THE QUESTION OF HUMAN THRIVING

If we are really interested in the question of human prospering, we should also be interested in the question of faith in God. Here are some thoughts about things identified for human prospering:

1.     GRATITUDE/THANKFULNESS – Only the promise of an afterlife can make us feel grateful in a life of cancer, rejection, and depression. Besides, how can we be grateful if humans have hurt us so?

2.     MORALITY – While living morally is related to well-being, we will not be able to get excited about a morality that is relative, man-created, and always evolving.

3.     FORGIVENESS – How can we rationally be forgiving to someone who has destroyed our family, if life ends with death?

4.     INTEGRITY – Why should we live with integrity if morality is just relative? Instead, rational pragmatic considerations would argue in favor of compromise.

5.     OTHER-CENTEREDNESS – We cannot be truly and coherently other-centered if our rationale is based on pragmatic returns. Instead, other-centeredness becomes more coherent when it results from faith that God has been other-centered towards us.

Rather than continuing on with this list, let’s take a look at what surveys have revealed about human thriving. Professor of philosophy, Michael Rota, has written:

Harvard’s Robert Putnam…and Chaeyoon Lim note that “the association between religion [it is assumed that the vast majority of subjects surveyed are Christian] and subjective well-being is substantial”:

·       “28:2 percent of people who attend a service weekly are predicted to be ‘extremely satisfied’ with their lives, compared with only 19.6 percent of those who never attend services. This result is roughly comparable to the difference between someone in ‘good’ health and another in ‘very good’ health.” (Christianity Today, May 2016)

These findings are reflective of many similar studies. In “God: The Evidence,” former atheist, Patrick Gynn, investigated many lines of evidence in favor of the notion of Christian prospering. As a result, he reports having become a Christian.

Why don’t people consider God? Many have confessed that they don’t want to consider Him:

• We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs . . . in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated commitment to materialism. . . . we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. (Lewontin, Richard, Review of The Demon-Haunted World, by Carl Sagan. In New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997.)

• Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such a hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic. (Todd, Scott C., "A View from Kansas on the Evolution Debates," Nature (vol. 401. September 30, 1999), p. 423.)

• We cannot identify ancestors or "missing links," and we cannot devise testable theories to explain how particular episodes of evolution came about. Gee is adamant that all the popular stories about how the first amphibians conquered the dry land, how the birds developed wings and feathers for flying, how the dinosaurs went extinct, and how humans evolved from apes are just products of our imagination, driven by prejudices and preconceptions. (Bowler, Peter J., Review of In Search of Deep Time by Henry Gee (Free Press, 1999, American Scientist; vol. 88, March/April 2000, p. 169.)

STABILITY, IDENTITY, AND PERMANENT VALUES

NYT columnist David Brooks thinks that the social pressures governing life on American college campuses are overwhelming:

·       "When a moral crusade spreads across campus, many students feel compelled to post in support of it on Facebook within minutes. If they do not post, they will be noticed and condemned." (NYT, 3/15/16)

Brooks is convinced that the social pressures are greater when the standards are always shifting:

·       "Everybody is perpetually insecure in a moral system based on inclusion and exclusion. There are no permanent standards, just the shifting judgment of the crowd. It is a culture of oversensitivity, overreaction and frequent moral panics, during which everybody feels compelled to go along."

Brooks believes that the college student can find a greater measure of stability by basing their identity on values that are “more permanent”:

·       "If we’re going to avoid a constant state of anxiety, people’s identities have to be based on standards of justice and virtue that are deeper and more permanent than the shifting fancy of the crowd. In an era of omnipresent social media, it’s probably doubly important to discover and name your own personal True North, vision of an ultimate good, which is worth defending even at the cost of unpopularity and exclusion."

However, on today’s college campus, imbued with moral relativism (MR), this has become difficult. For one thing, MR is attractive for the very reason that it is dangerous. It tells the students that they are in charge – the captain of their own ships. They can decide what is right for themselves. If it feels right to them, no one can objectively tell them that it is wrong. Consequently, the college campus celebrates any and all forms of sexual expression.

Brooks understandably ennobles that idea of finding “standards of justice and virtue that are deeper and more permanent than the shifting fancy of the crowd.” However, he wrongly associates these “more permanent” values with finding “your own personal True North.”

He is sending out contradictory signals – double messages. While on the one hand, he seems to recommend basing our values on what is objective and unchanging, but Brooks then suggests that we have to find our own personal subjective values. If our values are subjective, they will be as flimsy and impermanent as the university values that he derides. Also, they will be no less vulnerable to social pressure than the values they already possess.

Instead, in order to stand against the social pressures, we need to know that our values are objective, coming from above, and therefore are unchanging. It is only when we know this that we can stand against the tsunami of peer pressure and public opinion.

If we are going to resist persecution, it is not enough to know that we are standing upon our own “True North.” Jesus had recently suffered the worst imaginable death and His disciples were brought before the governing body – the Sanhedrin - that had earlier turned Him over to the Romans and demanded His death. Besides, these Apostles were also uneducated men, but when they were commanded to no longer speak of Jesus, they surprised the Sanhedrin with their courage:

·       But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.  And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.” (Acts 5:29-32; ESV)

The Apostles were able to withstand the threats and pressures because they were convinced that they were standing upon God’s own “True North,” not on their own values or fleeting sense of dignity.

Theology might be a Dirty Word, but it is Essential

Many Christians blindly claim,

• I don’t need theology. I just believe what the Bible says!”

Theology is now a dirty word, along with “doctrine” and “dogma,” but it’s also indispensable. How else can we know what the Bible teaches? We cannot simply believe one verse in isolation from the others. They all go together and require some diligent theological work in order to rightly relate them together.

Let’s take the example of Jesus healing on the Sabbath. His enemies claimed that He was sinning because He violated the command against working on the Sabbath (Deut. 5:12-15). However, Jesus responded:

• “Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing a man’s whole body on the Sabbath?  Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.” (John 7:23-24)

Consequently, we cannot judge simply from the appearance of a single verse. Instead, we have to understand how it fits into the immediate context and also the context of all God’s teachings. This is theology, and we do theology all the time, but some aren’t aware of this.

Let’s take an example that goes to the heart of the Gospel. In Psalm 7, David called upon God to judge him according to his righteousness:

• The Lord shall judge the people: judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness, and according to mine integrity that is in me.” (Ps. 7:8; KJV)

This sounds arrogant. How can any of us stand before God in our own righteousness! If we ask God for justice – for what we deserve - He will condemn the lot of us:

• Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin… For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. (Rom. 3:19-20, 23)

There are many verses that deny that we can deserve anything good from God by virtue of our own righteousness or integrity, apparently contrary to David’s hope. Paul insisted that one sin will kill us and only the free gift of God provides any basis for hope (Rom. 6:23). James, also claimed that one sin will damn us (James 2:10).

If anyone rejects theology, he must suffer with this paradox – that our hope is in our own righteousness, but we can’t place any hope in this righteousness. Believing both of these truths, on face value, is a sure prescription for confusion and uncertainty. Therefore, the paradox must be resolved through some serious study.

Interestingly, David also acknowledged that we are sinners who require the mercy of God:

• Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile… I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. (Ps. 32:1-5)

Well, if David understood that his blessedness derived from God’s forgiveness and not his own merit, how then could he be so brash as to direct God to judge him according to his own righteousness?

A little systematic theology can reconcile these two truths. In Psalm 7, David had been standing upon his righteousness in terms of his innocence regarding specific wrongdoing:

• Lest he [my enemy] tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces, while there is none to deliver. O Lord my God, If I have done this; if there be iniquity in my hands; If I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me; (yea, I have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy) (Ps 7:2-4)

David wasn’t pleading that he was righteous before God, but rather in his conflict with his enemy. He was the innocent party, while his enemy was guilty. Therefore, David was asking for justice in this criminal matter and not before God! He therefore pleaded:

• Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end; but establish the just: for the righteous God trieth the hearts and reins. (Ps 7:9)

There are two different aspects of justice. Before God, we are all guilty. However, before man, there are important distinctions between the innocent and the guilty. David knew he wasn’t righteous before God. However, in regards to his enemies, he regarded himself an innocent man.

Unless theology – a comprehensive study of Scripture – is used, we cannot rightly interpret the Word of truth:

• Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (2 Tim. 2:15)

Schizophrenia: Postmodern Style

Are we leading a schizoid existence – an alienation of heart from mind? James Davison Hunter would answer “yes”:

• We say we want a renewal of character in our day, but we don’t really know what we ask for. To have a renewal of character is to have a renewal of a creedal order that constrains limits, binds, obligates and compels. This price is too high for us to pay. We want character, but without unyielding conviction. We want strong morality, but without the emotional burden of guilt or shame. We want virtue, but without particular moral justifications that invariably offend. We want good without having to name evil. We want decency without the authority to insist upon it. We want moral community without any limitations to personal freedom. In short, we want what we cannot possibly have on the terms that we want it. (The Death of Character)

Do we know what we are asking for? No, according to Hunter! We want guilt, shame, and punishment but only for those who have wronged us. We want sex free from any restraints as long as this doesn’t apply to our girlfriend. Thus, we embrace double-standards even when we know that they violate logic and justice.

Usually, if a philosophy doesn’t work, it is either junked or revised, at least it should be! However, we don’t want to think about such disturbing things. After all, what is truth but an arbitrary social construct, right? It, therefore, can be used to serve our needs and whims.

However, there’s a cost. We wonder why our relationships fail and why our only guiding principle – satisfaction (what feels right) – seems to be increasingly unobtainable. Perhaps we have become alienated from whom we are truly intended to be?