Starting Points

     Every idea and every world-view has a starting point. We like to think that we can be objective but in reality, that is just not possible. We bring our own assumptions and perspectives to every thing we think about and every discussion we have. Ultimately the only real objectivity we can have is to be aware of our bias and work with it, doing what we can to look at things in the best and most honest way possible. Our understanding of objectivity is especially important when discussing God and in particular His existence and relationship with modern “science.”

     It is important to remember that no one has or can disprove the existence of God. Since God is apart from nature -above and beyond it, really- nothing that you study 'in' nature can either totally prove or disprove His existence. Now the Bible does talk about seeing God in nature:

“...because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,”

(Romans 1:19-20)

We see that nature does reveal some limited information about God, not the gospel to be sure, but enough so that men are “without excuse.” In our modern day people down-play this truth and a great deal of study is done really, just to come up with excuses as to how God wasn't involved in our beginnings. Yet still, after all that study and experimentation they can never 'prove' that what they say happened the way it happened nor does it preclude God's involvement, let alone to say whether He exists or not.

     The real heart of the matter is this, the Bible never tries to prove the existence of God. Seriously, read through it (which you should be doing anyway!). From beginning to end the Bible presupposes the existence of God.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

(Genesis 1:1)

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.”

(John 1:1-2)

This is also important as it brings us (finally) to the main point today, everybody has presuppositions. Those who do not believe in God are not at that point because they have been convinced by some winning argument or eloquent speech, they have simply chosen to believe that God is not, they presuppose the non-existence of God.  Once that choice is made every idea that comes after is filtered through that perspective. All the 'evidence' and argument that might lead to a belief in Him becomes turned to the other direction.

     The point here today is not to bandy talking points back and forth. I am not here today to argue creation or the existence of a higher power. I am here to say that the atheist who puts down the Christian for “assuming” that God exists instead of using evidence is covering up the fact that they are just as biased. We don't kneed to prove God to people, they already know He's there.

“...because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man; and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.”

(Romans 1:21-23)

     Whether or not they want to admit this is their issue to deal with. God has called us to tell the world of Him and let the Spirit work on their hearts. We are nothing more than paperboys on the corner of the world, calling out to those around us and hoping someone listens. Remember that no one but God is objective and everyone brings opinions to the debate; don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

More Than Humanity: A Higher Perspective

     Society all around us is fractured, some would say failing. Our husbands and fathers have become lazy buffoons ripe for parody and mockery. Our wives and mothers are overworked, cynical and depressed; unwilling to fully trust their men and doubtful that they should at all. Our children and teens are jaded, rebellious, narcissistic, and corrupt; unable or unwilling to see past their smart-phones or the opinions of their peers. And in between them all we have an army of the young and unwed, obsessed with themselves and their desires, oblivious to any higher calling and suspicious of anything that claims to be true. These people, our people, need help. This world needs something more than what we see.

     At the heart of this problem is, of course, sin. Mankind will always desire to do what satisfies the flesh rather than what is truly good; all we need is the chance. Every one of us has the potential to be the abusive husband or the cheating wife or rebellious child or whatever. We sin, not just because we have to, but because we want to. The reason these ills seem “more” prevalent now is that we have simply given people the opportunity to sin in greater amounts and more freely than ever before. The proposal and rapid acceptance of naturalistic evolution and the advent of “higher criticism” have made it easier and easier to reject God and His Word. We have “science” telling us that God didn't create and so we can ignore the arguments the Bible makes without even reading them. Those who do read them, find that the critics tear them apart so much as make them seem to lose all meaning.

     We once lived in a society -in a world- where you had no choice but to at least consider the possibility of God. Creation screamed at you, the preacher spoke to you, the Spirit whispered to you, and all the world tried to be “good people.” Things are different now aren't they? Creation has been muzzled and painted over with a landscape of death and change, the preacher has been compromised and spends more time building his flock than actually teaching them (not to mention that virtually no one goes to listen anymore but those who already believe), and all the world sings to the tune of “just follow your heart.” Never mind that God tells us in Jeremiah 17:9 that “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked...” Those who we trust with leadership have put forth an immense amount of effort to drive our view earthward, away from the sky and the Son.

     We need to recapture eternity. Our lack of perspective has given people the means they need to pursue their sins. Their is no 'ever-after' so find all the joy you can today, right? There's no judge to make the rules so you decide how to play the game, it's your game after all isn't it? No one made us this way, so we can be whatever we want to be and be with whoever we want to be with. There is no right and wrong only mine and yours. If all we have to look at is the ground around us, is it any surprise that our worldviews have gotten so muddy? When God is on His throne and in His proper place in our minds, we see things as they should be. Our actions have consequence and meaning because they will echo in eternity, who we are matters because He has fashioned us for a purpose, and what we do matters because reality reflects the very nature of its Creator.

     God is more than just a crutch for hard times. He is more than just a nice thought on holidays or a cultural hold-over. God is the very thing that gives our lives meaning and worth. If there is no God then there is no law-giver for reality. If there is no law-giver then there is no objective law by which to differentiate good and evil. If there is no good and no evil then nothing we do can rightfully be condemned. If we make the rules then every argument is simply a matter of survival of the fittest and our future will be nothing but cannibalism, as we devour each other in our effort to have things our own way.

What is Choice?

     What is the nature of free will? Are we all on this earth to simply dance to the beat of another's drum or do we make real choices? People have been pondering this question for probably as long as they've pondered at all and I can see why. We don't like to think that our lives our controlled by someone else and if we see that none of our choices matter than it leads to a depressing fatalism. So can we come to any meaningful understanding of this problem? I think we can.

     First off let's look at things from the naturalistic perspective, frankly because it's much simpler. If we are all just animals, meat machines, and more specifically if we are the end result of automatic process working as they have to ultimately culminating in the formation of man, then there is no choice. As Hawking pointed out we cannot avoid determinism if we come at life from this angle. There can be no transcendence in a world that evolved. If we are born of nothing but chemical reactions and the laws of physics and if nothing else exists to interact with this matter than nothing can ever happen but what is programmed into that material (so to speak). Every “choice” that you make is really just what your particular set of chemicals and structures has to do when encountering that situation. In this view all of existence is one big calculation, a series of equations where A + B will always equal C. Your personality, your beliefs, your choice of a job or a spouse, these things are all just illusions of sentience and the reality is that we are all just robots; DNA machines that run on a very complicated set of rules. Depressing isn't it?

You cannot cut the strings

     The problem with this ideology is that we do see glimpses of the transcendent in our lives. We are aware of what we are in a metaphysical, existential sense. This is where Christianity comes in. You see, in the Bible, we are shown to be more than just matter. Made from the dust of the earth God breathed life into us (Genesis 2:7) and made us a living thing. This is important because we see here two huge differences from how He made animals. First we were made 'from' something, unlike animals and the earth which were simply popped into existence by God's own power, we were formed from the “dust of the earth.” I'm sure there are ramifications and reasons for that but it's beyond my abilities to find them. The second and really more important bit is that our life was “breathed” into us by God directly. To me this connects us to God's Word which is described as “God breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16), and which is also described as being “alive” (Hebrews 4:12). Also we were made in the “image of God,” (Genesis 1:26) which obviously doesn't mean that we look like Him since God is spirit and has no set physical form (other than the humanity taken unto the Son, ie. Jesus). All of this points to a creation that is more than just the stuff it's made of, we are both physical and spiritual beings and this allows us the ability to look outside ourselves and to rise -just a bit- above our material.

We are more than the sum of our parts.

     It gets a bit more complicated from this point. You see, all of the previous stuff is quite clearly shown in the Bible but we also see that God has total control over His creation (1 Chronicles 29:11-12, Psalm 115:3, Isaiah 46:9-10, etc.). Many people have a hard time reconciling true free will with a being that can simply make you do whatever He pleases. Now I'm not going to get super deep here simply because there isn't time but I've done a lot of thinking on this over the years and I'll simply run you through my current conclusions. The short answer is that no you don't have free will. You do however have free choice, let me define that. Free will is the ability to do whatever you want, to make decisions and plan your life as you see fit. Honestly I don't see that as an option Biblicaly, we do seem to make choices and decisions but the ultimate outcome of those choices is far beyond our control. We can choose to obey or rebel against God but in the end we get heaven or hell and there is nothing we can do at that point to change our destination. I think what we have is what I call “Free Choice.” By that I mean that God has laid out His world and has given us options and we have the freedom to choose from those options. Obey or rebel, love this person or this other person or no one, this job or that job, school or no school, and on and on and on. These choices come to us and some are better than others and some are obviously where God would have us go but He doesn't necessarily force us down these more proper roads. Look at Jonah, God actually TOLD him what to do but he chose instead to run away. This is one way in which our choices can matter and how we can still be responsible for our sins. We chose, in a very real sense, to do that evil. We are always presented with options and we may not like them but they are there.

     When we speak of the big questions of salvation and sanctification, God is just doing what He wants to ultimately, and we can either choose to obey or to rebel. I think that when we move beyond the ultimate questions we have a lot of give and quite a bit of 'wiggle room.' God has plans and purposes but He made them with our personalities and preferences in mind, using us to tell His story so that we are truly involved in the telling; actors not puppets. We may say the wrong line or miss a cue every once and a while but we are right there on the stage. We have to be more than matter for anything we do to matter and our soul gives us that bit of transcendence.   

The Missing Source

     Probably the biggest or at least the most public battle in the Christian world today is the debate over origin. Christians such as the well known Ken Ham of Asnwers in Genesis continue to propose the idea of Biblical creation and the naturalists such as Richard Dawkins continues to promote the belief in naturalistic evolution as the means by which we came to be. Both sides have spilled a lot of ink and used up a lot of bandwidth and a lot of screen time arguing over particulars and data points and yes's and no's. Oddly enough though, there's a few points that are rarely if ever brought up.

     First let's talk about eternity and nothing. This is the question: Was there ever a point when there was nothing? Does it matter? Actually it matters quite a bit because those who claim that the universe created itself from nothing are standing on, well, nothing. Look at the word 'nothing', it literally means “no” “thing.” If there is nothing there, than nothing can happen. You can't have chemical reactions without chemicals, you can't have friction without things to rub against each other, and you can't have even have time without something to 'pass through it.' Now some would argue that you can create something from nothing but don't listen to them. They're using logical dishonesty because energy is still a 'thing.' If there was ever a time when there was truly nothing, then there could never be anything. So ultimately even the evolutionist has to agree with the creationist on one point, there is something that has the power to exist within itself, ie. something that has always been. The naturalist will say it's matter and energy or just energy, while the creationist will say it is God. Others might try and propose an infinite regression of creators. That this was created by that, which was created by this other thing, which was in turn created by this other other thing, etc. This is of course preposterous and not worth even discussing.

     The second issue is a bit more odd to describe; where did information come from? Let me put it this way, matter is essentially stuff and energy is energy but where does data fit in? It's not made of matter nor energy and you can't hold information in a jar. You can store information in matter and in energy but neither one can make it. Here's anther way of looking about it: chemical reactions. When you put vinegar and baking soda together, what happens? It bubbles and swells out to a much larger size, right? Why? You can look into the science and understand what is happening in the reaction but why do those particular vinegar bits now how they should react to those baking soda bits? We don't find a long list or rules for the behavior of atoms written on their itty-bitty parts, and there's no explanation as to why they should react one way and not another. 

     Think of DNA, the life instructions. It's all find and dandy to say that it contains all the data needed to build a life form, but that arrangement of chemicals is only useful because the parts of cells know how to read that information. They know the language. If you took a bag full of scrabble tiles and had a group of people pull them at random, it's entirely possible that someone might eventually spell a word, like bat for example. That might sound amazing, but those three 'letters' are just ink on wood. The are completely without meaning and use without the knowledge of the specific English language! The reality is that matter has never been seen and simply cannot create information, only an intelligence can. So even if matter existed forever, there's still no way for it to interact because there would be no rules, no instructions for how the pieces should fit. Here's where it get's really interesting; even if that information did exist on it's own, there's no reason for it to stay that way. In the chaos and anarchy of a randomly generated world there is no authority, no power that makes things stay the same so the rules of matter that exist today could theoretically change tomorrow! When God runs things however, when an all powerful creator makes and keeps existence, everything dances to His drumbeat. He keeps matter in line, He adds data and information to dead matter, He makes life and order even possible!

     So there we go, a look at a couple of issues that don't get talked about much. Give 'em a turn or two around your mind and let me know what you think. Apart from all the information being used in the evolution/creation debate these are a couple of ideas that really make you pause and consider their implications, and getting people to think is something Christians should be doing all the time.