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11:13 AM 1/21/2005
Someone has said “the purpose of life is a life of purpose”! I couldn't disagree more. It is the kind of thing you'll hear on Opra or Dr. Phil.
It is a very 20th century view. "You need purpose to get you out of bed, any purpose will do, just find one." Accordingly, you can devote your life to the sick, like Albert Schweitzer, or to the Shaw of Iran; to feeding the poor or to sexual exploits. "It doesn't matter," we are told, "Everyone needs some purpose for mental health and psychological grounding."
What thinking person is satisfied with
such arbitrary purposes? Are they any different from Nazis making prisoners move a pile of rock from one end of the camp, only to move it back the next day, ad infinitum?
Like missing the forest for the trees, a flawed purpose keeps us too busy to search for something more meaningful. On the other hand, the person wandering around aimlessly may stumble across the truth. And the person devoted to the wrong thing may find themself fighting against the truth in order to justify their flawed premises and purpose.
In contrast to assigning arbitray meaning to life, John Henry Newman wrote:
Everyone who breathes, high and low,
educated and ignorant, young and old,
man and woman, has a mission, has a work.
We are not sent into this world for nothing;
we are not born at random; we are not here,
that we may go to bed at night, and get up in the morning,
toil for our bread, eat and drink, laugh and joke,
sin when we have a mind, and reform when we tire of sinning,
rear a family and die.
God sees every one of us;
He creates every soul . . . for a purpose.
Last month, world famous atheist Antony Flew said that modern science
points in the direction of intelligent design of the universe. Flew hasn't embraced
the teachings of Jesus, but his new position is a philosophical quantum leap.
I've been created?
an intelligent designer?
not belched from cold, impersonal matter, blind chance?
Why?
Quite suddenly, the writing on the wall is legible,
"Purpose" written on every rock, tree and human being.
When one speculates as to the nature of the Intelligent Designer, ideas like
"reason," "mind" and "immaterial spirit" are unavoidable. (The late Mortimer Adler, general editor of Encyclopedia Britanica, compiled a useful cross reference of "The Great Dialogue" from Homer to Freud, which wrestles with these questions.)
But we are not left to speculation. The infinite, eternal, unchangeable God
revealed himself to Abraham, Moses and the Hebrew prophets; then most fully in Jesus. His teaching describes a universe, not cold and meaningless,
but filled by a raging torrent of self-revealing, self-sacrificing love:
I made Your name known to them
and will make it known,
so the love You have loved Me with
may be in them and I may be in them. John 17:24-26(HCSB)
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6:36 AM 4/13/2004
The gospel (good news) of Jesus is the heart of the Christian Worldview.
Jesus summarized the law with love and said that we do not love God and others as we should. Christ's life merited our salvation. Christ's death purchased our salvation. And Christ's resurrection empowers our salvation. We may trust in His righteousness alone for a right relationship with God.
This need runs to the heart of our personal & societal problems. Scripture, therefore stands against all other philosophies and world views which seek fulfillment or perfection outside this gospel of personal transformation through Christ.
Followers of Christ strive to show forth the glory of God in every area of life. When God transforms lives through the gospel, cultural & political institutions are also transformed.Yet social renewal is a biproduct of personal renewal.
Further, we need the Holy Spirit to illuminate our hearts & minds to know God and fully understand the ChristianWorldview.
Therefore the gospel is the heart of the Christian worldview.
At the same time, the gospel is built upon a foundation of core truths. The greatest of these is that God exists. A specific kind of God exists. God is personal. God is not a gray-haired grandfather in the clouds as Michelangelo painted. Nor is God merely a blind force or law of physics. God is an infinite, invisible, conscious, thinking being.
Related to this is the truth that “truth” exists. Some beliefs and statements are true. Others ideas are false. And, as with math problems, while some answers are wrong they may be closer to the truth than others. For instance, saying that a personal God exists is the same as saying that a personal God does not not exist. To say “a certain kind of personal God exists” is entirely incompatible with saying that this certain kind of personal God does not exist.
These two truths are the brick & mortar of Jesus' view of the world . . . (to be continued)
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"Where have all the liberals gone?"
Guest columnist Scott Thompson replies, "the same place as the biscuits!"
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Post Everythings by Tim Keller
Check out this insightful essay on reaching young people by the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in New York.
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When Worldviews Collide
Part One
Part Two
This essay by Armand Nicholi (Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School) compares the worldviews of Sigmund Freud & C.S. Lewis.
Understanding Your Teenager's Doubt
I found this essay by Jerram Barrs to be wise & sensitive.
He's professor of Christianity and Contemporary Culture @ Covenant Theological Seminary
Incarnational Apologetics
Nathan Wilson for Credenda Agenda
This reformed appreciation of C.S. Lewis challenges us, to not merely give an apology for the Christian faith, but to be an apology for our faith.
Gods and Peanuts
Roberto Rivera for Breakpoint explains why we should be careful of attaching biblical interpretations to scientific fads
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12:00 PM 3/17/2004
What is the “Christian world view”
Chuck Colson once suggested that when we hear the phrase “Christian worldview” we think of men in tweed blazers, smoking pipes and discussing philosophy in ivy-covered buildings. In a similar vein, I sat in a sunday school class, a good class mind you, which went through a series of lessons on “the christian worldview.” The lessons were about abortion, politics and apologetics. I'm sure they were good lessons and were taught from a christian worldview. Yet the Christian worldview is not limited to these subjects.
Another understanding of a christian worldview, a twisted understanding, was expressed by a friend who told me he liked to watch godless movies because, he said, “I have a Christian worldview.” I'm not condemning R-rated movies, I'm just trying to figure out the connection between "having a christian view" and enjoying inappropriate movies.
The Christian worldview is first and foremost Christ's view of the world. Jesus Christ is the prophet. He is the final source of authority. He is the word of God (John 1), who best reveals God's thoughts and is the exact imprint of God's nature (Hebrews 1:1-4).
Second, the Christian worldview is Christ's view of the world. It sees all the cosmos as God's creation and therefore nothing is outside the realm of God's kingdom. This means that Christ is Lord of the political realm, he is the ruler of all the kings of the earth (Rev. 1:5). But at the heart of Christ's view of the world is its personal message. Each of us must "take every thought captive to obey Christ" (2 Cor 10:5). When we take every thought captive, our culture is positively affected and our laws reflect the goodness and justice of God. Yet that is a secondary effect of the growth of Christ's kingdom. The heart of his kingdom is the growth of his reign in the lives of every believer.
This was illustrated to me when I was a new believer. I remember recommending a book to a friend (I think it was The God You Can Know by Dan Dehaan). I was mystified by his response. He said something like “I'm not really into those kinds of books, that's your thing. I'm more into issues.” He focused on "christian worldview issues" more than on his personal devotion to Jesus Christ. On the other hand, Jesus, because he knew he was living in a God-saturated cosmos, "would withdraw to desolate places to pray" (Luke 5:16), often all through the night.
My friend entered the ministry and was somewhat successful. But I never forgot that he wasn't into books of a personal, devotional nature. It was the first thing I thought of when I learned a couple years later that he had abandoned faith in Christ.
It is all too easy to separate Christ's reign over politics and philosophy from Christ's personal reign in our lives. When we make this unbiblical divorce there is a real sense in which Christ ceases to be lord in the political & cultural realms. Also, when we do this we inevitably try to build Christ's kingdom with worldly wisdom rather than renewing the world through the power of the gospel.
Also read:
 Building blocks of Jesus' view of the world
8:59 AM 3/15/2004
I've been rereading
Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis with a friend.
Mortimer Adler defined a "great book" as one that grows with you.
Mere Christianityis a gold mine not quickly exhausted. Here's a passage we discussed.
If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong
all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all
the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you
are a Christian, you are free to think that all those religions, even the queerest ones,
contain at least a hint of the truth.
When I was an atheist I had to try to persuade myself
that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most; when I became
a Christian I was able to take a more liberal view. But, of course, being a Christian does mean
thinking that where Christianity differs from other religions, Christianity is right and they are wrong. As in
arithmetic--there is only one right answer to a sum, and all other answers are wrong; but some
of the wrong answers are much nearer being right than the others.
--from page 35 in the chapter "The Rival Conceptions of God."
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