And this does not mean that Truth is
relative such that what is true for you is true for you and what is true for me
is true for me. No. If we are simply the product of a fortuitous explosion then
there is no such category as Truth.
Truth is Indifference and is simply not-real. All ideas have the same weight, nothing…even this one, if there is nothing more foundational than matter. The insane who says he is god is equal to the nun who says she serves God is equal to the child who says she talks with God.
Why should humans have inalienable
rights if there is no God who says they should, if there is no God, humanity's grounding, who says
that all humans are beloved in his eyes? If there is no God, no Creator,
then if our political system values me more than the prostitute—because I am
educated, with financial assets and a respectable occupation and
because the prostitute is broken and disease riddled—then that’s completely
acceptable for no moral code can be argued as any better than another...for we are the products of chance!
But
if there is a Creator who made each human with affection and tenderness and says we are to love our brother and sister, then I
am compelled, and it is my longing!, to weep over the prostitute’s feet, to
kiss them, and to love the prostitute (and for the prostitute to love me!); for the prostitute is my brother and my
sister and our Creator made us both and loves us equally because the Creator
says we are loved equally.
But if there is no Creator, then
human rights is untenable. The value of a human being cannot be argued for, unless there is a Creator who says humans have value...because he or she made that human and loves that human.
And if there is no Creator, no
Mind who thought up this matter, then the ‘way we do things’ could just have
easily been their inverse and no one will be able to say anything different. Immorality
could have just as easily been the norm for civilization. Why can’t I kill you, unless there is a Creator who says
our life-blood is of infinite value?
If matter came first, the real
question is how such order manifested from such a chaotic birth? How has nature
organized itself in such magnificent intricacy if our universe is the bastard
of an irrational conception? How has a human become what he or she is, given
their earth’s improbable beginning? How have we ‘out-evolved’ our home? Why do
we use words like home and
intuitively understand the deepest groanings associated with that thought? Why
do we hear such stories of unspeakable brutality and recoil in horror? If we
are the product of total evolution without a Creator, then we should not be
appalled at ‘inhumanity.’ What is inhumanity in that sense? Humanity and
inhumanity are equally meaningless terms if we truly have an indifferent beginning, for
matter has no conscious. It is truly indifferent.
If
matter is my indifferent mother then why am I not indifferent?
Why
do we care so deeply?
If the reality is that we are not eternal creatures, then why do we
live as though we are? If there truly is nothing more than this one, short
existence, then how do we explain the world’s historically nagging inability to
accept that? We live each moment, even unknowingly, with the belief that our
actions, our decisions have purpose and lasting value. That is to live as
though we are eternal. But if we are not, why do our instincts betray us?
CS Lewis wrote, “How could an
idiotic universe have produced creatures whose mere dreams are so much stronger,
better, subtler than itself?”
I can only speak for
my soul alone, for that is the only thing in this universe which I understand
honestly—if I am honest.
When I say that I find far too
much beauty in the way the dew hangs on the grass, the way a river sits in the
morning sun, Hugo’s Les Miserables,
time spent playing sports and games with my brothers, I mean that I feel too much wonder to believe that all these emotions and thoughts and
sensations—the concept of feeling at all—are simply irrational, random, and
utterly purposeless. My soul craves purpose. It craves love. If matter came
first, then those words and the emotions that stem from them—purpose, love—have
no meaning. If everything is impersonal why are we driven by personality?
But if Mind preceded Matter, then
the laws of our universe have an ultimate law, or rather a law-giver. Someone
or something wrote gravity into the fabric of the earth. Someone imagined
climate, density, mass, DNA and created a brilliant masterpiece of color and
variety founded on processes and ingenuity. And most important, someone
understands and appreciates beauty, morality, justice, love. All these traits
which I strive after so vigorously, which I value so meaningfully, have their
origin in the earth’s Maker, in my Maker.
My soul feels restful when it
knows that it has purpose, for someone created it to have purpose. Thus I can
gaze upon a sunrise and feel such indescribable hope, and know that this is
because the One who created the sun was filled with hope. My basis for being is
based on that One. He or She is my mother and father and I resemble my Creator.
I know love because that One knows love. Nature then is my sister for she was
created by that One as well. If Mind in fact created matter, and breathed the
breath of life into it, then I can make love passionately, I can sacrifice
wholeheartedly, I can speak and think truthfully; for there is Truth behind everything I do or believe,
there is a First Mover (though not the philosophical type).
Again, only speaking from the basis
of my soul firmly entrenched within my sticky cultural context, it
testifies that my Creator thought this universe up. Mind created imagination
and heart. I can feel compassion because my Maker feels compassion. My soul has
purpose and we can value that purpose because our Maker wrote purpose into our
being.
With an indifferent, random conception,
my soul is unexplainable. But when my soul is told it was made in the image of
the One who created it, the pieces fit seamlessly and I can breathe.
This is not to say that I do not
believe in evolutionary processes. Science produces ample evidence that
creatures are remarkably complex and able to adapt to their environments.
Science has unearthed this hidden order in our universe, in organisms and
biological functions and there is so much more to unearth. We are intricately
organized as a universe. Scientists have discovered the building blocks of our cosmos.
The issue is, what is behind those building blocks; is there anything behind
them? What is the absolute foundation of these building blocks? I believe there
is something behind them: God.
Again, all I have is faith. Thus, faith is what we are left with. But with such a bloodthirsty history, why indeed is faith even a concept? Why are we entertaining these questions at all? It makes you think.
So on faith, the Great Story of
the Bible fits better than anything else. Or rather, I fit within the Great
Story better than anywhere else. It feels like home; at least my soul tells me
so.
But then my soul whispers, ‘Actually, home is yet to come...’
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