"The Wisdom of Sheep"

One of my very favorite challenges from the atheist camp is that we Christians, or religious minded people in general, are nothing more than sheep following the leader, sheep who are unwilling or unable to think for ourselves.

This is, of course, an argument designed to provoke a reaction of anger, and make the religious person claim that he or she certainly does think on his or her own, etc. And therein lies the trap, for this is precisely what the atheist desires, to provoke the Christian into a position where he or she must challenge Christianity, or comes to view Christianity in a negative light.

This is my favorite challenge to Christianity because it is absolutely, 100% true (save only in that we necessarily don't think for ourselves). In fact, this may well be the only 100% truthful claim that atheists make about religion, or at least Christianity. The irony, of course, is that this is not a point against Christianity, as the atheist imagines, it is a point in favor of Christianity.

Certainly, we are all like sheep. Anyone who's read the Gospels will immediately notice that there are rather a large amount of analogies comparing humans to sheep, and God to the Shepherd. This is not only because shepherding was a common and understandable industry, very related to the Gospel message, and easily comprehended by the general populace, but also because it is quite true. If you were to compare the average human with God, we would be little better than sheep compared to humans. In fact, we would actually be far worse in comparison. Sheep and humans are both finite creatures, creatures of limited intellectual abilities, though there is a gross difference between them. But the intellectual ability of a human compared to that of God is so vast, so insurmountable, as to make the sheep who ignores his shepherd look positively brilliant when compared to a human who ignores God. We have only slightly more intelligence than dirt compared to God. We rather quickly approach zero, as any calculus limits equation could show you. To be quite honest, we rather do sheep a dis-service in using them in this analogy. They are comparatively far more intelligent than we are, and vastly wiser than the common atheist.

Humans have an interesting tendency to mock or disparage things that they do not agree with. In this case, our atheist friends mock us Christians for following a leader, namely Christ, instead of not going off on our own. What our atheist friends neglect to consider in their usage of this analogy is that among sheep, it is those who follow the shepherd who are the smartest, wisest and best sheep. The sheep who follow other sheep, or who follow only themselves, among sheep kind, are the dumbest, most foolish, and worst sheep. How do we know this? Because those just happen to be the sheep who 1) get lost, 2) get hurt, 3) get injured, and 4) get eaten.

The man comparing humans to sheep should at least be ready to accept the consequences of such an analogy. I will happily assent to being a sheep following the Shepherd, if the atheist will assent to being the sheep that gets eaten by wolves. Because that is precisely what the atheist is. The atheist is the sheep who through some strange delusion of intelligence or grandeur on his part (or perhaps through some anger at a perceived failing of the Shepherd), comes to the conclusion that he is wiser, smarter, or better suited to lead than the Shepherd is. Why, he is the sheep who doesn't even believe in a Shepherd, which is just about the silliest thing imaginable in analogical terms. This head strong sheep thus takes it into his tiny and rather undeveloped brain to go off on his own. He is shortly lost, and has been separated from the other sheep, unless he was silly enough to persuade a few other sheep to join him in his shepherdless journeys.

So now we have a sheep, or perhaps a few sheep, wandering in the wilderness. Their pasture lands, of course, are where the Shepherd is, and they will not return. They are out with the lions, with the wolves, with the bears. And they will be devoured. They will be injured. They will have all the worst calamities known to sheep kind befall them, with no Shepherd's aid. They will be sick, they will endure perilous weather and conditions, and they will grow weaker and weaker in their bleating. And bleat they will, for though they refuse to admit it, and may not even see it, they are lost. They live as sheep are not meant to live, they live without the Shepherd. And so they will bleat out their loneliness, and call any sheep who hears them to come and join them, to relieve their burden of loneliness. The wisest sheep stick with the flock, they follow the shepherd, and they marvel at those who became lost. They think to themselves, "Are we not right here? Can they not return any time they wish? Why do they bleat, so lost and forlorn?"

Of course, no atheist will admit this to you. They will sometimes admit that our lives are without "cosmic meaning" or devoid of any meaning except that which we give them. But in most cases they will avoid taking this to its conclusion of forlorn desolation. And I can't say I blame them, for who will come to join them in their lost herd if we know the truth of their position? Certainly I would not. Of course, I would not anyway, as I rather like having a Shepherd to follow, a Shepherd who is greater than I, wiser than I, smarter than I, and better suited to lead than I. Make no mistake, not only are the sheep with the Shepherd wiser, they are also humbler. The sheep with the Shepherd must admit that the Shepherd is superior, must trust in the Shepherd's leadership and guidance, in His protection, in His love for the sheep and willingness to take care of them. This too is difficult for our sundered and bleating brethren. For trust in the Shepherd has been lost to them. They trust only in themselves, they trust only in sheep. I think we can well see how disastrous a course of counsel that is, so much so that I find it remarkable that the average atheist cannot. What foolishness to be a sheep who trusts only other sheep! To be the sheep who follows some other sheep's behind instead of the voice of the Shepherd! Now that is truly a stupid animal, one perhaps quite worthy of derision.

And yet, the Shepherd does not deride them. No, the Shepherd searches quite diligently for the lost sheep, even if it is just one lost from a herd of 100. He calls and He searches, and He hopes the sheep will return to His voice. A forlorn hope, for these animals have lost their ears. They hear only their own bleating, and have ears for nothing else.

Yes indeed, a peculiar analogy indeed for our enemies to attack us with. You call us sheep, and I agree. We are sheep! We are the wise sheep, the humble sheep, the sheep who are eternally protected and guided. And you are the sheep who were so silly as to leave the Shepherd. You are the foolish sheep, the stupid sheep and the lost sheep.

Now to all this, the atheist might respond that, while he is certainly the sheep who as abandoned the flock, at least he is free He is free to be eaten by wolves, and we are not. He is free to suffer the elements, and we are not. He is free to forage for food in the wilderness, and we are not. He is free to make his own decisions, and we are not.

This is amusing not only for the fact that the atheist rather got the raw end of that deal, but also because the atheist has made a patent fallacy. He has somehow assumed that we are not free to do all of those things. The reality is that we are free to do all of those things. Any one of us may, at any time, walk off and join the atheist in his pitiable state of existence. There is nothing stopping us, for the Shepherd has left the sheepfold gate open, that His lost sheep may return at any time.

The Christian sheep is no less Free to will than the atheist sheep. The difference isn't in their freedom, it is in what they did with their freedom. The atheist took his freedom, and made his life harder, shorter, weaker and "cosmically meaningless." The Christian took his freedom and united it to the will of the Shepherd. Does the Christian obey because he has no choice? Not at all! Nothing could be farther from the truth! The Christian obeys God because the Christian chooses to obey God. He wills to do so. He is just as free as the atheist, and in fact, he is rather more free. For the Christian sheep is free to be as hungry as the atheist for answers, but also free to be fed and satisfied, to have his fill from the Gospel of the Lord. The Christian sheep is as free to marvel at and study nature as the atheist sheep, but the Christian sheep is also free to believe and marvel at the Shepherd who is greater even than nature, something our atheist sheep cannot, for the literal life of them, accomplish. The argument that an atheist sheep is somehow more free than a Christian sheep is absurd. Both choose, both will, both act. But only one is actually and truly free, and it is ironically the sheep who has made himself humble, who has made himself follow someone greater than himself, he is the sheep who has made himself small in this world, an in so doing magnified everything he experiences, including his freedom.

On the other hand, we have the sheep who are lost from the flock. They decided, for reasons unknowable and inexplicable to us common sheep, to follow their own path, to make their own rules, and to live free from the Shepherd, whom if they acknowledge at all, they depict as a power hungry, mad tyrant who has enslaved all sheep kind with sweet lies and empty promises! He is the Eternal Big Brother, this Shepherd of ours. The attacks are generally amusing in their fallaciousness, and brilliant in their rhetoric. This is to be expected, since these sheep were silly enough to follow themselves instead of the shepherd, and wonderful enough at speaking that they desire to hear nothing else. In doing so, though, our atheist sheep have fallen into a perilous and deadly trap. For instead of the "enslavement" of the Shepherd, who (rather strangely for an almighty dictator bent on our utter domination) lets us make our own decisions, lets us say whatever we might like about Him, and offers us guidance, answers, food, shelter, protection, love, etc., they have opted for the slavery of the self. And this is a slavery which offers nothing except control, debilitation and eventual destruction. The self is a master who is as pitiless as he is inexorable, for he is you, and once he grows so great as to rule, you will have exceptional difficult in dislodging him.

The atheist is generally ruled by a tyrant greater than God could ever be, for he is ruled by the tyrant who can and will control his very will. He is controlled by his self, his entitlement, his desires, wanton and perplexing though they may be. If you do not believe me, just ask any atheist whether he or she is capable of believing in God. The answer, generally without fail, is that they are not capable of belief in God. These are sheep who have progressed so far in their servitude to themselves that they cannot bring themselves to believe in a Shepherd who can guide them, heal them, aid them, etc. It has become impossible for them. And it has become impossible for them, not because they are somehow less capable of such an act than any of the rest of us, but because they believe themselves less capable. Their self-centered nature has blocked their ability to believe in something greater than themselves, by which means we can definitely know it to be a greater tyrant than God. For the Shepherd never forbid them from not believing in Him. He promised that there would be consequences, certainly, but He has never forced a single being to believe, nor kept them from believing in something else should they choose to. The proof of this are the very foolish atheist sheep we are currently discussing. They would not be in the predicament they are in without such freedom. And they have, quite ironically, traded that freedom for a "freedom" in which they are so enslaved that they have immense difficulty returning to that from which they came. They have shackled and bound themselves to themselves, and cannot change that course of will, for it is self preserving. Like tyrants everywhere it forbids them from reliance or obedience to some other, foreign, entity. And like tyrants everywhere, it seeks to placate those tyrannized through nefarious means.