Self-Contentment: It’s Limts

How did the Stoic philosopher deal with pain and persecution? The Roman Stoic Seneca wrote:

• “It is the mind that makes us rich; this goes with us into exile, and in the wildest wilderness, having found there all that the body needs for its sustenance, it itself overflows in the enjoyment of its own goods.”

While such self-contentment is admirable, the Russian author Leo Tolstoy understood that it could only be temporary. It had only been temporary for him:

• "A person could live only so long as he was drunk; but the moment he sobered up, he could not help seeing that all that was only a deception, and a stupid deception at that."

Atheist and mathematician, Bertrand Russell, had been content with his life. He had even penned a book proudly entitled, Why I am not a Christian. However, some years later, Russell confessed:

• "I wrote with passion and force because I really thought I had a gospel [creating his own meaning]. Now I am cynical about the gospel because it won’t stand the test of life." (Os Guinness, The Journey, 106)

One of the New Testament authors, Paul, that contentment with our present lives would not be enough:

• If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. (1 Cor. 15:19-20)

Even if our situation is comfortable, contentment with this life can only be temporary. This understanding eventually brought Leo Tolstoy to his Savior Jesus.

Buddhism and the Prospect of Death

Editor of World Magazine, Marvin Olasky, cites Alex Lickerman, former director of primary care at the University of Chicago. He has been a practicing Buddhist for 26 years, but to little avail, when it came to managing his fear of death:

·       “One of the supposed benefits of manifesting the life-condition of Buddha is freedom from all fear. I’ve tried to resolve my fear of death intellectually and come to the conclusion that it can’t be done, at least not by me.”

·       “Whenever I’ve tried wrapping my mind around the concept of my own demise… I’ve unearthed a fear so overwhelming my mind has been turned aside.”

This should not be surprising. Death is a reality so bleak that it can only be faced with denial. A discussion leader informed the group that he derived comfort from the fact that the world is eternal. I responded, “What comfort can you derive if the world goes on, but you don’t?”

He didn’t have an answer, but we do. Our Savior promised us:

·       "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:1-3)

We have an eternal home with the One who loves us so much He died for us, even when we were His enemies.

Reincarnation and the Bible

My Response to a Jewish young man inquiring about Reincarnation in the Bible:

Indeed, the evidence for reincarnation is highly obscure. Take the Job 1:21 verse you had offered as evidence for reincarnation:

• “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart.The Lord gave [life] and the Lord has taken away [life].”

I am quoting from the ESV, which seems to be the superior translation from the standpoint of the context and the Hebrew parallelism. Notice how the second phrase parallels the first in its meaning, as it should. Naked [without anything] Job came into the world and naked [without anything] he will depart is paralleled with the Lord giving life and taking away life. No suggestion of reincarnation here!

For Job to have been referring to reincarnation is to minimize his great losses – the very thing that Job was not doing here or in the rest of the book! In light of this, it does not seem that there is any evidence here for reincarnation.

You also offered Hebrews 7:10 as evidence:

• Levi was still in the body of his ancestor [Abraham]. 

The fact that “Levi was still in the body of his ancestor” was the same as saying that he was a descendant of Abraham, according to Hebraic thought. This says nothing about reincarnation.

Instead, I think that the best support for reincarnation in the Bible comes from the verses regarding Elijah’s seemingly physical return:

• “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.” (Malachi 4:5-6)

Jesus even told his disciples that this prophecy had been fulfilled through the ministry of John the Baptist:

• And they asked him, “Why do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?” Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah does come first, and restores all things. Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected?  But I tell you, Elijah has come, and they have done to him everything they wished, just as it is written about him.” (Mark 9:11-13)

However, an angel of the Lord informed John’s father Zacharias:

• And he [John] will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” (Luke 1:17) 

Here, the angel provided a more figurative interpretation of the Malachi prophecy. Zacharias’ son would not literally be Elijah but would reflect him. John also acknowledged that he was not a return of the literal Elijah (John 1:21-27).

Despite this, even if you insist on taking Jesus literally, that John was literally Elijah, this still wouldn’t constitute evidence of reincarnation. Remember, Elijah had never died (2 Kings 2:11).

Against the insistence that the Bible teaches reincarnation, a mountain of evidence can be assembled. The Bible’s teachings on the final judgment are all based on the assumption that we cannot be cavalier about this life, assuming that we will get many other chances and lives. Instead, judgment will come suddenly, and we have to be prepared. For example, the parables of Jesus are replete with such warnings. In one parable, in the absence of his Master, a foreman beats the servants. However:

• The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of.  He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 24:50-51)

The master will not reincarnate that wicked servant. Instead, He will condemn him!

Jesus then uses the example of servants entrusted by their Master with investment money. However, upon His return, the Master found that one servant did not invest the money. He therefore judged:

• “Throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Mat. 25:30)

Jesus never gives any indication that the second or third chance of reincarnation will be an option. In fact, He seems to indicate that no other chance will be given. In the next parable, He uses the example of servants who failed to serve Him:

• “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels…Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” (Mat. 25:41, 46)

In fact all of the many judgment verses seem to preclude a second chance provided by reincarnation. For example, Paul taught that those who had been persecuting the church:

• Will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might. (2 Thess. 1:9) 

He didn’t suggest that this will only happen to the persecutors if they failed to repent in their next 90 lives! The Book of Hebrews says it more explicitly:

• Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment. (Heb. 9:27) 

This coincides with the logic of Scripture. One life is enough to determine whether the sinner will cry out to Christ for His mercy and repent of his sins to receive salvation. Multiple lives will not provide a necessary second chance but rather will reconfirm the judgment of God:

• As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips.” (Romans 3:10-13)

While reincarnation claims that we have not received an adequate chance in our one life, Scripture warns us that the verdict is already in, and our only hope is in the mercy of the Messiah.

Reincarnation gives the appearance of graciousness – a willingness to be patient. Instead, it encourages complacency and dulls us to the impending consequences of our rebellion.

Death, Life, Afterlife, Atheism and the Meaning of Life

 

Often the best way to disagree with our opponents is to agree with them – to build bridges of communication by first sharing common perspectives. Philip Appleman, an atheist, wrote:

• Most of us need to be much tougher-minded than we are, more resolute in rejecting the bribes of the afterlife. Once definitely done with our adolescent longing for the Absolute, we would find this world valuable after all, and poignantly valuable precisely because it is not eternal. Doomed to extinction, our loves, our work, our friendships, our tastes are all painfully precious. We look about us…and discover that we are beautiful because we are mortal, priceless because we are so rare in the universe and so fleeting. Whatever we are, whatever we make of ourselves: that is all we will ever have –and that, in its profound simplicity, is the meaning of life. (Pique, Sept. 2012)

Of course, we can find much to disagree with in this statement. However, we can find areas of agreement, especially in the thoughts I’ve italicized.

This might sound strange to you, but death is a gift. It may be a painful reality, but we need it, at least for now. For one thing, an appreciation of the temporary nature of our lives provides an incentive to gain wisdom, as the Psalmist claims:

• Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12)

If instead, our lives were indestructible, we would have little reason to gain wisdom. Who would need wisdom about health matters? However, our lives are very limited, and therefore, we can’t take them for granted.

I like to remind myself of this fact. I do this by walking in cemeteries and reading the inscriptions on the stones. They remind me that my own life is very temporary, and even more, that my relationships are merely a temporary gift. This fact urges me to cherish my dear wife for the short time she has been entrusted to me and to keep the brief irritations in their proper, insignificant context.

We’ve all seen the tears, relief and joy when a loved one is miraculously pulled alive out of the rubble of a killer-earthquake. Nothing is more precious than their reunion with the loved one! All hurts and resentments are forgiven and forgotten.

It is therefore no wonder that the Psalmist prays:

• Show me, O Lord, my life's end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man's life is but a breath. Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro: He bustles about, but only in vain; he heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it. But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you. (Psalm 39:4-7)

Death and the prospect of death not only restore us to sanity – a proper appreciation of our lives and relationships - it also restores our primary relationship. If we are indestructible, there is little to hope for. Drought, disease and thirst can’t touch us. However, as the Psalmist is reminded that he is a mere “breath,” he is forced to look hopefully towards God. Only God is an adequate source of hope. Even if a man “heaps up wealth” during his short sojourn, it is utterly meaningless.

Once we build our bridge of communication through sharing areas of agreement, we can begin to use it to probe the disagreements. In contrast to our Biblical perspective, Appleman asserts:

• Whatever we are, whatever we make of ourselves: that is all we will ever have –and that, in its profound simplicity, is the meaning of life.

However, how can we can we find hope and consolation in such a “meaning” – “Whatever we are, whatever we make of ourselves?”  Instead of producing hope, it lays an extra burden on our backs to produce and accomplish - but for what? We can even argue that an accomplishment-based identity is socially counterproductive. Emphasis on our differing levels of accomplishment separates people into classes, breeding arrogance, isolation and stratification rather than community.

This of course brings additional problems. If we derive our ultimate value from our job or our children, what happens to us when they depart? Won’t this create an unhealthy dependency?

Appleman also insists that we are “priceless because we are so rare in the universe.” Although rareness can drive up the price of oil, what makes us a priceless commodity? Rarity can’t do it! The bubonic plague is rare, but this does not make it priceless.

Besides, if we are just another animal on the evolutionary gradient, we might be priceless to our children, but so is the cockroach to its children, at least until the children leave home and we become an elderly burden. What then makes us priceless in an unchanging, objective sense?

Our Declaration of Independence identified the source of our pricelessness:

• We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Our Founding Fathers understood that our value and rights couldn’t depend upon others, least of all government or society to bestow them. Our rights and value had to rest upon sturdier stuff – our unchanging and all-wise Creator. Only He could make our rights unalienable rights. If instead our rights and value were granted by government, they could just as easily be retracted by government.

Appleman needs to understand that our pricelessness can only be grounded in a priceless God. Lord, grant us the wisdom to be the light!

Our Hope in the Next Life

Some atheists charge that the belief in an afterlife detracts from our appreciation and involvement in this one. One atheist publication quoted the words of the late writer and existentialist Albert Camus to make this charge:

• If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life. (Pique, 2012, 12)

Does our belief in the afterlife cause us diminish the “implacable grandeur of this life?” I don’t think so. As a teenage, I took up the sport of golf until it became painfully obvious that it failed to compliment my disposition. Perhaps most of all, I enjoyed going to the driving range as opposed to driving the golf ball into a net in a cage. I liked to see where my ball was going, and how I could affect it with my swing. However, the cage failed to allow me to see beyond the net, which swallowed the ball. The little satisfaction I derived in the cage was limited to the feel of the impact of the club with the ball.

Likewise, if our lives come to their final end at death, we cannot follow the ball after the impact. It stops abruptly and with it meaning and purpose. Our expectation of finding peace and justice also comes to a sudden and meaningless end. The net puts up a hasty end to everything.

Life is also like a jigsaw puzzle. There is little satisfaction without completion, and any sense of completion is also snuffed out by the net.

Interestingly, on the same page of this issue of Pique, one atheist (Secular Humanist) wrote:

• One problem that may arise for organizations promoting rationality [the arrogant claim of atheists] is that their supporters and patrons may lack the fervor of their counterparts in the worlds of “faith” and “religious piety.”

How illuminating! On the one hand, the atheist denies that we lack “fervor” for this life, but on the other hand, they lament that we have more fervor than they have! And their lamentation is understandable. Clarence Darrow had famously declared:

• The purpose of man is like the purpose of a pollywog—two wiggle along as far as he can without dying; or, to hang to life until death takes him.

Such an understanding will fail to make us excited about such a grotesque life. Indeed, are not constructed to thrive on such a “purpose,” merely hanging to “life until death takes us.” This will undermine any fervor for this life. Meaning ultimately depends upon seeing where the golf ball is going.

Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist, Victor Frankl, observed many who died prematurely because they had “lost faith in the future”:

• “The prisoner who had lost faith in the future—his future—was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and become subject to mental and physical decay.”

When we’re young and have the means for an “improved” life in this world, our faith need not take us beyond the net. However, as we age and accumulate scars and losses, we need to see beyond the net. Christian philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, was looking beyond the net, when he declared that our lives require the significance-imparting bigger picture:

• “What would be the purpose of discovering so-called objective truth?...What good would it do me to be able to explain the meaning of Christianity if it had no deeper significance for me and for my life?”

It is this view of the entire puzzle that breathes meaning and purpose into this life. Seeing the completed puzzle enabled Jesus to endure His hardships and serves as a model for us as we struggle with life’s problems:

• Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Hebrews 12:2-4)

We continue to redeem life because of “the joy set before” us. Others will snare at us, claiming that they don’t need God and His afterlife, since they are content with their lives. However, author and wealthy landowner, Leo Tolstoy, understood that this “contentment” was only temporary. It had only been temporary for him:

• "A person could live only so long as he was drunk; but the moment he sobered up, he could not help seeing that all that was only a deception, and a stupid deception at that."

Indeed, the world is drunk and deceived. Tolstoy eventually awoke to the hope of eternal life in Christ, understanding that without this joyous expectation, life’s disappointments are soon overwhelming.

Atheist and mathematician, Bertrand Russell had also been content with his own life, and it had lasted longer than Tolstoy’s. He had even penned a book proudly entitled, Why I am not a Christian. However, some years later, Russell conceded,

• "I wrote with passion and force because I really thought I had a gospel [creating his own meaning]. Now I am cynical about the gospel because it won’t stand the test of life." (Os Guinness, The Journey, 106)

Any “gospel” limited to this world will not stand. We are made for God’s afterlife, and the afterlife is made for us. Without it, we are destitute, as Paul confessed:

• If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. (1 Cor. 15:19-20)

This is a hope not only for the next life, but a hope that breaths new life into this one as well.