I’ve been wondering and thinking about the gulf between worldviews of Christians compared to non-Christians. Whether atheist or of any other faith, it seems that our ideas of reality are just so very different. I’d like to explore possible reasons why that is the case.
Too Big: People focus on the immediate, and overlook the eternal.
First, most people — even most Christians, most of the time — live sort of “heads down” lives. We go about our business, juggling families, jobs, hobbies, obligations, and just the mechanics of life. We don’t often look up to notice the wider spiritual world. If asked big questions, like “Why are we here?” or “What is the meaning of life?”, the truthful answer is often “I dunno, haven’t really thought about it.” We just focus on what we’re doing at the moment, ignoring any larger environment. It’s kind of like this video of a woman talking on her cellphone…while walking through highway traffic!
In his classic book, “The Screwtape Letters“, British author C.S. Lewis wrote about this tendency. His fictional senior demon mentoring a younger demon on how best to control his assigned human warned against letting the subject think too much or too seriously. Click here for the full chapter, but the money quote is:
…you don’t realise how enslaved they are to the pressure of the ordinary. I once had a patient, a sound atheist, who used to read in the British Museum. One day, as he sat reading, I saw a train of thought in his mind beginning to go the wrong way. The Enemy [God], of course, was at his elbow in a moment. Before I knew where I was I saw my twenty years’ work beginning to totter.
…
[I] struck instantly at the part of the man which I had best under my control and suggested that it was just about time he had some lunch. The Enemy presumably made the counter-suggestion (you know how one can never quite overhear What He says to them?) that this was more important than lunch. At least I think that must have been His line for when I said “Quite. In fact much too important to tackle it the end of a morning”, the patient brightened up considerably; and by the time I had added “Much better come back after lunch and go into it with a fresh mind”, he was already half way to the door. Once he was in the street the battle was won. I showed him a newsboy shouting the midday paper, and a No. 73 bus going past, and before he reached the bottom of the steps I had got into him an unalterable conviction that, whatever odd ideas might come into a man’s head when he was shut up alone with his books, a healthy dose of “real life” (by which he meant the bus and the newsboy) was enough to show him that all “that sort of thing” just couldn’t be true.
What Lewis wrote in 1942 seems pretty current, doesn’t it? The things of God are too big to be seen while looking down and focussing simply on the immediate details of life’s logistics.
Too Much: For all its basic simplicity, Christianity has deep and complex roots.
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.”
Acts 16:31, for more context Acts 16:23-32
That’s all there is to it: Acknowledge that I need salvation, and trust Jesus to provide it. But underlying that simplicity is a Bible with thousands of years full of context for it.
There is God’s very existence presumed throughout. There is His character of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, love, justice, sovereignty, grace, mercy (attributes discussed recently in another article). There is the history of His interaction with humanity. There is the slow but inexorable path over millennia: From the Fall … to the promise of a Messiah … through the selection of a family and building of a nation to host that Messiah … to His arrival and the successful completion of His mission. That includes His death and resurrection, and the launch of His church to share that good news until His return at the end of time.
That is a lot to take in! In fact, it is a lifetime’s worth of continuous learning. There’s a reason why Christians include both individual and group Bible study into their weekly schedules. To those who only know of Christianity from the outside, it must be difficult to see how beautifully connected all of the context is and how it serves as a solid foundation for our faith 1.
This is quite a contrast to the rambling or random scraps of philosophy that often underly many people’s image of the world beyond the immediate. Even compared to other formal religions, Christianity is so much more than most folks realize. And there are many, many people whose worldview is informed not by any formal religion, but by whatever miscellaneous concepts they have picked up over the years without serious examination.
Our society is conditioned to quick hits of information. We have been trained to have short attention spans. But God’s revelation of Himself is too much to fit into a soundbite or slogan.
Too Good: Once the spiritual world and its depth are realized, the magnitude of God’s offer seems too good to be true.
If someone makes it past the “too big” and “too much” stages, they next encounter the “too good” obstacle. Why on earth would a God that big go to so much effort to have any sort of relationship with His creatures?
- Why would He want to walk with them in the garden?
- Why would He clothe their nakedness and shame after they mistrusted and rebelled against Him?
- Why would He promise a Deliverer to crush the serpent who had deceived them?
- Why would He save one family, Noah and his sons and their wives, when everyone else had to be destroyed for their extreme wickedness?
- Why would He choose Abraham, and then his son Isaac and grandson Jacob, putting up with their assorted failures while making a way to preserve their descendants (via great-grandson Joseph)?
- Why would He send Moses to lead those descendants out of slavery? And then why would He tolerate their quarreling, complaining, and disobedience while protecting an entire generation in the wilderness?
- Why would He lead the next generation back into the land originally promised to Abraham, and give them victory over child-sacrificing, ritual-prostitution-practicing worshippers of bloodthirsty false gods?
- Why would He send prophet after prophet to warn king after king that breaking their covenant promises had consequences?
- Why would He promise redemption even while imposing those consequences?
- Why would He use a pagan foreign king to accomplish that redemption, allowing His people to return from Babylon to their homeland?
The answer is: So that the stage would be set for the ultimate display of His goodness. Into this nation, born of this heritage, He came Himself to become the sacrifice required to fix the problems mankind had caused.
That seems too good to be true. One argument for the truth of Christianity is that no one would be foolish enough to imagine such a story! A con man does have to make his lie at least somewhat believable, after all. None would try this one; no mark would fall for it.
Yeah, right. The God who created the universe and everything in it just decided out of the goodness of His heart to shrink Himself into a human life … so that He would be able to die … so that the humans who continually defy Him can live with Him forever. And the moon is made out of green cheese; you have a nice bridge to sell me in New York City; and there is wonderful beachfront property in Kansas!
Too True: As difficult as it is to believe, God’s offer really IS true.
The thing is, this incredible story is authentic. Once we look up and let ourselves think about it, we instinctively know that something big is out there. There is a maxim in science, actually a quote from atheistic astonomer Carl Sagan, that “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” God provides that evidence. The mass of history, the diverse sources, and the depth of detail that form the Biblical context of the story are better attested than any other fact we easily accept. The evidence is better than anything we trust about Socrates, Julius Caesar, or Alexander the Great, for instance.
Especially, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are amazingly well verified. Once he realized just how well verified — by setting out to disprove the resurrection, and failing miserably — author Lee Strobel went from dedicated atheist to outstanding apologist for the Gospel 2. The same thing happened 2000 years ago to Saul of Tarsus, the Pharisee who set out to crush the new sect of Jesus-followers…only to meet the risen Jesus personally and go on to become the Apostle Paul. You know him: He’s the one who founded churches throughout the Roman Empire while writing letters to them that became over half of the New Testament! (Acts 26:1-23)
As the fictional character of Sherlock Holmes said: “When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” It is impossible for Jesus to live the life He did, do the miracles He did, die the death He did, and rise again from the tomb as He did…unless He is God.
With that truth established, then these things that He said must also be true:
- “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
- “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)
- “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45)
- “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)
- “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14:3)
- (Spoken by angels to a crowd) “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11)
- Then I [John, disciple of Jesus, in the vision given to him of the eternal home] saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:1-4)
It’s too big. It’s too much. It’s too good. But it’s true!
** Note on the image associated with this article: YOU try to find a picture that conveys the scope of God! I failed, but this was the best I could do.
Footnotes and Scripture References
- I am — very slowly — writing an article series exploring the Bible’s “66 Books, One Story“. The discussion on the first several books is available now; others will be written as time allows.
A good friend of mine is writing something similar. The first two books of her “Story of Everything” are available online. Her work-in-progress is the source of our Bible-study class that she teaches each week.
- You can read about it in his book “The Case for Christ“.