In Peter Kreeft's book Between Heaven and Hell, he narrarates an after death meeting between John F. Kennedy, C.S. Lewis, and Alduous Huxley. All of these men practiced different beliefs and had different worldviews. All three died on the same day.
One of the topics the book discusses betewen Kennedy and Lewis is the topic of sages. A sage is someone who demonstrates unusual insight and wisdom, who demonstrate love, compassion and selflessness, and who are creative. Sadly, our culture tends to criticize modern sages. People see those who have these qualities and try to find something to chastise them on.
Some people have a hard time believing that Jesus is God. Jesus can be either God or a bad man. He obviously was not a bad man because he helped people and did good thing, so He has to be the Son of God. There are four possibilities for who Jesus Christ really was. Either he was a bad man, a good man (a sage), and ordinary man, or God. You obviously can't categorize Jesus into any of the other three categories, so he has to be God.
Lewis admitted that at one point in his life, before he became a Christian, he wanted to be his own God. He didn't like the fact that you have to give everything in your life over to the Lord, and he wanted to be in charge of it all. Many people do the same thing. They want to be in control of the future, life, choices and everything. These people practice self-deception, meaning that they will go against God because they think that they want to be in charge. They will not hand the reins over to the Lord because they "think" that is what they want. They deceive themselves by rejecting the Father, because following Him means letting Him be in charge of every aspect of their life. Sadly, this is where our world is today. They reject God because they want to have the power.
Make sure that you aren't trying to hold on to the reigns that God is supposed to have.
Examine yourself... Is God in control of your life, or are you?
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Worldview: A Clear View
Truth and Knowing Part 2
"The prevelent view today in academic circles at least tends to place philosophical opinions and religious beliefs on the side of taste rather than on teh side of truth. This has not always been regnant view, nor is it necessarily the correct one."
Mortimer Adler
In the age of Enlightenment, reason was something that was based soley on the knowledge and beliefs of each individual. Immanuel Kant greatly influenced the idea of reason being man's knowledge. He lived from 1724 to 1804, and argued that man makes himself into the person that he is to become. Another man who influenced this era of thinking was George W.F. Hegel. He lived from 1770-1831, and was a german philosopher who is famous for developing a way of arriving at a truth, also known as Hegel's Dialectic. Hegel made a huge impact on truth. He argued that instead of truth being fixed and set, it is constantly evolving and changing. Francis Schaeffer made the statement...
"one cannot understand modern man in philosophy, in the other disciplines, in morals, in political thought , without understanding that Hegel has won".
In this statement he meant that all of modern philosophy has been dictated by the beliefs set forth by Hegel. In modern philosophy, people are constantly being asked what is truth? Before Hegel, this question was not very prevelent. People were pretty content to believe that God and the Bible were the absolute, standard truth. After Hegel introduced his philosophy, things started to change.
Soren Kierkegaard lived from 1813 until 1855, and proclaimed his own belief that truth is discovered through reason. His philosophy was that truth was based upon the individual. Each person was responsible for developing his own truth. He developed what was called the leap of faith, meaning that people should discard "rational thinking", and be "non-rational" in their beliefs. He argued that people shouldn't always follow what makes sense.
Through each of these philosophical changes, four different views of the Bible has been established. These include...
The Bible is ACCEPTED as the Word of God
The Bible is NOT the Word of God
The Bible BECOMES the Word of God
The Bible MAY become the Word of God
All of these beliefs worked to challenge the thinking of people all over the world. These questions reinforced the question that had been asked over and over again... "What can we really know and by what means". As time continued to move on, man came up with some answers...
trust in reason
put faith in science and progress
be optimistic about the type of world humans can create
Sadly, these three answers greatly define the world for a lot of people.
The whole transition of thinking during this time worked to establish the Postmodern Era, or the period in which we as humans live today, as a result of thinking and beliefs started and established years ago. Post-modern thinkers believe that there are ways of knowing the anwers to questions like emotions and intuitions. Post-modernism has greatly affected the education world- a world in which a lot of students believe that truth is relative, and is something to be decided by each individual person. The same thing with morality. Each person must decide what is right and moral, because what is moral for one person isn't for another.
The questions
How do we know?
and
What can we know?
affect the way that we answer other difficult questions. They influence the way that we think about morality, and what is right and wrong. When we answer these questions, we can discover in a whole new way what is fair and appropriate in the world around us.
Thanks for reading!
Most of these ideas are taken from the book A Clear View, by Keith Ogorek.
"The prevelent view today in academic circles at least tends to place philosophical opinions and religious beliefs on the side of taste rather than on teh side of truth. This has not always been regnant view, nor is it necessarily the correct one."
Mortimer Adler
In the age of Enlightenment, reason was something that was based soley on the knowledge and beliefs of each individual. Immanuel Kant greatly influenced the idea of reason being man's knowledge. He lived from 1724 to 1804, and argued that man makes himself into the person that he is to become. Another man who influenced this era of thinking was George W.F. Hegel. He lived from 1770-1831, and was a german philosopher who is famous for developing a way of arriving at a truth, also known as Hegel's Dialectic. Hegel made a huge impact on truth. He argued that instead of truth being fixed and set, it is constantly evolving and changing. Francis Schaeffer made the statement...
"one cannot understand modern man in philosophy, in the other disciplines, in morals, in political thought , without understanding that Hegel has won".
In this statement he meant that all of modern philosophy has been dictated by the beliefs set forth by Hegel. In modern philosophy, people are constantly being asked what is truth? Before Hegel, this question was not very prevelent. People were pretty content to believe that God and the Bible were the absolute, standard truth. After Hegel introduced his philosophy, things started to change.
Soren Kierkegaard lived from 1813 until 1855, and proclaimed his own belief that truth is discovered through reason. His philosophy was that truth was based upon the individual. Each person was responsible for developing his own truth. He developed what was called the leap of faith, meaning that people should discard "rational thinking", and be "non-rational" in their beliefs. He argued that people shouldn't always follow what makes sense.
Through each of these philosophical changes, four different views of the Bible has been established. These include...
The Bible is ACCEPTED as the Word of God
The Bible is NOT the Word of God
The Bible BECOMES the Word of God
The Bible MAY become the Word of God
All of these beliefs worked to challenge the thinking of people all over the world. These questions reinforced the question that had been asked over and over again... "What can we really know and by what means". As time continued to move on, man came up with some answers...
trust in reason
put faith in science and progress
be optimistic about the type of world humans can create
Sadly, these three answers greatly define the world for a lot of people.
The whole transition of thinking during this time worked to establish the Postmodern Era, or the period in which we as humans live today, as a result of thinking and beliefs started and established years ago. Post-modern thinkers believe that there are ways of knowing the anwers to questions like emotions and intuitions. Post-modernism has greatly affected the education world- a world in which a lot of students believe that truth is relative, and is something to be decided by each individual person. The same thing with morality. Each person must decide what is right and moral, because what is moral for one person isn't for another.
The questions
How do we know?
and
What can we know?
affect the way that we answer other difficult questions. They influence the way that we think about morality, and what is right and wrong. When we answer these questions, we can discover in a whole new way what is fair and appropriate in the world around us.
Thanks for reading!
Most of these ideas are taken from the book A Clear View, by Keith Ogorek.
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