Literacy has been the exception for most of human history — not the norm.
As Our World in Data explains,
While the earliest forms of written communication date back to about 3,500-3,000 BCE, literacy remained for centuries a very restricted technology closely associated with the exercise of power. It was only until the Middle Ages that book production started growing and literacy among the general population slowly started becoming important in the Western World. In fact, while the ambition of universal literacy in Europe was a fundamental reform born from the Enlightenment, it took centuries for it to happen. It was only in the 19th and 20th centuries that rates of literacy approached universality in early-industrialized countries.
To illustrate what this means: “In the diocese of Norwich, which lies to the Northeast of London…the majority of men (61%) were unable to write their name in the late 16th century; for women it was much lower.”
This is quite a contrast with our environment! Of course, you are literate if you are participating in the UP Community! You can read this post, and you can write a response!
Therefore, when we consider how we could know that God exists, we start within the framing of literacy. Our assumption might be that we would need written arguments that could be rationally evaluated and appropriately lead us to the conclusion, “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself.”
For some skeptics, the predominance of illiteracy is a good reason to think that God does not exist. The question becomes, “How reliable can the gospels be if there were written in a time when few people knew how to read or write?”
That’s an interesting question for a literate community to discuss!
But in this Topic, I want to ask another question. Assuming that God exists, and that he wishes to save all people, whether or not they are literate, then how might he accomplish that goal?
It seems to me that the primary emphasis would be God’s direct revelation, by the work of the Spirit, to reveal to a human being who bears his divine image, that Jesus is Lord and Savior - all to the glory of God.
Further, the principal means by which the Spirit would reveal that specific message is through men and women who had already come to know that Jesus is Lord and Savior.
And since this is a message about God’s love for us, it would best be delivered and communicated when God’s people loved their neighbors. Then their transformed lives and their unusual love for others would legitimate their message of God’s unusual love.
Sometimes we try to divide “what we do” and “what God does.” But this is a dynamic process. As the Holy Spirit is working within the lives of believers, our natural response to God’s work is to love God and love our neighbor, including our willingness to announce the gospel.
It seems to me that this is the logic we find in 1 Peter 3:8-22. To summarize this passage, Peter tells the believers they are to live holy lives, love one another, and love their neighbors - including even their enemies. As God’s people become “devoted to what is good” they will even suffer for the sake of love.
Through this suffering love, they will be humbled and broken in a way that gives them gentleness and respect as they share their hope in Christ with others.
All that to say: in God’s plan to bring salvation to men and women across the globe, throughout all generations, this is enough.
It had to be enough. Because it had to ‘work’ even in illiterate cultures.
That gives me the confidence to believe that it is still enough today.
The primary extension I see is this: Take, for example, the situation when a literate person asks for the kind of evidence that would be expected, within a literate culture, for the claim “Jesus rose from the dead.”
In that scenario, then, because we love God and we love this literate person, we will give them a literate answer. We can dialogue about the gospels’ reliability, the evidence for the crucifixion, the empty tomb, the post-mortem appearances of Jesus, and so on.
However, even in this case, our primary argument that “Jesus is risen” remains the transformation of our lives, the distinctive love within our Christian community, and our sacrificial love for others.
To my literate friends: how does the predominance of illiteracy change how you think about God’s primary plan to see “his kingdom come, his will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”?