Just who am I? Thoughts about identity and meaning

The current fashion amongst many to determine a non-obvious 'identity' based on their sexual interests is odd, to say the least.

At least, it would be odd but for the collapse of the broad Christian consensus in which there was a reference point for 'meaning', or rather, existential confidence that sat outside our life-world.

Now that the 'life-world' for many has collapsed to the individual, the only available reference point which has some flavour of external validity is to adopt a group or fabricated 'community' reference point. So we have some who 'identify' as 'trans' (the most conspicuous assertion of difference from the everyday male-female distinction and di-morphism), or any one of the variably numbered 'genders', so-called. Each an invitation for the claimant to grasp at some form of specialness while verging on the narcissistic.

But for the Christian a great point of connection for a possible conversation about the gospel is given by this loss of bearings.

The 'loss of bearings' is a direct result of not only society's loss of confidence in Christian Theism, to which people without Christ 'out-sourced' their existential moorings, but is also exemplified by the vulnerable individuals whose sense of self is shaky.

It is these individuals who are left with no option but to seek to anchor themselves in an asserted 'identity' which, reduces the beauty and wonder of their created self-hood (in God's image) to a sexual obsessiveness.

The move is one to offset the loss entailed in the fall, and exemplified in the constant and pervasive discontents of life. It is a strategy to deal with the 'problem of evil'. But one that leads to a futile empty self-referential dead-end.

Thus the conversational opportunity for the gospel.

It would be a long conversation to get the other person's 'settings' tuned to the issues of discontent and the slipped mooring that we all suffer but for Christ's indwelling spirit.

The conversation, once the person has asserted their 'gender' (as such people are wont to at the earliest opportunity), is then about what 'identity' means; how it attaches them to a community; how we all need community.

The conversation might then flow to the reality of that need, but its contradiction of the materialism that pervades the modern thought-world brought by Darwinian (or any materialistic) Evolution.

After all, why would a bunch of molecules that give nothing but chemical signals have anything to do with a need for 'identity' let alone the idea of 'identity' itself. Yet the need is there.

However, the need which emerges (as we know) as a fracture in the fabric of reality brought by our denial of life (only available truly in Christ), cannot be resolved within that fractured reality. It will always be unsatisfactory.

The need emerges on the basis of our created nature: we are created for community, and for that lovingly. Just as God is love, and his being is of community in the Trinity of Father, Son and Spirit.

We are cut off from sharing in that community and without it seek to bind up the rupture with some futile 'identity' of mere assertion. An assertion the locus of which is merely the self seeking its own introverted and ungrounded definition.

As Sartre is reputed (but perhaps unlikely -- I have no reference to this) to have said: 'No finite point has meaning without an infinite reference point.'

Because, without an infinite (or independently (self) existent) reference point, there are only ungrounded relative 'references' which are because ungrounded, meaningless and always existentially disconnected.

This basis for conversation could lead to the Pauline point of inflection in Acts 17 on Mars Hill: that we have a creator who made us like himself, for fellowship with him.

The whole question of origins, materialism and substance dualism opens up with exciting possibilities.

The One v the Many

 As Peter Jones reminds us (see his articles on TruthXchange and podcasts on Spotify from 1998), there are but two religions: the worship of the Creator, and the worship of the creature.

He springs from Paul's words in Romans 1:25: For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

Thus there are but two world views.

The worship of the creature which reduces to monism (Jones calls it 'Oneism' for simplicity), where there is but one thing, a unity without diversity, or true differentiation, and

'The worship of the creator, (Jones calls it 'Twoism'); which shows us who we are. We might term this dualism of a kind: there is a creator, who reveals himself as personal, communicating and the one who is love, and there is the creature, created to know the creator, and enjoy him forever, as the Westminster Catechism puts it.

Oneism is perplexed by difference and all 'identity' is absorbed into a vague unity with no basis for differentiation. However, people are in reality not that kind of unity, there is difference within humanity; it is repleted with both similarity and difference, yet cut off from the creator, ungrounded, people search for identity. Not finding it, some manufacture it as the current fashion to declare their 'gender' in a hopeless grasp for 'identity'.

On the other hand, we do have a real 'identity' being in the image of the Triune God, in home is exhibited the reality of unity and differentiation, were love is real, committed and open (those loved are loved as they are, not conditionally).

The Trinity shows us that difference in unity is true, but does not destroy real communication, real being, or the significance of the individual.

Paganism -- Oneism -- destroys all of these things as the individual is really but an indistinguisable component of the all, at best. The example of this is the hopelessness of materialist monism captured in the notion of (Darwinian) evolution: no one is anything but a local assembly of molecules which were previously some other assembly, and in the future will re-arrange through decay, back into worm dung. And that's all it offers!

 

Death: do animals count?

Some people question the meaning of the fall in relation to its introduction of death. They want to limit this to either mankind alone, or restrict it to a 'spiritual' death. This is to avoid the implication of materialist long age of earth and the obvious death of animals this would require prior to the fall. That is, millions of years of animal death recorded in fossils, again, on their terms.

This question, of death before the fall, in reference to animals (the 'living creatures' of Genesis 1:24 excluding plants, bacteria, insects, and the like) seems to want to make God part of the creation, and not separated from it as creator, but separate from it as source of life; despite being so as the creator of all life.

That is, somehow 'life' is external to even God, in some mystical or platonic construction.

Thus some disregard animal death in cavalier fashion. I doubt this can be sustained with a biblical understanding of the relation of Creator and his creation of life; something flowing from his word and the direct action of Christ. The Creator has no 'not-life' in him! Death is the denial of life and the reversion to a not-God state of being; that is, 'not being'. I don't think the hand of God, the Word of God produces death, otherwise, death would not be a cause for grief.

Death in these terms is a direct insult to God and an inversion of his creation (as sin is the inversion of his love).

I write this after recently seeing an aged relative's corpse and learning that our pet dog has multiple malignant tumors and will soon die. At different levels both are death, an assault on the life God created and both confront us with the horror, in different degrees, of the termination of life, of relationship and fellowship (even with an animal).

Our revulsion and grief at death is at its unnaturalness, its reverse of the purpose of the creation, It could not be before the fall, as the direct reading of Genesis 3 and as the ramifications of the fall are described.

Some days later:

We buried our pet dog today. The vet sent her on her way peacefully and without discomfort, or even curiosity at the cannula, she was so sick. The termination of life, even of an animal, was still horrible, it was still the inversion of life, it was still something not of the God of life who made Adam to govern (have care over) the animals that he named (examined, considered, classified, identified). Did Adam expect these animals to then die?

It was not until the fall that decay set in; and death is the result of decay.

1 big answer

In the blog "7 or so questions, 7 or so answers: an elevator pitch" I set out an approach to talking about one's faith in terms a non-Christian might better understand.

Greg Koukl recently released a video of his answer to precisely that situation.

An edited transcript is provided below.

What is your elevator speech answer to the   question "What do you believe and why do you believe it?"

First three stories.

1.  There is a God who is there.
2.  He has not been silent. (Francis Schaeffer's title)
3.  He has visited this planet in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

He gave evidence of who he was, and then did something to rescue us from ourselves that will determine what happens to everybody in the final resurrection.

That's, maybe, the content. At the end of history. Maybe I'll put it that way for a non-Christian.

Why do I believe it? Well, this one, in a certain sense, is I'll give the general point that I've given many times, because that answer is about the nature of reality—I'm not talking about my faith, my beliefs, as such.

Of course, they're my faith and belief, but what I believe about those things is that this is the way the world is. And I think that this is an accurate take on the world.

It's the accurate picture of reality, taken as a whole, because it turns out to be the best explanation for the way things are. And, so, when you look at the way the world is—that the world came into existence, that the world has conscious beings, that one set of the conscious beings—human beings—have a moral nature, and that concepts like mercy and goodness and justice and wickedness and evil. All of these are real parts of the universe— the worldview, the picture of reality—that makes the most sense out of all of these things. This turns out to be the Christian view of reality.

In the book, “Street Smarts," I have two chapters on atheism followed by one chapter on the problem of evil, and the chapter on the problem of evil is called Evil: Atheism's Fatal Flaw. I position the problem of evil, not in a defensive way, like, well, let's see if I can find out how I can convince you that it makes sense in our world; I did that in "The Story of Reality”. No, I'm trying to show there is a problem of evil, and that's not bad for us, it's bad for atheists, and here's why.

Simply put, the problem of evil fits into our world. Our story is about   the problem of evil from the beginning to the end”. It starts in chapter 3 of Genesis. It ends 66 books later. So, it fits in our story, and our story is not over yet. It's just part of it.

While there's no real problem there, in a certain sense. there remain questions that come up that we can speculate on and try to answer, but the key thing is, the problem of evil makes sense in our story. It does not make sense in the atheist's story.

In that, there's one example of our view of reality being a much better explanation than any other. In fact, the best explanation for evil or for the origin of the universe or for the existence of consciousness or the reality of human freedom or a whole host of other things.

If I was to give a short elevator speech, would I include any testimony in that or would I stick to, what I have just described?

No, I don't think I would put testimony in, partly because nothing in my testimony is evidential. It isn't like I heard a voice, I went blind, and then I got healed of blindness three days later (referring to the Apostle Paul’s encounter with the risen Christ). So, there's nothing that's third person public that I can offer.

Secondly, I really want to work to avoid relativizing my own views. This is why I don't like when people say, "Well, the Christian view is." There may be a place for that, but we have to be very careful that we're not just saying this is kind of, as you put it earlier, our club. I don't like "Well we believe this," or "We have faith that," "My faith tells me thus and so."

I'd rather put this in terms of my understanding of the nature of reality. These are my convictions about the way the world is, and I have particular reasons for thinking that my convictions match the world, and then I can talk about that. I'm going to try to stay away from the subjective element, in my case, for those reasons. I especially don't want people to be tempted to relativize my view. They could say it's inaccurate. Fine. But if my view is relative, it can't be inaccurate. It's true for me. That’s all you can say.

 

7 or so questions, 7 or so answers: an elevator pitch

I've mentioned elsewhere the 7 basic questions that every Christian should be able to give three answers to: the "elevator" pitch (we say 'lift'), the short answer and the discussion.

Here are my "elevator" pitches

1. Why are you a Christian?

Mankind only can understand himself in terms of a necessary reference point. But man is personal, so that reference point must be both self-existing and personal. Jesus of Nazareth is that reference point so I follow his way.

2. Why do you read the Bible?

It makes the best sense of the world/human condition that we have. It makes its case in history, not merely by theoretical claims or mythological stories.

3. Why do you attend church?

I don't 'attend' church. I am part of a church. [You could stop there if you are pressed for time, and await a follow-on question at another time.] Church is the gathering of people who are committed to the way of Christ. I'm 'in', so I'm 'in'. And we get together to encourage and learn from each other.

4. Don't all religions teach the same thing?

4.1 No. Most religions ask man to pull himself up by the bootstraps Christianity recognizes this is obviously impossible. They seek the solution to the failing system in the very system that is failing, so they really offer nothing for mankind's dilemma. [Alienation from the creator in an alienated world.]

Related is the question, " Why is Jesus the only way to God? "

4.2 Because he is the creator, and restoration of relationship cannot come from within the 'system', but only from outside it.

5. That's good if it's your truth, but I'm spiritual without that/it's not for me. 

5.1 If it's only my truth it's not truth at all, and I'd be crazy to rely on it. It's like being broke, but being your own bank. What people need is a relationship with the Truth that is objectively outside themselves.

5.2 What do you mean 'you are spiritual'? 'Spiritual' is about the connection with the one who is ultimately there, not the reflection of our own contemplation.

5.3. Really? Which spirit are you spiritual with then?

6. How can a God of love permit so much evil and suffering?

6.1 By permitting mankind to live and be able to seek him and the resolution of our broken lives in his eternal life and love. We live in a broken world that is marked by alienation from the creator, but the benefit of us being linked to the creator is so good that it outweighs all the bad even conceivable.

6.2 If we didn't participate in the horror show we make by rejecting God, we would never know that we had rejected God and be able to seek him.

7. Hasn't science disproved the Bible?

How could it? The Bible explains why science is possible at all!

The eighth question, of course, is:

Why do you believe in God?

8.1 Yeshua of Nazareth, Jesus, as the West names him, declared himself to be God on earth, demonstrated that during his teaching career, and came back from the dead to authenticate himself.

8.2 Finite beings, which we are and the cosmos is, demand an end point and a beginning point or source or a basis that is not finite; plus there needs to be an absolute source for personhood. God, the creator, is these things.

.

God, evil and modern man

I have yet to hear a sermon or apologetic that really deals with this in terms that might make sense to modern man. Schaeffer comes closest, but he still doesn't quite do it. Nevertheless, he does touch on it in passing, in True Spirituality when he talks of sin as being the breaking of fellowship with God.

Most disquisitions on this topic do nothing to overturn the ancient pagan impression of 'good' and 'evil' as two forces in active opposition and of similar potency.

But NO!

Good and evil do not float platonically behind God, and do not have any existence except in terms of who God is.

God is good by definition, or more precisely, God is love and the properties of goodness and evil (the inversion of goodness, as hate is the inversion of love) flow from this.

Evil, sin, suffering represent the inversion of God's love, of who God is! The result from rejection of fellowship with God.

A&E were told that 'the tree' would bring them face to face with this inversion, rejection, denial of God. That is, face to face with evil, which they would thus 'know'. That is experience and understand.

Love is the disposition to benefit the other even to your disadvantage, to give priority to the other. Evil is inversion of this, to benefit oneself in denial of others.

This comes out in fragments of pride, greed, selfishness, self-centredness littered through every day. From Adam's step away from God in denying him and asserting his own values in that denial, both Adam and the creation were stranded from man's communion with God. But there was more involved. Not only was mankind stranded, but the creation as a whole was severed from its comfort with God's presence. Man as the steward, as God's vicegerent in the creation had  broken the entire creation

The great tragedy is that the creation was given to us as the stage for our communion with God, but it became the place severed from that communion and God's love and life. It's promise was death, and God warned him.

The domain as a whole was broken, subjected to loss, to decay and degradation as the creation in its entirety was dragged after the one set to govern it in love and peace.

Nevertheless, God's love is unstoppable and perseveres, as does his creature in his image as one with real choices. God in this love acted to establish the 'long stop' position and occupied it in Christ. This position enables the final defeat of death -- the great inversion of the meaning of mankind echoed thereafter in his offspring -- and our regeneration to join his kingdom finally in the New Creation.

Methodological Theism?

Modern science proceeds not on the basis of methodological naturalism, but on the basis of methodological Christian theism! Naturalism by itself, whether metaphysical or 'merely' methodological has not produced modern science. In fact, it has produced neither systematic inquiry into the created cosmos, nor ceaseless curiosity. For this old world view, what is simply is! But for Christian theism. Paganism is a similar dead hand. What is is the product of the rainbow serpent. End of discussion. For panentheists, what is is god, and no inquiry is possible. If the god is capricious, as is the Muslim god, no science is again possible.

What Christian theism assures us of, and this is demonstrated in the first chapters of Genesis, is a material creation that is causally rational, that is objectively there, that is propositionally explicable, and created for our superintendence/care/stewardship and operation. It invites curious exploration, and demonstrates the principle in Adam naming the animals brought to him: he observed, analyzed, classified and categorized. It was up to him. All God did was bring his subjects to him.

The materialist detractors think that Christian theism stifles inquiry. Not so. The record is that materialism does so. The great example is the rapidly diminishing number of 'vestigial' organs. We will soon be at zero in that count. The fiction of vestigial organs stifled inquiry and led to countless unnecessary, dangerous and sometimes fatal surgical operations.

But, confident of a cosmos designed by one limitlessly wise and knowledgeable (see Prov. 3:19-20) we are confident to keep exploring, keep finding knowledge and reliably communicating it. Our curiosity will, we are sure, be endlessly repaid. There will be no 'do not enter' signs as we know the entire material cosmos is here for our habitation, occupation, use and enjoyment. The detractors confuse the creator God with the fake gods of paganism, with the occasionalist 'gods' of the Greek Olympus, or the stupid gods of thing and place. These prevent science.

Nor does one who takes the cosmos as designed ever say...well, I don't know, God did it. No, we say. "This clearly presents a challenge to understanding, but it was made so as to be understandable by the creator, so let's get on, persevere, work hard, expose our ideas to criticism, let's learn how this thing works."

The only problem arises where metaphysical naturalism enters the ring. It sets preconditions that result in imagined histories being used to guide the work of observation and analysis. These could well lead us astray, as NDE leads us astray and produces speculation but no knowledge.