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Inside Out

Years back, I lectured to a capacity crowd at theUniversity of California at Berkeley. I made the caseagainst moral relativism simply by pointing out how everyday of our lives we each encounter—and ultimately violate—genuine, deep morality.

This discovery, I noted to the audience, had explanatorypower since it accounts for something else we all know—the personal feelings of guilt each of us experiences. ThenI asked the question I pose frequently to groups like that:“Why do we all feel guilty? Maybe guilt is just a culturalconstruction,” I offered. “But here’s another possibility.Maybe we feel guilty…because we are guilty. Is thatoption in the running?”

You may think this a bold stroke, but there was no risk forme at all. I have asked this question many times ofaudiences, and no one has ever stopped me afterward andtold me they never experienced guilt. They knew better.More to the point for this tactic, I knew better.

Even though I had never met a single one of them beforethat night, there was something I knew to be true for eachof them on the inside that they couldn’t keep fromrevealing on the outside—and they knew it, too. Thatinsight is at the heart of a maneuver I want to introduceyou to that has served me well for years.

The Inside Out tactic is not so much a specific maneuveras a frame of mind, an insight to help you maneuverconfidently—even creatively, sometimes—inconversations. In a sense, you have inside information onothers that they will eventually acknowledge, sometimesunwittingly, if you just pay attention.

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Greg Koukl

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PUBLISHEDFri, 11/01/2019 -00:00

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A perfect example came from one of atheism’s mostcolorful apologists, Richard Dawkins. According to hisnaturalistic worldview, morality is just a relativistic trickof evolution to get our selfish genes into the nextgeneration. Nothing more—“no design, no purpose, noevil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”[1]

Yet at another time he railed against the God of the OldTestament as a vindictive, bloodthirsty, homophobic,racist, genocidal, sadomasochistic, malevolent bully.[2]

Do you see the problem? This is not Dawkins’s naturalismspeaking. Instead, it’s his commonsense moral realismdoing the talking. His protest makes no sense in hisminimalist molecules-in-motion world but is perfectlyconsistent with the world that actually exists—God’sworld.[3]

Notice here that there is something true on the inside forDawkins—something he knows—that he cannot help butdisplay on the outside in unguarded moments. When he’sdefending his philosophical turf, he tells the lie. When hisguard is down, his humanity betrays him and he tells thetruth in spite of himself.

Why does this happen?

Mannishness

The Inside Out tactic is based on an insight I learned fromthe late Francis Schaeffer that has helped me navigatemore confidently in conversations with others aboutChrist. He called it the “mannishness of man.” Strangephrase, agreed, but a provocative notion, nonetheless.

Schaeffer’s insight is tied to this question: What does itmean to be human? Here is one answer, the response ofnaturalism—the worldview currently governing science.According to pop “Science Guy,” Bill Nye, we’re just “aspeck, on a speck, orbiting a speck, among otherspecks.”[4] “We emerged from microbes and muck,” CarlSagan declared. “We find ourselves in bottomless freefall…lost in a great darkness, and there’s no one to sendout a search party.”[5]

And they are right, of course, in a world without God.Humans are nothing but cogs in the celestial machine,cosmic junk, the ultimate unplanned pregnancy, left to

build our lonely lives on the “firm foundation ofunyielding despair,” as atheist philosopher BertrandRussell put it. Nihilism—bleak “nothing-ism.”

Yet no one really believes this, not deep inside. Solomonsaid God has set eternity in our hearts.[6] There is abetter answer—a more accurate answer—to the question“What does it mean to be human?” And we all know it.

Simply put, in Schaeffer’s words, “Man is different fromnon-man.”[7] Human beings are special, unique, unlikeanything else in the created realm, “crowned with gloryand honor,” as David put it.[8] That is the “mannishnessof man.”

At the core of our beings lies a mark, an imprint of GodHimself—not on us, as if foreign and attached, but in us,as a natural feature built into our natures. This mark ispart of what makes us what we are, who we are. We wouldnot be humans without it, only creatures.

Sagan says we are cousins of apes.[9] That is MotherNature’s assessment, of course. Father says different.Because of this mark, we are not kin to apes. We are kinto the God who made us for Himself.

Because we all live in God’s world and are all made inGod’s image, there are things all people know that areembedded deep within their hearts—profound thingsabout our world and about ourselves—even though wedeny them or our worldviews disqualify them.

“That which is known about God,” Paul wrote, “is evidentwithin them; for God made it evident to them” (Rom.1:19). That which is already on the inside—put there byGod Himself—eventually shows itself on the outside—inactions, in language, and in convictions. Our“mannishness” cannot be suppressed.

This knowledge can make a big difference in ourconversations. Here is my tactical application of themannishness of man: The profound truths we all knowon the inside always eventually reveal themselves on theoutside. All you need to do is listen.

Sometimes the Inside Out factor reveals itself in unusualways.

Two Deaths

In the waning days of summer, 1997, two well-known andwell-loved women died within days of each other, but thepublic reaction to each death was radically different.Mother Teresa passed away peacefully at 87—her death aquiet conclusion to a noble life well lived. Princess Dianadied in her prime at 36—her death a tragic, “untimely”intrusion into a life filled with promise.

Why did so many react so differently to the same kind ofevent—a life ending, a human being dying? From onepoint of view—an atheistic, materialistic one—no one dies“before her time.” Death is death and arrives when itarrives. There is no timeliness for anything since there isno timetable—no schedule, no plan of how things aresupposed to be. Everything just is.

In a God-less universe where all meaning is of our ownmaking, what could it possibly mean to say someone diedan “untimely” death? It means that people know better. Itmeans they know life has ultimate purpose and deepsignificance that transcends private projects. In spite oftheir pontifications to the contrary, their mannishnessgives them away.

And there are lots of things like this, if you look for them.People endorse moral relativism for convenience but thenare mortified at the genuine evil that assails the world andstruggle with guilty consciences for their participation init. They deny conscious design in the universe butreflexively invoke the wonders of “Mother Nature” whenoverwhelmed by the magnificence of God’s world. Theydeny Father, so they praise Mother. Et cetera. Et cetera.

Understanding this Inside Out pattern provides apowerful technique to get someone thinking. “The truththat we let in first is not a dogmatic statement of the truthof the Scriptures,” Schaeffer wrote, “but the truth of theexternal world and the truth of what man himself is. Thisis what shows him his need. The Scriptures then showhim the real nature of his lostness and the answer toit.”[10]

Here’s how Schaeffer’s insight can be useful for us. Listento the way people talk. Watch for when—from their ownmouths—their acknowledgment of reality intrudes ontheir philosophies. Then exploit that tension by asking aquestion.

In a world without purpose, why is Princess Di’s death atragedy? If there is no ultimate, universal morality, howcan anything be really evil? Why try to talk someone outof a suicide? If there is no meaning to life, what’s thepoint?

Mother Teresa finished her course, and Princess Dianadid not. That is the victory and the tragedy of those eventsin the waning days of summer, 1997. But only becausethere is a divinely intended purpose—a noble end humanshave been designed for that sin, sadly, cuts short.

Broken

Here is another example—kin to the one above—of the“inside” truth finding its way to the “outside.” Everyoneknows something has gone terribly wrong with the world.We call it “the problem of evil,” and it prompts us to ask,“Why is there so much badness in the world?”

There is a wrinkle to this concern, though, another detaileach of us also knows. The world is broken, true enough.But we are broken, too. Though humans have inherentdignity, we are also cruel. The evil is “out there,” as itwere, but it is also “in here”—in us.

We are not machines that are malfunctioning, though. Weare not bodies that are ailing. We are subjects whorevolted, rebels who are now morally corrupted. We areguilty, and for this we must answer.

Again, each of us knows this deep down inside. It was theInside Out point I traded on in my Berkeley lecture. Weare the “others” doing those evil deeds we object to. Deepinside us is a gnawing awareness of our own badnessproducing a feeling we universally recognize: guilt.

In our moral wretchedness, we are also profoundly guilty.We owe. We are in debt, not to a standard, not to a rule,not to a law, but to a Person—to the One we haveoffended with our disobedience. And this is not goodnews, since our guilt has severe consequences.

Justice or Mercy

Each of us longs for justice. We speak of it often,especially when we’ve suffered injustice. That’s the insiderevealing itself on the outside again. Justice is notsatisfied in this life, though. It is satisfied in the next.

At the end of the Bible we find a dark passage.[11] It tellsof the final event of history as we know it, a great trial ona great plain where a great multitude of the accused—theguilty ones—stand before a judge. The books of death areopened, each of our moral lives laid bare for all mankindto see—the record in the books the basis for a finalreckoning, a last judgment.

Before the judge stand all the beautiful, broken, guiltyones, each shut up under sin.[12] Every mouth is alsoshut, each voice muted, silenced from any defensiveappeal or any excuse.[13] The record in the books speaksfor itself.

Here is Sagan’s “bottomless free fall”—mankind “lost in agreat darkness.” He is right about that, since we are allguilty, and no judge owes a pardon. Atonement must bemade. The debt must be paid. Justice must be perfect.

There is something else, though. I did not leave thestudents at Berkeley in despair, abandoned under theweight of blame we all share. “The answer to guilt is notdenial,” I told them. “That’s relativism. The answer toguilt,” I said, “is forgiveness. And this is where Jesuscomes in.”

I have made that point many times to audiences, andevery time I say those words something moves inside me.Forgiveness. Mercy. Repair. Restoration. Rebirth. Newlife. Hope. This is what each of our souls longs for.

Sagan is right when he says we are lost, but he is wrongwhen he says there is no one to send out a search party.Clearly, humans need rescuing, and we cannot rescueourselves. Help must come from the outside. Fromoutside of us. From outside of Sagan’s closed cosmos.From outside of this world.

And the search party has arrived. The Rescuer has come.He is the One who calls to us: “Come to me, all who areweary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest…for I amgentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yoursouls” (Matt. 11:28–29).

Our Restless Souls

Augustine of Hippo most famously described therestlessness of the human soul and also its proper place ofrepose. “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord,” he

wrote in his Confessions, “and our hearts are restless untilthey can find rest in You.”

I think it’s safe to say that this restlessness, this sense oflonging, this ineffable yearning to be filled—or maybeyearning to be fixed—is a universal human affliction, amalady that has nothing to do with our natural appetites,since satisfying them never sates the hunger of our hearts.

Two facts of the human condition lie at the heart of ourinescapable sense of longing. One is that we are broken.We’ve already spoken of that. The second is this: It hasn’talways been this way. There remains a remnant of formerbeauty the brokenness cannot efface, yet something hasgone missing that must be replaced. We feel a “sweetpain…a primal memory deep in our souls reminding us ofthe way the world started—good, wonderful, whole,complete.”[14]

We were made for something better, and we scrap andscrape to climb back up, to return to the heights. Thatstruggle is central to just about every film we have everseen and every story we have ever read. The “triumph ofthe human spirit,” they say—God’s image forcing its wayto the surface, to the outside. The exceptions, of course,are the dark, nihilistic yarns, the dystopian tales that tellthe lie that we are nothing.

Note the conflicting visions—the vision buried deep in ourhumanity, and the contrary vision flowing from theatheistic, nothing-ism view.

Atheism, of course, denies the guilt. It must. WithoutGood, there is no Bad. It also denies the beauty. Again, itmust. If no God, no guided design, only biologicalaccidents, physical parts stuck together without reason orpurpose—cosmic junk. Man is nothing and his life meansnothing. Atheism leaves us, once again, with naught.

No, our true longing is a hunger that atheism simplycannot satisfy, a thirst it cannot quench. Holly Ordwaywas an atheist who watched her soul suffer injury,corrupted by a belief that did not fit reality:

My atheism was eating into my heart like acid…. Icould not have explained the source of my ownrationality, nor of my conviction that there were suchthings as truth, beauty, and goodness. My worldviewremained satisfying to me only insofar as I refrainedfrom asking the really tough questions.[15]

Ordway was not drawn to God initially because of DNA,irreducible complexity, or the finely-tuned constants ofthe universe. Rather, she first saw God in John Keats,John Donne, and Gerard Manly Hopkins. In short, shewas alerted to God by beauty.

As an atheist, she had been dining on despair for years,and she was starving. “However satisfied I declaredmyself intellectually…atheism…was a terrible place tolive,” she realized. “It was the winter of my soul.”[16]

The thaw began when, as a newly-minted collegeprofessor, Ordway reread the canonical poets of Englishliterature and for the first time realized that the soul-satisfying beauty of their verse flowed naturally andnatively from their Christian view of the world—God’sworld:

I sensed something deeper in the poems I was reading.I could feel power thrumming in the lines of thepoems, an electricity of meaning, drawing from somesource beyond my reach.[17]

The world of Hopkins, Keats, and Donne was a worldwhere transcendent beauty made sense, where longingand hunger could be satisfied, where rising up from thefall was possible—a world where there was hope. Insideher, something moved—“My heart in hiding/Stirred…,”“...hope, wish day come…” (Hopkins).

A realistic hope, though, or empty wish? C.S. Lewisanswers: “If I find in myself a desire which no experiencein this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation isthat I was made for another world.”[18]

This other world was the one Ordway hungered for. Thiswas the understanding that made sense of the actualworld she lived in. But there was also a dark side to herdiscovery.

The understanding of reality that made sense of beautyand meaning and hope also made sense of this world’sbrokenness—both completely unintelligible in HollyOrdway’s atheism. The disturbing part for her was this:The brokenness that was real was also moral—andpersonal. “I considered myself a ‘good person,’” shewrote, “but in my heart I was afraid to be judged on thereal self behind my outward image.”[19] She was guilty,and she knew it.

French philosopher Guillaume Bignon found his ownnaturalistic atheism being challenged as he encounteredChrist in the New Testament.[20] Nevertheless, the crossconfused him. “Why did Jesus have to die?” he asked overand over again as he worked through the historicalaccounts of Jesus’ life. It made no sense to him.

Then something completely unexpected happened. “Godreactivated my conscience,” he told me. “That was not apleasant experience. I was physically crippled by guilt, notknowing what to do about it.”

Suddenly it dawned on him, “That’s why Jesus had to die.Because of me. Because of my guilt.” He immediatelysurrendered all his brokenness to the only One who couldrepair it, giving all his guilt to the only One who couldforgive. When he did, “The feelings of guilt justevaporated.”

Atheism cannot do this. It cannot explain the beauty andwonder of being human. And it has no answer to humanbrokenness. It cannot provide the consolation of trueforgiveness. We are fallen, guilty, lost. We cry out.

Here is our remedy, stated simply in a Christmas card Ireceived from a friend: “The birth of Christ…invites us tobelieve that the cries of a broken world have actually beenheard—a Savior was born.”[21]

There are times when clever arguments evade you. That’swhen a simple declaration of the truth may be all that’sneeded. “Come unto me…” is an offer of meat to hungerand drink to thirst. Touch the existential nerve, the deepprofound desire that throbs in every fallen human beingmade in the image of God.

Listen carefully in your conversations. Listen for when aperson’s mannishness speaks. When they tell the truth—and they must, eventually—point it out.

My question to the audience at Berkeley was a directapplication of the Inside Out tactic. I addressed thosestudents confidently since I knew that even though aperson can run from God, he cannot run from himself.

Adapted from the completely revised andexpanded 10 anniversary edition of Tactics: AGame Plan for Discussing Your ChristianConvictions, due out November 2019.

__________________________

[1] Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden (New York:Basic Books, 1996), 133.[2] Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston:Houghton Mifflin, 2006), 31.[3] Note, I’m not suggesting that Dawkins’s specificcomplaint is sound, but rather that objectivist moralassessments like this are completely at home in the actualworld, not in his faux reality.[4] Bill Nye’s June 5, 2010 “Humanist of the Year” awardacceptance speech in San Jose, CA.[5] Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the HumanFuture in Space (New York: Random house, 1994), 6, 51.[6] Ecclesiastes 3:11.[7] Francis Schaeffer, He Is There and He Is Not Silent,in The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer, Vol. I(Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1982), 278.[8] Ps. 8:5, NIV.[9] Sagan, ibid.[10] Francis Schaeffer, The God Who Is There, in TheComplete Works of Francis Schaeffer, Vol. I (Wheaton,IL: Crossway Books, 1982), 140–141.[11] Rev. 20.[12] Gal. 3:22.[13] Rom. 3:19.[14] Gregory Koukl, The Story of Reality (Grand Rapids,MI: Zondervan, 2017), 83.[15] Holly Ordway, Not God’s Type (Chicago: Moody,2010), 27.[16] Ibid., 27, 32.[17] Ibid., 31.[18] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Simon &Schuster, 1952), 106.[19] Ordway, 51.[20]http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/november/how-french-atheist-becomes-theologian.html.[21] My thanks to Jonathan Noyes.

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