True Believers and Critical Thinkers

I define true believers as those whose religious faith has resolved all existential questions about life and provided a rationale for living in this world and that to come (if such there be). They neither challenge what they are told, nor any longer seriously ponder life’s verities, making adjustments where old beliefs are found to be lacking. There are other definitions of what constitutes being a true believer.¹

            A critical thinker, on the other hand, is one who constantly ponders and probes and for whom nothing is ever finally resolved, particularly life’s verities.²

One example of a critical thinker is found in Plato’s description of Socrates, who, claiming ignorance, spent his time asking questions and probing others as to their opinions and views of virtue [aretē], and pointing out inconsistencies in the views held by others. He was tried for “impiety” and “corrupting the minds of the young,” convicted, and sentenced to death. In his final address to the court, he observed:

Perhaps someone may say ‘But surely, Socrates after you have left us you can spend the rest of your life in quietly minding your own business.’ This is the hardest thing of all to make some of you understand. If I say that this would be disobedience to God, and that is why I cannot ‘mind my own business,’ you will not believe I am serious. If on the other hand I tell you to let no day pass without discussing goodness [aretē] and all the other subjects about which you hear me talking and examining both myself and others is really the very best thing a man can do, and that life without this sort of communication is not worth living, you will be even less inclined to believe me. Nevertheless that is how it is, Gentlemen, as I maintain; though it is not easy to convince you of it.³

“Discussing goodness…and examining myself and others is really the very best thing a man can do, and that life without this sort of communication is not worth living.” Is it true do you suppose, that life is not worth living unless one constantly probes oneself and others about goodness/virtue/excellence?

            The Apostle Paul apparently seemed to think so, although I would hardly call him a critical thinker, as I have defined it in this essay. At the very least, however, he seemed to share with Socrates the idea of virtue or excellence in life and recommended that one ponder (logizesthe) those things that are characterized by aretē (Phil 4:8).⁴

            And what about the rest of us, where do we fall on the spectrum: true believer—critical thinker? Hopefully, we might be found somewhere near the middle of the spectrum, at least. There, we have found ways to share in some religious beliefs of a particular gathering of believers, but have not yet surrendered our critical thinking skills. If that is where you find yourself, some things about the faith of the Christian Church must make you mighty uncomfortable. For example, what the church teaches about a Trinity comprised of three divine figures: God, the Father; Jesus, a human being confessed as the Son of God; and the Holy Spirit. These three figures, kept distinct in the New Testament, are finally declared to be one figure, a divine God Head as early as the fourth century.⁵ Nevertheless, if you think about it, three distinct entities cannot in actuality be/become one, although, true enough, they may be regarded as being one. For example, a sponge, a brush, and a rag are regarded as tools for cleaning, but they remain in themselves three distinct entities. Critical thinkers either find ways to finesse that particular dogma of the church, or try to quit thinking about it.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_believer

²https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking

³Plato, The Last Days of Plato: Euthyphro, The Apology, Crito, Phaedo (translated by Hugh Tredennick; England: Penguin Books, 1969), 73–74. The Greek word aretē is translated into English by several words, for example, goodness, virtue, excellence, etc.

⁴See John M. Dillon, “Platonism” in The Anchor Bibe Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 5:381: “Platonism is thus the single greatest outside intellectual influence on Christianity in its formative stages.”

⁵http://blog.charleshedrick.com/search?q=trinity

What is a Miracle?

According to the dictionary, the word miracle is a term that is applied by some to certain events or experiences: “1. an event or action that apparently contradicts known scientific laws and is hence thought to be due to supernatural causes, esp[ecially] to an act of God; 2. a remarkable event or thing; marvel; 3. a wonderful example [of something].”¹ To which a fourth definition must be added:  an event or action that apparently contradicts known scientific laws and the cause of which is unknown. This fourth definition is required because there are those who do not believe either in the supernatural or God. For such persons a miracle is a natural occurrence for which there is, as yet, no known explanation.

            What these observations mean is that a marvel or a wonder, or an out-of-the-ordinary experience is supernaturally caused (by God) only if you think it is. If you do not credit God with being the cause, it is not a miracle. In that case it becomes only an unexplained phenomenon. The situation is something similar to What Jesus experienced in Mark 6:5-6:

And he [Jesus] could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands upon a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief.

It is a believer’s faith that turns a remarkable thing into a miracle by giving God the credit. Otherwise, it remains a remarkable thing with an as yet unknown cause.

Today, miracles are generally regarded either as positive supernatural acts and deeds done by God, or simply unexplained positive phenomena; hence, a miracle is a wonder or marvel that produces wonderment, astonishment, and awe in those who experience or observe them, leading them to ponder what they have experienced or seen. A negative event or action that seems to defy explanation is generally regarded as a calamity, tragedy, catastrophe, or natural disaster. Yet, for believers, even these tragic calamities are regarded as miracles and attributed to supernatural causes on the grounds that the biblical writers represent God as using the considerable forces of nature to punish the enemies of Israel.² So, in the rhetoric of the religious believer, both gracious and also cruel acts are attributed to a supernatural God. In sum: to describe something as miraculous does not make it an act of God, it only means that one regards it as such.

The word “miracle” is from the Latin, miraculum. It is derived from the verb miror, which translates into English as “to wonder, marvel, be astonished, be amazed, admire.”³ The Latin Vulgate (dated around 400 C. E.), however, does not use the word miraculum to designate a marvelous thing as a supernatural act by God. Such supernatural agency is common in later patristic literature and theology. “In the Vulgate the Gr[eek] words rendered ‘miracle’ in the English Bible…are translated respectively by signum (sign), prodigium (prodigy), and virtus (power).”⁴ Furthermore, the Greek English Lexicon by Liddell, Scott, and Jones (LSJ) does not employ “miracle” as a translation of the Greek word thauma, even though LSJ covers the New Testament period. In the rhetoric of the LSJ, thauma is translated, with respect to things or events, as a wonder or marvel and, with respect to one’s reaction to a wonder or marvel, as wonder or astonishment.⁵ And neither does Bauer’s German Greek-Deutsch Lexicon use “mirakel (miracle)” as a translation of thauma.⁶ But in the English translations of Bauer’s lexicon, however, one does find the English word “miracle” added to Bauer’s translations of thauma.⁷ LSJ challenges the English translations of Bauer’s lexicon where translators have added “miracle” as a translation of thauma. Apparently, even in academia, a wonder can become a miracle by the stroke of a pen.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Michael Agnes, Ed. in Chief, Webster’s New World College Dictionary (4^th ed; 2002), under miracle.

²For example, the author of Exodus portrays God using a plague to destroy the animals of the Egyptians (Exod (9:1-7), and hail to destroy their crops (Exod 9:13-32).

³C. T. Lewis, A Latin Dictionary for Schools (Oxford: Clarendon, 1964), 634.

⁴James Murray, primary and founding ed., The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 486.

⁵Henry G. Liddell, Robert Scott, compilers, A Greek-English Lexicon (rev. and augmented by Henry S. Jones and Roderick McKenzie; 9^th ed.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1940), 785.

⁶Griechich-Deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neues Testaments und der ϋbrigen urchristlichen Literature (4^th ed. 1952).

⁷W. Bauer, W. F Arndt, and F. W. Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, (a translation of Bauer’s 4^th ed., 1957). The 2^nd edition of the English translation, 1979 by F. W. Gingrich and F. W. Danker (a translation of Bauer’s 5^th ed.). The 3^rd edition of the English translation, 2000 by F. W. Danker (a translation of Bauer’s 6^th ed.).