5- The Problem of Illogicality

‘Beware! Sincere true obedience is due to God alone!’ (Qur’an 39:3)

Is God illogical when it comes to dealing with humanity?

When pressed to explain some hard-to-grasp point of mainstream Christian doctrine—what the Trinity means, for instance, or whether Jesus really promised his followers that he would return to them during their lifetimes, or why an omnipotent God should require the sacrifice of a human being before delivering salvation to repentant sinners—some people have offered a particular, distinctive kind of answer. And their answer has to do with illogicality.

Human logic, the argument goes, can never expect to grasp divine logic—and this certainly seems hard to dispute. Yet the argument does not end there.

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Mainstream Christian teachings—such as the Trinitarian formulation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—are complex and counterintuitive, we are told, because God Himself has, for His own reasons, created a reality that is strange, mysterious, and unpredictable. So it should not surprise us when His religion is strange, mysterious, and unpredictable.

Therefore, when we come across a component of the Christian faith that seems to us to contradict our own instinct, experience, or common sense, we must train ourselves to step back and accept this apparent illogicality as evidence of God’s handiwork.

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When a thoughtful person ponders this explanation, he or she may at first wonder whether it is being offered seriously. But C.S. Lewis, the most respected Christian writer of the twentieth century, was a famous proponent of this view, and he certainly meant it seriously.

In his book Mere Christianity, Lewis briskly dismisses the complaints of those who find orthodox explanations of Christianity unsatisfying ‘because simplicity is so beautiful, etc.’ Then, Lewis suggests that such skeptical people have simply failed to notice the true nature of things. ‘Besides being complicated,’ Lewis writes, ‘reality, in my experience, is usually odd. It is not neat, not obvious, not what you expect … Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed.’ [C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, (New York: HarperCollins Edition 2001), p. 41]

Those are important words, and I hope you will consider them very closely.

Lewis really does want his hearers to join him in believing that any theological principle that appears disorganized, unclear, inconsistent, inaccurate, or logically indefensible is a reflection of the mysterious reality that surrounds us … and thus a reflection of God. Lewis was—and is—not alone in this belief.

Yet he does not continue his claim by saying that the more illogical and unpredictable a doctrine is, the better it reflects God. Why he shouldn’t continue in this way, though, is not easy to say.

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Please understand: When he makes this argument, Lewis is not advancing some radical claim that he himself has invented. He is outlining a classic position of mainstream Christianity.

Suppose we were to say to a dozen traditional theologians that the doctrine of the Trinity is hard for us to understand, and hard for us to explain to others. Suppose we were to ask those theologians for help in understanding and explaining the Trinity. Each and every one of them would explain to us, using some formulation or other, that the very illogicality of the doctrine is what identifies it as ‘mysterious’ as Godlike.

Consider the Catholic Encyclopedia’s terse response to this all-important question. It says of the Trinity:

‘A dogma so mysterious presupposes a Divine revelation.’ (The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1912, Vol. 15, page 47)

And that, apparently, is that!

Well, suppose we were to press the matter? Suppose we were to demand to know, from those dozen traditional theologians, why three Gods are an essential component of a religion that aims to obey the First Commandment (which forbids worshipping anything other than God)? Suppose we were to demand some clearer understanding of why the Trinity should be so closely connected to the mission of Jesus? What should we expect to be told? Here is what the Baltimore Catechism tells us:

‘It is there, and that is all. We see it and believe it, though we do not understand it. So if we refuse to believe everything we do not understand, we shall soon believe very little and make ourselves ridiculous.’ (Baltimore Catechism, 2004, Catholic.net; Lesson 3: On the Unity and Trinity of God, Question 31)

I am afraid we must expect to be ordered—sometimes more tactfully than others, but always on essentially the same terms—ordered to believe whatever we do not understand about the Trinity, and to stop asking inconvenient questions.

This, we must understand, is the final message of the theologians: not to dig too deeply into the matter, not to inquire after details too closely. The theologians, if we press them, will say something along the following lines to us:

‘This whole issue is a mystery. God is mysterious, and so is the world He has created, and so is His Triune nature. So please don’t keep asking this question, because you are not entitled to a clear answer to it. The simple fact that the dogma is beyond our comprehension will have to do.’

If my version of the theologian’s ‘subtext’ here sounds exaggerated to you, rest assured that it is only the tone that has been heightened. The logical content of what you just read is in fact the official response to questions that countless millions of Christians have been taught not to ask, among them:

‘What is the historical origin of the Trinity?’

‘Why must we believe in a Trinity, rather than, say, a Unity—or a Duology or a Quadrology?’

‘Where in the Bible does Jesus mention the Trinity by that name?’

If you doubt what I am saying, all that is necessary for you to verify is for you to ask your pastor or priest the questions I have just posed.

Take careful note of the answers you receive, and then determine for yourself whether they conform to the outlines suggested in this chapter. At the end of the day, I believe you will find that you have been told, in one way or another, that the Trinity and its origin is a mystery, and that you must believe in it because it is a mystery.

You will also find that you have been told, directly or indirectly, to stop asking what verse in the Bible demonstrates Jesus’ familiarity with the specific word ‘Trinity’.

The answers you hear may be long. They may be short. They may be polite. They may be brusque. But they will, I believe, match the patterns set out here.

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So that is what we read and hear a great deal about when we examine the difficult questions of Christianity: its ‘mysteries’. At this point, we must, I submit, have the courage to examine another under-examined ‘mystery’ about the Christian faith … and, what is more, we must summon the courage to take upon ourselves the responsibility for its resolution. The ‘mystery’ is this: Do the words of Jesus support Lewis and the others on this matter of illogicality and incomprehensibility somehow mysteriously reflecting God? Or do the words of Jesus contradict him on this point?

If we summon the courage to ask those questions, we may just discover that something important has in fact been overlooked in the discussion. Because the Jesus we encounter in the most ancient Gospel passages, for some strange reason, makes a point of emphasizing how accessible the Divine message is meant to be.

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‘Ask—it will be given to you. Seek—you will find. Knock—it will be opened for you.’ (Luke 11:9)

‘Let the one who has ears listen!’ (Luke 14:35)

‘Get behind me, Satan: for it is written, ‘Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.‘ (Luke 4:8)

‘You, (God), have hidden these things from the wise and the learned … but revealed them to the untutored.’ (Luke 10:21)

‘You scholarly experts—damn you! You have hidden the key of knowledge. You yourself haven’t entered, and you have stood in the way of those who want to get in.’ (Luke 11:52)

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Are these verses really the words of a man who believes that the core religious principles of his faith are divine because they are hard to understand?

Are these really the words of a man who is preaching that God is both three and one simultaneously?

Are these really the words of a man who believes his mission is rooted in mystery?

How can we possibly reconcile these verses with Lewis’ description of Christianity—as ‘a religion you could not have guessed’? What is unguessable or mysterious about these words?

The verses seem to me to suggest quite the contrary of Lewis’ suggestion: that Jesus is trying to get us to pay attention to something of fundamental importance, something singular and utterly impossible to ignore. This ‘something’ is, at least, impossible to ignore for those who open their eyes, open their ears, humble their hearts, and avoid anything remotely resembling spiritual arrogance, as he instructs. There are, as we have seen, two paths.

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ (Matthew 5:3)

‘Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.’ (Luke 6:25)

His command to us is not that we believe, obediently, something we could not have guessed. Instead, he challenges us to choose which path we are going to walk: that which leads to the Kingdom of God, or that which leads to weeping and grieving.

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Islam holds that God Himself is beyond human comprehension. Islam insists that His revelations could very easily consume a lifetime’s study. But the central facts of the believer’s relationship with God—that He is unambiguously One, that he demands heartfelt repentance and obedience from human beings, that He alone is worthy of worship—are, in Islam, so simple as to defy misrepresentation.

The accessibility of these essential facts to a humble heart is, in the early Gospel verses as in Islam, a given. The willingness of a ‘great thinker’ to respond to the Divine message is another question. God, we are told in Q, has hidden knowledge from those who claim high status and wisdom … and has granted His guidance to ‘the untutored.’

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If we look closely at the early Gospel passages, we will have a difficult time persuading ourselves that Jesus’ aim is to preach something mysterious, difficult, or illogical. Yet Lewis and the others insist that the true faith is mysterious, difficult, and illogical—something ‘you could not have guessed.’

Jesus warns people frankly to repent their disobedience to the One God:

‘Woe unto you, Chorazin! Woe unto you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works that had been done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be better for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than it will be for you.’ (Luke 10:13)

He warns people to fear God alone:

‘And I tell you, my friends: Don’t be afraid of people who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will tell you the person you ought to fear! Fear the one who, after He has killed, has the power to cast into hell. Yes; I am telling you, fear Him!’ (Luke 12:5)

He warns people to stop worshipping that which has been created:

‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.’ (Matthew 6:19-20)

He insists, with peculiar intensity, that people should make every possible effort to attend to the business of fulfilling the will of the Creator while there is still time to do so:

‘Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.’ (Luke 9:62)

Not once, however, does Jesus warn people, as C.S. Lewis does, to repent their failure to embrace the doctrine of the Trinity.

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Now, these sayings of Jesus are simple, and momentous, instructions. But they are not mysteries, and nothing an honest man or woman who could do them can possibly turn them into mysteries. And this is where Lewis and the others lead us astray.

Indeed, for those people who would formulate mysteries where none actually exist, the Jesus we hear in the earliest verses of the Gospel has nothing but contempt.

‘You scholarly experts—damn you! You have hidden the key of knowledge. You yourself haven’t entered, and you have stood in the way of those who want to get in.’ (Luke 11:52)

That sweet campus priest eventually married my girlfriend and me, and we settled in suburban Massachusetts. We each moved ahead professionally and became grownups. We had three beautiful children. And I kept reading and rereading the Bible. I was drawn, as ever, to the sayings about the lamp and the eye, the Prodigal Son, the Beatitudes, the importance of prayer, and so many others—but I had steadily more serious intellectual problems with the surrounding ‘architecture’ of the New Testament, particularly with the Apostle Paul.

Was it Christianity I was following? Or was it Paulism?

In the mid-1990s, my wife and I both became deeply disenchanted with the Catholic Church, in part because of a truly terrible priest who gave very little attention to the spiritual needs of his community. We later learned that he had been covering up for a child abuser.