Monday, October 1, 2012
307 - The Gospel Makes No Sense
Spirituality
Column #307
October 2, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville
Logic and reason may be the twin towers of worldly intellectual life, but faith and freedom are required to experience and apply the wisdom of God.
We can thank the ancient Greeks for modern mankind’s obsession with physical evidence, reverence for forensic consensus, and stubbornness against accepting the truth of faith. “Truth” credited to Socrates (469-399 B.C.), Plato (427-347 B.C.) and Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), and championed by philosophers through the ages, grips both the highest reaches of contemporary academia and mankind’s simplest common sense.
That “truth” in a nutshell? Things are only true if one can explain them.
It is among Satan’s cleverest deceptions, convincing humans that ultimate truth a) resides inside each of us and b) is limited to what we can prove to others. God, desiring love and faith above all, bestows intellectual freedom on us to discover His truth. Some people do find God through Christ, but many find only themselves, or the world’s pleasures, or despair, or confusion. Some find only emptiness.
Absent faith in the ultimate goodness of God, the truth of Jesus Christ, and the comfort of the Holy Spirit, countless thinkers have busied themselves trying to make sense of the world by worshipping explanations or devising systems. They attempt to explain that which is unexplainable without faith in God; we mistakenly think ultimate truth will include a clear explanation. Not so.
In the world’s realm of evidence, power, and self-examination, the Gospel of Jesus Christ doesn’t make sense.
God became human? Prove it.
Almighty God, in the person of His own sinless son Jesus the Prince of Peace, died a violent sinner’s death on the cross to … free mankind from sin? Be serious.
Christ’s resurrection assures believers eternal life? Who have you ever seen “resurrected”?
God did all this to save the weak? This life favors the strong and powerful; if God exists, He (or She) favors them.
Historical ironies abound. Greek philosophy flowered in the intertestamental years between the writing of the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi (circa 500 B.C.) and the birth of the ultimate authoritative teacher, Jesus. From then until the 18th century A.D., academic and intellectual investigation was overwhelmingly devoted to discovery through the infinite lens of Christ’s wisdom. Today, the academy satisfies itself – restricts itself, actually – with the pocket magnifying glass of man’s knowledge.
In Greek-educated Paul’s 1 Corinthians 1:18-31, esp. v19, “the learning of the learned I will confound,” God declares the folly of intellectually “going it alone.”
Of course, we are free to think differently. But it’s not wise.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is studying 1 Corinthians Wednesday nights at E91 church (class open to all) with former Cambridge University lecturer Dr. George Bebawi.
October 2, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville
The Gospel Makes No
Sense
By Bob WaltersLogic and reason may be the twin towers of worldly intellectual life, but faith and freedom are required to experience and apply the wisdom of God.
We can thank the ancient Greeks for modern mankind’s obsession with physical evidence, reverence for forensic consensus, and stubbornness against accepting the truth of faith. “Truth” credited to Socrates (469-399 B.C.), Plato (427-347 B.C.) and Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), and championed by philosophers through the ages, grips both the highest reaches of contemporary academia and mankind’s simplest common sense.
That “truth” in a nutshell? Things are only true if one can explain them.
It is among Satan’s cleverest deceptions, convincing humans that ultimate truth a) resides inside each of us and b) is limited to what we can prove to others. God, desiring love and faith above all, bestows intellectual freedom on us to discover His truth. Some people do find God through Christ, but many find only themselves, or the world’s pleasures, or despair, or confusion. Some find only emptiness.
Absent faith in the ultimate goodness of God, the truth of Jesus Christ, and the comfort of the Holy Spirit, countless thinkers have busied themselves trying to make sense of the world by worshipping explanations or devising systems. They attempt to explain that which is unexplainable without faith in God; we mistakenly think ultimate truth will include a clear explanation. Not so.
In the world’s realm of evidence, power, and self-examination, the Gospel of Jesus Christ doesn’t make sense.
God became human? Prove it.
Almighty God, in the person of His own sinless son Jesus the Prince of Peace, died a violent sinner’s death on the cross to … free mankind from sin? Be serious.
Christ’s resurrection assures believers eternal life? Who have you ever seen “resurrected”?
God did all this to save the weak? This life favors the strong and powerful; if God exists, He (or She) favors them.
Historical ironies abound. Greek philosophy flowered in the intertestamental years between the writing of the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi (circa 500 B.C.) and the birth of the ultimate authoritative teacher, Jesus. From then until the 18th century A.D., academic and intellectual investigation was overwhelmingly devoted to discovery through the infinite lens of Christ’s wisdom. Today, the academy satisfies itself – restricts itself, actually – with the pocket magnifying glass of man’s knowledge.
In Greek-educated Paul’s 1 Corinthians 1:18-31, esp. v19, “the learning of the learned I will confound,” God declares the folly of intellectually “going it alone.”
Of course, we are free to think differently. But it’s not wise.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is studying 1 Corinthians Wednesday nights at E91 church (class open to all) with former Cambridge University lecturer Dr. George Bebawi.
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