It's amazing how some mechanisms in the human body work. Blood clotting is one example that has always struck me as nothing short of miraculous. Seemingly the whole system had to be in place from its onset because of the "cascade" effect of thinning and thickening required for a cut on the human body to heal over without either bleeding out or seizing up. In some instances in human thought, however, the cascade effect is obvious and just as disturbing and the blood clotting mechanism is fascinating. In an article in our local paper today originally published by the McClatchy News Service, author Shawn Lawrence Otto has written a book about the lack of scientific discussion by political candidates (particularly presidential candidates) in recent history. You can link to the article here.
Mr. Otto begins innocently and correctly enough by postulating that there is a necessity in an efficient government for a well-informed electorate. He states that "Without the mooring provided by the well-informed opinion of the people, governments may become paralyzed or, worse, corrupted by powerful interests seeking to oppress and enslave." He also plumps for decisions to be made on information based in factual reality. Beyond these opening points, however, there is a cascade of poor reasoning. He goes on to suggest that politicians in general, and the Republican party in particular, have jettisoned all acknowledgement and reference to science in making policy decisions due to the influence of religion. He states that the Republican party has "gone anti-science" partially due to the fact that "evangelicals got involved in politics." So apparently for those belonging to the Republican party, there is a pre-requisite or at least an overwhelming pressure to be "anti-science" because the party is "pro-evangelical."
My nature prior to my conversion to Christianity was to be sarcastic to the extreme. I fight against the continued temptation to be snarky and sarcastic in any thought process or discussion. In this instance I will go with a measured response only laced with sarcasm pointed directly at the idea just posited, not at Mr. Otto personally. To wit:
"So the idea is that those who have a cogent and internally consistent answer for the four most important questions in human existence; those of origin, meaning, morality and destiny, and have among their ranks a host of the most prominent names in many of the most important scientific discoveries in human history, and have a good reason both to engage in the discovery of new empirical physical truths and an explanation for the ought of the usage and temperance of use and distribution of new discoveries should be expelled from the discussion because those who are politicians by career take advice from their advisors and political constituents policy decisions with an emphasis on scientific data less than would be deemed necessary by those who choose for their careers fields in the scientific - is that correct?"
It just seems so blatantly ridiculous to even bring the evangelical view into the discussion in the first place. It seems the spectre of "separation of Church and State" raises its head to choke off serious consideration of deeply important topics any time politics and government is involved. Of course science is important and should be considered as the data is available on policy issues in which science comes naturally to the fore. However, it seems wildly irresponsible to accuse evangelicalism as the primary source of a lack of drive to enact laws relative to global warming (or climate change as it has now been articulated). What I find most ironic is the charge that the one area of human reasoning that can even speak about the morality of laws being adopted, the only realm that can make decisions of ought that would hold abuse and corruption in check (namely the Christian world and life view) is summarily discarded because of its stand against science, which is in itself a complete misrepresentation and misapplication of any reasonable Biblical position.
I guess i'm just continually flummoxed by the inability to recognize that one recognize that science is absolutely critical for making empirical evaluations for the physical issues experienced and influencing all of humanity and that science must be tempered by religion because of its complete impotence with regard to the metaphysical and moral issues that run hand in hand with any scientific discovery. The Bible is not a science textbook and was never intended to be such, and science has been and will continue to be fruitful in making amazing discoveries relative to the make-up and intricate workings of the universe we inhabit, but science cannot and will never be able to stand alone in providing any information whatsoever as to how we ought to engage in or properly utilize that information within the interpersonal reality of human existence. It seems inevitable that the two must not be put at odds with one another, but rather be inextricably tethered, else monstrous results be manifest.
Showing posts with label meaning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meaning. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Understating the Case
December 14 and dateline Geneva, the Associated Press has published a story entitled Physicists close in on elusive subatomic particle in which praises are being sung for the real possibility that the Higgs boson will soon be discovered. Richard Higgs is attributed with postulating the existence of a subatomic particle that explains the existence of mass in the elements that make up the atom. Equations in physics that have been used and work out in the real world (i.e. correctly and accurately explain observed behavior) assume that electrons, for example, have mass. Frank Wilczek said, "Since the equations have worked so brilliantly now for decades, it's really nice to dot the i's and cross the t's." A theoretical physicist at FERMI has explained the Higgs boson this way:
So the quest that is stated to be coming to a head is actually finding the correct range of possibility and nailing down with some certainty the existence of a theoretical particle that explains why equations in physics actually work. Chriss Quigg says elsewhere in the same paper "Over the next 15 years, we should be able to find a real understanding of the origin of mass. The interest lies not just in the arcana of accelerator experiments but suffuses everything in the world around us: mass is what determines the range of forces and sets the scale of all the structures we see in nature.
This is very exciting stuff. Human beings able to "see" subatomic particles that explain the mass of all the structures we see in nature. Not it must be noted that there are other theories if all the supercollider experiments do not show the Higgs boson. The two most well accepted both assume there is not one single particle, but a number of as yet undiscovered sub-atomic particles that are associated with known particles. Supersymmetry assumes several Higgs bosons, while dynamical symmetry breaking assumes the Higgs boson is a composite that is made up of multiple constituents that will need to be discovered once the Higgs boson itself is observed. In any event, the use of supercollider technology to experiment at high energy ranges allows for discoveries at the subatomic level with great expectation for remarkable results.
As interesting as all the physics and possible discovery is the statement made by physicist Howard Gordon of the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York when he said, "It's hard to find, not because it is especially tiny, but because it is hard to create." I would say that a decade of construction and research into a 17-mile tube charged to 1 TeV (trillion electron volts) would classify as hard. The really funny thing about this comment is that all this effort has gone in to discover the range in GeV within a range of statistical certainty the Higgs boson might exist within to declare it has been observed. Not really creation at all, is it. The Higgs boson is also called the "God particle" as it is hoped to explain why anything in this universe has mass and why after the Big Bang everything slowed down instead of just racing outward to infinity and all we know never came to be as we know it.
Supposing a range with statistical certainty is achieved such that the Higgs boson is "observed", or multiple Higgs bosons are "observed", or a whole range of new particles and their possible constituents are "found" what physics still cannot tell is where the first elements necessary to produce the "Bang" came from, nor why knowing any of these things matters (why there is something rather than nothing). Science is completely impotent regarding these matters. We certainly aren't creating anything, as all the elements and particles already exist and are "waiting" for us to observe them. We also continue to find more and more intricate interaction between elements and particles in science whether it be in particle physics, microbiology or other field of study. We know an astronomically detailed and complex series of particles and elements work independently and in concert with others in ways we cannot yet fully describe or understand but which must be so for our tests to even be performed in the first place. We should be excited about how far we have come in such discoveries, we should be amazed that even at the level of observation now possible there is still so much we do not know and must theorize about, and we should be humbled that there is no good reason for any of it to be this way and yet we are capable of participating in such exploration. As complicated and detailed the scientific discoveries will continue to be in the future we must remember that all these observed particles, elements and particles came from absolutely nothing (no energy, substance or potential) and the sum total of all scientific discoveries provides no meaningful answers to even the most basic questions of relationships between the discoverers and anything else in existence.
We need not pursue a "God particle", but the God who created all things and who holds all things together, and who provides a reason for human existence, a purpose for our existence, and the possibility of relationship with the One who is sovereign over all we observe and understand. Let us not understate the case, nor let us discover in vain.
"What hides the symmetry between the weak and electromagnetic interactions? That is the question we hope to answer through experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. When the LHC is commissioned, around the year 2005, it will enable us to study collisions among quarks at energies approaching 1 TeV, or a trillion (1012)electron volts. A thorough exploration of the 1-TeV energy scale will determine the mechanism by which the electroweak symmetry is hidden and teach us what makes the W and Z particles massive.
"The simplest guess goes back to theoretical work by British physicist Peter Higgs and others in the 1960s. According to this picture, the giver of mass is a neutral particle with zero spin that we call the Higgs boson. In today's version of the electroweak theory, the W and Z particles and all the fundamental constituents--quarks and leptons--get their masses by interacting with the Higgs boson. But the Higgs boson remains hypothetical; it has not been observed. That is why particle physicists often use the search for the Higgs boson as a shorthand for the campaign to learn the agent that hides electroweak symmetry and endows other particles with mass. Chris Quigg in Scientific American
So the quest that is stated to be coming to a head is actually finding the correct range of possibility and nailing down with some certainty the existence of a theoretical particle that explains why equations in physics actually work. Chriss Quigg says elsewhere in the same paper "Over the next 15 years, we should be able to find a real understanding of the origin of mass. The interest lies not just in the arcana of accelerator experiments but suffuses everything in the world around us: mass is what determines the range of forces and sets the scale of all the structures we see in nature.
This is very exciting stuff. Human beings able to "see" subatomic particles that explain the mass of all the structures we see in nature. Not it must be noted that there are other theories if all the supercollider experiments do not show the Higgs boson. The two most well accepted both assume there is not one single particle, but a number of as yet undiscovered sub-atomic particles that are associated with known particles. Supersymmetry assumes several Higgs bosons, while dynamical symmetry breaking assumes the Higgs boson is a composite that is made up of multiple constituents that will need to be discovered once the Higgs boson itself is observed. In any event, the use of supercollider technology to experiment at high energy ranges allows for discoveries at the subatomic level with great expectation for remarkable results.
As interesting as all the physics and possible discovery is the statement made by physicist Howard Gordon of the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York when he said, "It's hard to find, not because it is especially tiny, but because it is hard to create." I would say that a decade of construction and research into a 17-mile tube charged to 1 TeV (trillion electron volts) would classify as hard. The really funny thing about this comment is that all this effort has gone in to discover the range in GeV within a range of statistical certainty the Higgs boson might exist within to declare it has been observed. Not really creation at all, is it. The Higgs boson is also called the "God particle" as it is hoped to explain why anything in this universe has mass and why after the Big Bang everything slowed down instead of just racing outward to infinity and all we know never came to be as we know it.
Supposing a range with statistical certainty is achieved such that the Higgs boson is "observed", or multiple Higgs bosons are "observed", or a whole range of new particles and their possible constituents are "found" what physics still cannot tell is where the first elements necessary to produce the "Bang" came from, nor why knowing any of these things matters (why there is something rather than nothing). Science is completely impotent regarding these matters. We certainly aren't creating anything, as all the elements and particles already exist and are "waiting" for us to observe them. We also continue to find more and more intricate interaction between elements and particles in science whether it be in particle physics, microbiology or other field of study. We know an astronomically detailed and complex series of particles and elements work independently and in concert with others in ways we cannot yet fully describe or understand but which must be so for our tests to even be performed in the first place. We should be excited about how far we have come in such discoveries, we should be amazed that even at the level of observation now possible there is still so much we do not know and must theorize about, and we should be humbled that there is no good reason for any of it to be this way and yet we are capable of participating in such exploration. As complicated and detailed the scientific discoveries will continue to be in the future we must remember that all these observed particles, elements and particles came from absolutely nothing (no energy, substance or potential) and the sum total of all scientific discoveries provides no meaningful answers to even the most basic questions of relationships between the discoverers and anything else in existence.
We need not pursue a "God particle", but the God who created all things and who holds all things together, and who provides a reason for human existence, a purpose for our existence, and the possibility of relationship with the One who is sovereign over all we observe and understand. Let us not understate the case, nor let us discover in vain.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Caretakers of the Temple
So i've saved the best for last. I've gone the long way round, beginning with some philosophical ideas and some practical applications and outworkings, but for followers of Christ the discussion has to begin and end with Biblical truth. This post is primarily for believers as it will be solely based on Scripture, but I trust even unbelievers who stop by will at least see the richness that life has according to God's word.
In Acts 17:24-28, Luke records Pauls speech to the Atheneans, where he says, "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. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and 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 from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being."
So Paul indicates that it is in God that we have meaning (live and move and have our being). He also touches on where God resides (does not live in temples built by human hands).
In 2 Corinthians 6:15b-7:1, Paul instructs those in the church in Corinth of the need to remain pure before the Lord. "What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: 'I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be there God, and they will be my people.' 'Therefore come out fro mthem and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord almighty.' Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God."
Again, we see the temple and that God does not live in a temple built by human hands, but rather lives in us that as those who have, by grace and through faith, believed in our hearts and confessed with our mouths that Jesus is Lord are the temple of the living God. What is this idea of the temple? We see that in 1 Kings chapters 5-9 (and similarly in 2 Chronicles 2-7). Therein we see a process of preparation of the OT temple, adornment of the temple and finally a dedication of the temple. Following is an excerpt from Solomon's dedication prayer for the temple:
"But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!...May your eyes be open toward this temple night and day, this place of which you said, 'My Name shall be there', so that you will hear the prayer your servant prays toward this place..."
OK, so how do we get from the temple, the physical place, in the OT to us individually being a temple and residing place for the Name? The linkage, or linch-pin, or turning point is the cross. It appears in the first three gospels. Luke 23:44-46 says, "It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun stopped shining, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, Father into your hands I commit my spirit. When at last he said this, he breathed his last."
The tearing of the curtain represented a cessation of the separation between God and man. Until that point only the high priest could enter into the Holy of Holies and only then after a long series of purification (with a rope tied around his leg lest he had done something wrong and carried uncleanness in and needed to be dragged out). From that point on the temple was not a physical place, but a Comfortor within each of us.
The things to be recognized for the believer from this is that being the temple of God means more for us than just not smoking and eating right. We must continually work on purifying the temple, fully submitting all ourselves emotionally, volitionally, intellectually and physically to the Lord, dedicating ourselves to Him. This means that all we do and say should be an act of worship. Worship, in fact, is co-extensive with life. We worship God at home, at our vocation and when we relax at home. All our actions, all our words, even all our thoughts should be dedicated to God. So, worship is not just something that is done for 30 minutes on a Sunday morning when songs are sung. No, we as believers gather at a physical building but we bring the worship with us, it is only manifested for a short time in song.
In summary, biblical Christians have meaning as the very essence of their lives, where each and every thing that is done, said, thought or otherwise should be dedicated to the Lord because the Holy Spirit dwells within us and allows us to see through the things of this world to the creator and provider of all those things, and pledge our allegience and faithfulness not to a fabrication of our own or to something below us (something we fashion with our own hand or just arbitrarily choose to hold up) but to the One who is truly worthy. That would be our answer to what is the meaning in life.
In Acts 17:24-28, Luke records Pauls speech to the Atheneans, where he says, "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. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and 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 from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being."
So Paul indicates that it is in God that we have meaning (live and move and have our being). He also touches on where God resides (does not live in temples built by human hands).
In 2 Corinthians 6:15b-7:1, Paul instructs those in the church in Corinth of the need to remain pure before the Lord. "What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: 'I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be there God, and they will be my people.' 'Therefore come out fro mthem and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord almighty.' Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God."
Again, we see the temple and that God does not live in a temple built by human hands, but rather lives in us that as those who have, by grace and through faith, believed in our hearts and confessed with our mouths that Jesus is Lord are the temple of the living God. What is this idea of the temple? We see that in 1 Kings chapters 5-9 (and similarly in 2 Chronicles 2-7). Therein we see a process of preparation of the OT temple, adornment of the temple and finally a dedication of the temple. Following is an excerpt from Solomon's dedication prayer for the temple:
"But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!...May your eyes be open toward this temple night and day, this place of which you said, 'My Name shall be there', so that you will hear the prayer your servant prays toward this place..."
OK, so how do we get from the temple, the physical place, in the OT to us individually being a temple and residing place for the Name? The linkage, or linch-pin, or turning point is the cross. It appears in the first three gospels. Luke 23:44-46 says, "It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun stopped shining, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, Father into your hands I commit my spirit. When at last he said this, he breathed his last."
The tearing of the curtain represented a cessation of the separation between God and man. Until that point only the high priest could enter into the Holy of Holies and only then after a long series of purification (with a rope tied around his leg lest he had done something wrong and carried uncleanness in and needed to be dragged out). From that point on the temple was not a physical place, but a Comfortor within each of us.
The things to be recognized for the believer from this is that being the temple of God means more for us than just not smoking and eating right. We must continually work on purifying the temple, fully submitting all ourselves emotionally, volitionally, intellectually and physically to the Lord, dedicating ourselves to Him. This means that all we do and say should be an act of worship. Worship, in fact, is co-extensive with life. We worship God at home, at our vocation and when we relax at home. All our actions, all our words, even all our thoughts should be dedicated to God. So, worship is not just something that is done for 30 minutes on a Sunday morning when songs are sung. No, we as believers gather at a physical building but we bring the worship with us, it is only manifested for a short time in song.
In summary, biblical Christians have meaning as the very essence of their lives, where each and every thing that is done, said, thought or otherwise should be dedicated to the Lord because the Holy Spirit dwells within us and allows us to see through the things of this world to the creator and provider of all those things, and pledge our allegience and faithfulness not to a fabrication of our own or to something below us (something we fashion with our own hand or just arbitrarily choose to hold up) but to the One who is truly worthy. That would be our answer to what is the meaning in life.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Looking Through Life
"I was standing today in the dark toolshed. The sun was shining outside and through the crack at the top of the door there came a sunbeam. From where I stood that beam of light, with the specks of dust floating in it, was the most striking thing in the place...Then I moved, so that the beam fell on my eyes. Instantly, the whole picture vanished...Instead I saw, framed in the irregular cranny at the top of the door, green leaves moving on the branches of a tree outside and beyond that, 90 odd million miles away, the sun. Looking along the beam, and looking at the beam are very different experiences.
When you have got into the habit of making this distinction you will find examples of it all day long. The mathematician sits thinking, and to him it seems that he is contemplating timeless and spaceless truths about quantity. But the cerebral physiologist, if he could look inside the mathematician's head, would find nothing timeless and spaceless there - only tiny movements in the grey matter.
In other words, you can step outside one experience only by stepping inside another. Therefore, if all inside experiences are misleading, we are always misled. The cerebral physiologist may say, if he chooses, that the mathematician's thought is 'only' tiny physical movements of grey matter. But then what about the cerebral physiologist's own thought at that very moment? A second physiologist, looking at it, could pronounce it also to be only tiny physical movements in the first physiologist's skull. Where is the rot to end? The answer is that we must never allow the rot to begin. We must, on pain of idiocy, deny from the very outset the idea that looking at is, by its own nature, instrinsically truer or better than looking along. One must look both along and at everything."
C.S. Lewis, Meditation in a Toolshed, God in the Dock
This life's dim windows of the soul
Distorts the heavens from pole to pole
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, and not through the eye
William Blake
For both C.S. Lewis and William Blake it is not enough to simply look at a thing and say you have seen it all. Pondering Lewis' experience in the toolshed for just a moment we see what a shame it would be to see only the things in the toolshed (boards, tables, tools, etc.), and miss out on the trees, birds, sun, etc.
Going back to our previous discussion of meaning and worship for the believer. A right understanding of worship is not an experience that happens for 30 minutes one day a week that we know took place because of a raised hand, the singing of a song, or other expression we can see or hear. We make a cardinal mistake if we look only at those things for meaning (just like looking at money or fame or popularity would be a mistake). Rather, we must look both at and along those things to what lies beyond them. For a believer essence precedes existence so who we are should determine what we do. We don't look at the lucrative singing career for meaning, we recognize the God who created us with the talent, opportunity and priviledge; submit those talents and abilities to Him for His purposes, adore Him for the gift, and live a life in singing that would honor the giver of the gift. In other words, the meaning is inherent in the life and co-extensive with the life, so that even if an accident were to ruin the vocal chords and render the career over, the worship would continue and the meaning would remain equally strong. Quite simply, if the meaning of our life is a fabrication of our own making, or a compilation or summation of temporal experiences, then life has no depth and when the object we choose to look at is gone and there is nothing beyond it, then life's meaning is lost as well.
When you have got into the habit of making this distinction you will find examples of it all day long. The mathematician sits thinking, and to him it seems that he is contemplating timeless and spaceless truths about quantity. But the cerebral physiologist, if he could look inside the mathematician's head, would find nothing timeless and spaceless there - only tiny movements in the grey matter.
In other words, you can step outside one experience only by stepping inside another. Therefore, if all inside experiences are misleading, we are always misled. The cerebral physiologist may say, if he chooses, that the mathematician's thought is 'only' tiny physical movements of grey matter. But then what about the cerebral physiologist's own thought at that very moment? A second physiologist, looking at it, could pronounce it also to be only tiny physical movements in the first physiologist's skull. Where is the rot to end? The answer is that we must never allow the rot to begin. We must, on pain of idiocy, deny from the very outset the idea that looking at is, by its own nature, instrinsically truer or better than looking along. One must look both along and at everything."
C.S. Lewis, Meditation in a Toolshed, God in the Dock
This life's dim windows of the soul
Distorts the heavens from pole to pole
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, and not through the eye
William Blake
For both C.S. Lewis and William Blake it is not enough to simply look at a thing and say you have seen it all. Pondering Lewis' experience in the toolshed for just a moment we see what a shame it would be to see only the things in the toolshed (boards, tables, tools, etc.), and miss out on the trees, birds, sun, etc.
Going back to our previous discussion of meaning and worship for the believer. A right understanding of worship is not an experience that happens for 30 minutes one day a week that we know took place because of a raised hand, the singing of a song, or other expression we can see or hear. We make a cardinal mistake if we look only at those things for meaning (just like looking at money or fame or popularity would be a mistake). Rather, we must look both at and along those things to what lies beyond them. For a believer essence precedes existence so who we are should determine what we do. We don't look at the lucrative singing career for meaning, we recognize the God who created us with the talent, opportunity and priviledge; submit those talents and abilities to Him for His purposes, adore Him for the gift, and live a life in singing that would honor the giver of the gift. In other words, the meaning is inherent in the life and co-extensive with the life, so that even if an accident were to ruin the vocal chords and render the career over, the worship would continue and the meaning would remain equally strong. Quite simply, if the meaning of our life is a fabrication of our own making, or a compilation or summation of temporal experiences, then life has no depth and when the object we choose to look at is gone and there is nothing beyond it, then life's meaning is lost as well.
Authentic Meaning
Do I really matter? If I was gone tomorrow would it make any difference? Do the things I do every day really mean anything? These questions and many like them are asked every day by people in all walks of life, young and old. I asked myself some of these same questions when I was around 16 years old. Over the last twenty years I have come to know some pretty meaningful things about meaning in life.
Answers to meaning in life are given in many different areas today. Entertainment is so important in American culture right now, so many are "plugged in" spending so much time with TV, online, or talking on mobile phones or working on tweets that a fair place to look for what contemporary culture offers is important. A quick look through the Billboard music charts shows that ideas like fame, money, relationships, success and wild indulgences is where to find real meaning. In fact, most of American culture now has been secularized to the point that the common view of meaning was summed up by Jean-Paul Sartre many years ago. Sartre said that existance preceeds essence, or what you do defines who you are. Although some of the fundamental understandings of this belief were radically different for Sartre, most today feel that meaning in their life is up to them. Francis Schaeffer pointed out the difficulty in this line of thinking. He said in his work Escape from Reason, "First, Jean-Paul Sartre. Rationally the universe is absurd, and you must try to authenticate yourself. How? By authenticating yourself by an act of will. So if you are driving along the street and see someone in the pouring rain, you stop your car, pick him up and give him a lift. It is absurd. What does it matter? He is nothing, the situation is nothing, but you have authenticated yourself by an act of the will. But the difficulty is that authentication has no rational or logical content - all directions of an act of the will are equal. Therefore, similarly, if you are driving along and see the man in the rain, speed up your car, and knock him down, you have in an equal measure authenticated your will. Do you understand? If you do, cry for the modern man in such a hopeless situation."
As a believer the issue of meaning is approached in exactly the same way. We believe that essence preceeds existence. Or who we are defines what we do. We are created by our Creator in the image of God. We are knit together in our mother's womb, and God knows us before we are born. So we have value and importance that is intrinsic. We don't have to do some grand work, or make a lot of money, or be a success at work for our lives to have meaning. We are valuable from birth not because of what we have done, but because of what God has done in us.
A true understanding of worship is a key to the meaning in life for a believer. Worship was defined by William Temple as, "the submission of all of our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness, nourishment of mind by His truth, purifying of imagination by His beauty, opening of the heart to His love, and submission of will to His purpose. And all this gathered up in adoration is the greatest human expression of which we are capable." Notice that the focus here is not on what we do, but on God. Worship is submitting ourselves totally to God. Recognition of His holiness, His truth, His beauty, His love and His purpose.
You see, if we define ourselves by how we look or our job or money or even acts of our own will for meaning, or value, or authentification then what of the times when those things are gone? If our meaning in life is all centered around our looks and popularity, what happens if there is an accident and our face is marred, or age takes its inevitable toll and our looks are gone? Do we then cease to have meaning? Pride drives us to think more of ourselves than we ought, but a true understanding of worship allows us to submit ourselves to God and adore Him and that brings meaning to everything in life.
Worship is not just something that takes place for a believer for 30 minutes on a Sunday morning. No, it is an involvement in everything we do in life. A submission of all of our will to God. We turn over all our lives to God and every second of every day becomes an act of worship, it is co-extensive with life and brings a richness and respect to life that is absent otherwise. In the next two posts I hope to bring out some illustrations of why the idea of worship is so important to how we see the world and how our behavior is effected, and some of the biblical linkages to the concept.
Answers to meaning in life are given in many different areas today. Entertainment is so important in American culture right now, so many are "plugged in" spending so much time with TV, online, or talking on mobile phones or working on tweets that a fair place to look for what contemporary culture offers is important. A quick look through the Billboard music charts shows that ideas like fame, money, relationships, success and wild indulgences is where to find real meaning. In fact, most of American culture now has been secularized to the point that the common view of meaning was summed up by Jean-Paul Sartre many years ago. Sartre said that existance preceeds essence, or what you do defines who you are. Although some of the fundamental understandings of this belief were radically different for Sartre, most today feel that meaning in their life is up to them. Francis Schaeffer pointed out the difficulty in this line of thinking. He said in his work Escape from Reason, "First, Jean-Paul Sartre. Rationally the universe is absurd, and you must try to authenticate yourself. How? By authenticating yourself by an act of will. So if you are driving along the street and see someone in the pouring rain, you stop your car, pick him up and give him a lift. It is absurd. What does it matter? He is nothing, the situation is nothing, but you have authenticated yourself by an act of the will. But the difficulty is that authentication has no rational or logical content - all directions of an act of the will are equal. Therefore, similarly, if you are driving along and see the man in the rain, speed up your car, and knock him down, you have in an equal measure authenticated your will. Do you understand? If you do, cry for the modern man in such a hopeless situation."
As a believer the issue of meaning is approached in exactly the same way. We believe that essence preceeds existence. Or who we are defines what we do. We are created by our Creator in the image of God. We are knit together in our mother's womb, and God knows us before we are born. So we have value and importance that is intrinsic. We don't have to do some grand work, or make a lot of money, or be a success at work for our lives to have meaning. We are valuable from birth not because of what we have done, but because of what God has done in us.
A true understanding of worship is a key to the meaning in life for a believer. Worship was defined by William Temple as, "the submission of all of our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness, nourishment of mind by His truth, purifying of imagination by His beauty, opening of the heart to His love, and submission of will to His purpose. And all this gathered up in adoration is the greatest human expression of which we are capable." Notice that the focus here is not on what we do, but on God. Worship is submitting ourselves totally to God. Recognition of His holiness, His truth, His beauty, His love and His purpose.
You see, if we define ourselves by how we look or our job or money or even acts of our own will for meaning, or value, or authentification then what of the times when those things are gone? If our meaning in life is all centered around our looks and popularity, what happens if there is an accident and our face is marred, or age takes its inevitable toll and our looks are gone? Do we then cease to have meaning? Pride drives us to think more of ourselves than we ought, but a true understanding of worship allows us to submit ourselves to God and adore Him and that brings meaning to everything in life.
Worship is not just something that takes place for a believer for 30 minutes on a Sunday morning. No, it is an involvement in everything we do in life. A submission of all of our will to God. We turn over all our lives to God and every second of every day becomes an act of worship, it is co-extensive with life and brings a richness and respect to life that is absent otherwise. In the next two posts I hope to bring out some illustrations of why the idea of worship is so important to how we see the world and how our behavior is effected, and some of the biblical linkages to the concept.
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