I saw that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness. The wiseman has eyes in his head, while the fool walks in darkness; but I came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both. Ecclesiastes 2: 13, 14.
I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. Ecclesiastes 3: 10-12.
Consider what God has done: Who can straighten what He has made crooked? When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future.
In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these: a righteous man perishing in his righteousness, and a wicked man living long in his wickedness. Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise–why destroy yourself? Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool–why die before you time? It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. The man who fears God will follow them both (avoid all extremes). Ecclesiastes 7: 13-18.
I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. Ecclesiastes 9: 11.
These passages sound logical to me. But my understanding sort of comes from the paradigm for which they were written, so they make sense only within this framework. To grasp the thought that God has placed eternity in man’s heart we must believe that God exists before the thought of eternity becomes a reality with which we reason. Using this argument outside of the realm of faith in God as it is found in the Scriptures is like asking a donkey to swing from trees like a monkey.
Logic can be summed up in looking first at cause to a effect, then using what I like to call the “Sherlock Holmes Principle” which goes something like this (it’s been a long time since I read it so you’ll have be satisfied with a paraphrase): “When all logical probabilities have been eliminated, what is left, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”
When a person looks at a computer, they don’t think it popped into existence or evolved by itself without help, they wonder at the designers and how they could have thought of such a thing. The evidence of nature suggests a Creator, though it doesn’t specify exactly how this Creator went about making it all. Yet, if we are to work from observation and the scientific method, we must conclude that someone or something designed the universe, for it is just too well fitted together not to be designed.
This is where it gets sticky, however, because many authorities in the scientific community don’t want a god or God to exist. His/Her existence would be too much of an inconvenience to whatever agenda they have on their minds at the moment. If we are to be seekers of truth, we should admit not only the possibility of such a being but the probability as well. Many are readily able to accept a non-descript, non-entity-sans-sentient power in the universe which creates without thought or purpose. A purposeless creation allows for those who don’t want god/God to exist to create their own purpose without the constraints of a designer.
The problem comes in the form of the created beings and life machine represented in the earth. The marvel of creation just on Earth alone should show a consciousness far beyond our hopes, for it demonstrates a community relationship between nature (plants and animal life) and human that goes beyond just mere enjoyment or variety. What rises to the top of the pool of study emerging from the study of rain forests, wetlands, bogs and glaciers is a world held in a delicate balance, where one degree too much to either side could destroy life as we know it.
The bogs and marshes have been shown to be the sewage treatment plant of nature with a symbiotic relationship so vital that destroying them for the sake of “progress” becomes horrendously foolish. We know that trees are the counterpart to animal life for they produce the oxygen we need while we exhale the carbon they need. Everything on earth works as check and balance for life to continue.
Yet with all this intricate design, many are all too willing to deny the evidence is overwhelming for a designer. Notice I haven’t specified who it is that designed, merely that there is one. For the record, I believe in a designer emphatically, but my logic will not allow me to eliminate the possibilities of another god or group of gods. Why? Because then I would be tripping up the closed minded lane that many other intelligent humans have gone, and to their hurt. We must remain open to being wrong for our faith in what we have chosen for truth to be practiced whole heartedly.
How does this follow faith?
Simply that we choose a belief system based on the evidence at hand. I’ve chosen the Christian belief system because it explains to me the why, what and how of both creation and the current age of humanity. It also means that since I was raised with this belief pounded into my head from an early age, that I’m biased towards it. The reason it fits my “logic” so well is partly because the departure point of my reasoning sources itself in Christian doctrine.
The first rule I made for myself, however, after choosing to stick with Jesus was that I would open myself to truth–no matter how painful, illogical (by my standards) or improbable I found it. Truth is truth, reality is reality, and they must coincide or we have a lie or misdirected understanding mixed in with our conclusion.
For example: Pasteur proved that flies weren’t spontaneously generated from old meat through a simple exercise of a glass cover and a curved breathing tube in it. The previous conclusions from the truth and reality known pointed to meat producing the flies in the minds of those who observed. What Pasteur proved was that human’s previous conclusion based on the facts at hand was false.
The facts were clearly observable, however, so we had them right in so far as we could, but our theoretical conclusion missed the mark by a wide margin. Following with that truth in mind, I would say that the probability that all religions contain truth and are based on reality is high, whereas the conclusion of most or all of them could be missing the mark by a wide margin based on their assumption of what the evidence means.
He (God) has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
Tags: belief, belief systems, eternity, evidence, logic, reality, science, the meaning of life, truth
