The Christian Understanding of Creation
Many today have been told that humankind invented God to mitigate
the fear of death
But, quite to the contrary, Christians believe that God, who is love,
invented, that is, created, humankind out of love with the intention
that humankind should know the happiness of sharing in God’s love
1.1
Happiness, Love and the Law in Early Christianity:
This course will try to make the point that morality, in early Christian
communities had happiness, the abiding happiness that comes
from sharing in the life of God, as the basis for morality. Learning to
love selflessly as God loves was the means by which that goal could
best be achieved.
This message, however, was first delivered to a Jewish community
that looked mainly to the Law as the basis for moral behavior. We
will examine how the first Christians managed to illustrate how
happiness and love were, or at least should have been, the
foundational basis of the Law
The understanding that early Christians had about the role that
happiness and love played in all things moral served the faith well
for centuries despite many decades of fierce repression. Yet,
despite all of that success, Christianity began to tilt back to looking
to the law to serve as the foundation of moral decisions. We will
look at three specific events that influenced that tilt and examine the
impact of those events on modern Christianity
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Happiness
We’ll begin the discussion with a deeper look at the
concept of happiness
Happiness can mean different things to different people.
In the next slides we’ll consider some of the ways that
people look at happiness
1.3
Self-satisfaction
Every human being has appetites and satisfying those
appetites usually brings some level of happiness. We
most often associate the word appetite in the context of
food but there are many kinds of appetites.
• Social
Wanting to be accepted
• Intellectual Curiosity, wanting answers to questions
• Sexual
Desire for physical satisfaction
There are, of course, many other appetites beside these.
Perhaps the satisfaction of appetites is the kind of
happiness that fits most perfectly with human nature.
Human nature is almost always centered on the self. Selfsatisfaction is also often the most transient type of
happiness because human appetites are never
completely satisfied
1.4
Luck
“It’s smarter to be lucky than its lucky to be smart” (from the play Pippin).
Again, we most often think of the word luck in the context of gambling but,
for this discussion, luck has a broader meaning. It is used to describe
someone who has good fortune in life. Some examples include;
• Being born into a prosperous family
• Being born with an athletic or artistic skill
• Being born with a high level of intelligence (see above)
At the time of Jesus, this kind of luck was often associated with a person
being favored by some deity. In today’s secular world, we are more likely to
say that these people have simply won life’s lottery.
That way of thinking has even entered into some forms of Christianity. Many
Christians hold to the idea of double predestination. They believe that God
predetermines from all eternity whom he will save (unconditional election)
and whom he will damn (reprobation). When a human is born, his or her
“luck” (i.e. eternal fate) has long since been determined.
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Classical Philosophy’s Views of Happiness
While most of the Classical world’s ideas of happiness centered
around luck and satisfaction, a third understanding of happiness
began to develop from philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle
Both men believed that all humans should strive for happiness but
real happiness was found neither in luck nor satisfaction but in
pursuit of a virtuous life where right reason dominated the desires
and passions of the human spirit
Now virtue may have meant different things to different philosophers
but perhaps a good summary of the virtuous life was one that
included a balanced, rational spirit that avoided all excesses and
allowed the individual to develop his fullest potential
In the end, however, even this philosophical look at happiness offered
no hope for enduring happiness. The grave still remained at the end
of the life of every human being and even the most optimistic view of
the afterlife was less appealing than life on earth
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Ancient Classical World View of Happiness
People living at the time of Jesus did not have an overly optimistic view of
life. They believed that life was tough. If you were lucky, you could perhaps
avoid as many of life’s obstacles as possible. In any case, you should grab as
many of life’s satisfactions as you could (Carpe diem!) because after death
there would be nothing but a shadow life among the dead in Hades even for
great men and heroes
“I’d rather till the fields as a serf for another man, even one with little land and less goods, than rule
over all the dead who have passed on” (The shade of Achilles to Odysseus from the Odyssey Bk. 11 lines
489-491)
1.7
The Christian Understanding of Happiness
The revelation of Jesus Christ rocked the ancient world by offering a
radically new idea of happiness. The Kingdom of God.
In the Kingdom of God, virtue had its place. Christian virtue however
had little to do with the Classical idea of a balanced human nature,
which was self-centered and destined to end. Christian virtue focused
instead on the development of human nature as God intended it to be;
immortal and centered on others
In the Kingdom of God, human reason, transformed by grace, and
informed by revelation, could once again consider eternal truths and
enduring happiness with no limits imposed by the grave
Finally, Christianity offered the world the best of all news. Humans
did not have to wait for the life to come to experience this happiness.
They could begin to experience the Kingdom of God in this life. They
could, as the child Jesus did as described in Luke’s gospel, “continue
to grow in wisdom, age and grace before God and man” (Luke 2:52)
1.8
Levels of Happiness
In a lecture he offered in 1998, The Jesuit Robert Spitzer summarized
these levels of happiness and gave them Latin terms;
Laetitia (Laetus)
Satisfaction
Felicitas (Felix)
Luck, good fortune
Beatitudo (Beatus)
Christian Happiness from Selfless Love
Spitzer noted that even the Gentiles understood that the desire for
happiness was at the root of all human behavior. Yet Christians
changed the focus of real and abiding happiness away from an inner
focus on oneself to a focus on God and those fellow creations of God
that lived in the world with us
This selfless understanding of happiness seemed to Jesus’
contemporaries to be absolutely contrary to their understanding of
happiness and human nature itself. Christians agreed that it was but
Christians also believed that grace could change human nature and
that Christians could learn to grow in happiness and grace through
prayer, worship and a life that reflected the joy of the gospel
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Beatitudo Sublima
While Spitzer used the term Beatitudo to describe the happiness that
Christians could experience in this life, he also kept in mind that
Jesus promised even greater happiness beyond the grave. He used
the term Beatitudo Sublima to describe that level of happiness.
Writers have used words like ecstatic and transcendental to describe
such an experience but words, even Latin words, will always fail to
describe what Moses felt when he experienced God on Sinai or what
Peter, James and John felt when they experienced the transfiguration
of Jesus
Almost by definition, experiences of beatitudo sublima in our earthly
level of existence are extremely brief and extremely hard to describe.
As Paul said to the Corinthians “now we see in a mirror dimly, but
then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I
have been fully known.” (1 Cor. 13:12). Augustine believed that when
we experience God in this way, our souls will find the abiding
happiness and rest that God intended
1.10
Experience God! What Does “God” Mean?
When we humans, or at least, we Christians, use the word “God”, we tend to
assume that we all understand what God is. We do have some commonality
of understanding from the revelation of God through Judaism and
Christianity. As Paul tells us, there are some things we know about God by
reason because they are written on the hearts of all humankind (the natural
law). Christians can experience God in many other ways, such as through
prayer and worship but no human can ever fully understand God because
God is transcendent. God is “other”. That is why we all tend to ask the same
question. Why is there something rather than nothing and what is my place
in this something? This question seems to have three possible answers.
1) There is no “something”. What humans experience as the material
universe is all “maya”, illusion.
2) There is something and it is in the very nature of the “something”
that exists to exist and to exist eternally
3) There is something and the “something” that exists was brought into
existence by a being whose very nature is to exist and to exist eternally
The Christian understanding of God and creation comes closest to answer
three.
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Just What Does Eternity Mean?
The previous slide used the term “eternally”. People often just pass
by that word as if its meaning, like the meaning of the word “God” is
clear and well understood. But is it so clear and so well understood?
• Is eternity an ever-increasing amount of time that never ends?
• Is eternity something different, something more like an
ever-present now.
• From a human perspective, we may speak of things that God did in
the past, is doing things in the present and will do things in the
future.
• From a divine perspective, God can be seen as doing everything now.
A true Christian understanding of an eternal God can be seen as a
more dynamic interaction between an infinite, eternal and
transcendent being with those beings whom he has created in time
and space
1.12
One More Hurdle! Three and One!
Jesus did not break any molds by revealing a God who is one. He did
not cause any stir by speaking about a God who is eternal. He did
break some (not all) molds when he taught about a God cared deeply
about the humans he created and planned to share his life of selfless
love with them for all eternity. But Christian revelation broke all molds
when it revealed a God that was both three and one and that Jesus
himself was God.
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The Christian Understanding of a Triune God
God as Father: God the begetter. Eternally creating because of his nature of
selfless love.
God as Son:
God the begotten. The Logos, the personification of God’s
desire to create. “In the beginning was the Word (Logos) and
the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in
the beginning with God. All things came to be through him,
and without him nothing came to be.” (Jn. 1:1-3)
God as Spirit:
God as love. The Spirit personifies the selfless love that
constantly flows between father and son. It is into this life of
selfless love that all Christians are invited to take part.
Christianity grew from a Judaism that was fiercely monotheistic. It was tough
enough for average Jewish believers to think of Jesus as Messiah, It was
beyond the pale for them to see Jesus as God. And yet…
Philo, a faithful Jewish believer from Alexandria in Egypt who lived around the
time of Jesus, described God as one who created all things and …“appointed
his own right reason (Logos), his first born son, who is to receive the charge of this
sacred company” (i.e. all created things) (On Husbandry, XII:51)
1.14
Analogy: Attempting to Understand a Triune God
God as Eternal
Begetter
i.e. Father
Spirit as
Selfless
Love
Jesus as Eternally
Begotten
i.e. Son
Christians trying to define either eternity or the Trinity are like
Flatlanders trying to describe height. Lacking both the vocabulary
and the experience, the best they can hope to do is use analogies to
develop some level of understanding. The illustration above is one
such attempt
There is a great Christian declaration and Christian prayer still used
today in many Christian communities in Orthodox, Catholic and
Protestant Christianity and that sums much of this up, the Doxology.
“Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it
was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.
Amen!”
1.15
Belief and Knowledge
When I was a child, I thought I knew that Santa Claus delivered
presents to all the “good” children of the world in one night.
As a somewhat older child, I was certain that the episodes of the
Lone Ranger, which I watched religiously on TV, were based on the
experiences of a real character.
Many of my friends and acquaintances often put my Christian beliefs
in that same kind of category. And, they are right to do so.
I do not know that Christianity is true. I believe that Christianity is
true not in a terribly different way that I believed the things about
Santa and the Lone Ranger were true
What interests me is how little those who are so quick to make fun of
the things that I believe spend so little time reflecting on the “truths”
of what they believe
1.16
Atheism is a Faith
Despite the fact that a large number of scientists are committed
Christians (est. 40%), the greatest publicity is given to those
scientists who tend to equate God with Santa Claus
It is true that science cannot prove the existence of God but it is just
as true that science cannot prove the non-existence of God
The scientific method attempts to arrive at truth by proposing a
theory, making predictions based on that theory and testing to see if
those predictions can be verified. Papers are then written and
published and other scientists attempt to repeat the results.
Repeatability is a lynchpin of the scientific method.
The problem is that God simply does not fit into that process.
Christians believe that God transcends that process. Some scientists
who are attempting to find a “theory of everything”, don’t seem to like
a God who won’t fit into their theories. Christians scientists, of
course, as well as others, are quite at home with that sort of God.
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Limits of Science
Bertrand Russell, a famous twentieth century philosopher and ardent
atheist, demonstrated a humility derived from honest self-reflection,
which should be common to honest men of reason. In his work, The
Problems of Philosophy, he stated that any system that requires an
unproven (and unprovable) set of universal “givens” can never be
relied upon to produce a set of reliable truths
The twentieth century mathematician, Kurt Gödel, put forth his theory
of incompleteness which stated that no method of describing a
system that had even the smallest level of complexity, could do so
without ultimately being self-referential (i.e. relying on a set of
unproven universal “givens”)
1.18
More Limits of Science
Werner Heisenberg informed us that it is impossible to
know both the position and the velocity of an electron at
the same time. He took the world of science a step away
from the predictable clock of Newtonian physics and a
step toward the wild whacky world of quantum mechanics
In the wide, whacky world of quantum mechanics, Erwin
Schrödinger, tells us about a cat that is both alive and
dead at the same time.
In this same world, we can watch paired particles seem to
communicate with each other at speeds far greater than
the speed of light. Einstein called this “spooky action at a
distance”. Quantum entanglement now seems to be the
acceptable term.
1.19
The Value of Science
I believe that there will always be limits that the universe will impose on us
that will prevent us from ever fully understanding it. Every scientist who
makes attempts to observe creation must understand that he or she is part of
the system that is being observed. There will never be a complete and
unbiased observation of creation unless the observer stands outside the
system being observed.
Science impresses me because, despite this fact, it continues to look ever
more deeply into creation to try to understand as much of its truths as
possible. The scientific method impresses me because, when it is fully
applied, it offers a mechanism for ongoing self-correction
There is a sense of beauty and magic to science much as there is to God.
Real science is humble in the face of this and real scientists, at least the
ones that appeal to me, reflect that humility. Here is a brief video that
explains some of the beauty of the scientific method with an honest
evaluation of its limits. It also does so with a little bit of humor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9tKncAdlHQ
1.20
Why Did God Make Us?
“God made us to know him, to love him and to serve him in this world and to
be happy with him forever in the next.”
•
We were created to know God and to be known by God
•
We were created by God out of his nature of selfless love and
invited to join in God’s life of selfless love
•
We were created to serve him in this world. Christians’ service to
God was never meant to be obedience that stemmed from a fear of
punishment. Paul made that abundantly clear. Service is
understood to mean to spread the good news of God’s love. That
service was rendered most effectively by how Christians lived
more than by what Christians said
•
Christians were created to be happy. We humans can experience
some level of true happiness (beatitudo) in this world but we hope
to experience eternal happiness (beatitudo sublima) in the next . A
morose Christian should be the world’s biggest oxymoron.
Now that we’ve looked into happiness in this segment, we will take a
closer look at love in the next
1.21