December 6 Daily Devotional

Here the fair tree of knowledge grows,
And yields a free repast;
Sublimer sweets than nature knows
Invite the longing taste

The Bible is quite explicit in saying that there is only one way of arriving at a knowledge of ultimate truth, and that is to accept the revelation which is given in the Bible. The Bible is truth given by God.... Someone may ask, ‘But is not this intellectual suicide?’ The answer is that it is not. It is the following-out of what Pascal says about the supreme achievement of reason and the limit to reason.... Once we have done this, once we submit to the revelation ... once I have seen the truth as the result of the operation of the Holy Spirit on my mind (and I can do nothing without that), then I begin to use my reason in a manner that 1 have never been capable of before. I now use it at full stretch, and I begin to see reason and meaning in everything.

This is not theory; it is something which can be illustrated in practice. Take the Apostle Paul, for example, and read his epistles. Nothing strikes you so much as the element of reason, and logic, and argument, and his mighty grasp of truth ... you do not reason yourself into truth, you come into truth by accepting the revelation; but then you begin to reason and to understand and to possess. Consider men like Paul, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Pascal again, and others. These are some of the giant intellects of the centuries, and they are giants because they had the wisdom to see how far reason could take them, and then to submit themselves to the revelation. They were lifted up and enlightened by the Spirit of God, and their minds and gigantic reasoning powers then began to demonstrate themselves.... It is only in the light of the teaching of the Bible that I really understand myself.... Here alone do I see any real meaning in life. Here alone am I given any teaching in respect to death. Here I have an understanding of history—the meaning of history, the goal of history, the end of history, it is all here.

The Approach to Truth: Scientific and Religious, pp. 23–5