Talk given at University College
London CU 5 October 2006
1. How can you say anything is absolutely true?
Around here, not even “2+2=4”
is immune from question (a Maths professor actually sent me a paper on this). But
whether something is “absolutely true” usually affects you more in your personal life and behaviour than in your
maths. Who is to say, “this is the only way”? When it comes to how things ought to be done around here your idea is as good as mine – better, maybe.
The short-cut answer is, “I
just base my life on what I can see. Seeing is believing”. But are you sure that this works? Don’t you believe
in some things you can’t see? Like gravity?
Or the French Revolution? Or like falling in love? (somehow I doubt
if you say to your girl-friend, “I am having a chemical reaction towards you”).
Another short-cut answer is,
“Whatever – what does it matter?” But the ultimate questions
might matter to you sooner than you think. Life and death issues seem to jump
up unexpectedly.
There are other ultimate issues
that creep up when you’re not looking. The most beguiling of these is surely
the existence of beauty. Why do
we experience awe at nature, in art, music or in human personality? In his recent book “The God Delusion” Richard
Dawkins joins the list of philosophers who have to deal with their reaction to an awesome universe. Dawkins claims that this is not a proof of God but is then left with no explanation
for beauty at all. C.S. Lewis, fellow of Magdalen College Oxford, confronted
the same issue and called it “Surprised by Joy”. This was one of the factors which drove him to Christian faith and became the
title of his autobiography.
Dawkins rightly says that without
further outside information we are stuck and cannot come to conclusions, not even about right and wrong. The best we can come up with is some sort of social consensus.
But – are we bereft of any word from
outside? Ten minutes’ worth of viewing the night sky causes many people
to ask, “How did it get there? Is anybody out there? Will anyone contact us?”
The Bible answers this question with an
unequivocal “Yes” - by saying that the only way to have eternal life is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ
whom he sent to earth. Note that we are not left with the concept
of a vague distant impersonal deity but with a person with character. Bible intends
us to conclude that
God loves you and created you to know him personally
2. Why is there so much inhumanity in the world?
If people are essentially good why do I
see so much inhumanity to mankind on my television – not only on the news but in films about serial killers, series
about crime and documentaries about scandals at the highest level?
In P.D. James’ book “The Children
of Men”, now out as a film, depicts a future in Britain (the action takes place in 2027) where human nature has
not improved. Clive Owen who plays Theo, the main protagonist in the film, was
interviewed about how he felt about it. Referring to the place in the film where
a bomb goes off in Central London narrowly missing Theo he said that the most disturbing thing was that it is so like things
are now – not the bomb, but the way human nature has been further expressed in society.
Everything is so like us (as the Guardian pointed out they still seem to have the Evening Standard in 2027!).
Exactly the same thought-experiment is
the basis of Stephen Lawhead’s book “Dream Thief”, set a couple of centuries hence, where the rich still
get richer and the poor get poorer, disturbingly still in the same countries they are in now.
But who said that people are essentially
good? Does it fit the facts? We
naturally recoil from an explanation that says we are incurably evil. Maybe instead
we should be asking, “Where does altruism come from?”
In its analysis of human-ness the Bible
comes up with a different alternative. It says that the root of our dissonant
life is that we are separated from God by our sin. “Everyone has sinned;
we all fall short of God’s glorious standard” The outcome is not pretty, “the
wages of sin is death”
So we are not the incurable source
of evil. Rather we are sinful – as it turns out, curably sinful.
To summarise – We are separated from God by our sin, so we cannot know him or experience his
love
3. Aren’t we doomed by our genes?
Were it not for the intervention of Jesus
of Nazareth in history we would be doomed by our genes. Take him out of the Christian
story and you are left with a namby-pamby, finger-wagging moralism with no power to offer change to anybody.
As it stands, he claims to be the sole
solution to the problem we just encountered – the indelible rot that stalks our steps and plagues our lives. If the problem is really that bad then the solution needs to be really that radical. Even if all you have seen on this subject is Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” you
will remember his line from the gospels, “The Son of man came to give his life as a ransom for many”.
Christ claimed to be the one from outside
and said he would show this by rising from the dead, not something his disciples accepted too easily. Mind you, they didn’t exactly warm to the idea of his being arrested and killed either. But their minds were eventually made up when Jesus appeared to them after the resurrection over a period
of six weeks. By then the tomb was empty, Christ’s executioners were livid
and, according to the eye-witness accounts, he had gone to the extent of having meals with his disciples – it even tells
you what he had for breakfast!
Dan Brown has made a fortune off floating
the idea that the accounts of Jesus were not written at the time but some centuries later.
This idea gets shot in the head by the existence of gospel manuscripts in this country, some of which date from inside
the disciples’ lifetime. Key collections of New Testament documents are
open for viewing at the British Library on the Euston Road 9:30 a.m. – 6 p.m. weekdays.
Does it matter? Course it matters! Maybe I’m selfish but I don’t
want to squander my chances for this life and the next just because I couldn’t do a slight bit of homework. I want eye-witness testimony that the witness will stand by, even under cross-examination.
Last month a rumour flew around that Osama
Bin Laden was dead. How would you know if he were indeed dead? Or how would you know if he is indeed alive?
Would a photograph do? I think not.
The rules of proof haven’t changed – only eye-witness testimony will do.
Given the depth of the problem there is
no other solution -
Jesus Christ is God’s only solution for
our sin. Through him alone we can know God and experience his love and forgiveness
4. Why doesn’t Christianity work worldwide?
Most of us want answers for “society”
– but society is completely made up of people like you and me. Before we
talk about changing everybody else there is a personal choice that faces us all. That
choice is the one depicted by Holman Hunt in his painting “The Light of the World” (the original hangs in Keble
College, Oxford). It shows Christ as the essence of good manners, knocking and
waiting (that’s the point) outside a person’s door. He is not going
to force his salvation, nor his way of life, on anyone. That’s where you
come in. At this point it’s entirely up to you.
In case you might not get the point of
the painting Hunt indented the relevant lines from the Bible into the actual frame of the painting, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with
him, and he with me.”
Like they
say at weddings – this is not a decision to make lightly. It will engage
your mind, your emotion and your will. If you don’t think it’s logical,
don’t do it. If you don’t see a need to embrace that sole
solution to the human dilemma, you’re not ready. And if your heart
is not it in – why bother?
But if you want a second chance
at life, if you want to help change the world, it is time to bother, now.
We must each respond
by asking Jesus to come into our lives. Then we can know God personally and experience
his love and forgiveness
