Saturday, May 19, 2007

No sense at all

While waiting at the airport for my colleague's flight to come in, I struck up a conversation with the lady selling roses in the arrival area. (She parked her cart right in front of where I was standing, so I figured I'd make the most of the moment.) Besides roses, she also had a selection of perfumes, scented soaps and some aroma-therapy ointments for sale. As she presented her spiel for each of the items, I realized that -- except for the beauty of the flowers -- there was nothing in the cart that I could truly appreciate. I am asnomic.

As far as I can tell, I was not born with a sense of smell. Not even the strongest scent (good or bad) registers after inhaling deeply. I have no more ability to pick out perfume for my wife than I do to detect a gas leak. Freshly baked bread, pine trees, pig farms, mowed grass, dead skunks, morning coffee and dirty diapers all smell the same to me. That is, like nothing at all. So all the scented flowers, soaps and jars of ointment in this lady's cart were of absolutely no value to me. They are not a part of my world or even of my imagination. People talk to me about smells, and just when I think I understand that smell is related to taste (a sense I do have), they go and describe a scent as "green".

No wonder, then, when non-Christians look at us funny when they hear us talk. So much of the Christian life makes no sense to a person whose eyes have not yet been opened by the converting power of the Gospel. The irregenerate may, indeed, understand the concept of joy -- but not at a funeral. They have a notion of forgiveness -- but it's usually reserved for the person who didn't know any better or who didn't mean to offend. Many central concepts of our faith may not be in their vocabulary at all: justification, Trinity, incarnation, sacrament, substitutionary atonement. As wiser men than me have observed: "Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand."

I don't know that I'll ever be able to smell. I may forever be on the outside of the olfactory members club, shaking my head as the others suddenly hold their noses for no apparent reason. I can only guess at their motives for inhaling deeply as they walk into the kitchen or for rolling down the windows of the car in winter. Perhaps people outside the church see us with the same curiosity: "Why would Christians get so upset over seemingly nothing?" "What's a small difference in interpretation of a book written thousands of years ago?" "If they're so eager to love and to forgive, why do they insist that I change my lifestyle?" "What would possess a person to give up their Sunday mornings / a percentage of their wage / their homeland and culture to serve as a missionary in a foreign land?"

It could be that there's an operation or a miracle drug that could restore (impart) my missing sense. Maybe a knock on the noggin will jar something loose. But we know what it takes for the non-Christian to obtain an understanding of God's ways and God's will: simply the preaching of God's word and baptism in God's name. We rely on the Holy Spirit to illumine, enlighten, regenerate and convert those who, until now, have lived in darkness. Just as he graciously has done for us, proclaiming to us the simple message that God loves us all, despite the fact that we have been loveless, and has sent his only Son to carry our guilt and to pay the price for our redemption. All who trust in him, namely that he has completely removed the punishment we deserved and has credited us with the holiness of life we lacked, receive God's promise of divine love and protection, now and in the life to come. The gospel of Christ Jesus, God and man, crucified and risen, Lord and Savior, is the only effective tool for making sense of this fallen world.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Mad at God? Blame your tools.

In an interview at Salon.com, Lewis Wolpert author of "Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast" has figured out where mankind got religion from, his or her tools.
What makes us different from all other animals is that we have causal beliefs about the physical world...My argument is that causal understanding gave rise to toolmaking; that was the evolutionary advantage. It's toolmaking that's really driven human evolution. This is not widely accepted, I'm afraid, but there's no question about it. It's tools that really made us human. They may even have given rise to language.
Tools gave rise to language? Wouldn't we need language to talk to one another about a problem and invent a tool for it? No, no, They invented the tool and then bragged to their buddies about it. gotcha....

I don't suppose you can learn cause and effect from nature at all, say, from rain. "Look, these wet things fall from the sky and wash my house away with all their wetness."

Mr. Wolpert goes on to say:
Our brains are absolutely hard-wired for causal belief. And I think they're a bit soft-wired for religious and mystical belief. Those people who had religious beliefs did better than those who did not, and they were selected for.*
* as in Natural selection.
In effect, Mr. Wolpert claims that those who have religious beliefs are favored by evolution, and dare I say it, more evolved? That would make Mr. Wolpert a monkey. no, no. His ideas are more evolved, but because they are so pessimistic, they don't catch on (and haven't for MILLIONS of years). Mr. Wolpert's ideas are right, but evolution-which is supposed to prove his ideas- fundamentally says he's wrong.

Anyways, I agree with the first part of this quote. We are hard-wired for causal belief, it's called a natural knowledge of God. We do what's wrong (cause), there is an effect (some guy upstairs is going to punish me). Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them. - Romans 2:14-15

Why is cause/effect hardwired in our brains? This is what Paul says
From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, - Acts 17:26-27

Perhaps humankind would reach out for God. Perhaps they would find Him. Perhaps He will reveal to them true wisdom. How from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. - 2 Timothy 3:15 True wisdom has one source, and it ain't from biology.

Check out the Scriptures, you'll find your cause/effect, but you'll also find that a God who should carry out the effect on all, chooses instead to carry out the effect on Himself.

Read the whole article here

Friday, May 4, 2007

It's back...

I've been thinking about a blog for posting more church-type stuff, seeing as www.theruddats.com is basically family and life in Montana. I found that this name was back on the market, and as I was once a contributor to the "old" Preach.Teach.Confess. blog, I'd thought I resurrect it. So here it is, resurrected. We'll see what happens...