Category Archives: The Nature of Reality

Signs and Dramatizations

Posted on by
Reply

I recently saw a social media post from a friend of a friend that was blasting the show ‘The Chosen’ because, as he said, “We aren’t supposed to watch dramatizations of the gospel. We’re supposed to teach the gospel.”

Something about this struck me as wrong, but it took me awhile to put it together clearly.

First, I need to acknowledge the point.

There was a reason God told the children of Israel never to make graven images. When we create Thing1 to represent Thing2, we put ourselves in danger of treating Thing1 as we would treat Thing2.

With God, this is dangerous. Worshiping graven images is idolatry. Full stop.

Similarly, if we were to take a dramatization of the gospel as we would the gospel, we put ourselves in a similar danger. (I see people idolatrizing scripture way too often. Even that is wrong. Scripture is not God. It is not the Living Word–that’s Christ.)

That said, he was still wrong.

Over and over, God has given us signs and festivals and rituals and parables to point to and remember important things. We are not to take ‘The Lord’s Supper’ as if we were actually sitting physically with Christ. Instead, we take it in remembrance of Him.

The same is true of every other sign or festival or parable we’ve been given. The symbol of a thing is not the thing itself, but it still has value and utility.

Likewise, a dramatization of the gospel, done respectfully, is a symbol that points back to the gospel itself. The creator takes upon himself a measure of responsibility–don’t steer your audience down the wrong path–but a dramatization, in and of itself, is just another example of man imitating God for other peoples’ benefit.

In the final analysis, we’re free to do what we choose, and having our entertainment pointing back to Christ is only an evil thing in the mind of a man trapped under a law of his own making.

fact, truth and Truth

Posted on by
Reply

There are different sorts of truth in life, from simple scientifically verifiable fact to a sort of truth so strong it serves as one of the underlying pillars to hold up reality.

“fact”

Simple, verifiable facts are the staple of life. We live based on knowing that gravity pulls us down and caffeine keeps us awake. The law of non-contradiction, that two contradictory things cannot be true at the same time, is this kind of fact. Experience teaches us these facts as we age, and they shape how we live.

Doubt them at your peril. The results of denying them are usually swift and often painful.

“truth”

The deeper truths of life, like “hurt people hurt people,” are concepts that sum up our experience and teach us important lessons. Wisdom is often characterized as an understanding of these truths.

Truth of this sort may have a valid point to make, as “hurt people hurt people” does, but they’re not usually true clear through. (For example, I’ve found that hurt people who learn to deal with their hurt are the best suited to teach the rest of us how not to hurt others in the first place. Hurt people do not always hurt other people.)

This sort of truth is often the deepest sort people encounter in life. Half-valid characterizations of reality that, while they may provide something of a roadmap for life, don’t really approach the meaning of life or the purpose behind everything.

“Truth”

The highest kind of truth that I’ve encountered, other than the person of Christ Himself, is the kind that can’t be reduced to pithy sayings or quotable quotes, but which is so critical and central to human experience that people spend their entire lives striving to communicate just one such truth to those around them.

The best example is the structure of a house. Though it is covered by walls, it may still be felt in places, where the walls are more solid, and less easily bowed or shifted. In places, it is left bare, like the rafters and columns in a cathedral, cut and polished to perfection. So it is with this world–there is an underlying framework to reality that supports its structure and defines its shape.

Great works of literature and poetry have been written about this sort of truth and may or may not manage to communicate it. Christ taught some of it in parables, knowing that the only way to really illuminate this sort of truth is by the Spirit. Even if it could be broken down into a few words and spoken plainly, the meaning and reality behind it would be entirely closed to someone whose eyes were not opened to it by God Himself.

This is the sort of truth around which reality orients itself. Like the structure inside the walls of a house, it undergirds reality itself and holds it up. This sort of truth never contradicts itself or fails to bear out.

When I see it, I am reminded of Hebrews 1:3, which says, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word…”

Looked at from the proper vantage, all of reality is a spectrum of truth that coalesces into the person of Christ, who is also the definition of reality and of being.

Predestination vs Free Will

Posted on by
Reply

One of the most damaging philosophical perspectives I’ve ever encountered is that of predestination. I say that because of predestination’s affect on people when they try to internalize it and it begins to change how they live.

What is free will?

I’ve heard free will defined in various ways. Some people believe that unless a choice is made without the outcome of that choice being known beforehand, that choice is predetermined and thus there is no free will involved.

To me, that seems simplistic, because God must necessarily be outside of time. (or no creator may exist, which I reject as an article of faith–note, that ideology also has negative consequences in the lives and societies of anyone who accepts it).

If God creates time and is not subject to it, then trying to understand how a choice could exist whose outcome is not known to God, who created the time in which it exists is not conducive to sanity.

Maybe a perspective shift is in order?

From our perspective, if God is creating each moment of time as we experience it, and we are able to make choices, then we have to think about this a different way, more in line with ourselves than an attempt at a big-picture perspective.

God gives us free will by enabling us to choose as we make each choice. From our perspective, free will is composed of making choices that have consequences (and frankly, common sense should be applied here).

Try asking a mentally handicapped person whether free will is real. Go ahead and do it in the simplest terms you can think of. Without getting lost in the intellectual weeds, you can’t do it, and they won’t understand it because it’s a stupid question, and to be clear, the point isn’t that it requires great intellect to understand lofty ideas.

The point is that the question of free will from the perspective of someone with a simple, direct connection with reality becomes a tautology. “Of course I am making choices right now that have consequences. What are you? Daft? If I smack you in the face, will that illustrate the point?”

Get your head around it if you can.

I can somewhat successfully complete the mental gyrations necessary to understand that a God who is not subject to time creating people who are able to make choices is a miracle in and of itself (possibly the second-most astounding thing God did).

I can also understand why some physicists and theologians believe that everything that happens is scripted. (From outside of time, how do you understand choice? Choice requires time. Otherwise all you have is being.)

The upshot is that to exist in this world, created by a God not subject to time, choice must be enabled by God in the act of creation.

If you can’t get your head around it, it doesn’t matter anyway.

If you take one thing away from this, let it be the following:

From a human perspective, we must always look at life as if every choice we make MATTERS.

The perspective is the key. If something tempts you to believe that your actions don’t matter, reject it instantly. If you can sort out the intellectual idea of predestination and why it doesn’t matter subjectively to you, that’s great, but don’t let it bother you, because it’s really not material to how you act.

The only possible human reaction to predestination is a bad one.

Because people are designed to take responsibility for their actions and hopefully to make positive choices that have positive consequences, any intellectual gymnastics that distract from that must have negative consequences.

The great danger of predestination is that it tempts us to forfeit responsibility for our actions (and eventually to despair, because something very basic in each of us hungers for responsibility.)

Your beliefs and the actions you take as a result of them matter.