Scary quote
If someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth and that in reality the truth were outside of Christ, then I should prefer to remain with Christ rather than with the truth.
-Fyodor Dostoyevsky
That scares me! Almost as much as
Beauty is truth, truth beauty, - that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know
-John Keats
The latter is dangerous for obvious reasons. Although it sounds pretty, it waltzes right past one of the horrible lessons that almost everybody learns the hard way- Lies are often more beautiful than the truth. Ever hear the phrase "the ugly truth"?
Likewise, the first quote sounds charming and poetic at first. But I think we can take it for granted that by "prove", he meant beyond the shadow of doubt, provide definitive evidence. Okay, okay, NOT an easy task to do.
But if you allow for the sake of his argument that *poof*, such proof exists- then
- Christ is, de facto, meaningless. At best a myth, at worst a dangerous liar. If you allow the word "prove", he is proudly proclaiming himself an ignorant fool. I just feel like any belief you hold which is not only independent of reality ("truth"), but in fact CONTRARY to it, makes you a pathetic excuse for a rational being.
- Christ becomes either gravely misquoted, or a logical fallacy! "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ."
or more starkly "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life". To allow that Christ is NOT truth is to redefine Christ. Either the bible is a lie, or 1 = 2.
Unless I miss a deeper meaning, I think quote's like poor Fyodor's are the reason we have dangerous religious zealots; if reality cannot accomodate that which you MUST believe, then what's wrong with blowing up reality?
Or to try and coin a quote-
Any faith should be able to stand the light of truth. The only thing that dissapears in the presence of light is shadow.
posted by Colin at
9:12 PM
1 Comments:
I see your point, but I might actually agree with Dostoyevsky because of two words in the quote: to me.
It's hard not to have a high opinion of our own reasoning skills, but Ps. 3:5 tells us to "lean not on your own understanding." It's clear from other parts of the Bible that God wants us to study and grow in knowledge and understanding, so this doesn't mean, "be blindly ignorant," but ultimately we lean not on our own understanding but on Christ. We know Him to be true regardless of whether we understand it. We know Him to be true even if it's "proven" to us that he's not!
There is a great body of evidence for Christianity, greater than any other world religion, including atheism in my opinion. But I didn't become a Christian because I reasoned from the evidence. Now I know (some of) the evidence, so I am more confident in my belief, but really, knowledge of Christ is revealed through the Bible and the working of the Holy Spirit. He cannot be known otherwise! Knowledge of the facts may remove barriers to belief in Christ, but it will never be enough to bring someone to believe.
By
Derek, at 4:43 AM
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