My God!

So... I just watched an episode of an old show called "The Mantis" on Hulu, and the following struck me:

I find immense truth in the moment in a TV show or movie when a character looks at the mess they've made of their lives, the obsession that is keeping them from being what they know they should be, and the only two words they can say are "My God!"
I see this truth in two ways:
First, the person is realizing that they do need God. They are in themselves unable to fix their situations and problems. They are unable to make their lives what they should be, because they are the problem.
Second, the person is immediately identifying the real problem: something else is their God. The obsession that has hold of their life is their act of worship. The mess they've made of things is the pile of offerings to whatever idol is in the center of their life, the product and proof of a failing center.

Truthfully, I watch too much Hulu, and I count most of my time on video entertainment as completely wasted. I mean, look at this, I haven't written a blog post in forever, and (if I decide to not proofread) it doesn't really take much time…
The only defense I have is that I try to be critical, try to learn what people think about people by looking at how stories, written to capture the viewing public, are told.

So, I'll leave you with this: If you are going to let your mind rot in front of some passive entertainment, I only ask you to take a moment to make it less passive. Ask yourself if there is some truth behind what you are watching, search for the commentaries on the human condition, and ask yourself if you agree with the motives and beliefs that are revealed in the fabric of the story, the acting, and the words themselves.

The Problem of Evil

Last Thursday I had the opportunity to see Ravi Zacharias and Os Guinness speak at the Atlanta Civic Center on "The Mystery of Evil, The Sovereignty of Good." Both are great speakers, and a few points really stuck with me.

1) Only in the Judeo-Christian worldview is evil truly evil:

Many worldviews and religions classify things as good and bad, true and false, right and wrong, but only in the Old and New Testaments is sin an infinite chasm between the Creator and His Creation. Other worldviews tell you to deny the existence of evil, or of the world itself, or to do the right thing, do good works, and work off your sins. Some tell you that society defines good and evil, and that the whole thing is just a social construction, others say it is a naturally coexistent force, that good and bad are always in balance in the world.
Only the belief in a Creator and final Righteous Judge can truly define what evil is. Only in the knowledge that we were made for a purpose can we say that something is rejecting it's purpose (which Ravi and Os used as a good definition of evil -- the rejection of purpose). Other worldviews have to say that the pain and strife we see in the world is natural, it's the way the world should be. It is Christianity that says the world is messed up, so when a person try to use "the problem of evil" to refute a good loving God, realize that the person is borrowing from the very worldview they are arguing against.


2) The "best possible world"

I forget exactly how Ravi said this, so this is all going to be my paraphrase, but I really liked his answer to "Why God created a world that would be evil."
What is the best of all possible ends? What is the best thing in existence? Love. The world could not be the best, it could not be "very good" without the possibility of love. We would only be the best creation if we could respond in love to our creator. However love requires option, it necessitates choice. Sure, it would've been nice if Adam and Eve hadn't chosen their own way. The world could be the best possible world the way God created it: with the option for evil but without the presence of evil.
But that's just a "what if", and the truth of the matter is God created the best possible world. God does not make mistakes. God allowed for evil, God gave the opening for man to follow pride. God let man break the world and His only Son.


3) So, is God evil?

So, does this make God evil? Should he have not created at all knowing that the best possible world would still revolt?
Ravi gave a great analogy for that (paraphrased):
If a car is used to go over the speed limit, or to traffic illegal drugs, or to transport dead bodies, or to run someone down in the street, is the car manufacturer at fault? Should they be brought to court to answer for the use of the car? No.
The car was well made, it could accelerate well to get out of a bad spot, it could carry plenty of cargo, and it went and did exactly what the driver told it to. The design was not bad, however the use of the design was. Man is a wonderful design, built by a good, loving God, but the same arms, legs, mouth, and mind can be used for His purposes or for ours.



Well, I just typed a lot it seems, but I liked the synthesis of these ideas from Ravi and Os. There is only one worldview that says that evil is evil and God is good. All other worldviews have to water down both.


( Wow… I haven't posted in over a month… and I pick the day that I have to write a lab report to write… anyway, hope you enjoyed it :-) )

Perelandra

So, I finally finished Perelandra by C.S. Lewis a couple days ago, which means I have one book left in his Space Trilogy. If you haven't read it, I'll try not to give too much away… but it's about a guy named Ransom who is sent to Venus on a mission.
I really liked the first half of the book, especially any time that the characters were debating about right and wrong, dealing with things like obedience, duty, and love. I like the awkwardness Lewis draws out when Ransom is trying to explain things like death, hatred, and sin to a creation that had never tasted of any of them, and I enjoyed the tabula rasa logic of the Venus's "Queen".

Other than that, I thought I would pass on some neat quotes from Perelandra:

(Ransom speaking about his experience of space)
"On the contrary, it is words that are vague. The reason why the thing can't be expressed is that it's too definite for language."

-- I like that one, something utterly definite that cannot be defined by words… that's something to get your brain-gears turning...

and this:

Ransom had been perceiving that the triple distinction of truth from myth and of both from fact was purely terrestrial -- and was part and parcel of that unhappy division between soul and body which resulted from the fall.
...
The whole distinction between things accidental and things designed, like the distinction between fact and myth, was purely terrestrial.
...
And he bowed his head and groaned and repined against his fate -- to be still a man and yet to be forced up into the metaphysical world, to enact what philosophy only thinks.

I really like this quote (or… squished together series of quotes) for multiple reasons:
1. It restates what I said in a previous post, the synonymity of belief and faith, in a different manner
2. It states that predestination and free will are not mutually exclusive and are rather a matter of perspective
3. It reminds us that our world is a metaphysical world, that we live in more than just some loosely connected physical and non-physical reality, and that our philosophy and our actions should line up, that we have a place and a part to play.

Anyway, it took me too long to finish this book (I had listened to about a third of it in the car over break)… to tell the truth, I was wasting my time on useless Hulu TV and playing a online FPS… anyway, here's to getting school work done and reading more… :)

God's Undertaker

On Saturday I finished a book that I had borrowed from a friend of mine by Mathematician and Philosopher John Lennox: God's Undertaker -- Has Science Buried God? It was a very good book, well written, logical, with a smattering of humor (well, things I found humorous...). The book is a good examination of faith as it applies to origin science: Does science prove evolution? Can science prove whether or not the world is created?

Is faith "delusional" as Richard Dawkins, a prominent atheist, would say? Or is it a faith in the nonexistence of God that drives atheists like Richard Dawkins to any length to manufacture methods that the universe could manufacture itself?

Starting from Physics, Astronomy, and other non-biological sciences, then delving into evolution and its various meanings and theories, and finally constructing an argument for the existence of a Creator based on Information Theory, Lennox debates his points well, and also takes on the task of preemptively answering key challenges to his argument.

Altogether, I really liked the book, and I plan on getting a copy for myself, but I would like to leave one thing with you: The last couple things that Lennox says in the book (don't worry, it's not much of a spoiler, lol):

In conclusion, I submit that, far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.

Inevitably, of course, not only those of us who do science, but all of us, have to choose the presupposition with which we start. There are not many - essentially just two. Either human intelligence ultimately owes its origin to mindless matter; or there is a Creator. It is strange that some people claim that it is their intelligence that leads them to prefer the first to the second.

-- John C. Lennox, God's Undertaker

What is Knowledge?

I know that millions have asked this question, and thousands have written to various extents on the matter, but I would like to make a small claim here.

Would you, just for a second, amuse me with this? Just read each question and think about it before moving on to the next (not including the one just asked... only think long about that one if your initial answer is no :-) )


1: Have you ever known something to be true, then later discovered you were wrong?
(You can replace "wrong" with "mistaken" if you like to mask your fallibility)



2: Why, then, do we say that belief and faith are less than knowledge?



If knowledge can be wrong, than anything we know is known by faith! Everything we "know," "believe," "think," it's all based on our experiences in life, all based on some stimuli, some starting point, some reason, however false the point or faulty the reasoning is!


Now, please don't misconstrue my meaning, "faith" and "knowledge" are taken to mean different things at different times in different contexts. A teacher is not going to "test your faith of the material," though, I could say they are testing whether your faith and theirs line up on certain material, aka, if your faith, if your knowledge, is correct.

And before I go further: THIS IS NOT ABOUT RELATIVISM!!! All I'm saying is that faith and knowledge are not polar opposites as some, especially those who call themselves scientific, would have you believe. Really, what I'm saying is directly against relativism: faith, like knowledge, can be judged as right and wrong, true and false.

One more thing: head/heart knowledge: I think these are bad terms... They simply mean what you do and don't believe! Knowledge in your head isn't real if it's not also in your heart! And if something hasn't become real to you it's neither faith nor knowledge!!! It's just memorization!


Thank you for reading, this has been another journey through Chris's crazy word-mush. If you agree, I hope you have enjoyed this, if not, mush some words together in the comment thingy. :)