…of Things Not Seen – Sunday, March 11, 1956
In a sense we should never be content with what we know. But neither should we be cynical about what we don’t know. With a little knowledge, there is always the danger of assuming that what we don’t know isn’t so, that what we can’t see isn’t there, that what lies beyond our eyes and explanation is beyond the realm of reality. But the fact that we don’t know something doesn’t mean that it isn’t so.
There are so many compelling questions that we cannot answer right now; but there were more questions that we couldn’t answer a century or a decade ago. Infinitely much that we cannot now see is as real as what we can see, and for the cynic to say, “It isn’t so because I haven’t seen it,” is sheer shortsightedness.
It has been our “faith in the substance of things not seen” that has kept the minds and spirits of men moving forward into the illimitable future. And even an acutely inquiring mind must learn to accept much on faith, while searching and waiting for the final and ultimate answers.
When it comes right down to ultimate answers, it is doubtful if we even know what makes a muscle move. We may know part of the process, and we see some of the results, but we simply cannot say for sure how stored energy instantly becomes controlled mechanical motion. And it would seem that men who even know for sure what makes a muscle move have much reason to be humble in approaching all our other unsolved problems, and much reason for dependence upon Divine Providence.
There is infinitely more to be discovered and revealed in man’s eternal march; there is infinitely much that we must accept on fait—faith, with thankfulness for what we do know (which is more than we wisely use); faith in the substance of things not seen, which, if we walk humbly with hearts and minds open to truth, will surely sometime unfold before us. *
*Revised.
March 11, 1956
Broadcast Number 1,386