The Problem of Life

(This article was originally published for Fool's Talk, a print publication and corresponding blog. Read it at https://foolstalk.wordpress.com/2015/11/13/the-problem-of-life/.)

A Glimpse of the Human Soul

Give me a minute to burst your bubble.

Futility. Inadequacy. You probably know what it feels like. When you think about where your life will go after you leave the Hillsdale bubble, you wonder if you’ll make it. You see who you are now and you see who you want to become, but you know that there’s a lot that lies in your way. The question is whether or not you’ll be able to overcome the obstacles.

You know that your life is up to you—that it all boils down to you and your choices. Don’t mess it up, the world reminds you, because you’ve only got one chance to get it right.

At the same time, though, you see that life is pain. There’s so much wrong with the world that you’re not sure you even want to be here. Whenever you take just a minute to listen, you hear the screams of your fellow men. You recognize that your species is not as almighty and beneficent as it seems.

But then, you turn your eyes to the realm of the miraculous. You sense the truth of design—that man cannot be the measure of all things. Life is pain, you acknowledge. But you cannot fail to notice the desire for freedom from that pain. Something about human existence proclaims a marvelous origin and a beautiful purpose. When you recognize this, you get a glimpse of the human soul, and you begin your search for the answer to the mystery of human existence. You begin your search for the thing that can solve the problem of life and dispel your feelings of futility and inadequacy.

If you look in the right place, you’ll find that the thing you’re searching for definitely is, quite literally, out of this world.

Whittaker Chambers and the Crisis of the Western World

In the introduction to his autobiography Witness entitled “Letter to My Children,” Whittaker Chambers wrote, “The crisis of the Western world exists to the degree in which it is indifferent to God.” As a former member of the Communist Party, Chambers himself knew the Communist faith from the inside out. This faith rests on the belief in almighty man. It ignores the reality of the soul, ultimately leading to futility and bondage. Chambers was—what he calls—a “witness” to the Communist faith. “A witness,” he writes, “is a man whose life and faith are so completely one that when the challenge comes to step out and testify for his faith, he does so, disregarding all risks, accepting all consequences.” This faith gave Chambers “a reason to live and a reason to die.”

Yet, something was missing. His indifference to God left him without an explanation for the truth of design and the reality of the soul—the human desire for something beyond the pain and struggle of life. At the moment when Chambers first recognized the immense beauty and intricacy in the delicate features of his own child, “the finger of God was first laid upon [his] forehead.” He may have been free from God under the Communist faith, but this freedom from God imprisoned him to everything else. Chambers explains, “Communism is what happens when, in the name of Mind, men free themselves from God. But its view of God, its knowledge of God, its experience of God, is what alone gives character to a society or a nation, and meaning to its destiny.” Without God, Chambers found that he had no meaning. He had no hope.

When he turned to the faith of Christianity, however, he became a witness “to God’s grace and to the fortifying power of faith.” He still knew the truth that we all recognize today—the truth that, as he wrote, “life is pain” and that “each of us hangs always upon the cross of himself.” But he also knew that no level of faith in the strength of almighty man could free mankind from that cross or release humanity from the life of pain. He knew that “true wisdom comes from the overcoming of suffering and sin.” Therefore, as Chambers concluded, the man-centered wisdom of the Communist faith is no wisdom at all.

Overcoming suffering and sin in order to attain true wisdom requires something greater than the mind of man. And, in his letter, Chambers leads his children to the place where he believes this freedom can be found. “If I have led you aright,” he says, “you will make out three crosses, from two of which hang thieves. I will have brought you to Golgotha—the place of the skulls. This is the meaning of the journey…. When you understand what you see, you will no longer be children. You will know that life is pain, that each of us hangs always upon the cross of himself. And when you know that this is true of every man, woman, and child on earth, you will be wise.”

Wisdom in Ridiculous Garb

That wisdom is considered foolishness among men. In the eyes of the world, there is no greater foolishness than to accept the tall tale of a God-become-man who poured himself out at the place of the skulls so that the world could find freedom from the life of pain.

But that’s how it’s supposed to be. “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God…. For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe” (1 Corinthians 1:18, 21).

With man alone and the things he has designed, we’ll all reach a point when the only thing we know is disillusionment—when our faith in our fellows can no longer hold water. So, if the soul cannot be satisfied in a world in which man is the measure of all things, then it must need the sort of wisdom that transcends the finite—the wisdom of an infinite God, disguised and hidden among the foolish things of the world.

Now here’s the question: will we accept this foolishness and find freedom? Or will we cling to the wisdom of man that offers no liberty for the human soul?

I, like Chambers, have sensed the futility and inadequacy of a life without God. With myself and my fellow men alone, there’s no freedom for the soul— no place for the “reverence and awe for life and the world” that Chambers prescribes so earnestly. Alone, we are weak and inadequate. There is no beauty in our lives of pain.

But, also like Chambers, I have encountered a scrap of soul. I have met the One who can bring freedom to that soul. Christ is the thing that completes human existence, and I have tasted the fullness that he brings. I have become his witness. I am a witness to God’s grace and to his incredible ability to take the entire person and give the entire person meaning.

In the eyes of the world, this is the talk of fools. But this wisdom has overcome the world. It may be disguised in ridiculous garb, but this wisdom— the truth of Christ—has given me a reason to live and a reason to die. In Christ, my life is no longer futile. With him, I am not inadequate.