Metaphysics and the Meaning of Life: How the Kingdom of God Changes Everything!

* Below are the notes from my presentation at Glendale Community College for the "God and Truth IV" panel discussion.

Metaphysics and the Meaning of Life:

How the Kingdom of God Changes Everything!

Richard Klaus

October 18, 2016

Glendale Community College’s “God and Truth IV: God and the Meaning of Life”

Preliminaries:

·      Thank you to Glendale Community College for sponsoring these events

·      Thank you to Professor Lupu for the invitation

Introduction

·      April 20^th—was the 17 year anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre

o   Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold

§  Killed 12 students and 1 teacher

§  Injured another 21 people

o   Eric Harris:  Journal

§  “I just love Hobbes and Nietzche (sic).”

§  “I say ‘KILL MANKIND’ no one should survive” and “theres no such thing as True Good or True Evil, its all relative to the observer.  its just all nature, chemistry, and math. deal with it.”

§  T-Shirt on day of shooting: “Natural Selection”

·      Or Consider… Jeffrey Dahmer:  arrested in 1991 for brutal sex crimes and cannibalism

o   Spoke of his belief that “the theory of evolution is truth, that we all just came from the slime, and when we died… that was it, there was nothing—so the whole theory cheapens life.”

o   “If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then what’s the point in trying to modify your behavior to keep it in acceptable ranges.”

·      We are shocked by the above behavior and find it morally repugnant

·      All these cases of ethically deviant behavior are linked with corresponding views about reality and the meaning of life.

·      In these cases a metaphysics of meaninglessness breaks forth in violence

·      IMPORTANT QUALIFICATIONS:

o   Not all who engage in murderous violence are self-consciously motivated by philosophical naturalism

o   Not all who hold to philosophical naturalism engage in murderous acts of violence

o   There may be medical and psychological issues in those mentioned above

§  Eric Harris:  “clinical psychopath” by some

·      MAIN POINT: deep connection between metaphysics, the meaning of life and the ethics that flow forth from such views!

A.   The meaning of life: What are we talking about?

a.    At least three concepts:[1]

                                              i.     Purpose: Are our lives directed toward some goal or end?

                                            ii.     Significance: Do our lives count for anything as part of a greater whole?

                                          iii.     Value: Is my life worth anything overall?  Is it better lived than not? 

B.   Two basic approaches to meaning in life:  Discovered vs. Created

a.    Bestowed from outside:  in which case we Discover this meaning

b.    Meaning created from the inside:  self-ascribed and self-determined

C.    Meaning in life questions are bound together with larger philosophical concerns…

a.    What one thinks about ultimate reality (metaphysics) will affect how one is able to consistently answer the question about meaning

b.    This is illustrated by a number of contemporary philosophers and thinkers

“That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins—all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand.  Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”[2]  

--Bertrand Russell

“We’re just a bit of pollution.  If you got rid of us, and all the stars and all the galaxies and all the planets and all the aliens and everybody, then the universe would be largely the same.  We’re completely irrelevant.”[3]  --Lawrence Krauss (Arizona State University cosmologist)

“’You,’ your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.  As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased it: ‘You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.’”[4]   --Francis Crick

                       

“Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly.  1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exist; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent.”[5]

 --William Provine (Cornell evolutionary biologist)

c.     Can’t be written off as the ramblings of some mentally deranged teenagers.

d.    Given Naturalistic evolution:  there is no meaning to be discovered

e.    Naturalistic evolutionary accounts of humanity and cosmos tend to degenerate—if consistent—into nihilism.

§  Tamler Sommers & Alex Rosenberg “Darwin’s Nihilistic Idea: Evolution and the Meaninglessness of Life”

“Darwinism thus puts the capstone on a process which since Newton’s time has driven teleology to the explanatory sidelines. In short it has made Darwinians into metaphysical Nihilists denying that there is any meaning or purpose to the universe its contents and its cosmic history. But in making Darwinians into metaphysical nihilists, the solvent algorithm [random variation acted on by natural selection] should have made them into ethical nihilists too. For intrinsic values and obligations make sense only against the background of purposes, goals, and ends which are not merely instrumental.”[6]                    

                                                            --Tamler Sommers & Alex Rosenberg

f.      But if not discovered perhaps meaning can be self-generated or created

g.    Problems:

                                              i.     Arbitrary

1.    Anything can be one’s purpose in life

a.    Engaging in medicine to help others

b.    Sitting around playing video games

c.     Harming others

§  Sailson Jose das Gracas: Brazilian serial killer (over 40 murders)

·      told reporters that murders filled a void in his life

·      “At 17, I killed the first woman and that gave me a buzz.  I kept on doing it and I enjoyed it.”[7]

                                            ii.     Bootstrapping problem: lifting oneself up by one’s bootstraps

1.    If life lacks objective meaning then how does one making a choice suddenly confer meaning on it?

Christian Theism

1.    What about Christian theism?  How does it answer the question of the meaning of life?

2.    First, meaning is objective and discovered

3.    God is both transcendent and personal

a.    Provides the grounding of objective meaning and value

b.    God can be known:  He Is There and He Is Not Silent

4.    Not bare theism or deism.  Not simply a nameless, faceless transcendent source of value

5.    Rather, it is a “blood, sweat, and tears” kind of theism

6.    The ultimate revelation of God is found in Jesus of Nazareth: Scandal and glory

a.    Both its scandal: the raw particularity of ultimate and final revelation in a single Person in history

b.    and its glory: God has come and dwelt among us for awhile

7.    In Jesus…

a.    the transcendent God draws near to humanity

b.    the Love of God is displayed in his self-sacrificing death

c.     the Power of God is manifest in his historical resurrection from the dead

d.    and all of this is part of God’s plan which demonstrates his unparalleled Wisdom

8.    Christian theism: Affirms objective Purpose, Significance, and Value

a.    There is PURPOSE:

                                              i.     Defined and revealed by our Creator à Discovered; not self-created

                                            ii.     One summary: “Man’s chief end [i.e., our highest purpose] is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.”

b.    There is SIGNIFICANCE:

                                              i.     Our lives our part of God’s wise plan for his creation

                                            ii.     As followers of Jesus, his people play a part in the kingdom drama and agenda he is pursuing through the ages

c.     There is VALUE:

                                              i.     Created in God’s image: “crowned with glory and honor” (Ps 8)

                                            ii.     Re-created by the mercy of Jesus’ substitutionary death and the power of his resurrection

                                          iii.     Value of belonging to God and his people

9.    Christians don’t always live up to these majestic realities

a.    but this is the New Testament portrait of Christian theism;

b.    this is the life and meaning available to us!

Conclusion

10.                  Began: metaphysics and the meaning of life

                                              i.     Ideas have consequences… and some ideas have victims!

“If we present a man with a concept of man which is not true, we may well corrupt him.  When we present man as an automaton of reflexes, as a mind-machine, as a bundle of instincts, as a pawn of drives and reactions, as a mere product of instinct, heredity and environment, we feed the nihilism to which modern man is, in any case prone.  I became acquainted with the last stage of that corruption in my second concentration camp, Auschwitz.  The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment—or, as the Nazi liked to say, of ‘Blood and Soil.’  I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some Ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers.”[8] 

                                                                                            --Viktor Frankl

11.                  But we are more than nihilistic meat machines or a bundle of neurons

12.                  There is a meaning in life available waiting to be discovered—revealed

in the person of Jesus!

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     [1] Drawn from James Anderson, “Can Life Have Meaning Without God?” Gospel Coalition (July 16, 2013).  Online: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/can-life-have-meaning-without-god.

     [2] Bertrand Russell, “A Free Man’s Worship” (1903) in Why I Am Not a Christian (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1957), 107.

     [3] Quoted in Richard Weikart, The Death of Humanity and the Case for Life (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Faith, 2016), 44.  Lawrence Krauss,

     [4] Quoted in Casey Luskin, “Darwin’s Poisoned Tree: Atheistic Advocacy and the Constitutionality of Teaching Evolution in Public Schools” Trinity Law Review 21.1 (Fall, 2015), 162.  Luskin is quoting Crick’s The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul (1988).

     [5] Quoted in Casey Luskin, “Darwin’s Poisoned Tree: Atheistic Advocacy and the Constitutionality of Teaching Evolution in Public Schools” Trinity Law Review 21.1 (Fall, 2015), 166.

     [6] Tamler Sommers and Alex Rosenberg, “Darwin’s Nihilistic Idea: Evolution and the Meaninglessness of Life” Biology and Philosophy 18(5); November, 2003, 653.

     [7] Ryan Gorman, “’Killing Calmed Me Down’: Brazilian Man Admits Murdering More than Forty People for ‘Fun’” (December 12, 2014).  Online: http://www.aol.com/article/2014/12/12/killing-calmed-me-down-brazilian-man-admits-murdering-more-than-40-people-rio-de-janeiro/21115576/.

     [8] Quoted in Richard Weikart, The Death of Humanity and the Case for Life (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Faith, 2016), 11-12.  Weikart is quoting Viktor E. Frankl, The Doctor and the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy (New York: Vintage Books, 1986), xxvii.

Naturalism and Ethics

Some Thoughts on Naturalism and Ethics

Can naturalism provide the needed intellectual framework in which objective values make sense?  A number of theistic philosophers have answered in the negative.  Earlier in this presentation I presented the thought of William Lane Craig and his understanding of Christian-theistic ethics regarding the areas of objective moral values, objective moral duties, and moral accountability.  Dr. Craig has also argued: “If theism is false, we do not have a sound foundation for morality.”[1]  Paul Copan argues similarly:

An ethic rooted in naturalistic evolution ends up being subjectivistic and ultimately reduces to relativism.  Ethics is simply illusory, as [Michael] Ruse argues (and, as [Daniel] Dennett notes, naturalistic evolution doesn’t leave room for genuine natural rights).  So Westerners may find abhorrent practices such as female circumcision or a widow’s self-immolation on the funeral pyre of her husband (outlawed in India under the British Raj).  But why presuppose moral duties or human dignity and rights?  On what metaphysical basis should one oppose such practices?  If ethical beliefs are simply hardwired into us for our fitness and survival, we have no reason to think these beliefs are true; they simply are.[2]

Sometimes it is alleged that moral virtue can be objectively obtained by looking for that which maximizes the well-being of conscious creatures.  In this conception “bad” refers to the suffering of conscious creatures.  This can be based on demonstrable suffering.  There seems to be a philosophical move here that is too quick and without argument.  Surely we can speak of prudential value—that which is conducive to a human’s survival and well-being.  But this is not the same thing as moral value.  William Lane Craig, in responding to Mark Murphy’s views, argues against the confusion on this issue:

The claim here is that ‘what makes a state of affairs morally valuable (or disvaluable) is grounded in what makes a people better- (or worse-) off’ [Murphy’s idea].  What justification is there on naturalism, for this assertion, which represents the second step of his proposal?

“So far as I can see, the only justification Murphy offers for this assertion is that ‘the kind human is obviously a distinct sort of organism, and distinct in ways that are obviously ethically significant.  To take one example: human beings possess reflective and objectivizing intelligence, which enables them to call their inclinations into question and to see themselves as one person among others.’  This leaves me baffled as to the justification of Murphy’s grounding claim.  Certainly, if naturalism were true, human beings would still b distinct organisms possessed with reflective and objectivizing intelligence.  Such properties could still be said to be ethically significant in the sense that they are necessary conditions of being an agent and, a fortiori, of being a moral agent.  But I see no reason to think, without begging the question, that humans are therefore objectively morally valuable or have any moral obligations.[3] 

            Of course, the issue is not whether a naturalist and theist can share some of the same basic moral values—they can and do.  The more important question revolves around the grounding of those values.  Given non-purposive naturalism “it is not clear how one can establish normative values on the basis of processes that are ultimately thoroughly unconscious, nonnormative, and contingent in nature.”[4]

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     [1] Craig argues this case in his debate with Paul Kurtz in the book: Is Goodness without God Good Enough? A Debate on Faith, Secularism, and Ethics; editors, Robert K. Garcia and Nathan L. King (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield).

[2] Paul Copan, “God, Naturalism, and the Foundations of Morality,” in The Future of Atheism: Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett in Dialogue, ed. Robert Stewart; (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008), 153.  Available online: http://www.paulcopan.com/articles/pdf/God-naturalism-morality.pdf.

     [3] Craig, “This Most Gruesome of Guests,” in Is Goodness without God Good Enough?, 177—bold-face added.  See also Craig’s review of Sam Harris’ book The Moral Landscape in which the same confusions between prudential value and moral value are evident.  “Navigating Sam Harris’ The Moral Landscape.  Available online: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/navigating-sam-harris-the-moral-landscape. 

     [4] Steward Goetz and Charles Taliaferro, Naturalism (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2008), 95.

God and the Meaning of Life: Some Resources

Resources on the Question of the Meaning of Life

1.     James Anderson, “Can Life Have Meaning Without God?” Gospel Coalition (July 16, 2013).  Online: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/can-life-have-meaning-without-god.

2.     William Lane Craig, “The Absurdity of Life without God” (chapter from Reasonable Faith (1994).  Online: http://www.bethinking.org/is-there-meaning-to-life/the-absurdity-of-life-without-god.

3.     Charles Taliaferro, “Jesus Christ and the Meaning of Life.”  Pages 215-229 in Jesus and Philosophy: New Essays, edited by Paul K. Moser (Cambridge University Press, 2009).  Online: http://www.obinfonet.ro/docs/nt/ntrex/moser-jesus-and-philosophy.pdf.

4.     William Craig, “Is Life Absurd without God?” (Question #179).  Online: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/is-life-absurd-without-god1.

5.     William Craig, “Is Life Absurd without God?” (Question #250).  Online: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/is-life-absurd-without-god.

6.     William Craig, “Is God’s Life Absurd?” (Question #436).  Online: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/is-gods-life-absurd.

      7.  William Craig, “Where Do Atheists Find Meaning?”            Online: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/where-do-atheists-find-meaning

Slavery in the New Testament: A Few Comments

* I'm preaching through 1 Peter so I wrote up the following brief piece for our church bulletin to explain some of the background on the issue of slavery in the New Testament.  It's not meant to be exhaustive but it does give some further resources for study.

The New Testament mentions slavery.  Critics of the Bible have sometimes latched onto these texts as alleged evidence of the inferiority of the Bible ethics.  Why doesn’t the New Testament speak against slavery?  It seems to endorse the status quo.  So goes the challenge.  What can be said in response to such challenges?  Here a few items to consider…

1.     We need to properly contextualize slavery in the New Testament.  Simply mentioning a practice does not mean God condones or endorses the practice.  Paul urges Christians to honor the government but this doesn’t mean he condones everything the government does (Romans 13.1-7).

2.     The culture of the time did not allow for large-scale revolution on the issue of slavery.  Christians had to navigate the times with wisdom and engage in a longer-term project of undercutting slavery.  By some estimates 85-90% of the inhabitants of Rome and the Italian peninsula were slaves or of slave origins.  During the first century Caesar Augustus passed laws governing the number and ages of slaves who legitimately be set free.  It is helpful to remember also that in 73 BC Spartacus led a slaves revolt and this caused the general populace to look with fearful suspicion on any who would potentially foment opposition to slavery. 

3.     It needs to also be remembered that the Christian communities to which Peter wrote were being increasingly seen in a negative light.  Their lifestyles and refusal to fully endorse the gods brought them into conflict with the dominant culture.  This leads Dr. Steven Tracy to write:

What then could Christian slaves (who had no legal rights regarding their masters' abuse) and Christian citizens (who stood on the cusp of legal prosecution for their faith) do when experiencing abuse? Their best response was to let their godly behavior challenge unjust treatment and unjust slander, which is precisely what Peter repeatedly prescribes (2:12,1&-20; 3:16).[1]  

4.     There are ways that the New Testament expresses both direct and subtle opposition to slavery.  In 1 Timothy 1.9-10 and Revelation 18.11-13 kidnapping for the purpose of slavery is spoken against and presented in a negative light and worthy of judgment.  In 1 Corinthians 7.20-22 the apostle Paul encourages slaves to acquire freedom if possible.  In Ephesians chapter six when Paul mentions slaves and masters he does not quote Scripture as he does when discussing the other aspects of the household such as husbands/wives and fathers/children.  The marital and family bonds between men/women and parents/children were created by God so Paul can quote Scriptures about those relationships.  Slavery is an institution not created by God so the lack of a Scriptural citation is subtle but significant.

5.     The equality within the church tended to undercut the nature of slavery.  What is noteworthy is that slaves are addressed by Paul and Peter in their letters.  This dignified them as part of the church of Christ.  This was also different from the moral codes of the time outside the church.  As one biblical scholar writes:

The reason for this difference between 1 Peter and other moral codes of his time is simple.  For society at large slaves were not full persons and thus did not have moral responsibility.  For the church slaves were full and equal persons, and thus quite appropriately addressed as such.[2]

There are seemingly even slave names mentioned by Paul in his conclusion to the book of Romans when he is thanking and commending those who are worthy of mention in the church.  “The names of those mentioned in Romans 16 suggest that many had been slaves.  Andronicus [v. 7] and Urbanus [v.9] were exclusively slave names in the literature and inscriptions of Paul’s day.”[3]

6.     It should also be noted that the symbolic actions of the early church tended to undermine the dominant culture’s ideas of slavery.  The holy kiss and the language of “brothers” and “sisters” reinforced the larger family dynamic of the church.  Masters addressing slaves as “brother” would begin to subtly overturn the overt power structures of the relationship.  The words of biblical scholar F. F. Bruce regarding the letter of Philemon seem to apply more broadly to these kind of relational dynamics as well:

What this letter does [and I would argue these practices—RJK] is to bring us into an atmosphere in which the institution [of slavery] could only wilt and die.[4]

Yes, the New Testament mentions slavery but within the message and actions of the church are the seeds of slavery’s destruction.

Resources for further study:

1.     “Slavery in the Bible: Some Perspectives on a Difficult Topic.”  This is a Bible study I did last year on the topic of slavery.  It covers details of OT and NT slavery.  It also has some more resources listed in the bibliography.  Online: http://whiterosereview.blogspot.com/2015/11/slavery-in-bible-some-perspectives-on.html

2.     The Humanization of Slavery in the Old Testament, edited by Thomas Schirrmacher.  This is a collection of three essays that give perspective on slavery in the Bible, history and today.  Very good research and reasoning.  Online: http://www.bucer.de/fileadmin/dateien/Dokumente/Buecher/WoT_8_-_Thomas_Schirrmacher__ed.__-_The_Humanization_of_Slavery_in_the_OT.pdf

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     [1] Steven Tracy, “Domestic Violence in the Church and Redemptive Suffering” Calvin Theological Journal 41 (2006), 290.  Available online: http://mendingthesoul.org/wp-content/uploads/DV-in-Church-1-Peter.pdf

     [2] Peter H. Davids, The First Epistle of Peter—The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1990), 105.

     [3] A. A. Rupprecht, “Slave, Slavery” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, eds. Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, and Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 1993), 882.

     [4] F. F. Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1977), 401.

God and Politics: A Few Reflections

* A piece I wrote for our weekly church bulletin to go along with the sermon on 1 Peter 2.13-17.

The arena of politics can be difficult to navigate.  Now throw theology in the mix and the difficulties seem to multiply.  Yet, God has given us his Word and he speaks to the political realm in a number of different passages.  Today passage—1 Peter 2.13-17—is one such passage that gives us direction on how to reason as Christians.  As will be mentioned in the sermon today, we need to apply God’s unchanging principles to changing circumstances.  Within the history of the church Christians have had to live under varying political realities: monarchies, oligarchies, parliaments, tyrants, and democratic systems.  These differing political realities still require the people of God to heed God’s timeless instructions.

A helpful essay is Attitudes Towards the State in Western Theological Thinking by Torleiv Austad in the October 1990 issue of Themelios.  Here are a few select quotations from Austad’s piece:

From the NT texts which speak of the life of the Christian in the world, we may draw the following conclusions for understanding the mandate and limits of the state: First, the mandate of the state is to deal with and regulate the common social, political, and economic life of society.  Secondly, the state has the right to require taxes from the citizens to be able to take care of some of the common needs, such as food and clothing, work and social welfare, law and justice.  Thirdly, the state has to take care of and reward those who are doing right and to punish those who are doing wrong.  Thus the state is on the way to fulfilling its mandate of administering justice.  If the state pretends to give itself divine attributes and becomes involved in people’s relationship with God, it goes beyond its limits. It is also a transgression of those limits when a state offends elementary civil rights, especially when it restrains freedom of conscience.  In addition, a just state, i.e. a state which functions in accordance with its mandate, may not be totalitarian in terms of claiming sovereignty in all areas of life without crossing the line and entering into injustice and demonic power.

The task of the church over against the state is threefold: First, the church has to remind the state of its mandate and limits.  Secondly, the church should encourage the citizens, Christians included, to co-operate with the actual state as far as it is true to its calling.  Thirdly, because the state is constantly tempted to become totalitarian and degenerate, the church and Christians are called to be critical of every state and evaluate its functions on the basis of ethical premises. (p. 20)

Austad goes on to note that in the New Testament the state is given neither principled renunciation nor uncritical acceptance.  He writes:

The apparently contradictory attitude can be illustrated by comparing Romans 13 and Revelation 13.  In both cases Christians are confronted with the Roman state.  While the governing authorities according to Romans 13 respect elementary civil rights, the same state in Revelation 13—about forty years later—is seen as the beast from the abyss.  Therefore the attitude of Christians has changed from obedience to disobedience.  Within the eschatological horizon of the NT the relationship between Christians and the governing authorities is never fixed; it is complex, sensitive and changing. (p. 22)

The interface between the church and the state can be tricky.  Faithfully navigating through all the twists and turns of both cultural and political analysis as well as critically engaging in rigorous biblical and theological thinking is difficult.  Even when Christians agree on fundament principles from God’s word there may still be disagreements on how to best apply those principles to concrete problems and situations.  May God give us the grace and wisdom to faithfully pursue righteous and justice in all that we do—including in the realm of politics.