IS REVELATION OPPOSED TO REASON?
It is remarkable how few words we’ve read, and yet how vast the topics they touch upon, topics directly applicable to our present day.
So far, we’ve seen how Daniel’s view of the world differs radically from that of the Babylonians, and how these two different views exist today.
Today, we come across another set of clashes.
Notice in this episode, Nebuchadnezzar’s priests. These men who are intermediaries for the gods, don’t believe the gods reveal themselves to humans. In verse 11 we read,
“The thing that the king asks is difficult, and no one can show it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.”
Said more pointedly, “Dear king, the gods don’t talk to us.” These so-called priests think the way our modern-day skeptics think. Their view? That we interact with the world that we can see, touch, etc., the natural world. If there is a super-natural world, the gods of that world certainly do not reveal themselves to people.
How locked into this idea are they? They are facing death and won’t change their thinking.
But there is another point in this section of Scripture that is even more powerfully afoot in our own world.
It is a point around the ideas of revelation and reason.
Today there is a false narrative around these two factors.
A false narrative is basically a story that is told over and over, a false story. The problem is that people ultimately begin to believe it. False narratives are very powerful.
You might recall how we looked, in two successive posts, about another false narrative.
The narrative regarding the idea of faith and evidence, and the idea around evidence and belief.
We noted how similar people of science and people of faith really are regards evidence, reason, and how they come to the conclusions. Yet today’s narrative (a false one) leads most people to naturally conclude that people of faith are anything but reasonable, yet alone scientific.
Yet there is another false narrative, as ubiquitous as the air we breathe. It is the false narrative that we are either people of reason, or foolishly superstitious people relying on revelation.
This narrative sets reason against revelation. Yet consider how they are not even in the same category.
We constantly use our reason, after something is revealed to us. Consider how after someone gives us information, how we then use reason to sort it out. Detectives do it, scientists do it, and parents do it—all the time. Daniel will use his reason, after, he hears from God.
We don’t reason our way around the world without information being revealed to us.
Yet, if this false narrative takes hold of us, we will think that to pursue revelation is to abandon our reason; especially revelation from God.
How do you think about God’s revelation in your world?