God has set forth very clear standards for our behaviour. Even in our secular society, most people have at least heard of the Ten Commandments. Even those who are completely irreligious have some understanding that there has to be a shared concept of morality for our society to function.
These standards are applied particularly stringently to Christians. Jesus himself said, "Where much has been given, much will be required," and "If you love me, keep my commandments." The world looks to us to set the pace when it comes to good morals. Jesus even demands it. Unfortunately, sometimes Christians publicly do what is blatantly wrong. Sometimes even those who profess to believe are so turned off by the shortcomings of Christians that they give up on the church.
As a Christian, I find this painful to face. It is painful is because I echo the sentiment to some degree. Christ has called his followers not just to live exemplary lives, but to exemplify him on earth. It is not enough for a Christian just to live an ordinary moral life. We must live in exactly the same manner as Christ, who commands us, saying, "Follow me. Take up your cross. Deny yourself. Lose your soul and be found in me." This is the highest calling there is and I admit that we all fall short.
The objection of sinful Christians is also painful because I take it as an insult to my family. The church is identified in scripture as a family. We call each other brother and sister. We bear each other’s burdens. We pray for each other. We support each other, even financially, in the difficult times.
Not only are we like family, we are like one big body, each one of us operating as a contributing part of the whole. Maybe we have body parts that are embarrassing to talk about. We don’t usually like to discuss our flaws.
It is easy to say, "This immoral person must not be a Christian after all." There is, however, a very clear and unequivocal reason why we must not come to this conclusion. We are not perfect people. Again, I admit my own embarrassment: I myself am not perfect.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
On Right and Wrong
The existence of morality is one of the most compelling arguments for the existence of God. CS Lewis argues this brilliantly in his book Mere Christianity under the subtitle Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe.
Some theologian once postulated that things weren’t right or wrong because they were intrinsically right or wrong, they were only right or wrong because God said they were. This raises the alarming possibility that things could be very different in our moral universe: that God could just as easily have decided that it was perfectly acceptable to steal, for example. Take just a minute to ponder all the ramifications of such an alternate vision. Horrifying, isn’t it?
We are left with only one sane conclusion: that right and wrong are absolutes or Forms in the Platonic sense. They exist apart from our perception of them as independent, though abstract, entities. But let’s not get carried away. Before we are tempted to personify or deify the ideas of right and wrong, we need to consider that these too have their source beyond our universe. Right and wrong have existed outside of the universe, or "before" it began, in the sense that right, or goodness, exists as a characteristic of God. Wrong, or evil, is anything that opposes or does not support God and his vision of how the universe should operate. Evil exists only as a necessary result of the fact that God has given his creatures free will. Wrong is only the absence of right. Evil is only the absence of goodness.
Accepting the transcendence of right and wrong in no way implies a kind of moral dualism at the heart of the universe. God has built a very powerful object lesson into the fabric of the cosmos to make this indisputably clear. This is the notion that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. Darkness only exists as the absence of light. We cannot bring darkness into a sunlit room. We can only shut the sun out. There is no such thing as projecting darkness in the same way that we can project light into a dark place. Light exists, in a way that darkness does not.
The only example in nature that gives any indication of darkness having any power at all over light is the concept of a black hole. In this astronomical construct, a black hole is envisaged as a point of such gravity that everything gets sucked into its center. Even light cannot escape, and hence the designation: black hole. Even in this picture however, we never find the idea of the darkness reaching out to overcome the light. The operative force is gravity, not the darkness itself. The tremendous mass of the dark hole produces a strong gravitational field, whereby the light is relocated to the center of the vortex, which renders it invisible. The message for you and me: don’t get sucked in by the forces of spiritual darkness.
In this constructing this amazing picture of light as a representation of his goodness, God has provided us with a tremendous source of insight into who he is and the importance of right and wrong. It keeps us from imagining that the universe is a level playing field where good and evil are warring, with our souls as the prize to the victor. There might be spiritual warfare, but the outcome is a foregone conclusion.
Some theologian once postulated that things weren’t right or wrong because they were intrinsically right or wrong, they were only right or wrong because God said they were. This raises the alarming possibility that things could be very different in our moral universe: that God could just as easily have decided that it was perfectly acceptable to steal, for example. Take just a minute to ponder all the ramifications of such an alternate vision. Horrifying, isn’t it?
We are left with only one sane conclusion: that right and wrong are absolutes or Forms in the Platonic sense. They exist apart from our perception of them as independent, though abstract, entities. But let’s not get carried away. Before we are tempted to personify or deify the ideas of right and wrong, we need to consider that these too have their source beyond our universe. Right and wrong have existed outside of the universe, or "before" it began, in the sense that right, or goodness, exists as a characteristic of God. Wrong, or evil, is anything that opposes or does not support God and his vision of how the universe should operate. Evil exists only as a necessary result of the fact that God has given his creatures free will. Wrong is only the absence of right. Evil is only the absence of goodness.
Accepting the transcendence of right and wrong in no way implies a kind of moral dualism at the heart of the universe. God has built a very powerful object lesson into the fabric of the cosmos to make this indisputably clear. This is the notion that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. Darkness only exists as the absence of light. We cannot bring darkness into a sunlit room. We can only shut the sun out. There is no such thing as projecting darkness in the same way that we can project light into a dark place. Light exists, in a way that darkness does not.
The only example in nature that gives any indication of darkness having any power at all over light is the concept of a black hole. In this astronomical construct, a black hole is envisaged as a point of such gravity that everything gets sucked into its center. Even light cannot escape, and hence the designation: black hole. Even in this picture however, we never find the idea of the darkness reaching out to overcome the light. The operative force is gravity, not the darkness itself. The tremendous mass of the dark hole produces a strong gravitational field, whereby the light is relocated to the center of the vortex, which renders it invisible. The message for you and me: don’t get sucked in by the forces of spiritual darkness.
In this constructing this amazing picture of light as a representation of his goodness, God has provided us with a tremendous source of insight into who he is and the importance of right and wrong. It keeps us from imagining that the universe is a level playing field where good and evil are warring, with our souls as the prize to the victor. There might be spiritual warfare, but the outcome is a foregone conclusion.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Looking for Clues
Even those who deny the idea of any kind of god in the traditional sense use strange language to reflect the seeming design and purposefulness of nature, as if "evolution decided" that fish should grow legs and lungs and walk on dry land. Postulating this type of purposefulness comes perilously close to admitting intelligent design, with the implication of the intelligent designer at the drawing board. This prompts the question: if there is a God who started it all in motion, is he still bothering to oil the machinery or has he left the clockworks to wind down on their own as the inevitability of entropy might suggest?
Thoughtful people who are willing to allow for a creator can envision several possible alternatives. Perhaps God is like a cosmic chess-master, manipulating the game pieces for his amusement on a lazy afternoon. Or maybe he is more like a scientist carefully observing us, his lab rats, as he takes detailed notes to avoid next time the horrendous screw-ups that have plagued mankind in this attempt. Or maybe God was feeling playful and lonely so he made us to be his cuddly little puppies to be loved and spoiled in the paradise he created for us to inhabit. How disappointed God must be that we are so ill tempered and barely housebroken! Our guesses and theories seem to fall short of what we might hope for from an all-powerful creator.
There are many clues as to God’s nature written right into the blueprint of the universe. God is like the filmmaker who can’t resist innumerable cameo appearances. He dares us to spot him behind the disguises of his handiwork. For me the most compelling natural evidence of God is the beauty of the unspoiled earth. The fact that we are hardwired to recognize and respond to natural beauty is God’s love letter written to us in sunsets and punctuated with flowers. Who decided that we should see the world in such extraordinary "living" colour? What is the evolutionary purpose of wonder? Has awe ever served to advance the survival of the fittest? These things point to the greatness behind their conception: the majesty of their Creator.
The cyclical nature of the seasons hints at the possibility of immortality. After the cold, wet winter, our hearts are stirred by the arrival of spring snowdrops and crocuses. The annual theme of death and rebirth can lead us to the idea that perhaps death is not the end for us after all. We really do yearn for a meaning beyond the everyday routine of eating and sleeping and fulfilling our social and familial obligations. "There must be more than this" is the primal cry that resonates in each one of us. We get the sense that we too were made for eternity.
The very scale of the universe sends a powerful message. It cannot be measured, and can barely be imagined. We can only pretend to grasp the numbers involved. It is certainly too great for our minds to comprehend. It is as if God is sending a not so subtle warning: don’t ever underestimate me! There is a very real sense in which the whole of God is inscrutable and clothed in mystery. Any attempt to define or understand him will fall short of his greatness. We are incapable of it in our finiteness. There is no place for smugness in the contemplation of the Almighty, anymore than in the contemplation of the cosmos. We are all very, very small in the big picture of the universe.
Thoughtful people who are willing to allow for a creator can envision several possible alternatives. Perhaps God is like a cosmic chess-master, manipulating the game pieces for his amusement on a lazy afternoon. Or maybe he is more like a scientist carefully observing us, his lab rats, as he takes detailed notes to avoid next time the horrendous screw-ups that have plagued mankind in this attempt. Or maybe God was feeling playful and lonely so he made us to be his cuddly little puppies to be loved and spoiled in the paradise he created for us to inhabit. How disappointed God must be that we are so ill tempered and barely housebroken! Our guesses and theories seem to fall short of what we might hope for from an all-powerful creator.
There are many clues as to God’s nature written right into the blueprint of the universe. God is like the filmmaker who can’t resist innumerable cameo appearances. He dares us to spot him behind the disguises of his handiwork. For me the most compelling natural evidence of God is the beauty of the unspoiled earth. The fact that we are hardwired to recognize and respond to natural beauty is God’s love letter written to us in sunsets and punctuated with flowers. Who decided that we should see the world in such extraordinary "living" colour? What is the evolutionary purpose of wonder? Has awe ever served to advance the survival of the fittest? These things point to the greatness behind their conception: the majesty of their Creator.
The cyclical nature of the seasons hints at the possibility of immortality. After the cold, wet winter, our hearts are stirred by the arrival of spring snowdrops and crocuses. The annual theme of death and rebirth can lead us to the idea that perhaps death is not the end for us after all. We really do yearn for a meaning beyond the everyday routine of eating and sleeping and fulfilling our social and familial obligations. "There must be more than this" is the primal cry that resonates in each one of us. We get the sense that we too were made for eternity.
The very scale of the universe sends a powerful message. It cannot be measured, and can barely be imagined. We can only pretend to grasp the numbers involved. It is certainly too great for our minds to comprehend. It is as if God is sending a not so subtle warning: don’t ever underestimate me! There is a very real sense in which the whole of God is inscrutable and clothed in mystery. Any attempt to define or understand him will fall short of his greatness. We are incapable of it in our finiteness. There is no place for smugness in the contemplation of the Almighty, anymore than in the contemplation of the cosmos. We are all very, very small in the big picture of the universe.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Speaking to the Dialogues
Divide the human race into twenty parts. Nineteen of them are composed of those who work with their hands,... In the remaining twentieth part, how few men do we find who read! And among those who do read there are twenty who read novels for every one who studies philosophy. The number of those who think is exceedingly small, and they are not aiming to disturb the world. - Voltaire
Sorry François-Marie. Perhaps the world would be a better place if it were occasionally disturbed by thinking people, as thinking people are disturbed by the world. It appalls us that the world is full of bad things: suffering, sickness, and injustice affect all of us at some time or another. How can a good God allow these things to happen? We all wish we didn’t have to deal with the problem of evil in the world. The questions asked in David Hume’s eighteenth century work Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion express the difficulties eloquently:
Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil? [Then where does evil come from?]
Can we give a satisfactory explanation to those who disbelieve in the existence of God on the grounds that a good God would never allow evil in the world? The problem of evil is ubiquitous. An interesting thing to notice is that it is mainly in the west, where we are infused with the notion of the goodness of God as taught by Christianity, that the problem of evil as a objection to the existence of God gets so much attention. In areas influenced by Hinduism, by comparison, evil is accepted as part of life. The notion of karma, that we all get what is coming to us, predominates. No Hindu is surprised at calamity (citing Harvey Sider). It is regarded as only natural and to be expected. Unfortunately, trouble cannot be dismissed as easily as that!
At the outset, I want to recognize that we should be outraged at the evil in our world. Being shocked and appalled at tragic events and circumstances, and being stirred to indignation at injustice are the correct responses that every human being ought to have. We should never shrug off suffering as "the will of God," but should work to alleviate it as much as we can. We should never ignore injustice, but should work to put things right as far as we are able. This is why so many Christians have worked to establish hospitals, clinics, orphanages, and hospice centers all around the world. We know that we were made for a better world than that which we now experience.
The Christian explanation for the evil in the world has to do with our cherished free will. We believe that God has created people as free agents. It is his plan that we love God and live in harmony with each other. The difficulty is that we do not choose to do so. We lust; we fight; we kill in order to advance our own agendas. Our propensity to sin seems only surpassed by our willingness to blame God for it! A great deal of the evil in the world is directly caused by human sin. We simply do not behave in the way we should, whether we are polluting our drinking water or repeating malicious gossip. These are the types of things that cause pain and suffering for ourselves and for others. This is why we must fight so hard against sin in our own lives and in the world around us.
Man’s inhumanity to man is not the only cause of human suffering. Christianity teaches that when humans fell into sin, they pulled the whole of creation in with them. The quality of life on earth changed because of the introduction of sin. In Genesis 3:17, God said to Adam, "Cursed is the ground because of you… It will produce thorns and thistles for you." In some mysterious way, creation itself has been "subjected to frustration" due to our sin (Romans 8:20). Some scientists theorize that the earth was physically different before the fall into sin and that the dangerous extremes of weather that we now experience were previously impossible. There is much that we do not understand. We can imagine that we have fallen far from the ideal of a sinless world, though we have only small glimpses of what such a world would look like.
The good news is that God has not abandoned us in our suffering. He sent his Son Jesus Christ to begin the process of redeeming this fallen world and to give us hope for a more perfect world to come. While we are temporarily stuck in this place of suffering, we can trust that God has his purposes and will use even the most difficult of circumstances to bring character and goodness into our lives. Though we suffer now, we are not without hope, "for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all… For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:16). Even the creation has been waiting "in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed" (Romans 8:19). We believe that we will someday be remade to conform more closely to the glory and grandeur of God. The earth, too, will be remade into a new earth where "there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away" (Revelation 21:4).
While we wait for this new life to begin, we have a responsibility to do what we can to fix what we can within our personal sphere of influence. When we work to counter the effects of sin, it gives others less to point at, and we fulfill the mandate of Christ to love one another. It is our way of taking back what we have lost and freeing the earth from the curse that holds it captive. The least we can do is to try to make things more comfortable while we are waiting.
Sorry François-Marie. Perhaps the world would be a better place if it were occasionally disturbed by thinking people, as thinking people are disturbed by the world. It appalls us that the world is full of bad things: suffering, sickness, and injustice affect all of us at some time or another. How can a good God allow these things to happen? We all wish we didn’t have to deal with the problem of evil in the world. The questions asked in David Hume’s eighteenth century work Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion express the difficulties eloquently:
Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil? [Then where does evil come from?]
Can we give a satisfactory explanation to those who disbelieve in the existence of God on the grounds that a good God would never allow evil in the world? The problem of evil is ubiquitous. An interesting thing to notice is that it is mainly in the west, where we are infused with the notion of the goodness of God as taught by Christianity, that the problem of evil as a objection to the existence of God gets so much attention. In areas influenced by Hinduism, by comparison, evil is accepted as part of life. The notion of karma, that we all get what is coming to us, predominates. No Hindu is surprised at calamity (citing Harvey Sider). It is regarded as only natural and to be expected. Unfortunately, trouble cannot be dismissed as easily as that!
At the outset, I want to recognize that we should be outraged at the evil in our world. Being shocked and appalled at tragic events and circumstances, and being stirred to indignation at injustice are the correct responses that every human being ought to have. We should never shrug off suffering as "the will of God," but should work to alleviate it as much as we can. We should never ignore injustice, but should work to put things right as far as we are able. This is why so many Christians have worked to establish hospitals, clinics, orphanages, and hospice centers all around the world. We know that we were made for a better world than that which we now experience.
The Christian explanation for the evil in the world has to do with our cherished free will. We believe that God has created people as free agents. It is his plan that we love God and live in harmony with each other. The difficulty is that we do not choose to do so. We lust; we fight; we kill in order to advance our own agendas. Our propensity to sin seems only surpassed by our willingness to blame God for it! A great deal of the evil in the world is directly caused by human sin. We simply do not behave in the way we should, whether we are polluting our drinking water or repeating malicious gossip. These are the types of things that cause pain and suffering for ourselves and for others. This is why we must fight so hard against sin in our own lives and in the world around us.
Man’s inhumanity to man is not the only cause of human suffering. Christianity teaches that when humans fell into sin, they pulled the whole of creation in with them. The quality of life on earth changed because of the introduction of sin. In Genesis 3:17, God said to Adam, "Cursed is the ground because of you… It will produce thorns and thistles for you." In some mysterious way, creation itself has been "subjected to frustration" due to our sin (Romans 8:20). Some scientists theorize that the earth was physically different before the fall into sin and that the dangerous extremes of weather that we now experience were previously impossible. There is much that we do not understand. We can imagine that we have fallen far from the ideal of a sinless world, though we have only small glimpses of what such a world would look like.
The good news is that God has not abandoned us in our suffering. He sent his Son Jesus Christ to begin the process of redeeming this fallen world and to give us hope for a more perfect world to come. While we are temporarily stuck in this place of suffering, we can trust that God has his purposes and will use even the most difficult of circumstances to bring character and goodness into our lives. Though we suffer now, we are not without hope, "for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all… For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:16). Even the creation has been waiting "in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed" (Romans 8:19). We believe that we will someday be remade to conform more closely to the glory and grandeur of God. The earth, too, will be remade into a new earth where "there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away" (Revelation 21:4).
While we wait for this new life to begin, we have a responsibility to do what we can to fix what we can within our personal sphere of influence. When we work to counter the effects of sin, it gives others less to point at, and we fulfill the mandate of Christ to love one another. It is our way of taking back what we have lost and freeing the earth from the curse that holds it captive. The least we can do is to try to make things more comfortable while we are waiting.
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