For many years now I have spent a significant amount of time speaking to college students at campuses around the Chicagoland area. What I love about speaking with college students is they are
in an environment of idea exchange and they enjoy engaging in thought provoking conversations. I often ask students where they find meaning for their lives and I often get answers in a similar vein; they usually tell me that meaning is wrapped up in what they will do with their lives or with whom they associate. That is the answer of a practical existentialist (whether they know it or not).
A second question to ask is, what would happen if I lost that which gives life meaning and purpose, could I go on with life or would it all be over at that instance? Most people, when I ask them that question, will tell me that they would go on, which indicates to me that it is not a true purpose or source of ultimate meaning. True and ultimate meaning, when taken away, would and should mean that life is over for us - we have no purpose for living any longer. True, some people feel that at the loss of a loved one; however, even if for a little while, they continue to live and survive. I believe that if that source of ultimate meaning ceased to exist, then we would cease to exist. If we continue to exist after that thing ceases, then it means that we had some other hidden purpose that kept us going.
Which is more difficult, to awaken one who sleeps or to awaken one who, awake, dreams that he is awake? --
Søren Kierkegaard, Works of Love (1847)
These words, though written more than a century and a half ago, could have been written about Christopher Nolan's latest movie, Inception. This movie, if you have not yet seen it, is a labyrinth of dream sequences of different levels into which the main character, Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) enters with his team to implant a thought into the head of Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) so that he will break up the oil empire that his father is set to leave him upon his imminent death.
Cobb, an architect by training, left the world of designing buildings to enter the world of designing dreamscapes. He develops his skills to not only extract information from people by entering their dreams, but to also implant ideas, leaving no trace of his having done so. Cobb is approached by Fischer's competitor and enticed by the offer of being able to return to his home and kids from whom he had been estranged due to legal troubles. To do this, he must go into the consciousness of Fischer through his dreams and continue going deeper and deeper into those levels of his consciousness until he can implant the thought without leaving evidence of his having been there.
In the end, Cobb's pursuit led him back to the relationship with his children (if you believe that, in the end, he was not still caught in a dream state), and that is a good pointer to the ultimate relationship to which we are called, but only a pointer. One of the benefits of human relationships is to point us to a still greater relationship, the relationship with God through Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul says, "now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known." (1 Cor. 13:12) That is the truth we are called to pursue.
You are probably looking at the title and asking, "what are you talking about?" Well, this topic came up during a discussion I am involved in on my local college campus. We've been discussing the idea of telos for some time now. For those not familiar with the word or the concept, telos means end, purpose or goal. In other words, when the author of the Westminster Shorter Catechism asked the question, "What is the chief end of man?" he was asking, "What is man's telos or purpose?" The pursuit of meaning has been, I believe, one of the oldest pursuits of man. Our researchers would take pictures of it, try to determine what it is made from, and try to determine its function. Let's also suppose that they were able to reduce the material make up to its base elements, all of which were common to the universe, even though the final make up of those elements was unfamiliar (I am supposing that the aliens had some technique to uniquely change the structure of these materials into a unique finished material for the sake of this illustration). So, we could determine what its make up was, its shape, size and weight, but would that tell us what it was? No, I don't think so. In essence, we would need to know the intent of the designer to know what it was and what its function was. In other words, we could not determine a "what" from a "how". Sometimes, I feel like that is what many are trying to do today. We look at evolutionary theory and theories are constructed as to how some creature developed, or even, some feature of the creature. But, does that description, even if it is valid, determine what that thing is? If we knew nothing else about the feature or the creature, like the foreign object from the alien craft, would merely describing its make up and development determine its telos? I don't think so. Now, suppose we are the product of purely natural processes, how would we determine our telos, or would we even have a telos? I don't think that natural processes determine telos. Telos always seems to come from the mind of a designer. Machines obviously don't think and don't determine their own purpose. If we are merely glorified machines, I don't know why it would be any different for us. In fact, I am I don't see that a how could determine a what. I think that the chief end of man must be determined by the one who designed up and designated our purpose. He has revealed that the chief end of man is to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever.
So, your asking, what does the title of this blog post have to do with this discussion of telos? Let me explain. The question was asked whether we could tell what a thing was by how it was made. In other words, can we describe a thing, its composition, its features and make up, and determine what it is? Let's use a hypothetical to try to illustrate. Suppose an alien craft was passing by our planet and something fell off and landed in such a way that it remained completely intact and undamaged. Suppose also that this object was something that we had never seen, made from a material of which we were completely unfamiliar. In other words, it is a completely foreign object to our observers, scientists and philosophers.
not sure what it would mean to determine one's own purpose and if it could be done, why any purpose, say being an evil dictator, would be any worse or better than determining that you were going to help the poor. After all, given the scenario that one determines his or her own purpose, who could say that the one that he or she chose was wrong.
We have all likely seen the reports on these "double blind" prayer experiments. The idea is to test whether prayer "works". Here is how these experiments work. First, a group of people with longer-term illnesses is identified, usually these people are hospitalized so that results can be tracked. Next, a group of people is identified to pray for these ailing people.
These types of studies, in addition to trying to determine whether prayer works, have been used as evidence for and against the existence of God. The U.K. radio program, Unbelievable?1, recently featured a discussion between U.S. atheist and professor of physics, Victor Stenger and British Christian and statistician, David Bartholomew on the issue of whether double-blind prayer studies prove or disprove the existence of God.
Bartholomew took the same position that C.S. Lewis took during his lifetime, that these studies prove nothing regarding prayer or the existence of God. Gregory and Christopher Fung quote Lewis as saying, "The trouble is that I do not see how any real prayer could go on under such conditions...Simply to say prayers is not to pray; otherwise a team of properly trained parrots would serve as well as men for our experiment."2
One of the most recent of these studies, conducted by the Harvard Medical School, was The Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP). The study, conducted over 10 years, with the cost of $2.4 million, produced the kind of results that C.S. Lewis would not have been surprised to see. This study included over 1,800 patients with heart conditions requiring surgery. The patients were divided into three groups: one group knowingly received prayer from a group of Chrisitans; the second and third group were told that they may or may not receive prayer; with one receiving prayer and the other not. The first group for whom prayers were offered to their knowledge, actually did worst of all, followed by the group that didn't know that they were receiving prayer but actually did. The group that did the best was the one for whom no prayers were offered by the research prayer group.
The researchers were actually not surprised by the results as they suspected that the first group might have felt pressure to get better knowing that prayers were being offered. Evangelicals have offered other reasons for the results, such as that many of those who didn't receive prayer from the research prayer team probably did receive prayers from family members and friends. However, I would like to add another idea to the mix.
Even though these are double-blind experiments, there are actually three parties involved, and the third party cannot be blinded to the study. Of course, God is that third party and God is fully aware of what is going on in these experiments. Victor Stenger asserted on the radio program that God would want to answer prayers for those who are sincerely seeking him, he would want to make himself known. Stenger argues that a God who hides himself cannot exist. He says that a good God, a moral God would not deliberately hide himself from people who are open to the possibility of his existence. Stenger says that given positive results of this type of prayer study he would immediately return to the church of his youth, the Roman Catholic church.
I have a few things to say about this argument. First, I don't believe that God hides himself from his creation. The Apostle Paul tells us in the first chapter of the Book of Romans that "what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them." (v. 19) Paul explains that God's "invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they [we] are without excuse." (v. 20) This hardly seems to be describing a God who "hides" himself. On the other hand, I do believe that God keeps an epistemic distance from his creation so as not to force us to believe, and this may be to what Stenger is actually referring.
The main issue is that God is not necessarily interested in our believing that he exists. What, you ask, God doesn't want me to believe that he exists? That is not what I am saying. God could make it very clear to all creation that he exists in any number of ways. But, what would that accomplish? He would have a world of people at a point in history who know he exists; however, would that mean that he would necessarily have more people who trust in him? I don't think so. In fact, many would come to resent God forcing himself upon his creation.
Suppose that the government came along and decided that they would choose who your spouse was going to be, do you think that the knowledge of your intended spouse's existence and selection would cause you to love him or her? No, in fact, many would resent being told who to marry and many would resist that union. So why, given the irrefutable knowledge of God's existence, would it lead Victor Stenger or anyone else to love and trust in him? People, especially Americans like Stenger, don't like being bullied, and that is just how many would take this kind of imposition of God into the lives of his creation.
I, like the Apostle Paul, think that there is enough evidence for God's existence for those who are open to honestly considering that evidence. I think that the evidence is quite good for God's existence and am laying out some of those evidences this Summer in a class that I am teaching. However, this same evidence is rejected by people every day. In other words, God is not going to force the issue, but he is willing to make himself known to those who diligently seek him out.
So, let's scrap these prayer experiments and remember that God is not a cosmic vending machine. We cannot simply put in our prayer token, push a button and look for that packaged answer to prayer. God is a person who is fully aware of what is going on with these studies and what impact would come from giving positive results. It is interesting that these studies sometimes do produce results that some interpret to show that prayer "works," yet still, unbelievers make excuses as to why the study was flawed. So, I would beg to differ with Dr. Stenger and say that no matter what the results, it won't change in what a person puts his or her trust. It may make them more likely to pray, but not more likely to trust in the God who hears those prayers.
It has been 37 years since the ruling of the Roe v. Wade case by the U.S. Supreme Court. To date over 51,000,000 babies have "legally" lost their lives as a result of this ruling. That is the equivalent of roughly 17% of the current U.S. population. We can honestly say that a generation has been lost. The city of Jackson, MS decided to create a display to represent what this looks like in pennies - that is a half-million dollars worth of pennies. However, how does one put a value on a human life? Well, there are a few ways to do this. First, from a purely naturalistic point of view, we can sum up the cost of the ingredients. Here is a list of what makes up the human body: 65% Oxygen, 18% Carbon, 10% Hydrogen, 3% Nitrogen, 1.5% Calcium, 1% Phosphorous, 0.35% Potassium, 0.25% Sulfur, 0.15% Sodium, 0.15% Chlorine, 0.05% Magnesium, 0.0004% Iron, 0.00004% Iodine; the actual weight of these ingredients will vary by body. Yet, the rough estimates of the cost of these elements would run between $5-$90. Still, we look at the body and we know that it is not just the materials that make it up, it is made up of complex parts, so what would they cost? It must first be understood that it is illegal to traffic in human body parts. However, the website Accuracy in Media recently ran a story of a human kidney that was being auctioned off on eBay. The bidding hit $5.7 million before eBay put a stop to the auction. I mentioned that it is illegal to traffic in human parts; however, that does not apply to the parts of aborted babies. In that case, a spinal cord can bring in $325 and a brain $999. As far back as Plato and Aristotle, it has been understood that man has a soul, so even if we added up the "sum of the parts," we would still have an aspect to us that could never be sold on eBay; and, despite what you see in books and movies, the soul cannot be sold. In fact, there is an aspect to the soul that gives it this immeasurable value, which is that it is made in the image of God (Imago Dei). When God created man he said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." (Gen. 1:26) David describes, "For you formed my inward parts;you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made...Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them." (Psalm 139: 13, 14a, 16) It is for this reason that every time we abort one of these precious little ones we killing one made in the image of God and knitted together by him. It is true that we cannot destroy that soul as that is eternal; however, we are taking the life of God's creation, an innocent life. When my wife and I saw the movie Amazing Grace a few years ago, we both walked out weeping and wishing that God would raise up a Wilberforce for our times to help bring an end to this blight on our society. May we pray for an end to this scourge and do what we can to support life.
Years ago, in fact when I was a kid, Coca Cola had a tagline, It's the Real Thing. I'm not sure why they believed that this was the right message for the time (1969), but for some reason that is the message that their marketing team thought was most important to convey. People always feel more secure dealing with the real thing in these days of fakery and fraud. We want to know when we buy something online that we are going to get the genuine item and are dealing with a legitimate merchant.
Friedrich Nietzsche, in his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, wrote of Jesus, "If only he had remained in the desert and far away from the good and the just! Perhaps he would have learned to live and to love the earth - and even to laugh! Believe me, my brothers! He died too early; he himself would have recanted his teaching if he had reached my age! He was noble enough for recanting! But he had not yet matured." (from On Free Death, p. 55) Nietzsche's mistake was to think that this world was all there was to reality, when in fact, Jesus knew of a better reality - he knew the difference between the real and the really real.
Jesus, through his resurrection demolished the idea that this physical world is all there is to reality. Jesus told his disciples that he was going to prepare a place for them and that he would come back and take them with him, he said "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” (John 14:6,7) In Jesus we have seen God.
You may not be familiar with PZ Myers; however, he is one of the vocal new atheists out there ranting against the existence of God, and Christianity in particular. Myers is an associate professor of biology at University of Minnesota, Morris and publishes a blog by the name of Pharyngula.
To me, the core of the Christian faith is humility, which starts with recognizing that you're as fallen as anyone else. And we're all constantly trying to get better, but... so I'm sure I come up short on way too many occasions.
I'd answer differently. In the absence of a god-given absolute morality, all that matters is how we treat one another in this one life we have. What flows naturally to me is not brutality, which requires an absence of awareness of the suffering of others, but recognition of the fact that my fellow human beings really are my equals: we're all going to die, we only have these few brief decades of life, and who am I to deny someone else the same opportunities I've been given?
Posts
