Master 212: Questions about Christianity, Part 2 of 10.

I still don't understand how I can know that God is real.

A. The Bible opens, in Genesis 1:1, with this statement: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." God's existence and His ability and desire to interact with the world are not things that the biblical authors take much time to demonstrate. Rather, they presuppose that God exists and that He is active in the world. P.D. Feinberg writes, "Both the OT and NT begin with or assume the reality of God, not as some speculative premise, but as universally manifest in nature, humankind's reason and conscience, and divine revelation. The normal human state includes the knowledge of God; atheism is thus viewed as abnormal." [1] Even while members of Ancient Near-Eastern cultures disagreed about the nature of god(s), the existence of god(s) was basically accepted by all of them. Theism was the 'default' position.

Over time, a shift has occurred and, in many developed countries, theism is no longer the 'default.' Certainly, in our education system and within the circles of the intellectually and culturally elite of America, the prevailing mentality is not one that takes God's existence for granted. We should keep in mind that efforts and attempts to prove that God exists or that belief in God's existence is rational are not unique to our time. But it may be the case that the felt need for such efforts is generally stronger in our own time than in any previous.

I'll have more to say at the end of this post about this shift. For now, let's turn to consider the question: How can we know that God exists--that God is real?

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B. Like so many of my posts about different topics, this one turns out to be just about anything but a straightforward treatment of the main question at issue. Let me, therefore, make a few prefatory comments so that you're not completely disoriented as I dive into the next section. Section C is a sustained reflection on the question, Is knowledge of God even possible? Is it possible to know that God is real? Sections D and E look at evidence for the existence of God that comes from (1) reflection on the nature of the physical universe and (2) reflection on the claims of people throughout history to have encountered or interacted with God. Section F follows up a concern that I expect a lot of ordinary people have and that goes something like this: I've looked at all the evidence for God's existence and yet I still don't feel really confident or assured about His reality. In that section I address what is involved in knowing God not just because of evidence but because He is an integral part of our daily and ordinary lives. Finally, in section G, I will make some comments about the shift that has happened in our world that has resulted in its no longer being the case that believing in the existence of God is the default position.

So, in this blog entry, only sections D and E actually deal with direct or traditional evidence for God's existence. This might strike people as deeply confused, but I choose this approach because I think, when people ask about how one can know that God is real, they are looking for more than evidence. They want something that they can really build their lives on. And no amount of evidence, taken by itself, can provide someone with that foundation. So in our dealings with ordinary people, while it is important that we be able to present the evidence, we also need to be sensitive to these larger issues.

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C. Is it even possible to "know" that God exists? Many philosophers might be willing to concede that one can "rationally believe" that God exists but would be uncomfortable allowing that that is the sort of thing that one can "know." You may have encountered this sort of tension when trying to articulate your own relationship to certain controversial ideas. You may claim to believe that God exists--even to believe rationally (i.e. on good evidential grounds) that God exists. You may be personally convinced that God exists, but you may still hesitate when it comes to saying that you know that God exists. After all, doesn't knowing something require having absolute certainty? If there is any room for doubt, doesn't that undermine the possibility of one's knowing that thing?

But this is not the only way of thinking about knowledge and actually may be a fairly problematic way of analyzing this concept. In particular, it leads people to focus on getting more and stronger evidence for their beliefs. There seems to be, operating in the background, the notion that once one reaches a certain threshold of evidence, then one can claim to know that something is the case.

Dallas Willard offers an (I think) helpful and illuminating alternative to this way of thinking about knowledge. He presents his view, in a very accessible way, in the first chapter of his book, Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge (New York: HarperCollins, 2009). Here are two of his key claims: "We have knowledge of something when we are representing it (thinking about it, speaking of it, treating it) as it actually is, on an appropriate basis of thought and experience." [2] "Knowledge, but not mere belief or commitment, confers on its possessor an authority or right--even a responsibility--to act, to direct action, to establish and supervise policy, and to teach." [3] So, for Willard, what distinguishes knowledge from mere belief is the role that each plays in our lives, rather than the quantity of evidence or level of certainty associated with each.

This approach does two important things. First, it helps us to get a sense of why the question about whether and how we can know that God exists is so important: because that knowledge confers on its possessor both authority and responsibility. Second, it (potentially) explains why so many people feel uncomfortable claiming to know that God exists. The issue is not that they feel their beliefs are not adequately justified (--that may or may not be true); rather, it is that they are uncomfortable with carrying the weight of responsibility that comes with making that particular knowledge claim. Some people have noticed that, as soon as they claim to know that God exists, others begin to scrutinize them very closely. This is because of the expectation that if one does, indeed, know something, then he will act in ways that accord with the authority and responsibility that knowledge has conferred on him.

This is another way of saying that if you really know something, then your life and conduct ought to reflect that knowledge (i.e., you ought to act in a way that accords with the authority and responsibilities that that knowledge confers on you). This might strike some as a truism, but I suspect that there are many Christians who are not at all certain that there is any special authority or responsibility that follows from this strongest possible way of believing that God exists or is real. Or they are aware that their own patterns of living do not reflect a grasp of any special authority or responsibility. That is why they are so hesitant to claim that they know that God exists: because (1) that claim implies that they should be acting in accordance with some special authority and responsibilities and (2) they do not think that their lives reflect any special authority or responsibility--or they doubt that believing in the strongest possible way that God is real could confer special authority or responsibility.

So when we ask whether or how one can know that God exists (or is real), we are not just asking a question about evidence. If I say that I know that God is real, I am not just saying that I have enough evidence to justify a belief in God's existence. I am also claiming (wittingly or unwittingly) to be involved in a way of life--to possess certain rights and authority, as well as certain responsibilities--that follow from my knowledge of God's reality. Now is it possible to make sense of this second claim? I think so. And so I shall attempt to offer some comments on this point later in this entry.

The preceding may not have been entirely clear (though it's actually gone through a couple drafts and is, perhaps, the most fascinating portion, for me, of this entire entry). So let me recap. In this blog entry, I am trying to address the following question: I still don't understand how I can know that God is real. In these last several paragraphs I have tried to analyze the question in order to get clear on the best approach. Now part of my approach to answering this question will involve looking at evidence. Looking at evidence is part of how we can come to know that God is real. However, large quantities of evidence is not (and never can be) enough for knowledge. Knowing that God is real (like knowing anything) consists partly in having enough evidence, but it also involves receiving (and acting in accordance with) a special kind of authority, along with certain rights and responsibilities. Now it is true that to act in accordance with this authority and these responsibilities will often fortify one's knowledge by leading to more evidence; but these ways of acting should not be analyzed simply as routes to evidence, as if enough evidence were all that is required for knowledge. The distinctive way of living and conducting oneself that we often associate with knowledge is actually part of what makes it the case that one has knowledge. If one's relationship to certain belief contents do not (necessarily?) confer any special authority or responsibilities on the possessor, then his relationship to those contents cannot count as knowledge. So, in order to show that we can know that God is real, it is not enough just to look at evidence, but we need to show that there are special forms of authority and responsibility that do follow from knowing that God is real.

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D. What evidence is there that God exists and is real? What would count as evidence that God exists? How might one effectively argue or try to convince someone that God exists and is real?

A. J. Hoover writes, "There are three ways one can argue for the existence of God. First, the a priori approach argues from a conception of God as a being so perfect that his nonexistence is inconceivable. Second, the a posteriori approach gives evidence from the world, from the observable, empirical universe, insisting that God is necessary to explain certain features of the cosmos. Third, the existential approach asserts direct experience of God by way of personal revelation. This approach is not really an argument in the usual sense, because one does not usually argue for something that can be directly experienced." [4]

Dallas Willard writes, "Indications that there is a God come from two main sources: (1) the natural world around us--the physical universe we will call it--and (2) peculiar types of experiences that individuals have within certain forms of life. [5]

Basically we will focus on the two strands of evidence that Willard describes (the second and third lines of evidence that Hoover describes). How can we know that God is real? We can know that God is real by looking at and thinking carefully about the world around us. The Psalmist writes, "The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands." (19:1) The Apostle Paul writes, "For since the creation of the world [God's] invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse." (Romans 1:20)

Now some will find these claims unconvincing. They look at the heavens and don't receive any particularly strong impressions of a creator or master-architect. Also, some will be concerned that mere impressions can be misleading. I think that these biblical insights should be taken very seriously but will not treat them at length until the end of this post. For now, I will turn to consider one particular aspect of the natural world, namely its beginning, to see how it points to the existence of God (or, at least, of some supernatural reality).

It is now widely agreed that the universe had a beginning. Another way of putting this is to say that contingency is an important feature of physical things and of physical reality taken as a whole. If you consider thoughtfully some physical event in our world, you will note that its occurrence depends upon its having had some prior cause. Without that prior cause, the physical event would not have taken place. This will be true of individual physical events but also of sets of physical events. If one expands the scope of one's consideration to its limit, one may consider the physical universe, taken as a whole. That whole, being a physical thing also, must also have had some prior cause.

But this is the point at which our attempts to explain these physical events encounters a problem--at least for those who might try to insist that physical events can be caused only by prior physical events. The beginning of the physical universe, considered as an event, or the physical universe, considered as a whole, must have had a prior cause--if, indeed, all physical events are contingent and must have prior causes--; but the cause of the physical universe cannot itself be a physical cause. Everything that is physical is already included in the physical universe, so there is nothing physical, outside of that universe, that could count as the cause of it. But, we've also asserted that every physical event must have a cause. So it follows that the physical universe must have been caused by something non-physical.

Now demonstrating that there is something non-physical out there somewhere is not the same thing as showing that God is real, but it is one step in that process. It helpfully refutes the claim that, because the only real things are physical things, God could not possibly be real. The contingency of the physical universe shows that there must be something non-physical and that this thing that is non-physical is capable of bringing the physical universe into existence. Here we are, at least, starting to get at a description of God, just based on what is required for a contingent universe, like ours, to exist.

What I've been presenting, in very rough outline, is a variation on the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God. Now there are different ways of trying to counter this argument. One could deny that the universe ever had a beginning. One could deny that physical events require prior causes. One could even try to deny that the universe is physical at bottom. None of these approaches is very promising. (I won't go into the details here. There are, for instance, a priori arguments against the possibility of there being really infinite sequences of physical causes and effects. But you can pose particular questions to me if you're curious about that stuff.)

The basic idea is that reflection on the universe reveals that it must have had a beginning. If it had a beginning, then it must have been caused by something distinct from itself. If it was caused by something distinct from itself, then that thing must be non-physical and extremely powerful. And so we've concluded that there must be some thing out there that is real and has at least two attributes that we associate with divinity. We can know that this thing is real based on the other things that we know along with our careful reasoning.

For another variation on this theme, of looking at the physical universe for evidence of God's existence, one may turn to consider Teleological Arguments for the existence of God. I won't address these directly in this blog entry.

E. What other evidence is there that God exists and is real? We've indicated that the existence and order of the universe provides strong evidence for the existence of God. Where else can we look for evidence? We can look at human history. Many people have claimed to have interacted with God and experienced instances of His special intervention in the world. Evidence that these claims are well-founded serve as evidence that God is real and also provide insight into His nature or character.

The Bible presents us with the history of the nation of Israel's interactions with God. There are records of supernatural visitations, of miracles, of fulfilled prophecies, and, ultimately, of the Incarnation of the Son of God and the sending of the Holy Spirit. These records, carefully considered, provide strong evidence that God is real.

In the Old Testament, some of the strongest evidence for God's reality comes from the record of fulfilled prophecies. Isaiah prophesied that the city of Tyre would be overrun by King Nebuchadnezzar, and it was. Daniel foretold that succession of empires that would follow Babylon. Many Old Testament prophets spoke in advance about Israel and Judah's capture and exile, and also about the eventual return of the Jewish captives to their homeland. There are a number of books and helpful resources that document these various prophecies. Josh McDowell's Evidence that Demands a Verdict comes immediately to mind.

But the central biblical event, that serves as evidence both of God's reality and of his desire to be in relationship with human beings, is the Incarnation, Life, Ministry, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The events of and surrounding His life are such that they could not have taken place apart from supernatural intervention.

Now there are two key questions that need to be addressed when we look at the evidence for the reality of God that comes from the Life and Work of Jesus Christ. Are the records we have of that reliable? And is that the way in which Jesus and the people who knew Him best understood His ministry?

So, regarding the first point, many people will assert that the records of Jesus' ministry (found in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) were finalized several decades, if not several centuries after the events that they record. But that simply is not the case. We have fragments of John's gospel that date back to before the year AD 100. There is good reason to think that Luke's gospel was composed well before AD 70. And most scholars suspect that Matthew and Mark were written even earlier then that. Thus, these records were laid down during the lifetimes of the people who experienced the events in question. The idea that the apostles or that their close followers fabricated the history of Jesus' life and ministry is just not credible.

Given that the apostles and early followers of Jesus Christ set down a record of what they believed to be true (to suppose that the whole group of them intentionally lied and then were martyred for that lie is also completely implausible), one may still wonder, could they have been mistaken? But what would such mistakes amount to? The apostles record how they, themselves, grew in their understanding of who Jesus was and what His mission was. They acknowledged that their grasp of Jesus' identity was not fully formed until after His resurrection and even after the sending of the Holy Spirit. And is it reasonable to think that they might have been mistaken about the resurrection? That they were fooled or duped or just naive enough to think that Jesus did rise from the dead when He actually didn't? As soon as one tries to fill in the details of how such a hoax might have been put over on the disciples and the 500 other people who saw, on different occasions, the resurrected Christ, one starts to get a sense of the lengths one must go to to convince oneself that it was all just a misunderstanding. James who remained a skeptic throughout Jesus' ministry became the leader of the church in Jerusalem. Paul who was the most outspoken opponent of Christianity was converted and became its principle evangelist and missionary. The apostles, all of whom had no way of conceiving that a man who had died might be resurrected before the final judgment, all agreed that Jesus had risen from the dead.

This is a barrage of information and not all systematically presented, I realize. Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ is still an excellent resource for addressing these various issues and I would encourage you to read it if you have questions about them. The bottom line is that the weight of evidence points to it being the case that there was a historical person, Jesus, who did the various things attributed to Him in the gospels, including dying and being brought back to life. What is the best explanation for these facts? Naturalistic explanations will not suffice. The evidence points to the reality of the supernatural--of God.

Sections D and E do not provide anything near a comprehensive or systematic approach to the evidence for God's existence (or reality) but they should give you an idea of the main strands of evidence that are available and accessible to anyone. Studying these different lines of evidence may help a great deal in bolstering one's knowledge that God is real. After all, the prevailing assumption, as I said earlier, is that God does not exist, that the universe does not point to a creator, and that Jesus Christ did basically nothing that is actually ascribed to Him. Now just living in that environment, with those kinds of messages bombarding you, will take its toll on anyone. A serious look at the evidence, then, can be enormously helpful for strengthening one's convictions and helping one to stand confidently on the revelation of Scripture.

F. At this point, though, there is a further worry that I want to address. Some people, I think, will look at all the evidence and listen to all the arguments and may even believe that the better case is the one that stands in favor of the existence or reality of God. And yet, there can remain that lingering and nagging sense of doubt. That sense of confidence and assurance that we so commonly associate with knowledge can still seem to be lacking. The question I want to look at here is, Is there a way of addressing that worry? The answer: Yes, there is.

I pointed out, in section C, that knowledge involves more than just having a lot of evidence. Knowledge involves more than having a belief that is indubitable. Knowledge differs from well-grounded or well-justified belief in that it plays a different role in our lives. "Knowledge, but not mere belief or commitment, confers on its possessor an authority or right--even a responsibility--to act, to direct action, to establish and supervise policy, and to teach." [3] I suspect that many people have trouble accepting that they know that God is real because they have not taken seriously what is involved or included in knowledge of God.

To know that God is real is very closely tied to acting in a manner consistent with God's being real. And so in our pursuit of knowledge of God's reality, we should consider what it looks like to act in a manner consistent with God's reality. How ought one to act and behave in light of God's reality? Obviously the Bible gives us a great deal of information about this. But we need to be careful here. The tendency of many will be to focus on God's commands--things like: Don't lie, don't steal, don't commit adultery. Those are important, of course, but they will not be helpful for us here if we conceive of them merely as activities. An atheist can also believe that one should not lie, steal, or commit adultery and act in accordance with those directives. The mere activities, considered in isolation, do not necessarily offer insight into what it would be like to act and live if God were real.

You see, there are two ways to think about obedience: (1) Obedience is something that I bring about (in part) because God directs me to. (2) Obedience is something that I bring about with the help of God (in part) because God directs me to. What difference does that clause, "with the help of God," make? What's the difference between doing something for God and doing something with God? Like I said earlier, not lying or not stealing is something that a person may do for any number of reasons--some of which involve appeals to God's directions and some of which do not. In either case, if we conceive of 'performing the act' primarily as us doing something by ourselves, then it will not necessarily bring us closer to God. It may just make us a legalist. But if we conceive of 'performing the act' primarily as something that we do with God, then the act of obedience must certainly bring us into relationship and interaction with God, because the act will be something that we could not perform apart from God's intervention.

The contrast becomes still clearer when we move away from the idea of not lying or not stealing on particular occasions and set our focus on living a life of truth or living a life of integrity or living a life of purity. If you make this your goal, you will find yourself bumping up against all kinds of obstacles and contrary forces. You may find yourself in a position at work where you are expected by your employer to be a little dishonest. You may find yourself under pressure from other people who feel its perfectly appropriate to skim a little extra off the top. You'll find that the easiest way to avoid a conflict is by omitting certain truths about a situation. You'll find yourself in situations where you will be strongly tempted to stray from complete obedience. Those are the most crucial moments--because those will determine whether you (1) act in a way that takes seriously that God is really out there and taking care of you or (2) act in a way that shows that you are just relying on your own ability to manage people and your circumstances. If you choose the former course, there will be the opportunity for you to encounter God working in your circumstances. If you choose the latter course, there will not be any such opportunity. If you choose the former course, there will be the opportunity for you to come to a personal encounter with God and so come to a firmer knowledge and confidence in His reality. If you choose the latter course, it will be no great surprise that you have doubts about whether God is real or not.

The Apostle John addresses these issues in his first letter. He opens that letter by talking about the personal encounter with God, in Jesus Christ, that he and the other apostles experienced. He then goes on to say that the same relationship (fellowship) that they had with God the Father and Jesus Christ is available to everyone.

"What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life--and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us--what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete." (1:1-4)

We have the opportunity to be included in the fellowship that the apostles shared with God, the Father, and with the Son, Jesus Christ. Certainly, if anyone knew that God was real, the apostles did. That knowledge was the foundation of their relationship with God and all that they accomplished after Christ's ascension. And John offers that to us also. Notice some of the things that he says:

"By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments." (2:3)

"The one who says, "I have come to know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same manner as He walked." (2:4-6)

"We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death." (3:14)

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love." (4:7-8)

"These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life." (5:13)

You should make sure to look at these passages in context. But I'll suggest, here, that these are all different ways of talking about knowledge of God. To know that you are "in God" (2:6) is certainly to know in a very tangible and immediate way that God is real and positively involved in one's life. To know that you have "passed out of death into life" is to know that God is real, for only through God's activity is such a transition possible. What John is talking about and offering, then, certainly includes what we might call a rudimentary "knowledge" of God, but it also encompasses much more. The same kind of relationship, the same kind of fellowship, the same kind of assurance and confidence that the Apostle John enjoyed (who was called "the disciple whom Jesus loved," who walked and talked with Jesus)--He says that this same relationship is available to us. And that comes as we endeavor to live the kind of life that Jesus has called us to. It's not that there's something magical about doing the right things that gives us knowledge of God. Rather, it is in seeking to live the kind of life that Jesus called us to--recognizing that this kind of life is not attainable apart from Christ's help, taking seriously that Jesus is involved in each day that we successfully carried out, as we look for and actually see God working in our life as we choose deliberately to trust in Him rather than in our ability to manage our own affairs--it is in that context that we really come to know that God is real.

Knowing that God is real, remember, is not just about accumulating evidence. It is also about living a certain kind of life. Knowing that God and living that life are ultimately inseparable.

G. Even if that all is not completely transparent, I hope that it is helpful. I said, at the beginning, that only a small part of this blog would actually be devoted to looking at traditional evidence for God's existence. Because I take it that the desire to know that God is real requires more than a purely intellectual exercise--although, as I also pointed out, looking at the evidence can be an important part of bolstering our confidence in God's reality, especially a world where the prevailing ways of thinking assume, as a default, that God does not exist.

It is to this last point that I now turn. At the beginning of this blog I pointed out that it used to be the case that belief in God's existence was the default but that is no longer the case. Some might try to argue that this just shows that, as we have become more knowledgeable and sophisticated, we have abandoned the notions that would have seemed obvious to primitive people. But I think that is an incorrect analysis of the history. What follows is not necessarily meant to persuade anyone, but I think it would be good to reflect a bit on possible explanations of why, when we look at the world around us, the idea that there must be a creator does not immediately leap out at us.

Think about the last time that you saw a photograph of the Milky Way galaxy. It might have been in a newspaper or magazine article, or on the Internet --one of those shots taken from above where you see the spiral arms moving out from the bright center. Can you recall having seen photos like that?

Now think about this: In actual fact, you've never seen a photograph of the Milky Way galaxy--not one taken from above that captures the whole thing in one shot. Did I catch you? Remember, only recently did one of our spacecraft finally reach the edge of our own solar system. We are nowhere near to getting a spaceship far enough from our galaxy that it could actually turn around and take a picture of the whole thing.

Do I say this just because I want to show how clever I am or that I can fool you? No. I say it because I want you to realize the extent to which you may have forgotten that the universe is a really, really big place. When nebulas and red giants and collapsing stars and whole galaxies are just a mouse-click away, it becomes very easy to take them for granted. They cease to be spectacular to us. When all of the starry heavens can be downloaded into the memory of your cell phone, is it any wonder that the natural world does not impress us? Of course, part of the point is that real nebulas and red giants are not a mouse-click away, and the astronomical apps on our cell phones do not capture one part in ten-to-the-ten-thousandth power of what there is out there beyond our atmosphere. But technology has a way of making it seem like the mystery and grandeur of the cosmos is not all that mysterious or grand. I still remember the time, in junior high, when I went out to Joshua Tree--got away from all the city lights--and saw all of the stars and even the band of the Milky Way stretching across the sky. But we don't see that in our ordinary lives. Very often we're too caught up in our own projects and activities to take notice of what might be going on in the sky. And when we do actually look up and out, we've made it effectively impossible to see any but the brightest stars. Is it any wonder, then, that we are not moved by the Psalmist when he writes, "The heavens are telling of the glory of God"? Is it any wonder that we are not impressed when Paul writes that God's invisible attributes and divine nature have been manifested in what has been made. We've effectively cut ourselves off from actually having to deal with most of the stuff that God has made. We've made it very easy for us to get through life without having to face the full scale of what is out there.

What is the point. I recognize that arguments for God's existence that appeal to the fact that human's are naturally inclined to believe in God must strike many as dubious. Those who don't find God's existence to be intuitive will naturally not be convinced. But if we can give a plausible explanation for why the widespread impression that God's existence is not forcefully compelling, that just might give us pause.

Often people will say things like, "Well if God is real, then why doesn't He make it obvious?" Maybe God has made it obvious, but we've managed to close our eyes and ears to what is obvious. And we must not underestimate the importance of carefully considering the question: If God did exist, would you want to know?

Well, that's enough for now. I'll think about being a bit more systematic about my future answers. This isn't exactly the most helpful guide if your kid asks you, "How can I know that God is real?" There are good answers and believing in God's reality doesn't require being sloppy or taking blind leaps of faith. That's what sections D and E are about. But knowing that God is real also requires more than good answers or lots of evidence. For the parents out there who are trying to raise Christian kids, make sure that you're not just paying attention to the evidence. Make sure that you're also raising them up in a certain way of living--one that takes seriously that God really is there and creates opportunities for them to meet that God themselves.

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[1] "Atheism." Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, second edition. Edited by Walter A. Elwell. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House Co., 2001.) p. 112.

[2] Willard, 15.

[3] Willard, 17.

[4] A. J. Hoover. "God, Arguments for the Existence of." Evangelical Dictionary of Theology. ... p. 488.

[5] Willard, 98-99.

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God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.

Master 211: The extra mile

There were only supposed to be three or four benches. It was only supposed to take a couple hours. But when we got there, there were thirteen benches and it ended up taking about nine hours to complete the job.

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For the past two years, the church I attend has been going through a process of self-evaluation and exploration. Our goal is to become more intentionally and effectively engaged in our community. Part of that process has involved identifying a few key places where we can concentrate our time, energy, and resources into building long-term, stable, positive, and helpful relationships. Early in the summer we talked about possibly partnering with one of the local elementary schools. With the many recent teacher lay-offs and budget cuts, schools are struggling to provide quality education to students. Could we come alongside of one of our schools and help to meet some of the lack?

Through one of our church members, we connected with one school in our area and asked them how we could be of help to them. One of the items on their list: the school had about twenty lunch tables that were in serious need of repainting. So on one Saturday, early in the summer, about thirty people showed up from the church to sand, prime, and paint those lunch tables. I think it took us about four hours to do the job. It was great to see all the people and resources coming together to accomplish this task; and the whole experience was very positive.

About three weeks ago, our contact at the school came to us with a few more requests. The new stock in the teacher supply room at the school needed to be organized; could some volunteers come to help with that? And there were also three or four free-standing wooden benches that needed to painted--just like the lunch tables had been. Our contact actually came to me and asked if I could put together a group of volunteers from my Sunday school class to take care of the benches. They (i.e. the benches) would need to be sanded, primed, and painted; but there were only three or four and it would take a couple hours at most. So I gathered a group of five guys, including myself, and we agreed to meet at the elementary school on the following Friday morning to take care of these benches.

On Friday morning, I walked out into the school quad with our contact and we found eleven benches assembled on the blacktop. As our group of volunteers arrived, a school staff person gave us a note from the custodians telling us where we could find two other benches at different parts of the campus. There were five of us there to work, but there was only one electric hand-sander and one electric belt sander. And thirteen long wooden benches.

Now stop for a moment and think to yourself: how would you have felt in that situation? How would you feel if you had volunteered to re-paint three or four benches and were suddenly confronted with thirteen? How would you feel knowing that you had recruited a group of guys to work--telling them that the task would only take a couple hours--and now you were looking at thirteen long wooden benches?

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Right away, I got on the phone with another church member I knew, who was a carpenter and had a lot of wood-working tools. Within twenty minutes he drove over with a case containing two more hand sanders, one belt sander, lots of extra sand paper, and extra extension cords. That took care of our equipment needs: five volunteers, five electric sanders; and the sanding was the part that was going to take the longest time. But I could tell that the job was still going to take longer than any of us had expected.

Then, as I was walking back toward the quad with the equipment I noticed one of the teachers walking in my direction. She waved her hand. I couldn't tell at first whether she was heading for me or just going to pass me by. She didn't pass me by. She stopped me and introduced herself; and she asked whether I was part of the church group that had come to paint the benches. I said that I was. And she proceeded to ask me whether it would be too much trouble for us to also paint a couple cabinets of hers. She had two cabinets that badly needed to be repainted--the old paint was peeling off most of the top and front of each--and when she had asked a custodian about it, he had mentioned that we might be able to help.

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Now stop and think to yourself, again: how would you have felt in that situation? It's now 10:00 in the morning and shaping up to be a really hot day. You were expecting to be here for a couple hours but now it looks like you'll be here for quite a bit longer. There are thirteen benches to be sanded and primed and painted. Your aware that the volunteers that you recruited were only expecting to be here for a couple hours. And now this teacher is coming to you and wants to add a few more items to the list.

I posed this question to a group of church leaders and many of them admitted that they would have probably felt a bit used and taken advantage of. How would you have felt in that situation?

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The interesting thing, for me, about that whole situation is that I didn't feel used. I didn't feel taken advantage of. I didn't feel like my day had been spoiled. I didn't resent this teacher for asking this favor of us. There was no impulse in me to roll my eyes or urge to groan in frustration. In fact, what was at the forefront of my mind at that moment was the overwhelming sense of how very much I wanted to help this teacher.

This desire to help that I felt was not something that I needed to conjure or dig for from deep inside myself. I didn't need to "look at the bright side" or take any time to collect my composure. I didn't have to rehearse lines in my mind about it being "more blessed to give," etc., etc. The desire and impulse to help came naturally.

In fact, the one thing that frustrated me most in that situation was the awareness that I had of my responsibility to the volunteers that I recruited. I needed to respect their time and could not just volunteer them to stay for even longer when they had already been hit with way more work than they had expected. So even as everything inside of me was wanting to say, "YES! YES! YES!" to this woman's request, I had to hold back and say things like, "We'll get to it if we can," "We'll try to take care of it after we've taken care of the benches."

Have you ever been frustrated in quite that way? Have you ever been frustrated because you wanted to help so badly but were constrained by one thing or another? Or do you find that you're usually frustrated because you want to help less and are being asked to help more?

Sometimes, within Christian circles, the following question is posed: If everybody in the church were just like you, what would the church look like? Usually this is a pretty sobering question. Most of us are aware that, while there are some areas in which we are very strong, there are other areas in which we are very weak--and if the whole church were deficient in those same areas, it would be in pretty sorry shape. But at that moment, I think, I would have been happy to have a church full of people just like me. At that moment, a church with people just like me would have been ready to offer no end of time and work and resources in order to help those teachers. A church with people just like me would have gone to the task joyfully and enthusiastically.

And before continuing, I do have to say that I was thoroughly impressed with the group of guys who came out to work. They were all surprised, understandably, to learn that our work load had almost quadrupled. But they all took up the task. They worked hard for almost six hours, through the hottest part of the day, without complaining. The mother of two of the guys admitted to me, later, that she had begun to wonder seriously about where her sons had gotten to after three or four hours had passed. They had been out there in the sun, working on those benches. And this just makes the question more pointed. Would you have been willing to stay the extra couple hours to try and see the job done? Or would you have made some excuse to try and get out of the work? Would you have poured yourself into the task? Or would you only have reluctantly gone through the motions?

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Now why do I tell this story? So that you will all be impressed by my generous spirit? So that you will feel guilty because you're not as eager to help as I was? No. I tell this story because it exemplifies a certain way of living, and I want to put that way of living on display and invite you into it.

One of the things that most struck me that morning was how very good it was to be out there and to be feeling the way that I was. It really was good. Imagine the alternative. I could have been filled with resentment and frustration. I could have been 'barely holding it together' as this woman laid one more task on my plate. But none of that was there. I didn't have to suppress feelings of exasperation. The natural impulse within me was to reach out to this woman and to the school with generosity. And that natural impulse within me was so good, and so much better than any of the alternatives.

Now can you imagine being like that all the time? Can you imagine what it would be like to be filled with this generous spirit all the time? Would you want to be that kind of person? I do. The truth is that I'm not always as enthusiastic and generous as I was on that morning. I tend to think of myself as a pretty caring and generous guy, but I recognize that I'm not like that all the time. And I also recognize that life would be so much better if I could be that way all the time.

What about you? Now there are a number of questions that you might have at this point. Some of you might wonder whether it really would be good to be so generous all of the time. Some of you might worry that that would just lead to people taking advantage of you. Some of you might wonder whether it is even possible to be filled with such a generous spirit all of the time. There are also, of course, plenty of legitimate questions about boundaries and how to meet different obligations. (Remember, even I had to deal with the fact that I had a responsibility to the people that I had recruited.) But for just a moment, I would like to invite you to get away from all of these distractions and all of the little details that might immediately try to choke out and extinguish the spark of an idea in your mind. What if... What if you could be that generous all the time? Wouldn't that be wonderful?

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Let me suggest to you that it actually is possible to be that generous. Jesus is the living proof. And just in case you're tempted to think that we could never do what Jesus did, let me remind you that He's given all of His followers the gift of the Holy Spirit. If you think it can't be done, then you have to explain why the Holy Spirit's power is limited in this particular area.

Now remember, pointing out that it's possible doesn't guarantee that it will happen to everyone. In the first place, you have to want it. And there are plenty of people, even in the church, who don't really want to be generous. They'll say that we should 'love our enemies,' and 'give to anyone who asks of you,' but they don't really believe that it's possible--and they get really nervous when anyone talks about actually doing it--and they'll fight you tooth and nail if you try and bring them around. And their basic problem is that they don't believe it's possible and they don't believe it would be a really good thing. They're focusing on the danger of being taken advantage of and they're worried about setting up boundaries and they don't appreciate how fantastically good it really is to be generous. [As I reread this, before posting, it does seem a bit strong. I'll just invite you to really think about it.] That's why I told this story. To try and give you just a little sense of how fantastically good it is to be generous. The first step, then, is to decide whether you want it.

Actually getting from where you are now to being that really generous person will require a process. I'm not going to go into the details of that now, in part because the process must be one that is tailored specifically to who you are, who God has made you to be, the character of your life and journey up to this point, and the particular place that God has you right now. Individuals are free to contact me if they have questions along these lines. For now, I just want you to think about what it would be like to be that person.

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As we wrap things up here, consider this invitation from Jesus: "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, do not resist him who is evil; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone wants to sue you, and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. And whoever shall force you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you." (Matthew 5:38-42)

Many would count these among Jesus' hard sayings, but I think it really would be good if you would think of them as an invitation. Consider the line: "And whoever shall force you to go one mile, go with him two." Understand that according to Roman law, at that time, a Roman soldier could compel a non-Roman to carry his pack and burden for one mile. It's quite understandable that people would try to avoid this and resent being called upon to do it. Imagine, then, how it might be if you were traveling on business from one town to another and a Roman soldier was passing in the opposite direction and stopped you and ordered you to carry his pack for a mile. It would be quite understandable if you resented the soldier and took to the task grudgingly--knowing that it was leading you away from your own work and what you needed to accomplish.

But, consider, could you imagine yourself being at all different in that situation? Could you imagine actually talking to this Roman soldier over your one-mile journey--perhaps learning that he'd been walking for seven or eight miles already that day. Could you imagine taking the time to notice the weariness on his face, the heaviness in his steps, and the stoop in his shoulders. Could you imagine actually becoming interested in who this soldier is, what troubles he's faced, how much he misses his family, etc. And when you reach the end of the mile and he tells you to put the pack down and go on your way, could you imagine actually saying, "I wouldn't mind helping you along a bit farther"? Could you imagine that? Wouldn't that be better than walking an entire mile filled with resentment and bitterness and frustration? Oh, sure, you may have missed an important business meeting, you might be late getting home tonight, but isn't there anything in your heart that feels the tug and says, helping this person is the most important thing that I can do right now. Can you imagine?

Think about it.

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God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.

Master 210: Spirit and Truth

"The woman said to Him, 'Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.'
"Jesus said to her, 'Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall you worship the Father. You worship that which you do not know; we worship that which we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.'" (John 4:19-24, excerpt from the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well.)

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As I was preparing to lead a Sunday school discussion on Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, I got to thinking about these two ideas. What does it mean to worship in spirit and truth? Much has certainly been written on this topic, but I want to just offer a few thoughts that came to me as I meditated on these ideas. Hopefully they will be helpful.

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Why does Jesus emphasize that God is spirit and that true worshipers must worship in spirit? What does that even mean?

Craig Keener [1] suggests that "spirit" may, in this context, refer to the prophetic Spirit that had moved extensively in the Old Testament but was thought to have been inactive since around 400 BC. Jesus might have been announcing that the spirit was again available to people. According to Jerome Neyrey [2], Jesus is emphasizing that 'worship is not material or sacrificial: It is inspired and mediated by "the spirit of truth."' (94)

William Barclay [3] writes, "If God is Spirit, God is not confined to things; and therefore idol worship is not only an irrelevancy, it is an insult to the very nature of God. If God is Spirit, God is not confined to places; and therefore to limit the worship of God to Jerusalem or to any other place is to set a limit to that which by its nature overpasses all limits. If God is Spirit, a man's gifts to God must be gifts of the spirit. Animal sacrifices, man-made things become insufficient and inadequate. The only gifts that befit the nature of God are the gifts of the spirit--love, loyalty, obedience, devotion. A man's spirit is the highest part of a man. ... True worship is when the spirit, the immortal and invisible part of man, speaks to and meets with God, who is immortal and invisible." (153-154)

R. V. G. Tasker [4] points out that the worship that took place in the Jewish temple, especially through animal sacrifices, was a shadow of the purer worship that would become possible through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. "His sacrifice is offered in the realm of Spirit; and all who draw near to God, accepting its benefits with grateful hearts, can worship Him in spirit and in truth." (77) F. F. Bruce [5] also emphasizes that true worship is not tied to physical places or seasons. He writes, "God himself is pure Spirit, and the worship in which he takes delight is accordingly spiritual worship - the sacrifice of a humble, contrite, grateful and adoring spirit." (110-111)

[1] The IVP Bible Background Commentary of the New Testament (1993).
[2] The New Cambridge Bible Commentary (2007).
[3] The Daily Study Bible (1955).
[4] Tyndale New Testament Commentary (1960).
[5] (1983)

I'm not actually going to take time to look closely at what these commentators have to say. Their words may be helpful to you or lead you to certain helpful insights, but I want to take a different approach to thinking about this passage.

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What does it mean to take seriously that God is spirit and what does it mean to worship God in spirit? My approach to thinking about this question involves first thinking about what it means to reject or ignore the idea that God is spirit and to fail to worship Him in spirit. These latter notions should not be too hard to wrap our minds around, for we live, today, in a culture that, at least in its elite circles, wholly denies that there is any such thing as spirit. Dallas Willard helpfully defines spirit as unbodily personal power. We live in a culture where many believe that the only real things are the things with which we can make contact through our physical senses. They think that physics and biology, anthropology and psychology can--in principle--tell us everything that there is to know about what kinds of creatures we are and what there is out there in the world.

In such a world and such a context, what happens to our ideas about God and what happens to our worship of God? The short answer is that they are both reduced to mere systems of ideas and human practices. That's where a lot of people are today. That's where a lot of Christians are today. They may claim to believe that God is really out there, but if you look at their behavior and attitudes and choices and activities, you will find that absolutely everything can be explained in terms of the interaction of their personal resources and abilities with the physical and social environment surrounding them.

This situation is not unique to our time. Jesus encountered this mindset in his own ministry. During one late-night conversation, he told Nicodemus, one of the rulers of the Jews and a Pharisee, "[U]nless one is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus replied, "How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he?" Jesus had to clarify his original claim and point out that he was not talking about another physical birth but a spiritual birth. "[Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." But Nicodemus still did not understand. (Excerpts from John 3:3-6)

Nicodemus was one of the religious leaders in Israel, yet he did not understand and so had trouble taking seriously what Jesus said about the Spirit and spiritual things. When we lose our grip on the spiritual, invariably, we also lose our grip on God's reality. If we have trouble taking the reality of the spiritual and immaterial, then we will have even more trouble taking seriously the reality of God. But once we lose our grip on the reality of God, what happens to our worship? What happens to our prayer and our singing and our gathering? If God isn't really our there then our prayers must not be going anywhere. And if God isn't listening to our singing, then that must just be a way of making ourselves feel good. And if God isn't present at our gatherings, then those must just be about connecting with other people. All the promises of Jesus about the gift and gifts of the Holy Spirit must just amount to so many pretty words. And all the prophecies about the future and heaven and Christ's return--well, those just can't be taken seriously. If you don't take spirit seriously, then you lose the very core of the entire Christian faith.

The Pharisees (including Nicodemus) reflected just this condition. They claimed to believe in and follow God, but their conduct showed that their confidence lay more in cultivating the good opinions of people and in adhering to the letter of the Jewish law. They really didn't take seriously that there was anyone "out there" who actually wanted to have a relationship with them and interact with them.

It might be a good idea to reflect on the character of your own life. Are you living in a way that shows that you take seriously that there really is someone out there who loves you, is watching over you, is interested in you, and desires to do a work in and through you? What would that kind of life look like?

On this point, I think it's helpful to use the analogy of a conversation. A conversation is a two-way interaction that depends upon the participation of both individuals. If you try to engage in a conversation while failing to take seriously the need for any contribution on the other person's part, you simply will not have a conversation. So imagine, for a moment, that you are a single guy (or, for my female readers, that you are a single girl) and that there is a cute girl (or guy) standing across the room. You might feel the urge to walk over there and begin a conversation. But then you might also wonder, What if she doesn't like me? What if she refuses to talk to me? What if she brushes me off? What if she rejects me? If you think about these sorts of things too long, chances are, someone else will begin a conversation with that girl and you'll have missed your opportunity.

What's the point of this conversational analogy? Conversations are the kinds of things that are not in your complete control. If you walk over to that cute girl and introduce yourself, she may brush you off and ignore you. But she may also tell you her name and actually engage in a meaningful interaction with you. And who knows where that might lead.

Now some people, when it comes to their religious commitments and relationship with God get very nervous about the idea of interacting with this being who is really out of their control. We like to be in control. We like to be confident about what's coming next. We don't like to be surprised. But if your main focus is being in control of your relationship with God (or avoiding being out of control) then you will probably settle for a merely human religion--just like, if you're main focus is on avoiding the possibility of rejection by that girl and not being out of control of that situation, you will probably not introduce yourself to that cute girl.

The analogy, here, is not perfect, and it also does not capture a number of important characteristics of our relationship with God, but I think it is helpful for understanding the difference between a religious life that is wholly explainable in terms of human ideas and practices, and a religious life that depends upon there really being a God out there who hears and responds and is active in the world. Think about when you go to a Sunday morning worship service. There are two mindsets with which you could approach that religious activity. For some people, the worship service is nothing more than a ritual. They go into a room, greet people, sing a bunch of songs, close their eyes and say, 'Amen,' after the preacher says a number of words, listen to that preacher read from a really old book and give advice about life before singing some more songs and going to lunch. Everything that I've described, here, is explainable just in terms of human abilities and activities. But for some people, church is about much more. They may attend the same church services as everyone else but their whole mindset and mentality are different. They are watching and listening and attentive and engaged because they are prepared to receive something that cannot be fully explained in terms of human practices and abilities--a word or touch from God. Our different stances toward Sunday worship services reflect just one way of capturing the distinction between those who worship in spirit and those who worship in mere human ability. Many more could be cited.

The main question to consider is how worshiping in spirit differs from the alternative. How does taking seriously the reality of spirit, of the immaterial, and of God differ from ignoring or neglecting or denying the reality of these things? The Apostle Paul offers a helpful illustration of this contrast in Philippians 3, which I also invite you to consider. But, for now, let's turn to the idea of worshiping God in truth.

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What is involved in worshiping God in truth? As a contrast, what would it mean to worship God in falsehood? I want to suggest that worshiping God in truth has two components: worshiping God as He truly is, and worshiping God as we truly are.

What does it mean to worship God as He truly is? If you look on television or search the Internet, you will find all sorts of people who have all sorts of different ideas about who God is and what He is like. They will claim to follow a god who would never send people to hell, who is standing behind every faith tradition that is out there, who encourages people to express themselves sexually in whatever way they please, who is one of many gods. They will claim to follow a god who who will give them anything they want (including money and expensive possessions) if only they will pray in just the right way, who will never allow you to suffer any setback or misfortune so long as you have enough faith, and who was at one time just another human being. The key question: Is there really such a god as these people claim to follow. If I claim to be following God but don't acknowledge that He is as He claims to be, refuse to obey the commands that He has given, ascribe to Him attributes and qualities that He doesn't have, and really just use His name as a way of legitimating my own preferred life-choices, then does it really make sense to say that I am following God?

Now one may legitimately point out that our having a relationship with God does not depend on us having all and only perfectly correct knowledge about who He is and what He is like. It seems plausible to think that there will always be a great deal about God that we do not know, and, especially in our current fallen state, it is quite reasonable to think that none of our ideas capture, perfectly accurately, the complete character of God. But there is an awful lot about God that we can know--because He has revealed truths about Himself to us through His Word. And the question is, are we prepared to adjust our lives and desires and plans and expectations to fall into line with who God is and what His will is? Do we desire to know the truth about God? Or would we rather do our own thing and make our images and ideas about God match up with our own preferred life plan? If you really want to have a relationship with God, then you must desire to know God as He really and truly is.

That's a bit on the first part of worshiping in truth--worshiping God as He truly is. Now let's consider the second part--worshiping God as we truly are. To be related to God and to worship God as He desires us to, we need to come before Him in the right way--as we truly are. One of the main areas where this becomes an issue is in unconfessed sin. There are many Christians who continue to carry, in secret, the burden of past sins and the weight of current sins against God. They refuse to approach God in a wholly transparent way. They refuse to stand before Him (and fellow believers) as they really are. Instead, they pretend to be better than they are and they try to bury the bad memories of the past, with the result that they cannot enter into genuine, fulsome worship (or into genuine, meaningful interactions with fellow believers).

This problem does not have to be tied to sin. It may also be tied to deep-seated insecurities. When a person does not feel adequate or does not feel loved, if she tries to find self-worth and self-esteem in the praise of others instead of in the loving embrace of almighty God, if she tries to put on a facade or mask of contentment and serenity just in order to hide the depth of pain or loneliness that she feels inside, she will have a hard time worshiping God. By contrast, the person who is able to be open and honest with God about the true depth of her brokenness will find a loving, compassionate, generous response. She will discover, in time, that there is so much more to her than her sin, that there is so much more to her than her inadequacies, that she is of inestimable value and worth because she has been created in the image of God and is loved by Him. That realization is what opens the door for full and true authentic worship.

We see this vividly illustrated in Jesus' encounter with the woman at the well. Jesus began His conversation with her by offering her living water. He told her, "[W]hoever drinks of the water that I give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life." (4:14) This woman was one whose entire life was defined by her need and lack. Her culture dictated that she needed to be married in order to have worth or value. But marriage after marriage had ended in brokenness and hurt. When Jesus met her, she had already had five husbands. But while each of them might have provided her with some kind of social standing, none of them satisfied the much deeper need that she had for wholeness. And as each of those relationships, in turn, fell to pieces--probably, in part, because of her own weakness and dysfunction--she must have grown more and more despairing and despondent. At the time that Jesus met her, she had already had five husbands, and at that time was living (and probably sleeping) with a man who was not her husband. Her troubled history had left her with no standing in her community. She was despised by all the other women, and so she tried to find what little contentment that she could in a man who may actually have been the husband of another woman.

As I said, this woman was one whose entire life was defined by her need and lack. And Jesus came along and offered her something that would change all that. But before He would give it to her, He challenged her to face the reality of who she was and her brokenness. This woman was completely shocked when this Jewish rabbi, a complete stranger, whom she had never met, suddenly confronted her with the history that she had tried so hard to hide and ignore and forget. He focused on all of that. Why? I think, because He wanted her to know, with absolute certainty, that what He offered was really for her. If Jesus had allowed her to keep those secrets and had offered her the gift of living water, spoken encouraging words of love to her, made gestures of acceptance, and revealed Himself to her as Messiah; she might have been left with the lingering suspicion that, 'If Jesus only knew who I really was, then He would take it all back."

There was a Pharisee who actually had this thought. Dr. Luke tells us about a time when Jesus had dinner at the home of a prominent Pharisee. While they were eating, a prostitute came into the house and began to wash Jesus' feet and anoint Him with costly perfume. Luke says, "Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet He would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching Him, that she is a sinner." (Luke 7:39) The fact that Jesus allowed this woman to touch him convinced the Pharisee that He must not be a prophet (and certainly must not be the son of God). If he were a prophet, the Pharisee reasoned, then he would know that this woman is a sinner and would never allow her to touch Him. But Jesus made it clear to the Pharisee, to that woman, and to everyone gathered there, that He knew who this woman was and that He loved her anyway.

It's one thing to be loved by someone. It's a whole other thing to be loved by someone who knows all your failures and faults and inadequacies. Only the latter kind of love can really bring wholeness and healing to our brokenness. But that requires that we be completely open and transparent about who we are. That's what this woman experienced. Though it was probably painful at first, she came to realize that this Jewish rabbi knew everything about her. Then she realized that He still loved her, cared about her, and was offering her a way to quench the thirst that had been consuming and defining her entire life. She discovered that she did not need to be defined by her needs and inadequacies. And her life was so completely changed that she ran back into the city, to all the people who had despised her and rejected her and hurt her--and she invited them to come and see the man who had told her about everything that she had done. She no longer needed to hide that history, because she came to realize that there was more to her than that history. She found a place to stand, and it was in Jesus Christ.

This, then, would have served as an important component in her worship. She would not need to hide her history. She would not need to pretend that she was more pious or saintly than she really was. Instead, she could freely approach God as she really was and lay herself completely at His feet and give herself wholeheartedly (holding nothing back) to Him in submission and service.

What does it look like to stand openly and transparently before God? I suspect that our openness and transparency before God is very closely tied to our openness and transparency before people--and especially the church. It is extremely unfortunate that the practice of confession has basically disappeared from the lives of so many Christians. Because with the loss of the practice of confession comes the loss of an incredible opportunity for people to love and accept one another in spite of the bad in their lives. Have you ever thought of confession in that way? Many people probably think of confession as a burdensome practice. But true confession is actually disburdening, freeing, liberating, and it creates the opportunity for people to offer love and grace and mercy to one another. Now I will not say that confessing to people is required before one can confess to God or receive forgiveness from God. But it remains the case that fellow Christians can and are supposed to serve as very tangible sources of God's grace and love in our lives. To cut ourselves off from those kinds of human relationships is to cut ourselves off from a great good that God offers.

And remember--one more thing--that this is not all about sin. Some people struggle with feelings of inadequacy, low self-esteem, insecurity, the sense that they are condemned to be always out-of-place and out-of-sorts. These feelings are not inherently sinful, but they are still extremely hurtful--and they should be addressed in the same basic way: through love and grace and compassion and mercy lived out in the concrete substance of our actual lives. Again, taking seriously the truth about ourselves must be about more than just assenting intellectually to a set of propositions. It must penetrate our lives.

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Addendum: One of the greatest struggles for someone in my position, I think, is to articulate the truths of Christianity in a way that is relevant. Some might think that meditations on the themes of spirit and truth are good for high-minded intellectuals but not for everyone. My thought is that they are helpful just because they illuminate the depth of hurt and pain that Jesus' ministry and gospel actually address. They are thus a source of incredible hope that has very real and tangible effects on our lives. At the same time, however, I can appreciate that long blog-posts and heady discussions can obscure that fact. If you think that this does sound like so much pie in the sky, let me know. Don't settle for thinking that these are all just pretty-sounding words. Doing that will simply guarantee that you'll derive no benefit from the ideas and teaching. Rather, challenge them. Are these words true to life? Is it possible to be changed and transformed in the way that the woman at the well was? Is the 'living water' that Jesus offered actually the sort of thing that you would want? Do you even understand what he was offering the woman? These are some of the basic questions that need to be addressed before one can derive a lot of the benefit that comes from going deeper. Think about them.

Is that enough for now? I felt that I needed to add the addendum because of a recent conversation I had about these topics. More can always be said, but I'll leave that at that.

--

God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.

Master 209: Questions about Christianity, Part 1 of 10.

Introduction.

One of the Sunday school teachers at the church where I attend recently sent an e-mail to a number of the leaders in which she expressed some concerns about church members' grasp of a Christian worldview. She, quite correctly, pointed out that this is an extremely important issue. Many Christians are not able to square their ideological and doctrinal commitments with the things that are widely represented as facts and reality in our world. Many try to resolve (or dissolve) this conflict by relegating Christianity to the realm of faith, but that solution only ends up undermining the very thing they are trying to preserve. People's actual lives are guided by what they take to be real--by what they have to deal with--and cutting off the substance of Christian beliefs and doctrines from that realm of the real can only undermine its force and significance in our lives.

Indeed, I suspect that many Christians are haunted by the nagging idea that if one were to carefully and critically evaluate the major claims of Christianity, one would find that there really is nothing to them and that they do constitute only an incoherent mass of dogmatically-held notions. As a consequence, they avoid critical examination. And as a result of that, their commitment to and confidence in the claims of Christianity is undermined and ends up playing little or no role in their actual lives.

This is a problem not only for men and women who have been Christians for a long time. It is also emerges as a serious problem when we consider what is involved in raising up children in a broadly secular world. What they believe is real and are told is real and experience as real may be quite different from what Christianity says is real. Are there good reasons to take the claims of Christianity seriously?

In the e-mail that this teacher distributed, she listed nine questions that she has actually been asked by her 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. What I am going to do, in this series of blog entries, (and what I encourage you to do as well) is consider what sort of answers I (you) would give. There was a time, especially during my high school years, when I explored the rationality and intellectual viability of many key Christian claims. I came to the conclusion that the claims of Christianity do reflect reality as it really is. But as I've stepped back from that active search, I recognize that the answers that I got have become less readily available to me. They're not at the front of my mind and I might not be able to offer them if confronted with a question on the spot.

What about you? Can you articulate a set of good reasons for your faith? For your commitment to Jesus Christ? To the teachings of the Bible? Take a look at these nine questions and consider how you would answer them. Of course you might offer a slightly different answer, depending on whether you were talking to a 4th grader or a college graduate. But think about the basic kinds of reasons that you would appeal to and that ground your faith.

I'll look at each of these questions in turn and try to give helpful answers.

1. I still don't understand how I can know that God is real?
2. Why is Christianity right and all other religions wrong?
3. How do you know that something you can't see is real?
4. If Jesus and God were the same, how come people could see Jesus but not God?
5. How can scientists prove the Big Bang?
6. It seems mean that God would only give Man one chance. Why is everyone punished?
7. Why would God create the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil if it would bring sin into the world?
8. How do we know that we're not wrong and everyone else is right?
9. How do we know that the Bible isn't just other people's ideas? How do we know it's from God?

--

God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.

Master 208: Nagel on the Meaning of Life

Introduction

This summer I TA'd for an introductory-level philosophy course titled "Ethics and the Meaning of Life." As part of that course, the students were assigned to read a chapter from Thomas Nagel's book, What Does It All Mean? (Oxford University Press, 1987). The chapter was on the meaning of life. Both the instructor and I agreed that the chapter (only seven pages long) represents a very poor treatment of this important topic. I have not read the other articles that Nagel has published on the meaning of life, so I can't evaluate his complete and considered view. But I thought that a brief write-up on this chapter might allow me to say some (hopefully) helpful things about this important topic.

It's not too unusual for people to ask me, when they find out that I study philosophy, about the meaning of life. Meditation on this theme seems to be one of the things that people associate with philosophy. For the most part, I find that when people ask that question in a casual context, they are not actually interested in pursuing the point in any substantial way. I'm not sure whether I should be worried about that. People seem to have some sense that to understand the meaning of life could or should be important and yet the issue is one that's very far removed from their daily lives and one that doesn't come up on a regular basis. Like so many philosophical topics, I expect, people have a hard time seeing its relevance. In addition, I think that for most people, it is not entirely clear what is meant when we make reference to the "meaning" of life. Certainly we're not talking about anything that one might find in an English dictionary--the meaning of "life." Are we talking about the 'purpose' of life? The 'significance' of life?

In what follows, I'll offer some thoughts about what we are looking for when we look for "meaning" and how we should approach inquiring into and discussing it.

Part I

Nagel opens his short chapter on the meaning of life with the following remark:

"Perhaps you have had the thought that nothing really matters, because in two hundred years we'll all be dead." (95)

Basically his chapter is an extended attempt to motivate and evaluate this particular thought or claim. This is a not-uncommon starting point for thinking about the meaning of life, but it now strikes me as problematic for two reasons. The first reason may be introduced by considering the following question: Have you ever had that thought? Have you ever had the thought the nothing really matters because in two hundred years (or some such indefinitely long period of time) we'll all be dead? I have. And I actually find the thought quite compelling (though it does not follow that I have always understood or even now understand fully why it is compelling). However, I think that there are also people who have never had this thought and who, when introduced to it by philosophers, do not find it compelling at all.

Now one of the main challenges in philosophical discourse (and in all types of discourse, actually) is to find common ground. Often we find that ground in common intuitions. For instance, most (hopefully all) people agree that it is morally wrong to torture babies just for fun. Most people have experienced events in a dream that seemed to be real. Most people are certain that they, themselves, exist. These are important starting points for developing philosophical theories and arguments. If we could never find common ground, then we could never reason or communicate meaningfully with one another.

Now some people may become worried at this point because they will suspect that for any proposition, even one that is wildly outlandish, it will always be possible to find someone (to whom we might refer with the term, "crackpot") who believes it. Does that mean the possibility of discourse is ruled out altogether? I do not think so. First, we should understand that the fact that we cannot reach a consensus on certain issues does not mean that there is no fact of the matter about that issue. But, second, it does make discussing that issue much more difficult. Now when it comes to the above claim about things mattering and being dead in two hundred years, the fact that some people are unmoved by that thought does not necessarily show that the suggested entailment is spurious or that it is an intrinsically bad starting point for thinking about the meaning of life. But it can make motivating the discussion more difficult and can lead to other problems as well.

When someone presents this thought--that nothing really matters, because in two hundred years we'll all be dead--one is usually expected to react negatively. One is supposed to be repulsed by the thought of meaninglessness. But what is required for a meaningful life? Usually the suggestion is that meaning can only be found in something transcendent. Meaninglessness in life is supposed to be entailed by something like naturalism or physicalism, and so one's negative reaction to the meaninglessness of life is supposed to lead to a rejection of such worldviews and the exploration of some alternative that takes the transcendent seriously. (Note that Nagel casts the issue in different terms, as we'll see below, but I think the core is the same.)

Now there is a segment of the population that is not moved by this thought. By that I mean that the thought that we will be dead in two hundred years does not move them to think that life is meaningless. Those who are moved by this claim tend to think that those who are not so moved have somehow missed the point. But they often have a hard time convincing the unmoved that they should be moved by this point. (As I said, it is not necessarily fully transparent to me just why this thought is supposed to be moving.) In the next section, we'll look at how Nagel tries to motivate serious consideration of this thought. He'll explain why this thought is supposed to be compelling and what it is supposed to entail. After looking at his presentation, we'll consider and evaluate both his conclusions and his starting point.

Part II

"Perhaps you have had the thought that nothing really matters, because in two hundred years we'll all be dead. This is a peculiar thought, because it's not clear why the fact that we'll be dead in two hundred years should imply that nothing we do now really matters." (95)

What is going on in people's heads that makes some of them think this "peculiar thought"? Nagel suggests that, for these people, the pursuit of goals and ends only seems to make sense or be worthwhile if those ends are permanent. Significance or mattering are tied to permanence. In more romantical language, we might say they are tied to the notion of immortality. If that kind of permanence is not achievable, either through one's own persistence or through being related to some external permanent context, then everything that one accomplishes is worth nought.

Operating behind (or alongside) this desire for permanence, according to Nagel, is the desire for there to be some point to what we are doing. Certainly this can be achieved in the immediate, local context. You eat because you're hungry and sleep because you're tired. We understand the point of those activities. But what is the point of life as a whole? Day in and day out you eat one meal after another--each one as a way of satisfying your hunger on that particular occasion. But is there a point to satisfying your hunger on all those occasions taken as a whole? Is there a point to that sum of activities that makes up your life? If there is no point to that, then there seems to be no important difference between existence and non-existence--living and not living. Of course there is a qualitative difference between existence and non-existence. A person who has existed experiences both more joy and more sorrow than a person who has never existed. But as far as significance or mattering are concerned, the two seem to amount to the same thing. They both have no point or significance.

If one's (finite) life is to have some meaning, significance, or point, it seems, it must be related to some larger context. My life is very short, but if my life contributes to some goal or end that endures, then even after I die, the significance of what I did will persist in that end or goal that outlives me. Now one might spend one's life advocating for some political or social movement that will benefit humankind for many generations to come. But in that case--and in all cases where the larger context is limited to the temporal sphere--we run into the same problem. All human societies and communities will come to an end; and the universe will eventually reach a state where it would be impossible for anyone to recognize that human beings ever did exist at all. My eating because of hunger may derive some local significance from being embedded in the larger context of my life. My life may derive some local significance from being embedded in the larger context of a political movement or the history of the human race. But if that larger context, ultimately, does not have some enduring point, then all the parts that derive their significance from being embedded in it will also have no enduring point.

This, then, is the challenge confronting those who wish for life to meaningful: one needs to find some thing that is inherently meaningful. If one's own life is not inherently meaningful, then the only way for it to have meaning is by being related (either directly or indirectly) to something that is inherently meaningful. To say that something is inherently meaningful is to say that it has some point independently of its relationship to anything else. If it turns out that there is no such larger inherently meaningful context to which one can relate one's life then either (1) life is meaningless or (2) meaningfulness must depend on meeting some other criteria.

Part III

Nagel does consider the possibility that meaningfulness in human life is derived from one's relationship with God. But he thinks this way of finding meaning runs into the same problem as all the others. This is what he says:

'The idea of God seems to be the idea of something that can explain everything else, without having to be explained itself. But it's very hard to understand how there could be such a thing. If we ask the question, "Why is the world like this?" and are offered a religious answer, how can we be prevented from asking again, "And why is that true?" What kind of answer would bring all of our "Why?" questions to a stop, once and for all? And if they can stop there, why couldn't they have stopped earlier?"

'The same problem seems to arise if God and His purposes are offered as the ultimate explanation of the value and meaning of our lives The idea that our lives fulfil God's purpose is supposed to give them their point, in a way that doesn't require or admit of any further point. One isn't supposed to ask "What is the point of God?" any more than one is supposed to ask, "What is the explanation of God?"

'But my problem here, as with the role of God as ultimate explanation, is that I'm not sure I understand the idea. Can there really be something which gives point to everything else by encompassing it, but which couldn't have, or need, any point itself? Something whose point can't be questioned from outside because there is no outside?' (99-100)

The question we have to address is this: Is the notion of something explaining but not itself being explainable really as mysterious as Nagel suggests? In fact, there are reasons to think not. The instructor in my "Ethics" course pointed out that the distinction between necessary and contingent truths may offer helpful insight on this point. My comments, here, are a bit tentative because there is plenty of controversy surrounding these notions, but they should be helpful nonetheless. Many philosophers throughout history have found plausible the idea that some truths are contingent while others are necessary. Some propositions are true or false contingently--that is, by virtue of the way the world happens to be--in a way that leaves open the possibility that things could have been otherwise. "The sky is blue." "There are fifty states in the U.S." "The earth is round." All of these statements are true, but their truth depends upon the world being a certain way. Other propositions, many philosophers have thought, are true or false necessarily; that is, their being true does not depend upon the way the world is in such a way that they could have been otherwise. "1+1=2." "A and not-A cannot both be true at the same time in the same way." These are examples of necessary truths.

Now when we ask for an explanation--when we ask why something is the case--it is possible for us to appeal to both necessary and contingent truths to answer. When we appeal to contingent truths, it is possible to re-pose the question and ask why that truth is true. But when one appeals to necessary truths, this re-posing of the question does not seem to be an open possibility. So consider the proposition, (A) "I have 18 dollars in my pocket." One might ask, "Why do you have 18 dollars in your pocket?" I could respond in a number of ways. "Because I put it there (instead of putting it in my wallet)." "Because that is the amount of change I got after buying a coffee from Starbucks." "Because I chose not to make any additional purchases with it." "Because, fortunately, it did not fall out of my pocket." Now let's consider the proposition: (B) "That is the amount of change I got after buying a coffee from Starbucks." Both propositions (A) and (B) express contingent truths. They happen to be true but could have been otherwise. Moreover, (A) is explained by appealing to (B). Now suppose we ask for an explanation of (B): "Why is 18 dollars the amount of change you got after buying a coffee from Starbucks." Several explanatory claims are open to us: (C) "Because I used a twenty-dollar bill to pay for my coffee." (D) "Because the coffee cost two dollars." (E) "Because 20-2=18." Any one of these propositions could be used as part of an explanation of (B), but notice this important difference: (C) and (D) both express contingent truths. I could have paid with a five dollar bill, or the price of the coffee could have been different, in which cases the amount of money in my pocket would have been different. But (E) is not like (C) and (D). (E) could not have been different, and if one were to ask, "Well, why does 20-2=18?" that question would strike us as very odd. The truths of mathematics do not seem to be the sort of thing that admit of further explanation, even though they can be used to explain other things.

Mathematical truths, then, offer an example of things that can explain but are not explainable. This is exactly the notion that Nagel claimed to find mysterious. But most people don't find the notion of mathematical truths being unexplainable to be particularly mysterious. At least they don't find that fact to be problematic.

Now this does not show, by itself, that God (or the idea of God) can or does ground the meaningfulness of life. But it does help to show that the ideas that Nagel claims to be mysterious are not necessarily or obviously incoherent or objectionable. The idea of there being something that can explain without itself being explainable is not so outlandish. So, perhaps, the idea of there being something that gives everything else their point but does not, itself, have or need any point outside of itself is not so outlandish either. This leaves open the possibility that God could provide the inherently meaningful context in terms of which human life is meaningful. Nagel has not succeeded in ruling it out.

But in order to understand the rest of what Nagel says, in his chapter, we need to keep in mind that he takes himself to have demonstrated adequately that the idea of something being inherently meaningful--of some whole having a point that is not derived from its relationship to anything else--is basically mysterious.

Part IV

At this point, given what he's said and claimed, there are two possibilities open to Nagel: either (1) to accept that life is meaningless or (2) to reevaluate the criteria for meaningfulness. He accepts the former course. This is what he says.

'Even if life as a whole is meaningless, perhaps that's nothing to worry about. Perhaps we can recognize it and just go on as before. The trick is to keep your eyes on what's in front of you, and allow justifications to come to an end inside your life, and inside the lives of others to whom you are connected. If you ever ask yourself the question, "But what's the point of being alive at all?"--leading the particular life of a student or bartender or whatever you happen to be--you'll answer "There's no point. It wouldn't matter if I didn't exist at all, or if I didn't care about anything. But I do. That's all there is to it." ' (100-101)

Now he acknowledges that some find this thought objectionable or depressing. Nagel diagnoses that reaction in the following way: 'Part of the problem is that some of us have an incurable tendency to take ourselves seriously. We want to matter to ourselves "from the outside." If our lives as a whole seem pointless, then a part of us is dissatisfied--the part that is always looking over our shoulders at what we are doing. Many human efforts, particularly those in the service of serious ambitions rather than just comfort and survival, get some of their energy from a sense of importance--a sense that what you are doing is not just important to you, but important in some larger sense: important, period. If we have to give this up, it may threaten to take the wind out of our sails. If life is not real, life is not earnest, and the grave is its goal, perhaps it's ridiculous to take ourselves so seriously. On the other hand, if we can't help taking ourselves so seriously, perhaps we just have to put up with being ridiculous. Life may be not only meaningless but absurd.' (101)

This last paragraph is the one that really reveals the source of Nagel's error and why he is led to such a problematic conclusion. I do think that he is mistaken in thinking that meaningfulness in life is or ought to be so easily discardable. The key to Nagel's error is this. He thinks that the search for a meaningful life is the search for an important life. Now it is true that some people count their lives as meaningful only if it is important, but, in fact, being important is not essential for being meaningful. In fact, a person's life may be very meaningful while being quite unimportant. So the search for meaning and the search for importance are not the same thing. So, also, the search for meaning does not necessarily arise from taking one's self too seriously.

I think that once we understand what meaningfulness in human life really amounts to, we will see that it cannot be discarded as easily as Nagel supposes.

Part V

What are we asking about when we ask about the "meaning" of life. In his article, Nagel talks about the "point" of life. Others might talk about the "purpose" of life or what makes life "valuable," "significant," or "worth living." The problem is that, while these notions may overlap in some respects, they are not identical. Each lends itself to different interpretations of what the "meaning" of life amounts to.

So the instructor in this "Ethics" course suggested that what actually makes life meaningful is being related to certain intrinsic values and intrinsically valuable things. So, on that kind of account, a life that is appropriately connected to love, truth, and beauty would be a meaningful life because it would be "valuable" or "worth having," owing to those connections. It would be a meaningful life even if it lacked the kind of importance that Nagel considered to be essential to a meaningful life. Now I do think that being connected to these sorts of intrinsic values is important, but I want to suggest that even they do not get at what is the central concern of questions about the "meaning of life."

In the next part, I'll start to develop an alternative account of what meaningfulness in life amounts to, and I shall begin by reconsidering Nagel's starting point.

Part VI

"Perhaps you have had the thought that nothing really matters, because in two hundred years we'll all be dead." (95)

As I said before, I have had this thought and actually find it to be quite compelling. But I do not think that it is a good place to start thinking about the meaning of life. I think this starting point lends itself to the kind of confusion that leads Nagel to the conclusion that meaningfulness in life is easily discardable.

So think with me, what are the circumstances and situations in which people do seriously think about the meaning of life. Many people, unfortunately, probably associate musing about this topic with the ivory tower and the sheltered, cushioned, comfortable armchair of the academic philosopher. This is a mistake. I suspect that most people who are arrested by this topic are the one's in the middle of severe tragedies. When the company--into which a man has poured his heart and soul for the last forty years and for which he has sacrificed both family and friends--suddenly collapses, he will probably think about the meaning of life. When a woman prepares to bury her third and last remaining child--each one was torn slowly and painfully from her by wasting disease--she will probably wonder about the meaning of life. When a car accident leaves a man paralyzed in all four limbs, he may think about the meaning of life. When a woman is abandoned after twenty years of marriage, she may wonder about the meaning of life. These are people for whom the force of the question about the meaning of life is keenly felt. Indeed, an adequate answer to it may mark the difference between life and death. Since they are inclined to take the question more seriously, they're reflections seem to be a better starting point for pinning down just what we are looking for when we look for the 'meaning' of life.

These individuals will probably not think, explicitly, about the "meaning of life," but they will explore a set of questions, the answers to which form the core of their view about the meaning of life. They will probably be engaged in a process of reevaluating their views about the meaning of life. What, then, is it that they are looking for as they seek to recover from such incredible tragedies? I think, they are trying to make sense of their lives. They may be trying to rationalize what has happened to them. And they may also be trying to justify continuing on. "Meaning" is what makes life intelligible and coherent. When someone is seriously thinking about the meaning of life, he or she is thinking about how to make sense of life.

This is the basic idea. I'll go on to clarify this basic idea and also use it to show why Nagel's approach and conclusion don't really work.

Part VII

When we take seriously that meaningfulness is about making sense of our lives, it becomes clear why it is hard to make comfortable and happy people grapple seriously with the question. Usually, when people are comfortable and happy, they are not in the best position to critically evaluate what is the source of their comfort and happiness. They are just content with the fact that they are comfortable and happy. So it makes sense that, when a philosopher comes along and says to them, "You know, nothing you do really matters, because in two hundred years we'll all be dead," it's hard for the comfortable and happy person to be moved by that. That's why most people who casually ask me about the meaning of life don't really engage seriously with the question. They are comfortable and happy and so, in a sense, are not really concerned with whether life is meaningful or not.

On the other hand, when people are dealing with severe tragedies, the question about whether life is meaningful or not is extremely important. Now some will be made suspicious by this fact. They will wonder whether there isn't something fishy about this "meaning of life" stuff, since it pops up most forcefully when people are facing troubled times. Is it just a crutch or some way of hiding from the true meaninglessness of our existence. But the fact that questions about the meaning of life are felt most forcefully during dark times does not show that there's anything dubious about the meaning of life as a subject of inquiry. In a similar way, the fact that we take doctors most seriously when we are sick does not show that the discipline of medicine is a sham. This fact just serves as a reminder that tragedies are the real tests of worldviews and of one's beliefs about the meaning of life. When you are healthy, it's easy to ignore advice about what you should eat and how much exercise you should get. People may also be very unclear about the reasons and causes of their healthy condition. But when you become sick, these issues move into sharp focus. The test of one's lifestyle-choices comes when sickness arises. Can one just continue in one's habits or does something seriously need to change. Is the sickness just the sort of thing that comes to all people or does it reflect unhealthy choices that you've been making over time?

When the company is flourishing and the CEO is bringing in loads of money and the object of great acclaim and accolades, he will have a hard time taking seriously the thought that the meaningful life does not consist in accumulated material wealth. But when the company has collapsed and he is left with nothing, he is quite ready to consider that possibility. He will likely discover that the story in terms of which he made sense of his life was and is much to small and unstable. He will likely begin to search for another story and another way of understanding his life.

For a CEO who defines his entire life in terms of the condition of his company, the collapse of that company will represent the absolute failure of his life as a whole. For a CEO who has a larger vision of his own life, the collapse of that company may represent just an obstacle to be overcome. For a CEO whose life is defined by the company, there is no possibility of 'overcoming' it's collapse. For the CEO with a larger vision, it is possible to relate even the collapse to other things that are going on in his larger life.

This is why the meaningfulness of life is so important and may, literally, mark the difference between life and death. If one has just experienced the collapse of what one has been building, there is a serious question that must be addressed: Is it worth it to try and pick up the pieces and build again? For someone who is already happy and content, it is easy to say, "Of course you should rebuild and continue. Forget questions about whether there is a point to it all. Life is good and so we should perpetuate it by all means." But for the person who has just experienced the collapse, the prospect of rebuilding--foreseeing that the end of that will just be another collapse--may strike as a task not worth taking up. The issue is not just that this person doubts whether her endeavors will be important or enduring. The issue is that she cannot justify, given her state of mind, exerting herself to build what will ultimately only collapse again.

And Nagel, it's important to see, can offer this person nothing. He writes, ' "There's no point. It wouldn't matter if I didn't exist at all, or if I didn't care about anything. But I do. That's all there is to it." ' (101) It's all well and good for him because he does care about things. But what about the person who doesn't? Can he offer her a reason to care? It seems not. It's just a fact that either one cares or one doesn't, and that's all there is to it.

The real issue, when it comes to the meaning of life, must be something like this: Is there a reason for a person who does not feel the desire to live, to live? This must be a hard question for many contemporary philosophers who think that reasons for doing anything must bottom out in what one desires. What's important to understand is that our desires and our reasons are both shaped by our view of the world. (They also shape our view of the world, so there is definitely some circularity here.) So no single reason can be expected to convince a suffering person that life is worth living. Rather, what the suffering person needs is to come to understand his life as part of a whole story and larger context. He must be able to embed himself in that story and make sense of his life in terms of that story. That is what will likely alter his desires and allow 'reasons' in the more straightforward sense to be compelling for him. Is there a story that can make sense of the very deepest and darkest tragedies in this world? It will not surprise my readers to learn that I think there is. It is the Christian story.

At the center of the Christian story stands Jesus Christ. Because of His love for the world, He descended from His throne on high and took on a human nature. He revealed God's glory and the full extent of His desire for relationship with you and me. Because of his revolutionary teachings and as part of the process of opening that way for personal, covenantal relationship with God, He was arrested by the Jewish religious leaders and sentenced to death on a cross. The Son of God, incarnate, was executed as a criminal. No greater instance of defeat or loss, I expect, has ever been known or ever will be known. And yet that was not the end of that story. Christ's life, and the significance of everything that he did, did not end with his death. They also did not persist in the abstracted way that significant historical influence persists. Rather, Jesus, Himself, returned to life. In this, he demonstrated that those whose lives are appropriately caught up and embedded in the larger context of the will of God do not have to fear ultimate loss or defeat.

I'm am just gesturing at points that could be and need to be developed in enormous detail. Part of what is so amazing about Jesus' story is that He did not feel the need to watch out for Himself, to take care of Himself, to provide for His needs. He trusted so completely in God's watch care and provision that He was able to focus all His attention on being obedient to the will and purpose of His Father. Now so many of us are tempted to give our main attention and focus to the task of providing for and taking care of our own needs. This is understandable, but if that is the context in terms of which we try to make sense of our lives, what happens when we fail? What happens when we lose the job or can't keep the house or have to get financial assistance. If we conceive of the quality of our life in terms of how well we can care for and provide for ourselves (or for those we love, for that matter) what happens when we fail. Does that mean that we should give no thought to ourselves or anyone else? No. But what I am trying to get you to do is to think about the larger context or story in terms of which you understand your life. The Apostle Paul was able to rejoice in the midst of suffering and encouraged others to consider it pure joy when they faced persecution. He understood his life to be embedded in a larger context.

Things are getting more and more jumbled here--I can tell. I'm going to leave that at that. If people have questions they can ask me. And/or I can write more on this later. The point of this was to make some preliminary and clarificatory remarks on the meaning of life, anyway. Hopefully you can see how my approach to these issues differs from Nagel's. He thinks that meaning is tied to importance and, so, comes to the conclusion that if we are unimportant then our lives our meaningless. But I think he has misconstrued the nature of meaningfulness in life.

Now some people do think that being important is what gives their lives meaning. For them, the ultimate loss and tragedy lies in becoming unimportant, and when they do encounter that situation, they will likely begin to question whether importance really is what is key to a meaningful life. But regarding this more general point about the nature of meaningfulness, notice that the view I am offering is quite compatible with the claim that importance is not essential to a meaningful life. To have a meaningful life, my suggestion is, there must be some story or larger context in terms of which one's life becomes intelligible. Now it is possible that, within this story or context, one has a very big and important role to play. It is also possible that, within this story or context, one has an insignificant and unimportant role to play. What matters, for a meaningful life, is not the size of the part, as Nagel seems to suppose, but just the fact that one has a part to play and can make sense of one's life--both the good things and the bad things--in terms of that larger context.

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God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.