I Have A Closed Mind
I'm not ashamed of it; I'm proud of it. It has been closed for a long time, and I expect to die with it closed as tightly as it now is. I like to think it is not closed on every subject, and in every area. But there are some areas in which I am definitely NOT 'searching for truth.' I have the truth. In my own mind and experience I have tested it so completely and so exhaustively that it would be absurd to say I am 'searching for truth.' The divinity of Jesus Christ, for example. I am not even interested in studying the subject — any more than I would have an open mind, or be willing to enter into a debate (`dialogue' is the in word) as to whether or not I exist. If somebody wants to argue that I am dead, that I no longer exist, I wouldn't have the time, nor the disposition, to engage in such a study with him.
It might be well said that there are three types of people with reference to Christ's divinity; two of them have closed minds, and the third has an open mind. There are those, like myself, who have accepted the truth of his divinity, who have tested it in their own lives, and who are not interested in any study as to whether it is so or not. Then there are those who for philosophical reasons reject the divinity of Christ, or, as for that matter, the possibility of any divinity, and whose minds are closed firmly against any opposing idea. There is a third classification, people who have an open mind, who are seeking, searching, trying to reach some determination, one way or the other, as to the divinity of our Lord.
As a man grows older his mind should be closed on more and more things. After all, is our 'searching for truth' NEVER to bear fruit in a settled conviction? Shall we still have the same doubts and questions and uncertainties at eighty that we had at eighteen? Will a lifetime of study and thought and research have no effect at all in answering the questions, settling the doubts, removing the indecisions of youth? If so, then our probing search is all for nought. If there are no answers, then there is no point in trying to find them.
But, by the grace of God, there are answers. And if a man walks with God through the years of growth and maturity, he will increasingly reach the point where he is no longer searching, seeking, questing. Like the Alpine climber who has slowly and painfully gained the summit, he is now able to look down with serenity on the magnificent panorama spread beneath him. He may catch a glimpse of other climbers who are struggling up the mountainside, and may call down words of hope and encouragement to them, but for him the struggle is over. He is no longer climbing; he is enjoying the fruits of his climb.
So it is, and so it should be, with every Christian who has struggled for his faith. He no longer struggles; he no longer questions or seeks. He has settled the matter, and now he lives in perfect assurance and absolute certainty. We believe this is the true import of Paul's statement, "For we know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands." (II Cor. 5:1.) In the same spirit are his parting words to Timothy, "henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give to me at that day." How could he speak with such confidence, such bold certainty? Not by a direct revelation from God, surely, at least not in the second quotation from him. And, come to think of it, he could hardly have included the Corinthians in his "we" know of the first statement if it had been a matter of revelation. For the only way the Corinthians could "know" of that heavenly home concerning which he spoke would have been for them to have arrived at such certainty of belief that their minds were closed to all possibility of a contrary idea. They, along with Paul, had closed minds on that subject.
Really, this is not a bad thing at all. It is the way things ought to be. While we should, and do, retain an open mind on many questions, we make no apology at all for having it closed on other things. This is a part of the process of maturing, one facet (and a very happy one) of growing up and growing old. We sometimes speak of youth as being an age of careless unconcern and age as being the time of serious care. That is exactly in reverse. It is the youth who should be deadly serious in his concern for truth and right; it is the old man who should be able to relax and even revel and exult in the certainty of his knowledge. He has found the answers; he has a closed and happy mind. The searching, seeking is over; his search has ended in discovery and knowledge.
It needs hardly be added that this 'closed mind' does not obtain in every area and on every problem which may confront a man, even an old man. For here, too, is the glory of the human mind; man is never too old to accept new ideas, new truth, new understandings. To say that he has arrived at truth, ultimate truth, in one field of study does not mean at all that he is at the same level in ALL areas of knowledge or understanding. It is simply to declare that there should come a time for each of us when we enjoy truth rather than simply searching for it. So that as the shadows lengthen toward the close of life's day, we will come closer and closer to the spirit of the aged Simeon's "nunc dimittis" as he held the baby Jesus in his arms. Having learned the truth, and with a settled conviction concerning it, we will be ready, as he was, to "depart" without let or hindrance from doubt or fear.
F. Y. T.