“When a Russian cosmonaut returned from space and reported that he had not found God, C.S. Lewis responded that this was like Hamlet going into the attic of his castle looking for Shakespeare. If there is a God, he wouldn’t be another object in the universe that could be put in a lab and analyzed with empirical methods. He would relate to us the way a playwright relates to the characters in his play. We (characters) might be able to know quite a lot about the playwright, but only to the degree the author chooses to put information about himself in the play.”
-Timothy Keller, pg. 122 in The Reason For God
This was an insightful analogy. In light of the fact that God is big enough to create the universe and humanity, he is infinitely greater than us…so much greater that he’s separate from us – similar to the separation between the playwright and the characters in his play. And yet - God knows us more intimately than we know ourselves. Eternally secure, he rules the world.
Most everything in the earth is beneath us. We can tame it, study and understand it, or bend it to our will. This is good – it is according to God’s plan. The psalmist said of mankind, “You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.” However, we can begin to think that everything is able to be subjected and fully understood by us. Hence, when we come across something that we cannot wrap our minds around or prove through science – namely spiritual things - we often question its very existence. Donald Miller put it beautifully when he wrote of his atheist friend, “There are plenty of things that are true that don’t make sense. I think one of the problems Laura was having was that she wanted God to make sense. He doesn’t. He will make no more sense to me than I will make sense to an ant.”
In particular, this can be a problem with people who have a secular world view, when they approach the subject of God. C.S. Lewis’s analogy of God as the playwright illustrates well the true nature of things. God is infinitely greater and wiser than us. He’s not confined to the material world as we are. He’s not something for us to analyze and use as we would a scientific element, an aspect of nature, or a person. We really cannot learn anything about him unless he first provides a way. Likewise, the characters in a play, by themselves, could never find out anything about the playwright without the author’s help. God is not beneath us, able to be controlled or fully understood. There are mysteries about him that no human mind can decipher. Knowledge of God is a gift given from God. We can only learn about him through his revealing himself to us in whatever way he deems best. And in his infinite love and kindness, God has revealed himself through his Word – the Bible.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
I read a quote by Stephen Jay Gould that read, “We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures…we may yearn for a “higher” answer – but none exists.”
This comment is very revealing about our culture. We pride ourselves on being “open-minded,” “liberal,” and “rational.” It is in vogue to rebel against traditional or old- fashioned beliefs and ideas. We believe that we are better than those that came before us – more developed, more intelligent. The western world has begun to leave those “superstitious” beliefs behind, has become “enlightened.” Atheistic viewpoints have obtained stronger influence in our culture’s way of thinking, in the information presented (or not presented) at schools, at universities, in the media, in science, etc. But by removing God from the scene, one can see, if they look carefully, how things fall out of place and cease to make sense.
If we are merely accidental products of evolution, then life is no longer sacred – it is, in fact, utterly devoid of meaning. If there is no creator, sensations of rightness and beauty must be but an illusion. In his book, The Reason For God, Timothy Keller wrote, “If we are the product of accidental natural forces, then what we call ‘beauty’ is nothing but a neurological hardwired response to particular data.” This is hard to believe, especially when looking into the face of beauty – a brilliant sunrise, a tree blossoming in the spring, a starry sky, anything that touches and delights the soul upon seeing it. “The heavens proclaim his righteousness,” cries the psalmist. Anyone looking into the face of beauty must know, somewhere buried in their soul, that there is a creator who made it.
If, as Steven Gould said, there is no higher power, then there would be no good and no evil, for there would be no god to define good and evil, and set it upon man’s heart as a transcendent truth. Our sense of innocence and corruption, of pleasure and guilt, are then illusions. Love is the result of instinct, devoid of depth and meaning. But this can’t be. There is corruption in the world. This cannot be debated. One may be able to reason away the existence of beauty, but one cannot reason away the divide between what is right and what is wrong. All is not as it should be in the world. Turn on the news, observe others, or watch yourself honestly for any amount of time, and this brazen truth will make itself clear. In Blue Like Jazz, Miller wrote, “The soul was not designed for this, I thought. We were supposed to do good, all of us. We were supposed to be good.”
Both beauty and depravity reach down and touch people’s lives, pulling forth from the soul an innate desire for something more. The psalmist wrote, “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” Keller stated, “We have a longing for joy, love, and beauty that no amount or quality of food, sex, friendship, or success can satisfy. Isn’t that at least a clue that this ‘something’ that we want exists?” Back in the 1600’s, Blaise Pascal wrote, “The heart has its reasons for which the reason knows nothing…the heart feels God.”
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.”
-Romans 1: 19-20
This comment is very revealing about our culture. We pride ourselves on being “open-minded,” “liberal,” and “rational.” It is in vogue to rebel against traditional or old- fashioned beliefs and ideas. We believe that we are better than those that came before us – more developed, more intelligent. The western world has begun to leave those “superstitious” beliefs behind, has become “enlightened.” Atheistic viewpoints have obtained stronger influence in our culture’s way of thinking, in the information presented (or not presented) at schools, at universities, in the media, in science, etc. But by removing God from the scene, one can see, if they look carefully, how things fall out of place and cease to make sense.
If we are merely accidental products of evolution, then life is no longer sacred – it is, in fact, utterly devoid of meaning. If there is no creator, sensations of rightness and beauty must be but an illusion. In his book, The Reason For God, Timothy Keller wrote, “If we are the product of accidental natural forces, then what we call ‘beauty’ is nothing but a neurological hardwired response to particular data.” This is hard to believe, especially when looking into the face of beauty – a brilliant sunrise, a tree blossoming in the spring, a starry sky, anything that touches and delights the soul upon seeing it. “The heavens proclaim his righteousness,” cries the psalmist. Anyone looking into the face of beauty must know, somewhere buried in their soul, that there is a creator who made it.
If, as Steven Gould said, there is no higher power, then there would be no good and no evil, for there would be no god to define good and evil, and set it upon man’s heart as a transcendent truth. Our sense of innocence and corruption, of pleasure and guilt, are then illusions. Love is the result of instinct, devoid of depth and meaning. But this can’t be. There is corruption in the world. This cannot be debated. One may be able to reason away the existence of beauty, but one cannot reason away the divide between what is right and what is wrong. All is not as it should be in the world. Turn on the news, observe others, or watch yourself honestly for any amount of time, and this brazen truth will make itself clear. In Blue Like Jazz, Miller wrote, “The soul was not designed for this, I thought. We were supposed to do good, all of us. We were supposed to be good.”
Both beauty and depravity reach down and touch people’s lives, pulling forth from the soul an innate desire for something more. The psalmist wrote, “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” Keller stated, “We have a longing for joy, love, and beauty that no amount or quality of food, sex, friendship, or success can satisfy. Isn’t that at least a clue that this ‘something’ that we want exists?” Back in the 1600’s, Blaise Pascal wrote, “The heart has its reasons for which the reason knows nothing…the heart feels God.”
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.”
-Romans 1: 19-20
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