By T.C. Lo (盧天賜); May 18, 2012
After I moved to the Bay Area, California and started my career in the field of semiconductor in 1970, I met new friends who happened to be PhDs. But few of them had influences on me in a strange way. Not because they said something to me but because of the mere fact that they were Christians. I said to myself, “Christians? These are highly educated people and some of them even held high management positions in the companies, they could not have been that stupid.” At their gentle persuasion, I went to their church; I listened to the sermons. But so many things I didn’t understand, the interesting thing was that the part which I understood did make sense to me. I had tons of questions and I argued angrily with those church people. But they kindly explained to me with patience. I thought I was a trouble maker but they didn’t seem to mind. I began to do some study myself—-not the Bible, because I didn’t understand it no matter how hard I tried—-but other books either defending or accusing the belief of Christianity. I was extremely puzzled by the fact that if Christianity was so right and it was so convincing, how come so many intellectuals denied the existence of God? This question remained for a long time. Another question which bothered me a great deal was: If there is a God, and this loving God is willing to reveal himself to people, why has God made it so difficult to see his presence. Through thinking these questions, I came to the persuasion that one must comes to a conviction (on anything not just religion things) through one or two or all these three levels and in different combinations of sequences.
Level 1 is the theoretical level. That is to look at problems from logical and philosophical perspectives. This level has no short cut but requires tremendous hard work. Some people could bypass it but I couldn’t because I was trained as an engineer-scientist in my whole life. I paid attention at this level all the way before and after I have become a Christian. The effort is intensified after my retirement because I have tremendous interest in studying it. There have been so many difficult problems that bother me. Just to name one: Since evil and suffering exist, a loving God cannot. How do I justify this claim? Problems of this kind have been tackled by philosophers of different worldviews, how do I know that the answer offered by the Christian worldview is right? If you are looking for inexhaustible information, you can never believe in anything. My pursuit leads me to come up with an illustration:
When I played jigsaw puzzles, I start from the corner and build my way in. Soon I was able to construct a fairly successful domain. As I kept on placing pieces to complete the picture, I might suddenly see an opportunity in the middle and I began to build domain there. Pretty soon, I had many unconnected locally successful domains strewn all over an incomplete picture. Now, here is the point. If all jigsaw pieces that I placed were indeed in their rightful positions, eventually all successful local domains could join together. However, if some pieces were not in their supposed places, I could never be able to complete the whole picture because incoherence got in the way. I could have many successful local domains but I couldn’t have a completely successful picture.
This is exactly the case with evolution. Each scientist has his own locally successful (logically explainable) domain built from his special field, but not all domains could cohere with one another. This is why the evolutionists keep arguing among themselves every time when new evidences emerge. Interestingly, they never dare to argue with Darwin himself. But on the other hand, the explanations offered from the biblical worldview are always coherent. Admittedly, Christians too may not be able to complete the entire jigsaw picture, i.e. may not have the answer totally satisfactory to the human mind. Same thing can be said with atheists. But every time when a new jigsaw piece is added (that means new evidence—-scientific, archaeological, or historical—is discovered), the Christian worldview can only make the picture more complete but never reveal incoherence among the already successful domains. This is amazing. The reasonable explanation is that those pieces are in their right positions of the pre-designed picture when their placement is guided by the Scripture. No one can complete the picture, but one has stronger explanation power than all others. This may be the way we look at things.
Level 2 is the art and culture level such as music or paintings or social media. They are the most influential factors in shaping the thoughts of the masses. I had so many intellectual friends who truly believe in Evolution. But when I probed them with critical questions, I discovered that I knew revolution more than they did. But why then they believed? I believe it is the art of the cultural. The mentality is that if the entire society is going this way, how can it be wrong? I confronted few biology PhD friends of mine and asked each one some pivotal questions, their answers often were “This was not my field; I am very sure someone in other areas will have answer for you.” So each one assumes some big guns out there have answer and they are confident of their credentials. Today, the academic arena is so specialized; a PhD is not really a “Broad Scholar” as the Chinese word (博士) suggests but a Specialist. Another thing is that if evolution is so fundamental, I wonder why there is no school in university called “ School of Evolution”? We have school of “Physics”, school of “Music”, school of “Public Policy” and so forth, but not school of “Evolution”. Yet the inference of evolution is everywhere. Most people have never read <The Origin of Species> but they are loud and clear in buying in the concept because the whole society think it is right. Their thoughts have been shaped by the arts and cultures of the social mood. After I have become a Christian, I firmly believe that Christians can and should use arts of all sort as instruments to spread the Gospel. This is the right way to use art, not merely as a pastime.
Level 3 is “Kitchen Table” level. My grand children (when they were 3 and 5) believe in Christ because their parents (my daughter and son-in-law) are Christians. One may ask, is this brain wash? I think not. Brain wash is something you know that is wrong and you repeatedly bombard people so that they become confused and come to go along with you. I am sure you agree that asking your kids to memorize the Multiplication Table is not brain wash. Keep telling them to study hard is not brain wash. We did that because we parents believe that the Multiplication Table is true and education is important. My children’s worldview were shaped through my endless conversations and Q-and-A’s with them during dinner times and driving times.The most alarming thing is that, we adults too, are influenced by the media from everywhere within our society.
As for me, I became a Christian through the process of Level One first and then triggered by Level Two. Other people may come to Christianity through different levels as entry-points and in different sequences.
In Summary,
- Level one—-supported by logic
- Level two—-based on feeling inspired by arts and cultures
- Level three—-instilled basically by parents.
This Three-Level framework of thinking was philosophized by Ravi Zacharias, for example, in his book “The Real Face of Atheism”, pp.170-171. Once pointed out, it looks self-evident! Frankly, during my faith journey, I knew nothing about these three-level concept; what I am writing here is an after-thought.
Having gone to my San Jose church for a while, I had arrived at the stage of intellectual consent. However, my heart was not ready to commit my life to Jesus. The gap between my head and my heart was still unbridgeable. But not until the spring of 1977, something had happened. For several weeks, the church I went to kept on singing two hymns during worship time: one was titled “The Old Rugged Cross” and the other one, “How Great Thou Art”. When I head these two hymns, for reasons unknown to me, my heart burned within me and my eyes were moisten with tears, I felt a waft of heat wave slowly rained down from my head to toes. I tried to hide my emotion from my wife who stood beside me. This experience lasted for few consecutive Sundays. Was that not the moving of the the Holy Spirit that I had heard many times through many sermons? The chasm between my heart and my soul was closed. Finally, on the Easter of 1977, I decided to be baptized and I felt I had become a changed man. This was my journey of pilgrimage.
對基督教信仰的內容，我巳到達頭腦同意的地步，但內心卻沒有委身交託的感動。到了1977年初，不知為甚麽，教會崇拜都唱「古老十架」和「祢真偉大」這兩首詩歌，持續數週之久。每當唱這詩歌，我都流涙，我盡力不讓站在我身旁的妻子知道。有時我感到一股熱氣從頭上慢慢降至腳跟，數週如此。我自問，「這是不是牧師所講的聖靈感動呢？」我終於在數週後的復活節受洗歸入主名。這就是我走上永生道路的開始。
Also refer to another article in this blog “我為甚麼不信佛教”, January 21, 2012.
