The world as we know it is shaking. Today I received one of those familiar circular emails that talks about all that has changed since we were kids, and much has, like, sadly enough: fireworks - but it’s also fascinating to realise how much hadn’t... until now.
I saw photos last night of Christ Church cathedral, minus much of its spire and bearing gaping wounds, I remember taking the tourist tour as a kid, it seemed so old to me, so permanent. I’ve been watching with fascination the developments in the Middle East and North Africa and watching dictators who have ruled their petty fiefdoms for longer than I have been alive, staggering, if not toppling from their once apparently unassailable positions. Much like the fall of the soviet block in 1989, these givens of the international political landscape are suddenly and unforeseeably passing.
And this instability is only the distant sort. In the last few years Australia herself has seen droughts, floods, fires, cyclones, international economic collapse, and all on a scale not seen for a very long time, if at all… things are changing.
And it just strikes me how fragile so many of the things we take as certainties are. We live each day, and make deals and buy and sell and love and laugh, all dependent upon the assumption that the society in which we live and move, will go on, much as it did yesterday, at least until after our retirement. But where do we get this assumption from? If anything, history should teach us that virtually everything societally, environmentally and economically that we generally depend upon, is actually fragile and subject to change at very short notice. Just take a look at the garage of someone who grew up in the depression. Notice all the ‘this might be useful one day’ odds and ends, and you’ll realise that former generations didn’t see life with the same blind trust in its stability that our younger generations seem to.
And if they are fleeting and passing, why do we put so much store in them?
If a flood can take a house, if an economic collapse can take a retirement nest egg: perhaps it might be time for a reassessment both of what we value, and in what we trust?
When change comes, what will we try to preserve? When necessity forces us to choose only a very limited selection from the things that fill our lives, what will we deem truly valuable? And when the people and institutions we look to and depend upon, reveal themselves to be unworthy of our trust, to whom will we turn?
Biblically, there are only two things significant enough to committ your life to: People and God. By implication, there are only two things really worth treasuring and building your life around: People and God. As the world changes around you, make sure the important stuff is kept at the centre, where it belongs.
May you find a firm place to stand, in a shakey world,
Blessings,
Douglas Haley.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Philosophical Proof, or Existential Proof
Why do Christians have this obsession with Philosophical Logical Proof? Like the most important defence of the Christian faith is to have some tight logical line of reasoning for the truth of the claims of Jesus. Haven't they realised that there's an expert in any field who can produce logical reasons why something is right or wrong, only to be revised in 10 years time.
In this regard, I often think about the poor sop who told the world that butter was bad for us, while those who were raised on butter live on in their 90s, those who changed horse and tried margarine are busily contracting breast cancer and dying young. Now that's not to say that margarine causes breast cancer, but it is to say that butter isn't bad for you.
Experts are often fairly useless despite their protestations.
It seems to me that the best way to test the truth of Jesus' claims is actually to try them on. To take them at face value and see if they really work. Do the things Jesus claimed about the world actually match the world or not? Does his view of events accurately reflect our experience?
What are some examples of the world verses Jesus?
In respect to the goodness or otherwise of humanity and the world. Much of modern science claims that the world is in a constant state of improvement (atheistic evolution - there is a version of evolution that involves God which is infinitely superior, but that's for another day), and that humanity, for all their faults are basically at their heart good. Jesus on the other hand stands in a tradition that holds that the world was created good, but is now in decay, and that humanity are inherently twisted such that they can't do the right thing, much of the time they struggle even to identify what the right thing is.
Now which of those two options better fits our experience of the world? I know which is more popular, everyone likes a happy ending with a good hero, and it's just much easier to be told that you're nice than nasty, but any funeral will tell you that there's something decaying about the world.
Almost any natural system we can find benefits from some level of stewardship or intervention. Does the human body work better when taken care of or when ignored? Does the human body live longer when it is forced to exercise or when its whims are heard and it is allowed to remain in front of the TV? Does a garden increase or decrease its health when left alone? Leave your garden alone for 6 months and see if the weak plants have been overcome by the strong or whether they've all managed to coexist.
Perhaps you view the mastery of the strong as a good, but I would ask to what you are appealing in forming your opinion of its goodness.
Systems tend toward decay, not fullness. Upward movements are the exception, not the trend. Only very rarely does humanity produce a Ghandi or a Walter Benjamin, but thugs and dictators are a dime a dozen.
Or look at the inherent goodness in humanity. What is there in the history of the world to justify that view? Children? How many parents have ever had to teach their kids to lie or be selfish? Kids are born with those instincts. They are inherent. Or the cruelty man perpetrates against man. What part of the ability of developed educated nations to build more and more powerful weapons, and to find opportunities to use them leads us to the view that humanity tend towards goodness rather than evil? People are capable of good, but without the restraints of society to hold them in check then life really does soon become: 'nasty brutish and short.'
Or take success and meaning in life. Our society seems convinced that money, fame and accolades are the true measure of success. Jesus indicates that they are all basically irrelevant. Now Mugabe is rich, Paris Hilton is famous and Tiger Woods has won a pile of awards, but are they really successful? Would you really like your kids to turn out like any of them? And if they're not successful, what does that say about the usual standards by which success is measured? Whose version of truth better fits with our experience of life?
If we try Jesus' claims for truth out, and honestly seek to see the world and live within his precepts, I suspect we will find that he is true. And quite independent of any logical gymnastics, valuable though that may be in its place, we will experience the truth of Jesus' claim that he is the way, the truth, and the life.
Taste and see whether or not the Lord is good.
Blessings,
doug.
In this regard, I often think about the poor sop who told the world that butter was bad for us, while those who were raised on butter live on in their 90s, those who changed horse and tried margarine are busily contracting breast cancer and dying young. Now that's not to say that margarine causes breast cancer, but it is to say that butter isn't bad for you.
Experts are often fairly useless despite their protestations.
It seems to me that the best way to test the truth of Jesus' claims is actually to try them on. To take them at face value and see if they really work. Do the things Jesus claimed about the world actually match the world or not? Does his view of events accurately reflect our experience?
What are some examples of the world verses Jesus?
In respect to the goodness or otherwise of humanity and the world. Much of modern science claims that the world is in a constant state of improvement (atheistic evolution - there is a version of evolution that involves God which is infinitely superior, but that's for another day), and that humanity, for all their faults are basically at their heart good. Jesus on the other hand stands in a tradition that holds that the world was created good, but is now in decay, and that humanity are inherently twisted such that they can't do the right thing, much of the time they struggle even to identify what the right thing is.
Now which of those two options better fits our experience of the world? I know which is more popular, everyone likes a happy ending with a good hero, and it's just much easier to be told that you're nice than nasty, but any funeral will tell you that there's something decaying about the world.
Almost any natural system we can find benefits from some level of stewardship or intervention. Does the human body work better when taken care of or when ignored? Does the human body live longer when it is forced to exercise or when its whims are heard and it is allowed to remain in front of the TV? Does a garden increase or decrease its health when left alone? Leave your garden alone for 6 months and see if the weak plants have been overcome by the strong or whether they've all managed to coexist.
Perhaps you view the mastery of the strong as a good, but I would ask to what you are appealing in forming your opinion of its goodness.
Systems tend toward decay, not fullness. Upward movements are the exception, not the trend. Only very rarely does humanity produce a Ghandi or a Walter Benjamin, but thugs and dictators are a dime a dozen.
Or look at the inherent goodness in humanity. What is there in the history of the world to justify that view? Children? How many parents have ever had to teach their kids to lie or be selfish? Kids are born with those instincts. They are inherent. Or the cruelty man perpetrates against man. What part of the ability of developed educated nations to build more and more powerful weapons, and to find opportunities to use them leads us to the view that humanity tend towards goodness rather than evil? People are capable of good, but without the restraints of society to hold them in check then life really does soon become: 'nasty brutish and short.'
Or take success and meaning in life. Our society seems convinced that money, fame and accolades are the true measure of success. Jesus indicates that they are all basically irrelevant. Now Mugabe is rich, Paris Hilton is famous and Tiger Woods has won a pile of awards, but are they really successful? Would you really like your kids to turn out like any of them? And if they're not successful, what does that say about the usual standards by which success is measured? Whose version of truth better fits with our experience of life?
If we try Jesus' claims for truth out, and honestly seek to see the world and live within his precepts, I suspect we will find that he is true. And quite independent of any logical gymnastics, valuable though that may be in its place, we will experience the truth of Jesus' claim that he is the way, the truth, and the life.
Taste and see whether or not the Lord is good.
Blessings,
doug.
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