Tag: Faith
Prerequisites for Atheism
Prerequisites for Atheism
One of the chief prerequisites for a person to become an atheist, he must first become a demigod. A demigod is a human being that feels that the closest thing to God is mankind. “Nothing can be greater than man.” For this reason a humanist demigod believes in his heart of hearts that if there is any alien life in the universe, it must be inferior to man or at least equal, but not super superior, for if superior it might be God. To them man is the measurement all things, even God. Why else would they advertise our existence in the universe not knowing that the life found might be superior and hostile to humanity? Have they really placed human curiosity before survival or does their position simply demonstrate the hubris of humanity?
Their behavior reflects a creature which believes itself to be the top dog. Here lies one of the suppositions that lead a person to atheism. This prerequisite could be defined as super egotism. Though unspoken, it resides in the recesses of the human ego and is depicted in the Genesis story of man, namely Adam and Eve wanting to be like God. It matters little whether you accept the story as historical or as myth, the truth that it teaches is true even to the casual seeker.
It is here where we find the source of the grandiose arrogance of the humanist and the atheist. Both have elevated humankind and human knowledge to an unwarranted place. The result of this is a blind faith in unlimited progress, which has been taken to the degree of denying in their imagination the finiteness of humanity, the planet we live on and the universe that we live in. For example, we have the atheist who believes that he can make an absolute statement that there is no God. Now let’s be honest and realistic, how can a human being that is in touch with reality make such a statement? To make such a statement you would have to have all the potential knowledge about the universe, be in every place at the same time and have the absolute knowledge that there are no other dimensions where a God might dwell. To have this kind of knowledge and power one would have to be God. This is why atheism is the most unreasonable position that a human being can take and why it takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to believe in a God.
It would seem much more reasonable for a human being who has never experienced God to simply say that they are agnostics and don’t know if there is a God. To conclude and deny the experience of billions of people and to arrogate that they are all delusional, must in itself be delusional and the most arrogant position one could imagine. In essence they are saying, “because I have not experienced something, it cannot exist,” which in itself is a God statement. This idea is especially true when you consider that a large number of those who claim they have experienced God are some of the most intelligent people in the world. I have read somewhere that out of the five people who have the highest IQs four out of five believe in some kind of deity[1]. It was reported in the latest Pew survey about 50% of scientists believed in a higher power.[2]
This is not to say that atheists are not intelligent, they are extremely clever. This is demonstrated by their ability to build a convoluted world view around a non-belief, which in the end is non-provable and a non-sensible position and then convince millions of people that it’s true. Of course, they actually have not created a world view, what they have done is borrowed from a number of other world views to build theirs, e.g. materialism, naturalism, scientism, humanism and even theism.
Another prerequisite of atheism is the elevating of human reason and knowledge to the status of an absolute. This can be clearly seen in the enlightenment where intellectuals built systems of thought which they believed was ultimate truth and based on science. The two clearest examples of this are Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx both of whom were atheists. Atheists are still to this day building intellectual systems and propagating them as the truth. For example, Richard Dawkins’s selfish gene theory is propagated by him as the truth, when in reality, it is nothing more than a desperate attempt to prove his atheism. His book is an example of how an intelligent human being can put together a complete book about nonsense and have it embraced by other intelligent beings, if there is such a creature.
Still another prerequisite for atheism is for large numbers of people within a society to be reduced to one-dimensional people, which can only think in a very narrow conceptualization of reality. Of course, in a modern capitalistic and industrial society, this is the goal of our education system. It is geared not to make thinking people or creative people but rather to teach people to make the machine work, which tend to stifle the imagination and the creativity of the individual, hindering their ability to understand and construct conceptual and abstract ideas. The whole system makes it hard to believe in and conceptualize a God without being.
William James in his book on pragmatism points out that one’s disposition has as much to do with one’s belief as anything else. He expounds in his book that the thing that separates the empirical from the rational person is not so much knowledge or intellect as it is their dispositions. This may point to another prerequisite to unbelief, which would be a cynical and pessimistic view of existence, which I have found among many atheists. Though I freely admit that my sampling is small and in no way would I purport any form of determinism. No matter, what one’s disposition might be it does not predetermine one’s beliefs. However, it is fully possible that one’s disposition will influence a person’s beliefs. So, we could say that a pessimistic disposition could possibly be a prerequisite to atheism.
All this points to the fact that atheism has many roots and only one can be traced to the intellect. Many of the roots have their source in the psychology of the individual and the society they are planted in. In other words, the soil determines the kind of plant that will grow in it.
[1] Christopher Michael Langan is said be one the smartest person in the world with an IQ of close to 200, which means he has an IQ higher than Einstein. Langan not only believes in God, but believes you can prove His existence with mathematics. William James a believer, is reported to be the smartest man who ever lived with an IQ estimated as 285 to 300, over a 100 points higher than Einstein.
[2] “A Pew survey taken in 2009 records that 33 percent of scientists believe in God and another 18 percent in a higher power, compared to 94 percent of the general public. On the list of long-ago scientists who believed in God are Galileo, Descartes, Pascal, and Newton; more modern names have been added, such as Lord Kelvin, Max Planck, and Francis Collins. So, to say that scientists don’t believe in God is a gross generalization”.
Understanding the New Atheists
Understanding the New Atheists
For the last few years I have been trying my best to understand the new atheist movement and all of its ranting and raving against God and religion. Then it dawned on me, that I could not understand them because we were not talking about the same things. The god and religion that they are ranting against is not the God I believe in or the religion I practice.
The majority of them talk about a god that I believed in at one time and a religion I was a part of when I was a young man. However, I no longer believe in that god nor do I practice that religion. It took a number of years on my journey to find The Wholly Other; or should I say for him to find me and to lead me out of the forest of religious idols I was lost and hiding in.
Looking back on my journey it is hard to understand why it took so long to be found by the Lord seeing that “We live and move and have are being in him”[1], though he, himself has no being, for He is being[2], i.e. He does not have existence rather he is existence[3]. Therefore, there really is no way to argue for his existence for he does not exist in the way we think of existence. So, what are we arguing for, or against?[4] I will get back to this later.
I found that not only do the new atheists have a different vision of The Totally Other, they (at least the majority) had a different vision of religion, which is as narrow as their vision of the God symbol. They seem to believe that all religion is the same, which in their minds means that all religion is bad. Of course, it does not take much thought to realize that the word religion is a word that points to a concept which is as deep and broad as the ocean. Therefore, when the new atheists start bashing all religion and lumping it all together it makes me wonder how much real thought they have put into their subject. I have found some so allergic to the word religion that they cannot even admit that religion can be good or bad. This strongly points to the level of maturity of so many in that movement. They take a thumb full of the ocean and believe that they have captured the ocean. I am not saying this in malice but I believe that many these people have some deep problems.
You may have noticed that I have tried to avoid using the word God, the reason being that the word has been so vulgarized and distorted that it has lost any value in helping us to understand the mystery that I refer to as The Wholly Other. The distortion of the God symbol is one of the real problems with religion.
Religion should help us in our journey to The Totally Other. However, instead of helping it often hinders by giving us false ideas of God, these false images in ancient times were called idols. The problem with idols is that there is no image or thing in reality or in the mind of humanity that can picture The Totally Other. All images of God created by humanity whether in mind or in stone, are idols because they are too small and distort the symbol we use for The Totally Other, i.e. God. The false ideas of God in turn solicits a false responds e.g. the new atheists.
This means that the atheist that has a pure heart may be closer to having a correct view of God than many believers. That is, if he has no image of God in his mind[5]. You see nothing is better than the something if the something is wrong. This is why I call the something that you cannot image or speak about, The Wholly Other, The Uncreated One, I Am or maybe Nothingness? I do it to keep people from creating a false image of God that is too small.
Of course, the problem is that for both believer and atheist, religion stands as a mediator between them and The Wholly Other. You see, for the atheist to argue against God he must have an image of that God in his mind. Whatever image he has in his mind is simply an idol. This is the only reason why they can form an argument against it for no argument can be formed against the Wholly Other for he lies beyond all argument. The majority of men will never get beyond the idols of this world whether they claim to be atheist or theist, i.e. their God is too small. I often wonder how humans could become so corrupt that the scripture would tell us that every imagination of their heart was corrupt, I now know; their God was too small, they were idolaters.
The theist often creates a God in their own image and then projects that image into heaven. The atheist then comes along and says that is not God and they are right. It is an idol that can be manipulated and controlled by man. It is the god of the religious man and the atheist. A god that is created for the opium of the people; or as a tool to control the herd. On the other hand, the deist created an aloof impersonal God that is somewhere out there beyond everything, located in some distant heaven, too aloof to be involved with his creation. Of course, any god that can be herded into some small corner of space and time is just too small to be the Totally Other. It also is an idol[6].
The high theists of the world know The Wholly Other, since they know, that they know little or nothing of being much less than non-being. They confess that they are quite ignorant of the Total Other. They understand, as Isaiah the prophet also understood; “His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts.” To them the word God is a symbol which stands for the limits of their knowledge. This knowledge calls for humility and they are careful not to over speak on the subject of the deity. As one old seer said, those that don’t know speak and those that know do not speak.
You may ask, “Are you saying we can know nothing of non-being?” No, I am saying that you can only know what He has revealed to you. How does He reveal Himself? One way is through nature and the study of it, that is science. The study of nature has reviewed how great and powerful the Wholly Other is and how different he is from humanity. This knowledge should create awe and wonder in ones spirit, which is true spiritual worship. Unfortunately, many that study nature end up worshipping nature, failing to see that she is an arrow pointing to that which is beyond her. As the seer says when the prophet points at the moon the majority look at his thumb. For many science and religion has become the study of the thumb.
Some may say that this Wholly Other dwells in a cloud of darkness and mystery. Why does he hide Himself? Why does He not reveal Himself? Well, I do not think He is the problem, I think the trouble lays elsewhere. Could it be that He is so awesome and so glorious that in our present form we cannot approach Him without melting into nothingness. This unapproachableness is pointed out in the bible when God tells Moses, “You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.” (Exodus 33:20)
There is the real possibility that the darkness that hides the Wholly Other is the darkness that is in the human heart. Jesus said, blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God”. Now by pure in heart I do not think Jesus is talking about not having impure thoughts e.g. lust, greed, etc. but rather having the right focus of one’s own being. He refers to this as the single eye. “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! (Matt 6:22-23).This may be why children find it easy to see God until their parents or their culture (which includes religion) fill their eyes with darkness and forces them to see the world through dark colored glasses. It is no wonder Jesus said “unless you convert and become like little children you will in no way, enter the kingdom of God.” So, let’s stop blaming God and the devil for our bad eyes and poor sight. For that matter let’s stop blaming our parents and culture and accept responsibility for the condition of our own heart. Our hearts are filled with darkness because we have made God too small and are about the business of building idols.
Then, there is the Bible. What is the Bible? The Bible is a collection of writings from men who were searching for the Totally Other. It is the history of their journey and their interaction with the Uncreated One. It records their successes and their failures. It shows them as groping, sometimes searching as a lost children would search for their parent and slowly, in due course growing into adolescence. The Bible also reminds us that the story is not over and that adulthood is still away off.
What about the contradictions and mistakes in it? Would you not expect to find a few anomalies and problems in any writings trying to explain the Total Other? It is a book of symbols that point to something that is on the border of human knowledge, known yet unknown. The Bible itself is a symbol which claimed to be both human and divine. The divine part is perfect in doing what it was created for, which is the building of souls as they journeyed towards the Totally Other.
However, there is a consistent theme and a trend that run though the whole of Scriptures, which connects all of its parts, though sometimes overshadowed, it is always there. It is the central symbol of Scriptures and God’s people throughout the ages. We could summarize that one central symbol with the word ‘someone’. Someone is coming, someone is here and someone is coming again.
The someone of Scripture is the Promised One, the Anointed one, the Messiah or Christ. The one who would save the people from their enemies. Their greatest enemies being sin and death. The Scriptures gave clues to help people recognize this someone. It said that he would be extraordinary and different from other men. His words would be different and his life would be different, he would be Other like the One who sent him.
One man has said that it takes extraordinary evidence to prove an extraordinary claim.[7] The scriptures say that the someone in himself is the extraordinary evidence that the Total Other has given to man. This someone is the final and perfect symbol that points to the Total Other. He spoke like no other man and lived like no other man. When he spoke things happened, people were healed, water was changed into wine, storms were stilled and the dead were raised. No man has ever had so many people believe in him and at the same time has had so many hate him and despise his teachings. He truly is the extraordinary man, the someone sent from the Totally Other. This totally other man is still calling people “To come follow me”.
[1] Acts 17:28
[2] When I say He has no being it might be better to say he is super being. We live and move and have our being in Him, but we are not Him.
[3] Existence is beyond our comprehension though we apprehended it through our own existence and the existence of things around us.
[4] When humans argue for or against the idea of God they are arguing for or against a human construct that at best can only point to the One that stands behind it. Therefore we spend a great deal of time arguing about the idea of God. Now it is true that some ideas of God surely are better pointers than others but all fall short of the reality. This is true in science as well, for there is no theory of reality that is reality. The map is not the territory.
[5] It is unlikely that most atheists have no image of God in their minds, because if so, they would have nothing to argue against.
[6] The true God is super personality and has a knowledge of everything going on in creation. Therefore, he is more like the God that Jesus’ images than the God of the Deist. Jesus says, “that he knows every hair of our heads.” His nature is reflected by Jesus referring to him as “Father.”
[7] Unfortunately, Carl Sagan did not define what extraordinary evidence would look like. For some skeptics, there would never be any evidence of any kind or enough to prove the existence of God.
The Good News for America
The Good News for America
In a society that is all about comfort, ease, pleasure and feeling good, how can we call a person to suffer and die to themselves and live for others? In other words, what is good about the good news of Christ?
What is the good news of Christ? Is it good health and worldly blessing or is it something different? The gospel is that Christ died for our sins, and that God raised him from the dead, nothing more and nothing less. Why are the death and resurrection of Christ the good news? Well, it is only good news if you recognize that mans greatest enemies are sin and death. If you recognize this, then the gospel of Jesus Christ is the best news in all the world. Let’s take a look at the trouble that the apostle Paul called the law of sin and death.
The literal meaning of sin is, to miss the mark. It was the term in which the spotter, who stood next to the target, would yell back to the archers when an arrow missed the bulls-eye. You sinned; you missed the mark you were aiming at. When the New Testament says you have sinned it is saying that you have missed the mark that God has set for you as a human being created in His likeness. You have missed what it means to be truly human.
What is his likeness? Now the likeness of God is a deep subject, but we can easily grasp some things about it. The Bible tells us that God is love and from this, we can gather when we were created in his image that we were created for love. That is we were created to have a love relationship with God and reflect that image to all around us.
But, how can this be if God is a spirit? How can we love a spirit? That is a tough question for a three dimensional being to comprehend. Even so, one thing I do know is that we can reflect God by loving those that have been created in his image. Human beings are living symbols of the living God. In fact, they are the only thing in all of creation that image’s God. So, to love or hug a person is to hug God. To smile at another human is to smile at God. To do good to another human is to do it to and for God (Matt.25:30-40). It is here we can also see what sin really is. It is doing something to hurt a fellow human created in God’s image or neglecting to do something one ought to do to help a fellow human. It is breaking or being unfaithful to the love relationship we have or should have with our fellow-man. When you act in an unloving way toward your brother, you have sinned. If you break faith with the image of God, you have sinned against God.
Now the next question is what is love? We have seen that God is love, and this is where Jesus comes in. Jesus came here to reveal the father (John 17). He came to teach us what true love looks like. In making known the father he made known what is true love. He did it by living and dying a sacrificial life for others. In this, he lived for God and fulfilled the great commandment “to love God with your whole heart, soul and mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” This work of revealing the Father as sacrificial love reached its peak and fulfillment in his death on the cross. As he died, he said, “it is finished.” In this act of dying for others Jesus fulfilled the law of love and opened a new living way of approaching God, not through religion but through love, not just any kind of love but through the kind of love demonstrated by Jesus.
The atonement is God demonstrating his sacrificial love in Christ for his creation. How can the death of Christ be reduced to a payment of a debt, to a broken law? The atonement must be grounded in God’s love, not the law. Love freely given, never demands its pound of flesh as the law does. “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.” In the death of Christ, God deals with the sin problem by covering it with his love; while at the same time demonstrating his love to man by covering over with his love their anger and hatred. “Father forgive them, for they know not, what they do.” In this act of love, he revealed his love, by forgiving freely, mans hatred and anger. (Colossians 1: 21, 22)
In the death of Christ, we also see a revelation or a revealing of man’s nature. Man is angry and filled with hate and a false sense of justice and righteousness. Man needs his pound of flesh. The law is broken, someone must pay; someone must be punished for the law is their God. I find it peculiar that many in the Christian movement have embraced a theory of the atonement which image’s God in exactly the same way as sinful man, strange indeed.
This work of revealing the Father is to be continued by his body, the church. This revealing of the father begins in the church by believers loving one another, just as Christ has loved them. In loving one another as Christ has loved them, they show the world the Father even as Christ showed them the Father. When the church fails to do this, it is missing the mark and is living in sin. When it is living in sin it is living under sin and is walking in the flesh and cannot be pleasing to God. It is a terrible sin to hurt or hinder the work of the church from revealing the Father. This happens whenever a member of the church acts in an unloving manner toward a brother or for that matter, another human being.
We are not alone in this work of revealing the Father to the world. God has put his Spirit in the body of Christ and in each of its members, to help them in this great work of revealing the true God. In truth, this work is the work of God and when he calls us, He calls us to join him in that work, and if we accept that call, we become his fellow workers.
We can gather from all this that we are most human and most godly when we are loving our brothers and honoring the love relationship with God and man. When we fail to do this, we sin. We miss the mark of loving one another, the very reason for which God has created us.
The gospel of Christ is the message that God has forgiven our unloving acts and has taken them on Himself. Furthermore, it tells us if we put our faith in Christ, he will put his divine life in our hearts to help us to become like the Father. When a person believes, they begin to find themselves being transformed into the image of God as their love for God and man grows.
However, the gospel could not be the good news of God unless it addresses the problem of death. In actuality, most people think of death as a problem at the end of one’s life, but when we take a closer look, it is something that affects all of life. It is as the Bible said, the king of terrors that cast a shadowing doom over all of life. It is the shadow of the abyss that robs life of all meaning. In the classic book, the “Denial of Death,” Ernest Becker shows how the fear of death operating on a subconscious level influences and actually controls a lot of our thinking and actions. In view of this, one would have to conclude that to bring one’s life under control you would have to have something to deal with death on a conscious and subconscious level. Well, God gave us this when He raised Jesus from the dead. The message of the resurrection is the best news that mankind has ever heard. It frees us from the fear of death and empowers us to live a life of freedom and meaning.
Of course, we did not need Mr. Becker’s book to tell us about the power of death, for scriptures long go echoed the same thought. The writer of the book of Hebrews says, ” Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death, he might destroy him who holds the power of death-that is, the devil and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death (Heb. 2:14-16). The apostle Paul actually says that death is the catalyst for mans sinning. “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 15:56-57). Note that Paul does not say death is the sting of sin but rather that sin is the sting of death. Though Paul does not tell us how death causes us to sin it is plain that he is pointing to the fear of death as the source of much of our sinning. However, he also shares with us the good news that Christ has overcome death in his resurrection. In the resurrection, God has placed us with Christ above sin and death giving us a victory over them in Christ (Eph.2:6). Now, that is good news. LD
The Voice of God
The Voice of God
Ps 19:1-4
The heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
their voice is not heard;
yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
Many today believe that there is no God or if there is, He is distant and aloof. The first group we call Atheists and the second we call Deists. However, in scripture, both Old and New Testaments depict a God that is near. This can be summed up with the words of Saint Paul.
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. He is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life, breath, and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ (Acts 17:24-28).
In this section of scripture we see a number of very interesting things. However, for our discussion we need to focus on the latter half of the section where Paul makes some bold statements concerning the nature of his deity. He said, “God is not far from each one of us.” Then he says that we live and move in Him and we have our being in Him” In this Paul set forth a lofty and radical view of the uncreated one i.e. God, a view that is not heeded or believed by many even in the Christian movement.
First, he points out that there are no sacred places in which the deity dwells. The implication is that the God of heaven and earth cannot be contained in anything built by human hands, neither can he be served by any priesthood of men. The coming of Christ has made sacred places and sacred men obsolete. In Christ, all men and places have been made sacred by the work of Christ. In this, Christ was the end of all religion as a system of mediation.
What is Paul saying about God? He surely is implying that the deity is not some impersonal distant deity that has no interest in the affairs of men; to the contrary, he seems to be saying that the God of heaven and earth created humanity with a curiosity and then gave him clues in nature that would allow man to find Him. It is in these clues that man hears the voice of God.
What are some of the clues that the deity gives to man? Well, he gave him the sense of awe. We humans are the only creatures that have the ability to experience awe and wonder. For that reason, we are the only animal that worships. The next time you are on a high place and look out over God’s good earth and you have a sense of awe come over you, try to hear the voice of God speaking to you in that experience. It helps to be alone in a very quiet place. God often speaks in a very soft voice.
The writer of Psalms said “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day, they pour forth speech; night after night, they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.” It is obvious, that this man believed that when he sat under the starry sky and looked up that he could hear the voice of God. If you want to give your faith a boost, just look up. You may hear the stars speak to you of the Creator.
Still, another clue might be mans passion for fairness and justice. It seems that men everywhere want things put right. Could this desire for fairness and justice be the echo of Gods voice? Could the sense that things are not right be the voice of God? There is a sense that something is wrong, echoes throughout the scriptures. “All have sinned and are falling short of the glory of God.” This is one reason why people of faith call the scriptures ‘the word of God’, because it has a ring of truth; a truth that echoes in the human experience.
In his book “Man’s Search for Meaning” Viktor Frankl suggests that in every human being there is an intrinsic need to have meaning. Could this inner cry for meaning be the voice of God calling us to find our purpose in him? Saint Augustine said, “Our souls are restless until they find rest in God”.
In the above Scripture Saint Paul also seems to be saying that the deity with which he is speaking about exists in another dimension, other than we humans. In fact, He encompasses all the dimensions, for He created them. Some moderns have criticized Christians for believing that God was up there in sky, but it is obvious that Paul believed God filled the entire space-time continuum and more. The mistake of some is to take literally the metaphoric language of the Bible that speaks of heaven as literally up.
One thing is obvious, if Paul is right about the deity, the deists who believe in an aloof distant God are wrong in their interpretation of God’s nature. If we live and move in the uncreated one, he surely is aware of every hair on our head as Jesus said. It also seems that if we are that close to God we should be able to sense his presence. “God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.” Paul is inferring that God has revealed Himself, sufficed that men ought to seek Him and if they seek with all their heart they will find the Total Other. No half hearted search is sufficient, the true God is not easy to find. However, He is self-evident to the pure in heart. “Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God”. Therefore, the place to begin your search is to purify your heart.
When a scientist has a hunch that there is more than meets the eye, they begin to search for the answer. If they do not have the tools for their search they create them. When they wanted to search the heavens, they created the telescope. When they wanted to search the microscopic world, they created the microscope. After creating their tools and collecting their findings, they then passed that knowledge on to their disciples. Likewise, in man’s search for God, men basically did the same thing. When men beheld the greatness of creation and its order, it forced them to seek the architect that created such an awesome universe. They then created their tools that could help them find God.
What are those tools? Well, it may surprise you but some of the tools are the telescope and microscopic. You see, both of these tools of science demonstrated how complex and orderly the universe really is; in that they point to and reveal a designer and a lawgiver. Therefore, in a sense they were both a word and a clue from God that tell us something about God’s greatness. The early natural philosophers (scientists) would say that there are two books which reveal God; the book of nature and the book of Scripture. Scientists study the book of nature. Theologians study the book of Scripture, both books point to the uncreated one.
I personally believe that there is a third book that we could call the book of humanity. If we look at man, we see a creature, which the bible says was created in the image of God. If mankind is created in God’s image and likeness, we then should be able to learn a lot about God from studying man. The author of Ecclesiastes says that God has placed eternity in the hearts of men. He learned this about man by observing and talking to men and woman about their thought world. He concluded that humanity in general believes in more than what is seen and perceived by their physical senses. They seem to have an intuitive sense that there is something more than the scene. Could it be the sense and vague remembrance that they were created for the stars or at least another world. Could this be a clue from God? Could it be that, this sense or desire for another place is the thing that is driving modern man’s quest for outer space? Could this other worldliness be a vague remembrance of our origin and purpose? Could this sense, be God drawing us to himself and the stars?
Of course, some will dismiss this as only suggestive and intuitive. However, can we totally dismiss the intuitive? I think if we do; we do so at our own peril. Not long ago I read a book on fear in which the author pointed out that many people had used their intellect to dismiss their fear to their own ruin. He pointed to numerous situations where people sensed intuitively they should not be in a place or with a certain person. Yet, they used their reason to dismiss the fear to their own demise. The question is, have many silenced the voice of God with their reason, and therefore missed some of the clues that God has given them? How about you?
A Parable for Atheists
A Parable for Atheists
In a mother’s womb were two babies. One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery? “The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.” “Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?” The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.” The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”
The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.” The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.” The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?” The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.” Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.” To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”
I saw this on the net and had to pass it on. It speaks of the final transformation in the birth of the sons of God into a new creation.”
Securing the Future
Securing the Future
We live in very uncertain times. So how in the world can we secure our future? I don’t have all of the answers to getting a hold on the future, but I do know that there is one thing which you’ve got to get a handle on before you can get a hold on the future. That is death. The reason for this is that death robs all men of a future. Consequently, some men get a handle on the future by accepting their fate. In essence, they accept that they have no future in the face of death.
That may seem brave but only if it’s true and only if it’s the only alternative, otherwise it’s foolishness. Others (the majority) simply deny their death by refusing to think or talk about it. I personally believe that there is another alternative. It’s called hope. You see hope is faith reaching into the future and pulling it into the present.
For faith to work you’ve got to make sure that when you send your faith out into the future that it finds something big enough to overcome death or a place where death cannot go. When you do this you must be sure that the thing it brings back is powerful enough to overcome the fear of death. In order to do this your faith must find something or someone who in themselves has overcome death. You see I have heard from a lot of men who have made promises about securing the future and yet they themselves had no future. To secure the future we need to have hope and faith in one that has himself secured the future.
Let me share with you a vision of the future that you might explore. It’s worked for me and millions of others. This vision of the future is a vision of a man. Like all visions it is filled with symbolism so put on your thinking hat. Here it is “I (the apostle John) turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone “like a son of man,” dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.
When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades (Rev 1:12-18).”
If you have not guessed yet, this is a vision of the resurrected Christ. When a person has placed their hope in the resurrected one they need not be afraid of death or anything else for someone else has secured the future for them. If the Book of Revelation teaches anything, it teaches that the future belongs to Jesus. God bore witness to this by raising him from the dead. He was dead and behold He is alive forever and ever. The gates of death and Hades can never shut in those who believe in the one who holds the keys to those gates. LD
Coming Up Against God-C.S Lewis
Coming Up Against God
“In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that—and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison—you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
What Lewis is taking about is probably one of his forms of experiencing God, but is something seldom experienced in our age. Why is that? It’s because we moderns look down on everything, even God, and have forgotten the meaning of pride and humility. We have set ourselves up as judges of the world and of God Himself. I often hear people say “I cannot believe in the God you believe in because He is too hard or that He is too easy.” In this they are simply saying that any God which they believe in must conform to their standards and taste. Now think about that for a minute. What are these people really saying? Are they not setting themselves up as the judge of God? Moreover, if you were to stumble upon an all knowing and powerful God, how likely would it be that all of your values, judgments, and appetites would line up with His? Before you answer, take awhile to think about it, for your answer will tell you where you stand with Lewis’s God.
Now that you have thought about your answer, let’s analyze it in view of Lewis’s remarks. If you said that your values, judgments, and your will line up with the God you believe in, it simply means that you have not experienced what Lewis refers to as “coming up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself.” Moreover, it would mean that you are prideful and that you have not experienced the true God or at the least Lewis’s God, or if you have, you have forgotten the experiences. However, either way it is a strong indication that you do not know the true God.
A further test of your standing before God could be calculated by asking a question of yourself which God might ask you someday. What would your answer be if you knocked on heaven’s door and a voice said, “Why should I let you into my heaven?” Would your answer be something along the line of, “Well, I am a good person. I kept your commandments. I did the best I could. I was fair and honest. I never hurt anyone. I went to church every week.” Unfortunately, there are some real problems with these answers if it is Lewis’s God that you are talking to. One is that they are all self-judgments based on comparing oneself with others, which has little to do with the question. Do you think God is concerned about how you compare with others? His reply might be, “So you think you’re better than others?” Furthermore, for most human beings these statements would, in themselves, be a lie. Yes, you might be a good person, but by whose standards—yours or your neighbor’s?
What is the right answer? It is an answer that only those who have experienced what Lewis is talking about can know. Here it is. You will lead me into heaven because that is the kind of God You are, and I know this because I came up against You in the person of Your Son and from that day on I knew You and my true self. I knew that I could never measure up to Your standards, and if I were to be saved it would only be through Your grace and love.
The Idols of The Age
The Idols of The Age
“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness…. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.” Rom 1:18-23
The majority of people today, both Christian and non-Christian, believe that idols were a problem in Biblical times but are no longer a problem for modern man. However, this is only true when one uses the term idol or icon in their most restrictive sense, as an image of God made with human hands. In its broader sense an idol could be anything which is exalted to a place of being one’s absolute or ultimate concern, or anything that would form or shape one’s values (Col. 3:5).
In his book “Radical Monotheism and Western Civilization”, H. Richard Niebuhr points out that our true God is the thing that forms our center of value and holds our loyalty.
In addition to our true God, Niebuhr speaks of a faith in a pluralism of gods; a faith that draws its meaning from a number of lesser objects, like money, sports, hobbies, work, politics, etc, things that people exalt to an unreasonable level in their life, things that seem to possess them and control them e.g. sex, alcohol, drugs, money, etc.
Now a person with a pluralist faith many even have as one of their gods the true God. However, to them on a deeper level, He is simply one among the many and may influence them to about the same degree as any of their gods. It could be said that this faith represents the faith of the majority of the population that claim to be Christians.
Niebuhr goes on to say, Our faith-in these gods then take two basic and dominant forms, “a pluralism that has many objects of devotion and a social faith (religion) that has one object, which is, however, only one among many” (page 18).
By the expression “social faith” he means that people have put their faith in a group or society of people making them the center of one’s values and making them the absolute of his loyalty. Social faith can be directed toward a family, tribe, nation, political party or a religious group. In this, it turns these groups into its absolute or God. When this happens, men have created their idol.
Probably the most obvious example of a social faith is the faith of a member of a cult, whose faith, though not recognized by the individual, is centered on the group and not God. On the secular side, it could be a person that is involved in a political party to the degree that the party is his ultimate concern and is the entity, which shapes his values and loyalty. You can spot one of these idolaters by their blind loyalty to their party. Many of these people think they joined a political party because it lines up with their values, but in the end, it is the party that shapes their values. This secular party god seems to be the fastest growing cult in our society, as people lose faith in their tradition religion, they turn to politics for meaning.
It is self-evident that the majority of humanity is incurably religious and that all men have an ultimate concern, which dictates their values and loyalty. It may not be known to their conscious mind, but it is there, working on a subliminal level molding them and controlling them.
In view of the above, we must conclude that few men live without idols and that all men have their ultimate concern, even the atheist. Moreover, we must conclude that many which fancy themselves as Christians have made the true God one among the many and are guilty of idolatry and disloyalty to the real God. It is little wonder that Jesus asked his disciples the question “When the Son of Man comes will he find faith on the earth?” That is a true faith in the real God. “Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.” 1 John 5:21
What is Faith and True Spirituality?
What is Faith and True Spirituality?
What is faith? In today’s world, most people think of faith as believing in something such as the existence of God or believing some facts about God. However, in the Scriptures it is more often used as a synonym for trust. What is trust? Is it, a belief or an emotion? It’s both; but it is more. It is a spiritual concept similar to hope and love. The apostle Paul speaks of faith, hope, and love and says the greatest of these is love. All three of these concepts of faith, hope, and love are spiritual concepts that are difficult to understand and this should be expected for they are not logical or reasonable. Now, that is not to say they are unreasonable or illogical, but it is to say they are outside the realm of logic or reason. Once a person experiences these concepts, they then become reasonable to that person. In fact, they actually become more real and rational than the material creation.
Like all spiritual truth, faith cannot be explained with objective truth like a math equation. The reason for this difficulty is that the spiritual is another dimension where most men have little or no experience. When we begin to talk about the spiritual dimension, the majority of men immediately think of religion or morality, failing to see that religion and religious people may or may not be spiritual. At its best, religion can only point one toward the spiritual and at its worst, it can become a vaccination against true spirituality. Others believe that being spiritual is being a moral or a responsible person. The Pharisees were some of the most moral, religious, and responsible people who ever existed, but they were not spiritual. Still others believe that being spiritual is being sinless or a nice guy or gal. Well, it’s not. Some people did not think that Jesus was a nice guy. Remember the people in the temple who were selling their wares and Jesus made a whip and drove them out of the temple area? Nice guy?
The question is, “How can we talk about and know something that we cannot experience directly with our senses?” We do it with the use of stories, metaphors, and similes. This is why Jesus often used stories and parables. One of His favorite expressions was “the kingdom of God is like…” Jesus compares the unseen kingdom of God (Reign of God) with a physical and known thing, which His listeners had experienced. In this, the metaphor or simile became a bridge between the spiritual and physical, uniting the two dimensions.
To explain faith, hope, and love or anything that is spiritual with logic or reason would be like trying to explain the color lavender to a blind man. The nearest you could come to it would be to say that it is like silk compared to wool or it is like whispering compared to yelling. Of course, the atheist would say that because the blind man could not see the color lavender, and we could not explain it to his complete satisfaction, it simply doesn’t exist.
There is no doubt that the spiritual is hard to understand, but it is not impossible. As we seek, we must remember the words of the apostle Paul, that in the realm of the spiritual we will always “see through a glass darkly.” However, by contrasting the spiritual with the known, or pointing out their similarities, we can come to know the spiritual to the degree where we are able to say, we understand the things of God. An example of this is found in First Corinthians 13 where the apostle Paul speaks of love and defines it by comparing it with certain behavior and telling us what it does and does not do. Herein he explains it without the use of logic, reason, or a list of objective truths. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails” (I Cor. 13:2-8).
After reading Paul’s words, I may not be able to explain love logically, but I can surely recognize it when I see it, and I can also recognize the absence of it. This is an example of tacit knowledge or what we might call background knowledge. The more I practice at picking things out of my background knowledge, the more skilled I become at it. We call this skill discernment. It is discernment that allows a person to pick God out of his background knowledge and say, there He is. Finding God in your background knowledge is the first step toward the kingdom of God.
In view of this, we must raise the question of who is spiritual or a person of faith. Well, we’re back to square one. You cannot explain true spirituality with a list of objective facts. Let’s try some comparisons. Being spiritual is like having a close relationship with a friend whom you love dearly. You trust your friend; you believe your friend, and you would do everything in the world not to hurt your friend. You enjoy being with your friend, and you love talking with them. You want to know more and more about your friend. If you hear someone putting him down, it angers you, and you go to his defense. Do you get it? To be spiritual is to be a friend of God. Everything that was just said about a relationship with a friend, we see in the relationship that Jesus had with His Father in heaven. To be spiritual is to be a friend of God and to be like Jesus. You see; Jesus is a living metaphor of what it means to be a friend of God and to be spiritual.
With the help of one of Jesus’ similes, let me give you a tool to help you discern your spirituality. Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.” There is little doubt what Jesus is saying about the kingdom of God in this verse, but there is something else inferred. What does the passage say about the person who finds the kingdom? Is it not inferred that a person who has found the kingdom is filled with joy, excitement, and enthusiasm about the Kingdom? The question is, are you excited and enthusiastic about God? If not, most likely you have not found the right God or there something wrong with your relationship with God. It could be that your god is too small or maybe you found the wrong kingdom.
How do you get true faith? Jesus said that faith is the work of God. However, it seems to come to those who humble themselves and seek God. It surely does not hurt to read the story of Jesus in the Scriptures. The apostle Paul says that “faith comes from hearing the words of Christ.” There is something about the words of Christ, which tends to create and strengthen our faith. LD
- We now know that there are different parts of the brain that perceive different aspects of reality. These parts of the brain can be developed and underdeveloped by use or the lack of use. This corresponds with what the Scriptures say about mankind. In the Scriptures, mans’ being is made up of three parts. He is made up of body, soul, and spirit. It is inferred in a number of Scriptures that the soulish man, that is the man controlled by his soul (governed by his reason, emotion, or appetite), cannot perceive the things of God. It is the man controlled or governed by His spirit that can understand the things of God. That is the man who has developed the part of his brain that perceives God.
- (Mark 4:30-34) Again he said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? (31) It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. (32) Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade.”
(33) With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand. (34) He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything.
(Matt 13:44) “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.”
Lyle Duell 