|
Excerpts from A.C. Reid’s Writings
[LINK EACH HEADING HERE TO THE FULL SECTION BELOW]
A.C. Reid wrote widely on a variety of subjects, including teaching, the responsibilities of a university, and most of all the Christian faith he professed and its significance for today’s world. Click on the links below to read selections from A.C. Reid’s writings on the following topics:
1. On Teaching
“The best method of teaching includes the close and friendly personal relationship between a great teacher and a competent student…”
2. The Christian Teacher
“The Christian teacher must recognize the importance of his position. He must understand that he guides human minds and ministers to immortal souls. He would not permit a novice to tinker with his watch, nor allow an untrained and slovenly workman to build his house; therefore, when a Christian teacher accepts the crucial responsibility to guide the development of human minds and hearts, he must realize the vital importance of his work and the necessity to prepare himself for it…
3. Christian Truth
“These truths—the reality of God, the human soul, the Fatherhood of God, and moral law--are not new, neither are they old. They are timeless; they are dateless; they are placeless. It is upon these truths that human dignity, hope and faith must rest. They are the bedrock foundations upon which freedom-loving people must live and build the institutions of free people. It is to these truths which God revealed in Jesus Christ that a Christian must commit himself and without apology. They are the Truth which our Master said enables us to become free.”
4. The Christian College
“…In...a Christian college all truth should be recognized as God''s truth, wherever and in whatever garb it appears. This leaves no place for bigotry, intolerance, or provincialism. Truth, as reflected in science, in literature, in philosophy, and even in pagan religions, never conflicts with Christianity and right living…”
5. On Faith
“Faith, then, is the positive conviction of the existence of unseen reality. It is the substance of active good will. It is the means of releasing unique divine power as righteousness. It is the will to do one''s best in honest and honorable work and to leave one''s destiny in the hands of God.”
6. On Worship
“Worship gives a superior concept of personal worth, privileges, and responsibility. An experience which does not lead to the recognition of the sacredness of human lives and of a person''s imperative responsibilities should not be called an experience of worship; for genuine worship awakens a sense of personal dignity, arouses a desire for increased knowledge of the truth, and stirs one to action in the interest of righteousness...”
7. On Philosophy
“Philosophy is a search for truth. The search requires time, patience, courage, integrity, and devotion. Western philosophy was born in Greece, about 600 B.C. At first, the philosopher turned to the external world and tried to state its basic nature. He thus overlooked himself. Modern man has, in large measure, taken a similar point of view. He seems to assume that nature and nature''s laws constitute fundamental reality, while other matters are of secondary importance...Socrates equated knowledge with virtue and insisted that wisdom includes awareness of man''s spiritual nature, of ethical principles, and of God, because such knowledge is essential to personal integrity, dignity, and faith…”
8. On Addressing Serious Problems
“As you are aware, problems are now numerous and serious. I am not thinking of technical academic matters, but of moral problems, some of which seem to flourish as a result of our sensate culture, emphasis upon materialistic interests, or whatever one wishes to call the present mood. However wonderful our superstructure, they will collapse sooner or later unless they rest upon bedrock Spiritual Truth.”
1. A.C. Reid on Teaching
The best method of teaching includes the close and friendly personal relationship between a great teacher and a competent student. This relationship gives the impact of an inspiring personality upon responsive youth; thus the mature and qualified professor, himself always a student, leads the young and potential student to have a passion for knowledge, culture, and achievement. [submission to "The Future of Wake Forest College; Papers and Reports submitted by the Faculty", 1951]
2. A.C. Reid on "The Christian Teacher”
Plato stated the pre-eminent role of the human mind when he said that the mind is "the pilot of the soul." A Christian teacher strives to improve the quality of priceless intellect which guides the immortal soul. He is vitally concerned with the student''s present life and eternal destiny.
A Christian teacher accepts an enormous responsibility and has a wonderful privilege. His position demands continuous personal preparation and unstinted devotion. He teaches primarily what he himself is. A teacher''s personal integrity, ideals and devotions are the most influential part of his work. If he inspires youth to love truth, he himself must love truth. If he inculcates in students hunger for truth, intellectual honesty, sensitivity to great ideas and appreciation of cultural refinement, he himself must seek truth, respect intellectual honesty, endeavor to discriminate sanely, evaluate courageously, and habitually exemplify cultural excellence." (Christ or Confusion (1973), p. 73)
Education must become tempered and guided by wisdom. Wisdom insists upon intellectual honesty, respect for facts, valid meanings, and purity of motive. It calls for high courage that decries ignorance, condemns dishonesty, and detests hypocrisy. True wisdom goes beyond mere information and transient secular needs. It inspires diligence to attain moral excellence, to illuminate beauty, and to cultivate graciousness, gratitude and compassion. The quest for wisdom requires a persistent search for first causes, for principles, for supreme values, and for God himself. The quest encounters enormous obstacles which must be overcome. For example, it meets the claim that reality consists essentially of space, time, matter, energy, and natural law, and the assertion that a process of cosmic evolution, over eons of time, has produced atoms and stars and galaxies, as well as life, including all plants, animals, and man. (Christ or Confusion (1973), p. 81)
The classroom is, after all, the heart of a school. In a real sense, the teacher determines that quality of the institution. What, therefore, are some things required of a Christian teacher?
The Christian teacher must recognize the importance of his position. He must understand that he guides human minds and ministers to immortal souls. He would not permit a novice to tinker with his watch, nor allow an untrained and slovenly workman to build his house; therefore, when a Christian teacher accepts the crucial responsibility to guide the development of human minds and hearts, he must realize the vital importance of his work and the necessity to prepare himself for it.
A Christian teacher must reflect superior integrity. He imparts to his students what he himself is in character, interest, and devotion. He must combine in himself sound scholarship and solid character. Simple honesty requires that he habitually reflect high ideals and superior ethical motives. As Democritus said, the student "can tell the man who rings true from the man who rings false, not by his deeds alone, but also by his desires." Fluent utterances, lacking the overtones of deep personal conviction, are hollow and strident. To profess scholarship and condone intellectual mediocrity is duplicity. To profess Christian truth and then disregard ethical principles is hypocrisy. Barbarians invaded Rome and claimed to be Roman gentlemen, but they were barbarians. Without reservation or apology, a Christian teacher must, above all else, endeavor to be a Christian in ideals and in practice.
A Christian teacher''s work demands complete devotion. If he feels that his position does not require full devotion of his time and energy, he should seek work elsewhere where he would do less harm. He deals with commodities that are timeless, placeless, and priceless. He assumes the terrifying responsibility of teaching the truth, in the name of Eternal God, to immortal souls. His position and his work, therefore, permit no laxity of interest or of loyalty...
A Christian teacher must be a thinker. Emerson said that a scholar is "man thinking." The emphasis is, of course, on man and on man thinking, and "man thinking" implies the discovery and appreciation of truth. A Christian teacher is a man thinking, who appreciates truth, and who teaches truth. He therefore places unqualified emphasis on man, on thinking, and on the discovery and the love of truth. A teacher must not stop with facts; he must go beyond facts, however important they are, to meanings and application of facts. The hallmark of a superior teacher is the ability to start with an ordinary object--a drop of water, an atom, an electric light--and mount step by step in showing that it is a part of the universal....
We have large dictionaries; we need great literature. We have excellent techniques; we must cultivate superior devotions. Vast historical records are available; we must try to evaluate historical events in terms of man''s wisdom and folly. We have professors of philosophy; we need great philosophers committed to enduring ideas and ideals. We have theological experts; there is no proper substitute for enlightened and devout prophets of the living God." (Christ or Confusion (1973), pp. 82-85)
3. A. C. Reid on the Nature of Christian Truth
Jesus Christ is our supreme authority concerning spiritual reality...No other man could say: "I am the way, the truth, and the life."
In the first place, our Master revealed spiritual reality. For example, he proclaimed the reality of God. In stating the existence and the sovereignty of God, he did not rely upon an arsenal of scriptural texts or fine devices of logic; he simply and habitually reflected his own divine nature, and he used the confidence and the authority of personal, first-hand experience and knowledge. Jesus had, of course, an amazing store of information and incomparable insight into things, values, and people. But his wisdom went far beyond anything local and temporal. He knew God intimately, communed with him frequently, moved with him closely, and relied upon him constantly. He therefore realized that God is the supreme truth which is basic to every other mode of existence. He was aware that the existence of God explains the origin of the universe and gives full assurance of enduring values and valid hope. His divine relationship enabled him to understand how the Eternal God, who "is perfectly true in word and deed, who changes not, and who deceives not by sign or word in dream or waking vision," is the source of unity in the universe, the author of abiding principles, the guarantee of imperishable good, and the basis of love and faith. Our Lord''s knowledge of God shows why he never acted in haste, never expressed uncertainty, never violated his mission, and never doubted the ultimate triumph of truth.
Our Master also revealed the spiritual nature of man. He knew that a person--any person--is an immortal soul. He had full respect for the natural world, and he was clearly aware of the importance of health of body, purity of mind, and superior standards of human relationships. But he knew that a person is a priceless, immortal, spiritual entity; and that is why his mission was to persons.
Our Master, furthermore, declared the Fatherhood of God. It is most difficult to understand how God is interested in every person....But Jesus knew that God loves every person. He said that God loves every one of his children as the Good Shepherd cares for each member of his flock. He declared that God''s love is deep and abiding, longing and welcoming, and forgiving and blessing, like the love of the father of the Prodigal Son. Our Lord himself spent his life in a ministry of perfect love, and he made the supreme sacrifice in proof of divine love. Our Lord''s love was no abstraction, nor was it for humanity in general. It was for individual persons--for a blind man, an afflicted youth, an outcast woman, a troubled centurion, a fisherman, a scholar, a widow whose only son was dead. It was a genuine, persistent, magnetic love that held and transformed any person who responded to it, whether it was a Mary Magdalene, a Zacchaeus, or a Saul of Tarsus. Christ''s words, and his life, and death are God''s revelation of his love for every one of us.
Our Lord also revealed moral law. He knew that the laws of the Living God are no fiction of the human imagination. He was aware that every human situation rests ultimately upon spiritual reality and is, therefore, a moral condition. Call God''s laws what you will--justice, temperance, right, beauty, love--Jesus knew that this is a God-centered universe, that spiritual principles do prevail, and that man is morally responsible...He knew that God is not mocked and that God''s laws cannot be violated with impunity. That is why he cried out: "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness." He showed the enduring nature of moral law when he declared that, although heaven and earth will pass away, not the least part of moral law will ever cease to exist. He also knew that the sanctions of moral law are inescapable. That is why he spoke so plainly about secret thoughts, attitudes, motives, and ambitions; that is also why he placed the stamp of divine approval upon sincerity, honesty, kindness, gratitude, humility, and love.
These truths—the reality of God, the human soul, the Fatherhood of God, and moral law--are not new, neither are they old. They are timeless; they are dateless; they are placeless. It is upon these truths that human dignity, hope and faith must rest. They are the bedrock foundations upon which freedom-loving people must live and build the institutions of free people. It is to these truths which God revealed in Jesus Christ that a Christian must commit himself and without apology. They are the Truth which our Master said enables us to become free.
Man and Christ, (1954) pp. 70-75, emphasis added
4. A.C. Reid on "The Christian College and Freedom of Thought"
Freedom of thought is, in many respects, dependent upon the Christian college.
Purely secular education often leads to one point of view, and, therefore, to extreme dogmatism. One cannot safely predict the consequences of subjecting several generations to purely secular training. There are numerous evidences of what might happen. The goose-step, as practiced by press and schools and Church in Italy, Germany, and Russia is a vivid illustration of what might occur in America.
It is obvious that no more obnoxious forms of intolerance exist than those sometimes found in secular circles. The most completely enslaved minds are those fettered by ignorant emotionalism or academic bigotry. One is reminded that there is almost no freedom of thought in political groups. Many schools are restricted in attitude and dictatorial in method. Some religious organizations arbitrarily impose creeds and dogmatic formulas. Clergymen are here and there dominated by imposed rote interpretations and traditions.
To a Christian college, however, belong all forms of truth--scientific, literary, philosophical, spiritual. They are hers to possess, to examine, to criticize, to cultivate, to enjoy, and to use to find life and freedom.
In...a Christian college all truth should be recognized as God''s truth, wherever and in whatever garb it appears. This leaves no place for bigotry, intolerance, or provincialism. Truth, as reflected in science, in literature, in philosophy, and even in pagan religions, never conflicts with Christianity and right living.
Conformity to truth, not to creeds or license, assures freedom. A nation of intelligent Christians will not be enslaved in body, mind, or spirit.
A Christian college recognizes in theory and in practice that knowledge leads to virtue and truth to freedom. On the campus of the Christian college the only authority is Christ; and one may assert that this fact affords the brightest hope for the attainment of intellectual and spiritual freedom. (Christ and the Present Crisis (1936), pp. 87-88)
5. A.C. Reid on Faith
To restore confidence in man, there needs to be a realization of what man is and who man is. A low conception of man breeds disrespect and fosters compromise.
In the first place, man is fundamentally a soul. Man does not possess a soul, he is a soul. We must bring back the old Bible picture of man made in the image of God. I am not speaking of an anthropomorphic God, or of the physical form of man. I mean that man is essentially spiritual in his nature, and that he is an immortal soul, and I insist that these two facts must be steadily and strongly emphasized.
The idea of man as a soul demands high conceptions of one''s self and of others, and disallows evil practices. It is the fountain of wholesome pride and self-respect, independence and liberty. It is a truth from which the springs of universal brotherhood and peace must rise. It, moreover, gives man a sacredness and an ultimate destiny which impel him to teach, to heal, to build and endow, and to become a missionary in spirit and in fact at home and in distant lands. It is the heart of our great benevolent organizations, including our schools, churches, and missionary enterprises. (Christ and the Present Crisis (1936), pp. 12-13)
It is imperative, then, that we get back our shattered faith and reopen the reservoirs of eternal truth. May I suggest two means?
First, by an intimate knowledge of the historical Christ. How may one know him? Read the records!...
Secondly, by renewing our faith in the living Christ. How may this be done? Through deep personal consecration, an earnest and sincere desire to do the will of Christ, and implicit faith in Christ. As Schweitzer so aptly says: ''He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old by the lakeside he came to those men who knew him not. He speaks to us the same word, ''Follow thou me,'' and sets us to the tasks which he has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey, whether they be wise or simple, he will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the suffering which they shall pass through in his fellowship, and as an ineffable mystery they shall learn in their own experience who he is.''
Mind works in the field of evidences. Faith touches another realm. Faith is the movement of the soul in the direction of eternal probability. It leads to the conviction of the existence of eternal verities. It brings God''s revelation, perhaps our only form of absolute knowledge. Faith, working with God--like a grain of mustard seed working with soil, sunshine, moisture, and other natural forces--would remove mountainous difficulties, and finally transform the world.
When attained, then, faith brings one within reach of unlimited power. That reservoir of power is like a great pile driver ready to be released or a Niagara ready to be harnessed. Its energy, when released in human life, is the most dynamic thing in the world. A combination of God''s revelation, through faith, with man''s life and work is Jesus'' means of building His kingdom and transforming the world.
And such a combination makes man invincible. Observe Abraham as he leaves the commonplace and goes out to found a great people. Watch Socrates as he majestically walks through the portals of eternity. Note Plato as he turns from ordinary literary pursuits to search into the heaven above the heavens, and thus influences the finest thought of the world from that time to the present hour. See Paul as he is transformed from a theologian to a flaming evangel after meeting the Christ on the Damascus road. See Livingstone as he goes from the loom to Africa to win the friendship and the souls of the Africans. Follow Matthew T. Yates from the sanctuary of a hollow tree as he carries a message of salvation to China. And now follow Grenfell to Labrador, Schweitzer to Africa, Kagawa through Japan, and a thousand others into every unselfish and honorable walk of life. They know the Living Christ.
Only through a combination of human ability, intelligence, and integrity with God''s power can the Kingdom of Heaven be realized on Earth. (Christ and the Present Crisis (1936), pp. 16-19)
?
...Our Master, furthermore, revealed the nature of faith. I hasten to say that I cannot properly define faith. I do know, however, that we must not substitute credulity for faith, because unguarded readiness to believe or easy acceptance of some object of thought can lead to numerous pitfalls including some of those listed as symptoms of mental illness. Nor must we assume that mere probability, reasonable certainty, logical probability, or any other empirically derived condition of assurance is faith. We know how easy it is to accept an idea that conforms to our wishes, beliefs, and pleasure. We know how inclined we are to wishful thinking and how disposed we are to adopt a belief that promises a reward of some sort. It is easy for us to understand that so-called faith in business transactions, mathematical computations, the efficiency of means of transportation, and the daily rise of the sun comes from our experience with tangible objects and situations. To say that faith consists of such rational certainty reduces the origin of faith to sense perception and leads straight to such sophistry as the claim that truth is only opinion, that religion is a product of fear, and that God is a logical necessity springing out of wishful thinking.
How can a person know spiritual reality? For example, how can one know that the soul is immortal? How can a man know that he is a soul? How can one know that there is a God? How can a person know the reality of moral law and therefore know that there are the enduring principles of right, justice, temperance, love? How can one know that there is a divine plan for his life to which his life must conform? No man has ever seen God, a soul, immortality, or an ethical principle. Such forms of reality do not come within the realm of sense perception or any other form of rational observation, nor can any empirical field prove their existence. I do not understand that history, logic, and science either prove or disprove them, nor is it clear to me that any human device, however fine, can establish their existence.
Man, nevertheless, yearns for God and for immortality. With all of his imperfections and with varied forms of belief, something infinite in a person''s nature makes him dissatisfied with the temporal, rebel at the thought of oblivion, long for the infinite, and hope for immortality. There is, then, the conviction of the existence of spiritual reality. There is, therefore, an ineffable longing of the human heart for the Eternal. There are those people who, through faith, have such firm conviction of the reality of God, the human soul, and spiritual principles, that, to the best of their knowledge and ability, they will not violate those truths. Such persons do what they believe is right and honest and just and good, not for any hope of reward but because of utter respect for the truth itself. That is why Plato''s righteous man would not yield to the promise of temporal power and fame, although he was misunderstood, tortured, had his eyes burnt out, and was killed. That is the reason Job cried out: "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." Such is the lesson of the story of the old woman who said, when she was asked why she carried a pan of live coals in one hand and a jug of water in the other: "I am going to burn heaven and quench the fires of hell, so people will love the Lord for his own self.
Faith, then, is the positive conviction of the existence of unseen reality. It is the substance of active good will. It is the means of releasing unique divine power as righteousness. It is the will to do one''s best in honest and honorable work and to leave one''s destiny in the hands of God.
Jesus Christ is the revelation of perfect faith. He knew spiritual truth so well that he always acted as if he was fully aware of the presence of God, the nature of the immortal soul, and the requirements of divine law. His life was the perfect harmony of truth and righteousness. When our Lord was on the cross where evil attacked the good, failure seemed to triumph over success, hate enshrouded love, despair obscured hope, and death enveloped life, our Master knew that all of the forces of evil cannot triumph over imperishable good. So, he committed his spirit and his destiny to the hands of God.
...It is in him that we find the perfect faith that guarantees the validity of our faith..." [Man and Christ, (1954) pp. 83-85]
?
Man has erected imposing religious structures. Ten thousand spires point toward heaven, a million altars have been built, and countless millions attend services of worship in the name of religion. When one observes the human situation with clear perspective, he witnesses in man''s awareness of God and in his devout and reverent adoration of God the most substantial, the most significant, and the most helpful of human interests and devotions.
Yet, even in religion there are conditions that confuse and frustrate. There is every imaginable type and quality of religious belief and practice. Secondary matters not infrequently become primary concerns. Religious groups at times become addicted to cults, organizations, numbers, campaigns, expansion, and efficient corporations, but in doing so they often neglect the very essence of religion. In some instances, religion is presented as personal and social therapy, and many people regard the church as only a social institution. When such blunders occur, faith wanes, disbelief becomes prevalent, secular knowledge supplants spiritual principles and devotions, and the human will and heart become diseased.
Christian faith, genuine and applied, is the solid rock upon which man''s superstructures must rest. It provides the keystone of wisdom which is essential to the support of his information, of the knowledge he acquires, and of the institutions he builds.
Jesus Christ is the heart of the Christian faith. He is God''s revelation of himself. If man ever escapes from the maze of the human situation, he must do so by relying upon the truth embodied in and revealed by Jesus Christ.
There is no substitute for the gospel. It is my conviction that the human family will never escape from social confusion and moral ills until it makes Jesus Christ central to its faith, devotions, and practices. In my classroom, in colleges, in theological institutions, and in religious assemblies, I a layman, have stressed, without apology or reservation, the primacy of spiritual reality. [Christ and Human Values (1961), pp. 6-7, emphasis added.]
6. A.C. Reid on Worship
Man''s greatest need is awareness of God. His highest privilege is devout worship of God, for divine worship clarifies and strengthens faith, enhances respect for ethical principles, and gives one the courage to live righteously. Let us, therefore, examine the need for worship, prerequisites to worship, and results of worship.
The Need for Worship
Our Master said to his disciples, "Have faith in God." Again and again he spoke of the supremacy of God and the need to rely constantly upon him. It seems clear that man will find no real security, no basic hope, and no inner serenity unless he develops a sound faith in the reality of God and the fatherhood of God.
Faith is a mountainous word. It defies adequate definition, for the summit of faith cannot be reached by reason or be described by language....
Life is realistic, and in our efforts to understand human situations we, of course, must use every proper resource available to us. We must, for example, rely upon science, learn from history, respect the speculations of philosophy, and esteem the values of theology. But human resources alone, however fine, leave us gasping because of the lack of spiritual oxygen. Flesh and blood alone do not reveal the living Truth....
...Christian faith, however, gives evidence that life is not a macabre dance, a nightmare of gloom. Christian worship, genuine in spirit and in truth, supports a faith that enables us to feel the presence of God and to know that God is our Father and that he loves us, even as a wise and devoted father loves his children and cares for each of them.
Prerequisites to Worship
Christian worship is essentially an experience with God. It is a mystical relation of the soul of man with the transcendent-immanent God....
First, one must have a genuine sense of need...
One who would know the presence of God must, therefore, feel the need of and actively seek the good, the true, the right, the just, the beautiful, and the honorable. He must actually desire that his life conform to the will of God....
Worship, moreover, requires purity of motive...Motives exist in the mind, and they are evidence of the quality of one''s character. Mental imperfections--such as selfishness, deception, vanity, and intolerance--poison and weaken the mind, and they are inconsistent with the spirit of worship....
Worship, furthermore, requires a contrite heart....
Some Results of Worship
The worship of God effects transformation of human lives. What, therefore, are some results of worship?
First, worship enables one to acquire a deeper awareness of truth, clearer views of human situations, and superior conceptions of values...
For example, worship empowers a person to acquire a better concept of God and of man''s relation to God....
Worship also initiates a process of cleansing. We sometimes feel important, self-confident, and self-sufficient. But discovery of the supreme effects wholesome changes. It is said that Plato, when he discovered Socrates, burned whatever he himself had written...
Worship cultivates wisdom; wisdom abhors conceit. A wise man is a humble person...When Saul of Tarsus became aware of Christ, he was purged of the clogging impurities of pride, arrogance, provincialism, bigotry, and vindictiveness; and he then gladly became a bond slave of his Lord.
If people became clearly aware of the majesty of Christ, what a process of cleansing would occur! Ardor for secular verification would not eclipse spiritual vision....Totalitarianism-- whether Marxist, monarchic, or theocratic--would not dominate the minds and hearts of men....
Finally, worship gives a superior concept of personal worth, privileges, and responsibility. An experience which does not lead to the recognition of the sacredness of human lives and of a person''s imperative responsibilities should not be called an experience of worship; for genuine worship awakens a sense of personal dignity, arouses a desire for increased knowledge of the truth, and stirs one to action in the interest of righteousness..." [Christ and Human Values (1961)]
7. A.C. Reid on Philosophy
As the Greek philosopher, Xenophanes, affirmed, it is unlikely that the moral standards of a nation ever rise above the level of the prevailing concepts of truth. In this relation, civilization now portrays the clash of two opposing ideologies.
“The first ideology holds that truth is eternal and that the individual human life is infinitely worthwhile. This doctrine is a sane idealism which represents the apex of human insight and constructive influence. Socrates, for example, taught the reality of transcendent verities and the intrinsic worth of man; and he died clinging to his faith in God. Plato proclaimed a wisdom found through the love of the Eternal. He said that man must remove the fetters that bind him in a cave of shadows, echoes, and appearances, if he would stand beneath the spangled heavens and in the sunlight of reality. For Plato, God, who is perfectly simple and true and who neither changes nor deceives, is truth. Aristotle found reality in Form and its manifestations. The Stoics discovered permanence in the Logos and worth in the human soul. Philo stated that the Logos is the unchangeable nature of the Eternal. Spinoza urged that God alone is the ultimate. Paul, with clear insight, wrote that "the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." Jesus Christ himself, excelling all philosophers in wisdom, revealed truth in God and proclaimed the sacredness of human personality.
The second ideology holds that truth is reducible to human concepts. It, therefore, follows that reality is a flux of appearances, that values are humanly derived, that quantitative results are the criteria of human action, that might makes right, that justice is on the side of the stronger, and that moral law is a product of opinion. By direct claim or implication, this ideology discredits metaphysics and theology. Opinion is its criterion of truth, and practical accomplishment is the object of its devotion.
This doctrine, like a hydra-headed creature, has appeared in many forms and places. The Sophists, of the fifth century before Christ, gave it prominence. Protagoras, wary of metaphysics and agnostic about theology, became its prophet. Through his pronouncement that man is the measure of all things, he fostered the belief that all sanctions are merely creations of the human mind. And wherever the doctrine has subsequently appeared, it has suggested that God, soul, immortality, truth, right, justice are figments of the imagination.
Such sophistry, having no under girding of truth, paved the way for devotion to the practical interests and to the brutish, intoxicating will-to-power philosophy. This plausible and convenient half-truth has bared its Circean figure many times during the Christian era. It appeared in the nominalistic claim that principles are only names, while particulars are real. It lured the clever Francis Bacon into trumpeting interest of science and technology, to the discredit of metaphysics. Its siren like appeal is reflected in James'' pragmatism, Schiller''s humanism, and Dewey''s instrumentalism. Its actual swinish influence is revealed by the opportunistic Machiavelli, the pompous Louis XIV, and the devastating modern dictators....
There can be no sound education, no valid conception of democracy, and no abiding loyalty of the finest treasures of government and of religion without elemental thinking about God, man, and the universe. But we have largely neglected such thought, both personally and institutionally. And in doing so, we have obscured our faith. The present generation is confused because it has been betrayed into believing there is no truth, no reality, beyond that which can be seen and handled." [From "Confusion and the Christian School" (1947), in The A.C. Reid Legacy, pp. 85-87]
"Know Thyself'' (1965)
Philosophy is a search for truth. The search requires time, patience, courage, integrity, and devotion.
Western philosophy was born in Greece, about 600 B.C. At first, the philosopher turned to the external world and tried to state its basic nature. He thus overlooked himself. Modern man has, in large measure, taken a similar point of view. He seems to assume that nature and nature''s laws constitute fundamental reality, while other matters are of secondary importance...
In view of existing conditions, what must we do? Let me mention some particulars. However briefly I state them, they are, I warn you, personal, difficult, and exacting. All of them are related to the ancient saying "Know thyself'' and remind us of Socrates'' declaration that "the unexamined life is not fit for a man to live." Socrates equated knowledge with virtue and insisted that wisdom includes awareness of man''s spiritual nature, of ethical principles, and of God, because such knowledge is essential to personal integrity, dignity, and faith.
First, know thyself as part of the physical universe...
Second, know thyself as part of life...
Third, know thyself as a member of the human family...
Fourth, philosophy urges that you know yourself as a person capable of wisdom. Emerson said that the scholar is man thinking. The emphasis is upon man and thinking. Plato said that the mind is the pilot of the soul. If you become worthy of the tribute, wisdom must guide your soul....Your high privilege is to grow in wisdom by seeking the priceless treasures available to you in science, in art, in music, in literature, in philosophy, and in religion.
Fifth, philosophy insists that you respect your heritage of freedom...During the fifth century B.C., Athenians discovered freedom and devoted themselves to freedom; and no other period of human history has excelled ancient Athens in ideas, in art, in literature, in philosophy, and in high courage...
Sixth, philosophy urges man to know himself in terms of unseen reality. You must look beyond outward appearances and search for foundational principles. You must seek the why, the purpose, the ultimate meaning of existence. Science analyzes and formulates laws of probability; it does not discover purpose. Science describes the human organism in minute detail, but, by its very nature, science never describes foundational purpose, the human soul, the immortality of the soul, ethical principles, or God.
Philosophy, at its best, insists that man must know himself in the light of religious faith. Although no man can fathom the fathomless depths of spiritual reality, we know that without the existence of spiritual truth life would be a value vacuum. If spiritual devotion is no more than a phantom of the human imagination, then, as Voltaire exclaimed, man is no more than a thinking atom in a sea of mud, a victim of inexorable fate, condemned to death and oblivion.
Socrates lived and died in loyalty to his conviction of the reality and primacy of spiritual truth. He refused to compromise his integrity when he was on trial for his life and when he confronted death. He said: "I cared not a straw for death...My great and only fear was lest I do an unrighteous or unholy thing." His faith in God enabled him to live nobly and to walk serenely through the gateway of death. Plato, in his great confession of religious faith, said: "Whatever is saved and comes to good is saved by the power of God." And, in speaking of God, he said that, when He is seen, He is "inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, the parent of light and the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and this is the power upon which he who would act rationally in public or private life must have his eye fixed." I remind you of Him who is infinitely greater than Socrates and Plato, who affirmed: "I am the way, the truth, and the life."
My final word to you this morning is this statement by St. Augustine about the Christ: "I do not say to thee, seek the Way. The Way Itself hath come to thee; arise and walk."
[address at Davidson County Community College, reprinted in The A.C. Reid Legacy, pp. 126-132]
8. What did A.C. Reid consider "Important Problems"?
The following is excerpted from a letter from A.C. Reid to Wake Forest University about the topics he hoped that lectures and seminars supported by the endowed A.C. Reid Funds would support.
As you are aware, problems are now numerous and serious. I am not thinking of technical academic matters, but of moral problems, some of which seem to flourish as a result of our sensate culture, emphasis upon materialistic interests, or whatever one wishes to call the present mood. However wonderful our superstructure, they will collapse sooner or later unless they rest upon bedrock Spiritual Truth.
I am embarrassed to do so, but you will forgive me for boldness when I suggest that you might find in Man and Christ hints for subjects to be used. In those talks that I gave at Duke University some twenty-five years ago, I barely touched the surface of the problems, and the solution suggested in the last lecture can of course be stated much better. The problems have become much more serious; the foundation of our hope and faith is eternal and needs the strongest and clearest emphasis possible." [October 20, 1980]
The following are excerpts from A.C. Reid’s Man and Christ (1954):
A. PROBLEMS REGARDING MAN AND NATURE
What is man''s status in the universe? What is his place in nature? Does he occupy a unique position in kind, in quality, and in duration? Or is he only a part of the vast realm of natural forces and objects, different in degree and not in kind? The problem is as old as human history.
...what is a person? Is he only a momentary, conscious, organic incident? Or, to use another figure, perhaps he is,
Like snow upon the desert''s dusty face, Lighting a little hour or two--is gone.
Our difficulty therefore persists. What is man''s place in the universe? I repeat, science as such does not presume to speak about such matters as the human soul and personal immortality. It does not treat such matters as ethical principles. There are persons who would say that perhaps great scientists indulge in wishful thinking. It is much more likely that the devout and reverent scientist interprets natural phenomena in the light of his deep religious faith and convictions. However that may be, man continues to wonder why an omnipotent and benevolent Creator made a world so helpful and, at the same time, so destructive. Nature often appears to be utterly impersonal and inexorable. As John Stuart Mill so graphically states, nature inflicts, alike upon the guilty and innocent, disease and torture of body and mind in ways that excel the brutality of the worst of human despots, and it finally brings death to every person. He says:
In sober truth, nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned for doing to one another, are nature''s every day performances. Killing, the most criminal act recognized by human laws, Nature does to every being that lives; and in a large proportion of cases, after protracted tortures such as only the greatest monsters whom we read of ever purposely inflicted on their living fellow-creatures. If, by an arbitrary reservation, we refuse to account anything murder but what abridges a certain term supposed to be allotted to human life, nature also does this to all but a small percentage of lives, and does it in all the modes, violent or insidious, in which the worst human beings take the lives of one another. Nature impales men, breaks them as if on the wheel, casts them to be devoured by wild beasts, bums them to death, crushes them with stones like the first Christian martyr, starves them with hunger, freezes them with cold, poisons them by the quick or slow venom of her exhalations, and has hundreds of other hideous deaths in reserve, such as the ingenious cruelty of a Nabis or a Domitian never surpassed. All this, Nature does with the most supercilious disregard both of mercy and of justice, emptying her shafts upon the best and noblest indifferently with the meanest and worst; upon those who are engaged in the highest and worthiest enterprises, and often as the direct consequence of the noblest acts; and it might almost be imagined as a punishment for them. She mows down those on whose existence hangs the well-being of a whole people, perhaps the prospects of the human race for generations to come, with as little compunction as those whose death is a relief to themselves, or a blessing to those under their noxious influence. [John Stuart Mill, Three Essays on Religion(New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1923), p. 284]
Moreover, nature gives no evidence of personal immortality; death brings permanent silence. Nature raises man up, and then takes him back to herself. Perhaps, like a candle consumed, a man reverts to energy, and passes into oblivion. Nature does not answer the age-old cry of the heart of her child, "If a man die, shall he live again?"
As we have observed, nature does not offer a solution for our problem.
B. PROBLEMS OF MAN AND KNOWLEDGE
What is the mind? How does thought originate? How does one''s mind develop? What are its limits? What can one know? Can there be, in fact, any metaphysics, or any theology? Can a person know the reality of God, of the human soul, and of spiritual principles?
[...there are numerous problems springing from empiricism.] For example, can sensation ever reveal reality? Do colors, tones, odors, and pressures correspond to physical substance as such? Does sense perception, even when assisted by the finest instruments of precision, reveal life itself? Are combinations of thought, such as ideas or reason, able to expose reality? Where is the reputable physicist who claims to know what matter is? What great biologist dares offer more than a provisional definition of life? What psychologist gives more than a working definition of mind? Now, if the great scientists confess that their observations and inferences are empirically derived and, therefore, that they do not know what physical substance, or life, or mind is, who can prove that soul, immortality, justice, and truth are not derived from sensation and sense perception? Who can know that they are more than creations of the human mind? If the physicist humbly confesses that he has no absolute metaphysics, how can we establish convincingly the objective reality of God, the human soul, and ethical principles?
Concepts are acquired, and they vary as widely as do social groups and time and place. What of ultimate reality can be found in them? Heraclitus could have said: "All human beliefs flow." Some people would state that Omar was correct in saying:
Myself when young did eagerly frequent Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same door where in I went.
To what valid ends can logic reach? Perhaps so-called self-evident truths, a priori judgments, and intuition are only swift empirical thinking. Do we not learn that 1 + 1 = 2, and that a circle is not a square, just as we learn other things? Perhaps logic is valid only within the bounds of the empirical; who, after all, has proved anything for which there is no observable basis? We define the mathematical point and the perfect circle, but do they have objective existence? Perhaps the objects of faith, and even faith itself, are only nice abstractions produced by an empirical mind. But, then again, how can the finite ever be used in satisfactorily proving the infinite?
A Christian leader must prepare himself to answer by sound argument and by right living serious skepticism and agnosticism about religious knowledge that transcends sense perception and its derivatives. Is reason, at its best, able to exceed its components, or does it only appear to exceed them?
A severe critic of idealism asks penetrating questions. For illustration: How can a person establish as fact his knowledge of ethical principles? How does he know that this is a moral universe? How can he distinguish between faith and reason? What is his evidence of personal immortality? How can he show that prayer is more than personal therapy? One has noble urges, magnificent ideas, great convictions, and unselfish devotions. Are they only the product of psychological experience, or do they arise from a spiritual entity in man that enables him, through the medium of his mind, to become aware of an infinite spiritual reality, God, the human soul, and moral law?
C. PROBLEMS OF GOOD AND EVIL
In a letter to the Romans, Paul makes this revealing statement: "For the good that I would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do." We ourselves do evil when we know better, but can we explain why? How is it that man is, within himself, so contradictory? His own nature--mind, will, personality, practices--is in such conflict with itself that often a man appears to be a multiple personality. We often quickly and freely place the blame on Adam, heredity, environment, and the Devil, usually because we want a convenient scapegoat. What actually is the seat of inner confusion and turmoil?
Why is it the good suffer, and the evil prosper? Why is it that man seems to be caught between continuously grinding upper and lower millstones? Is it some power--good or evil--that made those stones, placed man between, and grinds him throughout life--perhaps forever? Is there any human will, any freedom, any possible escape, any source of divine love and mercy and salvation?...This form of inner conflict is as old as human history. For example, in religious history the Book of Job, at length and with profound insight, portrays a man inwardly tortured by his lack of understanding and his desire to understand. Job''s problem was not that of loss of property, of family, and of health; his conflict was that age-old plaintive cry of the human heart itself: Why? Why? Why has this happened? Even, Why has God let this happen?
D. PROBLEMS OF FAITH
How can a person know God? How can a man, restless as he is, find the supreme ideal in which he will have full and enduring peace?
How can a person know spiritual reality? For example, how can one know that the soul is immortal? How can a man know that he is a soul? How can one know that there is a God? How can a person know the reality of moral law and therefore know that there are the enduring principles of right, justice, temperance, love? How can one know that there is a divine plan for his life to which his life must conform? No man has ever seen God, a soul, immortality, or an ethical principle. Such forms of reality do not come within the realm of sense perception or any other form of rational observation, nor can any empirical field prove their history. I do not understand that history, logic, and science either prove or disprove them, nor is it clear to me that any human device, however fine, can establish their existence.
Read Tributes from students of A.C. Reid
More about A.C. Reid
|
Read more about our Endowed Fellowships:
Rhena Schweitzer Miller
A.C. Reid
Antje Lemke
Mark L. Wolf
|