The Cave

Have you heard about or read The Cave? It’s part of Plato’s Republic. The story is an allegory about people chained to a wall in a cave, only able to see shadows of people on the far wall moving back and forth. Those chained have been there for their entire lives (remember, it’s an allegory), cannot see each other, and debate among themselves what the shadows mean.

At one point, one of the prisoners is released and taken out of the cave to see the broad vistas of the world. He sees how light casts shadows, and realizes what he’s been seeing his whole life is only a fraction of what reality is. He goes back into the cave to tell his compatriots about the shadows, about the light, and the wider world outside their narrow field of vision. They don’t believe him, and in the end he has himself chained back up so he can be like the rest of his friends.

There are people who insist that God cannot be proven because they deny the possibility of the supernatural. Doing that is like the folks chained in that cave. They see only shadows, and someone telling them about a three-dimensional reality beyond those moving shadows must be out of his mind.

In short, they believe God can’t exist because God doesn’t exist. But the very definition of God includes a transcendent presence. As one Christian thinker put it, “You can’t look for a computer programmer inside the computer. He exists independent of the computer.” So the Creator of the universe has to be outside the universe. And the only way we can know anything about Him is if He put evidence into that universe.

There is a lot of supporting evidence that the Bible is true. Over and over the parts of that writing have been “proven wrong,” only to have that “proof” overturned. If you’re not looking at the evidence FOR God, you’ll never see it. Only look at the evidence for natural causes, and you’re looking at shadows on the wall. Those talking about a three dimensional world would naturally look insane.

Unfortunately, too many willingly have themselves chained to a wall so they don’t lose their friends.