The Existential Cry
CRIES OF THE HEART, Bringing God Near When He Feels So Far; Word, 1998
In Cries Of The Heart Ravi writes what he calls an existential apologetic, speaking of the cries
of the human heart and how they are heard and met by God.
Skipping ahead in the
book…,
“The Cry for Freedom in Pleasure” is for me the best chapter
in the book. I was struck by the reference to The Screwtape Letters where the novice gives as a reason why his
target has been converted that he took a walk for the purest pleasure of it and
he read a good book, not to quote it but to enjoy it, and the walk and “between
the walk and the good book, he came within the Enemy’s reach.” The pure joy and
pleasure of God is so strongly contrasted to the overwhelming drive for fun of
our day. Zacharias so powerfully references Neil Postman who contrasts Aldous
Huxley and George Orwell on what will destroy western society, Postman sums up
this contrast by noting: “[W]hat Orwell feared were those who would ban books.
What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book…” (p. 125).
So, joy is joy when it is grounded in meaning, and being grounded in meaning
creates natural parameters for true joy, as opposed to joy that is in effect
non-joy, or anti-joy, because it is evil. Zacharias points out these parameters
as Anything that refreshes you without
diminishing you, distracting you, or destroying the ultimate goal is a
legitimate pleasure in life; Any
pleasure that jeopardizes the sacred right of another is an illicit pleasure;
any pleasure, however good, if not kept in balance, will distort reality or
destroy appetite. This from the words of the wise Suzanna Wesley spoken to
her young son John. Ravi ends the chapter by reminding us of the truth that
those of us who might struggle to feel our faith need to be reminded of, the
truth of Psalm 147:11, that God takes pleasure in us.
And, WONDER
Recapture the Wonder, Integrity Publishers, 2003
Here Ravi speaks of the awareness that people have, that
each of us seems to have, that the world is bigger than we think, that it is
full of something that we cannot comprehend fully. Frequently through the book
he references C. S. Lewis who touched on this theme again and again. He begins
with the quotation: “All philosophy begins with wonder” and proceeds from there
to unpack wonder as it surprises us, not only as we interact with creation, but
as we contemplate the story of our own life, a story which we misguidedly try
to discover in sensual pleasure. Instead he tells us to contemplate our story as
it is in truth, a story found in the Bible, a story full of wonder, the story of
God coming to us to save us through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
And EVIL
No apologetic will have any traction
if it does not face evil head on. I can say that Ravi has been facing evil, not
as an abstraction, but as the fountainhead of human suffering his entire
career. Sometimes he seems to feel compelled to shake his audiences into
awareness of the dimensions of suffering and its ramifications for our belief
in a nice God.
Deliver Us From Evil, Restoring the Soul in a Disintegrating Culture. Word,
1996.
Perhaps the key to this work is Ravi’s exploration of evil
in chapter 12 and the relation of God, redemption in Jesus Christ in chapters
13. Interestingly he begins with a story
of being mugged in Moscow and how leadership in Moscow later said to him: “We
have no hope to give our young people. They have a purposeless existence. Can
you help us?” This story so poignantly brings forth the cry to be delivered
from evil.
Ravi brilliantly characterizes evil as irrational,
reflecting Berkouwer who clearly pointed out that if a rational reason could be
given for sin it would not be sin, for by its nature sin is irrational. Ravi
pushes on, as he frequently does, to the existential, speaking of the banality
of evil, highlighted by Adolf Eichmann, showing that not only is evil not
rational and therefore cannot be explained psychologically, but that the human
spirit recoils at its banality and any attempt at trivializing it. And then he
builds a case for facing evil as a reality and not merely a convention of
thought or a cultural perspective. Wickedness is a fact, and as a fact we
properly feel revulsion when faced with it.
Ravi is breaking ground here by building a case from
subjectivity. Subjectivity can be attacked, and he himself will on occasion
attack it. But, he senses that the revulsion against evil is so universal that
it testifies to evil as something beyond social convention. Ravi recounts a
conversation in which he said: “How incongruous it is, even by your own
philosophy, that while denying the fact of evil you are unable to completely
shake off the feeling. “[F]or even you, sir, said you would not like it [an
example of witnessing the murder of an infant.“
Facing evil with no answers Ravi turns us toward the cross.
Through the cross the soul can be recovered.
To be continued .......
