Stephen Law

Last night I spoke at the Durham University Debating Society. The motion before the house was “This house believes Jesus Christ is the way the truth and the life.” Proposing were philosopher Prof. Richard Swinburne, the Bishop of Edinburgh Brian Smith, and a Seventh Day Adventist Minister called Don. What I found especially interesting about the debate was the Bishop’s approach. He deliberately eschewed argument and appealed instead to personal experience – an experience relating to what he called “the meaning of life”. I’ve seen this done before, but the Bishop was particularly good at it. He started with jokes, but then gradually began to speak more softly and with feeling. In our quietest moments, he said, each one of us – yes, even a cynical atheist – is aware, deep down, of a light. It’s an awareness of something fundamentally good, of a yearning to be something better than we are. This something is... Jesus. Sombre nodding from the Christian Union contingent. When the Bishop sat ...