What is the significance of being, to self-awareness? Separate from undue pride, and repulsive arrogance one needs to understand the meaning of human worth, with this realization becoming personal blessing. Significance ought to be positive related to what an individual may become, but also understood from other perceptions. Think on these things so to gain balance and meaning for life, both mortal and immortal. One of the greatest factors in all this mystery is an appreciation for life itself. Life is evidence of God.
It is well known that human beings tend to put their own spin on just about everything. That is their own interpretation, to what they are and where they fit into the creation. They may even decide what God is like, based on an interpretation of self. For example, the concept of human depravity (the universal sin factor of human beings in their nature) is taken to be reason to degrade mankind. Denying that factor the person denies the source of wrongdoing. He or she may not believe they need salvation, because neither believes in lostness. If God teaches depravity, then God is not perceived sympathetically. From these varied interpretive possibilities, we create a stew of viewpoints. Models of each interpretation are formed.
Life has various forms. The humanist believes that mankind is simply an exalted animal (because of the human brain), an elevated example of progression from the big bang to the present advancement. This is summarized in the word, evolution. However, there are variants among those believers. Some believe the process is ordained within itself to go forward to even better things than we see presently – unless it begins to revert. If the evidence shows progression, we assume that progression will continue. Some believe we are at the top, and must work for sustainability. A few have argued that the process is in regression, even reversed – so to the Planet of the Apes. Many Christians, devout in the context of their faith, believe that God gave evolution as his process for earth. The Pope has declared evolution as the likely process from God for the appearance of modern humans. Some evangelical Christian scholars have acknowledged in their writings that they feel the theory to be approved in the basic evidence they have encountered. Their difference with the humanist is that the driver of process is God: that he chose the process and wills it through courses related to nature. Theories of evolution are rather firmly ensconced in the community of the physical scientists. Most scientists are confident they are on the right path to gain answers to remaining questions about physical life on earth. Whether the theory is sustained or not, those who sometimes oppose it are often unaware of the trend of the evidence presented, and hurt their cause with declarations that are anti-intellectual – or seem to be. Creation is supported either in progression or miracle. We are wise to stay in the areas of our expertise. Christian concern is for first source from God.
The point of most agreement for all seems to relate to endings. If it started, perhaps it can end. The very system, understood from available facts, suggests its own demise. Energy will finally be exhausted, and there is no evidence that any life can then survive. Or, a giant meteor will strike the earth, making an end to the seasons and earth’s necessary functioning. The evangelical Christian believes the end will occur when God determines that it should. For the information of those who care to review it, the story is told in the prophets, but in greatest detail in The Revelation, the Bible’s last book. The picture painted there is extensive, but more like human experience than cataclysms predicted by earth scientists. None suggests a whimpered end. It is noted that endings are agreed to occur on an unknown but always imminent schedule.
From all this, and more, what is the lay person to believe and do? He or she is to believe that whatever is reality in nature, the author is God, and his ways may be past finding out. He has created mankind for his pleasure, to be included in his kingdom – those who accept his redemptive offer that exchanges mortality for immortality. That exchange is found in Jesus Christ, and requires faith. Mankind is called upon to give attention to life. It is a context that does not fit the expectation of hard evidence required of nature’s context. We seek spiritual integrity generated from outside nature’s providence. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020