Day 38 – outside help
The direct inference from black to white…staggers belief. –C. S. LEWIS
To begin the next argument, imagine with me a person blind since birth who has lived his entire life alone on a island. Left there as an infant, he has never heard that light exists and has never seen one glimmer of it. As far as he is concerned, the world is complete darkness upon which is superimposed a mixture of sounds, smells, and sensations. This man, having no idea that light exists, does not long for it one bit. He assumes that darkness is ultimate reality. He has no reason to assume otherwise.
Now answer this question: is it possible for this man, unless he has outside help, to begin to believe in the existence of light? The answer is obvious. It is not possible without such help, because the concept of light is completely foreign to his view of the world. He has no idea that light exists, is not looking for it, and cannot perceive it. The only way he can come to know about it is to be told it is there. Perhaps a boat lands one day on his island and its passengers tell him of a world he never dreamed of, the world of visual perception—rainbows and sunsets, moonlight and stars, reflections of others in the sun's glow and of himself in the water's surface. Or perhaps he is somehow made aware of light by a bird or monkey or some other animal. The point remains the same. This man begins to believe in light only because the seed of awareness has been planted within him from an outside source.
Although hypothetical, this picture of a blind man completely unaware of the existence of light is easy to grasp. It is likewise easy to see that unless he has outside help, light would never enter his mind. Without such help, light could be all around him in its most radiant and awe-inspiring forms, and he would remain oblivious to it. He would not sense it, desire it, or seek it. Neither would we, were we placed in the same predicament.
The relevance of this to our discussion of God's existence is enormous and will be explained in the days ahead. Before turning the page, however, I would ask you to review today's illustration once more to make sure that you understand it and accept it as true.
Daily Quotation
C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 15.
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