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Ending the Debate

Rev. Doug Pratt — May 16, 2010
 

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A Political Tradition

One of the persistent features of American political campaigns, dating back more than a century to a heated election in the then-frontier state of Illinois, is the tradition of the candidates’ debates. From Lincoln vs. Douglas to Kennedy vs. Nixon to the latest incarnation (Obama vs. McCain), our politicians have lambasted and criticized each other from podiums, arguing their own viewpoints and policies, and putting heavy “spin” on everything they say. Sometimes the debates actually shed light on some question, but more often they only generate heat.
Unlike sporting events, it’s hard to know who actually “wins” and “loses” a political debate―it’s often a matter of perception. In the first televised debates in 1960, most experts in logic and rhetoric considered that Richard Nixon was far more eloquent than John Kennedy, and his arguments far more persuasive; but the public was swayed by the fact that Kennedy looked young and handsome and relaxed, while Nixon was intense and sported a “five o’clock shadow.” Kennedy won the election a few weeks later by a razor-thin margin. Unfortunately, sometimes the intellectual level of our debates―and the reactions to them―don’t rise very high.

The Book of Job: An Extended Debate

When we open up our Old Testaments we find the curious book of Job near the center of it. Job is neither a book of history (like Genesis, Joshua and Judges), nor a book of laws (like Leviticus), nor a book of worship (like Psalms), nor a book of prophecy (like Isaiah). It’s really an extended philosophical and theological debate among five men. Following a short prologue in chapter 1 that gives us the context, we have 36 chapters of back-and-forth arguing and criticizing and opinion-stating. At times it gets heated. At times we find ourselves agreeing with one speaker, but only until the next contradicts and refutes him.

What we don’t get in chapters 2 through 37 is any word from the true Authority on all the profound and mysterious questions these debaters pose. It’s essentially just a stew of human opinions and experiences―people talking to one another, without any revelation from a higher Source.

Imagine a seventh grader writing a history paper and not bothering to check any actual history books, encyclopedia/Wikipedia or other source for objective information. Instead he grabs his cell phone and calls his buddy: “Hey, Jason, what do you think happened at the Battle of Waterloo?” And Jason has no clue, so they invent their own version. That is a picture of what is happening in the Book of Job―until we get to chapter 38. And suddenly the voice of God enters the debate, and everything changes. The pooling of ignorance and bias and personal opinions is suddenly over.

Let’s read just a portion of what God says beginning in chapter 38 (which continues for four chapters) and then we’ll hear Job’s reaction in the final chapter, 42 (using the New Living Translation).

Then the LORD answered Job from the whirlwind:

“Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorant words? Brace yourself, because I have some questions for you, and you must answer them.

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much. Do you know how its dimensions were determined and who did the surveying? What supports its foundation, and who laid its cornerstone as the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?”

Job 38:1-7

Then Job replied to the LORD:

“I know that you can do anything, and no one can stop you. You ask, ‘Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorance?’ It is I. And I was talking about things I did not understand, things far too wonderful for me.
“You said, ‘Listen, and I will speak! I have some questions for you, and you must answer them.’

“I had heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes. I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.”

Job 42:1-6

Seeking Answers to the Mysteries of the Universe

Every generation of humans has been susceptible to the intellectual and cultural peer pressures that we could call “group think”―the relentless demands to conform to the way the “in crowd” or the prevailing majority think about a particular topic. It’s certainly in full force in our media, in our American public life, and in higher academia―just as much as peer pressure prevails among teens. It’s sometimes given the derisive title “political correctness.”

And even among high-IQ scientists, who theoretically should be immune to “group think” in their quest for “nothing but the facts,” the pressure to go along with the prevailing viewpoint or philosophy can be very powerful. This is especially true when politics and money get involved. Tremendous pressure can result, forcing people to be close-minded and unwilling to consider any other viewpoints or theories than the “approved” ones. We’ve seen this among environmental scientists and climatologists, as issues relating to the role of human activity in global temperature, and to regulatory and economic proposals, have become highly politicized.

And we’ve seen this in the “creation vs. evolution” battles that have been fought in local school boards and state legislatures over public school textbooks and curriculum issues (which have also been highly politicized and distorted by media coverage). You either think the right way, or you’re ostracized and demonized. And it can happen on both sides of every debate.

But if climatology and biology have become overly-political, some fields of science seem today to be more open to new possibilities and fresh and open thinking (including even the possibility of integrating and harmonizing science and scripture). And those who seem to me to be the most open are those in the fields broadly identified as physics―both at the “macro” level of astrophysics, which deals with the immensities of the universe and its origins, and the “micro” level of nuclear physics that focuses on the tiniest building blocks of the structure of the universe.

A few weeks ago an article — Atom Smasher Will Help Reveal ‘The Beginning’ — appeared on the Associated Press wire service:

The world’s largest atom smasher threw together miniscule particles racing at unheard-of speeds in conditions simulating those just after the Big Bang.

It was the inaugural experiment of the giant Large Hadron Collider, operated by a European research center known as CERN outside of Geneva, Switzerland. “This is a huge step toward unraveling Genesis Chapter 1, Verse 1 — what happened at the beginning,” physicist Michio Kaku told The Associated Press. “This is a Genesis machine. It’ll help to recreate the most glorious event in the history of the universe.”

Fascinating, isn’t it? The cutting edge of our most sophisticated research is bringing us around full-circle to the mysteries described and explored in the first book of the Bible. The more we learn about the wonders of the natural universe, the more we are in awe―and the more we realize how limited and finite our knowledge is of things so much more vast and complex than we had ever imagined. We find ourselves with some of the emotions Job felt on his encounter with the Almighty: humbled and speechless. The scientific experiments planned in Switzerland are not designed to be of immediate application and relevance, as is much of modern technology and “research and development” in private industry. Their outcome will not be to produce a new I-phone app to hit the market in 6 months. Nor will it be to produce a new blockbuster drug to treat arthritis pain or further the battle against breast cancer.

Rather, this work will help us to grasp some of the secrets of how the Creator designed and produced a Universe that is so remarkable in its every detail. We may some day know more about the black holes and quasars at the outer limits of space, as well as about the mind-boggling principles of string field theory, anti-matter and the nature of the elusive “Higgs boson”―a hypothetical particle that has been called “The God Particle” by some physicists, and may potentially show us how creation itself holds together.

Seeking Answers to our Personal Questions

For those of us who love science, who are fascinated by space travel and science fiction, or find that we have an inborn curiosity to understand how things work, it’s all very stimulating. But most of us, quite naturally, are far more preoccupied and concerned with the events of our own lives and those of the people we love than we are with theoretical science. And that is what I want to focus on in our final few minutes together.

However much we may wonder about the mysteries of the universe, we wonder much more about the mysteries and puzzles of why things happen in the way they have for us and for our families and friends. That’s what prompted Job’s questions: he had suffered some terrible blows, including grief, financial setback and physical illness. He was reeling from one haymaker punch after another. And he wanted to know why God (who, Job assumed, was the Great Referee in the boxing ring of life) hadn’t called off the fight. Why did the Lord allow certain things to happen? Why didn’t He intervene? Why did it hurt so much?

They are all very normal and very human questions. Sometimes people try to come up with easy or glib answers to try to defend God. That is, in fact, what some of Job’s debating partners have attempted to do: offer an easy solution. Explain away pain and suffering. Put God and the uncertainties of life into a small, manageable little box.

One of the many “Murphy’s Laws” I find to be especially true and relevant is this one: “For every complex problem, there is a simple, easy-to-understand wrong answer.” That’s true in science, in math, in business, in psychology and in politics: people often try to latch onto a simple solution to a complex problem. That’s what the friends of Job have tried to do. But a lot of the “simple, easy-to-understand” answers are simply wrong. The universe is complex, human life is complex, and the ways that God works are beyond our ability to neatly summarize and explain.

C.S. Lewis, British scholar, professor and author, had one of the finest minds of the 20th century, as acknowledged by fellow-Christian believers and atheists alike. Lewis himself considered that his finest and most insightful and profound novel was a book most have not read. It’s called Till We Have Faces, and it is a retelling of an ancient myth from Greek mythology with a deeply biblical perspective. The book is, in my humble opinion, a first-person echo of the spiritual journey taken by Job in the Old Testament. The main character, a Greek queen, has been searching her whole life to find the answers to the questions that bother her. She wrote a book expressing how meaningless and unfair she thought life was. At last, she comes to a personal encounter with a divine being―and it transforms her perspective. She writes down her new insights, just before her death. This is how she concludes:

I ended my first book with the words no answer. I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away.

This is what Job realized as well. He says, in chapter 42: “I had heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes. I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.”

Finding Real Peace

Now that Job has actually met the Lord in a personal way, his need to have answers to his questions has gone away―as happened to the Greek queen. And this is how you and I can find real peace in the midst of the unanswered questions of life as well. Sometimes we can see, even as things are happening to us, how they can work for our good and the good of others. Sometimes we can see a purpose or blessing only a long time afterwards, as we look back from the perspective of passing time. And for some things we may never know in our entire earthly lifetime what purpose or meaning a certain event or experience had.

But if you have placed your faith in the Lord, and have seen Him in the face of Jesus Christ, His clearest and most unmistakable image, you will find in Him the Answer to your deepest questions and longings. The specific details will be revealed at some point―if not before, then in eternity. Until then, to know Him and to know that He loves you will be enough.

Imagine we have a world-class artist with us on our stage. We place before him a blank canvas, a full palate of oil paints, and a set of brushes, and we ask him to create something for us on the canvas. I guarantee that his initial brush strokes would seem random and meaningless. Even as the central elements of the composition become clear, and the colors begin to spread across the white, we would wonder and puzzle and try without success to guess the end result. It would only be farther along in the creative process that we might attempt to identify its theme: is it a landscape, a seascape, a portrait or an abstract image? Any attempts to jump to premature conclusions about the painting would almost certainly prove to be wrong.

God has demonstrated Himself, by the canvas of the Universe, to be a creative Genius. What we know about His prior works is that He is brilliant and beautiful. But now He is in the process of painting the portrait of your life and mine. And we are living canvasses―sometimes altering the work by our choices and actions, good and bad. Sometimes our mistakes require Him to paint over or re-compose the scene. But He is not finished with any of us. And when the painting is finished, only then will we understand His vision and purpose. And so, like Job, we wait patiently, and we pray, and we trust, and we seek to cooperate with His brushstrokes.