth component, the synthesizing component. And second, at the end of it there must be an application or an imperative component to it.

We must think critically especially in defending our worldview or in challenging a counter perspective. So critical analysis of worldviews is what critical thinking is all about.

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DD: Many vocations involve critical thinking, whether you are a surgeon, a lawyer, a teacher. Why is it so important for the Christian particularly to engage in critical thinking and to develop critical thinking skills?

RZ: The Christian still for some reason is charged illegitimately with being the only one who is exclusive. I have said it many times before: all worldviews claim exclusivity, but somehow it is popular to hit the Christian as the only one that lays claim to this. Yes, we do lay claim to the fact that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. There is an exclusive claim made

by Jesus in the pages of the Scriptures.

But exclusivity is also claimed in the pantheistic worldviews and in all of the monotheistic worldviews. So for the Christian, it should be done gently, it should be done efficiently, effectively, and with respect when you are talking to anybody.

I’ve just come back from parts of the world where I had to be so careful in what I said and how I said it because ninety percent of the audience sitting in front of me was not sympathetic towards my belief. I was engaged in a critical analysis of my own worldview and then showed why it was tenable and coherent.

So for the Christian today, and especially for our young, it is important to instruct them not only on how to defend what we believe but also how to do it with gentleness and respect. As Peter tells us in 1 Peter 3:15-16, to do that with gentleness and respect to always be able to give a reason for the hope that is within you. It is imperative upon us to do it justifiably and to do it respectfully.

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DD: What about the Christian who says, “I really don’t need to learn this skill; I just need to study the Bible.”

RZ: I WISH THAT PERSON were right because I would love to be that way too!

Interestingly, many Muslims actually live like that. I have talked to one of the leading muftis, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and he said, “I just have to tell you what the Quran says and that’s what I believe.”

Well, what happens in a world of pluralistic options? What happens to the world of reason? What happens to legitimizing the process, not just the end conclusion you’ve come to? Is that what it is all about?

“I’m not going to listen to any other argument; I’m just going to believe what I claim to believe.” Can you do that in a court of law? “I’m not going to defend what I’m saying; I’m just telling you I didn’t do it.” It doesn’t work. e do believe that the Bible is the W Word of God, but we come through a process of legitimizing that claim. We just didn’t make that claim; we tell you why we believe the Bible to be the Word of God, and the Bible itself lays claim to this methodology. For example, in the Gospel of John, when the Holy Spirit comes, Jesus said that the Spirit would bring conviction of truth, righteousness, and things to come. Peter says this is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel. So while he’s harking to

Scripture, he’s harking back also to an empirical way of justifying it: this is a fulfillment of prophecy which was spoken of hundreds of years ago. There is a rational process, existential relevance, and a methodology we must adhere to.

In a world full of challenges, you have to come to something outside of the text that you are defending rather than saying this is the text I believe.

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DD: So critical thinking is clearly an essential and a necessary bridge, particularly to an unbelieving or skeptical audience. How did Francis Schaeffer use this discipline to compel non-believers to see the irrationality of their beliefs?

RZ: T HAT ’ S A GOOD QUESTION because I think Francis Schaeffer broke new ground. When I was a young student in the 70s just entering into my theological training, Schaeffer was a big name. He authored such works as He Is There and He Is Not Silent, The God Who Is There, and Death in the City. Schaeffer was a pastor but became branded more as a philosopher, and with the opening of L’Abri, young existentialists would stop by and interact.

Regarding Schaeffer’s method, he took the skepticism of an Immanuel Kant and pointed out how Immanuel Kant came to a point in his thinking that you really can’t make any meaningful statements about God. He moved God-talk into a

John 16:7-11

But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

think Francis Schaeffer broke new ground. He took the existentialist and the nihilist to their point of despair, to where it was that their philosophy bred a despairing worldview, such as nihilism meaning “nothingness.” He showed them through art or philosophy that these points of despair had to be addressed and why Christ brings meaning and hope.

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nimbus, into a realm where you can’t critically talk about God, so it bred a kind of skepticism, which Schaeffer took to task. Schaeffer was very adept in what he did: he took the existentialist and the nihilist to their point of despair, to where it was that their philosophy bred a despairing worldview, such as nihilism meaning “nothingness.” He showed them through art or philosophy that these points of despair had to be addressed and why Christ brings meaning and hope.

Schaeffer did it very effectively and he ministered to a lot of people in the 70s and 80s. meeting him just once when IHeremember we hosted him in Nyack, New York. was pretty feeble at that point. If Schaeffer can be credited with anything, it was breaking wide open this terrain for the Christian, charging us, “You better start defending what you believe and know where we are heading.” So when Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop wrote in Whatever Happened to the Human Race that humanity was moving in the direction of destruction, whether in sexuality or in the sanctity of life, Schaeffer pointed out that we were moving towards the extinction of meaning. Philosophy was leading us there in terms of its assumptions. But the fact of the matter is, life is intended to be meaningful, and Schaeffer showed how Christ addresses that. That is the bridge Schaeffer provided between the despair of the 60s and the postmodernism of the 90s. It is a very valuable reminder to us of how to approach this.

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DD: And if I recall correctly, I believe it was Schaeffer who popularized the statement “all truth is God’s truth.”

RZ: Y ES, HE DID. And I think it was often misused by people who didn’t understand what he was saying. What Schaeffer was actually saying is that if something is true, it would also be true in what God has said of reality and the nature of life, destiny, origin, meaning, and so on. So if it is true, it is not just “secularly true;” it is also true in the theological realm. It was interesting what Mahatma Gandhi said: “Truth is God and God is truth.” Now Gandhi was depersonalizing it in a way and making an abstraction out of it, but the fact of the matter is there is no contradiction in God. There is nothing that causes God to disintegrate within Himself; so I would say that Gandhi abstracted what Schaeffer then personalized.

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DD: What about people such as the new atheists who accuse Christians of being irrational and lacking critical thinking skills? After all, we believe in a Jesus who walked on water and was born of the Virgin Mary. That seems fairly irrational to the average skeptic.

RZ: YOU KNOW, I find the atheist very clever in what they do. For example, why do they discount miracles? According to David Hume, because the natural law functions routinely—so why do you look for miracles, an oddity in the midst of natural law? So they did away with the miraculous because they were going with what was normative and what was routine.

But then when it came to ethics, they very cleverly switched the terms. If you started talking about an absolute, which was normative, they would interject an exception like, “What happens if you walk into your home and your family member is being assaulted? Are you telling

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me you will not fight or take a baseball bat or something?” Very fascinating.

When it came to natural law in the realm of the sun and the planets,they did not allow for the exceptions. But when it came to ethics, it was the exception that debunked the absolute.

So what do those two reactions have in common? They both want to get rid of God—because if you bring in the miraculous in natural law, you have to accommodate the presence of God. If you take the normative and the absolute in ethics, you have to invoke upon the very person of God. So it is more the atheist that is anti-reason and anti-rational, but the accusation that is made against the Christian is leveraged to their advantage now.

But what about the origin of the universe? Is it repeatable? No.They themselves say this could never happen again. What about the contingencies that it took? Thirty some contingencies the exactitude demanded. The very fact that you and I are here is the process of what even atheists would sometimes say is so awesome that it is tantamount to being something like a miracle. Some of the scientists have used that very word. So what I say to them is, you have already accepted that which is not repeatable.

You have already accepted that which is so rare. You have already accepted the fact that when you come to a singularity, you are actually seeing the laws of physics do not apply to all of those origins. Do we really think that the consummation of love between and a man and a woman

and the birth of a child is just something that is explainable so naturalistically?

Rather than seeing the miracle of birth and the wonder of it, we think just by describing it that we have debunked the notion of the miracle. o when we talk about walking on water S and the miraculous, we are talking about a theistic framework. When you are able to defend the existence of God, you also talk about the intervention of God in history and the intervention of God in the process of a natural law.

To me, the very fact of natural law is a miraculous expression of God to sustain life. You remember when we had the two astronauts visiting us here at the office.

They talked about looking through the windows of space as they were orbiting the earth and seeing something so unique about this planet and its particularity.

I think we live with the miraculous every day.

Now the atheist is unfortunately partially correct when he or she attacks the Christian faith and we make no proper defense of it. So I think the defense of the existence of God, the defense of the very person of Jesus Christ, and the defense of the miraculous can be done and ought to be done. I would ask the atheist how is it that they defend moral reasoning in an amoral universe that by non-moral origins has arrived at this kind of thinking and this kind of argument.

I think they have a lot more to explain than the Christian does.

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would ask the atheist how is it that they defend moral reasoning in an amoral universe that by non-moral origins has arrived at this kind of thinking and this kind of argument. I think they have a lot more to explain than the Christian does.

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DD: So it sounds like there are a few essential questions that every Christian ought to be able to answer. You mentioned the existence of God and the uniqueness of Christ RZ: V ERY MUCH SO , Danielle, for two reasons. The first one talks about the existence of God in general terms, a theistic framework. We assume as John 6:35-37, 44 Christians that God exists. But I was just Then Jesus in Paris talking to two leading French declared, “I am businessmen and neither of them thinks the bread of life. within a theistic framework. They were Whoever comes talking about the French elections, and to me will never go hungry, and somewhere in the conversation around whoever believes the table somebody asked if they taught in me will never ethics or on anything spiritual. “Oh no, no be thirsty. But as we don’t deal with that at all,” they said.

I told you, you have seen me and Then they talked about three candidates still you do not that were in the running for election and believe. All those one of the businessmen—who was one the Father gives of their students—said that the first me will come to me, and whoever candidate was addicted to alcohol, the second was addicted to women, and the comes to me I will never drive third was addicted to corruption. These away. ...No one are their words! And so my wife, Margie, can come to me said, “Maybe they do need to start teachunless the Father who sent me draws ing something about spiritual values and ethics.” them, and I will raise them up at Then something very strange the last day.” happened. As we were having dinner, we looked out of the window into the Paris night sky and there was a beautiful streak of white across the dark clouds. The man sitting next to me, a leading businessman who is very well known in France, said, “Maybe there is a God.”

e need to recognize that without W the theistic framework, this world will implode under the weight of our own addictions, principally to ourselves. So you move beyond the theistic framework to the Christian framework in the presentation of Jesus Christ. I’m not talking about the presentation of Christendom nor in a sense of even Christianity.

Rather, who is Jesus? What did He claim?

Why it is that He is the one who is able to redeem the heart, transform our lives, and give us that new hunger that we so need to make life meaningful in this world?

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DD: We’re talking about critical thinking skills, but of course we’re not dismissing the fact that it’s the Word of God that converts and changes people’s lives, transforming them.

RZ: A BSOLUTELY. I THINK that’s an important point to make: that really, critical thinking is to lay bare what is readily visible to reason, but it is the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, says John 6, that draws us. We will never come to Him; transformation of the human heart is ultimately a spiritual thing. I saw that happen even on this trip with a man for whom family and friends have been praying for eleven years. He was hard-nosed tough. We were sitting on a sofa chatting on a yacht that they had chartered because they wanted to ask me their questions. He was talking about a

ritical thinking is to lay bare what is readily visible to reason, but it is the transforming power of the Holy Spirit that draws us. We will never come to Him; transformation of the human heart is ultimately a spiritual thing.

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broken relationship and how he went to the one with whom the relationship was broken and said, “I’d love to rebuild this if you would turn your back upon these other things that are drawing you away from the family.” He said the partner was hesitant and just put it in a corner. few minutes later I said to him, A “What’s keeping you from Christ?”

He said, “This conditional love from God—that either you come to me or you will end up in this kind of a destiny.” I looked at him and I said, “I’m fascinated.

In the opening part of our conversation you said that you looked at the person you loved and said, ‘Why don’t we rebuild if you turn your back upon these other attachments?’ Were you laying a condition or were you reminding this person that love has built-in conditions if it is to find fulfillment? What do you think God is saying to you? God is not offering you a conditional love. He’s built a framework of love and relationship where there are preconditions necessary if you are to find fulfillment in these things, just as this yacht on the water has met the preconditions of how to stay afloat. Is this some kind of a conditional thing that is to put us in jeopardy or a conditional thing to help us enjoy what it is like to float on this water?”

And I kid you not: he suddenly just burst out into tears. A man in his fifties, he literally got on his knees and just sobbed and sobbed. For the first time, he saw that if we are to enjoy the love of God, we are going to enjoy it only when we deal with it within the framework that God has designed it to be enjoyed.

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DD: Wow, that’s really powerful. That reminds me of the scene in The Mission, if you recall that film from years ago. The actor Robert De Niro has this huge bag of metal on his back and he feels that he has

to carry this burden because he’s killed a man.

He’s holding on to this baggage throughout the movie, climbing through the mountains.

Finally someone cuts it off of him and everyone laughs with joy because they recognize the absurdity of him holding on to this burden.

It seems that you’ve expressed that even the boundaries that God sets for us are for our safety and for our good.

Romans 7:21-25a

RZ: Y ES. T HAT SCENE you are talking about reminds me of the Roman law and when Paul says, “Who shall deliver me from this body of death?” If you murdered someone, one of the punishment possibilities was for you to carry the corpse on your back. You literally carried that “dead weight,” so you’d think twice especially about the size of the person you’d want to kill! Paul says, “Who shall deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God”—He does.

We bear the burdens of our own violations. A skeptic said to me in a dinner in Abu Dhabi, “After listening to you tonight, I have to say to you the one thing that’s missing in our culture here is the redemptive aspect.” Amazing! He said that they can talk you into believing there is forgiveness, but you pay. There is a price to be paid. Then he said, “I’m thinking of this redemptive aspect when you and I realize our redeemer paid the price for something we could not even pay for and gave us that new birth and that new life.”

So critical thinking sounds like such an abstract thing but rightly applied leads us to the crises of reasoning in life apart from God. He is the transcendent point for reasoning, hope, meaning, and destiny.

The Bible says, “Come now, let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18). God is a reasoning God, and He pleads and calls to show us that his way is the way that puts it back together. Our way is the way that destroys it.

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So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

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ometimes I wish I could give the whole nine yards in the first setting; there’s nothing I’d want to do than that. But as Christian apologists, we take one step at a time. You have to earn the right to be heard.

You open these doors very carefully because you know you’ve not opened them, God’s opened them, and you have to walk wisely.

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DD: You’ve already alluded to some of the amazing opportunities that you’ve had recently to speak in the Middle East and with atheists in Europe. Would you tell us about your invitation from the sheik?

RZ: I WAS IN B AHRAIN , D UBAI , and then in Abu Dhabi. In Bahrain I was asked to speak on “Is Peace Possible?” and then in Abu Dhabi I was hosted by the sheikh who actually funded the whole event and came and sat in the front row.

It was a phenomenal moment. In Bahrain, when I finished speaking on the possibility of peace, which I subtitled, “Our Way or God’s Way,” the brigadier from my table walked right up towards the platform as I stepped down and gave me a hug in his flowing robes. He said, “Please take this message to the rest of the world; we need it.” In Abu Dhabi, the sheikh, who is a member of the royal family, sat through my whole talk of 45 minutes on “Foundations for Living.” He also walked up to the platform, embraced me, kissed me on both sides of the face, and said, “I hope this is the beginning of a long friendship.” Then he had me visit their university the next day and to speak at their national library.

Here’s what I want to say: I have to be very careful. Sometimes I wish I could give the whole nine yards in the first setting; there’s nothing I’d want to do than that. But as Christian apologists, we take one step at a time. You have to earn the right to be heard. I did bring the gospel.

I did present Jesus Christ. Would I have liked to have done more? Absolutely. I think the opportunity is coming as I’ve been invited back.

You open these doors very carefully because you know you’ve not opened them, God’s opened them, and you have to walk wisely. They have absolutely no doubt what I believe, why I believe it.

So we have to know there are genuine seekers. Coming from India, I know exactly what all that means. I think even of Elisha in 2 Kings 5. When Naaman was healed of his leprosy, he asked Elisha, “What do I do now? When I go back and my master leans on my arm, by virtue of his weight on my arm I have to bow before the Temple of Rimmon.” Elisha didn’t tell him, “Do it” or “Don’t do it.” Elisha said, “Go in peace.” That is, “Go, and God will be with you.” I think it is interesting that he said essentially that at the right time, you will know exactly what to do and God will give you strength.

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DD: I imagine you faced some challenging questions in these settings.

RZ: Y ES. T HEY WERE very, very pointed and there were some tough ones. We couldn’t deal with all of them. I have to go beyond the question to the questioner.

For example, one of the questions asked in Dubai was, “You’ve talked about ‘Can man live without God’ but who is this God?” That was one question and fifty percent of the audience was from the Islamic worldview. So I said, “The ultimate definition to me is the creator of the universe and the one who has called us to Himself who is the redeemer of the universe provided for us through his Son, Jesus Christ. He offered to indwell us with the presence of his Holy Spirit to be able to deal with temptation and the struggles of this world. So I’m talking about the God that is spoken of in the Old and the New Testaments.”

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DD: Going back to critical thinking, what about the role of the Holy Spirit in this process? I’m thinking there may be some who would say, “I really don’t need to sharpen my critical thinking skills because the Holy Spirit is the revealer of truth.”

RZ: W ELL , ANY TIME anything is taken to an extreme, it is an improper use of reasoning. If somebody says, “I don’t need any critical thinking; the Holy Spirit

is all I need and the Bible is all I need,” I would ask, “Why do you think Saul of Tarsus was chosen as the one to become the apologist of his time? Why was Moses? Why was Daniel?” These people were well-learned in all the philosophies of their time. We were in Ephesus recently and that’s where Paul set up the school of Tyrannus. Why? To dialogue and to debate.

He would even use their own poets.

We need to differentiate between the path to the gospel and the power of the gospel—they are two different things.

The path to removes the prejudices and hurdles, and to start quoting the Scriptures at that time is to quote the very thing that is a hurdle. You are defending that which you are going to use and defend. You know, people in the West may have a completely different view of evangelism to those of us who come from the East. I know how long it took to clear the obstacles for my father in bringing him to a point where he could hear the gospel. I was recently with Chinese business people. One of them was devotedly committed to worshipping his ancestors and talked about it. Thus for me to start immediately sharing the gospel, what he is registering at that point is, “Are you asking me to turn my back upon my ancestors?” So we have to realize the implications of how they are reading what you are saying and those have to be addressed.

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e need to differentiate between the path to the gospel and the power of the gospel—they are two different things. The path to removes the prejudices and hurdles, and to start quoting the Scriptures at that time is to quote the very thing that is a hurdle.

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n warfare the goal of one party is to destroy the other. In Christian engagement, the goal is to win the person who is of the other worldview—not to destroy the person. So to quote, “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God.”

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DD: You mentioned Ephesus and I’m thinking of our work in Turkey. I did not know how few Christians there are in this biblical land or that a Turkish Christian is seen as basically not being Turkish. That is, if you are a Christian in Turkey, you can’t be Turkish because you would be of another faith. These are hurdles one has to step over.

RZ: I T ’ S VERY HARD , very hard. I remember a friend I grew up with and we played cricket together. I remember he used to have a phrase he would use when he would talk to me after I became a Christian. He would say, “You’ve lost your originality.” It was his way of saying, “You’re not an Indian anymore.” I would say to him, “Why do you say that? Would you say that to a Muslim in India? ‘You’ve lost your originality.’ Would you say that to a Buddhist in India? Why are you saying that? You’re saying it because I’m a Christian, because I have become a follower of Jesus Christ. But are you aware of the fact that He spoke in parables? He spoke with wisdom; He spoke in proverbs. He was talking to us as Easterners.”

The parables are all laden with Eastern motif, but this cultural, familial tie is a very real tie, and we don’t realize how tough it is. But when they come to know Christ, they know what the implications are. Sometimes in the West we just think we have added another thing to our belief. In the East you have to know there is a renunciation that takes place of some beliefs. Now, does that mean disrespect for the family? No, absolutely not.

A young man who comes to know Christ will actually love his parents even more and respect them. It is just that we do not deify them because we know there is one God and one mediator between God and man, and that’s the person of Christ Jesus.

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DD: As we close, would there be some resources that you would recommend for Christians to engage deeper in critical thinking?

RZ: T HERE ARE SO MANY. There are many books written on logic; there are many books written on reason. Dr. Norman Geisler’s book Come Let Us Reason is a tough one but it gives you the formal fallacies of reasoning. A book that helped me a great deal years ago was Mortimer Adler’s Ten Philosophical Mistakes. In that, Dr. Adler talks about a word’s meaning and various concepts and categories. It is good to get a handle on these things. There are many more recent books that authors have penned on critical thinking. I like Dr. Geisler’s book When Critics Ask, which deals with different fallacies. I like the book by Arlie Hoover that he wrote years ago called Poking Holes in Faulty Logic.

So to sum it up, come to terms with what the fallacies are, what the mistakes are, what the laws of logic are, but most importantly, observe—and that’s a good aspect of critical thinking, by the way.

Observe how it is done and what it was that was done in the process of countering an argument. There are various books on how to argue that involve a more hostile way of winning an argument, yet I don’t think that’s what the Christian is all about. But if you read books by C. S. Lewis, read books by Frances Schaeffer, if you read ones by good apologists, you can see what they are doing. That’s the best way to engage in learning how to think critically, and I would add, constructively.

You see, in warfare the goal of one party is to destroy the other. In Christian engagement, the goal is to win the person who is of the other worldview—not to destroy the person. So to quote, “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God” (2 Cor 10:4).

Ravi Zacharias is Founder and Chairman of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

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[renewing of our minds]

The Journey of Sheep

by I’Ching Thomas

Realizing our propensity to follow ways that are dangerous to our souls, are we willing to follow the Good Shepherd and surrender our minds and hearts to his leadership?

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few years ago, while traveling across to Europe in a ferry, we found our bus parked next to a truck. It was one of those trucks where there are two levels of storage space for live animals. This time, it was loaded with sheep. There must have been at least a hundred sheep crammed into that vehicle, all on their way to the slaughterhouse.

As I observed the animals, they were behaving rather amusingly—some were sticking out their noses sniffing away, while others were trying to peek out curiously as they experienced the new smells, sights, and sounds that were quite different from their usual farmstead. Little did they know they were on their way to be butchered!

In another incident, it was reported a while ago that shepherds in Turkey watched in shock as hundreds of their sheep followed each other over a cliff.

It started when one sheep went over the edge, only to be followed by the whole flock. At the end of the episode, more than 400 sheep died in the plunge—their bodies buffering the fall of 1,100 others that followed.

While we might laugh at the silliness of the sheep, it is also a vivid illustration of our human state. On a daily basis, we are offered joyrides that promise pleasure and adventure, opportunities that seem to realize our ambition for recognition, power, material wealth, intimacy, and even meaning. At every turn, we are led by advertisers to believe that their products or services can satiate our thirst for excitement and thrill. Unknowingly, we accept invitations for rides which take us on roads that could result in our slow spiritual deaths. Sadly, we are not often aware of the looming danger as we are too preoccupied taking in the new experience and novelty. By the time we arrive at our destination, it would be too late for us to escape our end.

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Anyone who has been to a sheep pen would tell you that sheep are not exactly the smartest in the animal kingdom. They do, however, have a strong instinct to follow the leader. When one sheep decides to go somewhere, the rest of the flock usually follows, even if the first sheep has no idea what it is doing. The incident in Turkey is a case in point. Apparently, even from birth, lambs are conditioned to follow the older members of the flock.

Interestingly, sheep are often used to typify humans in the Bible. Jesus speaks of himself as the Good Shepherd and how we are like hapless sheep that have gone astray and in need of a shepherd.1 Similarly, the wisdom of Proverbs warns us that “There is a way that seems right to a person, but in the end it leads to death.”2 Realizing our propensity to follow ways that are dangerous to our souls, how then might we safeguard ourselves from following the wrong path? The apostle Paul, who recognized how easily the human heart is enticed by the things and the ways of the world, urged the Romans to no longer conform to the pattern of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of their minds in the power of one worthy of leading (see Romans 12:1-2).

In short, if we are to follow the Good Shepherd and surrender our minds and hearts to his leadership, there is hope for every journey no matter how discouraging it might appear. By renewing our vision with the power of his life and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we can discern the options presented to us by the world and avoid the way that leads to far less promising ends.

Romans 12:1-2

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God— this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is— his good, pleasing and perfect will.

I’Ching Thomas is associate director of training at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Singapore.

1 2

See John 10:11-15 and Matthew 9:36.

See Proverbs 14:12 and 16:25.

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[abundant clues]

Complete To Complete

by Cameron McAllister

Do future conclusions loom large over all efforts leading up to a given end? Michelangelo famously remarked, “I saw an angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” Might this statement shed light on what the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard meant when he said that life is lived forwards and understood backwards?

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ast, present, and future all collaborate to make us who we are. Few would debate that both the past and the present play a crucial role in our personal formation. We can discount neither where we came from nor where we are when we consider who we are. But the question becomes more enigmatic when we turn to things that haven’t yet happened. Is it possible that our future somehow influences who we are even now? If so, what might that mean for us? Strange as it may sound, I want to suggest that traces of your future exist in the present but that the best way to see those traces is by looking through the lens of the past.

The theologian J.R. Daniel Kirk identifies Romans 6 as one of the “key place[s] to look for the intrusion of Christ’s resurrection into our current lives.”1 Kirk insists on the word “intrusion” because the complete implications of Christ’s death and resurrection have yet to be fully realized. As Christian men and women, however, we strive to faithfully embody the conviction that the consummation of Christ’s redemptive work on the cross does indeed “intrude” into our day-to-day lives. Specifically, Romans 6:4 epitomizes the convergence of immanence and imminence on display in our faithful behavior: “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”

Far from being lofty and abstract sentiment, what this actually means is that as servants of the living God, our lives are simultaneously reflective of God’s past, present, and future work.

Nevertheless, Christian faith remains a delicate balance of anticipation and fulfillment. If we nurture a premature focus on God’s future work to the exclusion of present concerns, we risk

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succumbing to the very things we ignore.

If, on the other hand, we live only for the present, we risk forgetting where we came from and where we are going. The question then becomes: How do we lead lives that are complete examples of what God has not yet completed?

Eugene Peterson acknowledges, “I was a pastor long before I knew I was a pastor; I just never had a name for it.”2 His recent memoir is a marvel of seemingly unrelated events, ranging from a job in his father’s butcher shop to a bloody confrontation with the neighborhood bully, converging to shape both his identity and his vocation as a pastor. In other words, Peterson reads the traces of his future by the light of his past. This is why it is now possible for him to revisit these childhood scenes and see a little boy who was somehow already “Pastor Pete” even as he wielded his first butcher’s knife or found himself locked in hand-to-hand combat with his local nemesis. Only now is it possible for Peterson to look back and to see the future transform a first job and a fistfight into an apprenticeship.

Speaking personally, one of my own encounters with the future took place my senior year of high school. I was an unpromising student with no academic aspirations whatsoever. The sixth period bell had rung, and we commenced with the usual uproar with which we punished substitutes for disrupting our regular routine. In walked a wild haired man with a stack of books in each hand, and a sweater that might have been stolen from Bill Cosby. Instead of taking the bait, however, our sub countered our rude commotion with famous first sentences, beginning with Moby Dick and ending with the King James Bible. The passion with which he spoke was fierce and magnetic, and by the time he got to Genesis 1:1 his voice was no more than a whisper, and our class leaned in hungrily as though his words were the very bread of life.

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The only suitable word for this occasion is “foreshadowing.” I had never experienced the power and subtlety of creative language before. I never knew that an expertly chosen group of words could instill the world with a renewed sense of beauty and vitality, or that a simple sentence could awaken hidden vistas of meaning in my understanding.

I never dreamed that I would one day look back on this eccentric orator in his oversized sweater and rumpled trousers and recognize that he was more than just a substitute teacher. He was a brief mentor, and in a fateful moment, past, present and future overlapped, and I brushed shoulders with my future vocation as a writer. Such moments make us privy to the future, but the recognition comes only with the benefit of the past.

I think this is part of what the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard meant when he said that life is lived forwards and understood backwards.

THE END IN SIGHT

The leadership trainer Bruce Bickle uses the phrase “complete to complete” to encapsulate the ideal mentality behind successful teamwork. Compressed into this phrase is the assumption that a future conclusion looms large over all efforts leading up to a given end. Michelangelo famously remarked, “I saw an angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

In other words, the ideal artist begins the painstaking process with the end already

in sight and allows the future to exert its peculiar pull on her current efforts. The “complete to complete” mentality informs Eugene Peterson’s discovery that he was, is, and always will be a pastor, and it seems an apt summation of my own dawning realization that I was a writer-in-waiting long before my Christian calling and a suitable platform for self-expression coincided.

Just like Michelangelo’s angel, our future is here, hidden in the marble of our lives, and awaiting the chisel. Though our purpose may not always be clear, if we nurture the discipline of careful reflection, what Frederick Buechner calls “listening to your life,” we will soon discover abundant clues about the future in the present. Ron Hansen believes his career as a novelist began during the 1952 performance of his kindergarten’s Christmas pageant.3 Fatefully overlooked by the teacher because of the presence of his twin brother in the same class, Ron ended up as the only kid without an actual part in the nativity scene. Having already exhausted her supply of shepherds, Magi, and angels, Sister Martha promptly forfeited her own part in the play and conceded to the little boy on the verge of tears before her, “Well, we’ll need a narrator. You can be Saint Luke.”4 In the span of two sentences, Ron went from being an outcast to the envy of his entire class. More importantly, this impromptu decision on the part of Sister Martha would reveal in retrospect that he

ust like Michelangelo’s angel, our future is here, hidden in the marble of our lives, and awaiting the chisel. Though our purpose may not always be clear, if we nurture the discipline of careful reflection, what Frederick Buechner calls “listening to your life,” we will soon discover abundant clues about the future in the present.

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was already a writer long before he knew he was a writer. Though the complete implications of this amateur play wouldn’t be fully confirmed until the publication of his first book, it is now abundantly clear that this deceptively small event was a window into the future: “I frequently have been asked when it was that I first had the impulse to be a fiction writer, and I find myself often thinking of that kindergarten play and of those hundred grown-ups and older children whom I knew weren’t listening to me but to those fascinating and archaic words, ‘betrothed,’ ‘swaddling,’ ‘manger.’ I felt the power that majestic language had for an audience, that they’d been held rapt not just because of what Luke and I reported but because of the way we said it.”5 “How shall we picture the kingdom of God,” asks Jesus, “or by what parable shall we present it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the soil, though it is smaller than all the seeds that are upon the soil, yet when it is sown, grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and forms large branches; so that the birds of the air can nest under its shade” (Mark 4:30-32). Significantly, Jesus’s parable reveals that there are no plants or trees without seeds, and there are no trees that weren’t once seeds. And according to Michelangelo, there is no angel without the slab of marble, and there is no angel that wasn’t formerly an inert slab of marble. There’s no Pastor Pete without the butcher shop and the bully; there’s no novelist named Ron Hansen without a kindergarten Christmas pageant. Far from indulging in empty paradox, all of these examples illustrate that the “newness of life” about which Paul speaks is available to us here and now.

Consider the acclamation, “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” The tenses behind each of these events function once again to point us to the past, present, and future. Jesus’s

death on the cross is the historical occurrence into which we are reconciled to God and the touchstone against which we measure our present lives. By that same token, Christ’s resurrection from the dead means that his leadership and guidance are available to us here and now (Matt 28:19-20). Finally, the reality of Christ’s imminent return is sealed with the guarantee of the Holy Spirit, poured out as a pledge upon Christ’s followers with power from on high.6 The Holy Spirit enables us to walk in “newness of life” even as our mortal feet approach the grave.7 As William A. Dyrness so aptly puts it, “The future cannot be separated from the present.”8 By the Spirit’s power, we are now free to walk as members of a “new creation” set against the backdrop of a fallen world that is passing away as we speak. By the Spirit’s power, we are free to live as complete examples of what God is still bringing to completion, “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in [us] will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6).

Cameron McAllister is a member of the writing team at RZIM. 1

J.R. Daniel Kirk, Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul?

A Narrative Approach to the Problem of Pauline Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), 87-88.

2 Eugene Peterson, The Pastor: A Memoir (New York: HarperCollins, 2011), 2.

3 Ron Hansen, A Stay Against Confusion: Essays on Faith and Fiction (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001), 16-19.

4 Ibid., 19.

5 Ibid., italics added.

6 See Joel 2:28-31, Luke 24:49, Acts 1:8, and I Corinthians 1:21-22.

7 See Romans 8:11,13, 21-27.

8 William A. Dyrness, Poetic Theology: God and the Poetics of Everyday Life (Grand Rapids, MI: WM. B Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2011), 310.

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[ a l l m at t e r o f t ru s t ]

If Only

by Jill Carattini

If we knew beforehand what we know after the fact, things could very well turn out differently. But would they turn out better?

indsight is 20/20. We know the truth of the expression from experience.

“If only I would have taken a different street, I wouldn’t be stuck in traffic.”

“If only I would have quit while I was ahead, I wouldn’t be stuck in this situation.” Such thoughts are unending: If I would have paid closer attention, if I would have pushed a little harder, if I would have stopped pushing ... if only I knew then what I know now, things would have turned out differently.

Quite probably in many cases that is true. If we knew beforehand what we know after the fact, things could have very well turned out differently. Yet equally wrapped up somewhere within this “if only” mindset is the thought that things would not only have turned out differently but that they would also have turned out better. Knowing this would take much more than 20/20 vision.

Standing on the other side of knowing gives us a different perspective, to be sure. But to assume that because of that perspective we now see perfectly is likely a perilous oversight.

The Israelites often cried out to God in the belief that they were seeing perfectly.

The shackles that bound them to Egypt and misery were broken off before their eyes.

God moved them from slavery to freedom via the floor of the Red Sea, putting before

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his people a sign momentous enough to make an impression upon each day ahead of them. Yet walking through the adversities of the desert, they cried out as if never having seen the hand that was leading them. “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this desert! Why is the LORD bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder.

Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” (Numbers 14:2-3).

It seems the view from hindsight can be as misleading as it is insightful.

The Israelite’s mistreatment at the hands of the Egyptians was overlooked in their perception of the other side of the Red Sea. Moreover, their deliverance at the hands of God in hindsight was seen as unremarkable and unrelated to their need for God in the present.

cry to change the past or achieve the perfect future emerges from our lips.

He writes, Thank God the stars are set beyond my power, If I must travail in a night of wrath, Thank God my tears will never vex a moth, Nor any curse of mine cut down a flower.

Instead, the Christian is given the freedom of thankfulness that the one listening to her prayers sits with wisdom far greater than her own. For even Job who cried, “If only I had never come into being, or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave,” found in the end that he had spoken out of turn.2 But we can thank God that God’s thoughts are beyond our own, that God knows the longings we express and the ones we do not know to express. We can thank God for

he cry of “if only” is all too often a cry of distrust. The seemingly harmless expression insists that we know best, that we know what is better, that we know what we need.

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The cry of “if only” is all too often a cry of distrust. The seemingly harmless expression insists that we know best, that we know what is better, that we know what we need. Like the Israelites in their forgetful wailing, we are often certain that we not only know what will make our situations better, but what will finally make us happy. We always seem to know just the thing our lives are missing. “If only we had meat to eat,” the Israelites insisted, “we would be satisfied.”1 But they were not, and we are no more successful. In reality, what we need is often a far cry from what we think we need. For good reason many Christians can look back to a prayer and thank God that it wasn’t answered.

G.K. Chesterton speaks in a poem of the posture we often forget when the

the promise that all things work together for good—our trials, our mistakes, our past, our future.

God is at work even in the moments when we would cry “if only.” And at that, God’s own “if onlys” are far more sobering.

As Christ approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace…” (Luke 19:42).

Rest assured, God knows your need, and so sends the Son and gives the Spirit that you might also know his peace.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at RZIM. 1 See Numbers 11.

2

Job 10:19.

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Think Again The Gentle Goldsmith

F RENCH PHILOSOPHER AUGUSTE C OMTE once observed that “ideas govern the world or throw it into chaos.” I believe he was absolutely right. History has shown that crimes of logic can be more catastrophic for humanity than crimes of passion. Like a herd of mindless sheep following their leader off a cliff, many in our day have lost the ability to think critically to their own detriment.

How do you reach a generation that listens with its eyes and thinks with its feelings? I believe the strident attacks of the antitheists and other factors such as globalization have made apologetics and critical thinking an indispensable need for our times. Thus, we must understand the other worldviews we encounter and be a patient listener to someone of another faith. But first we must know how to defend our own beliefs, for if we cannot answer the skeptics’ genuine questions, we will confirm in their minds the faulty idea that Christianity is intellectually flawed. So it is important to know how to defend what we believe and to do this with gentleness and respect, recognizing the significance of God’s transforming grace in our own lives.

However, let me offer this word of encouragement: Do not underestimate the role you may play in clearing the obstacles in someone’s spiritual journey. A seed sown here, a light shone there may be all that is needed to move the seeker or skeptic one step further. Indeed, if apologetics is to be done effectively, we must connect with the person at the level of the personal. Jesus consistently drove this home. His one-on-one conversations were remarkably personal and left others looking into their hearts and considering their spiritual condition.

One of the most extensive conversations Jesus had surprised his own disciples— a conversation with a Samaritan woman (see John 4). You recall how this woman at the well raised one question after another as if that were really her problem. It would have been very easy for the Lord to call her bluff with some castigating words. Instead, like a gentle and nimble-handed goldsmith he rubbed away the markings of sin and pain in her life until she was amazed at how much true gold he brought out in her. He gave her hope, knowing all along who she was on the inside. The value of the person was an essential part of Jesus’s message—and this must be so for us as well. A genuine love for others can cast a bright, golden light in a dark and hurting world.

Warm Regards,

Ravi

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I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

—Philippians 1:3-6 © 2012 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries