The next chapter in Tim Keller's book: "The Problem of Sin"

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that there's something fundamentally wrong with the world.

Consider these words from H.G. Wells in 1937: Can we doubt that presently our race will more than realise our boldest imaginations, that it will achieve unity and peace, and that our children will live in a world made more splendid and lovely than any palace or garden that we know, going on from strength to strength in an every-widening circle of achievement?

The same author wrote in 1946 in his work "Mind at the End of Its Tether" the following: The cold-blooded massacres of the defenceless, the return of deliberate and organised torture, mental torment, and fear to a world from which such things had seemed well nigh banished - has come to near to breaking my spirit altogether... 'Homo Sapiens', as he has been pleased to call himself, is played out.

According to Christianity, sin is the root problem. The primary way the Bible defines sin is not just the doing of bad things, but the making of good things into ultimate things. It is seeking to establish a sense of self by making something else more central to your significance, purpose and happiness than your relationship to God.

In our contemporary individualistic culture, we tend to look to our achievements, our social status, our talents or our love relationships. There is an infinite variety of identity-bases. Some get their sense of "self" from gaining and wielding power, others from human approval, others from self-discipline and control. But everyone is building their identity on something.

Even if you say, "I will not build my happiness or significance on anyone or anything", you will actually be building your identity on your personal freedom and independence. If anything threatens that, you will again be without a self.

An identity not based on God also leads inevitably to deep forms of addiction. When we turn good things into ultimate things, we are, as it were, spiritually addicted. We have to have these things.

Sin does not only have an internal impact on us but also a devastating effect on the social fabric (...) The real culture war is taking place inside our own disordered hearts, wracked by inordinate desires for things that control us, that lead us to feel superior and exclude those without them, and that fail to satisfy us even when we get them.

At some point in most lives, we are confronted with the fact that we are not the persons we know we should be. Almost always our response is to 'turn over a new leaf' and try harder to live according to our principles. That ultimately will only lead us into a spiritual dead end.

The Christian way is different - both harder and easier. Christ says, "Give me all. I don't want just this much of your time and this much of your money and this much of your work - so that your natural self can have the rest. I want you. Not your things."

Everybody has to live for something. Whatever that something is becomes "Lord of your life", whether you think of it that way or not. Jesus is the only Lord who, if you receive him, will fulfil you completely, and, if you fail him, will forgive you eternally.

Based on: Tim Keller (2008), The Reason for God, p.159-173

... and what about you? Who or what is Lord of your life? What are you living for?

Back to the book "The Reason For God". Today: Chapter 9

I thought it would be great to get back to Tim Keller's book today. This is what I think are his most important points of chapter 9 titled "The Knowledge of God". Please think about how this might be relevant to your life:

It is common to hear people say "No one should impose their moral views on others, because everyone has the right to find truth inside him or herself". This raises a question. Why is it impossible (in practice) for anyone to be a consistent moral relativist even when they claim that they are? The answer is that we all have a pervasive, powerful and unavoidable belief not only in moral values but also in moral obligation.

Moral obligation is a belief that some things ought not be done regardless of how a person feels about them within herself (...) Though we have been taught that all moral values are relative to individuals and culture, we can't live like that. People who laugh at the claim that there is a transcendent moral order do not think that racial genocide is just impractical and self-defeating, but that it is wrong. The Nazis who exterminated Jews may have claimed that they didn't feel it was immoral at all. We don't care. We don't care if they sincerely felt they were doing a service to humanity. They ought not to have done it.

If human rights are created by majorities, of what use are they? Their value lies in that they can be used to insist that majorities honour the dignity of minorities and individuals despite their conception of their "greater good". Rights cannot be created - they must be discovered, or they are of no value.

If there is no God, then there is no way to say any one action is "moral" and another "immoral" but only "I like this". If that is the case, who gets the right to put their subjective, arbitrary moral feelings into law? You may say "the majority has the right to make the law", but do you mean that then the majority has the right to vote to exterminate a minority? If you say, "No that is wrong", then you are back to square one.

If you believe human rights are a reality, then it makes much more sense that God exists than that he does not. If you insist on a secular view of the world and yet you continue to pronounce some things right and some things wrong, then I hope you see the deep disharmony between the world your intellect has devised and the real world (and God) that your heart knows exists. If a premise ("There is no God") leads to a conclusion you know is not true ("Napalming babies is culturally relative") then why not change the premise?

Once we realise this situation there are two options. One is that we can simply refuse to think out the implications of all this. The other option is to recognise that you do know there is a God. You could accept the fact that you live as if beauty and love have meaning, as if there is meaning in life, as if human beings have inherent dignity - all because you know God exists.