L. Harold DeWolf - "Three Whys" (December 4, 1966)

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	(instrumental music)	0:03
Priest	During my own college student days	0:30
	somewhat more than 40 years ago,	0:33
	my principal means of transportation was a bicycle.	0:36
	One morning, a Saturday morning	0:40
	I was out beside my rooming house	0:43
	doing some repair work on the bike	0:45
	when a small boy from a neighbor family	0:49
	came along and said take me for a ride.	0:52
	I said, not this morning.	0:57
	Why?	1:00
	I have to repair my bike.	1:02
	Why?	1:06
	Because it won't run now.	1:07
	Why won it run?	1:11
	It has a broken bearing.	1:13
	Why is the bearing broken?	1:16
	Well, it's just broke, that's all.	1:19
	Why do you wanna fix it?	1:23
	So I can ride it.	1:26
	Why do you wanna ride it?	1:28
	Well, because it's faster than walking.	1:31
	Well, why do you wanna go anyway?	1:36
	Well, I wanna go to my college classes.	1:39
	Why do you wanna go to college?	1:42
	To learn things.	1:46
	Why do you wanna learn things?	1:49
	I thought at that point it was about time	1:52
	to turn the tables	1:54
	so I said, why do you wanna learn things	1:55
	like why I want to learn things?	1:58
	And that stopped him for a few minutes	2:02
	while he wound up his why	2:04
	again,	2:06
	Now that boy like many small children	2:08
	had learned the magic of the word why	2:10
	as a tool for opening up all kinds	2:15
	of interesting conversation and information	2:18
	but like most small children and many adults,	2:24
	he probably had not noticed that the word why was being used	2:29
	with several radically different meanings.	2:35
	One of these was the why of causality.	2:41
	When he asked why the bicycle wouldn't go	2:46
	and why the bearing broke.	2:50
	He was obviously asking what had caused these conditions.	2:53
	This is the why with which the majority	3:00
	of our college and university studies are concerned.	3:05
	We seek to know the order of cause and effect in Physics,	3:11
	Chemistry, Medicine, Agriculture or Engineering.	3:17
	It is also true in Psychology and the social sciences	3:25
	that we are seeking to know the pattern	3:30
	of conditions that give rise to certain effects.	3:32
	This is the secret of power.	3:38
	By knowing these patterns,	3:41
	we may then produce certain effects	3:43
	which we want to have occur.	3:47
	Someone finds that not only in these sciences,	3:51
	both physical and social, but also in subjects	3:56
	as Literature, Speech, Drama or Journalism,	4:00
	we seek the cause of an effect	4:07
	which we would like to produce.	4:10
	By asking and answering this why of causality,	4:13
	we gain power.	4:18
	Power over both our natural environment	4:20
	and over our human environment.	4:24
	Many people in this day when we are tempted	4:28
	not only to a life of science,	4:32
	which is exceedingly useful and good	4:35
	but also to scientism.	4:38
	Many people suppose that this kind of power	4:42
	alone has the secret for resolving all of life's problems	4:46
	but unless, this kind of why	4:54
	and its answers produces knowledge but not wisdom.	4:58
	The kind of knowledge produced is power	5:05
	but in it there is no guarantee as to how it will be used.	5:10
	Thus, the power which the physical sciences has give	5:17
	all to evidently may be used for destruction	5:21
	and even for the threatening of human life itself	5:26
	on this planet.	5:29
	As well as for all the good ends	5:32
	which we have in mind, which can be served	5:34
	by physical power.	5:37
	Even the social sciences may also give us a power	5:41
	that can be used either for good or for ill.	5:45
	We must remember that Adolf Hitler called	5:50
	into his services the social scientists of Germany.	5:54
	And they helped him to gain the kind of tyrannical power	5:59
	which he used to bring millions to death and sorrow.	6:03
	Likewise, Stalin and Mao Zedong	6:10
	know how to use the power of the social sciences	6:15
	as well as the power of physical sciences	6:20
	to strengthen their own tyranny.	6:24
	Moreover, all that we can know about cause and effect	6:28
	leaves our deeper questions and needs unanswered.	6:33
	I seemed to be in a reminiscent mood this morning	6:40
	and I recall it as a small boy,	6:43
	I once saw on the window pane of my bedroom in Nebraska,	6:45
	a beautiful pattern, which the frost	6:52
	had made during the night.	6:55
	I called my father to see all these funs	6:59
	and other designs that were there on the window glass	7:03
	and I asked him, why all these remarkable designs	7:07
	and pictures were on my window pane.	7:13
	Well, he gave me the scientific answer	7:18
	to the why he told me about water crystals,	7:22
	how they form the structures	7:26
	which they tend to take and so on.	7:29
	And I listened to all this with interest though,	7:33
	I'd heard something of it before	7:35
	and yet I felt somehow frustrated	7:39
	and I never was able to get across to him.	7:44
	Quite the kind of why that I was asking	7:47
	what I wanted to know is	7:52
	why the world is of such a kind	7:54
	that the forming of water crystals	7:58
	will make something which can be so beautiful	8:02
	and satisfying to the eyes of a boy or a man.	8:04
	It was the hidden pattern of meaning	8:11
	behind the causality that I wanted to know	8:15
	Three or four years ago,	8:21
	I was engaged in a public debate	8:22
	on the question whether a non-theistic humanism	8:26
	or a theistic view of the world had a better answer	8:31
	to human need.	8:36
	A debate before the human in society of Boston,	8:39
	I was before a quite hostile audience that night	8:43
	and my advisory was an imminent physicist	8:47
	also a philosopher and an outspoken atheist.	8:52
	At the end of our formal speeches,	8:58
	the forum was open for questions from the audience	9:01
	and not quite all the members of the audience	9:05
	were in the enemy camp apparently,	9:08
	for the first man to ask a question	9:10
	was a tour man sitting on a front seat.	9:14
	He said, I want to ask the Physics professor a question	9:17
	He said sir, when you have some crushing personal experience	9:23
	which you simply cannot bear	9:31
	or when you have an experience of such exultant joy	9:35
	that you cannot contain yourself	9:40
	I want to know to whom do you pray?	9:43
	Well, I thought that will be easy	9:50
	People just say of course I don't believe in God	9:54
	and I don't pray	9:56
	but one reason why he is a great scientist	9:59
	is that he's a transparently honest man.	10:04
	And so to my astonishment he replied,	10:08
	if I were consistent I would be able to reply,	10:13
	I do not pray because I do not believe in God	10:17
	but he said that would not be quite honest.	10:22
	For as a matter of fact, at such times,	10:26
	as you describe I do find myself spontaneously praying	10:29
	and when I do, I pray to the God of my Jewish fathers	10:36
	of whom I learned from my parents	10:42
	when I was a little boy.	10:44
	Who has the next question?	10:46
	One looks far in the Bible	10:52
	to find this why of causality asked at all.	10:53
	There are extremely few instances of it	10:57
	because the Bible simply is not interested	11:01
	particularly in this kind of why,	11:03
	but we do find it on rare occasions,	11:07
	and one of the clearest is that of which you heard	11:10
	in the scripture lesson	11:13
	when Moses saw the burning bush	11:15
	on the mountain side and turned aside	11:17
	he said to see why the bush is not consumed,	11:19
	he wanted to know the cause of it.	11:26
	Now I don't profess to know what was happening out there	11:27
	just how God produced this apparition	11:31
	whether it was fire flaming fumarole	11:37
	on that volcanic mountain side or abortion blaze with color.	11:39
	But in any case, Moses found himself quickly led	11:47
	from that causal why into a quite different mood.	11:52
	And soon as he stood in the presence of that burning bush	11:57
	he was taking off his shoes	12:02
	for he found that he was on holy ground,	12:04
	some foolish person suppose	12:09
	that when the sciences have described accurately	12:12
	the way in which something occurs	12:16
	that the whole explanation has been given	12:20
	and there is no longer place for God.	12:22
	But as Burton Parker bound used to say,	12:26
	when you have described by science, how God does a thing	12:29
	you have not proved that he does not do it	12:35
	and this is worth remembering.	12:39
	In similar mood Lord Tennyson sang	12:42
	though he thunder by law,	12:46
	the thunder is yet his voice,	12:50
	not only in the realm of the physical	12:55
	and natural in that sense	12:59
	may we see beyond the scientific law, the hand of God.	13:03
	We must learn increasingly to see it also	13:09
	in the affairs of man.	13:13
	And just here, there must come to be a change	13:16
	in the symbolism of our worship and our religious thought.	13:20
	We have been reared through many generations	13:26
	of predominantly rural civilization	13:31
	and most of the symbol of our religion	13:35
	the stars in the heavens and the fields	13:37
	and the waterfalls the medals and the forests	13:40
	and the birds and so on.	13:43
	All of these things from rural life	13:46
	give to us much more readily signs of God	13:49
	than we find in the city	13:52
	but today, we are moving in greater and greater masses	13:54
	into the cities and many a person from the country now	13:59
	in the city feels that he's lacking the signs of God.	14:03
	We must learn that as we study man,	14:10
	as we study his resentments	14:14
	his discontents, the laws of his economic life	14:15
	and his social life and political science and all the rest.	14:20
	And we are studying here also the ways of God with man	14:24
	and behind this pattern of human events too,	14:31
	is to be found the working of God's way.	14:35
	The second why, is actually the first one	14:42
	that the small boy asked me that day beside	14:45
	my boarding house.	14:48
	When he wanted to know why I wouldn't give him a ride,	14:51
	that was just a why of complaint.	14:56
	He wasn't at that moment, really looking for information,	14:59
	he was just complaining that I wouldn't give him a ride.	15:02
	Similarly, when the Israelites were thirsty on the desert	15:07
	they asked Moses, why did you bring us out of Egypt	15:10
	to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?	15:15
	They did not expect nor even want him	15:19
	to tell any explanation why he had	15:22
	they were expressing their feelings,	15:26
	they were complaining.	15:29
	Usually this why of complaint is without visible effect	15:31
	and is rather useless.	15:36
	Occasionally it's true,	15:39
	a child by his whining why may gain a parent's pity	15:41
	and so a concession, even an adult may gain sympathy	15:47
	as by any other expression of his distress.	15:53
	But as used by an adult, it is usually altogether fruitless	15:58
	thus, a bride may cry out,	16:05
	why did it have to rain at all times	16:10
	on the day of our wedding	16:14
	or a man may say why did the price of these stocks	16:18
	have to fall right after I had bought them,	16:23
	yet this why of complaint is an inevitable one.	16:28
	Particularly when we face truly crushing disappointments	16:33
	or desolating sorrow, at such times	16:39
	it becomes truly inevitable.	16:44
	It is simply human at a time of overwhelming sorrow	16:48
	to cry out why.	16:54
	The tumultuous feelings of millions in bereavement	16:57
	are expressed by Shakespeare's King Lear	17:03
	when with his dearly loved daughter Cordelia died	17:07
	in his arms he cries out.	17:11
	No life, why should a dog or horse or rat have life	17:14
	and though no breath at all.	17:29
	Don't come no more never	17:34
	but even in this why of disastrous sorrow	17:50
	there is a dark expression,	17:59
	a kind of negative expression of faith.	18:02
	For this why assumes that the air if we could only find it,	18:07
	some hidden pattern of purpose on meaning	18:15
	behind this visible facade of life,	18:20
	we may be only complaining to God	18:26
	as we cry out the why with King Lear.	18:29
	But we are complaining to God	18:34
	whether we speak His name or not	18:37
	for we are assuming that there is behind all	18:41
	this visible world a hidden meaning and purpose	18:44
	which we seek in desperate need	18:51
	and even in a kind of skeptical despair to find out.	18:56
	And that leads us to the third of these whys.	19:04
	The why of purpose.	19:07
	The small boy asked a whole string of whys of this kind,	19:11
	why do you wanna fix the bicycle?	19:16
	why do you wanna go to college?	19:19
	why do you wanna learn things?	19:21
	Here what is being asked	19:25
	is not the cause of you doing these things,	19:26
	but the purpose of you doing them.	19:29
	Jesus raised also this why, when he asked his hearers	19:34
	why they were anxious about food and clothing	19:40
	for what purpose, to what good and He recognized,	19:44
	as he said that the people needed these things	19:51
	but he wanted to know why they were so anxious about them.	19:54
	Now most of the rest of this sermon is your own,	20:01
	think of the things you plan to do this very week	20:07
	and ask why will you attend classes?	20:13
	will you teach or study? why?	20:20
	Will you study to earn more money?	20:27
	To marry a more able and attractive person?	20:32
	Why?	20:36
	Then what?	20:38
	Raise a nice family?	20:41
	Good, but for what?	20:44
	What is the purpose of the life itself?	20:47
	Will you be working this week in an office, a classroom	20:53
	or a factory investing money, why?	20:56
	To make more money?	21:02
	Good, why?	21:04
	What is the means of life for if not for the life?	21:09
	And why the life, is life for you really,	21:14
	when you get down to the basic facts	21:20
	is it really a treadmill?	21:24
	Apparently it is for many university students in this day	21:30
	as well as for great numbers of their elders.	21:38
	Have you noticed what is the second most frequent cause	21:44
	of death of university students in our time now,	21:48
	there is only one cause namely violent accident	21:59
	which takes the lives of more students	22:05
	than are taken by suicide.	22:08
	What more dramatic and frightful reminder could that be?	22:13
	That in the very midst of opportunity	22:19
	and in the very years that older people look back	22:22
	upon with a kind of fond nostalgia,	22:25
	there are many who are missing the very why of life itself.	22:31
	Only a meaningless grind it has become	22:37
	with no real purpose which can give fruitfulness and joy	22:41
	to the process of living itself.	22:47
	A brilliant college senior	22:51
	and a girl without any religious faith said to me one day	22:54
	with penetrating and passionate earnestness,	23:01
	What is there to live for?	23:07
	And then immediately she went on to say, until	23:10
	I can find something worth dying for,	23:14
	I shall not have anything worth living for.	23:18
	She was right, because you know, you will die,	23:22
	for whatever it is that you live for	23:28
	the very temporary character of our life on earth,	23:33
	we'll see to it.	23:36
	That you lay down your very life for whatever it is	23:39
	to which you give your days.	23:46
	How do you answer this why,	23:50
	what is the ultimate purpose,	23:55
	the final concern, the grand design of your life,	23:57
	when all is said and done, is it food,	24:04
	clothing, the senses, the body	24:08
	the temporary pleasures that pass away,	24:12
	all things that can be very good as means,	24:16
	but all inadequate as zens	24:22
	and all of them things that pass	24:27
	or is your ultimate concern,	24:31
	your final all consuming purpose in relation	24:33
	to which everything else must be planned and given.	24:38
	Is that the kingdom of God, the inclusive community	24:42
	of human faith and love for which God made us.	24:48
	In which alone we can find our real fulfillment now	24:54
	and which is also forever.	25:01
	Let us pray,	25:05
	(seats scrapes)	25:09
	God our Eternal Father	25:13
	as we ask the why of causality seeking	25:17
	to understand better the relations of cause and effect	25:22
	in our world, we'll all give us often the vision,	25:27
	as we resolve some of our questions of causality,	25:34
	to find ourselves on holy ground	25:41
	where we must bow in worship.	25:45
	As we ask the why of complaint,	25:49
	will all led us through the dark hour of skeptical faith	25:53
	into the luminous hour of understanding and positive faith	26:00
	that there is indeed behind the events which overtake us	26:05
	the hidden pattern of life sublime purpose.	26:14
	And oh God will though give to each of us an answer	26:19
	to the why of purpose, great enough, lasting enough,	26:23
	broad enough and rich enough	26:30
	to be worthy of the whole of our lives.	26:33
	A purpose given by Thee through Jesus Christ	26:39
	our Lord in whose name we pray.	26:46

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Title:

L. Harold DeWolf - "Three Whys" (December 4, 1966)

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4dj5dj0b

Date:

December 4, 1966

Speaker:

DeWolf, L. Harold

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 RR-0364
ref5931_ry3
uachapelsermaud
duke:628297
dcrau002360
ark:/87924/r4dj5dj0b
f3c8cea4-4d4b-44bb-b7f1-168ed0da8cf1

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L. Harold DeWolf - "Three Whys" (December 4, 1966)

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