As
four philosophers rode a
train through the
countryside, they passed by
three grey sheep on a
hillside. “Aha,” the
first philosopher
exclaimed, “all of the sheep in this
region must be grey
!”
The
second opined, “well, we can be certain that this is true of some
portion of the sheep in the region.”
The
third chimed in, “we can be sure only that three of the sheep in this region are grey.”
And the
fourth insisted, “the most we can be sure of is that three of the sheep in this region are grey
on one side.”
There is a
lesson to be gleaned from this
tale which may be applied to
theological discourse. To find the
probability that comes closest to reality, we must avoid being the first and the fourth among this group. To generalise from the
characteristics necessary to a
Creator of our
Universe to presumptions of “
infinite” and “
eternal” and “
perfect in every way” is no more justifiable than to make the broad generalisation of the first philosopher, and indeed swiftly breaches the point of inferring that the existence of some grey sheep evidences a world that has always been full of only grey sheep-—and to carry forward that
view even in the
face, perhaps, of later
evidence that some sheep are
white as the
snow.
Conversely, to refuse to
speculate as to the characteristics of the Creator beyond the Creation itself is to wear the unnecessary blinders of the fourth philosopher. After all, a sufficiently
suspicious philosopher might extend that
speculative uncertainty to the
question of whether the sheep were truly grey even on the side that was seen. Perhaps, he may argue, they were simply
painted on that side to
trick passers-by!!
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