I often wonder about the antithetical argument from the atheistic foundation for meaning. The traditional atheist will hold that God is not essential for having meaning in life, because we can make meaning from our experiences. In this sense, they will concede there is no 'ultimate meaning', but ultimate meaning is not necessary for meaning n this life.
The theists will contend there cannot be meaning without ultimate meaning. Sometimes i think this argument is not convincing. The theist, by nature, has an eternal perspective, the atheist, a temporal. Existential meaning is the only thing in the playbook, and is going to be sufficient because it has to be.
It seems as though the topic of meaning needs to be addressed on a different level than the stratosphere of the ultimate.
I was at work this morning and one of the nurses said he needed to find some motivation for doing his work today. My mind started musing about motivation. What must one do the be motivated for action? How long will this motivation last? Is there any evidence or hope that will fund the expenditure of motivation in life? Motivation needs a benefactor; something that will feed it; a payoff. Our motivation could be feelings or the benefit of others or the glory of God.
For the atheist, these experiences and outcomes of our efforts fade. They are fading flowers; beautiful, yet passing nonetheless. It is the transience of results, the illusive denouement of life which takes an awe to the root of motivation.
Motivation needs hope and reason to be.
Is what I am doing today perpetuating my species? I don't think many people wake up with this thought, and if they did I can't see how this could be considered honorable or even valid. Is what I am doing today going to help others and given me a sense of fulfillment? This I can see as being valid and honorable, but far from Darwinian thought processes. But these motivations fall prey to time and chance. All effectual outcomes will soon be forgotten, covered over with grass and sand. The impacted lives will end. The foundations for the sake of charity will profit only bleaching bones.
From the Christian worldview, my actions will echo into eternity. What I do today will matter forever. There is an 'equals' sign at the end of life, and what I do will add up to something.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Truth: The Servant of DNA.
Out of the nothingness. A string of 250 proteins or so, a few amino acids strung together in a cup of water, swirling around, fraternizing, flirting with life. From this single celled organism springs an organism which propagates its own DNA to the next generation. This generation begets, another, begets another. Out random genetic mutation arises phenotypic traits which enhance the organisms chances of survival given the climate, the environment, and the surrounding organisms. This organism flourishes and grows, mutating, surviving, propagating.
It's reason for being, if it were conscious enough to understand, would be to continue this dance with DNA throughout the millennia, focusing all of its non-conscious efforts on surviving the winter and passing on its genes to the next generation.
Other species interact with it and it either fights of flies, depending on whatever will continue its survival, or perhaps, it will coexists symbiotically, sensing the mutual benefits of such a relationship. The organism grows in complexity through the eons, developing sensing organs, more intricate reproduction, an Olympic gene pool, and one day it becomes conscious of itself: that it exists. It congregates into community and herds for protection.
Strong instinctual drives crystallize into emotional categories which dictate actions.
Herds of creatures develop corporate norms which function to increase the propagation of the species and satisfy the evolution-generated need of comfort and freedom from anxiety. These creatures evolve to semi-transcendence, to be able to ponder their place int he universe. Born out of instinctual drives is the need to understand the surrounding world, to discover its origins and its destiny. They develop a common framework of social interactions and order to survive as a species, to relay their DNA to the next generation. They talk of things like "truth" and "absolutes" and beliefs of origins coalesce into worldviews.
But the even paced pulse throughout all of time is the incessant staccato drum beat of propagation, unchanging in its rhythm or tone. Since when did this life become something more? Are not all of our attempts to superimpose meaning or truth over this monochromatic tapestry a mere churlish pretense? And what does this say of our beliefs in our origins, or in our sciences or our observations about the world? What rubric are we to use to understand these if not the rubric of propagation? All that matters is this, not truth, not science, not religion or love. They only matter as accompanying dissonance to the metronome of propagation.
Naturalistic evolution shoots itself in the foot; indeed the very belief is built on a foundation that betrays all that is built on it. The purpose of our faculties is to promote survival and so we ought to assume any conclusion these faculties bring us to are to work to that end. Even our belief that science could lead us to the truth, or that there is a truth at all. This insidious presence lies like carrion in the heart of evolution. Rotting.
the meaning of life, as I can see it from this, is to propagate. So it doesn't so much matter what the truth is or what i believe: this has no ultimate meaning, only to the end it helps my species continue on meandering down the road of existence, albeit a bleak and ultimately pointless one that most likely will dead end at the death of our sun. What I know to be the truth might as well be some phrase by the Caterpillar,
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe",
so long as it serves the end of my species continuing.
Truth is the servant of DNA.
It's reason for being, if it were conscious enough to understand, would be to continue this dance with DNA throughout the millennia, focusing all of its non-conscious efforts on surviving the winter and passing on its genes to the next generation.
Other species interact with it and it either fights of flies, depending on whatever will continue its survival, or perhaps, it will coexists symbiotically, sensing the mutual benefits of such a relationship. The organism grows in complexity through the eons, developing sensing organs, more intricate reproduction, an Olympic gene pool, and one day it becomes conscious of itself: that it exists. It congregates into community and herds for protection.
Strong instinctual drives crystallize into emotional categories which dictate actions.
Herds of creatures develop corporate norms which function to increase the propagation of the species and satisfy the evolution-generated need of comfort and freedom from anxiety. These creatures evolve to semi-transcendence, to be able to ponder their place int he universe. Born out of instinctual drives is the need to understand the surrounding world, to discover its origins and its destiny. They develop a common framework of social interactions and order to survive as a species, to relay their DNA to the next generation. They talk of things like "truth" and "absolutes" and beliefs of origins coalesce into worldviews.
But the even paced pulse throughout all of time is the incessant staccato drum beat of propagation, unchanging in its rhythm or tone. Since when did this life become something more? Are not all of our attempts to superimpose meaning or truth over this monochromatic tapestry a mere churlish pretense? And what does this say of our beliefs in our origins, or in our sciences or our observations about the world? What rubric are we to use to understand these if not the rubric of propagation? All that matters is this, not truth, not science, not religion or love. They only matter as accompanying dissonance to the metronome of propagation.
Naturalistic evolution shoots itself in the foot; indeed the very belief is built on a foundation that betrays all that is built on it. The purpose of our faculties is to promote survival and so we ought to assume any conclusion these faculties bring us to are to work to that end. Even our belief that science could lead us to the truth, or that there is a truth at all. This insidious presence lies like carrion in the heart of evolution. Rotting.
the meaning of life, as I can see it from this, is to propagate. So it doesn't so much matter what the truth is or what i believe: this has no ultimate meaning, only to the end it helps my species continue on meandering down the road of existence, albeit a bleak and ultimately pointless one that most likely will dead end at the death of our sun. What I know to be the truth might as well be some phrase by the Caterpillar,
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe",
so long as it serves the end of my species continuing.
Truth is the servant of DNA.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Cancer and my offense
Cancer is an incredibly complex and intruiging disease. In order for cancer to begin it's coup of the body, a few things must happen for it to break free of the normal controls and regulations of the body. First, the cells must become immortal. Normal cells have telomere caps which slowly erode as the cell proliferates and when these caps are gone, the cell dies. Programmed death. Cancer cells find a way to rebuild these telomere caps and can continue to proliferate their mutated genes to an infinite number of daughter cells. They also learn not only to shut off anti-growth signals, but also to promote pro-growth signals and division so not only do they live "forever" but they proliferate more quickly and outgrow the surrounding healthy cells. In this way, the cancer begins to alter the tissue and normal functioning of the organ. As the tumor grows, the blood demands increase, so in order to continue it's seige it must obtain a blood supply. So it secretes hormones and signals which attract blood vessel growth to feed itself. It is now fully independent of the body. It has become an anomoly, an aberration of nature. It has erected a kingdom of its own altogether independent of the controls and natural functioning of the body. The cancer rejects the normal functioning for which it was made. The result is a mass of undifferentiated cells, destructive, unusable and altogether alien from their original purpose.
We are all born sick. Bodily alive, spiritually breathless. There is a cancer within us from birth, which is the root of all manifestations of evil. Anger, lust, pride, impatience, cruetly, selfishness, unkindness - these the Bible calls 'sins'; the cancer is called Sin. Just as a cancer has syptoms, so Sin has sins which errupt in avulsions and blisters on the character. These syptoms seems to vary form person to person and it is by these syptoms that we compare ourselves to establish ourselves in the moral food chain. Hitler, of course, is at the bottom and traditionally someone like Mother Theresa is at the top. Oddly enough, the symptoms don't seem to correlate with the worldview in any diagnostic manner: you get some atheists who have less symptoms than some christians, but there are some agnostics who are seeminlgy healthier by far than some Muslims, and I am not as symptomless as so and so, but I am far less sickly than... Most of us are perfectly content with the middle ground. Though this cancer manifests in ten thousand ways, in its essence it pulses the same throughout humanity: it hates God, usurps the throne and places the self in His stead. It's proper name is Pride, the great and first sin from which all other sins branch.
There are obvious syptoms which offer no pretenses in its offensive behavior, lewdness and the like; the wanton foolishness of frivilous declaration of independence from the God who continues to bless him. Then there are the more insidious symptoms which manifest in ways such as religion, good-deed-doing, piety. The people with these syomtoms are found hiding in the pews of all kinds of faiths, singing their hyms, sitting on committees, preaching at the pulpit... These people know the easiest way to not need a doctor is to not have nasty syptoms like the other immoral caste. And so, they work to have a right standing with God on their own terms, a shiny badge of approval wrought with their own efforts, tipping the scales until God is in their debt. What they don't realize is the proclivity to earn a rightousness of their own is, in fact, a symptom of the cancer itself. Any suggestions that they are really cancerous when their syomtpoms are so mild, is offensive. I was/am of this stock, and so I am offended by the gospel. I don't like being told I'm sick and am powerless to heal myself; it challenges my pride.
But, the divine medical diagnosis is cancer for all. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. For we suppress the truth of God in our ungodliness, we do not thank Him or honor Him as God and we worship the creation rather than the Creator - thats how the bible puts it. The prognosis of this cancer is unequivocal and undifferentiated: death.
All those who here this prognosis of the Doctor and believe him, go to the hospital to be healed. The cancer itself is healed instantly and removed, but the body has accostomed to years of living with the symptoms, and habits, behaviors and compensations have furrowed deeply into well trodden patterns. Outsiders looking into the hospital, still unaware of their illness, can be appalled by the syptoms they still see manifested by those within and questions the claim that they are really cured. But they are in a hospital after all, and they are there to heal. But this healing lasts a lifetime as the inferm continues to steadily gaze on and obey the doctor; submitting to his treatments and surrendering to His care.
The means to the cure of the cancer, or Sin as I will refer to it from here, is unique. God, holy and just, has some options but is bound by his character. He can vindicate His name and the denegration of his glory by punising the sin or he can find a substitute for the punishment and buy us out of our death sentence. But there can be no silly talk of 'just forgiving people' like he is giving out candy. There has been real offense and it really has to be dealth with. Anything less would make God guilty of abetting the criminal in the denegration of His infinite worth. There needs to be a righeousness within us, but not attained by means of our own efforts, for they are all tainted with the cancer and therefore are rottennes to him. In the bible, God equates our 'righteous works' to bloody menstration rags (literally). This is how unworthy our efforts are. They are unworthy because they all have their root in the cancer, in pride and self exaltation.
So God, intending to show his infinite mercy to us in our dead and precarious state, set out to save us from his wrath. He loved the world and demonstrates His love to us by giving us, for free, the righteousness we could not earn. And he gives it to us by the only means that accords with grace (or free gift): faith. Faith, by definition, looks away from the self to receive. Eternal life will be received for free or we will get none of it. In God's economy, it is essential that everything be free, lest God become a debtor of man and owe him something. God owes no man anything. Also, just as the nature of a spring is to overflow, so it is the nature of God's infinite love and grace to pour out onto those whom He loves. This is also very good news because we are paupers, spiritually bankrupt, and have no means to reconcile ourselves. Hence the greek word "evangelion" which translates to be "good news".
But the righteousness that God gives is not groundless; He does not whimsically give it; it must be paid for. And He paid for it with the blood of His precious Son Jesus. Jesus lived a perfect life and upheld the glory of God. And so what God does is he swaps our lives. He imputes the perfect life of Christ on to me and gives Christ my tumorous, God-hating, prideful, symptomatic life. Then that sin is dealt with in Jesus. So when God looks at a believer,though still sypmtomatic, he sees the fullness of His perfect Son. Likewise, God saw the wicked unbeliever "in Jesus" as He carried out the death sentence. The sin was really dealt with, someone really died - and died in my stead. I ought to have been on that cross bearing the weight of my own sin and been seperated from God for ever. But Jesus swapped lives with me. Not only am I forgiven because my debt has been paid (forgiveness) but God has given to me all the rightousness of Jesus (justification). A prisoner aquitted of his crime can leave prison but has no friends, money or home. God aquits the sinner and then gives him the estate, the faimly and life of Jesus. And makes him an heir to all the inheritance of God. This is available to all who believe.
This is precious to me and I believe it with all of my being.
To close, I wanted to clarify why the gospel offends me. I am a pretty capable person and I don't like being told I am not good enough and my efforts are vain. I don't like there being a God to whom i am acountable and I don't like not being able to make God my debtor by my good works. Its odd that on the one hand I don't want to believe what I believe to be true, yet am compelled to believe because I see it as the truth. As a person who has had the cancer removed, I still have many symptoms engrained in my behavior. The gospel offends me, because its not about me. I want my own kingdom, my own blood supply, my own life. But it is God's kingdom, Christs' blood and Life of the Spirit.
We are all born sick. Bodily alive, spiritually breathless. There is a cancer within us from birth, which is the root of all manifestations of evil. Anger, lust, pride, impatience, cruetly, selfishness, unkindness - these the Bible calls 'sins'; the cancer is called Sin. Just as a cancer has syptoms, so Sin has sins which errupt in avulsions and blisters on the character. These syptoms seems to vary form person to person and it is by these syptoms that we compare ourselves to establish ourselves in the moral food chain. Hitler, of course, is at the bottom and traditionally someone like Mother Theresa is at the top. Oddly enough, the symptoms don't seem to correlate with the worldview in any diagnostic manner: you get some atheists who have less symptoms than some christians, but there are some agnostics who are seeminlgy healthier by far than some Muslims, and I am not as symptomless as so and so, but I am far less sickly than... Most of us are perfectly content with the middle ground. Though this cancer manifests in ten thousand ways, in its essence it pulses the same throughout humanity: it hates God, usurps the throne and places the self in His stead. It's proper name is Pride, the great and first sin from which all other sins branch.
There are obvious syptoms which offer no pretenses in its offensive behavior, lewdness and the like; the wanton foolishness of frivilous declaration of independence from the God who continues to bless him. Then there are the more insidious symptoms which manifest in ways such as religion, good-deed-doing, piety. The people with these syomtoms are found hiding in the pews of all kinds of faiths, singing their hyms, sitting on committees, preaching at the pulpit... These people know the easiest way to not need a doctor is to not have nasty syptoms like the other immoral caste. And so, they work to have a right standing with God on their own terms, a shiny badge of approval wrought with their own efforts, tipping the scales until God is in their debt. What they don't realize is the proclivity to earn a rightousness of their own is, in fact, a symptom of the cancer itself. Any suggestions that they are really cancerous when their syomtpoms are so mild, is offensive. I was/am of this stock, and so I am offended by the gospel. I don't like being told I'm sick and am powerless to heal myself; it challenges my pride.
But, the divine medical diagnosis is cancer for all. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. For we suppress the truth of God in our ungodliness, we do not thank Him or honor Him as God and we worship the creation rather than the Creator - thats how the bible puts it. The prognosis of this cancer is unequivocal and undifferentiated: death.
All those who here this prognosis of the Doctor and believe him, go to the hospital to be healed. The cancer itself is healed instantly and removed, but the body has accostomed to years of living with the symptoms, and habits, behaviors and compensations have furrowed deeply into well trodden patterns. Outsiders looking into the hospital, still unaware of their illness, can be appalled by the syptoms they still see manifested by those within and questions the claim that they are really cured. But they are in a hospital after all, and they are there to heal. But this healing lasts a lifetime as the inferm continues to steadily gaze on and obey the doctor; submitting to his treatments and surrendering to His care.
The means to the cure of the cancer, or Sin as I will refer to it from here, is unique. God, holy and just, has some options but is bound by his character. He can vindicate His name and the denegration of his glory by punising the sin or he can find a substitute for the punishment and buy us out of our death sentence. But there can be no silly talk of 'just forgiving people' like he is giving out candy. There has been real offense and it really has to be dealth with. Anything less would make God guilty of abetting the criminal in the denegration of His infinite worth. There needs to be a righeousness within us, but not attained by means of our own efforts, for they are all tainted with the cancer and therefore are rottennes to him. In the bible, God equates our 'righteous works' to bloody menstration rags (literally). This is how unworthy our efforts are. They are unworthy because they all have their root in the cancer, in pride and self exaltation.
So God, intending to show his infinite mercy to us in our dead and precarious state, set out to save us from his wrath. He loved the world and demonstrates His love to us by giving us, for free, the righteousness we could not earn. And he gives it to us by the only means that accords with grace (or free gift): faith. Faith, by definition, looks away from the self to receive. Eternal life will be received for free or we will get none of it. In God's economy, it is essential that everything be free, lest God become a debtor of man and owe him something. God owes no man anything. Also, just as the nature of a spring is to overflow, so it is the nature of God's infinite love and grace to pour out onto those whom He loves. This is also very good news because we are paupers, spiritually bankrupt, and have no means to reconcile ourselves. Hence the greek word "evangelion" which translates to be "good news".
But the righteousness that God gives is not groundless; He does not whimsically give it; it must be paid for. And He paid for it with the blood of His precious Son Jesus. Jesus lived a perfect life and upheld the glory of God. And so what God does is he swaps our lives. He imputes the perfect life of Christ on to me and gives Christ my tumorous, God-hating, prideful, symptomatic life. Then that sin is dealt with in Jesus. So when God looks at a believer,though still sypmtomatic, he sees the fullness of His perfect Son. Likewise, God saw the wicked unbeliever "in Jesus" as He carried out the death sentence. The sin was really dealt with, someone really died - and died in my stead. I ought to have been on that cross bearing the weight of my own sin and been seperated from God for ever. But Jesus swapped lives with me. Not only am I forgiven because my debt has been paid (forgiveness) but God has given to me all the rightousness of Jesus (justification). A prisoner aquitted of his crime can leave prison but has no friends, money or home. God aquits the sinner and then gives him the estate, the faimly and life of Jesus. And makes him an heir to all the inheritance of God. This is available to all who believe.
This is precious to me and I believe it with all of my being.
To close, I wanted to clarify why the gospel offends me. I am a pretty capable person and I don't like being told I am not good enough and my efforts are vain. I don't like there being a God to whom i am acountable and I don't like not being able to make God my debtor by my good works. Its odd that on the one hand I don't want to believe what I believe to be true, yet am compelled to believe because I see it as the truth. As a person who has had the cancer removed, I still have many symptoms engrained in my behavior. The gospel offends me, because its not about me. I want my own kingdom, my own blood supply, my own life. But it is God's kingdom, Christs' blood and Life of the Spirit.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Get thee hence
And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
10Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
“Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God,
and the authority of his Christ.
For the accuser of our brothers,
who accuses them before our God day and night,
has been hurled down.
11They overcame him
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
as to shrink from death.
10Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
“Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God,
and the authority of his Christ.
For the accuser of our brothers,
who accuses them before our God day and night,
has been hurled down.
11They overcame him
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
as to shrink from death.
Revelation 12: 7-11
When was the Great Dragon hurled down and why? Although I had originally understood this imagery to describe the fall of Satan from heaven after He tried to usurp God's throne, this is not what John is referring to.
Satan is the accuser of the brethren, and he stood before God to bring judgments of death upon the sons of God. The master Prosecutor would evidence time after time of our desert of death to the Judge of the universe; for he is a murderer and lusts ofter our ruin. And the Judge would tolerate this because all that the Prosecutor said was true of man. Then the Prosecutor, out stepping his bounds, would impugn the Eternal God and blaspheme His justice by allowing His glory to be thus treated with such contempt. "What taste hast Thou for the blood of kine, Lord of Eternity, that Thou would demand such cheap recompense for loathsome exchange of Thy Glory? Hast thou no vigor for that which is Thine own and most precious to Thee? Thy leniency for the sins of men casts a long shadow on Thy lavish train. Shall the Name of Heaven be so Shamed as to permit stains into his most holy court?" And so it went, day and night.
Then came the cross. God justified His Name and upheld the honor of His glory through the death of His perfect Son and the myriad sins of man were quenched by blood and forgotten in the deluge of Divine Grace. And so, as the Accuser entered once again into the presence of God to bring his testimony against the elect, he found the blood of the Righteous sprinkled upon the altar of the Most High and a bowl of crimson redemption. "Get thee hence, snake!" the Lord commanded the Prosecutor, "for one has risen up from the midst of the Throne, from the bottomless counsels of the Eternal Godhead, One like a slaughtered lamb, who alone can break the seals, has vindicated my Name and purchased them back to Me." Never again will thy vile invections be tolerated against My elect, for My Love has won them, and My eternal Grace has swallowed up their offences, and they will outlive thee. On the grounds of the Blood of My Lamb, they will overcome thy condemnation. Get thee hence."
And Satan was thrown like lightning from Heaven, where he prowls like a lion, waging war on God's elect for a time. His words have power of suggestion only, but his deception is kind. Still he condemns, but we will overcome him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Sums
I was thinking the other day as I was doing a sum on my Ti-86 calculator from high school (remember how you could hide answers under the 'program' options???). I don't remember what I was adding but it was something like 86+98+34. I forgot to put in the '=' sign and hit 'enter' and it alerted me to an error. The sum doesn't work without the 'equals' sign.
It got me thinking that all the '+' signs didn't mean anything if there was no '=' sign. The point being, if there is no reckoning of all our '+' and '-'s in life, then they really mean nothing; they lose their value because it is precisely the reckoning that gives them value. No analogy is perfect, but I saw some truth in it. That is one reason why I personally can't espouse the atheistic worldview.
It got me thinking that all the '+' signs didn't mean anything if there was no '=' sign. The point being, if there is no reckoning of all our '+' and '-'s in life, then they really mean nothing; they lose their value because it is precisely the reckoning that gives them value. No analogy is perfect, but I saw some truth in it. That is one reason why I personally can't espouse the atheistic worldview.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
The Death of Illusions
It hard sometimes when old beliefs that have such a deep root in your understanding of the world are revealed to be bogus. It often happens that way with the Lord, I think. We assume Him to be one way, then we are offended when He doesn't act as the script says. He is a God defined by absolute freedom. The Lord does whatever He pleases in all of heaven and earth.
I'm sure to have many of these in the years to come. Thus is the life of a disciplined son of God.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Galatians study
How do we reverse the Gospel in our society? It is very easy to feel unaceptable to God if our feelings are not in line wit the truth. I try to evoke feelings toward Christ because strong feelings = strong faith = salvation. However, it is not the level, but the object of our faith that saves us. Object has nothing to do with levels.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)