With All the Mind . . .

COMMON SENSE: WHAT TO DO WITH IT

In his popular little book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis talks about seven virtues, four cardinal virtues and three theological virtues. The cardinal virtues are prudence, temperance, justice, and fortitude; the theological virtues are faith, hope, and charity. He rightly observes that the cardinal virtues are recognized by all civilized people, while the theological virtues are known only by Christians.

But he might have added that the cardinal virtues can take on special meaning to a Christian and may come to have depth that people generally can hardly appreciate, especially when they are tied to the virtues that are distinctly Christian. Justice, for instance, may be seen as love distributed, and has such a meaning to the believer that he sees Christ as somehow the answer to such problems as racism, political corruption, drug addiction, crime in the streets. Fortitude or courage is always respected when it manifests itself, but it becomes a special kind of virtue when it is motivated by faith.

So it is with prudence, which Lewis defines as common sense. However much the world may esteem good sense, it takes on special virtue when it is sanctified by faith, hope, and love. And this is part of what we are saying in this article: common sense can be hallowed by the Christian virtues.

Lewis sees common sense as thinking out what one is doing and what is likely to come of it. But he fears that many Christians do not think of common sense as a virtue, for they suppose that they are to be good rather than clever. After all, aren’t Christians to be like children! Lewis, however, sees children as very prudent, especially in things that interest them, perhaps more than adults. When Jesus teaches us to be like children, Lewis notes, he does not intend that we remain as children in intelligence. He wants us to have a child’s heart but an adult’s head. After all, Jesus not only urges that we be harmless like doves but also wise like serpents. God certainly has a place for folk with little sense, but he intends that we use what sense he has given us. Lewis wisely notes that Christianity itself is an educational experience, that being a Christian has a way of honing the mind. Otherwise uneducated believers like John Bunyan could not write books that are a marvel to the world.

This time around we have some suggestions on how we might better sanctify our common sense and exercise it to the glory of God. These may be more practical than those commonly found in logic texts.

1. Consider that you may be wrong.

Oliver Cromwell wrote to the Church of Scotland during the crisis of revolution: “Consider by the bowels of Christ that you might possibly be wrong.” Many of us are slow to accept what common sense dictates, that we are all fallible. It always applies to the other fellow but hardly to ourselves. Parents lose nothing in conceding to their children, or teachers to their pupils, that they may be wrong. After all, nobody is a parent enough times or a teacher long enough to become inerrant. A preacher is wise to say I don’t know when he doesn’t know, even if it is frequent. He speaks with more authority that way, not less, if he is a person who is growing in knowledge.

When I asked Dr. Nakarai of Emmanuel School of Religion how he came to know Jesus in his native Japan, he told me about the Disciple missionary that impressed him so deeply that he began to investigate the Christian faith. He was teaching the missionary Japanese and had occasion to ask him about the burning bush that Moses saw. “How do you explain that it was never consumed by the fire?,” he asked him. I can’t explain it, said the missionary, I simply accept it by faith. Nakarai explained that a Japanese teacher would never say he did not know something, and when that missionary admitted ignorance and appealed to faith, it was the beginning of a new life for Nakarai. And thank God for that, for that scholarly brother has blessed many.

2. Realize that you probably do not have all the facts.

It could be added: even if you do have all the facts, so what? Knowledge (facts) does not necessarily solve problems. Paul even complains that “Knowledge puffs up,” while it is love that builds up. It is wisdom (sanctified common sense) that the church must have if it blesses the world. T. S. Eliot in The Rock asks, “Where is the life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge.” The poet even suggests that all our knowledge only brings us nearer to our ignorance. Until we can think critically (both words are crucial) about ourselves wisdom will elude us. And will we really find God in facts or in being right? We of course win all the debates. So what? We are not enough like that despised publican that smote his breast and cried out, God, be merciful to me, a sinner! That is common sense, sanctified common sense.

3. Beware of feeling!

While emotions are vital to both physical and spiritual health, we must remember that they are unreliable, even deceptive. “The heart is deceitful above all things,” Jer. 17:9 assures us, which refers to the emotions, especially when they are not tempered by God’s revelation to the human mind. When we say “I feel it in my heart,” we must make sure that the heart is informed by what God has revealed. Our “gut feeling” is sometimes right and often wrong, and there is no way for us to “feel” our way into pleasing God. We please God by doing his will, and we can’t do his will without knowing his will. I am made uneasy by folk who say that God tells them to do this or to do that. If I cannot translate that to mean that after searching the scriptures they conclude that they should do such and such, then they lose me. I cannot see that God is “telling” someone what to do when that person is simply using the good sense that God has given him.

They say things like “God told us to buy this house.” If you ask them to explain just how God told them, it gets down to feelings, dreams, visions, intuition --- what the philosophers call subjectivism. Does the God of heaven serve as a real estate broker? True, he leads us into new experiences and he works for our good in all things, as the scriptures assure us, but it is presumptuous for us to claim that he speaks to us, except through his son and his prophets (Heb. 1:1-2). True, the Holy Spirit, whose mission is to “enlighten our inner eyes” (Eph. 1:18) may lead us to recall or rearrange or more deeply understand what is already revealed, or it may lead us to read a book or meet someone or go somewhere so as to turn us in a different direction. And, yes, God may lead one, through various means, to find and buy a certain house. But this is hardly “visions and revelations of the Lord” (2 Cor. 12:1) that an apostle of Christ can properly refer to.

Somewhere in his writings C. S. Lewis refers to the “poison of subjectivism.” He could have called it illogical, irrational, and irresponsible as well as poisonous. It is illogical because it is self-contradictory, making God “say” one thing to one and something just the opposite to another. It is irrational in that it is grounded on sheer presumption, for it makes someone’s “feeling” a revelation of God. One only needs to respond with “I don’t feel what you feel.” It is irresponsible in that it equates mystical and emotional experiences with the real, objective revelation that God has vouchsafed to man. It is indeed poisonous in that it negates the apostolicity of the church. If any and every believer becomes an envoy of heaven, receiving directions straight from God, then the great principle of the church being built upon “the foundation of the apostles and prophets” loses all meaning.

God has blessed us with common sense, given as a means to the good life, not as an end in itself. Our common sense should always be in school, like any good pupil, learning by experience and always studying the textbook. Our “horse sense” thus learns from three books, the book of nature, the book of human nature, which includes experience, and the Book of God’s revelation. And it is the Bible that undergirds and controls the whole. This is what sanctifies common sense, or “renews the mind,” as Paul puts it in Rom. 12:2. It is the mind schooled by God that touches the emotions, thus enrolling one’s feelings for the service and glory of God.

When Paul walked among the idols in Corinth, “his spirit (emotions) was stirred within him.” His emotions were stirred up because his mind had waked up. Peter sought to “stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance” (2 Pet. 3:1) because he realized that it takes both an informed mind and a caring heart for faith to be real.

The worst kind of fallacy, therefore, is to make feelings the first frame of reference. While feelings are important, even vitally important, they are always to be influenced by the revealed word. Not the other way around! --- the Editor