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A sandwich walks into a bar. The bartender
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The Apologetic of Story
Jill Carattini

Gregory Wolfe, editor of Image journal, tells a story about telling
stories for his kids. He describes the memorable bedtimes when he
attempts to concoct a series of original tales. "My kids are polite
enough to raise their hands when they have some penetrating question to
ask about plot, character, or setting," he writes. "If I leave something
out of the story, or commit the sin of inconsistency, these fierce critics
won't let me proceed until I've revised the narrative. Oddly enough, they
never attempt to take over the storytelling. They are convinced that I
have the authority to tell the tale, but they insist that I live up to the
complete story that they know exists somewhere inside me."(1) Children seem
to detest a deficient story.

There is no doubt that our sense of the guiding authority of story and
storyteller often dramatically lessens as we move from childhood to
adulthood. And yet, regardless of age, there remains something deeply
troubling about a story without a point, or an author not to be trusted.

In an interview with Skeptic magazine, Richard Dawkins was asked if
his view of the world was not similar to that of Shakespeare's Macbeth:
namely, that life is but "A tale told by an idiot, filled with sound and
fury, signifying nothing."

"Yes," Dawkins replied, "at a sort of cosmic level, it is. But what I want
to guard against is people therefore getting nihilistic in their personal
lives. I don't see any reason for that at all. You can have a very happy
and fulfilled personal life even if you think that the universe at large is
a tale told by an idiot."(2)

His words attempt to remove the sting his philosophy imparts. And yet, it
stings regardless--both with callousness and confusion. If I am but a poor
player fretting my hour upon the stage of a tale told by an idiot, what is
a "fulfilling" personal life? There is no room in the naturalist's
philosophy for intrinsic dignity, human worth, or human rights. There is
no room for moral accountability, right or wrong, good or evil. There is
no room for the layers of my love for my husband, the cry of my heart for
justice, or the recognition on my conscience that I am often missing the
mark. There is no room for my surprise at time's passing or my longing
for something beyond what I am capable of fully reaching in this moment.
This is not the story I know.

In the words of G.K. Chesterton, "I had always felt life first a story:
and if there is a story there is a story-teller."

Could it be that our relationship to stories, our first love of the tale
beyond us and the author beside us, conveys a deep truth about our own
cosmic tale? Are not the very philosophies we carry attempts to make
sense of the grand story of which we find ourselves a part?

The first words of Genesis 1 boldly claim that we are not lost and
wandering in a cosmic circle of time and chance. There is a story that
emerges from the beginning, and we have a place within it. Similarly, the
writer of Hebrews describes Jesus as the author and finisher of our faith,
where ultimate significance is aptly defined as being written into the
story of God. God's Word places us in the timeline of a coherent history,
delivering us from the deceptions of the enemy, telling us who we are, and
where we came from, what is wrong with us, how we are made whole, and
where we are going. We are placed within a story of which we know and
celebrate the outcome, even as we wait for it through time and trial. In
Christ, history's outcome-its ultimate end-is revealed. Dark days may
follow, but the ending is known. It is a story neither deficient,
nor untrustworthy.

C.S. Lewis fittingly describes heaven at the end of his Chronicles of
Narnia as a place where good things continually increase and life is an
everlasting story in which "every chapter is better than the one before."
His compelling reflection has often reminded me of Christ's beloved
disciple in the closing chapters of his testimony to the significance of
Jesus Christ. Notes John, "If all of the acts of Christ were recorded,
the world would not have enough room for all the books that would be
written" (John 21:24-26). Like children, eyes widen at the thought. What
a story to be a part of, a life to find touching your own.
(1) Gregory Wolfe, Intruding Upon the Timeless: Meditations on Art,
Faith, and Mystery (Square Halo Books: Baltimore, 2003), 81-82.

(2) Skeptic vol. 3, no. 4, 1995, pp. 80-85.


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A farmer and his recently hired hand were eating an early
breakfast of biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs, bacon and
coffee that the farmer's wife had prepared for them.
Thinking of all the work they had to get done that day,
the farmer told the hired man he might as well go ahead
and eat his dinner too.

The hired man didn't say a word, but filled his plate a
second time and proceeded to eat.

After awhile the farmer said, "We've got so much work to do
today, you might as well eat your supper now too."

Again, the hired man didn't respond but refilled his plate
a third time and continued to eat.

Finally, after eating his third plate of food, the hired man
pushed back his chair & began to take off his shoes.

"What are you doing?" the farmer asked.

The hired man replied, "I don't work after supper."
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--René Descartes - March 31, 1596
Died February 11, 1650
Rationalist philosopher and mathematician. While serving in
the Bavarian army in 1619, he conceived it to be his task to
refound human knowledge on a basis secure from scepticism.
He began his enquiry by claiming that one can doubt all
one's sense experiences, even the deliverances of reason,
but that one cannot doubt one's own existence as a thinking
being. He also argued that mind and body are distinct
substances, believing that this dualism made possible human
freedom and immortality. His "Discourse on the Method for
Rightly Conducting One's Reason and Searching for Truth in
the Sciences" contained appendices in which he virtually
founded co-ordinate or analytic geometry
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