Tragedy

“The whole thing is quite hopeless, so it's no good worrying about tomorrow. It probably won't come.” -J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

How do we respond in the face of a crisis?  To whom do we turn, and what demands do we make?  The answers to these questions demonstrate quite a lot about a given society, and America has unfortunately had several occasions to provide these answers in recent history.

Within the past couple of months, there have been a few school shootings, as well as other random acts of violence in our country which have made national headlines.  Politicians have spent much of their time trying to turn these very emotional situations into opportunities for policy reform of one flavor or another.  News sources have been feverishly scrambling for new information to momentarily eclipse their competitors.  And people are hurting.

As Americans, we love to embrace our nation as a land of security and hope.  When this illusion is shattered by a sudden tragedy, we are often sent reeling.  Because of our dependence on information and on governmental direction, we turn first to public officials to make us feel safer, and to the media to distract us.  While these entities may have pure motives for what they do, they are not meant to be the source of our security.

Don't Get Me Wrong

Before I continue I want to set a few things straight.  This article is not an attempt to say that these incidents should be taken more lightly, or that we should be less concerned with the welfare of our communities.  Events like the one that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School are tragic, and they are very serious.  The deaths that resulted from it and similar events are indeed very bad, and something needs to be done.

What I am saying, however, is that the government alone is not capable of fixing this problem.  And the media often does more harm than good.  The tragedies which we have seen in recent months are not the result of lax gun laws, poor mental health access, or violence in consumer media.  These events are reflections of the poor moral character of America as a whole.  Our reactions to these crises similarly highlight the lack of faith in our culture, and if we continue this neglect the times will only get worse.

Faith in the Face of Tragedy

I love Christianity.  Not just the overwhelming joy I get from the realization that God has given me freedom from sin, but also the surprisingly practical wisdom it affords its adherents in the course of everyday life.  Now, we Christians certainly do not always act on this wisdom or even listen to it, but that does not discount its veracity.  No matter what circumstances life might throw into my path, my faith has the ability to guide me forward.  And that includes times of tragedy.

I truly believe that Christianity is the only proper paradigm through which people can view the world.  By looking at responses to tragedy, we can see this a little more clearly.  To the evolutionary atheist, these killings are "wrong" simply because they represent an unnecessary decrease in the potential of the human species.  There is no moral connotation to the matter, no sense that the perpetrator should be held responsible to some sort of ethical code.  Similarly, there is no hope for the victims, at all.  To the atheist, those killed in these terrible events were simply unfortunate accumulations of molecules whose synapses no longer have occasion for transmitting electrical impulses.  Whatever connection the family and friends of a victim felt toward him or her was simply an evolutionary quirk comprised of serendipitous chemical interaction.

This outlook is so bleak!  I am even becoming a little depressed simply by typing those sentences down.  This view of the world provides no answers, and it really doesn't even feel like a proper response to tragedy.  Yet so many people live their lives as if this were truly the case.  No wonder our responses to these events have been so muddled and ineffective!

Christianity allows me to see these crises for what they really are—acts of evil.  When people die, it is not a bad thing simply because the human species has lost some of its potential.  It is evil because they are human. The children at Sandy Hook Elementary were created in God's image and had spirits which matter to their Creator.  And the act of taking their lives is therefore not just bad, but evil.  God has always been opposed to murder (Gen. 4:10-12, Ex. 20:13, Deut. 19:13, Deut. 21:1-9, etc.), because it constitutes one of the worst displays of hatred toward a fellow man (and God is Love).  That being said, Christianity does not leave matters there.  On top of exposing the true evil nature of the act, this faith allows for hope in the face of all calamity.  For the Christian, death is not the end.  In fact, it can in many ways be viewed as a new beginning.  This idea was so prominent among the early Christians, that death in many instances was simply referred to as "sleeping." (Acts 13:36, 1 Cor. 15:20, 1 Thess. 4:14-15, etc.)  It is this combination of sorrow and hope which I believe shows Christianity to be the far superior worldview.

Calamity in the Bible

And Christians are no strangers to tragedy.  There are many accounts in the bible of men and women who face terrible events that are outside of their control.  Some deal with these situations well, others land a bit less gracefully.

One of my favorite books in the whole collection is the story of Job.  I actually just finished re-reading it about a month ago.  It is amazing to see how this man who loses almost everything (7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 oxen, 500 donkeys, along with a ton of servants and his ten children -Job 1:2-3) is able to keep his faith strong while he is suffering.  Sure, he has plenty of questions for God, but he never denies God's absolute authority and perfection.  It is a tale of woe, to be sure, but it is also a tale of restoration and God's faithfulness.

Contrast the story of Job with that of Jezebel, the evil wife of Ahab, king of Israel.  She never once stopped to consider God in any of her actions, and eventually her world begins to crumble before her.  Instead of repenting and turning to God, she instead decides to take matters into her own hands, and her sudden demise is gruesome and definitive. (2 Kings 9:30-37)

Be Like Christ

It behooves us as Christians to respond to tragedy in the same way as Job, or like our Lord during the last few hours before his crucifixion.  They took the matter before a higher power, but that authority was not the government—it was God Himself.  God is more than faithful to see us through tragedy.  If you are a Christian reading this, you know it is the truth; if your are not a Christian, I implore you to let our witness (or Scripture itself) compel you to give faith a chance.

Christ is the answer to the problems our nation is facing.  I believe this unequivocally.  The farther we stray from Him as a nation, the more we will hurt.  I am not saying that tragedies will cease if we turn back to Christ, but we will have the wisdom and strength we need to make the proper response.  First, this consists of a righteous sorrow for the evil of the world, then a resounding hope of its eventual eradication.  Finally, the only thing left to do is to forgive those responsible and offer them the Good News by which we ourselves have been forgiven.  The closest example I can remember is the shooting at an Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania back in 2006.  The community there responded to that terrible calamity in a way which confounded many in the national press.  They acted on their faith, and issued statements of forgiveness.  Let's not forget their example.

I leave you with a quote from Paul, who had his own share of trouble during his life.  This passage was written to the Corinthian church to encourage them through faith in Christ's resurrection, and it serves the same purpose wonderfully still today.

"But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.  For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.  For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.  But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.  Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power.  For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.  The last enemy to be destroyed is death." -1 Corinthians 15:20-26

Diminutive Squeak

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." -Carl Sagan, Cosmos

This article attempts to straddle the line between apologetics and polemics, so I am going to do my best not to fall too far into one field or the other.  Having discussed the End of the universe last week, I thought it appropriate to consider its Beginning this week.

The main topic I am entertaining this week is the Big Bang theory and its significance in religion and apologetics.  This theory has garnered quite a lot of attention over the past several decades.  This is in part because it seems to fit with what we understand about the nature of the universe, but also because many people have understood it as being contradictory to the prevailing religious notion of a divine creation.

The treatment of this theory by Western culture has been misguided and sensationalistic, and it has resulted in a significant misunderstanding of the theory and its applications.  This has led to contentious and bigoted debating, and far too many people have been hurt in one way or another in the midst of the fray.

Back to Basics

First, let me get something out of the way: my purpose in writing this post is not to defend or attack the theory itself—I am not knowledgeable enough on the subject for that.  What I am attempting to do is to clear up some divisive misconceptions which seem to have crept into the wider public understanding of this theory.  No matter what your opinion is of the correctness of this hypothesis, I believe we can all agree that it is important to define your terms before conducting any informed discourse.

So what exactly does the Big Bang theory postulate?  At its core, the theory simply states that originally, all matter and energy in the universe were concentrated into an infinitesimally small point of space.  Now, I believe that it is somewhat unfair to call the point small, since the entire universe was contained within its bounds.  Really, it was as large as a section of space could be....  At any rate, eventually some mechanism (there are competing theories as to what) caused the matter and energy within that small point to begin expanding and spinning away from the center.  This trend of expansion, redistribution, and motion has continued to the present day, and it theoretically will continue for the foreseeable future.

This theory has been useful in explaining the expansion of the universe (and the corresponding redshift which has been documented).  It has also helped to account for the motions of celestial bodies and the supposed chemical composition of stars and other astronomical entities.  These traits and more suggest that the theory may be useful in describing the development of the universe.  That being said, I wish to point out what I consider to be a distressing misnomer.  The Big Bang was neither big nor a bang!  As I explained above, the universe was as "small" as it could possibly be (certainly much smaller than its present state).  And since there was no air or other fluid medium surrounding the universe, it could not have made any audible sound.  Hence the title of this blog post.

Think Inside the Box

The main point I wish to make today is that modern society has derived a significance from the Big Bang theory which was never there to begin with.  What I have heard so many people assert (or at least imply) is that this theory somehow contradicts the idea of an intelligent Creator.  For some reason, the concept that the universe began as a small point has led even some of the more perceptive members of society to believe that this theory constitutes proof against God.  It does not.

To begin with, this theory does not presume to describe the origin of the universe.  It mentions nothing about how matter got here in the first place, only what happened to it sometime after it arrived.  The Big Bang theory is a theory about the development of the universe, and ascribing any more meaning to it than this is simply unfair.  To be honest, it doesn't even like being described as an origin theory.  Scientific theories are only happy (or useful) within a very rigid set of boundaries.  When applied to anything but the maturing of the universe, this theory takes on water very quickly.

Big Bang Creationism

In that case, can any ideas be drawn from the Big Bang theory about a Creator?  Yes they can, but perhaps not in the way you might expect.  This theory gives rise to the idea of an "age" of the universe: the amount of time since the Big Bang happened.  I believe that if the theory is correct, then this is indeed a reasonable term, because the Big Bang serves as proof that the universe is not infinitely old.  This proof has a very simple explanation.

To understand it, one must first understand the Second Law of Thermodynamics.  This scientific law states that isolated systems tend toward thermodynamic equilibrium—that is, an equal distribution of the energy, or the state of maximum entropy (disorder) for the system.  Once this state is reached, it is impossible to make anything happen, because action requires an imbalance of energy.  Without getting in too deep, what many scientists believe to be the outcome of this theory is that all the energy in the universe will be evenly distributed and thus useless.  This has been dubbed the "Heat death of the universe," and it has a very compelling case in its favor.

Now, let's grant that the universe is infinitely old and that some "natural" impetus caused the Big Bang.  If this were the case, given any probability at all of its occurrence (and there had to be some probability), the Big Bang would have had an infinite number of chances to start, and would have started infinitely long ago.  This means that by now (infinitely many years later), the heat death of the universe would have already occurred.  If the Big Bang theory and the Second Law of Thermodynamics are both correct, and if the universe were infinitely old, this would be the case.  Given the fact that it is obviously not the current state of affairs, two options present themselves.

First, the universe could operate in a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.  This would allow the universe to be infinitely old, but not completely defunct.  Indeed, this model was advocated by Einstein and others, but it has proven too problematic for the general scientific community, and has since been abandoned.  A handful of other theories have replaced it, but most fail to pass certain tests of common sense and all of them seem for now to be pure conjecture.  The only other logical conclusion I can draw is that some willful object either created the universe at a set point in the past or kept the Big Bang from happening until a given moment.  Both cases must admit the likelihood of an intelligent Creator!  Now, I understand that many people will be loath to accept this line of reasoning, but I certainly believe it has merit.  Most of the objections I can imagine to this reasoning stem from a misunderstanding of infinity (a topic I hope to cover in a later post).

Cosmic Scripture

I would be remiss if I did not include some biblical text in my post today.  What I have decided to do is to include some of the Bible's references to astronomical phenomena.  The earliest (and perhaps easiest) scripture on the subject is Genesis 1:1, wherein we are told that "God created the heavens and the earth."  David is inspired by the stars: "When I consider your heavens,/ the work of your fingers,/ the moon and the stars,/ which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them,/ human beings that you care for them?" (Psalm 8:3-4)  Isaiah says that God marked off the universe with the "breadth of his hand." (40:12)  God Himself gives asks the following of Job:

"Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?
Can you loosen Orion’s belt?
Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons
or lead out the Bear with its cubs?
Do you know the laws of the heavens?
Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?" (Job 38:31-33)

All of the names in the section above refer to celestial entities.  Clearly the Bible indicates that God created the universe, and He is responsible for the laws that govern it.  If there was a Big Bang, it happened because God planned it out.  And if the universe has an age (and most likely it does), God was there at the Beginning.

My challenge for you this week is to think seriously and logically about the world around you.  If God made this universe (and I am convinced that He did), there should be evidence to indicate this, and nothing to contradict it.  The Big Bang theory certainly has nothing to say about the matter.  Cultivate the wisdom to separate people's opinions from real scientific theory, and don't be afraid to question what you think and believe.  Science and faith are complementary, never contradictory. 

The End of the World, as We Know It

"There was a terrible ghastly silence.  There was a terrible ghastly noise.  There was a terrible ghastly silence." -Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Much has happened since my last post on this site.  I ended up taking more time off than I originally intended to, because I was much more exhausted than I expected.  That being said, I am now well-rested and excited about the year ahead.

This post comes as a response to the feverish attention some people gave to the impending doom allegedly predicted by the Mayan civilization.  While I think very few people were surprised by the lack of apocalypse, the amount of coverage garnered by this doomsday threat on many highly-regarded national television stations reveals a strange trait about humans-we are fascinated by the end of the world.

Our Best Guess

One of my favorite depictions of the End occurs in Douglas Adams' The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (part of his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series).  This book depicts a restaurant where the patrons are taken, via the latest time-travel technology, to a moment in time which is comfortably close to the end of the universe.  As the meal progresses, the cosmos begin to spin out of control, and the whole thing is on the verge of collapsing, when the restaurant is taken back in time to the "present" and the well-fed customers are deposited to continue on with their lives.  Of course, during Arthur Dent's only visit to the restaurant, something goes terribly wrong (I will not ruin the plot for you, but I would highly recommend reading this series).

Unlike the comical characters in Adams' stories, we do not have the luxury of time travel, and we certainly do not know when the final day of the universe will be.  Nevertheless, we have managed to generate a multitude of predictions over the past several centuries about when and how it will occur.  Of course, many of us realize that it is foolhardy to proclaim that one knows when the End will happen and that any doomsday prediction must necessarily be based on a substantial amount of conjecture.  But that has not stopped us from trying.  It seems like at least once a year one group or another releases a new statement that the apocalypse is upon us and that the End is near at hand.

Yet Earth still continues in its mild-mannered pirouette around the sun, and for all appearances it would seem that the universe intends to remain stable for at least the foreseeable future.  So why is humanity so obsessed with the end of the world?  Why does this ghost of a thought continue to haunt us?  Even some of the more secular members of society have become fascinated with the End.  A striking example of this is the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which since 1947 has printed each of its issues with an imposing Doomsday Clock emblazoned on the cover showing just how close the world is to falling apart.  Clearly the notion of the end of the world is not completely derived from religion and culture.  Rather, it seems that each of us is born with a notion that the world around us could end at any moment.  And we might be right.

Permanence and Transience

The simple truth of the matter is that most of the things we encounter on a daily basis are transient.  The very way by which we understand time passing is by analyzing how things change.  And one of the ways things change is that they cease to be.  Buildings are torn down, food goes bad, and people die, all contributing to the notion that almost nothing in our experience is permanent.  To think that Earth will one day end as well does not seem that strange of a notion.  It is certainly easy enough for us to imagine all the many ways in which the world could end.  Modern science fiction is often little more than a collection of potential global catastrophes, many of which seem far too plausible.

I am not here to say that this notion is misguided.  This world will not be here forever.  However it happens, there will be a final day of Earth, and a beginning of a post-earth era.  "For this world in its present form is passing away." (1 Cor. 7:31b)  As a Christian, I embrace the idea of the apocalypse.  But I do not allow it to consume me.

You see, as with many other subjects, I believe Christianity has the correct posture with regard to the End.  The Bible acknowledges that this world is transient, but it does not place an undue importance on the End or spend time describing what it will be like in literal terms.  This attitude accomplishes two important goals.  First, it tells me that it is foolish to become attached to the things of this world. "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matt. 6:21)  But by keeping details of the End mysterious and vague, the Bible also gives me the notion that the present world cannot be overlooked.  Jesus and His disciples taught with an urgency that told of an impending Doom, but they always made sure the focus was on the Here and Now.  Christianity allows me to give up my present possessions without disdaining them or mistreating the world around me.  Very few other worldviews are capable of this, and atheism surely is not.  To the atheist, Doomsday represents the end of everything of value, and it is the ultimate misery.  To the Christian, the End is really the Beginning, when we are finally awoken to see the splendor for which we have yearned in this life.

A Long-Awaited Surprise

As I have indicated above, very little is said in Scripture about specifics of the End Times.  In fact, Jesus is singularly vague about this issue.  Here is the most direct passage we have from Him about the End:

"But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.... Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.  But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into.  So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him." -Matthew 24:36,42-44

Did you catch that?  Even Jesus did not know when the end was going to be!  Aside from being somewhat theologically confusing, this passage has a very straight-forward message: Even though you do not know when, you know the End is coming, so be ready.  This is the importance of almost every biblical passage about the End.  Jesus did not need to know when the apocalypse was scheduled, and neither do we.  We must simply act on the knowledge that it is coming, and that we (and those around us) need to be ready when the time comes.  All eternity hinges upon it.

So instead of latching onto these sensationalist predictions about when the world will end (which themselves will pass away at some point), I suggest we use the time we have to cling to one of the few things we experience in the world which will not pass away.  That is, Christ and His Kingdom.  God and His word are made of different stuff than the many ephemeral concepts and objects with which we are accustomed to interacting.  God is "from everlasting to everlasting" (Psalm 41:13), "the Rock eternal" (Isaiah 26:4), the One whose "love endures forever." (1 Chron. 16:34)  God is eternal, which means that time does not touch Him.  On the day that Jesus comes back and this world ends, God will remain unshaken.  And until that time, it is the job of Christians to prepare the Earth for His glorious return.

I leave you today with the words of Jesus which occur just above the passage at the beginning of this final section.  May the Grace and Peace of God rest upon you this week as we head toward Jesus' triumphant return.

"Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near.  Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door.  Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.  Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." -Matthew 24:32-35 (italics mine)