WE CAN’T AVOID GOD

I will be going to a secular discussion group entitled “IS LIFE FAIR? If Not, What Should We Do About That?” I am wondering about how I should approach this discussion. The answer depends on my goals. My primary goal is to bring the discussion around to the Gospel to demonstrate that the Gospel has solid answers to life’s questions, while secularism remains speechless.

Let me try to demonstrate. What does it mean to ask if life is fair? We certainly wouldn’t ask this of life in terms of its biology or chemistry. Why not? Fairness is a property of intelligent and willful beings, not of blood, salt, or tissue. If the question was merely, “Are others fair?” there wouldn’t be any discussion, because it is clear that many aren’t. Instead, we are asking a question about the Creator and His reign over life. “Is God fair?”

This illustrates the fact that we cannot get away from God. Our thinking is infused with thoughts about divine purpose, even if we are atheists and refuse to believe in a Creator.

And it doesn’t stop there. What does “fair” signify? That certain actions are fair or just and other things are not. However, when we talk about someone who treated us unfairly, we are not merely saying that it felt unfair or my feeling is no more than an evolving social convention. No! If someone rapes your daughter, you are not going to say, “Well this deeply troubles me, but I can’t impose my values on someone else.” Instead, we know in our heart that a great injustice has been committed. But what makes an act unfair or unjust? We cannot rest our answer on an evolving social convention, because tomorrow rape might be deemed acceptable. Even now, in some societies rape is acceptable under certain conditions.

Instead, when we become angry over injustice, we try to justify our anger. However, we understand that we can’t prove that rape is unjust based upon a passing fad. But on what can be base our claim that rape is absolutely wrong? It must be based on a universal and unchanging moral law, but only the existence of a righteous God could be the basis for such law.

Again, there is no escaping from God. Even the last question stumbles over His presence: “What Should We Do About That?” “Should” implies that there is a moral requirement to which we must conform. From where does such a moral requirement come? Certainly not from us or our changing society! Instead, a “should” requires an absolute moral Authority.

We might deny God, but we run into Him in our safe-zones.  And why should we expect otherwise, if this is His world? I just have to connect the dots.