Senses make sense

Once upon a time, in the Land of Disbelief, came a third argument believers are called to defend: “The reliability of sense perception.” Those opposed to this ideal basically believe they cannot really trust causal relationships (cause and effect) to explain certain aspects of reality (such as the existence of God) because perceptions can’t be trusted. What hogwash! And here’s why…

In this Land of Disbelief there lived a misled fellow by name of David Hume. Hume argued that we cannot determine precisely a cause of a particular effect. He was also attempting to show that we can’t use reason or our senses to perceive causality. He believed we cannot actually see causal relationships, only events that transpire in a sequence.

This is like arguing whether rain is the cause of wet grass. The problem with Hume’s theory is that in later generations other misled children (atheists) misconstrued his belief to argue that nothing causes an event. To this day, this argument is always found in modern attempts to deny the existence of God. Those who deny causality usually replace it with some notion of “chance.”

Enters our hero… Immanuel Kant. Kant spent his entire career striving to prove the validity of causal relationships and the basic reliability of sense perception. Kant rightly discerned that if these formative principals were demolished, all knowledge would be unattainable. He argued convincingly: If the senses are not reliable, it is not just Christian theism that falls, science collapses as well.

R.C. Sproul, in his book “Defending Faith,” explains: “The basic reliability of our senses is nonnegotiable for modern science just as it is for biblical theologians. Peter assumes the same when he writes about the truth of the Messiah’s coming: ‘For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by Majestic Glory, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,’ we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on that holy mountain.” (2 Peter 1:16-18, emphasis added)

Sproul continues by stating: “Notice that the basic reliability of sense perception, the law of causality, and the law of noncontradiction are all assumed in this passage. If the senses were not reliable, why would Peter use his witnessing the events (both visually and audibly) as evidence for Christ? If causal relationships were not assumed, how could Christ have ‘received honor and glory’ (an effect) from the voice (a cause)?”

The absolute problem with not giving God glory and not accepting Him as the Ruler and King of our lives, according to Michael Casey, is that: “Created in the image and likeness of God, there remains even in the human being deformed by sin, a sufficient residue of that original integrity to trigger in us a desire for the God whom we cannot find in the world of the senses. By nature we are God-seekers. Our heart’s desire finds fulfillment only in God. It follows that if I build God out of my life there is a profound aspect of my being that has been forced into dormancy.”