Cause and Effect

It is not so remarkable to hear a very spiritual person blame some fortunate or even unfortunate happenstance on an unseen force.  Superstition has always been commonplace.  This sort of behavior is usually based either on fear, the innate desire to appeal to something beyond our understanding, or a shared human feeling that there is more to our world than meets the eye.  Man's understanding has always seemed to be tethered to how much he can see, and things unseen have always given rise to fanciful stories that observation would either later refine or completely replace.  When telescopes and microscopes increased our ability to see; they also increased our ability to know.

I believe this demonstrates that man's own thoughts are inadequate for understanding without the constant feedback which comes from observation.  It is our nature to ask and to seek to know how things work.  We count our knowledge correct when we can repeatedly predict an outcome with cause under control.  Our desire to know meets our destiny to know when what is real is revealed to us - and the correction that ensues steers us ever towards our goal.

Take the understanding of light itself as an example.  Light travels very fast - something like 671,000,000 miles per hour.  Past a small threshold, big numbers are meaningless to humans, because we cannot easily appreciate the difference between 100,000 miles per hour or 1,000,000 miles per hour and 671,000,000 miles per hour in everyday terms.  All those speeds make the time for a trip to the grocery store something smaller than we can perceive (unless you live in Houston).

Knowing what we know now, it's easy to chuckle at Galileo's attempt to measure the speed of light using a mile of separation, an assistant, and two lanterns.  But the speed of light can be measured, and it comes out to some number that's quite easy to express on paper.  It is limited.  You just need the correct scale to measure it upon.  Later a Danish astronomer named Ole Roemer found a more appropriate scale upon which to gauge the speed of light - the massive scale of our solar system.  Using measurements of the observed timing of the movement of Jupiter's moons he was able to get the first good approximation for the speed of light.


Take a look at the this submerged object to the right.  Now, I want to test what you believe about this object.  You may have read about it, you may know its history, someone may have told you about it, or you may be seeing it for the first time.  What I would like to know is, what do you believe about it's origins?  This thought experiment would be even better if you hadn't known anything this object previously and further valid if you had little knowledge about how fluid flow may affect a metallic structure and produce patterns of any kind (also if you couldn't google it either.)

So what do you believe?  Did the sea's currents shape this piece of bronze, or did bio-erosion from the coral reef's attached to it?  Did a human once shape it and then dump it into the sea?  Some submerged statues we know are very old.  How old do you think this one is?  How would you tell?

If I told you that the waves did so happen to shape this object and there was nothing more to it, would you believe that?  No thinking person could settle for that.  The drive to resolve coincidence and look for a cause would not leave my shallow explanation alone.

This common human longing for knowing cause and effect, for being able to reason out why things happen, this common suspicion that purpose has origins, that images have objects from which they are derived, this longing for unity, is itself a unifying factor through which all humans can relate to one another.

Some things are too far or too small for us to see sometimes.  Without the recorded knowledge that we have modern man would be just as pitiful with some of his assumptions about how the world really operates.  But there is truth.  Sometimes we don't have the vision to see that truth, and even other times even if we can see it we reject it.  We reject it because we already gave up on that question long ago - and we have settled for our substitute answer.

Have you ever studied mythology?  It's confusing.  Our stories, when untethered from reality, go in every which direction.  But I will often appeal to this - that there is only one truth.  There are many varieties of things that may be said about that one truth - a variety that is celebrated by the diverse landscape of people we find in our world.  However, variety must be tethered to what's real to be veracity.  Adding to the belief that there is a single truth, it is true that we have a desire to obtain it.  Though at times we settle for something less; our own actions betray an underlying belief that the rational mind demands a logical cause and effect relationship.  Finally, we embrace this belief in cause and effect when we look for the answers to who we are and what we are doing here.  Though at times settling for an inferior explanations, our decisions and professions betray that we know more about the nature of our origins than we let on.  Not that we see it clearly, we do not.  It must be illuminated for us.  But deceived or not, we all bear this burdening question that we must answer in one way or another: why?

What we believe - "we" being all humans

James 2:19 says "You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder." 

I've heard that shortly after the term "Christian" was coined, it would be applied to anyone who followed the teachings of Christ in the new peculiar groups meeting in homes and secret places from Jerusalem, Galilee, and Capernaum all the way to the Rome itself.  The distinction could be loosely applied to someone who simply was showing interest, and perhaps at times to those who did not truly come to a saving faith yet.  Certainly an early distinguishing belief unique to these early saints would be that, unlike the secular belief in the myriads of pagan gods, they believed that there was only one true God.  But from this passage, it seems to me to indicate that the author wanted there to be no confusion over the fact that a monotheistic belief system alone was not enough to save.

Indeed it's not enough just to believe.  WAIT!!!  Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto to him as righteousness, right? 

It's with this thought that I am beginning today a series of post about what unbelievers and Christians alike believe.  Quite often in recent conversation in my life I've heard people profess that they believe in Jesus, then turn around and proclaim how their goodness is getting them to heaven.  It has become evidenced to me through everyday life to back up scriptural teachings that what we do with what we believe is just as important as what we believe.  Faith without works is dead.

This statement always draws some passionate discussion, and certainly much deliberation on the interplay between faith and works.  Some will pretend that they have mastered the subject, but I have not.  I think understanding all the dynamics and applications is still something I'm learning. 

I will take some time to go through what I believe to be similar beliefs between Christians and non-Christian alike.  In that context I hope to extend the study also to where I believe they disagree by understanding the fine lines between beliefs on a more fundamental level.  To truly understand a disagreement, you must know whether your suppositions are common or not.  If you want to start an argument about whether a car is red or orange, you have to first know whether you are talking about the same automobile.  Sounds simple?  One would think.

That word argue sounds like a bad thing.  Why start an argument at all?  Following the recent Ken Ham vs. Bill Nye creation debate a few of my friends were quick to repost articles and blogs citing its futility.  I think they miss the real audience - the believer whose faith is strengthened through ministries such as Ken Ham.  What a shame that we are so quick to declare defeat, especially when we are already victorious.  It's not the unbeliever we are truly debating; we are being obedient and proclaiming truth.  The real battle is in the spiritual realm, and it has already been won.

So to all my brothers and sisters who enjoy dissecting and examining the scriptures - I'm so thankful for you.  You probably are well aware that you do what you do out of obedience, and as an act of worship.  God bless you - I pray you never cease.

The good life

An old wager (Pascal's wager) I used to hear in Sunday School and Children's church went like this: "If you choose not to believe in Jesus and you are wrong, you will be forced to spend an eternity in hell.  However, if you choose to believe in Jesus and it turns out the Bible is a myth, you still would have lost nothing.  You will have lived a good life." 

I believe people can come to a saving faith through a variety of circumstances and outreach scenarios - since it is God that does the pursuing and saving, thankfully we don't have to be right in order for God to be faithful to the chosen to bare His name.  So I suppose an unbeliever could possibly hear this message, and, after processing it realize he cannot afford to be wrong about the afterlife.  I can see how this may be a mechanism for the unbeliever to turn to Christ.

Setting that aside, the anecdote is 100% wrong.  It's another pitch that following Christ is just a "good" life.  In this hypothetical if we use history as a guide, and then suppose one follows Christ's teachings on a superstitious hunch, we could surmise that one would be in for a very uncomfortable life.  One should expect to be mocked, possibly tortured, demoted, passed over, imprisoned, denied rights, subject to unrepaid wrongs, deprived of justice, marginalized, looked down upon, and impoverished, to name a few.  All the while you would be denying yourself all the creature comforts of conforming and following the crowd.  Your super bowl parties may be emptier, your boss may despise you because you convict him of immorality and your raises will be skinnier, society with castigate you because you are intolerant and your social circle will be smaller, and you may starve to death because one day you may not be allowed to even buy food without "playing ball" with the world so your modernly opulent lifestyle will be compromised.  After all, the Jesus who we hypothetically wager to follow promised that the world would hate us in Matthew 10:22.  I think we're ok with the world hating us, as long as it is the parts of the world we feel we're better than and desire nothing from.

If one "came to Christ" under the guise that "this is a good idea regardless if that Jesus turns out to be real", he would be rejecting any real experience with the savior.  He would, under his own power, try to rid himself of vices that, although pleasurable, seemed to be inconvenient to his self-seeking purpose.  Asking for "fire insurance", he may find himself getting hell here on earth, and possibly even thereafter.  So by wagering to avoid one hell, he may find two.

Can fire insurance really give you eternal assurance?  I propose that if you had assurance, you would not need the insurance.  This week I'm taking the "it's a good life" card out of my playing deck.  Perhaps I'll replace it with the freedom I believe in when we put aside serving ourselves and take up serving someone who's purposes are much higher.  Now I am not saying you cannot characterize the believer's life as "good", just that it would not be good if it weren't for the absolute certainly of tomorrow.  If it "turns out" not to be true, it was a really bad idea.

My prayer this week is that I stop prizing a Christian life that is good in the eyes of the conveniently pious, and start prizing one that is hard, but of lasting value, to our wonderful and very near Savior.