Isaiah 1:2 Hear O heavens! Listen O earth! For the Lord
has spoken: “I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled
against me.” They have forsaken the Lord; they spurned the Holy One and turned
their back on Him.
In this study of “Theism”
and “Atheism”, I read that there was another group that has captured the
imaginations of many as an alternative of seeing the question of the existence of
God as a subjective-practical question rather than an objective metaphysical
question. Sproul states that by this thinking, the question is dealt with on
the basis of a subjective evaluation of faith or its denial to produce a sort
of truce in the debate. Have you ever heard someone say: there are no absolute
truths, so what may be right for you may not be right for me, and what right be
right for me may not be right for you, but nobody is wrong”? By this thinking,
in concrete terms, may look at the issue this way: “I believe in God, and my
faith in God is meaningful to my life. It brings me comfort. It provides a goal and purpose in my life. It
offers hope to me that the universe is ultimately meaningful and because the
whole of existence is meaningful, than my individual life is meaningful.” But
on the other hand, a person may say: “I do not believe in God, and I’ve found
it quite meaningful to live without faith. So for me and my life, there is no
God.” For the one who finds faith meaningful, God is true, and for the one who
finds unbelief meaningful, God is not true. Live and let live, but there is no real
peace. Light and darkness cannot coexist.
Psalm 10:3-4 He
boasts of the cravings of his heart; he blesses the greedy and reviles the Lord.
In his pride the wicked does not seek Him; in all his thoughts there is no room
for God.
It was mentioned before,
that in our contemporary cultural today, when intolerance is regarded as the
supreme evil, this tolerant option seems like an attractive option for many
people. But here, Sproul points out that the question of the existence of God
is reduced to a question of practical meaningfulness in the life of individuals.
If truth is defined as that which is meaningful to the one who believes, then
of course anything that is meaningful to the individual may be regarded as true
to them. Also, anything that is not meaningful to the individual may be
regarded as false and depending upon how they feel about that matter or issue
and what is meaningful to them at any particular time, they can change their
mind. This approach to the question of existence of God does not solve the
tension of disagreement. It does serve to soften the emotional hostility that
often surrounds the debate. It does much to bring us peace, but little to bring
us truth. The issues of the objective existence of God remains. The question of
God’s existence is a different question from the question of what people find
meaningful and practice.
By taking this third
alternative, Sproul says that we discover many answers to questions of
practical meaningfulness, but logically, we do not find an answer to the
question of the existence of God. For
example, if I believe in God with all my heart and with all my mind and find
that belief so meaningful that I devote my life to serving the God; if I pray
to this God, and in fact that is not such God, all my praying and devotion and
sacrifice will not bring Him into existence. That is, if I find all kinds of
personal meaning by believing in God, that meaningfulness will not cause a God
to be, if in fact there is no such God. On the other hand, if I do not believe
in God and am convinced that God is the invention of superstitious minds, and
is irrelevant to my existence; if I find my meaning in life without reference
to God and in fact there is a God, then all of my unbelief and disinterest will
not change that fact. In the final analysis, there is either a God or gods, or
there are none. There is either something or someone ultimate apart from me. Or
there is not. French scientist-philosopher Blaise Pascal proposed this logical
wager or gamble: If I believe in God and there is no God, then I have lost
nothing. If I believe in God and there is a God, then I have great gain. If I
do not believe in God and there is no God, I have lost nothing. But if I do not
believe in God and that is a God, then I have great and eternal lose.
Isaiah 29:15-16 Woe to
those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the Lord, who do their
work in darkness and think, “Who sees us? Who will know?” You turn things
upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like clay! Shall what is
formed say to Him who formed it, “He did not make me”? Can the pot say of the
potter, “He knows nothing?”
Our individual belief or
lack of it cannot decide the ultimate question of the existence of God, nor can
a number of individual beliefs decide the ultimate issue. The majority can only
be descriptive of what the many believe rather than what actually is. They have
little to say in regard to ultimate truth. A majority of people on the street
can be wrong. In the objective realm of the question of the existence of God,
both sides cannot be right. There cannot be a God, or gods, on one hand and at
the same time be no gods. To avoid the pain of disagreement by affirming both
poles is a logical violation of the law of contradiction. The law of contradiction
is that “A” cannot be “A” and “non-A” at the same time. That is to say, there
cannot be God and no God at the same time. To say that God is and is not is to
speak irrational nonsense. No side-stepping the issue, distractions or running
down “rabbit trails”, the debate of the existence of God wages on for truth.
Let’s look at more next post.
Isaiah 25: 8-9 He
will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from
all faces; He will remove the disgrace of His people from all the earth. The
Lord has spoken . In that day they will say, “Surely this is our God; we
trusted in Him, and He saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in Him; let us
rejoice and be glad in His salvation.”
In Christ, Brian
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