Editorial November 25, 1991 Issue

The Bible: human paradox and spiritual reality

Michael D. Rissler

Paradox comes from the Greek word paradoxis, which means "contrary to expectation." There are many paradoxes in life. For example, think of education and we often think of children. Since they're young and inexperienced, we generally believe they are the ones who need education. Yet I think of all that children constantly teach me. And frequently I return in memory to my childhood and relearn lessons that have been crucial to solving some difficulty.

Here's another paradox. Malcolm Muggeridge, in The End of Christendom, tells of meeting a Soviet writer a number of years ago when there was little or no religious freedom in the Soviet Union. Yet the writer, Anatoli Kusnyetsov, seemed to Muggeridge to have the most profound insight into the nature of God and of man's relationship to Him.

Muggeridge asked Kusnyetsov how this was possible, since Soviet citizens had no normal access to the Bible, few religious services, and an educational system that was "brutally atheistic and secular."

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