MoonlitSavior's Xanga

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 03:28:16 GMT

I wonder sometimes how it is that people can just never be happy. No matter how much time you spend on that person, no matter what you give up for that person, no matter what you go out of your way to do for that person, or how many times you try to figure out what that person wants or what will make that person happy - that person always ends up disappointed in you. And it doesn't have to be anything about how you interacted together or something you did toward that person. It's just who you are and what you enjoy doing, or even your life dreams just don't measure up. I've pretty much given up on the idea that anyone in the world could ever truly love "everything" about another person.

I know that God loves everything about the way he created me. But the fact is, I don't always live that way. Are there things about my life that I love doing that God "didn't create me to do"? For example, I sin. Clearly God doesn't love the fact that I enjoy sinning. I love playing video games. Is that another area that God "doesn't love" about me? I enjoy watching various TV shows. Is that an area that God "doesn't love" about me?

God created us with a specific mold because he has a desire for what we would do with our lives. How much of my life has to fit that mold perfectly? And I don't want the crap cop-out answer: "none of it has to because God loves you and lets you in heaven anyway." Although technically true, there is no redemptive value to acting with that mindframe. Jesus says, "Be perfect, therefore, because your heavenly Father is perfect." And it's also a crap answer to say: "Oh, but he says that because he doesn't expect us to be perfect - he expects us to realize that we can't live up to the law." Again, although technically true, once again it is a terrible idea to go into an action saying, "It's ok. God doesn't really expect me to be perfect. I know I can't live up to the law, so it's ok that I'm doing this."

Sometimes I just don't have the energy to keep doing the things I know are what I'm made to be doing. People say that if you're living your life exactly as God created you to be that you'd always be happy and energized. But either I'm terribly mistaken as what I'm supposed to be doing or that's just not true. Because every time I'm happy and energized to carry on my work, someone else is upset.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:56:45 GMT

What is love? The Bible talks about love in 4 different contexts: heart, soul, mind, and strength. But it also gives us an entire book devoted to love - not in the abstract as a concept, but in practice between two people: Song of Songs. Oddly enough, the book is often looked at in the abstract anyway; people try to suggest, "Here is a perfect allegory for the theoretical love that people can have for God and God has for us." Song of Songs has three Hebrew words for Love: Raya, Ahava, and Dode. Raya is the friendship love that desires to do things together, to engage each other's interests, and the genuine fact that you get along all the time. It has been described as a love that defines "soul mates." Ahava is the committment form of love that says, "In all of this vast universe, no matter what the circumstancse are, good or bad, and no matter at what point in my life we're at - more than anything, I want to be right here with you." Dode is the physical love that is concerned with the passionate kissing and fondling that lovers do. And when we talk about love in teh heart, soul, mind, and strength contexts we can see how each of these has their place. Let's see how the beloved (wife of Solomon) experiences each of the aspects of love in practice.

1. Heart

Heart is all about emotions. Many people mistake this portion of love for the totality of it because it is the easiest to recognize and usually has the most control over our decisions. In fact, it has so much power that the beloved warns three times: "Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires." There is no doubt that the beloved speaks many of her words out of passion. This is not just because women tend to express their emotions more easily than men do, but because this expression of passion is her primary means of communicating to her lover how important he is. Point 1: To love someone with your heart is to express your emotions in a way that shows how much you value that person.

She eagerly desires his kisses - the first thing she even says in this book. She wants to be swept off her feet - taken away. She wants to know where he is that she might run to him. His love is more delightful than wine, as if she could get drunk on it. But this emotion is not just for her benefit. She uses it to make his heart rejoice (3:11). She uses her emotions to drive her to pursue him while he is away (3:1-4). She seeks to entice his emotions (4:16; 5:8; 8:5). Point 2: Love is using your emotions for the good pleasure of the other.

2. Soul

Love of the soul is primarily a spiritual matter. But the soul is also the source of what gives us our ability to choose. Many people understand that marriage exists not only for the benefit of men and women, but also for God's benefit, which is rooted in the spiritual interactions among people. Oddly enough, the beloved never once talks about God, nor heaven or hell, nor the spirit. But the bond between a husband and wife is innately spiritual. Twice, the beloved says "my lover is mine and I am his" (2:16;6:3) In both contexts she talks of him going off to accomplish his heart's desire. In the first instance (2:16) she urges him to flee and be as free as a young stag running along the hills. In the second, (6:3) he goes off to browse among the lilies. A third time does she say, "I belong to my lover," but this time it is that his desire is for her (as opposed to "my lover is mine"). On this occasion they go off to do their work in the vineyards together with her planning to express her love at that time as well. Moreover, she spends a good portion of the book counseling other young maidens, which his way of life has left her the freedom to do. Point 3: Love is giving the other freedom to choose and enabling them to accomplish the work God has set out for them, even personally helping the other in that task.

A. Raya

It seems rather plain that love of the heart and soul fits into the Raya form of love. The way that they feel when they are interacting and the things that they do together demonstrate this perfect bond that we could expect from soulmates. "My lover is mine and I am his" is the ultimate way of saying: "We're perfect for each other." They are one in spirit. They go out in the vineyards to work; they attend banquets; their hearts throb when in the other's presence; they feel a constant longing when one is missing. This bond of friendship is not something to be taken lightly. Point 4: Love is rooted in a deep friendship and cannot maintain without this foundation.

3. Mind

The mind aspect of love also contains much of a choice element, but is primarily focussed on a continuing drive to know the other. The beloved is constantly learning new things about her lover that make her exclaim: "No wonder the maidens love you!" (1:3) And she chooses to teach him of the things that she has learned from her time growing up (8:2). All of her observations are things that she has learned of him and she longs to be with him to know him even more. She says, "Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away." It cannot be quenched because there is always more. You can never know everything about a person; if you are curious of your lover, you will realize that there is always a wellspring of information about the other person that will continue to lead to deeper and deeper intimacy. Rivers cannot wash it away because a committed mind is planted firmly in place and will not fail (1 Cor. 13:8). Point 5: Love is a constant curiosity of the other and thinking often of what you can learn from and about the other.

B. Ahava

Beyond friendship, these two lovers have decided that they will always be committed to each other. Most of their discourse is spent observing and learning about her lover. But their committment goes beyond all. She asks not only to be a seal over his heart - that he would always desire such intimacy with her until death, but also to be a seal on his arm that all could see his committment to her. That is why we have a wedding. People can very easily be married between only themselves, God and a Judge. But we invite all others along not only to celebrate, but to serve as witnesses to hold us secure to the committment that until our dying day, this is still the person you want to be with. Point 6: Love is a life-long committment.

4. Strength

The physical care takes its place here. The lover goes off to pray for his beloved; he works to provide for her; he hears her desires and meets them; he takes care of his body so that she may enjoy him; and he pleases her physically. Many of the things observed are not just to know about the other, but also because they physically desire each other. The lover uses his strength for her, but she also uses her strength for him. She watches out for foxes in the vineyards; she physically gets out of bed in the middle of the night to search for him; she endures beatings for his sake; and she prepares herself to sleep with him. Point 7: Love is looking out for the other's needs and desires above your own.

C. Dode

This almost goes without saying, but these two are physically enamored with each other. They're just looking for a chance to have sex. There is no doubt about that. But their desire is not for their own bodily pleasure, but out of a motivation to please the other. She spreads her perfume to arouse him; she gives him choice fruit to entice him; and she says point blank: "there I will give you my love." The first words she utters are a request for his kisses. This physical passion is powerful and not to be underestimated. While the emotion aspect of love is the most powerful of the 4 virtues, it is strongest when applied to the physical. Separately these two may not hold much flair. A woman who has no emotional connection to her lover will not likely care much for the physical interaction; nor would a man be able to truly connect with his beloved emotionally if not for the physical passion that drives him (again, not for his own good pleasure, but out of a desire to see her fully pleased). But when you mix these two, fireworks go off. Point 8: Love is the physical attraction between two people.

The Mixing

Love is
     using your emotions for the benefit of the other and not for self-pleasure
     giving the other freedom to accomplish God's work for their lives and helping in that task
     being curious about the other and wanting to know them more - beyond your desire to be known
     placing the physical needs of the other above your own and seeking to meet both needs and desires

You know when you are in love when
     you are able to interact in numerous areas of love and continue to want to spend more and more time with the other such that you would think of yourself as soul mates
     no matter what circumstances or place of life you are in, there is nowhere in the world that you would rather be than with that person - you are fully committed for life
     your desire is not only for your own physical pleasure, but also to see the other fully pleased.

Drop any one of these and you will see how things start to fall appart. Ahava and Dode without the Raya creates couples who are miserable together except when having sex, but will remain that way because they are committed. Raya and Ahava without the Dode creates frustrated lovers who have no way to express the overflow of their love for one another. Raya and Dode without the Ahava creates couples who are prone to cheat on the other or leave when they experience better Raya or Dode with another.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 20:26:16 GMT

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 04:33:07 GMT

Professor Dressler: a quote from Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. In it, Ivan poses the following question to his brother Alyosha:
"Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature---that baby beating its breast, for instance---and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect of those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth?"

Mr. Raju: In the novel, Alyosha comes to believe that we are all responsible for the sins of others, so it doesn't matter who committed the act, because all of us must deal with it, and so we must take unto ourselves the culpability of others. Society will not have reached its goal of "making men happy in the end", he believes, until men realize we are all guilty for the crimes of others. Therefore, Alyosha's question is a trap, for the killing of an innocent baby precludes us from being happy because all of us would have the guilt and culpability of killing that child. He cannot justify killing an innocent person because the social harm is our collective culpability.

Me: Mr. Raju's comments on communal responsibility bear a striking resemblance to "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula K. Le Guin, which was always taught as a Jesus-reference: http://harelbarzilai.org/words/omelas.txt In this story (as I recommend everyone should read), there is a more than perfect society that is wonderful and good in every sense of the word. It is not only happy (as at least one person said is not enough), but is also an improving society in every area of culture, science, philosophy, etc. The catch is that there is a child locked in a closet, scorned and dying to get out. Every person in Omelas knows that this child is there and also understand that if they let the child out of the closet their entire town's prosperity would be gone that day. The story says this to partially answer the question:

"To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of the happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed."

From there, what we are really asking is, are you willing to face your wounds and confront what you are hiding, or will you pretend you have no heart-wounds and live in a feigned blissful ignorance?

Though this question is very different, it stems from the same line of thought. To explain the jump I made, the original question talks of a new universe where we get to play God. Or, for all practical purposes, we can even talk of this universe under the Christian mentality, where a Christian, in theory, believes that God is the creator of this "fabric of human destiny." Christians also claim that Jesus was a perfectly innocent being who was made to be tortured to death (supposedly theologically at the hands of every person in the world who ever lived, as Mr. Raju suggests the brother eventually understands) in order that those who accept his death as having paid the price for their wrongs will get to go to heaven (i.e. the ideal happy place). I don't know if it is meant to be this way in the story, but it appears that Ivan is asking his brother: can you possibly believe in, or support, the God of Christians?

Now, we can't possibly expect to make judgments on any god at all, because if a god exists there is certainly no way we can condemn god when god's ability to reason, by definition, would be beyond our own. But it does make a difference that the God of Christians did not condemn a random person for the greater good, but theoretically put himself to death (how that works, I have no idea), since Jesus is supposed to be fully God. If this was Ivan's intent, the question now develops to: would you create a fabric of human destiny... ... ...but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death yourself for the sake of all the others? This seems more the appropriate question.

Not to get into a debate against Christian theology, what I see as the next logical step is the popular Christian saying: "Take up your cross daily and follow me" (which I believe was said by Jesus). My understanding (which may be very flawed) is that those who have a cross to take up are expected to do as Jesus did and sacrifice their self-seeking nature (however moral and lawful this nature might be lived out) for the betterment of all others, as determined by the path Jesus leads them on for that day.

But as the years went on, people naturally skew good principles so that today we have people who have sacrificed to the closet every wound or insufficiency in their heart that they may live out what appears to be a good and perfect life. I cannot count the times people have told me, "He/She just seems to have it all together and I feel like I'm falling apart." Nobody has it all together. We live just like those in Omelas, each on a personal, individual scale. Collectively, we unspokenly agree to hang out with others in this context. Surely there are sore, wounded parts of our hearts that are dying to be heard that we might be healed and rid of them from our town (i.e. conscious, soul, heart, whatever) forever. But woe to the thought that people might think poorly of us if they saw what we were hiding in the closet. We're all hiding something and we all know it. Or, we pretend that we are not hiding anything, but instead nobody has asked the right questions yet and if they were to ask then we would talk. Or maybe "I'm not hiding anything because I have my one or two friends that I tell everything to." But until we feel comfortable wearing our deepest shortcomings, imperfections or wounds on our sleeves, we are like those of Omelas. Note, though, that I am not talking about hiding the wrongs we have done, but wounds we have been victims of and imperfections inherent in who we are.

That is why the quote in the short story says that to let that child (i.e. our true selves, or at least part of) free would be to "let guilt within the walls indeed." This guilt is not the guilt of what we hide, but the guilt of hiding it at all - treating a completely innocent part of our hearts like this child just because we perceive it as unbearable to face. In such a case, it would be foolish to sacrifice this innocent piece of our lives because doing so only serves the purpose of making everyone else believe that they must do the same. On the outside, everything looks perfect, but our hearts may be bleeding (and not in the ordinary way that hearts pour blood through veins and arteries).

Back to the main topic, in short, I tend to agree with the possible Christian standing on this matter. While Mr. Slaybod would kill the innocent "even if it means sacrificing my freedom in the process," I would ONLY adhere to this rule if I were the one to be killed and nobody else's freedom is in jeopardy. Under no other circumstances would I "consent to be the architect of those conditions" nor would I condone the actions of another or even a god who would.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 23:32:51 GMT

I don't understand the mystery of emotions. And that lack of understanding is inherent in their design. Emotions are great for clouding judgment, knowledge and understanding until time gives those back to you. I learned that lesson the hard way (a few years ago) - I'd bet even harder than most of you reading this. I've felt emotions of all kinds - happy and sad, great and small, normal and weird; I've even gone through a period of several months with no emotions at all. I've also spent many years doing all I could to hide my emotions and have only just broken out of that phase two years.

Sure enough, it was brokenness and depression that led forth the rebellion of my heart against its walls. For just over a year, it was darkness and despair that ruled my life and brought the deepest emotions I'd ever felt in my life. I didn't even know the human body could handle such things as failure, rejection, divorce, abandonment, loneliness and hatred all within a two month period. (Our capacity to handle such things now goes to show the depth in capacity of our sinful nature.)

In that time, had I a better knowledge of the scriptures, in addition to 2 Corinthinas 1:8b-9, I would have prayed Philippians 3:10-11 as my theme verses: "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead." Of all those terrible things going on in my life - "I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ" (3:8). But what does it mean to "gain Christ"? How does one do that practically?

God has been laying this verse on my heart for quite some time:1 John 4:20 - "Anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen." Add to that John 3:12 - "I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?" and Ephesians 5:32, about husbands and wives - "This is a profound mystery - but I am talking about Christ and the church." These all point to the exact same thing: God intends earthly things to parallel the spiritual realm as a guide to help us understand heavenly things.

Now, of all the crap I've dealth with - wounding enough to warrant psychiatric help for some - there has been one hope that I have which lets me consider them rubbish that I may "gain Christ." Do I really know what it feels like to "gain Christ"? I can't say that I do. Two sentences later, Paul is even saying, "Not that I have already obtained all this" (3:12). But what I do have is a parallel - a bridge. Her name is Jessica Hayes. She is the one who shows me a silhouette of what it will feel like one day to "gain Christ." And if the mere silhouette is enough to count all my troubles as rubbish and view my life as a heaven-on-earth, how much greater the full thing?!?

A silhouette is but a mere outline of what we are to look at. It gives a framework for how the truth is meant to look - and she blows my mind. How can emotions make any sense when everything in the world is thrown against you along with the darkest feelings the world has to shove down your throat, yet all it takes is one girl who is captivating to her very core for me to "consider them rubbish" and be overjoyed with beatitude. How much more impossible might it be to understand the surpassing greatness that is "gaining Christ"? In the third heaven, Paul "heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell." This might be an extrapolation, but I believe that he felt inexpressible things as well.

That is what happened for me this weekend...

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 02:44:29 GMT

To make a drastic shift...I'm excited that I only have to wait FIVE MORE DAYS! before the most wonderful girl I know is here in Florida with me!!!!!

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Wed, 27 Dec 2006 20:32:32 GMT

There are two people who I've built my entire life around and now one of them is gone...and I don't know what to do. The very week I became so confident that I knew exactly where the rest of my life was to go was the same week when every one of those plans came tumbling down - not like blocks knocked over by a child, but like mountains moved by God without even a chance to pray about whether the mountain should be thrown into the sea or not. And now I have no idea what I'm to do...because I cannot carry on apart from the woman who is everything I ever wanted and more. She is the world to me...and without her I am standing on nothing and it is only Jesus Christ who cares enough to at least put air in my lungs...

Friday, December 01, 2006

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 06:05:41 GMT

Self-Identification as Motivation

You might be asking, “How can I love myself if you’re telling me I’m evil? Surely I should not love what is evil!” I think that’s exactly what the golden rule is trying to show: you can’t. I don’t mean that you can’t learn to love yourself, but that you can’t keep this rule. This is why all men are evil: because of their selfishness they cannot keep even the most basic of the moral rules. If we can’t love ourselves, we can’t possibly expect to love others, let alone a god who we can’t see, hear or touch. That, I believe, is why we don’t care about relating to the Author of Life. We’re so fixated on ourselves that we don’t really care about him. Furthermore, the few of us who have some level of competency in loving others are so poor at it that loving a god is impossible beyond all imagination, so we don’t bother trying. If we were to try, we would fail. Humans hate failure because failure hurts. So, as is commonly the case, we just stop caring so that we won’t have the hurt of failure.

But let us suppose we are not selfish at our core. Let us take a gander what life might look like if we were free from the constraints of selfishness. Without our selfishness being a wall that blocks the other smaller points of our selves from sight, we are able to hone in on what is truly important in life. I believe that if we were able to get past ourselves, we would see that we were created for another: the Author of Life. But let’s take a step back before we get there.

Consider what life might look like if everything mankind created had the ability to choose. Toasters could choose whether to burn the toast, cook it just right, or hitch a ride with your couch to Las Vegas and gamble away all the money they’ve stolen from you before a short-lived marriage begins. Now suppose that some of these creations decided to do what they were created to do, while a vast majority just ran rampant around the world causing havoc. The world would look pretty messed up, wouldn’t it? (If you want a better picture painted, watch the movie Maximum Overdrive. That will show you what that kind of world would look like.) Those creations that were loyal to their purpose would be greatly treasured and rewarded and would probably be so prized that anyone who stumbled across one would refuse to give it up. Let us assume there were no reward and that we would not treasure them any more than a piece of scrap metal that had no choice. Would that properly functional toaster have any reason at all to continue giving me a golden-brown slice of toast with my breakfast each morning? If he was not inherently selfish, it would only make sense for him to do what he was designed to do!

The only reason anything in all of creation might abandon its purpose is because of selfishness. Someone might argue, “But what if the toaster chooses to continue burning good toast but for someone else who needs his services more than his original owner? Then he would be abandoning his purposes for a good cause that isn’t selfish.” In this, it is selfish for the toaster to think that his discretion is more valuable than the price his original master paid for him. There is no getting around this truth: if we were not selfish or evil in nature, it follows that we should not only naturally fulfill our purpose, but have the desire to do so as well. Without the Author of Life directing our actions, free-will is just a mechanism by which we must attribute evil and chaos to ourselves.

The great paradox that we must now deal with is that our selfishness separates us from our purpose and there is no way in all of mankind that we can cease to be selfish. Even if Bill Gates were to give away every last cent of his life’s worth to some charity, he would still have at least the passing thought that people are going to like him more for being so generous. Here is what Buddha has to say on the matter of removing evil:

When Buddha was walking about as a person in this world, an aged Brahmin

dressed in white came and asked him, “How can Mankind and Brahmins do almsgiving

and maintain moral practices in the temple to the extent that they can be delivered from

sin?” Buddha answered, “Even though you all would do alms‑giving such as in the

ceremony of presenting new robes to the Buddhist priests, follow the 5 moral precepts,

the 8 moral precepts, the 10 moral precepts, 227, nine million or nine thousand to the

highest point; raise your hands in homage, give your body to be burned as an offering, or

meditate 5 times a day, you are still not likely to be delivered. If you did all of the above

every day you would gain merit only to the extent of a strand of hair on the head of an

unborn baby eight months in his mother’s womb; and if all of the above would be

multiplied countless numbers of times, it would not bring you into the door of heaven.

If this were not bad enough, Buddha himself even testifies to the fact even he in all his good doing is not able to remove the sin from his life:

The aged Brahmin then asked, “In that case, what are we to do to escape, and be delivered?” Buddha then said to the aged Brahmin, “The sin of mankind is exceedingly great: greater than the sky, thicker than the earth, higher than the wall foundation of rock buried around the temple area which is square and in arm’s length in width and depth. An angel wipes that rock with a cloth once a year. Whenever that rock disappears, mankind’s sin will be gone then.”

Buddha continued to preach, “I myself have renounced my earthly gods, lustful desires and have been celebate and considered myself a good person for more than eight infinities multiplied by ten to the twentieth strength. Add one hundred thousand etemities and ten lives of the Buddha's life in length and ohl You all, hear me if do good this long you will still not be likely to escape or be delivered at all.”

It is not that mankind sins so many times that it becomes great; no, an individual sin is what is exceedingly great. Some have said that if man were to know how exceedingly great the evil in his heart truly is, suicide would be the first reaction. But I think that we would never get that far because that implies some level of remorse for our evil; and without a God to give us a desire by revelation to pursue what is right, we would know no better than to find a twisted pleasure in our own evil, as a psychotic murderer might. Likewise, it is also this very same God who prevents us from being so evil as to all be psychotic murderers who would have destroyed the world long ago.

How every person on earth got to be this way can only be explained by the God of Christians. But because we are not speaking of the Christian God yet, I will emphasize more that apart from Him we cannot know why mankind is this way – merely that he is. Furthermore, there is nothing we can do to avoid being as such. Every person on earth understands that he/she is at least selfish and that though we may do good things, that selfishness is still there, not to mention the multitude of other evils within us that vary from person to person. And if the story in which we live is one of justice, we know that there must be a punishment for our evil, as determined by the Author of Life.

But before we move even slightly in that direction, I return to what I have been trying to say throughout this entire section: to know yourself is to know evil, yet desire better. Perhaps the greatest misconception in the world is that we can do enough good to cover our sins and thus be good people in general. And even in this you can see selfishness written all over it – that we want ourselves to be viewed as good, so we believe that out of our own power, we have the capacity to do enough good to overcome evil. Selfishness is borne out of pride and this is one of the most grievous prides man has imagined. So, even when we try to do good, be selfless and help others, we are still doing it to serve ourselves in some way. There is no escaping self-centeredness. But we try anyway. Why do we try? Because we know that there is something better than what we have and that is what we desperately long for. We have lost connection with the Author of Life – the only being in all the world who knows our purpose – so we try to bridge the gap on our own. Instead, if we were to look deep in our hearts, we would find that every person’s deepest desire is to do exactly what we were created to do: glorify the Author of Life by pursuing a loving relationship with him.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Thu, 16 Nov 2006 02:15:08 GMT

Book 2: The Revelation of God

“While God is who He is in His self-revelation, that divine revelation is God himself, for it is not just something of Himself that God reveals to us but His very own Self, His own ultimate being as God. …What God is toward us in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit He is in Himself in His own eternal being as God. …What God reveals of Himself and what He is in Himself are one and the same”

~Thomas F. Torrance

Chapter 1: The Importance of Revelation

“God’s revelation to man is the source for all truth…our major task in life is to discover what is true, and live accordingly.”

~TEMAA

Some people may wonder as to why we need a god to reveal himself to us. Suppose the meaning of life is to relate with the Author of Life; why should we care to relate to him? Or more so, if he wants us to be in relationship with him so that he can be glorified, why should we care to glorify him at all? These are legitimate questions and I cannot pretend to convince you that you should care; but I will tell you why I care. And if you do not care why I care, then you are welcome to skip my reasons for caring, though you may not find the rest of this book helpful if you do not even care why you should relate with God. So, I urge you to at least read what I am about to write to see if anything inspires you as it does for me.

Who am I?

When I think about why we should care about relating to our creator, much less glorifying him and not ourselves in the process, I try to consider why we should have any care at all about what we were designed to do. One of the great problems in this world today is that nobody likes themselves. And those that think they do simply don’t know themselves well enough. In understanding this principle, we often find ourselves wishing we were someone else. This is why American culture is so fascinated with celebrities and pop stars. It is why every culture in the world has children who often think to themselves, “I want to be a doctor/lawyer/fireman/teacher/etc. when I grow up.”

My personal favorite example of people wanting to be someone they’re not is in the question: if you could have any super power, what would it be? Everyone loves Superman or Spiderman or Batman or Wonder Woman, etc. We love superheroes because they are something that we are not. They have the power to change the world in a way that we could never dream about. They can make an impact and because of this everyone wants to have a relationship with them. Just think about it – what girl wouldn’t want to be Superman’s girlfriend, or what guy wouldn’t want to be able to say, “I know him personally”? We think ourselves incapable of doing anything that such people do.

Another false-reality that many people across the globe are falling into (myself included) is in the realm of massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs). In this setting, you get to create your own character, making him/her whatever you want him/her to be. Furthermore, these characters can travel through an entirely different world, interacting with real people from this world. And as you grow stronger, real people recognize you for your strength. I was once obsessed with this phenomenon and mastered one of these MMORPGs until I was the strongest character in the entire game: the famous MoonlitSavior. Everyone in the game knew who I was. So, I’d log on as a new, unknown character to talk with people. I found that some who I’d only talked to once as MoonlitSavior would brag that they were my personal friend. As MoonlitSavior I could say anything I wanted to and people would hang on every word.

Any of these ways of thinking lead to one central idea: if I do not like myself, I can choose to be somebody else. I full-heartedly agree that we have the power to choose to do anything we want to (and live with the consequences) and to shape the entire course of our lives – but does that give us the power to change who we are at the core of our being? I think of the poem “Richard Cory” by Edwin Robinson:

Whenever Richard Cory went to town,

We people on the pavement looked at him;

He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked;

But still he fluttered pulses when he said,

“Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich – yes, richer than a king –

And admirably schooled in every grace:

In fine, we thought that he was everything

To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without meat, and cursed the bread;

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Here is a man who is everything that everyone else wished they were. He is good-looking, makes the women flutter at just saying “Good-morning.” And yet he was human and down-to-earth, just like everyone else. In all practical purposes, he was a commoner at heart who was privileged to be more than just that. But something was either wrong with his life or he still lacked something. This is what killed him.

That is the gravity of being exactly who you are: be anyone else and you will find in yourself a deep remorse of your own life. Oddly enough, if we examine ourselves as imperfect, flawed beings, we will find nothing more than remorse in our own lives anyway. And that is why people think it would be better to be Richard Cory than themselves. If they’re going to hate who they are, they might as well hate it having everyone else want what they hate. What an ego-trip that is – that everyone should long for what you hate. But do not be fooled: Richard Cory was no better than those people, nor was he any better off. All he did was discover through experience that no man’s fantasy is ever what he expects it to be. And in that, I want you all to consider that the true fantasy is not in thinking what else we could be, but in thinking how much more we could be ourselves.

The primordial rule of moral philosophy is this: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Also known as the golden rule, it is sometimes reworded: love your neighbor as yourself. The famous Jesus of the Christian religion spoke these words, but it was no new command. He was not the originator of those words at that time, for them had been around ever since mankind can remember. I submit that mankind has such a hard time keeping this rule because they have not tasted in the joy of knowing and loving themselves. So, in dealing with others, we have no problem taking advantage of our neighbor at every turn. Though we ourselves do not want to be taken advantage of by our neighbor, we understand that it’ll probably happen anyway. And if the other guy is going to take advantage of me eventually, it is to my benefit to do it to him first. This thinking doesn’t break the golden rule because we expect it to happen and we’re fine with that. We know that people as a whole are screw-ups, and that makes us a-okay with any screw-ups that we commit, even though we don’t like it when people screw-up on us.

The intriguing part of all of this is that most people will acknowledge the imperfection of humanity and even his/her own imperfection, but only a select few will recognize themselves as truly evil. We don’t see the world as right and wrong, black and white. Instead, we see all sorts of gray; and if it’s got any white in it, there must be some natural goodness to us, just as if there is some black there must be some natural badness too. This is how humans have the nerve to call themselves innately good, even though there is evil rampant over the face of the earth. Does it not make more sense that humans are innately evil and there is a god who is innately good who keeps our evil from destroying ourselves? But we’ll set aside that thought to continue with the point at hand.

Furthermore, let’s set aside humanity as a whole and look at you individually. And forget about any sins you have committed. Sin is only a classification system that makes no sense without law and religion (even the Apostle Paul testifies to this). Instead, I want you to think about who you are at your core. I ask: what will happen tomorrow? Do you think of what will happen to your neighbor tomorrow or what will happen to you tomorrow? You probably thought of yourself. Even as you read my words, you are probably thinking about either yourself or how you can show off by teaching something to someone else (as I am thinking in writing this). But that is okay at this moment because I have asked you to think about yourself for the time being. But consider also almost every decision you have made in the past. Think of the great ones, like where you’re working or what college you decided to go to or who you’re going to date or marry. Think of the small ones, like what you ate for breakfast or what clothes you’re going to wear. Now take a different rout and think of what decision the president of the United States of America is making right now. Is he choosing what to eat? Or maybe he’s deciding whether or not to veto a bill. What about your neighbor? When was the last time you thought about his decisions and what’s going on in his mind? These are things I think of occasionally and they always remind me exactly how much I think only of myself and how selfish a person I truly am.

If you want to know who you really are, I will tell you: you are selfish. That is your key defining trait. And if it is not the defining trait of every man to love himself more than all others, why is it that the golden rule needs to be worded such that it centers on your self. It does not merely say, love your neighbors. Every great philosopher, including Jesus, understood that people put themselves first, thus the only way they would understand how to properly love others would be in comparison to themselves. So then, before any moral law can be lived out, we must first learn to love ourselves.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 21:48:30 GMT

Here's the next section that I hadn't completed last time around. I'll post in smaller chunks so that you all are more likely to read. If you want to know about the meaning of life, this part sums it up, but you can read the rest of the chapter from my last post to get the full details as to how I arrived to this conclusion. The next section is on the Revelation of God, its importance, and why we should care about knowing God (since some people don't really care to follow the meaning of life if they're not the ones who decided that meaning).

Chapter 4: The Answer

The Author

If we are to say that an author exists and he exists in just such a way that he transcends time, then not only is he able to see the story of the universe as a whole (and thus know the meaning of the story, not to mention the fact that its meaning is his decision from the moment he began writing it), but he also has the power and authority, as author, to make whatever alterations he wishes with the mere stroke of his pen. As far as I am concerned, that makes him a god. But why would he want to have anything to do with us? Why bother writing a story so elaborate and yet so simple that it is bound by time on either end?

It would be immature to believe that he wrote this book for the purpose of any character within the book, or even for the purposes of the book itself. Have you ever met an author who wrote a book because he wanted to please the characters he was writing about? How self-centered can mankind be to believe that he is the most important thing and that the meaning of the universe is all about him! If you understood me properly, I have just asserted that the meaning of life has nothing to do with the benefit of man. Instead, it has everything to do with the benefit of the author. For every author writes a story for his own purposes, whether to make money, to show off his skills, to teach and have an impact on his readers and thus relate with them, or even for his own pleasure. Likewise, though the book (universe) may have some message to communicate, it is ultimately written for the benefit of the author.

The key to understanding the author’s intent is found in the previously used quote by C. S. Lewis, stating that because we have a longing for perfect relationship and impact, but are unable to achieve this within the confines of the book, the author must have intended that we receive that perfection relationship and impact from outside the book. Now, by nature the body and mind are bound by time. For a body to exist, atoms and electrons must move along a set course. Without their motion and interactions, the bonds would be broken and the body would disperse into the air. Furthermore, a key characteristic of the body is that it can move. What good is a body that cannot move? And motion takes time, whether that is the motion of an arm or an electron. The mind, also, consumes time in that one thought leads to another, and you cannot have the second thought until you have had the first. But the spirit is quite a different matter. The spirit may follow the confines of time, but we find that it can also work on its own outside of such restrictions. You do not have to go from one emotion to the next, because you can experience both emotions at the same time. Furthermore, an emotion does not take the passing of time to be felt, though it may take the passing of time for the body and mind to comprehend it. If any part of a person could potentially leave the book, it is the spirit.

If we were intended to receive perfect relationship and impact from outside of the book, then there must be something outside of time that is also at least partially spirit. Because the author chose to gives us spirits, he must have a pretty good understanding of what it is and how it works, and thus likely has one himself. Or, at the very least, some other person outside the book who has a spirit has explained to the author well enough what it is like that he was able to emulate it in his work on us. So then, the author must have had some intent in writing this book that we, humans, build a spiritual relationship with either himself or someone else in this realm. And in saying this, I have come to the same conclusion that the Bible gives for why God created man: to have a relationship with him. And, as I have been saying, this relationship is between our spirits, as Proverbs 20:27 says: “The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all the innermost parts of his being.” Our spirit is what the author uses to access the core of our being (which we have already said is found in the spirit).

If you wonder why our core desires are for relationship and impact, my answer is that we long for those things because the author himself also has those longings. And here is what separates my God from all other gods: he is a triune being. There is a Son who is begotten of the Father. By begotten, I mean that he was produced from the Father. Furthermore, the Father and the Son are so relationally bound and united with each other that there is a Spirit of that relationship, as there is with any other community. In this way, the three beings of one God are in constant relationship with each other, always impacting the other with every initiative one takes; they all take it together.

I wrote that last paragraph so that you understand something about this author: he does not need us. He is fully satisfied in and of himself. That is why we cannot be the reason he wrote the book. Instead, imagine that you are in a perfect relationship with someone you love. It would be your desire to make that person as pleased as possible. Likewise, it is the desire of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to bring glory to each other. They have also decided that this is best done by building relationships with us, the characters within their epic. Bodies unite with bodies, minds with minds, and spirits with spirits. If it did not glorify God for us to be in relationship with Him, we would not have spirits, which can only unite with other spirits (i.e. God).

So, if you have understood and agreed with me up to this point, we have decided that there is some sort of god out there that desires a relationship with us and who desires to have an impact on our lives. This is the meaning of life: that we glorify the Author of Life (as I shall name him) by having a relationship with him. The only god I know of who has declared that this is its purpose is the Triune God of Christians. But let us not jump so far ahead as to say that because the Christian God is the only one I know of who does this, it must be the true one. I could take these principles and make up any god I wished that centered on such things. But that would not make him the True God. So, we must take the next necessary step on our quest to know how we can relate to a god who we cannot see, hear or touch: we must discover how that God might be revealed to us.