With All Your Mind . . .

THE IDOLS OF THE MIND

The renaissance, which followed the medieval age and embraced the 15th and 16th centuries, was the beginning of a new way of thinking. The monks and scholastics may have had “religious” minds, but their thinking was vertical with almost no horizontal lines, which is to say that they thought only (in a very philosophical way) of man’s relation to God with little thought of how this applied to his dealings with his fellows. So, the renaissance gave birth to a critical way of thinking about man and his problems, and about the world in which he lived. Thus the sciences were born, both the physical sciences and the social sciences.

The medievalists not only thought only vertically but also deductively and subjectively, which means that they built systems of philosophy around assumed truths. They canonized Aristotle’s syllogism and supposed that all truth could be ascertained by piling up deductions. The renaissance, especially in the person of Francis Bacon, who has come to be known as “the father of induction,” gave the world a new way of thinking. Rather than setting up premises, which for centuries were presumed to be true, and drawing conclusions therefrom, Bacon insisted that no conclusion should be drawn for which there is not sufficient observable evidence. Thus emerged what John Locke later called “historical plain method,” the method of study adopted by our own Alexander Campbell in his approach to Scripture.

In his debate with Owen, Campbell said: “Everything is to be submitted to the most minute observation. No conclusions are to be drawn from guesses or conjectures. We are to keep within the limits of experimental truth.” It is noteworthy that he was then quoting from the great John Newton, “the father of modern science.” Campbell went on to say to Mr. Owen: “We first ascertain the facts, then group them together, and after the classification and comparison of them, draw the conclusion.”

This was the beginning of the inductive study of the Bible in our own history, a tradition to which we have been less than faithful, for many of our most cherished doctrines are deductively assumed rather than inductively proved.

Hear Campbell in his challenge to Owen, giving the basis of his own plea: “Any argument, therefore, which we may offer, we wish examined by the improved principles of inductive philosophy, by those very principles which right reason and sound experimental philosophy have sanctioned as their appropriate tests.”

The old reformer laid down a rule in this context that we would do well to ponder in our day: Our faith in any given conclusion is to be determined by the evidence that supports it. How strong is the evidence from Scripture? It is a rule that would embarrass many of our assumptions, especially those that are unique to our own background and hardly believed by any other church in the world. Unique views nearly always come under the judgment of an inductive study of the Bible. This means that people go to Scripture, not with their minds already made up, but to gather facts, and then let the facts, only the facts, determine the conclusions drawn.

Drawing on Francis Bacon, Campbell said: “All true and useful knowledge is an acquaintance with facts.” This was the renaissance approach to the whole of human knowledge and it gave birth to a new kind of world, now called the nuclear age. It was also a new way of studying the Bible. When Campbell developed this method in his own study it was as revolutionary as the way Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, other renaissance figures, looked at the universe. When Galileo tested the Aristotelian deduction that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones by dropping such objects from the tower of Pisa, professors at the nearby university, who watched with their own eyes, declared that some demonic force held back the heavier object. When the clergy on the frontier heard Campbell explain the Bible inductively, such as in his Sermon on the Law, it was so shocking to their theological ears that they were set upon doing him in.

This method, which in our shallow sectarianism we have all but ignored, would be almost as startling to us. Just to mention a few assumptions that could be questioned: how strong is the evidence in Scripture that tongues have ceased? or that a collection is to be taken only on the first day of the week? or that money becomes “the Lord’s money” when it is put into “the church treasury”? or that singing can be only acappella? or that there is congregational singing to start with? or that immersion is essential to salvation? or that drinking per se is a sin?

There is a vast difference between going to Scripture for proof texts for conclusions already drawn (deduction) and going in search of facts that demand their own conclusion (induction). Campbell went so far as to suggest that we should reach no conclusion but what the evidence of Scripture forces upon us. If our various parties followed that dictum, what a glorious change would be wrought in our lives. The truth is that we often force Scripture into our own narrow, sectarian mold.

Campbell insisted that “All revealed religion is based upon facts,” and again drawing on Bacon’s inductive logic he insisted that a fact is something said or done. God has spoken and acted, thus revealing himself through His chosen envoys. Thus revealed religion. We can know nothing of God’s will for us except in terms of facts. This is why unity and fellowship can never be based upon our own opinions or deductions, but only on facts, such as Jesus Christ is the Son of God. The gospel is made up only of facts, what God has said or done in history. Mystical experiences, dreams, imagination, and all the rest of subjectivism mean little, for they are unreliable in that they are based on fancy rather than facts. “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son,” says Heb. 1:1-2 and I buy it. I am not so sure when brethren tell me God said this to them or that to them or that the Spirit directed them to do this or the other.

Our own vain imaginations (Rom. 1:21) are related to a lot of fallacies. There are four in particular to be mentioned here, called “Idols of the Mind” by Francis Bacon, which he saw as devastating to one’s search for truth in that they blind people to facts. The first one, Idols of the Tribe, stem from the sluggish mind that is satisfied and too lazy to think, and that accepts those things that support its superstitions and traditions. Bacon saw that it is difficult for people to think critically about their own heritage, tribe, nation, or culture. We might call this fallacy idols of the party, where ideas and practices are made sacrosanct by use and because “We’ve always done it that way.” This often blinds us to improvement and new truths.

The second idol of the mind is Idols of the Cave, which are the fallacies of our own individual mind apart from the tribe or rest of society. We all have a cave or den of our own, Bacon contended, and we often defend it against any invasion of new ideas. We don’t want to be disturbed by facts. I know a brother who is convinced that another brother made a play for his wife, and he continues to use this as an excuse for not going to the assembly. I know the parties well and know that he is wrong and only uses this as a coverup for his own failure to make peace with God. He knows it too if he would be honest, but he has this myth securely entrenched in the dark cave of his own mind, ready to be used as a defense mechanism when needed. I know others who are really turned on to the Spirit, so they tell us, but in their private lives their relationship with others, even their own families, is in such disrepair that one can only conclude that they are playing a game, thus avoiding any real confrontation with God. They hide in the cave of their own mind.

Then there are Idols of the Marketplace, fallacies in conversation and communication. Bacon recognized that for various reasons we are not really hearing one another. Either we do not say what we mean or our ideas are confused in our own minds. Words often mean different things to different people. Disagreements are often only verbal, so that if it were clear to all parties what a term is made to mean there might be agreement. Socrates was a master in dealing with marketplace foibles. He was always asking for definitions. We might do that in the controversy over verbal, inspiration, unity-in-diversity, and liberalism. What do these terms really mean?

Lastly, Idols of the Theater result from the dogmas of philosophers and theologians. In our day Bacon might add TV, for he saw people ignoring their real world and living by the values of a make-believe world. The theater is gilded and artificial. We make life a theater when we play games and deceive ourselves.

Bacon saw the mind as a mirror that must be kept clean and polished so that it can properly reflect truth when it is exposed to it. This is to say again that the mind matters, certainly for the Christian. --- the Editor