Examined Christian Faith 'As Hard as Nails' Part 1.5 - What is Christianity

What is Progress?  Is it forward movement?  Is it change for changes sake?  Is it finishing the math problem first, even if I come up with the wrong sum?  If I began working a math problem and I realized that I was doing it wrong, what would be the correct thing for me to do?  Obviously the sooner that I admit it, go back and start again the faster and further I will get.  Or another way to look at it is if I were driving from one town to another town that was due east of where I started from, but I discover that I am on a road that is taking me north to an entirely different town, progress would be to turn around go back to where I started from and begin my trip anew.  That is what progress is.  

I ended my last post with the idea that in the Moral Law, someone or something is increasingly getting on us for our refusal to do what we should do.  If you were to look at our society today, it is obvious that we have and are making some huge mistakes.  We are on the wrong road.  If that is so, then like a wayward traveler we must turn around, because turning around is the only way to make progress.  

I also have not yet made the case for the God of Christian theology, only that somebody or something is behind the moral law, and that we have reason to be concerned.  We have by examination found two pieces of evidence about this Somebody.  The first is that universe He has made, and as I alluded to in closing my previous post, if we use that as our only clue, then we would have to conclude that He is a better artist then Monet (just look up at the night sky) and that he is also no friend to man (all that space out there is a very dangerous place for humans).  The other bit of evidence we have is that persistent Moral law which He has placed inside of our minds.  It is perhaps a better piece of evidence because for us at least, it is inside information.  

Just like a person, you know more about the person by listening to his conversation then by looking at the house he built.   So from this second piece of information we can conclude that the ‘Someone’ behind the curtain is intensely interested in right behavior – unselfishness, courage, truthfulness, loyalty, honor, faithfulness, kindness.  In that sense, it agrees with Christianity and some other religions, that God is “good”.  Also like I mentioned in closing my previous post, do not go so fast as to assume that God is “good” in the sense of being a cuddly dog, an indulgent, soft, or sympathetic.  There is nothing soft and indulgent about the Moral Law.  It is as hard as nails.  It tells you to do the right thing regardless; it does not seem to care how painful, dangerous or difficult it is to do so.  

If God is like the Moral Law He has placed inside our minds, then He is not soft at all.  Mind you, we still have not determined if God is a personal God, only that He exists.  But so far, all we have been able to conclude is that He is more like a mind then anything else, and may be quite unlike a person.  If God is a pure impersonal mind, then there is no reason to ask for personal allowances, to be let off the hook when you get it wrong.  Because you will not like the answer.  Likewise, if there is a God of the impersonal absolute goodness then it does you no good to decide you do not like him and want nothing to do with him, because there is that one part of you that agrees Him and disapproves of greed, adultery, robbery, etc…

Oh, you may want him to make an exception in your case, but you know at the bottom of yourself that unless the power behind the universe absolutely despises that type of behavior, He cannot be good.  On the other hand, if there does exist an absolute goodness it must hate almost all that we do.  

That is the catch 22 we are in, if the universe is not governed by absolute goodness, then all our efforts are in the end meaningless and hopeless.  However, if it is, then each and every day we make ourselves an enemy to that goodness.  We hopeless without it and hopeless with it.  God is our only comfort, and our supreme terror; the one thing we need most, and the thing we most want to hide from.  He is our only chance, and we have made ourselves His enemy.  

I hear a lot of talk from people about how they think looking into the eyes of an absolute good God would be fun; they need to revisit that idea; just as Moses looked away.  Goodness is either our great safety or our great danger, depending on the way we react to it; and all of us have acted the wrong way.  

You need to understand that, you need to reread it a hundred times until you finally get it.  Because Christianity simply does not make any sense until you have faced the hard facts I have been describing.  Christianity in the long run brings comfort, but it does not begin there, it begins in the dismay I have been describing.  There is no use attempting to go to the comfort first without going through the dismay.  

Christianity tells people to repent (make progress) and promises forgiveness.  It says nothing to those who do not know that they have anything to repent of, nor do they need any forgiveness.  It is only after you have realized that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind that law, and you have broken it, and put yourself at odds with the Power, it is then, and not a second sooner, that Christianity begins to talk to you.  When you know you are sick, you will listen to the doctor.  When you realize your position is desperate, you will begin to understand Christianity. 

In religion, as in everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it.  However if you look for the truth, you may find comfort in the end.  If you look for comfort, you will get neither comfort nor the truth; only a cuddly dog of wishful thinking to begin with, and in the end….  Despair. 

A great book to help you reason the answers to your own questions or those of others is  Handbook of the Christian Apologist,  each chapter tackles subjects like 'Does God exist, the problem of evil, the divinity of Christ, life after death, and objective truth.  Written in a lively easy to follow manner it may be just the book you need to understand some of the questions you or others may have. 

Examined Christian Faith 'The Final Frontier' Part 1.4 - What is Christianity

Just to set the record straight, I am a fan of science.  I am frequently amazed at some of what science 'discovers', and thankful for some of the benefits of science to humankind.  The field of science is made of some of  the most intelligent and observant people on earth, because that is what science is 'observation'.  Which takes us to considering the universe.  Ever since men have been able to think for themselves, we have been wondering about this universe and how it came to be.  Before I delve into the two different camps, do not fool yourself into thinking that one viewpoint was held long ago, and the other has gradually over a period of recent time taken its position.  No, men have always held two viewpoints on this.  Everyone who has ever thought about it has fallen into one of two camps.  

There are those of the materialist viewpoint or more precisely those who think that it all just happens to exist, that it has always existed.  No one really knows why, it just happened.  Moreover, that this matter, by one in a million chance happened to collide to form our galaxy, and then another something happened to form our sun, and still another to form the planets.  Yet by another fluke, our planet just happened to have the right temperature, and chemical makeup to support life, and then some of this matter on earth that had been floating around forever, just happened to come alive.  Then by another incredibly long chain of events leaving creatures developed into creatures like us, who could think and reason, and have emotions, creatures that also just happened to have an inner voice telling directing each of them to believe in the same concept of right verses wrong. 

Then there is the religious view.  According to those who hold this viewpoint, what is behind the universe, what created the universe is more like a mind then anything else we can describe it as.  It has a purpose and prefers one thing over another.  In addition, it was with this view that it made the universe, for reasons we do not know, but one of the reasons was to create beings like us, who like itself have minds. 

You will also notice that science cannot answer the question, because all science works by experiments, no matter how complicated it is, in the end science is simply a matter of observing what happens when x and y interact.  It does not explain the why it happens to, just that it does.  If like in the “Wizard of Oz” there is, anything behind the curtain is a different question, one that science can never answer.  If you suppose as some do, that some day we will know everything in the universe (I personally do not adhere to that), but I would argue that the questions that we have always asked would still be left unanswered “Why is there a universe?”  “Why does it go on and on as it does?”  “What is the meaning of this?”

However, to understand the answers to that, perhaps we should examine the one thing in the entire universe that we know more about than we can learn by science (the art external observations).  This is my point, anyone who was studying humans from the outside as we do the stars, animals, plants, rocks, etc...  would never guess that we have this law of human nature, this moral law.  He would be observing what we do, so his observations would merely be a reflection of what we did, and the law of human nature is about what we should do. 

The point of this is that in our quest to know if there is a power behind the universe, it would not be one of the things we could observe.  There is only one instant in the entire universe, which we can know weather there is anything more than what can be observed.  Namely our own case, or specifically as it pertains to me, in my case.  As C.S. Lewis said “If there is a controlling power outside of the universe, it would not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe – no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase in that house.”    

The only way in which we should expect it to show itself would be inside ourselves as an influence or a command trying to get us to behave in a certain way.  As troublesome as it is, that is precisely what we do find inside ourselves, we find that moral law.  In the only case where we can get an answer, the answer turns out to be yes.  

Therefore, in the only instant where I can peek behind the curtain, I find that I do not exist on my own, as any external observation would deduce, but rather that I am under a law, that somebody or something wants me to behave in a certain manner.  Therefore, I can logically reason that as I am under an unseen law, all other matter in the universe is under unseen laws as well (as we can observe) but more importantly I should expect to find that there is a power behind those facts, those laws as well.

So the origin of the universe is either matter or something with a mind.  I personally have a difficult time trying to envision a clump of matter giving instructions, or laws.  You know where I am headed with this, but do not jump ahead of me, I am not talking about the God of Christian theology.  All we have been able to conclude so far, by observing the universe and examining what is unseen within each of us, is that there is in fact a ‘Something’ which is directing the universe, and which it shows itself in me, by giving me a law urging me to do the right thing, and making me feel uncomfortable and responsible when I fail to do so.  

Do not deceive yourself into believing that I am going to propose that the ‘Something’ is cuddly like the puppy dog modern American Christian churches are purporting, Quite the opposite, that ‘Something’ should be feared, as the universe while beautiful is not especially a hospitable place for humans, and the moral law that has been placed inside each of us is as hard as nails.  But I get ahead of myself.  It is time for you to decide which view you hold of the universe, but to me, to propose that all of this is just a matter of chance, a one in a billion long-shot, on top another one in a billion long shot, on top of another one and then to suppose that a clump of matter would instill in me a moral code is simply delusional, and denying what your own moral code tells you.  

If you have never read   THE SHACK  is a great place to begin to realize that not everything can be seen.  Desiring to truly understand 'What is Christianity' is not always easy. .

Examined Christian Faith 'Benedict Arnold' 1.3

So it would seem to be two really strange things about the human race, 1^st that we are haunted by the idea of a behavior that we should practice (you can call it whatever you like, morality, fair play, law of human nature, or just being a decent human being)  and 2^nd that we fail miserably at the 1^st.  It is strange because what we call the laws of nature are really in fact simply observations of what always happens.  As Isaac Newton observed, if I cut an apple loose from it’s tree, it will fall, it is not because the apple just remembered that it that it should fall, it just happens.  

However, the law of morality is a different matter entirely, it does not mean that this is what humans do; in fact, many humans choose to ignore the law completely, and none of us follows it all of the time.  The law of gravity tells you what an apple will do if you cut it loose from its tree, but the law of human nature tells you what humans should and should not do.  It is the only law that seems to have something outside of it beyond the actual facts and there is no explaining it away.

I was having this very conversation with a friend of mine, and it occurred to me that his example is one we have all shared.  If I am in a parking lot looking for a place to park my car (picture Black Friday at a busy shopping mall) I respond completely different to the person who is parked in a stall because they got there before me, and the person who cuts me off to sneak into the parking spot I had been waiting for.  They are both an inconvenience to me; however, while I am not angry with the first man, I am furious with the second.  

Or perhaps this explains it better, if once I am inside the shopping mall and I accidentally trip over another shopper and hurt my arm, I may be upset for a second, before I realize it was a mistake, however I would be really ticked off at a teenager who stuck out his leg in an attempt to trip me (which I nimbly jumped over).  That’s the strange thing, because the person who actually hurt me, I am not angry with, yet I am boiling at the one who actually did me no harm.

Alternatively, from the American viewpoint, think back to our own Revolutionary War and Benedict Arnold.  He was handsomely rewarded by the British for his betrayal of this fledgling country, yet once he was in England, he was treated like the jackal that he was; because while they paid him for his service, even they were repulsed by his behavior. 

Therefore, it would seem that decent behavior is not behavior that is useful to us or that does not cause us harm, and it is certainly not behavior that pays.  What is it?  It is being content with what you are paid for a job, when you might have made three times the amount, taking a test honestly when you have a chance to cheat, respecting a woman when she says no, when you want to make love to her, keeping promises that you would rather not, and telling the truth even it the truth may hurt you.  The law of morality does not concern itself with what is best for society, because really why should I care what is best for society except when it pays me personally? 

That is what we are left with.  The law of human nature, the law of morality is that ‘you should be unselfish.  Not that you are unselfish, or even that you like being unselfish, just that you should be’.  In fact, it is an idea that we cannot get out of our minds.  It is not a statement about how we want others to behave for our own convenience, for actions that we call  unfair are not the same as that which we find inconvenient, frequently they are the exact opposite.  We are left with no option other then to conclude that in regards to the law of right and wrong, good and evil, that there is something beyond the normal facts of our behavior, none of us made it, but it is definitely a real law that presses on us constantly to obey.

For a really good book that can explain all of this in manner far beyond my humble skills, I again recommend Timothy Keller's  The Reason For God

You will have noticed that I have not yet addressed the issue of ‘God’, especially not in the Christian context (I will get there). What I am concerned with at this point is understanding what we can observe as evidence for what we can not.   Think about the law of human nature and what it tells you about the universe we live in.  

Which is where we will head next.