Broad meadows

When I was going out before the “pandemic” to evangelize directly to people, I would treat it as interview with the person that I was speaking to. I would always open with the same question, one that most people don’t like to even think about, much less talk to a stranger about. And that question is this: What do you think happens when a person dies?

The answer to that question would then tell me what their worldview is. There are only so many options even available. One is that nothing happens. You’re just a biological entity that is no longer alive and all you are or were is now gone and decaying. Another is that you have a spirit that is constantly recycled back into different biological entities, some human others not. Hinduism and Buddhism are the largest religions who hold this belief. Or one could believe that we are more than just biological entities, but that we have a soul, a spiritual part of us that makes us who we are and that carries on past the physical realm.

In essence, those are the only real possibilities that even exist. There are other spiritual type of things that people believe, because they are not really anything that has any historical support or doctrine of being that one could subscribe to, essentially, just what one feels or desires to happen. Today I’ll talk about the first one mentioned, that we are nothing more than biological entities and that once we die, we have no consciousness.

The philosophy that espouses this view is called materialism. The belief that matter and energy are all that exists and that there is no metaphysical reality. This is the philosophical underpinnings of atheism. Of all the people that I’ve spoken to that hold this belief , they are usually the hardest people to walk through the argument against such a belief not because of anything having to do with what can be known, but simply because don’t want to know.

It’s not that they don’t believe in God, they just functionally believe that it’s them. They ignore or distort any evidence that contradicts this belief.Most of the time they wouldn’t even engage in any serious discussion face to face on the topic. Dealing with online is no better. They don’t really make arguments, they are just dismissive and insulting.

Its main stumbling block to understanding rests in its very presupposition: that there is no metaphysical reality. Why this is a problem is that it doesn’t take into consideration any evidence that contradicts it, a priori. The position that this leaves them in that, logically speaking, is that a negative cannot be proven. Just because someone doesn’t have direct experience of something by itself doesn’t mean something doesn’t exist. But that exactly what they must believe. This concept was put forward by Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes 1:15b, “ what is lacking cannot be counted.”
It has not and cannot, however, account for the existence of the universe or biological life. There are no observable mechanisms in their worldview that account for how matter energy come into existence, which becomes necessary because matter and energy decay, they can’t have an eternal past. This necessitates a beginning for all things. The problem comes in here because matter and energy cannot be created from nothing. Yet that is what they must believe a priori , even before evidence can be presented.

The Apostle Paul states very eloquently this very dilemma in Romans 1:19 & 20, “since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

Below is a reprint of my parable “The house” illustrating the absurdity of such a position.

There was a man who got up early every morning before dawn to his work and returned after dark. He was a hardworking and successful man. Every day he took the same route to work. One day he noticed some piles of dirt in a field that hadn’t been there before.

As time went on, there appeared a foundation and later what looked like a floor and eventually some walls and a roof. He remarked to his wife, “A house has just appeared in a field, like it grew out of the ground.” His wife gave him a strange look. “What?” He asked.

”What do you mean ‘grew out of the ground?’” She asked. “Someone’s building a house.”

”I go by there everyday, and I haven’t seen anybody do anything.”

Which is more complex, a house or biological life?

Perhaps there is no greater evidence for the need of a creative, intelligent, powerful deity than biological life. Hebrews 3:4 says it this way “For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.” Or Roman’s 1:20 says, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

The Law of Biogenesis states that life only comes from living things. Life can never arise spontaneously from non living material. It is a biological law because we have never observed anything else. If this is true in all cases, this would require a living being that is eternal to be the creator of all life. Anything other than that would launch an infinite regression that would be unprovable and most likely (definitely) false.

Don’t let your busy life cause you to fail to recognize the builder and understand what that means for you (and everyone).