95 Sermon Illustrations on Meaning Of Life

Can human beings live with meaninglessness? For a long time, leading postmodernists have been telling us that we not only can, but that we have to. Their view is that there is no truth, no standards, no objectivity, and no purpose, so we make the most of the hand we have been dealt. At root, it's spiritual and intellectual nihilism.

Well-known author Joan Didion wrote about this recently in THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING, her book about her husband's death and her daughter's illness. As Didion explains it, the idea of meaninglessness had haunted her from childhood. She says, “That the scheme [of things] could destroy the works of man might be a personal regret but remained ... a matter of abiding indifference. No eye was on the sparrow. No one was watching me.” She was left to try to find what little meaning she could in nature and “the repeated rituals of domestic life,” as she put it.

The problem with that despairing approach, of course, is that the imago Dei, the image of God, is in every one of us. You can tell people life has no meaning, but they know that just isn't true. And eventually the most ardent postmodern advocate bumps into reality -- like Wallace Stevens, leading postmodern poet whose story I tell in my new book, THE GOOD LIFE. Six months before he died, he was baptized a Christian.

One of the most dramatic cases is Antony Flew, whom I met this summer when I was lecturing in Oxford. Flew was perhaps the leading atheist philosopher in the world. But at 81, he was introduced to the intelligent design movement and the works of Dr. Michael Behe, who found that the human cell structure is irreducibly complex -- and therefore could not have arisen by evolution and gradual natural selection. Flew also realized that some of the things that the early writers of the Scripture had written could not have been humanly known at that time, but have subsequently been vindicated by scientific discovery. Flew was a man of integrity, and rather than just changing his mind and going away quietly, he announced to the world that he was now a Deist, believing that there was an intelligence in the universe that created this world.

And now another prominent figure has experienced a similar conversion. After writing twenty-five novels steeped in the occult, Anne Rice has returned to Catholicism, the faith of her childhood, and has promised that she will now “write only for the Lord.” She's written a book, CHRIST THE LORD: OUT OF EGYPT, which I have not read, but reviewers say is a faithful account of the one she calls “the ultimate supernatural hero.” Anne Rice, writing about Jesus instead of vampires? It's what NEWSWEEK calls a “startling public turnaround” -- and that's putting it mildly.

Rice explains that her previous works were written from the perspective of someone “lost in the darkness, striving to find meaning.” Anne Rice has now found that meaning, just as Wallace Stevens did, and Antony Flew did, and countless others. I've long argued that postmodernism can't survive because deep inside, we know it can't be true. We know there is meaning and purpose to life. And as these and others are discovering, it's found ultimately only in one place: as Anne Rice puts it, in Christ the Lord.

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Copyright (c) 2005 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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[Original illustration at this number was deleted for being obsolete]

Back in the 1930s someone estimated the mineral worth of a 150 pound man at about 98 cents. More recently, a biochemist recalculated man's worth based on the "marketable" chemical elements in the average body and arrived at a figure of about $6 million. Still more recently, an expert in nuclear power figured the atoms in the human body, if they could be harnessed, would be sufficient to produce 11.4 million kilowatts of energy worth more than $85 billion!

Calculating a monetary value for people is a fallacy because people cannot be measured in terms of money.

John Gardner wrote, "Man is a stubborn seeker after meaning." Meaning is lacking because we are alienated from God. Jesus is the remedy for lack of fulfillment.

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From a sermon by Rev. Mark Adams:

Several years ago I remember reading that some scientist had determined that the human body is worth very little because once you removed the water all you would have left is a few bucks worth of ordinary chemicals. You’ve probably heard that story yourself. This week I read about another scientist named David Sadoof -- a professor at the University of Washington -- who has significantly upped the worth of a single human. He said that the typical 150-pound human body has 10,200 units of the clotting agent prothrombin which would sell on the open market for $30,600. He also says that our bodies contain 40 grams of myoblobin, another blood component which would bring an excess of $100,000. So these two blood compounds alone would make each of us worth at least $130,600 -- a great improvement over a few measly bucks worth of chemicals!

Campolo is over 50 years old. One night, when his children were very small, his wife called him into their bedroom. She pointed to them stretched out in their beds. Even now, he can see the angelic expressions on their faces and their peaceful innocence.

His wife whispered in his ear, "Look long and hard, Tony, because they'll never be like that again." He wishes he had done more such reflecting.

Friend dared Campolo to steal their confiscated stickball bats from the police station. He did. Risk makes life worthwhile.

Fulghum visited an institute on Crete devoted to reconciling Germans and Cretans. At the end of a lecture he asked the director, Alexandros Papaderos, what the meaning of life was. Laughter followed, and people stirred to go. Papaderos looked at him for a long time, asking with his eyes if he was serious and saw that he was. "I will answer your question."

Taking his wallet from his hip pocket, he fished out a small round mirror, the size of a quarter. Then he said, "I was a small child during the war. One day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror. I kept the largest piece. This one. I began to play with it and became fascinated that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine - deep holes, crevices, dark closets.

"I kept the little mirror, and as I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child's game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life - that I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design I do not know. With what I have, I can reflect light - truth, understanding, knowledge - into the black places in the hearts of men and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I do."

H. G. Wells, once known as the world's greatest optimist, ended his life in despair. From the depths of his gloom he wrote: "The writer is convinced that there is no way out or round or through the impasse. It is the end. Mind may be near the end of its tether.

"Our world of self-delusion will admit none of that. It will perish amidst its evasions and fatuities.... Mind near exhaustion still makes its final futile movement towards that way out or round or through the impasse...

"There is no way out or round or through. Our universe is not merely bankrupt; there remains no dividend at all; it is not simply liquidated; it is going clean out of existence leaving not a wrack behind. The attempt to trace a pattern of any sort is absolutely futile.

"The human story has already come to an end and HOMO SAPIENS, as he has been pleased to call himself, is in his present form played out. The stars in their courses have turned against him, and he has to give place to some other animal better adapted to face the fate that closes in more and more swiftly upon mankind."

One famous American who lived for happiness was Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway grew up in a staunch Christian home - his father had even thought of being a missionary.

However, Ernest had other goals for his life and left his childhood faith far behind him.

He became a writer and a thrill seeker. He hunted big game, fought in several wars, married four women and became an alcoholic.

Toward the end of his life Hemingway said, "I live in a vacuum that is as lonely as a radio tube when the batteries are dead and there is no current to plug into."

A few years later he committed suicide.

Sermon in John series. Samaritan woman at well. John 4:4-29

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A NINETIES KIND OF WOMAN

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I. Are you satisfied?

II. A meeting of opposites.

III. Jesus drops the "hook." 4:10

IV. Getting a husband.

A. Jesus' simple request brings out her condition. 4:16

B. Sex as the new religion.

C. Our desire for sexuality is really a desire for meaning.

V. When cornered, use religion.

A. Woman is cut to soul, perceives Jesus as prophet. 4:19

B. Where is right place to worship? 4:20

C. Further deflection by woman. 4:25

VI. Only Jesus can satisfy.

A. All of us make bad choices.

B. When our deepest thirst is satisfied, all other things take

their rightful place in life.

C. Surest sign he satisfies you - you go and tell others.

No minister had prepared me for God’s absence.

In his book for pastors, “The Living Reminder,” Henri Nouwen coins a remarkable and daring phrase: “the ministry of absence.” Ministers do a disservice, he says, if they witness only to God’s presence and do not prepare others to experience the times when God seems absent.

“It is for your good that I am going away,” Jesus told the Twelve at the Last Supper, surely confounding the already dazed disciples. How could it be good for the visible presence of God in flesh to depart from them? Jesus answered their blank stares with a promise: “Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”

In other words, God’s presence on earth was changing form: from the flesh- and-blood body of a Palestinian Jew to a Spirit, who would prove to be more intimate indeed, but also more subtle and easier to ignore. Commands in the Epistles — “Quench not the Spirit”; “Grieve not the Holy Spirit” (KJV) — hint at the profound change.

I marvel at a God who puts himself at our mercy, as it were, allowing himself to be quenched and grieved — and even forgotten. For this reason, we need the ministry of absence.

Nouwen’s phrase struck me with some force because, frankly, I struggle with the problem of “forgetting God.” Was it Yogi Berra who claimed to experience amnesia and deja vu simultaneously? When it comes to God, I too forget the familiar all over again. For example, wrenched from my normal routine on a trip somewhere, it will suddenly occur to me that, except for a cursory blessing before meals, I have not given God a single thought all day. Forget the essence of the universe and the central focus of my life? Yes, I do.

Apparently I am not alone. In the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses pleads with the Israelites not to forget the God who brought them out of Egypt and made a covenant with them. Yet the prophets repeat the sad refrain that Israel often ignored Moses’ advice.

How can we avoid the amnesia of the Israelites? I have received much help on this issue from Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, a cook and sandalmaker in a seventeenth-century monastery in Paris, who wrote the devotional classic “The Practice of the Presence of God.” He suggests practical ways to “offer God your heart from time to time in the course of the day, amid your labours, at any time you can.”

Brother Lawrence counsels, “A small lifting of the heart suffices, a small remembrance of God, a movement of the heart’s worship, though in haste and with sword in hand.” Evidently he practiced what he preached. In a eulogy, his Abbe wrote that “the good Brother found God everywhere, as much while he was repairing shoes as while he was praying with the Community… He knew that, the more the task was against his natural inclinations, the greater was his love in offering it to God.”

That last comment affected my wife deeply. She read the book while working with senior citizens in downtown Chicago, and sometimes her job called for tasks that would go against anyone’s natural inclinations. As she cleaned up after an incontinent senior, or scrubbed an apartment after a messy death, she often reminded herself of Brother Lawrence’s formula. With some effort, even cleaning a toilet can be presented as an offering to God.

Over the years, I too have tried various techniques to “remember” God. It is hard to improve on the evangelical custom of daily devotions, yet even these can become routine and lifeless. Occasionally I drink coffee as I pray, for it seems somehow more natural to converse with an invisible God in the same style in which I converse with my friends, who are visible. Or I take a walk. The natural surroundings give me much reason for praise: spring coaxing extravagant life from dead twigs, or winter coating muddy roads with a glistening mantle of white. Also, as I pass neighbors’ houses, their needs come urgently to mind.

I am almost ashamed to admit it, but for a while I even set my alarm watch to chime at the top of each hour. I would pause, reflect on the hour that had just passed, and strive to practice the presence of God during the next hour. Gradually, over time, remembering God became something of a habit.

Still, again and again I find the old amnesia creeping back, often accompanied by a haunting sense of God’s absence. For one whole year, my prayers seemed to go nowhere; I never had the sense that God was listening. No minister had prepared me for this ordeal.

In desperation I bought a “Book of Hours” used in high-church liturgy, and for that year I simply read the prayers and Bible passages, offering them to God as my prayers since I had no words of my own. I now look back on that time of absence as an important growth period, for in some ways I had pursued God more earnestly than ever.

Emanuel Cardinal Suhard of Paris said that saints try “to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.” That is a goal toward which I am still striving.

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Copyright (c) 1996 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine July 15, 1996, Vol. 40, No. 8, Page 72 — ctjul96mrj6T8072679o

#3943

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Sometimes, it seems, bad news can become good news. Recently I had lunch with former secretary of education Bill Bennett, and our conversation quickly became animated, covering criminal justice, current events, and the sobering conclusions of his Index of Cultural Indicators. In the midst of our rapid- fire exchange, Bennett said, "Tell me: Can you name one positive trend in our culture?"

An abrupt silence fell as I groped for a single hopeful cultural indicator. Finally Bennett laughed. "All my friends respond the same way," he said. "They can't find anything encouraging."

No serious moral conservative doubts the severity of America's cultural crisis. But just when times seem darkest, rays of light may be breaking through, creating a rare moment of opportunity for Christians.

Consider the surprising results of several recent polls. Surveys by the Times Mirror magazine group, Republican pollster Richard Wirthlin, Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, and Newsweek all reveal that Americans are more pessimistic than ever. Times-Mirror found 71 percent "dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country today." Wirthlin found 62 percent think the country is on the wrong track.

Most surprising are the reasons people gave. During the presidential campaign, we were told the problem was the economy. ("It's the economy, stupid.") Today the economy is surging -- yet people are unhappier than ever. Why? Because of a troubling sense of moral vertigo.

Asked to identify the country's most pressing problem, half of Wirthlin's respondents cited crime and social issues. In the Times Mirror survey, again half cited crime, drugs, or lack of family values. Newsweek found that 76 percent believe America is in moral and spiritual decline.

This inner malaise was captured poignantly during President Clinton's MTV press conference. A bemused President answered queries about his underwear and his favorite rock song. But the atmosphere turned serious when 17-year- old Dahlia Schweitzer asked a penetrating question. "Mr. President," Dahlia said, "it seems to me that [singer] Kurt Cobain's recent suicide exemplified the emptiness that many in our generation feel. How do you propose to teach our youth how important life is?"

With breath-taking suddenness, this teenage girl turned the interview around, raising profound issues of human existence. Clinton hedged a moment. "The New York Times" commented that the President did not seem to have a legislative answer. Well, we can be grateful for that.

But the President did not seem to have any other kind of answer, either. What young people need, the President said -- resorting to the feel-good language of therapy -- is improved self-esteem, the feeling that "they are the most important in the world to somebody." But the meaning of life cannot be reduced to feeling good. After all, Cobain had millions of fans and used drugs to feel better; obviously, it wasn't enough.

The real message of Dahlia's question is that the reigning orthodoxy of secularism is crumbling. By rejecting any transcendent world, secularism abandoned people to trying to find happiness solely in this world -- in making money and buying things. As Jesus warned, we are easily consumed by worldly concerns: what to eat and what to wear. His words were prophetic of secular, consumerist America. Our public life has been stripped of abstract ideals like the True and the Good, leaving us wandering in the desert of our own desires. And unchecked desires lead straight to family breakdown, social disarray, and crime.

Of course, everyone welcomes a flourishing economy. But Americans are realizing that they cannot live by bread alone -- that a full belly is not enough if the spirit is starving. The very bleakness of the cultural landscape -- the bad news -- is driving people to raise fundamental questions about life. And that is good news.

HUNGRY FOR MORAL TRUTH

This is a remarkable opportunity that Christians must seize quickly. Through the 1980s, anyone broaching moral issues in the public square was denounced as a bigot. Remember the bitter reaction to "family values" in the last presidential campaign? Yet today social decay is creating a deep hunger for moral truth.

What can the church do? First, we need to make a credible case that Christianity can fill that hunger. We must develop a cultural apologetic showing the positive social benefits of Christianity. We don't have to bang anyone on the head with the Bible; we can simply present the facts. Statistics show that Christian marriages are stronger, that kids raised in the church are more likely to resist sex and drugs, that crime recedes when spiritual values are ascendant.

Second, we need to argue that Christianity is not just good for society, it is the truth. Contrary to some church-growth experts, the secret is not to attract people by making them feel good. The therapeutic appeal is as bankrupt in the church as it is in the culture at large. If we want to address the Dahlia Schweitzers among our young people -- if we want to address the millions who tell pollsters they're yearning for something deeper -- then we must give them what only the church can give: a message of truth and meaning, based on the One who is Truth.

If this bleak time mobilizes Christians to do that, then the bad news will become very good news indeed.

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Copyright (c) 1994 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY magazine

#3987

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Sermon in Ecclesiastes series. Quest for significance. Eccl 1:12-2:26

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CHASING THE WIND

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I. The quest for significance.

A. What have you sought after for happiness?

B. Solomon did it all. 1:12

II. Wisdom is chasing after the wind.

A. Solomon's quest for significance.

B. Existentialism.

III. Frustration of Pleasure. 2:1

A. Pleasures most people consider worthwhile.

B. Grandiose projects. 2:4

C. Pleasure in and of itself is a dead end.

IV. The ultimate frustrations - work and death.

A. Wisdom is better than insanity, but both die in the end. 2:14

B. Who gets our stuff? 2:17

C. What we get for our sweat.

V. Normal life has meaning - with God.

A. We can experience fulfillment despite life's difficulties. 2:26

B. God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness.

Do you ever wonder if you life really matters? Many Christians buy into the definitions of success promoted by our consumer culture. We confuse "having" with "being." What all of us need today is a new sense of who we are, not unon what we have.

I believe we can gain this new sense of significance by rethinking who we are as the people of God. For to know God, or rather to be known by Him (Gal 4:9) is to have one's life profoundly changed and refocused. Here is significance that is authentic and lasting. 1 Corinthians 3:16-23 gives several metaphors of our significance to God.

1. We are God's House.

2. We are God's personal possession.

3. We are God's holy place.

The real basis of self esteem is our position as the sons and daughters of God. The basis for becoming "real" is love. It is not having things but standing for something. God defines what is real for us.

[see also #4336, adapted from same article)

Britain's brilliant and famous writer Oscar Wilde descended into the depths of despair when he was sent to jail for perjury, sex offenses, and complicity in England's underworld. His story of how he came "out of the depths" (as he titled his essay in Latin) reveals how his salvation lay in re-ordering his priorities:

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I have lain in prison for nearly two years. Out of my nature has come wild despair; an abandonment to grief that was piteous even to look at; terrible and impotent rage; bitterness and scorn; anguish that wept aloud; misery that could find no voice; sorrow that was dumb. I have passed through every possible mood of suffering. Better than Wordsworth himself I know what Wordsworth meant when he said, "Suffering is permanent, obscure, and dark, and has the nature of infinity." But while there were times when I rejoiced in the idea that my sufferings were to be endless, I could not bear them to be without meaning. Now I find hidden somewhere away in my nature something that tells me that nothing in the whole world is meaningless, and suffering least of all. That something hidden away in my nature, like a treasure in a field, is Humility.

It is the last thing left in me, and the best: the ultimate discovery at which I have arrived, the starting-point for a fresh development. It has come to me right out of myself, so I know that it has come at the proper time. It could not have come before, nor later. Had any one told me of it, I would have rejected it. Had it been brought to me, I would have refused it. As I found it, I want to keep it. I must do so. It is the one thing that has in it the elements of life, of a new life, a Vita Nuova for me. Of all things it is the strangest; one cannot give it away and another may not give it to one. One cannot acquire it except by surrendering everything that one has. It is only when one has lost all things, that one knows that one possesses it.

Now I have realized that it is in me, I see quite clearly what I ought to do; in fact, must do. And when I use such a phrase as that, I need not say that I am not alluding to any external sanction or command. I admit none. I am far more of an individualist than I ever was. Nothing seems to me of the smallest value except what one gets out of oneself. My nature is seeking a fresh mode of self-realization. That is all I am concerned with. And the first thing that I have got to do is to free myself from any possible bitterness of feeling against the world.

Morality does not help me. I am a born antinomian. I am one of those who are made for exceptions, not for laws. But while I see that there is nothing wrong in what one does, I see that there is something wrong in what one becomes. It is well to have learned that...

The fact of my having been a common prisoner of a common jail I must frankly accept, and, curious as it may seem, one of the things I shall have to teach myself is not to be ashamed of it. I must accept it as a punishment, and if one is ashamed of having been punished, one might just as well never have been punished at all. Of course there are many things of which I was convicted that I have not done, but then there are many things of which I was convicted that I had done, and a still greater number of things in my life for which I was never indicted at all. And as the gods are strange, and punish us for what is good and humane in us as much as for what is evil and perverse, I must accept the fact that one is punished for the good as well as for the evil that one does. I have no doubt that it is quite right one should be. It helps one, or should help one, to realize both, and not to be too conceited about either. And if I then am not ashamed of my punishment, as I hope not to be, I shall be able to think, and walk, and live with freedom.

One morning a graduate student noticed a friend leaving a seminar on particle physics.

“How was it?” he asked.

“Just great! Everything we knew last week about physics isn’t true.”

Their short exchange reveals the angst of our modern situation. Having abandoned belief in UNIVERSALS — eternal truths about the world and human existence — modern man is left with the PARTICULARS of everyday experience. With the corpus of what we “know” contingent upon every new PARTICULAR, man soon loses hope in certain knowledge. Such was not always the case.

From the time of Plato, it was commonly believed that knowledge was unified. The principles governing the physical as well as the metaphysical were thought to be derived from a source external to the material world. That led to confidence in TRUTH — statements about experience and being that were not only objective and real, but knowable. That all changed with the “Kantian Turn.”

Immanuel Kant argued that real knowledge was limited to the physical realm of nature open to sensory experience and scientific inquiry. Whatever exists beyond the material world, he insisted, could be apprehended only in a limited and uncertain way. Kant’s division led to what Francis Schaeffer called a “two-story” view of knowledge.

The lower story contained PHENOMENA: nature, matter, and the particulars. This was the realm of “facts” established through reason, science, and experience. Here knowledge was concrete and certain. The upper story contained NOUMENA: supernatural, spirit, and the universals — ”beliefs” based on intuition, faith and religion. On this level, knowledge was “soft” and subjective. Between the stories was an opaque barrier, making the upper level invisible from the lower one.

LOSING TRUST

Before Kant, universals were sought to UNDERSTAND the particulars; after Kant, particulars were used to CONSTRUCT the universals. It was a program destined to fail, for two reasons.

Unhinged from universals, things like ethics, morality, and religious beliefs are determined by the winds of prevailing opinion. Also, because particulars are limited and finite, one can never be sure that some future observation won’t nullify the universal constructed. Such was the case for Copernican astronomy, Newtonian gravity, luminiferous aether, the Bohr atom and, as the grad student learned, everything he “knew last week about physics.”

After losing trust in transcendent truth, man became trapped “downstairs,” with its swirl of opinion polls, scientific theories, and experimental observations. With no overarching authority to tease out answers to the pressing questions of life, the optimism of an earlier age gave way to pessimism and despair. Yet, contrary to Kantian thought, the opaque barrier was imaginary; for there had always been an enduring source of truth: the Revealed Word.

Elsewhere, I described the Revealed Word as a divinely-crafted tapestry in seven interlocking threads: the Created Word of the sensible universe; the Imprinted Word of mind, heart and conscience, the Spoken Word of the prophetic voice, the Written Word of scripture, the Incarnate Word of Jesus made flesh, the Indwelling Word of the Holy Spirit, and the Corporate Word of the Church; each interwoven into a grand narrative that contains knowledge about the true nature of things.

Is truth, then, just a matter of faith? Far from it.

FORMING BELIEFS

What people accept as true, in the final analysis, is what they REASON to be true.

In thinking beings, the mind is the organ that processes sensory information. It weighs inputs from cultural authorities (teachers, scientists, and spiritual guides), social conventions (moral codes, civic laws, and religious traditions), as well as emotional reactions and personal predilections. What ends up as “truth” depends on the weight given to each factor.

In Anglican teaching, the faith “once for all delivered” rests on the authority of reason, tradition, and Scripture. A popular illustration depicts this dependency as a three-legged stool, indicating that each leg is equally important in supporting the faith.

In another illustration, faith is a tricycle — where Scripture is the big front wheel, with reason and tradition as the small rear wheels. The idea being that even without one or both rear wheels, faith would remain upright and navigate the rough roads of life, if but wobbly. At first blush, that would seem closer to a biblical understanding. On the other hand, if the “wheel” of reason is non-essential or severely compromised, truth reduces to blind faith.

The apostle Paul would have bristled at the thought. His writings are replete with rational argument, as were his discourses with the Athenian philosophers, King Agrippa, and the procurator Festus. The author of Hebrews states that faith is “the EVIDENCE of things not seen.” And Jesus himself stated that love of God is not only spiritual and emotional, but mental.

It is through our cognitive faculties that we question, imagine, and discover how things really are in the universe and our existence. Reason is intrinsic to our humanness — a general revelation sufficient to point lower-story dwellers “upstairs.” Without reason, a person couldn’t wonder, much less discover the answers to upper-story questions.

Yet, as we have learned, unaided reason can carry us only so far.

THE “GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT”

The architects of modernism promised unlimited progress through reason and science. And their commitment to lower-story knowledge led to breathtaking wonders: nuclear power, space travel, satellite communications, modern medicine, and more.

But while man achieved astonishing success harnessing nature, his understanding OF nature — its foundational structure, inner workings, and origin — remained woefully tentative and incomplete. Worse, lower-story knowledge offered no moral or ethical pegs for science. Consequently, modern technology enabled modern man to pursue modern ideals at the cost of more human blood than had been spilled in all prior history.

After modernism defaulted on its promissory note, hope was lost in the discovery — and existence — of underlying principles. In the wake of the “Great Disappointment,” what happens, happens. Man is helpless to explain the parade of experiences that make up life, much less life’s meaning; he can only choose how he reacts to those experiences, and attach some meaning — if he must — to his otherwise meaningless existence. For in the end, life is a crapshoot that began eons ago after a fluke collision of particles.

THE NATURAL END

Fate, chance, and uncertainty have been common themes in art, literature and music for the last four decades. Movies like AMERICAN BEAUTY (1999) and the films of Woody Allen — most recently, MATCH POINT (2005) — turn on the idea that there is no “guiding hand” or rational law that governs the cosmos; there is only chance. One of the most chilling yarns on that premise is the 2007 Oscar-winner for Best Picture, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN.

The story involves a psychopathic killer, named Anton Chigurh, who embarks on a murderous rampage to recover a $2 million booty. After murdering several victims, Chigurh stops at a gas station, pays for a snack, then asks the attendant, “What’s the most you ever lost on a coin toss?”

When the attendant says he doesn’t know, Chigurh flips a coin and tells him to “call it” (It’s clear to the audience that if the attendant guesses wrong, Chigurh will kill him).

The attendant hesitates, but eventually calls “heads.” Chigurh lifts his hand from the coin, remarking, “Well done ... It’s your lucky quarter.” Chigurh turns and leaves the attendant shaking his head and quaking.

Near the film’s end, Chigurh makes the same offer to a woman he intends to kill. After telling her to “call it,” she refuses.

“The coin don’t have no say. It’s just you.”

Chigurh grins. “Well, I got here the same way the coin did.”

The scene cuts to Chigurh checking his boots for blood as he exits her house.

The movie’s tagline — ”There are no laws left” — is a fitting summary of two-story thinking. For without universals, there are no laws; only conventions that have no more meaning than a coin toss. It is the crumbling foundation of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN.

If we feel uncomfortable as its citizens, it is a clue that something is wrong. Maybe transcendent truth DOES exist. Maybe life DOES have meaning and purpose; and maybe the universe IS governed by laws; not of chance, but of one who promised:

“For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and

not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you

will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to

you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your

heart” (Jeremiah 29:11-13).

________

Regis Nicoll is a freelance writer

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #6392]

A distinguished preacher has said, “There is a definite and proper end and issue for every man’s existence, an end which to the heart of God is the good intended for him, or for which he was intended; that which he is privileged to become, called to become, ought to become; that which God will assist him to become, and which he cannot miss save by his own fault. Every human soul has a complete and perfect plan cherished for it in the heart of God -- a divine biography marked out, which it enters into life to live.”

Surely this is a great thought, and one that gives to life -- to each and every life, the smallest, the obscurest -- a sacred dignity and importance.

Nothing can be trivial or common which the great God thinks about, plans and creates. The lowliest place in this world, to the person whom God made to occupy that place, is a position of rank and honor glorious as an angel’s seat, because it is one which God formed an immortal being in his own image and with immeasurable possibilities to fill.

George MacDonald says, “I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born in God’s thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest, and most precious things in all thinking.”

-- Miller.

J. Wilbur Chapan, “Present Day Parables.”

If a consortium of thinkers were to discuss what defines the Western world’s primary pursuit, it would be difficult to find a consensus. At best, one could observe that the essence of Western culture is its willingness to die for a higher standard of living. But that would be unfair, for what emerges consistently from sociologists is that all is not well and that the solution is not in material gains. Moreover, there is evidence that reveals a deep-seated hunger of the soul that has not been quenched, in spite of everything that our communities have to offer.

This sense that something is missing spiritually is magnified by our harried lives and the admission that the culture in which we find ourselves is in turmoil. In spiritual terms the only statement one can confidently make is that the West is engaged in a momentous battle, and it is risking its very soul. And please her me: The ramifications are tremendous when the destiny of the soul is traded for the enthrallment of the moment. With increasing global awareness many honestly doubt the adequacy of traditional answers on matters of the spirit, and many now believe we must look to other shores for the answers we seek.

Although words like progress, wealth, and peace are common in our lexicon, the reality is that we are struggling to make sense of life. While we scavenge relentlessly in search of that all-fulfilling treasure, we seem to have forgotten that this pursuit and this emptiness are not new to the human experience. The atheist may suggest that all of this confusion is inevitable now that we know God doesn’t exist. Politicians may suggest that we are merely coping with pluralism. But the Bible spoke to this situation long ago through the prophet Haggai who called upon the people of his day to take note of their indulgences which were yielding no returns. He said:

"Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill."

Our pursuit will continue to yield bitter returns until we realize that it is our souls that are thirsty and that physical indulgences, good government, or good economics cannot quench that thirst. Jesus said this too: "Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed the water I give him will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

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Copyright © 2002 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

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"The universe is merely a fleeting idea in God's mind - a pretty uncomfortable thought, particularly if you've just made a down payment on a house."

-- Woody Allen

Once at a major state university, a young woman stayed after class to talk with the professor. "In today's lecture, you said you're a Christian," she blurted out, almost in tears. "I've never heard any other professor say that, and every day at this university I feel as if my faith is under attack."

If you had any notion that the college campus is a friendly place for Christians, think again. The professor in this story was Jay Budziszewski of the University of Texas, who has written a new book called "How to Stay Christian in College." The university campus has changed dramatically, Budziszewski says. And Christian parents and teachers had better prepare young people to defend their faith in an increasingly hostile environment.

Take one of the biggest intellectual fads of our day: postmodernism. The best way to define postmodernism is that it is a reaction against modernism -- which began in the Enlightenment, when many intellectuals proclaimed autonomy from God and sought to find truth by human reason alone. Postmodernism represents the collapse of that hope: It insists that human reason alone is incapable of coming up with any overarching, universal truth.

In postmodernist lingo, we can have no "grand metanarrative" -- no Big Story -- that makes sense of reality.

What does this mean for the Christian student seeking to express his faith in the classroom? If a believer talks about the biblical worldview of creation, fall, and redemption, he's likely to be shot down precisely because what he's telling is a "meta-narrative" -- a Big Story -- that claims to describe ultimate reality. But Big Stories have been ruled out of bounds.

Case closed. Discussion ended.

If that weren't enough to rule out a biblical perspective, consider some further implications. If there's no Big Story making sense of all reality, then reality itself dissolves into bits and pieces. That's exactly what postmodernists say. They think truth is in pieces because they don't believe in a coherent reality that's the same for everyone. They think personality is in pieces because they don't believe in a self, a core identity, that's responsible for everything we do. They think life itself is in pieces because they don't believe it has any ultimate purpose or meaning.

How can Christian students respond to these challenges? The answer may surprise you: We can begin by acknowledging a grain of truth in postmodernism. It is absolutely correct that, apart from God, there IS no overarching Truth, no coherent reality, no ultimate purpose to life.

But we don't need to succumb to despair, as postmodernism does. The solution is to return to God. That's what the Gospel is all about.

Christian students can be confident that biblical faith has answers to the intellectual challenges they face on the college campus. Christian students don't need to be defenseless. If we do our homework, we'll discover that God's truth gives an answer to every ideology -- in the classroom and in the world beyond.

___________________

Copyright (c) 2000 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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Nature documentaries like the BBC’s “Planet Earth,” “Blue Planet,” and most recently, “A Perfect Planet,” are amazing masterpieces of modern videography, displaying creation in detail and majesty. Every creature soaring through the sky, or streaking through the deep, or thundering over the savannah exhibits power, beauty, and unmistakable purpose. David Attenborough’s grandfatherly narration and Hans Zimmer’s moving musical scores only add to the childlike awe these films induce.

All of which makes it even more odd when Attenborough declares that all of this glory lacks purpose, or that it arose by chance and natural selection, and that none of it bears witness to any meaning or Mind beyond itself.

A recent article on atheism, also from across the pond, reminded me of this contradiction. In The Guardian, Harriet Sherwood described a new project from the University of Kent that seeks to discover whether disbelieving in God makes people less spiritual overall. According to the project’s authors, atheism “doesn’t necessarily entail unbelief in other supernatural phenomena.” Nor do unbelievers lack for a sense of purpose, despite “lacking anything to ascribe ultimate meaning to [in] the universe,”

In the article, Sherwood profiled several unbelievers, from an agnostic to a “free thinker” to Positivist pastor and Satanic priest (who makes it clear he doesn’t believe in a literal Satan). All of them insist that life can be deeply meaningful and even moral without God.

“We can determine for ourselves what is meaningful,” said one. “The meaning of life,” suggested one woman, “is to make it the best experience you can, to spread love to those around you.” “Beauty and tradition are at the core of my philosophy,” said another. One self-identified atheistic Jew explained, “Being part of a religious community offers music, spirituality and relationships ... it reminds me I’m on a journey to understand myself better and motivates me to help others.”

Hearing outspoken unbelievers proclaim that meaning and morality aren’t accidents is about as jarring as hearing David Attenborough proclaim that the world’s most amazing creatures are accidents. There is an inability of atheists to let go of the transcendent.

In his book, “Miracles,” C.S. Lewis wrote about the passionate moral activism of a famous atheist of his day, H.G. Wells. Moments after men like Wells admit that good and evil are illusions, Lewis said, “you will find them exhorting us to work for posterity, to educate, to revolutionise, liquidate, live and die for the good of the human race.”

But how do unbelievers, “naturalists” as Lewis calls them, account for such ideas? Certainly, nature is no help. If thoughts of meaning and morality find their origin in arrangements of atoms in our brains, then they can no more be called “true,” Lewis observed, than can “a vomit or a yawn.”

Lewis concludes that when Wells and other unbelievers say we “ought to make a better world,” they have simply forgotten about their atheism. “That is their glory,” he concludes. “Holding a philosophy which excludes humanity, they yet remain human. At the sight of injustice, they throw all their Naturalism to the winds and speak like men and like men of genius. They know far better than they think they know.”

I’d love to ask the people behind masterpieces like “Planet Earth,” or the unbelievers profiled in The Guardian, about this contradiction. Years ago, I had a similar conversation with a woman I was seated beside on an airplane. She had very strong moral opinions about all kinds of things, but scoffed at me, “How can you believe in God!” I gently asked her why she believed in right and wrong. It was a fun conversation, and it made me realize that it is possible to affirm the human gut-level intuition about beauty and wonder and morality, while questioning where all of those things come from.

And if you haven’t read Lewis’ masterful book “Miracles,” add it to the list. If it’s been a while, it’s worth revisiting. Fair warning: unbelievers should beware. As Lewis himself said, “A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.”

RESOURCES

“A Perfect Planet – BBC,” YouTube, December 19, 2020

“‘I only know one god – and that’s me’: non-believers on the meaning of life,” by Harriet Sherwood, The Guardian, January 23, 2021.

“Miracles,” by C.S. Lewis

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Copyright (c) 2021 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

Two contemporary cosmologists made the terrifying comment, "Ultimately it is not human beings that are important, it's DNA." From those words one may infer that things like individuality or ethnicity are not personal; it is merely a different DNA. Is this not a dangerous ledge to stand on and interpret life? Because if life is merely chemistry, so is behavior. That is untenably reductionistic.

If life is only DNA, where does human dignity come from? There is no way to contrive it or to enforce it; human dignity must be essential. Here, the Christian teaching is unique. Professor Peter Kreeft of Boston College has pointed out this difference between Christianity and secular thought. In God's creation it was intended that each person be equal, while ideas may not be. Today, we have changed that by making all ideas equal and setting up a hierarchy of people in essence and dignity.

As a result, we exalt some classes or segments of society while rejecting others and at the same time foolishly argue that all ideas are equally true. If the scourges of hatred, racism, and violence are to die, it will only do so on the biblical basis of who we are as human beings as we learn to respect each person in his or her essential splendor - granted by virtue of creation. Ironically, in rejecting any part of humanity we essentially reject ourselves.

The scriptures teach us that man is created in the image of God. The literal translation of David's words in Psalm 8:4 is, "You have made man with just a little of God lacking in him." This dignity may not be conjured up or legislated by decree. This is our essential splendor, the splendor of all races and colors. We all share that equal glory, but having rejected God we find that glory marred by sin, which engenders hate. The glory and dignity can only be restored by dealing with that sin. We are in need of a heart transplant so that we might know who we are and who God is. But the more we refuse to acknowledge our condition, the more the solution will evade us, and people will continue to live undignified lives.

Jesus went to the core of the problem when he said, "You refuse to come to me to have life." Our problem is not a superior condition; it is a conceited heart. May we come to Him to find life - to find equality of life, but inequality of ideas.

_________________________

Copyright © 2003 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

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Yesterday, we briefly explored the problem of finding meaning when one holds to naturalism - that is, believing that scientific laws can account for all phenomena and denying the super-natural (for instance, God and miracles). Today, I want to introduce a counter-perspective. For indeed, there is something, rather, someone beyond us who offers a compelling framework for meaning.

In his book Meaning, philosopher Michael Polanyi stated that by reducing life to atomic elements and blind forces, science has, in effect, made the pursuit of life’s meaning meaningless. Polanyi warns us that it is not for science to make this determination because scientific method can only address the question of what - nature and matter - but not why - the purpose of such matter.

And yet the stuff of reality, again, the "what," and the purpose driving reality, the "why," are inextricably bound together. Science tends to reduce all of reality to the "what" - the material. But surely only as one understands the "why" of life can the "what" be defined, for it is the "why" that provides the glue and our purpose for why we are here in the first place. Simply put, if I am an intentional creation of God, then life must be deemed sacred, for there is a built-in purpose to my existence. But if I am merely the product of time and chance, the body may be profaned, for life itself is disposable. In fact, in a naturalistic framework the words "profane" and "sacred" are only descriptive of one’s feelings of reverence or irreverence. In a world without God there is no essential meaning or sanctity to humanity.

What the brain is to the body, the mind is to the soul. Fulfillment and purpose may only be known by a mind because such experiences require that which is essentially personal: joy, love, beauty, wonder. We can move from mind to meaning but not so easily from matter to meaning.

That is why, after explaining the "what" of our universe, Stephen Hawking ends his book A Brief History of Time with these words: "Now if we only knew why, [then] we would have the mind of God." His inescapable implication is that the answer to the final question would have to come from a mind that transcends our material universe. There is a mind beyond us which has infused our world with meaning and purpose - the mind of God. My friend, a meaningful "why" for reality can only have its source in the very mind of a personal God.

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Copyright © 2003 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

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I have so far presented two essential components for finding meaning in life: the experience of wonder and the pursuit of truth. I now suggest that the third component essential to meaning is love.

Christopher Morley has said, "If we all discovered that we had only five minutes left to say all that we wanted to say, every telephone booth would be occupied by people calling other people to stammer that we love them." Isn't it true that we intuitively know that life would be unlivable were it not for love?

I'd like to tell you a parable I heard as a boy growing up in New Delhi. Please pardon its bluntness. A young man fell in love with a woman from a neighboring village. His love for her was genuine and he sought her hand in marriage. She, however, felt no such affection for him and exploited his feelings to her own advantage. She made it a game, ever demanding more and more proof of his love.

At last, she demanded the unthinkable. "If you really love me," she said, "I need to know there is no rival. Prove it to me. Take your mother's life and bring her heart to me as a trophy of my victory over your love for her." The young man was thoroughly confounded and grief-stricken. Unable to withstand his "loss" any longer, in a frenzied fit he killed his mother and took the heart out of her body. He ran as fast as he could to present this trophy to the girl he loved. But in the woods he stumbled and fell, and the heart tumbled out of his hand. As he feebly rose to his feet he frantically searched the undergrowth for her heart. Finally, he spotted it and picked it up and as he dusted off his knees he heard a voice coming from the heart saying, "Son, are you hurt? ... Son, are you hurt?"

No one needed to explain this story to me, even as a small boy. And as I have contended throughout this series, such a sacrificial love could not have come from mindless matter but only from a Personal Being, indeed God's heart. May I add something more? Only in the Christian faith does love precede life.

Love is, therefore, the posture of the soul and its entailments are binding. What meaning we find when the sacrifice and the origin of love is understood. We drink deeply from its cup and are fulfilled.

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Copyright © 2002 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, 89 million Americans watched at least part of the two-hour special, "A Tribute to Heroes." The program, which aired on September 21 to raise money for the United Way's relief fund, featured performances by various famous entertainers.

The night before, 7 million fewer Americans tuned in to any part of the President's address to Congress about the war on terrorism. Even fewer had tuned into the prayer service at the National Cathedral.

It's hard to imagine a clearer illustration of the centrality of popular entertainment in our culture. Increasingly, Americans -- consciously or not -- are taking their cues about the meaning of life, as well as right and wrong, from popular media.

The problem is that images cannot replace words when it comes to communicating truth. That's because the goal of visual media is not to convey ideas in a precise manner, the way words do; it's to elicit an emotional response.

That's why it's almost impossible to argue with another person's interpretation of what they've seen. The experience is subjective, not objective.

This quality of visual media is what columnist Terry Mattingly calls its "fuzzy grammar." You can see that "fuzzy grammar" at work, for example, in the ending of TITANIC. As Rose, the woman who tells the story, lies in bed, the camera takes us back to the Titanic, where the audience sees those who died when the ship sank. There the lovers are reunited.

Was it a dream or was it the afterlife? We don't know. This kind of ambiguity isn't only common, it's deliberate. According to film critic Roger Ebert, what's important is that any possible interpretation "provide emotional closure" for the audience.

And while that may be a good way to end movies, this subjectivity and appeal to emotion is increasingly being applied to all of life. As popular media has occupied the role formerly played by the church and family, Americans have begun to look at all experiences through that same lens.

The result is, as apologist Ravi Zacharias puts it, a generation that "hears with its eyes and thinks with its feelings." The fuzzy grammar of media is what allows people to believe things like "that may be true for you, but not for me." Our image-saturated culture is one in which almost everything is subject to interpretation -- and no interpretation takes precedence over any other. It is a world in which all truth is presumed to be subjective.

In Christianity, words are the medium through which truth is communicated. The Gospel of John describes Jesus as "the Word." The Greek word logos, means, among other things, "the ordering principle" -- that is, ultimate truth or reality. And it exists, therefore, independent of our feelings. It is our duty to discern it and argue on its behalf.

This is the great challenge posed by our media-centric culture. Apologetics in the age of the image requires Christians to help their neighbors understand the limitations of those images. It requires us to help people recognize that life isn't like the movies and treating it as if it were is a dangerous mistake.

They need to be reminded that all the "emotional closure" in the world is no substitute for truth.

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Copyright © 2001 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. 'BreakPoint with Chuck Colson' is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

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“What difference does it make? As long as I'm not hurting anyone else, I should be able to live with my girlfriend.” “I never loved my wife. Don't I deserve to be happy?” “I needed that money more than he did, so it’s okay that I took it. Besides, he owes me for the time when...” Justification for sin comes easily to most people — including Christians. However, conscience has an ally: physics. Observation and personal experience suggest that physical laws work on the side of obedience to God’s laws.

When I began studying physics at the age of seven a particular dilemma plagued my mind. I wanted to know WHY the laws of physics were set up in their prescribed manner. In spite of serious study over the following twelve years, no satisfying answers came forth. Not until I became a Christian at age 19 (the year I also began formal education in classical and statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, and electromagnetism theory), did I recognize that the physics of the cosmos reveal not only God’s existence but also God’s delight in elegance and beauty. Through the physical design of the cosmos, God richly endows a home for humanity.

This answer helped resolve some of my questions about the structure of physics, but it still left me with some major unanswered perplexities. Why didn’t God create a different kind of cosmos for humanity — one elegant and beautiful in its design yet without the hard choices, pain, and suffering produced by evil? God does, in fact, promise a radically different, perfectly wonderful home for humanity after His final judgment against evil (referred to in Revelation as The Great White Throne Judgment).1 So why didn't He make the universe “perfect” in the first place?

These questions led me to search the Bible for God’s expressed purpose(s) in creating the cosmos. I found these three, among others:

• God chose to express His glory through creating the universe, creating life in general, and creating humanity in particular.

• The whole of the universe and all life on Earth were created for the benefit of humanity.

• God chose to initiate an eternal love relationship with humans.

As a corollary to these three purposes, God gives humans every assist and incentive to turn away from evil’s empty enticement (autonomy) and toward His love. This corollary helps explain why Genesis 1-3 identifies this world and Eden not as God’s “perfect” creation, but, rather, as His “good” or “very good” creation.

Many Christians (and others) believe the Garden of Eden was perfect and that God will one day permanently restore people to an Eden-like paradise.2 An inability to imagine anything better than what Adam and Eve enjoyed in the Garden of Eden (before they sinned) makes this viewpoint understandable. However, the Bible reveals a transcendent Creator who made the universe of matter, energy, space, and time from beyond the universe, completely unconfined by it. Therefore, belief in a transcendent reward becomes a reasonable consideration.

Because of Satan’s rebellion, and because free will must be real for love to be real, the potential for sin necessarily existed in Eden. That potential alone made Eden an insecure environment and, therefore, an imperfect one. The “new heavens and new earth” described in Revelation 21 and 22 remain perfectly secure, because no possibility for sin exists there. This transcendent reward awaits Christ’s followers (see the “New Laws for the New Creation”sidebar).

ADVENT OF SIN — AND PHYSICS

The idea that sin (rejection of God’s rightful authority) began with Adam’s rebellion in Eden ignores the fact that at least in one context the fall into sin predates Eden. Satan clearly fell into sin before he entered Eden to beguile Eve. Exactly how much before that time the fall of Satan occurred is unclear. Job 38:7 states that the angels watched as God laid down the foundations of the Earth. Therefore, Satan likely existed at the time when Earth was formed some 4.6 to 3.9 billion years ago.3 His rebellion against God could have occurred either before or after this event.

ADVENT OF PHYSICAL LAWS

Adam and Eve’s fall into sin, which brought estrangement from God, others, and self, occurred some time after Satan’s rebellion and impacted the entire human race and, thus, the world. Genesis 3 explains that sin leads to MORE work and MORE pain, implying that Adam and Eve experienced both work and pain before their rebellion against God. Genesis 2 explicitly states that Adam worked and ate in Eden before he sinned.Such work — including the digestion process — implies that the physical laws of gravity, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, and thermodynamics took effect before Adam’s fall. These same physical laws remain in effect today.4

Are work and pain inherently bad? I think not. According to the book of Ecclesiastes, God designed work to be productive and enjoyable. Sin, however, destroys both the productivity and joy of work. This destruction forces individuals to work much harder than would otherwise be necessary. Pain has value, too. It is a necessary partner to physical pleasure. Pain also warns of impending danger. The introduction of sin, however, causes every person to experience more pain than would otherwise be necessary. MORE work and MORE pain were part of sin’s curse on humanity.

The existence of stars both before and after Eden tells me that physics did not change as a result of Adam’s sin. Those laws were already in place, prepared in advance to fulfill their important role in God’s grand plan. According to Genesis 1, stars predated the creation of humanity. Stellar burning involves virtually all the laws of physics and is extremely sensitive to the constant and continual operation of those laws.5 Even slight changes or interruptions in those laws mean that stable burning stars of the type necessary for the support of physical life cannot exist, and metabolic reactions, protein synthesis, and protein function become impossible. According to Revelation 20-21, the replacement of the laws of physics (see sidebar, “New Laws for the New Creation”) occurs at that moment when evil is finally and permanently eliminated (the Great White Throne Judgment). This timing suggests that the physical laws were intended to be part of God’s strategy for conquering sin.

SPIRITUAL PURPOSE OF PHYSICAL LAWS

God’s design of gravity, electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear forces, and thermodynamics yields this result: the more a person sins, the more work he must perform and the more pain he must experience. All of these laws contribute to the breakdown of a person's body and the breakdown of everything he builds (e.g., a home, a relationship, or a career). Gravity results in increasing sag and stress over time. Electromagnetic radiation corrodes the surfaces of all structures. Nuclear laws cause change in the fundamental building blocks.

Because of their propensity to defy God, individuals need discipline. God’s act of ejecting Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden to the world outside, where they had to plant their own gardens and deal, for example, with “thorns and thistles,” helped set in motion the discipline they needed to understand that God's ways are best. The propensity to do things their own way (as opposed to following God's wisdom), consigned Adam and Eve and their descendents to experience much more work and much more pain.

The second law of thermodynamics guarantees that whatever a man organizes, whatever he designs, and whatever information he accumulates becomes increasingly disordered. However, sin speeds up the breakdown. For example, if a man abuses his tools, they become less productive and wear out faster, leading him to experience more pain and more work when he uses them. If he abuses his animals, his employees, or a woman who might become his spouse, their response to the abuse causes him more work, less pleasure, and more pain.

God designed the laws of physics to gently but firmly encourage humankind to depart from sin. As Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 5 and 6, not all sins bring identical harm. Some sins defile more than others. The way God designed the laws of physics, the more defiling the sin, the more pain and/or work it generates. And the more sin an individual commits, the more pain and work he experiences. The laws of physics, unlike parents, teachers, and supervisors, allocate consistent and timely retribution. Moreover, physics discipline never misses, never forgets. By God’s design, it is neither too much nor too little.

UNIVERSALITY OF THE PHYSICAL LAWS

Jeremiah speaks about the fixity of the laws that govern the universe.6 Paul, in Romans, states that the entire creation has been subjected to the law of decay,7 an apparent reference to the second law of thermodynamics. Because the space-time dimensions of the universe are inextricably woven together, the time dimension of the universe cannot be separated from its space dimensions.8 Or, to put it another way, the geometry of the universe is such that time behaves as a space dimension subjecting the entire universe to the law of decay. This fact implies that the entire universe from its very beginning, from the beginning of time itself, experienced decay.

Many references elsewhere in the Bible confirm 1) the ongoing expansion of the universe from the beginning, 2) solar and stellar burning both before and after Adam’s fall, and 3) metabolic function in plants and animals.9 All of these phenomena are physically impossible without the continual operation of the second law of thermodynamics.

Gravity and electromagnetism, too, must be in continual operation since the cosmic creation event. The Bible states that the Sun, stars, Earth, and moon existed both before and after Adam. Likewise, Scripture states that electromagnetic light existed from the beginning of creation and remains the same. It also implies that the Earth and Sun maintain a stable configuration with respect to one another.

Straightforward astrophysics demonstrates that the kinds of stable burning stars essential for physical life cannot exist in this universe unless both gravity and electromagnetism retain their current values and operation for the entire history of the universe. Similarly, stable orbits of planets about stars and of electrons about the nuclei of atoms require the stability and constancy of both gravity and electromagnetism. Physical life also requires that all galaxies, stars, and planets, in fact, all matter and energy in the universe be situated on a three-dimensional surface. That surface must be very large and rapidly and continuously expanding. And thermodynamics require the complementary action of gravity and electromagnetism.

The fact that gravity, electromagnetism, and thermodynamics have continuously functioned since the cosmic creation event implies that God prepared, or preprogrammed, the universe to deal with sin. This occurred billions of years before sin became an issue in the physical universe; that is, billions of years before God allowed Satan to invade Eden. Further evidence, both scientific and biblical, suggests that God’s plan works in the most efficient manner possible.

The nature of the universe and the physical laws limit the maximum longevity of the human species on planet Earth as several thousand years only. Natural phenomena such as supernova eruptions, asteroid and comet collisions, accelerated cosmic expansion, and the inevitable termination of the silicate-carbonate cycle10 guarantee a relatively rapid extinction of the human species. In fact, scientists now see evidence that the pursuit of education and technology, crucial elements in the rapid advance of civilization (thus in fulfilling Jesus’ command to make disciples of all nations) actually shortens the extinction time of the human species by escalating the deleterious mutation rate.11 And, increasing affluence produced by educational and technological advances has a negative impact on the human birth rate.

EXTENT OF SIN’S IMPACT

The connection between the laws of physics and sin explain sin’s far-reaching impact. The groaning of creation in anticipation of release from sin has lasted fifteen billion years and affected a hundred billion trillion stars. The effective and efficient conquest of sin mandates a certain set of physical laws. These physical laws dictate that the universe manifests a certain space-time manifold and an even more highly specified expansion rate. That space-time manifold and expansion rate serve to limit the geographical realm for humanity. With great effort humans can make forays into different parts of this solar system. Visiting planets around other stars, however, is out of the question.12 Likewise, the physics of this present universe put a severe constraint on the window of time in cosmic history during which human existence is possible.13

Sin’s impact extends beyond the space-time manifold (or envelope) of the universe. For about four billion years (at least) of Earth’s history, at least a hundred million angels have witnessed the damage wrought by sin.14 This patient witness is part of God’s teaching the angels about His grace. Given their unique perspective on the breadth and depth of sin’s devastation, the angels can see and understand — more than you and I yet can — how costly Christ’s redemption of humanity is.

When God planned for His ultimate love relationship with humans, He chose to open Eden’s gate to Satan, the most magnificent and powerful of his angelic creations. After facing and — by God’s grace — overcoming Satan’s temptations, humans will never encounter a greater foe. Humanity’s exposure to sin (as devastating as it has been and continues to be) paves the way for Christ's followers to receive and enjoy the rewards of the new creation and to fulfill their roles there. Without the training and maturation offered by exposure to sin and its consequences, humanity could look forward to nothing better than paradise, the pleasures of Eden. While paradise may seem wonderful compared to this sin-marred universe, it utterly pales in comparison to the future home provided by God for all who choose the redemption from sin Christ makes available through His death and resurrection.

BETTER THAN EDEN

God promised His worshippers a reward far beyond what anyone can imagine or comprehend.15 This second creation of God will one day (on an eighth creation day) supplant the first creation. (See “New Laws for a New Creation” sidebar.)

The Israelites’ exodus from Egypt and subsequent journey to the Promised Land offers a helpful analogy. Paradise (Eden) may be likened to Egypt at Moses’ time. Humanity’s journey through life’s trials and temptations resembles Israel’s wilderness (Sinai) wanderings. The new creation is roughly analogous to the land of promise (Canaan). Just as the Israelites struggled to imagine and anticipate the blessings of the Promised Land, people everywhere struggle to imagine and anticipate the rewards of the new creation.

The Israelites grumbled about their suffering in the wilderness and yearned to return to Egypt. People today complain about the training and discipline of this life and long for a return to Eden. Egypt was a land of plenty but also a land of slavery. Eden surely seems idyllic, but it holds humanity captive to electromagnetism, gravity, etc. During the aging process, individuals observe that joints and muscles gradually lose the battle against gravity. Skin and other cells break down under long-term exposure to electromagnetic radiation.

On a spiritual level, perpetual insecurity plagued Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. At every moment they were capable of the willful choice that would shatter their unique oneness with the Creator. In the new creation, everyone who has a relationship with Jesus Christ will forever enjoy perfect security. People will live safely beyond the severe testing of their free will, the testing faced in God’s first creation. It is past. No tougher test can confront them.

Adam and Eve and all humankind had to be confined to a single time dimension, one that can neither be stopped nor reversed so as to limit the fallout from their sin, including the number of people damaged by it. All who enter the new creation will be free from such time restrictions. The time confinement that limits each individual to just a few close relationships will be lifted.

Jesus often refers to believers in the new creation with singular nouns and pronouns.16 Those who join Him in the new creation are called His bride, and He says that all who live there will be one as He, the Father, and the Holy Spirit are one. The aspect of the oneness of God is illustrated in that the Father, Son, and Spirit are in continuous communication and fellowship with one another.17

For humans to experience this type of oneness, each person will be granted continuous communication and fellowship with one another. It appears somehow that all individuals will possess the capacity to communicate and relate simultaneously, intimately, and harmoniously with billions of others.

Our current dimensional limits (and sinful nature) make such communication and fellowship impossible. And yet for now, such limits are essential. One time dimension (in which time can neither be halted nor reversed) currently confines the impact of humans’ sin to only a limited number of people for a limited time. (In the equivalent of two time dimensions or more, a person’s sin could simultaneously impact billions of other people in an undiminished manner for an unlimited period of time.) With the new heavenly capacity for knowing and being known, loving and being loved by all other human beings simultaneously, the need for marriage and the nuclear family will be fully satisfied.

Whether God grants the capacity for continuous simultaneous communication and intimate fellowship with all other believers through the equivalent of two time dimensions or some other dimensional or transdimensional means is not revealed. However, we can know that with the elimination of sin, shame, embarrassment, and physical, mental, and spiritual defects, intimacy becomes safe and enjoyable in a manner impossible in this creation. The risk of being hurt or damaged in relationships will be gone forever.

People will no longer need to focus relationship resources on only one marriage partner, one nuclear and extended family, and a few dozen friends. Continuous enjoyment of all other members of the heavenly family provides something far superior to the pleasures of the very best of earthly relationships, including marriage.18 All this, and much more, awaits.

One day God will release humankind from the “playpen” of this universe with all of its restrictive dimensions and physics. He will usher those who worship Him into a new creation replete with physics and dimensions or transdimensions that permit ultimately satisfying relationships with Him and with one another. We will be rewarded to a degree far beyond what anyone can yet think or imagine.19 Until that time, each person can thank God for the discipline of physics.

REFERENCES:

1. Revelation 21-22, THE HOLY BIBLE; Hugh Ross, BEYOND THE COSMOS, 2d ed. (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1999), 217-228.

2. Anthony Hoekema, THE BIBLE AND THE FUTURE (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1979, 1991), 274-87; Finis Jennings Dake, GOD’S PLAN FOR MAN: REVEALING GOD’S PERFECT PLAN FOR ALL CREATION (Lawrenceville, GA: Dake Bible Sales, 1977), 972-1000; David Chilton, PARADISE RESTORED: A BIBLICAL THEOLOGY OF DOMINION (Ft. Worth, TX: Dominion Press, 1985); Kenneth L. Gentry, HE SHALL HAVE DOMINION (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1992), 275-306; Hank Hanegraaff, RESURRECTION (Nashville, TN: Word Publishing, 2000), 85-92; Doug Phillips, “An Urgent Appeal to Pastors,” BACK TO GENESIS, No. 119, November 1998, p. c.; Henry M. Morris, “The Coming Big Bang,” BACK TO GENESIS, No. 101, May 1997, p. c.; Henry M. Morris, “The Finished Works of God,” BACK TO GENESIS, No. 136, April 2000, p. b.

3. Hugh Ross, THE GENESIS QUESTION (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1998), 30-36, 39-42.

4. Genesis 2:15-17, THE HOLY BIBLE; Hugh Ross, THE CREATOR AND THE COSMOS, 2d ed.(Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1995), 111-21.

5. R. Kippenhahn and A. Weigert, STELLAR STRUCTURE AND EVOLUTION (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1994), 64-76, 118-136, 248-70; Martin Schwarzschild, STELLAR STRUCTURE AND EVOLUTION OF THE STARS (New York: Dover Publications, 1958), 30-44.

6. Jeremiah 33:25, THE HOLY BIBLE.

7. Romans 8:18-22, THE HOLY BIBLE.

8. Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose

9. “Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and Cosmology,” PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON, SERIES A 314 (1970), 529-48.

10. Genesis 1:1, 1:11-12, 1:14-16, 1:20-28, 4:2-4,15:5, Job 9:8; Psalm 104:2; Isaiah 40:22, 42:5, 44:24, 45:12, 48:13, 51:13; Jeremiah 10:12, 51:15; Zechariah 12:1; THE HOLY BIBLE.

11. Lawrence M. Krauss and Glenn D. Starkman, “Life, the Universe, and Nothing: Life and Death in an Ever-Expanding Universe,” ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL 531 (2000), 22-30; Hugh Ross, “Can Science Test a ‘God-Created-It’ Origins Model? Yes!” FACTS FOR FAITH 2 (Q2 2000), 46; Hugh Ross, THE GENESIS QUESTION, 43-44.

12. James F. Crow, “The Odds of Losing at Genetic Roulette,” NATURE 397 (1999), 293-94; Adam Eyre-Walker and Peter D. Keightley, “High Genomic Deleterious Mutation Rates in Hominids,” NATURE 397 (1999), 344-47.

13. Hugh Ross, “Aliens From Another World?” FACTS FOR FAITH 6 (Q2 2001), 24-32.

14. Hugh Ross, “Can Science Test a ‘God-Created-It’ Origins Model? Yes!” 40-47, 55-58.

15. Revelation 5:11, THE HOLY BIBLE.

16. 1 Corinthians 2:9, THE HOLY BIBLE.

17. Revelation 21:9, THE HOLY BIBLE.

18. Revelation 22:12-17, THE HOLY BIBLE.

SIDEBAR: NEW LAWS FOR THE NEW CREATION

Revelation 21 declares that the law of decay (i.e., the second law of thermodynamics) will no longer exist in the new creation. The apostle John records that death, mourning, crying, and pain — four consequences of the decay law — will have no place in the new creation.1 In the new creation, people will apparently consume without incurring cost, further evidence of decay’s absence.

The description of a new Jerusalem suggests the absence of gravity (as we know it) in the new creation. This “city” (or structure) measures roughly 1500 miles long by 1500 miles wide by 1500 miles high, and it has corners.2 Thus, the New Jerusalem’s shape (a cube or pyramid) violates the law of gravity. Gravity forces any body larger than about 150 miles across into a spherical shape.

With electromagnetic radiation, light casts shadows and eclipses. In the new creation hot bodies such as the sun and the stars, the primary sources of light in the present universe, will no longer exist.3 Light will pervade all of the new creation, but not electromagnetic light, for there will be no darkness, no shadows.

The limitations of the space-time manifold of the universe are lifted in the new creation. Relationships are nonlinear (see subhead, Better Than Eden, and the paragraphs that follow). Nor will people be geographically limited as they are in the present universe. Physics and space will no longer confine individuals to the environs of one tiny planet. The common yearning to be in more than one place at a time as well as to be unrestricted by time will be fulfilled.

REFERENCES:

1. Revelation 21:4, THE HOLY BIBLE.

2. Revelation 21:16, 17, NIV.

3. Revelation 22:5, THE HOLY BIBLE.

"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about."

Charles Kingsley (1819 - 1875)

Writer

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