Episode. 1 | Faith Of Our Fathers: What Do We Know About Our Inner Selves?

Have you ever paused to marvel at the incredible gifts God has placed within you?

In this episode of Faith of Our Fathers, Brother Olson explores the depths of human intellect, emotion, and free will—three remarkable aspects of our inner selves that reveal God's divine design. This episode begins an extended journey into the foundational doctrines of Christianity, presenting them in a logical and harmonious progression. Reflecting on the marvels of human intellect, emotion, and free will, we invite listeners to ponder the profound endowments God has given each of us. From the ability to reason and imagine to the capacity for love and decision-making, this discussion examines the inner revelations that affirm our identity and relationship with God. Together, let us explore the greatness of these truths and their implications for our faith and purpose.

By reflecting on these truths, we gain insight into our identity, purpose, and relationship with the Creator.

Delve into questions like:

• What does it mean to think, feel, and decide?

• How do these qualities point us toward the greatness of God?

Episode Transcript

On this Faith of Our Fathers broadcast, it is now our intention to launch out upon a rather extended discussion of the various Christian doctrines that the Bible appears to support.

We shall seek to present them in a progressive order so that there will be a mental harmony to the whole picture of truth.

God is a God of definiteness and order.

And as we ponder the scriptures, there comes forth a system of truth that truly satisfies the mind.

We trust that our listeners will endeavor to listen from night to night so that the force of truth might be effective in kindling a living faith in the living God.

The Gospel of Christ is the greatest news on earth, so myriads of our fathers thought, so we still think.

It is our humble prayer that we may be a blessing to everyone who listens.

We do not start with what the Bible says, since no doubt many of our listeners do not believe the Bible to be the Word of God.

For a number of broadcasts, we invite you, every one of you, to think together with us on the question, what do we know?

Here we should all have conclusions in common, conclusions which no one should find it necessary to deny.

Will you not stay with us then and consider these evident and obvious things?

In the course of our inquiry on what do we know, we first direct our minds within our beings and ask, what do we know about our inner selves?

The psalmist asked, what is man that thou art mindful of him?

The starting point of all thinking is that we assert ourselves to be, to accept the fact that we have a self-consciousness, that we recognize our personal identity, that we affirm that we are individuals, we admit and recognize, in the words of Paul, that we live and move and have our being.

This is something that we cannot reason upon.

Like all native concepts and ideas, we must accept the fact of our own existence directly, and not try to arrive at such a conclusion by any process of deduction.

Many philosophers have gone astray here.

One day I was in a certain institution, where a group of theological students one morning were reasoning together as to whether there was such a thing as a fact or not.

How pitiful that the mind can strike out upon such a course of indefiniteness!

We do not hope in our discussion to answer the mysteries of such minds.

When we cut ourselves away from the natural affirmations of our minds, we become like a rudderless ship on the stormy sea.

We believe there is a down-to-earth presentation of facts that will lead to a glorious and satisfying state of mind.

But the beginning must be a common-sense approach to obvious truth.

The acknowledgement that we are living beings and can depend upon our mental conclusions is the starting point of all our thinking together.

So let us go on.

We are conscious that there is within us the ability to think, to reason, to view facts and draw conclusions therefrom.

We can sit still and entertain ourselves for hours, can we not, without doing anything externally?

This certainly indicates that there is within us a process of thought, a succession of objects that go before our personality, a series of considerations that we are occupied with.

We have an intellect, therefore, and also an imagination, which must be a function of the thought processes.

We cannot think of the imagination as a separate faculty.

It is certainly an activity of the mind.

We can relive old experiences, can we not, and events, and add to them as a result of our reflection.

One day over 300 years ago, Galileo, the great scientist, was watching a swinging lamp in a cathedral.

He began to meditate upon its motion.

This thinking was the parent to all the swinging pendulums and made the world's mechanized timepieces possible.

As he viewed this swinging object and conducted further experiments, he learned that the rate of swing depended upon its length and not upon the weight or force of the body that was swinging, nor the length or arc of the swing.

Here was a mental conclusion, a putting together of observed facts, and a making a mental deduction there from.

So we could go on to many mental activities that have resulted in great conclusions.

Legend indicates that Isaac Newton was reclining in an orchard some 250 years ago, when a jolt of a falling apple set his mind to thinking about the peculiarity of falling objects, and led him to suggest, after much thought and experiment, the law of gravitation, which we accept with such readiness in our day.

But above all in importance, certainly, the intellect and the imagination gives us the ability to perceive the existence of God, and to recognize something of the greatness of the Divine Being.

It gives us that quality of personality to look off into the thin air, shall we say, and recognize the existence of a Divine Being, and imagine something of what His greatness must be like.

How effective then is the intellect of man?

How profound are the endowments that we find within our being?

But we are not mechanical robots, moving here and there and thinking this or that without some affectation within our beings.

So we recognize a feeling department of our minds or that we have a reaction within us that we call our emotions.

We have experiences that are pleasant, experiences that are distasteful.

We have reactions within us to what we think about.

We have the possibilities of feeling, of love and tenderness within us, how pleasant and how blessed.

Parents commonly feel something remarkable toward their children.

Children look upon their parents with veneration and respect.

True romance as a genuine friendship with all its beauty may flourish because of the affectation that God has placed within us.

Above all, we may feel a love for God with all its impelling motives.

Yes, we certainly know that we not only can think, we can feel.

But we have another consciousness within us.

We have that consciousness of a directive something.

We recognize that we are agents of our own actions, that we have the power and the ability to direct our activity.

It is we that make decisions.

We decide to go here, we decide to go there.

We view certain factors and come to a conclusion concerning them and decide to carry out a certain action because of our conclusions.

We make our minds to take action.

We have a feeling of authority in our own limited sphere.

So we recognize our ability to bring events into existence out of nothing, to originate actions.

In short, we have that mysterious thing which we call free will.

Free will is like the rudder of a ship that turns the whole activity of the mind and directs the soul into what it shall do.

So what do we know then about our inner selves?

We know that we have an intellect or the ability to think.

We know that we have a feeling quality of our beings or an emotional response or an experience possibility.

And we know that we have free will or that peculiar quality that makes decisions to do this or that and which cannot be predicted as to what it will do.

It is we ourselves that carry forth this action.

Now we are not to understand that we are composed of all these divided segments hammered together within our personality, but we are to understand that the mind or the immaterial part of our being has these characteristics of activity.

And so how wonderful is the personal of man, how glorious are his endowments, what a challenge it should be to all of us to analyze ourselves and to come forth with conclusions for time and for eternity.

So as we go on in our thinking together, my friend, will you not ponder the great force of these realities and deductions and consider your relationship to the great God.

May we pray.

Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful for the inner revelation that Thou has put within us, that Thou has given us the ability of self-examination, and that we can see clearly, as we look within these marvelous faculties that Thou hast given us.

Help us to face honestly the wonderful endowments that we firmly possess within us, and help us to give consideration to Thy rightful place in our lives.

In Jesus' name, our Savior.

Amen.