THE VOID OF ETERNAL NOTHINGNESS

 

 

How does God prepare us for our final eternal destiny? He gives us a mind to contemplate many things. For one thing, His existence! We can tell a lot about the unseen by the things that are seen. We can understand a lot about the unseen laws of science by the ways they impact what is seen.

 

We can also understand a lot about the origin of these universal, immutable, and elegant laws. They stand in contrast to what we know about the universe, where nothing is immutable. We are therefore forced to look beyond the universe to understand the origin and immutability of these laws.

 

Our minds are also the conduit for other thoughts that point to God and our need to think about such a Being. The tormented thoughts of King Solomon inevitably focused on questions of the eternal fate of man:

 

·       “Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NLT)

 

These thoughts of eternity also bring us back to the essential question of God’s existence and character. Scott Christensen cites philosopher Bryan Magee who speaks of the fear of what he calls the void of “eternal nothingness” that awaits those who die:

 

·       “If the void is the permanent destination of all of us, all value and all significance are merely pretended for purposes of carrying on our little game, like children dressing up. It is, of course, a willing pretense: we cannot bring ourselves to face eternal nothingness, so we busy ourselves with our little lives and all their vacuous pursuits, surrounded by institutions that we ourselves have created yet which we pretend are important, and which help us shut out the black and endless night that surrounds us. It is all, in the end, nothing—nothing whatsoever.” (What About Evil)

 

For Magee, since eternity is a void, so too is this life, an empty and meaningless rehearsal for the inescapable eternal void of death.

 

Such concerns are forced upon us as a man gasping for air. To be unconcerned is to be dead.

 

We are given a mind so that we would consider both the temporal and the eternal and to make a choice. This choice should be easy. Just consider the evidence. There is not a single piece of evidence that would lead us to discount the existence of God. Nor is there the slightest bit of evidence that anything is natural or has been caused by natural laws. Even the smallest atom is a marvel of design.

 

If that is not enough, the terror of the Void should cause us to rethink our steps, but often, it doesn’t. Why not? The answer is repeated in many ways in the Bible. The problem is not about any lack of evidence for God, but a lack of desire for Him (John 3:19-20), even a greater terror of God than of the Void. NYU Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Thomas Nagel, had asserted that no one can be impartial about God (at least, the God of the Bible):

 

·       I am talking of...the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true...It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God. I don't want the universe to be like that...I am curious whether there is anyone who is genuinely indifferent as to whether there is a God. (The Last Word, Oxford University Press, 1997, 130)

 

None are indifferent! Even the atheist has built his identity upon the hope that there isn’t a God. Why then the intense opposition to God? Not only do people want to live their own life, but they also correctly sense that if there is a God, He has expectations for all of us and a price to pay for defying them (Romans 1:32).

It doesn’t seem to matter how many times Christians assure them that God is love (Matthew 11:28-30), they remain adamant in their refusal. Why do they remain hellbent in their mad dash towards the Void?