THE CHRISTIAN WORLD VIEW
Each of us, whether we are aware of it or not, has a world-view (a particular way of looking at the world). The most basic things about the Christian world-view can be summed up in the following bullet points
- The universe has not always existed, and it will not exist forever in it’s present form
- The universal has not come into being by chance; it was created by a personal god and is continually held ion being by him
- People have much in common with the animals, but are unique because they have been made to enjoy a relationship with their creator.
Why do we all believe something? To be a human is to hold some sort of system of belief. We may be largely unaware of the beliefs that are at the root of much of our thinking, but are there just the same. We all believe something. How do we become to hold the beliefs we hold? Are they the product of out own individual thinking? Not entirely. Few would deny a real personal factor, but all of us are shaped to a greater or lesser extent by the whole wide context of people and events that surround us form birth. These powerful influences include
Heredity-not so much in the genetic sense as meaning everything that comes down to us from our forebears
Culture-the system of moral and aesthetic values, developed over centuries in the society we live in.
The Structures-of the society we live in, and our place in them.
Family and national crisis-these make us ponder deep questions alongside our fellows in the wider or narrower community. Here is a quote from a textbook for college and study groups, that is relevant to these points-“Now more than ever it is vital that we know what we believe, because what we believe determines how we live”
People usually come to know and be convinced about Christianity by contact with caring Christians, people whose lives are a witness to the love and power of Jesus. This should not surprise us, as Christianity is a people centred faith the Christian faith does not look upon a human being isolated from other human beings, but rather as made for a community. Equally you do not have to have bucket loads of faith, as Jesus states, “Your faith only needs to be as big as a mustard seed”. A mustard seed is tiny, but others would ague that the more faith the better and you should not be classed as a Christian, for example, because you only have a tiny bit of faith in the belief and do not believe or understand all of the religion. An example of this is Cherrie Blair; she is a devout Catholic but has practised ‘new’ religions and used Gurus to help her. Mrs Blair must have faith in her Roman Catholic religion, however not as much faith as others as she also follows alternatives and has treatments that her religion and the Vatican would frown upon.
Here is a definition of god that will help us to answer the question-“Does belief in God make sense in the modern world”.
Today we want to look at the awesomeness of God: his utter, ultimate power, knowledge and relevance to everything that ever happens. The three qualities of God I have already stated.
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His omnipotence - All powerful
- His omniscience – All knowing
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His omnipresence -All seeing
Here they are in more detail
For a lot of people, the three beliefs of God can be approached through the arts than through the sciences. That's because God is just too big to fit into our mortal minds. The best we can hope for is a piercing glimpse of the reality - which is what music, for example, can sometimes give us. While science wants to have everything mapped out neatly, and fails completely when it can't grasp its subject. The key insight here is that God is much, much more than we understand. There is so much more to him than we will ever grasp in this life - and maybe in the next. Most Christians become Christians long before they have any real understanding of who it is they have come to love and trust; and to be truthful, we never fully find out. That's not a bad thing, though it may sound like it.
GOD IS OMMIPOTENT
``To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?'' says the Holy One. Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.
- Isaiah 40:25-26
The best and clearest illustration of God's power is perhaps found in creation. What is absolutely clear from any objective reading of the bible is that God is the agent of creation. If you want to know why everything exists, the answer is clear: it's because God made it. It's only when you start to ask how he made it that things get more complicated.
Let's take a brief look at this quote from Douglas Adams, book “The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy” and see whether we can get a sense of scale of the planet we live on, in the vast, vast universe
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. It has been compiled and recompiled many times over many years and under many different editorships. It contains contributions from countless numbers of travellers and researchers.
The introduction begins like this:
``Space,'' it says, ``is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindboggingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space. Listen ..." and so on.
To be fair though, when confronted by the sheer enormity of distances between the stars, better minds than the one responsible for the Guide's introduction have faltered. Some invite you to consider for a moment a peanut in Reading and a small walnut in Johannesburg, and other such dizzying concepts.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination.
- Douglas Adams, The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Now the point of that entire quote is to make you just realize the vastness of the universe that God made.
Finally in this section, I'd just like to touch on how excessive God has been in his creation, how lavish. The Genesis account describes the creation of the universe beyond our solar system as follows (exact words):
He also made the stars.
- Genesis 1:16
GOD IS OMNISCENT
I prayed to the LORD: Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.
Great are your purposes and mighty are your deeds. Your eyes are open to all the ways of men; you reward everyone according to his conduct and as his deeds deserve.
- Jeremiah 32:16-17, 19
Notice how Jeremiah's prayer starts out on the theme of God's power, then shades into the theme of his wisdom. The two are intimately connected.
Imagine a respected computer scientist. He works in a field where it's very difficult to predict the future: ten years before the World Wide Web emerged, no-one anticipated anything like it: back in the eighties, everyone thought that the future of computer was going to be in things like voice-recognition interfaces. His view on how to predict the future of computer science is not clear: ``the best way to predict the future is to invent it.'' We can understand God's perfect knowledge of past, present and future in much the same light: he invented it. He knows it perfectly because it's his plan.
O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. You hem me in - behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.
My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! -Psalm 139:1-5, 15-16,6,17
GOD IS OMNIPRESENT
In the same way, because God made it all, he is in it all not just that he happens to be there, but it exists at all because he is there.
Through the bare branches, across the ground that was once more stiffening with frost, a summer breeze was blowing into the room, but the breeze of such a summer, as England never has.
Tears ran down Ransom's cheeks. He alone knew from what seas and what islands that breeze blew. Merlin did not: but in him also the inconsolable wound with which man is born waked and ached at this touching. Low syllables of prehistoric Celtic self-pity murmured from his lips.
- C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength
"God is everywhere" not in a new age sense
"God is in us" in two senses: 1. Made in his image, 2. Indwelt
The former is true of all humans, the latter only of Christians
When some people say, "god is in us all", they mean that god is no more than the sum of us. This is NOT what the bible means!
We have just looked at the definition of God in depth; here are 5 pros and cons about the existence of god.
- Pro-The universe is governed by natural laws and forces that seem to be the product of an intelligent mind. That mind is god, who created the universe. This fact is expressed in religions all around the world.
- Con-We do not need God to explain natural laws and forces-they would simply have to exist for us to be here at all for there to be a universe. The fact that we find laws and forces should not therefore be a source of surprise. Inventing a supernatural creator doesn’t seem to be an intellectual answer.
- Pro-Unlike other animals, we are moral beings with consciences. This is because God, who is a moral being who set down the moral as well as the natural law, created us.
- Con-Moral rules are created by human communities so that the can live together harmoniously and they vary from culture to culture. Morals are human constructions and not the result of something supernatural
- Pro-40% in GB have reported a religious experience making them aware of a power greater than themselves, we cannot write off these experiences as merely mistakes.
- Con-Such experiences can be explained as natural physiological needs and brain processors. These experiences could be the product of religious teaching and mind-altering situations such as drugs, lack of sleep, lack of food and mediation.
- Pro-The existence of saints who are capable of charity, devotion and healing reveals that there is a source of love from God to which Humans have access, which overrules evilness and selfishness. Evil in the world is a result of human disobedience to God but natural suffering such as famine is s sign that the world is not only disobedient but also free for humanity and nature.
- Con-Human beings can be so selfish and often evil in their dealings with nature and each other, that it is impossible to believe that a loving God exists, why would a Loving god allow war, famine the nazi holocaust etc.
- Pro-God provides a guarantee that we have a meaning, purpose and destiny.
- Con-Modern brain science makes a strong link between the brain and the, so-called, soul, making it impossible for us to exist in any from after death. The universe being a “brute fact” we cannot explain makes it difficult to find a meaning for its existence.
To get a full understanding of the question asked, “Does belief in God make sense in the Modern World” before we go onto answering the conclusion we need understand what the modern world is. Here are some bullet points that outline the basis of the modern world:
- In educated cultures e.g. scientists are determined to prove that religious beliefs are nonsense and there is a believable way to find out things, for which there must be strong proof.
- The technology boost that has come around in the lat 10 years is opening up new paths and therefore more questions are being asked.
- The human mind is also more refined, inquisitive and asking questions.
- Money now has a much greater value.
- Technology is making us lazier, yet at the same time it entertains us.
- The pace of life is increased and stress builds leaving hardly any time for relaxation and going to church.
- Street credibility is a big factor for today’s youth and church may not be the best way to improve it?
- There are different issues in peoples’ minds and lives which interfere with church
- The amounts of leisure pursuits are vast now takes up so much time in young and old peoples lives.
From these points we can see just how much science and technology controls our lives and the different concerns and priorities which may detract from the church and God.
In conclusion it seems that it is commonly held in educated cultures that religious belief is irrational and unsubstantiated. But can all the genius of Christianity and the religions through the ages have simply been mistaken. Some 20th century theologians have tried to redefine God as the “ground of being”, to get away from the conceptions of God as a very powerful person or even as an old man with a long beard! Personally I believe in a higher power and that God must not be meaningless in a modern scientific world
AUSTIN HARPER 9Lee