Acts 12:15 - Homilies By R. Tuck

Testimony versus reasoning.

The subject is suggested by the persistence of Rhoda and the incredulity of the disciples. Upon the evidence of her senses Rhoda constantly affirmed that it was St. Peter who stood at the gate. The disciples vigorously argued that it could not be he, and tried to reason away her testimony, St. Peter was in prison, and it was simply impossible that he could be knocking at the gate. So much is made in our time of the demand for facts and evidence and verification of all statements, and it is so often assumed that reasoning can destroy testimony, or that testimony, as we have it on the Christian theme, is insufficient to support our elaborate reasoning, that the trustworthiness of each, and the relations in which each stands to the other, may be profitably considered.

I. THE IMPORTANCE OF TESTIMONY . Our senses are the appointed media for our communication with the outer world, and they are both the first and constant sources of our knowledge. We learn to trust them. We readily receive the testimony of others as to what they have seen and heard, and, with limitations, as to what they have felt. There is, then,

II. HUMAN TESTIMONY MUST ALWAYS BE UNCERTAIN . This should be fully admitted. It is uncertain, because

III. HUMAN REASONING IS NECESSARILY UNCERTAIN . As in the case of the disciples who reasoned against Rhoda. The uncertainty comes out of:

1. Prejudice and bias (see the idola of Bacon).

2. Insufficient facts; some of the worst reasoning is explained by incomplete knowledge of the facts on which the reasoning is based.

3. False methods (see the fallacies explained in books on logic).

IV. THE TRUTH MAY BE REACHED BY WISE REASONING UPON SUFFICIENT TESTIMONY . To receive testimony alone may be mere credulity. To receive upon argument alone may be to yield to mere human force, to the power of superior intellect. Bat with due inquiry into basis-facts, and careful reasoning upon the facts, we may arrive at satisfying apprehensions of the truth. Apply to the acceptance of Christianity, with its difficulty of the miraculous. The four Gospels are a fourfold testimony to the great Christian facts. We must build our reasoning on the facts; just as those disciples should have received Rhoda's fact, and followed it up with their reasoning, and not made their reasoning oppose the facts.—R.T.