‘Seeing’ The Light 

In this modern era of thinking, there are many people who look for purpose and meaning to life neither sure the external world is Created by God the Creator or that man is special in that he is created in the Image of God.  But despite their intellectual doubts, many of them have had a true ‘experience’ of the reality of the external world that exists, and/or the “mannishness” of man that exists. They can do this precisely because this is how God has made man, in His own image, able to experience the real world and man’s “mannishness.” 

Thus they have hit upon something which exists, and it is neither nothing, nor is it God. We might sum up thier experience by saying that when they experience the “redness” of a rose, they are having the experience of the external world, as is the farmer who plows his field. They are both touching the world that is. 

In the same way, lovers on the left bank of the Seine in Paris experience the “mannishness” of man when they fall in love and yet cry because they do not understand the source of love because they are not sure that love exists.

In his writing, Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer says “If I met any of these people who are having an ‘experience’, I would put my hand gently on their shoulders and say, “You are separated from God if you do not accept Christ as your Savior, but at this moment you understand something real about the universe.” Though their system may not be able to explain the source of love or that love exists, their own experience shows that it does. They have not touched the personal God who exists, but for a fleeting moment they have touched the existence of true personality in their love. This is indeed an objective reality, because God has made their personalities in this way. 

It is true that in these experiences man has touched something, not nothing; but what he has touched is not God, but the objective reality of the external world and the “mannishness” of man that God has created.  They experience the objective reality of what God has designed and created for man to experience ‘so that’ it leads them to experience a personal knowledge and relationship with the personal God who is there.  

Thoughts developed and/or taken from the works of Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer, Trilogy – The God Who Is There