Some thoughts...

It seems at times our greatest freedom... our autonomy is also our greatest curse. Life is full of these paradoxes. I'm in no way theoretically challenging the system God has placed in the universe... this is simply an existential exploration.

We have the freedom to choose to live however we like. And with every choice comes a consequence, in actuality a web of them...

God has set up rules to govern the universe, to govern our lives. We have the autonomy to choose to abide by these, or not. We encounter this daily, moment to moment.

Life is full of decisions some of these will affect the very course of our lives...and the lives of those around us for we don't live in a vaccuum even though there are times when I really wish we did. This is often where a worldview is of utmost importance... to state that more succintly a solid, stable, authoritative worldview is essential (assuming of course we desire to make the correct choices). But we're feeling animals...with strong and complex emotions...to add insult to injury, we have a million voices constantly selling us something. Again we don't live in a bubble...and pop culture has infiltrated our lives in such a way to confuse our ability to think rationally... or maybe it's more fundamental than that...perhaps it's too simple to blame pop culture, for where would culture be without the very people that comprise it.

Nevertheless we have the ability to think, ponder, criticize and think rationally... Some would argue this rationality is really what separates us most from simplier life forms... but that in no way spares us from carnal responses. We are still so capable... In the end it's a choice and a hard one at that.

Animals will seek food to feed their appetites sparing no cost, we call it instinctive. They cannot to the best of our knowledge, think rationally. They take into no consideration the consequences, they cannot consider whether their desires are good, or for their best interest. They are incapable of really planning for the future...or considering how their behaviors affect others...I think about my dog...how he escapes from the backyard every chance he gets. Every now and then he runs out of the yard if someone forgets to close the gate completely. I'm not sure what he does...but he won't be back for days at a time. To the best of his ability to "believe" anything...I think he really believes he would be happy being able to run freely wherever he pleases... but he isn't able to consider the dangers...traffic, other dogs, people... and it's a life or death matter. He does what he feels he wants to do... but i haven't met too many suicidal animals (strange how only people seem to be that way). I don't think he wants to die... he just doesn't know better...in some senses, he doesn't actually know what he wants. I on the other hand know better than he does...I want to protect him and I have the information that he lacks... but as always it's his choice... in the end, whether to trust me or not.

I think sometimes we mistake feeling good with being happy...they are not one in the same...

When we go about our lives independantly from He who has all the information...we are apt to find ourselves in trouble...in the process we may violate one another in significant ways, violate God...and ultimately ourselves.

This world, modern society, civilization has a system...one that is always in flux, it's inconsistent at best and that should speak volumes about the validity. It depends on trends, culture, media, politicians and fragmented artists... And there's nothing passive about it. Sometimes it's as though we've taken all our worst qualities and amalgamated them into a hodge podge, system of life. It's the post modern worldview that has taken a strange form over the last several decades... really it started with the creation of man...but it has intensified, snowballed prepetually through the centuries...

At the center of this dogma is the SELF, it's built around man's primitive appetite. "If it feels right, do it..." "Do whatever makes you happy." "Life is about whatever you want, it's all about you." Of course this has dangerous presuppositions and ramifications.

Tim and I were discussing a book by JP Moreland the title of which eludes me at the moment, but within the pages is a discussion about rationality and how we have as a body of Christians dumbed down the gospel. The gospel is anything but dumb, it claims to be the very inspired words of God. It is full of controversial ideas...ideas that will make you lose sleep, toss and turn and shout in the dark. Ideas that claim to give life and deliverance. Ideas that will stretch you beyond your means....It calls us to swim upstream... against the current. Against our appetites, against everthing the rest of the world holds onto so tightly. I think we've been lied to. I think even "christians" have come to believe that basically God will help us get what we want... we think that's what life is about we also think that this will make us happy. I think our desires have to be challenged by God...refined...and in some cases completely shattered until they can be truly called "good" desires. Then and only then will they fulfill us to the extent that we long for...

The bible does not paint a picture of a cruel, ogre God looking to set up rules to make our lives more difficult, for the sake of being difficult. Instead, a parent who knows infinitely more than we do. (Or a benevolent master to treasured pet.) Knowing what tomorrow brings, knowing how things will turn out and knowing from that what is in our best interest. Furthermore, He is the one who has set the foundations of the earth, the world into orbit, the universe into existence... he knows how the thing works.

The promise of the bible is that if we choose to follow His ways, we will actually be happy in the way we all so deeply desire.

The promise of the world is that if we follow our desires we will find happiness somewhere along the way. There are two obvious problems with the latter.

1) It presupposes that we are all intrinsically good and/or that our desires are good. But history is replete with cautionary tales of desires gone wrong... one austrian desired to dominate the world...and in the process exterminated 6 million people.

2) We presuppose the desires we seek will provide what they promise. What if it's a lie? What if it doesn't pay out like it promised? And what do you do when it passes? Nothing lasts forever...

The bible states that we are all depraved in mind, that our desires are often off and that we need rationality, information, truth... to navigate through the smoke. This means that you can feel so strongly about something and good about it...and it could still be completely off. Yeah, the opposite of the egoist approach...maybe that's why people have such a hard time with the Christian message. We like to think of ourselves more highly... I think we can only go by whichever best reflects reality. Watch the news...

In the end, God will let you do what you choose to do with your life... and that's the frightening reality. Your life will not turn out in the way that He saw it fit... It will turn out the way you did... and that I firmly believe is a taste of hell...

Hell will be the place of full autonomy, to be completely free from God and the cold metal bars of your own depravity will imprision you.

On our best days, we don't know what tomorrow brings.
On our best days, there is more we don't know than we do
and on our best days we are by nature apt to make the wrong choices...