The purpose of apologetics is to present biblical answers to the questions of Origin, Meaning, Morality, Destiny. If you can answer the questions of these issues you have presented a worldview
This morning I’d like to focus only on one aspect of this collection of four questions-the question of meaning. In order to answer the question, ‘what does it mean’ you must first answer the question ‘what is real’? I realize most people are not asking this question. But philosophers and scientists do.
[slide 2]
Einstein said the whole universe is an illusion, though a very persistent one.
[slide 3] The pop-culture film-phenomenon The Matrix was released in 1999. It, and the two sequels which followed presented a world in which all of the things we think of as Real were actually only a computer simulation designed to stimulate parts of the brain with the illusion of reality-while the Real Reality was a world of machines that harvested humans and kept them in vats to feed on the energy their bodies produced while the humans slept through their lives dreaming of a reality which was only a dream-world [video clip-slide 4].
Many people were impressed by this film. I’m not recommending it, though there are many (including those who produced the film) who have seen the main character “Neo” as a Christ figure. I have no need for such Christ figures-I prefer Jesus.
But the film inspired a great deal of discussion of the questions of what is real and how we can know it.
[slide 6] John 1:14
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the Only Begotton, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
C.S. Lewis was a scholar of classical Greek. He translates that last phrase “full of grace and reality”.
I believe Ravi Zacharias was right-
[Slide 7] “The ultimate pursuit should be the truth, no matter where it leads you.” Ravi Zacharias (Message given at “why Jesus” April 2012)
[slide 8] Lawrence Krauss, a physicist and string theorist, argues once we figure out what happened at the inception of the universe we may one day have the power to create entire new universes ex nihilo-out of nothing (A Universe from Nothing). Yet he, with all of his wondrous intelligence, is unable to come to a knowledge of God-he is an avowed atheist. He can believe something as patently ludicrous and silly and unscientific as the suggestion that human beings may one day become like God and create universes at will, yet is unable to come to that conclusion which is obvious to the greatest and the least intellects among us, that a good and magnificent Creator brought the magnificence of this universe into existence.
[slide 8] We are surrounded externally and internally with evidence of the Creator. He speaks to us in the gentle breezes clapping together the leaves of mighty oaks. He speaks to us in the germinating seed, from its muddy, wrinkled planeness it transforms into a living, breathing, beautiful, fruitful vine. He speaks to us in our own liveliness; our every breath is in His hand, our thought He knows before we think it, and, if we are willing, in a still small voice He speaks to us in our own minds, revealing Himself to us in peace and prophecy, in joy, and restoration.
God is, everywhere, shouting to us, yet we, with hands firmly clasped over our ears shout profanities in an attempt to drown out His mighty flood of a voice. As CS Lewis put it:
[slide 9] “Good beats upon the damned incessantly as sound waves beat on the ears of the deaf, but they cannot receive it. Their fists are clenched, their teeth are clenched, their eyes fast shut. First they will not, in the end they cannot, open their hands for gifts, or their mouth for food, or their eyes to see.” C. S. Lewis: The Great Divorce
[slide 10] Our denial of reality in no way diminishes it; it only diminishes us.
[slide 11] Thalia Wheatley was once a deeply devout believer, and prayed every day. But in her research of the way the human brain processes information she discovered that you can stimulate the temporal lobe of the brain with an electric current a person feels connected- a sense of the presence of God. Because of this she came to doubt her own experience of God’s presence, and attributed it to a trick of the mind. (interview with Robert Kuhn)
This is curious to me. [slide 12] Research has discovered electrical impulses of the brain associated with the smell of lemon, or the taste of chocolate cake. Yet no one concludes from this research that lemons or chocolate cake therefore do not exist. If you were God and you wanted to communicate with humanity, what better way than through pathways in the brain-eternal Mind communing with temporal mind? Why is it that roughly seven billion people around the world affirm some kind of belief and experience of the existence of God? To claim the experience of those billions is invalid seems to me, somehow, un/anti-scientific. It seems like a conclusion which lacks objectivity.
[slide 13] But the denial of a deeper reality to our existence, I believe, has had much more distressing consequences.
The denial of reality, including spiritual reality in no way diminishes it; it only diminishes us.
[slide 14] In 2000, Vadim Mieseges chopped up his landlady into a collection of body parts. Tonda Lynn Ansley shot her landlady in the head in July 2002, killing her instantly. Joshua Cooke in 2003 killed the couple that adopted him. What do all three of these murderers have in common? They pleaded not guilty on the grounds that they didn’t realize that what they were doing was real-they each claimed to have believed they were actually in the Matrix. Each claimed to believe they were living in a computer-generated unreality and, therefore, not committing horrific crimes in the real world. Somehow I think these extreme examples demonstrate a very real problem in our very real world. People are becoming disconnected from reality, and the more disconnected you become from reality the less connected you become with Truth.
[slide 15] When we embrace unreality and reject reality we open ourselves to enacting every form of human depravity.
[slide 16] The word for truth (Aleitheia) is related to the Hebrew word emen-which finds its root in Amen. It means reliable, certain, stable. A man of truth (an ish amen) is a man who’s word can be relied on (the word is also closely related to the Hebrew term emuna-peace, which, in turn, is related to shalom. Perhaps our connection with reality is inextricable from our experience of peace, of psychological, social, and physical wholeness).
The Greek term truth (aleitheia) means literally ‘not hidden’. To the Greek mind, truth is obvious, it is evident. The term came to mean that which is associated with reality. Though cynics argued whether or not truth could be known, as demonstrated in Pilate’s infamous rhetorical flourish to Jesus, “What is truth?”, the intuition of humanity from the earliest records of our intellectual reasonings is that truth is something that is both evident and knowable (It is interesting to me is that in Hellenistic thought, the real, or true, was thought of as that which can be apprehended and understood only through the mind, and not through the physical senses, because Truth was a matter of the eternal or divine-especially, but not exclusively, in the writings of Plato. This is part of the reason that early Christian apologists liked Plato’s Hellenistic perspective concerning truth).
[slide 17] The Hebrew word ‘truth’, as well as the Greek word for truth, can often be translated ‘reality’. Partly for this reason, CS Lewis translates John 1:14 “we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and reality”.
What if we translated some of the many passages in the New Testament where this word is associated with the Good News of Jesus in the same way?
[slide 18] Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with REALITY. 1 Corinthians 13:6
All will be condemned who have not believed REALITY but have delighted in wickedness. 2 Thessalonians 2:12
Evil and wickedness are an expression of the (un)reality of hell. The reality of heaven is different.
We cannot do anything against REALITY, but only for REALITY. 2 Corinthians 13:8
For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God’s REALITY, to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs Romans 15:8
God’s promise-prophecy-is real.
We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the REALITY of the gospel might remain with you. Galatians 2:5
So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the REALITY you now have. 2 Peter 1:12
The Good News is reality.
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of REALITY, the gospel of your salvation. Ephesians 1:13
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of REALITY. 2 Timothy 2:15
God’s Word is real.
Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in REALITY. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence 1 John 3:18-19
Love is real.
Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and REALITY) Ephesians 5:8-9
Reality is the fruit of the light.
My brothers, if one of you should wander from REALITY and someone should bring him back remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins. James 5:19-20
[slide 19]
Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the REALITY that is in Jesus. Ephesians 4:21
Reality is in Jesus
“I am the way and the REALITY and the life. John 14:6
[slide 20] You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to REALITY. Everyone on the side of REALITY listens to me.”
38 “What is REAL?” Pilate asked. With this he went out again to the Jews and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him. John 18:37-38
Again. Reality is in Jesus. Jesus is the ultimate reality.
[slide 21] The Velveteen Rabbit-the toy horse explains to the Velveteen Rabbit that toys become real only when they are loved truly by a child. I believe we as human beings are like the toys on the shelf-never fully real until we are embraced by the love of God.
[slide 22]
Frances Angermayer wrote words which found their way into the pockets of many soldiers in World War II
Look, God, I have never spoken to You.
But now -- I want to say, "how do you do."
You see, God, they told me You didn't exist.
And like a fool -- I believed all of this.
Last night from a shell-hole I saw Your sky --
I figured right then, they had told me a lie.
Had I taken time to see the things You made,
I'd known they weren't calling a spade a spade.
I wonder, God, if You'd shake my hand.
Somehow -- I feel that You will understand.
Funny, -- I had to come to this hellish place,
Before I had the time to see Your Face.
Well, I guess there isn't much more to say.
But I'm sure glad, God, I met You today.
I guess the "zero hour" will soon be here.
But I'm not afraid since I know You're near.
The signal! -- Well, God, -- I'll have to go.
I like You lots. -- This I want You to know.
Look, now -- this will be a horrible fight.
Who knows -- I may come to Your house tonight.
Though I wasn't friendly with You before
I wonder, God -- if You'd wait at Your Door.
Look -- I'm crying! Me! -- Shedding tears!
I wish I'd known You these many years.
Well, I will have to go now, God -- goodbye.
Strange -- since I met You -- I'm not afraid to die.
